Rafe (14 page)

Joe Terson finished sweeping the porch of his general store. He propped the broom against a post, removed his glasses and wiped each lens with a rag from his hip pocket. Replacing the spectacles on his beakish nose, he inspected his precious display window which had cost more than he cared to remember. The bevelled glass boasted a huge and fancy engraved “T” and had been shipped all the way from New Orleans. He polished the pane with delicate and meticulous care.

“Mornin', Terson.”

The shopkeeper stared at Butkis's reflection in the glass. Butkis frightened him almost as much as Ezra Clayton. The townspeople of Claytonville he had known most of his life. The small farmers down the Burr Ferry road and back toward Nachitoches he knew by first and last names. They'd been trusted customers ever since they had moved in. But Clayton and his guards were something else. Even though good customers, they were indifferent, hostile vagabonds who carried their bravado in a brace of pistols. They flaunted cruel mean streaks and short tempers prone to sudden and violent eruption. At those times small farmers or townfolk had to watch out, for they knew one of them might be hurt. Terson coughed and stammered a greeting to the overseer. Butkis dismounted, instructed his two lackeys to busy themselves nailing up the hand-drawn bills Ezra had instructed them to take to town.

“What's this, Mister Butkis?” Terson managed without stuttering, accepting the proferred piece of paper from the guard.

“Mistuh Clayton's stepdaughter come back home. Mistuh Clayton's gonna hold a celebration come Saturday an' Sunday. Big doin's.”

“Why yes. Abigail thought she saw the Fitzman girl yesterday, and folks have been talking. Haven't seen her yet, myself. Expected her to visit.…”

“Mistuh Clayton,” Butkis interrupted, “wants Miz Terson to help with decoratin' an' such fer the party. She's ta' be there Friday evenin' an' stay over.”

“Why, certainly,” Joe answered nervously, glancing about. “Yes. Abigail will be more than happy to help out.”

A thin-lipped, hawkish woman stepped onto the porch, started to say something to Joe but stopped short when she saw Butkis standing in front of her. The overseer leered at her, tipped his cap. “Mornin', Miz Terson.”

Abigail nodded icily in the overseer's direction before speaking to her husband. “Joe, Elmer needs help with that crate of apples that came in this mornin'.”

The shopkeeper's face rose in astonishment, but catching his wife's signal, he broke into a happy smile. He spouted a dozen rapid apologies to Butkis and followed Abigail back into the store. “Abigail, what on earth … we don't have any apples. It's too early for apples.”

“He don't know that.”

“But what happens if he comes in and asks for apples?”

“We'll just tell him we don't have any.”

Joe threw his arms in the air. “But Abigail, he …”

“You listen to me, Joe Terson. I hate these men. Worse than niggers. They're not only dumb but also … bestial. Yes, that's it. They make me think of beasts. I was afraid you might be in trouble.”

“Don't be silly,” her husband retorted. “Why, Ezra Clayton and I are quite friendly. He wouldn't let anything happen to me. Didn't he just last week …?”

“Ezra Clayton considers us just so much property. Thinks he owns us just like his niggers.”

“Now don't you say that, Abigail. Don't you ever say that.”

“It's true!” Abigail punctuated the remark by slapping her hand down on the countertop.

“Abigail, please…” Joe looked around, fearful any one should have heard or seen her outrageous display. “Elmer.…”

“Elmer's still gone from when you sent him down to the Grovers'. You know that.”

“He could come back. Anyway, that ain't got nothin' to do with what we're talkin' about. Now, Mister Butkis come by to tell me Ezra has requested you show up at Freedom Friday afternoon and help Micara pretty the place up for a party honorin' Crissa.” His wife's face twisted in distaste and Joe hurried on before she could interrupt. “Now does that sound like he thinks we're niggers? Gonna be a big to-do, and that's good for us, 'cause they'll be needin' supplies.” He waited apprehensively.

“Did he say 'request'?”

“Sure he did,” Joe answered quickly. “Butkis said that very word,” he lied, hoping she wouldn't read it in his eyes.

Abigail, her dignity soothed, patted her hair in place and stalked off to the back of the store. Joe shuddered, sighed in relief. It made him sick just thinking what might have happened if his wife had decided not to acquiesce to Clayton's demand.

