The River to Glory Land

by Janie DeVos

  “Oh, hey, Arlene,” I said. “I was just on my way out.”

  “Mr. Harjo wants to see you first, Miss Strickland.” She sounded a little uneasy. “I was told to come get you as soon as your lessons were done.”

  “Okay,” I said, feeling as uneasy as Arlene sounded. “Thanks.”

  The elevator took me down the seven stories to Granddaddy’s office in a wing just off the lobby. I walked into his outer office, where Lenore was sitting at her desk, working on vendor invoices. “He’s waiting for you,” she said, glancing at me over the top of her spectacles before I could even ask if my grandfather was in. I said nothing in reply. My mouth was bone dry. Instead, I simply nodded at her, walked up to his closed office door, knocked lightly and immediately heard my grandfather’s voice telling me to come in.

  With a sweaty hand, I opened the door slightly, stuck my head in and froze. There, sitting with my grandfather was my grandmother, my father, my mother and Olivia.

  My father, who was sitting in a chair across the desk from my grandfather, stood up. “Lily,” he said firmly. “Close the door and have a seat.”

  I closed the door softly as a thousand thoughts ran through my head.

  “Here, take my chair,” my father said as he moved to the corner of Granddaddy’s desk, where he leaned back and folded his arms in front of him. My mother remained seated in the chair to the left of the one Daddy had vacated, while Olivia and Grandma sat on the leather couch against the wall behind me.

  As I moved to sit down, I looked at my sister. Though her bruises had faded some, they were still there, and to try to excuse them as being symptoms of the flu was ludicrous.

  “Lily,” my mother said, scooting her chair around to face me. Her long black hair was pulled back in a high ponytail, and in her wide silk navy pants with matching blouse, she looked chic, but she also looked extremely upset. Her eyes gave away the intensity of her anger. Normally light brown in color, they blazed golden yellow as she talked to me. “Do you know what the number one instinct of a mother is?” I didn’t answer her; I just waited. “To take care of her children, no matter how old they are. And that includes taking care of them when they’re sick. Did you really think I wouldn’t stop by Francine’s to check on Olivia when y’all concocted that story about her having the flu? Did you honestly think I’d stay away? Believing she was sick only made me check on her that much faster!”

  “I told them everything, Lily,” my sister offered softly.

  “Do you two realize how badly this could have ended?” my mother asked, looking over to Olivia and back to me again. “Olivia could have been killed, and if you’d happened to walk in on them, Lily, you could have been, as well.” Tears sprang into my mother’s eyes, but she impatiently wiped them away as if she was too busy being angry to be frightened.

  “Needless to say, we’re horrified by what happened to Olivia, and can’t even consider how much worse it could have been. Did neither of you consider the risks involved in what you were doing?” my father asked as he pushed himself away from the desk and began to pace. I didn’t reply and neither did Olivia.

  Daddy stopped pacing and turned to me, as if something had just occurred to him. “I assume you and Scott brought liquor in from the Bahamas, am I correct?”

  “Yes,” I admitted softly as I stared down at my hands, unable to meet his eyes.

  “And did you stash it at the Key cottage?” my father continued.

  “No,” I said, looking up. “We put half of it in the lighthouse. But when we came back with the second load, people—probably the border patrol— were waiting, so we flew over to the old Seminole village and stored it there.”

  “Wonderful,” Mama said sarcastically. She got up and moved over to the large picture window that looked out onto the beach. With her back to us, she put her hands on her hips and stared out.

  “Did it ever occur to you girls to tell us what was going on?” my grandfather asked. “Did you not think we could solve this as a family together?”

  “To say we’re disappointed in you and Olivia doesn’t even begin to describe what I’m feeling,what we’re all feeling,” my father said as he began his pacing again. “We taught you better than that! We taught—”

  “Now, hold on there just a minute, Striker. All of you, actually!” my grandmother said, rising from the couch. In her pleated dove gray skirt and matching pullover blouse that tied at the waist, she was the picture of elegant maturity. Walking up behind me, she grasped the top of my chair with both hands. “It seems to me that y’all are forgetting one, no two, very pivotal moments in family history.

