BLACKWATER:The Mysterious Saga of the Caskey Family (81 page)

The birds' cries were overridden now by a new sound, a song that Miriam had never heard. But no, she had heard it, in her dreams; in twenty-five years of dreams, in her bed in the room that looked out to the levee.

The old song beat through her brain, and she forgot who she was, where she was, and whom she was with. She closed her eyes and listened to that song— listened intensely but for what seemed only a very few seconds. Yet when she opened her eyes again, the pale disc of the sun had traveled farther across the sky and now shone dimly through other branches of the cypress above her.

"Come down," said Elinor. Her voice sounded muffled and far away.

Miriam slipped down the side of the hammock and climbed into the boat.

"We'd better go back now," said Elinor. "They're going to wonder where we are."

Miriam made no reply, and as her mother expertly paddled the boat back toward the river by a different route from the one that they had taken before, Mir-iam made no remark and asked no questions. She did not even turn around.

Miriam again saw the clouds of blind mosquitoes that marked the edge of the swamp. As the boat got closer, the insects descended again and Miriam was again lacerated by the sharp grasses. The boat slipped into the red waters of the Perdido, and Miriam thought that the river had never looked so clean and wholesome before. Soon they were once again on the western bank. Elinor hopped out and pulled the boat onto the wretched little gravelly beach. She held out her hand to Miriam.

Miriam shook her head and struggled out of the boat without assistance.

They walked back to the car in silence. Elinor again was a few steps ahead of her daughter.

As they got into the car Miriam remarked: "I thought you were gone leave me in that swamp."

"No," said Elinor, unperturbed by the statement. "I just thought you ought to see it."

"Thank you," said Miriam, with a slight stiffness, as her mother started the engine.

One afternoon about two weeks after Elinor and Miriam's visit to the swamp, Lucille Strickland was surprised to see Miriam's car pull up before the farmhouse. With Tommy Lee following behind her, Lucille went outside to greet the visitor. "What on earth are you doing out here?"

"Hello to you, too," said Miriam, slamming shut the car door.

Lucille laughed. "No, I just meant, what got you out from behind that old desk of yours?"

"I need to speak to you and Grace."

"Grace and Escue are out in the corn. Let me go call her. Here, take Tommy Lee inside. There's a pitcher of iced tea in the refrigerator."

"Is it sweet?" asked Miriam, grabbing Tommy Lee's hand and dragging him up the steps of the porch.

"Yes, but I'll make some for you that isn't."

In a few minutes, the three women were seated around the dining room table. Tommy Lee was on Grace's lap. Grace was deeply sunburned from all the time she spent out in the fields. Her hair had turned a streaked, golden blond. In contrast, Lu-cille's face was pale, for she never went out without a broad-brimmed straw hat. She had lost her pastiness, however, and was as plump now as Queenie had been when she first arrived in Perdido. Her arms were red and freckled, and she was fearsomely proud of her calloused hands, for they showed her family how hard she worked for love of Grace and Gavin Pond Farm. An oscillating fan on highest speed was set on another chair.

Grace and Lucille looked expectantly at Miriam. Miriam had never visited on a weekday afternoon before. She had placed a clipboard of papers before her, and she took a fountain pen out of her dress pocket; she wasted no time in getting to the point.

"This is about that old swampland south of here."

"What about it?" said Grace warily.

"First thing is," said Miriam, "we are buying more. I just found another parcel next to what we already have, about eighteen hundred acres. So I've bought it, and I need your signatures."

"Miriam, Lucille and I don't have any money for more land! We're strapped as it is."

"Queenie is lending you the money," said Miriam firmly. "And that's this paper." She set out a second paper, and unscrewed the cap of the pen.

"Well, now," said Grace slowly, "nobody likes property better than me, but Miriam, are you sure we need it? I mean it's just swamp, right? Nothing but mosquitoes and alligators and quicksand, right? How much did you have to pay?"

"Eighty dollars an acre," answered Miriam.

"Lord, God!" cried Grace, and the exertion of her surprise lifted Tommy Lee right off her lap and dropped him into Lucille's. "I could get me Black Belt soil for eighty dollars an acre. What in the world are you thinking of, paying that kind of money?"

