Manroot (2 page)

Chapter 1

This particular section of road was called The Crossroads.
No one remembers who gave it this name or why, for the roads did not cross but ran parallel to each other, verging ever inward until they met. Others claimed, without knowing for certain, that it was the waters which contributed to its name. The bodies of water, like the roads, ran parallel to each other, until at one point they merged, and like capricious children parted again, and it was difficult in certain places to identify which was Kiefer Creek and which the Meramec River.

The largest body of water w
as the river snaking its way through the Missouri foothills called the Ozarks, twisting and turning to accommodate the hills, covered in pin oak and scrub oak and huge rocks where the gray mineral galena sparkled, masquerading as something precious. To the novice it seemed that these slopes were rich with silver! Wildflowers and flowering trees grew in profusions of pinks and purples, dotting the landscape. Occasionally the earth parted in sinkholes and caves created by the limestone and soluble carbonate rocks. The land housed many animals; squirrels scratched among the leaves and scaled the trees, leaping from one branch to another gathering nuts, while below, rabbits dozed in their burrows, and all manner of birds called to each other. The thicket concealed creatures common to the Ozark foothills – deer, possum, raccoon, and small red foxes, and a few bobcats still roamed, not yet threatened by the creeping civilization. The land was very beautiful, the river was not! At one time the Meramec River had been a navigable body of water for early Spanish and French explorers. It was named after an Indian tribe who used it often. It could only be admired for its persistence, its muddy, greenish-brown swirling water that never seemed at peace, gushing ever southward to wear itself out in eventually nameless waters.

On the river bank, here at the Crossroads, abandoned scaffolding and equipment lay rusting in the early May sun like skeletons of prehistoric creatures.
The debris was left behind years ago, when dredging for silica became no longer profitable. The river, like a chameleon, changed her colors when the industry left. Small ramshackle clubhouses were built on her steep banks, and entrepreneurs were contracted to dump tons of sand on one barren bank to create an artificial beach; the large stone house on the hill was converted into a hotel.

Then a local man digging a well for his clubhouse struck instead an underground spring, and curiously enough, the spring was salt water!
A geologist studied the phenomenon and documented its source as the Gulf of Mexico, some 1500 miles south! The owner abandoned the well and built instead a public swimming pool, naming it ‘Castlewood’ after the town. The salt water was touted for its therapeutic properties, and customers came in droves from the city to float, to play and swim in the miraculous pool.

The pool at Castlewood was just the tourist attraction that the area needed.
The trains leaving St. Louis on a Friday afternoon were full of all manner of people coming down to spend the weekend there. Families came to swim in the pool, boat, or fish in the river. Single men came alone to fish, play poker, and drink. Castlewood acquired a reputation as a place where drinks were always available, so even during the years of Prohibition, whiskey flowed as freely at Castlewood as the nearby waters.

Young couples in love came to swim in the pool of miracles, and to dance on the deck nearby, swaying under the paper lanterns far into the summer night.

A cortège of single women came, with silk dresses and painted faces, and those without occupations stayed, clinging to the jukeboxes and staking out territories which they fought fiercely to protect. They were always there, waiting to lead a drunken stranger into a cloistered bedroom, and Castlewood soon became known as a place where ‘anything goes.’

In 1939 a lot of people passed that way, to pause, maybe to work, in one of the establishments there for a few months until they could afford to move on, looking for something
more permanent. Times were hard; it was a way of life for many, the wandering!

They came that spring, passing over the wooden bridge of the river. He appeared to be a tall man, for he was slim and sinewy, but he wasn’t – he was only 5’ 7” or so. He was dressed in a faded blue cotton shirt, tucked into tweed trousers that were far too heavy for the warm May temperature. The thick belt that held up his trousers had been moved over twice to another fresh-made hole in the leather, showing that at one time he had carried a lot more weight. His black shoes turned over badly at the heels, hinting at better times. Like the trousers, his wool socks were winter wear and the numerous darnings the girl had sewn made him limp with new-made blisters.

His stained hat cove
red thick, curly, salt-and-pepper-colored hair. He had been a handsome man once, although his forty-eight years now showed plainly on his lined, wind-burned face. The skin around his sunken cheeks was faintly spider-webbed from too many whiskeys, downed over too many years. His eyes, once a brilliant blue, had faded to a formless color much like the shirt he wore.

His eye watered now in the soft wind as the couple walked.
In his right hand he carried a cardboard suitcase covered with souvenir decals from the many towns between Gallup, New Mexico and Missouri, mostly stolen from bus stations and cheap hotels. He wetted his lips, as he thought that there might be whiskey right down the road, and he checked his pocket to reassure himself that the last silver dollar was still there!

The girl with him walked a step or two behind.
She was as tall as the man and her long legs could easily have outdistanced him, but in respect for him as her father, she lagged a little behind. There was no clear resemblance between them. It was as if his seed had only modified her Indian features. Her skin was dusty rose-brown, a lovely color. Her face was long and angular, with a heart-shaped chin, her eyes large and liquid, dark brown. Her aquiline nose was reminiscent of a fine racehorse, and her full lips covered perfect, rather large white teeth. Her body was slender and agile; she had small breasts set high on her long torso, unlike the soft cow-like appearance of many mature Navajo women. Her straight hair, parted in the middle, was a warm brown with hints of auburn. She wore a white cotton dress that was too high-waisted for her, and she carried worn white sandals while her flat brown feet padded on the dusty road. Instead of the suitcase that he carried, her few belongings were rolled into a black and white Indian rug tied together with a cord that rested easily on her shoulder. Her neck, in harmony with her body, was long and slender, yet two tendons protruded from the smoothness of her skin – marks of a long acquaintance with worry. In her small, perfectly-shaped ears, turquoise nugget earrings had grown long ago into the flesh.

She was called Katherine.
Although her father felt that the name did not really suit her, he could not think of another that did. ‘Kack’ was easier – it was a nickname her mother had given her, was it seven or eight years ago? He wasn’t sure, for the days, the seasons, the towns had become a blur since he had left his wife dying in a hospital ward in Santa Fe. He had abandoned her, for he did not know what else to do. It was after he had taught her to drink, and she took to it with such zeal that he became alarmed. On more than one occasion she had lost the little girl and returned home drunk, not remembering where she had left her.

It was when work was slow for him that his wife, Mama Rose he called her, had consented to do the unthinkable; she had agreed to weave a forbidden rug.
Her mother had come and wept and pleaded, trying to dissuade her, for the Navajo believe that to weave the forbidden rug is to lose your sanity and your soul.

Mama Rose closed her ears to this talk and for her white client she began.
It was a difficult chore, for while her hands had once been steady and sure, now they trembled, dreaming of liquor. She worked, frustrated and crying, and as the rug neared completion, bringing the money so close, she felt her throat quiver with craving, and her stomach churn with want for the liquor that would bring peace. Convinced that her soul was already damned, Mama Rose talked of myths and legends while she wove and told her daughter to beware.

Rose finished the rug, and with the last stitch, she stuck her finger and it bled for three days.
She believed now that the curse was real!

With her pay, she and her husband spent many endless nights in dim bars with blaring jukeboxes and tinsel laughter.
It was later in the daylight when the money was gone that she saw them, scorpions crawling everywhere. It was then that she tried to kill the child. Jesse took her screaming and cursing to the hospital ward and with no money to pay left her there, convinced as she was that she had lost her sanity and, if it existed, her soul. They had wandered, his daughter and he, was it six years or seven years since then? He couldn’t remember. They went from town to town, doing odd jobs here and there. He had taught the girl to read, and she was quick. His daughter had not been a troublesome child and she had grown into a quiet, solemn woman, given to daydreams and imaginings which he ignored as he could not be sure if she was crazy or merely different. He knew and conveyed to her that it was safer to be quiet, to speak only when spoken to, and never, never to share the magic she often spoke about. She used to tell him about the dream sleep and how it told her things. She spoke of trees and rivers that had souls, and he hushed her, and sometimes when he was sober, he wondered what would become of her.

He cursed the old woman, the grandmother, for her crazi
ness which he was certain had been borrowed by the child.

Pausing now at The Crossroads, at the far side of the bridge, he sat on a wooden stump, removed his stained hat, and with a dirty handkerchief wiped his forehead and mopped his neck.
Like a man who was always aiming but who never reached his mark, he sighed.

“
Sign says it’s the Meramec River,” he said aloud. It was not their destination. Someone on the road had told them of work in St. Louis on the levee of the mighty Mississippi River. This spot was thirty-five miles short of the mark. She nodded and he watched her lips moving slightly as she too read the sign.

“
Damn sure ain’t…don’t look like the Mississippi,” he commented sourly as he stood, unbuttoned his trousers, and urinated into the muddy water. She averted her gaze until he spoke again.

“
Damn sure ain’t,” he repeated, disgusted.

“
Maybe it’s not much further,” she commented.

Ignoring her remark, he looked about at the trees and hills and spied the huge stone building ahead, a painted sign rocking back and forth in the wind.
“Looks like a hotel.”

She nodded, agreeing with him as she sat rubbing her bare feet.
Even though she was tired from the many miles they had walked that day, she felt a lift from the beauty of the place. The gentle hills around them were brilliant with color, wild redbud trees still wore the bright purple blossoms of spring and the dogwoods, while smaller, were heavy with tiny flowers of the gentlest pink. Higher up on the ridges stood tall oaks and elms with their straight trunks, in nature’s arrangement more perfect than an artist’s canvas. It was mid-afternoon and the sun was unseasonably warm for May.

Fol
lowing her eyes, Jesse commented, “Oaks…best trees in the country. Why, when I was logging---” He stopped mid-sentence, realizing she knew better and too tired to continue the fabrication. He pointed toward the hotel. “We’ll try for work there.” He hitched up his trousers purposefully, put his hat back on his head, replaced the handkerchief in his pocket and set off again, hoping with all his heart that they sold whiskey.

In the small, homey hotel they were told to go round the back and ask for Frieda.
As they reached the cobblestone yard, they heard a shrill voice cursing violently at someone, and came upon a confusion of people and sounds. Under the shade of a huge tree stood a mammoth iron kettle held up by a tripod; glowing embers hissed beneath it, and a woman, rather handsome, stout, with flaming red hair and face to match, was chasing a man with a curious long L-shaped stick.

“
You dumb bastard, I said no pine,” she shrieked as she swung the stick at the man, who dropped his armload of logs to protect his face. “Oh, you’re stupid as a jackass, you are. I should have known better than to hire me a dummy!” she raged.

As she yelled, he turned and ran off in terror into the thick woods.

“Bruce, come back here!” she hollered at his retreating back, knowing he wouldn’t.

She turned toward them then and started when she saw Jesse and Katherine standing there holding their bundles.
Forgetting her rage, she looked them over from head to toe, noticing that the girl’s sandals were on the wrong feet. Katherine looked down and realizing her mistake, blushed crimson.

“
Well, what do you want? You can see I’m busy.”

Jesse issued what he hoped was a friendly smile.
“The man at the desk said---”

She didn
’t let him finish. “You know pinewood from the others?”

“
Yes, ma’am,” he lied.

“
The woodshed’s back there – get me some small kindling right quick.
Not
pine,” she ordered.