  “Max,” Grandma said firmly. “Have you forgotten that when my father went after my sister to kill her for having a black man’s child, you and I took off into the wilds to find her before Papa could? And then you and I took Ivy and Moses all the way to Immokalee, to make sure they were safe. I’m sure you remember that moment in time,” she finished. Then she turned to my father, who was now standing next to my mother at the window.

  “And Striker and Eliza,” Grandma continued, “let’s not forget the fact that you two went all the way from Miami to Key West in your twenty-foot motorboat—brand new and untested, I might add—before the seas had even settled after a hurricane had plowed through to search for Max and me after our boat had gone down. I’d be willing to bet that was a week you’ll never forget.

  “So, here’s the bottom line,” she continued, looking from my parents to my grandfather. “The women in this family have always had each other’s backs, and the men have had ours. Some people still believe that women are of a delicate nature and the weaker of the two sexes, but all I can say is that they haven’t met the Harjo and Strickland women! And I daresay that many a man would be damned intimidated to do so, much less live with one. My hat is off to both of you men for having put up with us over these many years. But, on the other side of that coin, you’re mighty lucky to have the type of woman who will travel every trail, sail the seven seas, and even fly through the heavens to do what she feels she must in order to help those she loves.”

  There was absolute silence in the room as my grandmother returned to her seat next to Olivia. Everyone was rendered speechless. Finally, my grandfather broke the quiet. “Can’t you women just sit home and bake pies, or something?” he asked, sounding rather deflated.

  “And if we did, Papa,” my mother said, moving away from the window and over to my grandfather, “you men would be bored to tears with us.” Then she placed her hands on each side of his face, leaned in and kissed him on the forehead.

  “Now, the only thing we need to decide,” Grandma finished, “is how we’re going to proceed from here.”

  “Well, I can tell you what I’m doing,” Daddy said as he started for the door. “I’m gonna have a word with Buddy DeMario.”

  “No, Striker!” my mother said firmly. “Don’t do that! Let the police deal with him, please!”

  “Be serious, daughter!” Granddaddy laughed sarcastically, rising from his chair and grabbing his light gray notched lapel jacket off the standing coat rack behind him. “He has the police under his thumb! How do you think he manages to keep Tobacco Road open? Or the Lemon Tree, when he owned it? We’ll be back as soon as we can.”

  Daddy walked out the door with my grandfather right behind him, but Grandma stopped him.

  “Hold on there a minute, Max,” Grandma said, walking toward him. “Just what in blue blazes do you two plan on doing?”

  “We just want to talk to the man, that’s all,” Granddaddy assured her from the doorway. “We’re not going to do anything stupid, Eve, but, when our grandbaby has been beat to a pulp, Striker and I aren’t going to sit around and wonder how it all came about, or who was involved. Now,” he said firmly, “that’s the end of it. We’ll be back as soon as we can.”

  We all watched them go without saying another word. We knew it
was useless to do so.

  “Well.” Grandma turned to look at us. “I’ll be in my office if anyone needs me. Whoever hears from Max or Striker, call everyone else.” I could see the worry in her dark brown eyes and around her mouth. She suddenly looked old and tired. “No matter what Max says, those two men are on the warpath.”

  “I’m going back to the marina,” Mama said, as she, too, started for the door. “I left the payroll half done, and I need to pay everyone tomorrow. They don’t care if Armageddon is about to take place. They want money in their pocket when it starts.

  “Lily, you take Olivia back to our house,” she continued. “You two don’t stop anywhere, or call anyone. You hear me! You go straight home. If I hear anything, I’ll call you, and vice versa.” She looked at her watch. “I should be home by eight. I mean it, girls,” she said, pinning us with her angry golden eyes. “You go right home.”

  No one said another word as we each went our separate ways. Having Olivia alone with me was exactly where I needed her. It was time to jar her memory.

  Chapter 35

  That Look

  I had a list of questions for Olivia as we drove down Collins Avenue, and the first one was whether she’d heard from Albert Doxley. She said she had not and started to cry softly.

  “Olivia, are you crying because you’re worried about Albert?” I could hear how exasperated I sounded, so, taking a deep breath, I tried to change my tone of voice. “Are you worried he’s not coming back?” Or isn’t alive to do so, I thought, but didn’t say.

  “Yes,” she said softly, closing her eyes and laying her head back.

  “Olivia, surely you must see that Albert was using you. Both of the Doxleys were.”

  “It was more than that, Lily,” she sighed as if I just didn’t understand. “Albert and I have grown very close.”

  “That’s what he wanted you to think!” I was getting frustrated. I had never known my sister to be so gullible. “If he hadn’t cozied up to you and made you feel like you were his one ’n only, he wouldn’t have been able to manipulate you like he did.”

  Olivia lifted her head to look at me. “He didn’t manipulate me!”

  “Oh, really?” I scoffed. “Well, what would you call it then?”

  “He paid me well,” she said defensively.

  “Oh, I bet he did,” I said under my breath.

  “Listen, Lily, you know as well as I do that this prohibition thing is the biggest farce of a law ever passed,” Olivia spat. “A lot of people are making money supplying what everyone wants, so why shouldn’t I?”

  “One,” I said, holding up my right index finger, “because it’s illegal, and you’ve never broken the law in your life until that no-good Albert came along. And, two,” I held up a second finger, “because you could have gotten yourself killed—and a few others along with you, I might add.”

  “I never meant for that to happen,” she said softly, regret heavy in her voice.

  “Listen, Olivia.” I reached for her hand. “I know things just spiraled out of control with Albert. Love, or what you think is love, can make you do things you never thought you’d do.” Neil Aldrich came to mind. “It’s bad enough when it puts you in a real bad situation, but when other people are pulled into it and are hurt, too, then it’s way past time to get out.” Laura Aldrich came to mind.

  “Honestly, Sister,” I continued. “I hope to God no one in our family sees either of the Doxleys ever again. Because if they aren’t dead now, then someone in our family is going to make sure they will be. For the sake of everyone involved, I hope they’ve fallen off the face of the earth.”

  Olivia said nothing. She’d already laid her head back and closed her eyes again, but I knew she’d heard me. It was quiet in the car for several minutes as she and I got caught up in our own thoughts. Finally, Olivia broke the silence.

  “Lily, you and Scott going to the Bahamas for the liquor…was…well…I’m not sure what to say other than I’m sorry I put you in a situation like that.” She looked truly contrite. “I don’t know what I can ever do to show you how grateful I am that you tried to bail me out of this mess.”

  “Olivia, we’re just carrying on tradition,” I said, smiling.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well,” I replied, “it’s like Grandma said; the women in this family have each other’s backs. We wouldn’t want to break tradition, now would we?”

  “Not at all, dear sister,” Olivia replied, and some of the inner light that had been nearly been snuffed out suddenly seemed a bit brighter again.

  “Okay.” I nodded. “So here’s how you’re going to cover my back now, and the whole family’s, actually. I need you to try to remember as much as you can about the day you were beaten, what the men looked like, and what they said. Did they have accents? What was the name of their boat? Anything like that.”

  “Well.” Olivia squinted her eyes slightly as if trying to remember. “One of the men was bald. I remember that. And he had bulging eyes, too. I remember thinking he looked like an ogre.” She smiled tiredly, which encouraged me to keep pressing her.

  “That’s good, Livie. That’s real good.” I nodded. “What else?”

  “Um…” she said, laying her head back and closing her eyes tightly again, trying to picture the scene. I hated to make her relive it all, but Scott wanted as much information from her as he could get, though I wasn’t sure what he was trying to piece together.

  “Oh,” Olivia said, popping her head up and looking over at me. “I remember this one guy—the one who kicked me in the ribs—had a bad scar. It went down like this,” she said, taking her right index finger and running it in a diagonal line down her right cheek. “It was deep and ragged, too. Kind of like a lightning bolt.”

  “Do you remember what his hair looked like, Olivia?”

  “Slicked back. Kind of medium-brown, I guess,” she replied.

  “Okay. Good.” I asked her about several other things, including whether or not she’d heard any of their names, but she couldn’t recall. She did say they all sounded like they were from up north. She also said that she didn’t remember much of anything about the third man as he kept carrying the cases of liquor out to the boat and had very little interaction with any of them.

  “The boat, Liv!” I exclaimed. “Can you tell me anything about it? The color or kind? Or even its name? Anything?”

  “I remember seeing it out the window when they arrived. It was white with blue stripes, and honestly, Lily, it looked like one of Daddy’s runabouts.”

  “Did you see the name on the transom, or could you only see the bow?”

  “I only saw the bow. I remember scar face said the name because he said it was getting late and they had to get the liquor loaded onto it and get back to Buddy. But I don’t remember what the name was.”

  “Go through the alphabet, Olivia,” I said. “Start with A, then B, and so on. See if that’ll jar your memory. Having the boat’s name would be really helpful.”

  “Why?” she asked. Her brows knitted together.

  “I’m not quite sure,” I honestly answered. “But Scott wants it. He said it’s really important.”

  “Okay, let me think.” Olivia laid her head back, but lifted it again almost as soon as it touched the seat as though something had just occurred to her. “How did Scott get involved in all this anyway?”

  She caught me off-guard with the question. “Well, I figured that since he has connections in the Bahamas, and also has a plane, I’d be able to get this mess cleared up pretty quickly if he’d help.”

  “And he was willing to stick his neck out, just like that?” She snapped her fingers.

  “Not at first,” I clarified. “I went to see him at his apartment and he said no. But he changed his mind and actually picked me up on the Full House, telling Daddy he wanted to show me a new cruise ship that h
ad come into the port at Nassau. Truthfully, I was surprised he agreed to help. He swore he’d never run liquor again.”

  “So, because of me, he lied to Daddy, and compromised his moral boundaries, is that it?”

  “Yeah, that’s pretty much it,” I answered honestly. I felt far more than just a little guilt over what it had cost Scott to help us.

  “Why would he do that, Lily? I don’t get it.”

  “Actually, Liv, I asked him the same thing, and he reminded me that I’d helped him in the hospital when he was badly cut from flying glass during the hurricane. Apparently, he really needed someone to give him an encouraging word, to tell him everything would be fine. I guess I was that someone and he never forgot it. And I think the second reason he did it is because he really likes Daddy and Granddaddy.”

  Olivia smiled wryly. “I don’t think they’re the only ones he likes, Sister.”

  I cut my eyes over at her. “What do you mean?”

  “You, Lil. I think Scott likes you and not just because you were his Florence Nightingale. I’ve been out on the Full House a couple of Saturdays when he flew the liquor in for us. I remember one time Granddaddy told him to come on board and eat. It was lobster season and we had a mountain of it. He sat with the family at our table, but you’d already eaten and were busy running around. I caught him watching you a couple of times, though, and the way he was looking at you was pretty darn interesting.”

  “Oh?” I said, trying to sound nonchalant. “How so?”

  “Like he hoped they’d serve you as dessert,” she giggled.

  “Oh, Livie, that’s ridiculous!” I laughed, though I could feel myself blush.

  “Well, I can assure you, dear sister, there was nothing ridiculous about the way the man looked at you—in that certain way you, you know?”

  “Not really,” I laughed.

  “Yes, you do, Lily. You’ve seen that look all your life. It’s the way Daddy looks at Mama, and Granddaddy looks at Grandma. It’s that look. And when I saw Scott look at you like that, it made me wonder if y’all knew each other better than just merely waving hi and bye when he brought the liquor to the ship.”