Black Bedetta sent one of her girls scurrying up the brothel stairway and down the hall to knock three times on Lutibelle's door. The door opened slightly in response to the signal and a raffishly handsome man whispered, “Yes?”

The prostitute repeated Black Bedetta's message in a low tone. The room's occupant nodded, closed the door, pulled on his trousers and stuck his McKim Brothers pistol in the rear waistband. A moment later he opened the door and stepped into the hall. Barefoot and wearing faded trousers with worn suspenders pinching the naked flesh of his shoulders, he followed the prostitute down the stairs.

The smell of hot, spiced tea and biscuits assailed his nostrils and set his stomach growling. He rubbed the flat, hungry ache away and moved toward the back sitting room. Bedetta sat by the window at a small round table.

“Yes? What is it you wanted?” the man asked, his voice tinged with aristocratic impatience.

Black Bedetta's face split into a wide grin nearly lost in a sea of fatty creases and wrinkles lining her face and neck. “Tea?” she asked. Her corpulent arm reached over to tilt an ivory china teapot and pour a clear reddish brown liquid into a matching cup, empty but for a leaf of mint. The tea smelled strong and heady. Bedetta's breasts, massive and unbound beneath her tentlike dressing gown, swelled to even more frightening proportions as she pressed against the table. The grin never left her face. “It's got brandy in it. An' clove … an' mint.”

“I don't want any tea,” the man said petulantly. “Besides, I couldn't afford what you'd probably charge me. The room itself is an audacious robbery.”

“Tea I give to you. For free,” the fat black woman responded. She squinted at him for a long, silent moment. Without taking her eyes off him she sliced a hot biscuit, spread it with butter, ladled a hillock of peach preserves on one half, covered it with the other and popped the whole concoction, seeping now, into her cavernous mouth. Not a crumb touched her lips as she poked it back toward her throat with a thick finger. Her cheeks bulged only slightly, the motion of chewing even less noticeable save for the jiggling rolls of fat where her chin should have been. She beamed at him anew.

“Dammit, nigger, what is it you want?” The man was uneasy now. The madam was up to something, though he couldn't be certain exactly what. To emphasize his seriousness he reached behind him and drew the pistol from his waistband, cocked it and lay the weapon on the tabletop in front of him.

Black Bedetta appeared not to notice the gun. Her hand dwarfed the dainty tea cup as she lifted it to her lips and drained the tea in one swallow. She pulled the cup from in front of the man over to her and drank its contents as well. A girlishly youthful prostitute, newly arrived, brought a thin black cigar to the table and lit it for the madam. Black Bedetta inhaled deeply, threatening to send her mammoth breasts bursting through the light material covering them. “A quarter-eagle a day,” she said. “From now on.”

The man stood abruptly, knocking the chair over backward. “What?”

“A quarter-eagle. Two and a half dollars.” Bedetta's voice remained calm and unconcerned even as the man grabbed the pistol from the table and levelled it at her.

“We agreed on a dollar. And I don't use the girls. A dollar is too damn much, you nigger slut, but a quarter-eagle … Hell, you haven't a tart here worth that, much less an empty room.”

“I'll have your gear fetched an' you can find some'eres else to light.”

“You know there is no other place.”

“A quarter-eagle or outside. Mebbe that ruffler Butkis might find you lodgings.”

The man lowered his gun, his face blanching. “What's this? What about Butkis?”

“Why, he come to town, Lutibelle tells me. Come this mornin'. An' when Butkis come down from Clayton's hill, he always stop in fer a bit of gamin' with one a' my white girlies. He not alone, neither. Two a' his roisters is with him. They'll follow him here, mark my word.”

“Dammit to hell, woman, I need that room. Butkis would probably recognize me. The others are no problem, I imagine, but Butkis … Damn!”

Black Bedetta watched him closely, her eyes dropping down to his waist. She tossed her head girlishly. “Well, there is one room I might jes' let you have fo' free.”

Lutibelle entered from the front porch. “Mistuh Butkis headen' dis way, ma'am.”

“Take me there. Be quick about it,” the man said, his voice tight and hushed with urgency.