Miriam sighed. "Grace, just sign. You're not out one penny. You know and I know you're never gone have to pay Queenie back. You and Lucille get one-fourth title to that property, Elinor and Oscar get one-fourth, Frances and Billy get one-fourth, and I get one-fourth. Just sign," she repeated, holding out the pen.

'T don't understand this one single bit," Grace murmured as she signed both documents. Lucille handed Tommy Lee back and took the pen in turn.

"Anything else?" asked Grace. "From the look of that stack of papers, we could be here all afternoon."

"Just one other," said Miriam taking out a single page from the bottom.

Grace took it and looked it over. "I don't understand this."

"That's 'cause you cain't read it," said Lucille. "Grace cain't read a thing without her reading glasses. She won't wear 'em."

"I see just fine out in the fields," said Grace, signing the document. "I hope you're not tricking us, Miriam."

"Don't worry," said Miriam, placing the page in front of Lucille.

"How's Frances?" Lucille asked.

"Big as a house," said Miriam.

"What is this paper?" asked Grace.

"Permission to drill," replied Miriam, clipping it back to the board.

"What the hell does that mean?" demanded Grace.

Miriam stood up. "That means," she said, "that there is oil under all that swampland."

"Lord!" cried Lucille, putting down Tommy Lee. "You are joking, Miriam!"

"I am not. I am going to Houston in a couple of weeks and talk to some people."

"You mean," said Grace, "that you just got me to sign a paper I couldn't even read that says some old oil company can bring in their men and their machinery and their I-don't-know-what-all and tear up our property? Is that what I just signed? Where are my reading glasses?"

"That's right," said Miriam, heading toward the door.

"They're all gone sink in the quicksand," said Lucille in consolation.

"Lord, Grace," said Miriam, with her hand on the doorknob, "they're not gone bother you."

"They'll be there!"

"Two miles away, you're not even gone hear 'em."

"How you know there's oil down there?" asked Lucille. "You send somebody swimming down to the bottom of that old swamp?"

"Elinor said so," Miriam said as she walked out the door.

Grace and Lucille stood together in the doorway, watching Miriam get back into her car. "Don't you bring any more papers out here to me," cried Grace, " 'cause I'm gone tear 'em up in your face!"

Miriam switched on the ignition, turned the car around, and called out the window, "Lucille, nine months from now, you are gone be sewing dresses out of one-hundred-dollar bills!"

CHAPTER 63
Twins

Late one morning before anyone had come home for dinner, Frances and Elinor sat on the screened porch. The day was already hot, and the kudzu leaves on the levee were wilted. Frances sat close to the edge of the porch to catch the rare gusts of air that wafted across the yard. Her mother rocked slowly on the glider, taking in the hem of an old skirt for Zaddie.

Frances was in great discomfort. Her frame was not large, and the distension of her pregnant stomach was enormous. More than anything, she longed for her old sense of balance, for a feeling of walking upright again. Now she could move across the room only with difficulty, if not actual pain.

"Mama," sighed Frances, "I didn't know it was gone be like this. Right now, I feel like I don't want to move until I go into labor."

"I know it's hard, darling, but you've got to get up and move around. You've got to get a little exercise, for the sake of your children."

"Children?" repeated Frances in astonishment.

Elinor looked up as if she had spoken inadvertently. "Yes," she said after a moment, "twins. Sweetheart, why in the world do you think you're so big?"

"Mama, how do you know for sure?"

"I know," said Elinor, "because I was a twin, too."

"You told me you had a sister, but you never told me—"

"Nerita and I were twins, that's right. But we were even more different than you and Miriam."

"All right, but how do you know I'm gone have twins?"

Elinor didn't answer at first. "Frances," she then said softly, "come over here and sit beside me on the glider."

With some careful maneuvering Frances did so. Elinor continued to rock the glider with her foot, slowly and rhythmically. Frances started to speak, but Elinor said, "Shhh! Close your eyes, darling."

Frances obeyed.

"Block out the light. Block out the sun and the heat. Listen to me and what I say and don't think of anything else."

Elinor spoke in a low, soft voice as she methodically stitched in the new hem on the skirt in her lap. "Frances darling, you hear me speaking to you and you hear my voice. You feel that little breeze on the back of your neck and you know that breeze blew over the Perdido because you can smell the river in that air. You smell that water and you know where that breeze came from. You know what trees and what branches it blew through. You smell those water oaks. Water oaks have a different smell from all other trees and even from each other. Water oaks even have names the way you and I have names, only we can't say them aloud. When the wind blows through a water oak the water oak speaks its name. You hear those names?"

Frances nodded slowly.

"You keep your eyes closed and it's black behind there, it's black inside your whole body and there's Frances right inside her own body and no light will ever get in and it's like being at the bottom of the river with no light reaching you through the muddy water. But oh Lord, Frances. You can see what there is to see in there. You can go anywhere you want in that darkness, just like you could swim anywhere on the bottom of the river if you wanted to. You try it. See, you're not on the bottom after all. You can dive down deeper, so do it. Now go even deeper. You can see where you're going even though there's no light. Go all the way down. See how easy it is? Oh, Frances, you know what you're looking for. You're looking for two little babies, two little babies that are all yours. I remember, Frances, I remember going down to the bottom once and seeing you, and I thought, 'Oh, this little girl is precious. I'm going to love this little girl like nobody's business,' and you know what? Your eyes were open, and you looked back at me and your mouth opened, and you said, 'Hey, Mama,' and I said, 'Hey, little girl' because you didn't have a name yet. You..."

Elinor broke off. Beside her, Frances's body was rigid, her eyelids were quivering, and her mouth twitched. Elinor heard a car pull up in front of the house. By its sound she knew it to be Oscar's. She went on speaking to her daughter in a voice that was much lower, quicker, and more urgent.

"See, Frances, two babies, just like I told you. See, they're just fine, both of them, so swim back on up to the top. Say goodbye to your babies—don't touch them—and turn around and swim back up. Go right back up to your eyelids. You'll be able to find them; they're little cracks of sunlight. Swim straight up. Hurry, darling. When you get back up there, turn around just one more time and sit down slowly and get yourself comfortable again, and now, Frances, open your eyes."

Downstairs, the screen door slammed, and the hallway was filled with the voices of Elinor's husband and eldest daughter.

Frances's eyes were open and she was trembling. "Mama—" she whispered.

"Shhh!"

Oscar was coming up the stairs.

"Mama!" cried Frances peremptorily.

Elinor turned to her daughter. "Twins?"

"There were two of them," answered Frances evasively.

"Two girls? Like Nerita and me?"

"One of them was a girl," said Frances, still trembling.

"And one was a boy?" asked her mother.

Oscar appeared smiling in the door. "That baby hasn't come yet?" he laughed. "Frances, I am getting anxious for my first grandchild. You ought to hurry it up."

"And one was a boy?" whispered Elinor anxiously in her daughter's ear.

"One of them was a girl," Frances repeated, and awkwardly raised herself from the glider.

Frances was silent during the noontime meal that day and excused herself before anyone else was finished. She retreated to her room. Billy started to get up and follow her, but putting aside her napkin, Elinor said, "No. You stay here, let me see about her."

Frances lay on the bed atop the covers, dry-eyed and motionless. All the shades in the room were drawn, and it was stifling hot.

"Let me turn on the fan," said Elinor as she entered.

She crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed. She took Frances's limp, sweating hand in her own.

"Mama," said Frances, "when the time comes..." She choked back a sob.

Elinor nodded. "When the time comes for you to have your babies..."

"... I want you there, and nobody else. Nobody else in the whole house. Send Billy and Daddy away. Send Zaddie out on an errand."

"I'll need some help, darling. Zaddie can help me."

"No, I—"

"There's nothing," said Elinor slowly, "that Zaddie hasn't seen and doesn't know about. Do you understand what I'm saying? There's nothing that Zaddie wouldn't do for me and you. That's been true ever since Zaddie was a little tiny girl and used to rake the yards for Mary-Love."

Elinor continued to hold her daughter's hand.

"Mama," whispered Frances, weeping now, "you know what I saw?"