Bedetta, the infernal grin still slashing her dark face, rose ponderously from the table and moved with surprising adroitness through the sitting room toward the back of the house. Coming to a heavy oak door decorated with an assortment of crudely explicit carvings, she stopped to fumble with the lock. Her breath came in short, heaving rasps, the only sound discernible this far back in the brothel.

The door opened. Bedetta waddled through the door, the man following her, his face wide with surprise. The room, draped in white silk finery, was half filled with a magnificent canopied bed also covered with white and lumped with huge, brightly colored pillows of different shapes. “Whose room is this?” the man asked, moving past her in awe, already knowing the answer.

“Mine,” Bedetta answered, her voice husky with desire. He turned to ask a question in time to see the dressing gown slide from her fleshy shoulders and land in a heap at her feet, revealing a mountain of flesh, black and shining. She cupped each ponderous breast, the nipples bulging as her fingers prodded each palm-sized dark aureole. Like some great black storm cloud she moved close to him, shutting the door with her foot as she stepped out of the crumpled gown. The man stood silent and awestruck in front of her, unable to move as the pistol slid from his hand and dropped to the floor.

“I'se got mah mo'nin' hongrys, honey,” Bedotta chuckled, sliding his suspenders down and unbuttoning the top of his trousers. “But doan you worry none. There's been mo' white in me than most folks 'spect.” Her hands ran the length of his inner thighs as he joined her in nakedness. She led him to the shipsized bed. “We gonna make this first 'un quick 'cause I'm gonna have to be up front to handle our friend Mistuh Butkis.” Appalled, he eased down onto the bed, feeling himself harden in spite of himself as her fingers deftly teased him. “First I aims to sample what I'm hidin'. An' you can stay fo' free, honey.” She patted his manhood, her hand folding around him, guiding him between her massive thighs. “Yassuh, you can stay fo' free as long as it's good fo' ol' Bedetta.…”

Butkis watched from the thin mattress as the prostitute pulled her cotton shift back over her head and patted it down along her thin frame. The soiled fabric clung tightly to her smallish breasts, adding misleading dimensions to her form. “I deserve another,” Butkis growled. “The first one was good. I ken work up to 'nother, by heavens.”

“Don't matter what you ken work up to unless'n you ken work up to more money fuhst.”

“Aw, honey, I already done paid.”

“You paid fo' one an' I give yo' one. Kep' it goin' extra long, too. Now don't you gimme no hosshit 'bout another. Not unless'n I see the color of silver.”

Butkis threw back the covers and half rose in bed, revealing his hardened desire, a pole of lumpy flesh beneath a belly that had been the willing recipient of too many jacks of ale. “Well now … supposin' I was of a mind to take me some more of yore sweet ass as an extra sump-thin' to remember on my way back to Freedom. Maybe you forgettin' who you got in this room. Maybe I'll be takin' what I want an' if you don't give it free and good I'll be carvin' on that pretty white face o' yores. Give you another scar to match the one you already got.”

The whore did not even turn to look at him. Facing a wash bowl she lifted her shift and began to sponge her privates. She shrugged. “Mistuh Butkis, you don't half skeer me as much as what Black Bedetta gonna do to me if'n she catch me givin' belly-warmin's for free. Now you ken make me do what you will, but you better enjoy it 'cause Bedetta will be comin' round to claim that stick o' yores for her very own. She'll razor it off you and hang it over her door.”

Butkis looked as if he might spring for her after all and the prostitute feared the Clayton overseer would risk another chance between her legs. Instead he scowled and sat back against the iron latticework at the head of the bed, reached down to the floor and after a moment's search found his bottle of rum. “Well, then,” he patted the bed next to him, “come and drive another nail with me.” He held the bottle to her. She wetted her lips and looked at the door, almost expecting Bedetta to be there. Then she looked suspiciously at Butkis. He protested innocently. “A bit o' grog is all. You gave it to me good. Now I've a little extra for you,” he said.

The prostitute brushed back her straggly brown hair and climbed onto the bed, sat beside the overseer and took the proffered bottle, tilting it to her mouth and swallowing long and deep. Butkis, hiding his erection under the soiled sheet, reached inside her shift to provoke one small breast, rubbing his calloused seaman's thumb over her nipple. He sang softly in a guttural voice an old sea ditty he'd sung as a whaler while scouring the ocean for its mountainous quarry: