Standing at the Scratch Line (38 page)

“How do, Rena?” Jonas called to her as she pulled along the side where horses were stabled.

“I’m alright, Jonas,” she answered as she jumped down to water the mules. “Ma’s having a tough time, though.”

“She still fightin’ that consumption?” Jonas asked, picking up a piece of red-hot iron with a long pair of tongs.

Serena set two buckets of water down for the mules. “Yes, God bless her. She’s fighting with everything she’s got, but its got a strong hold on her. Did the new
Crisis
come in?”

“Naw, we ain’t received mail for almost a week. All this Klan stuff out at Possum Hollow must got the post all messed up,” Jonas said before he began pounding the hot metal into shape. Molten splinters flashed and sparked as Jonas’s hammer fell with a rhythmic clang on the hot iron.

“You probably stopped by to see who done won the Spingarn, jes’ like we did,” Walter Deveroux said, using a piece of straw to pick his teeth. He was a tall, powerful, stoop-shouldered man with mahogany, reddish-brown skin.

“Yes, I’m disappointed that there’s no word on the Spingarn,” Serena answered, moving toward Deveroux and away from the clanging of the hammer. “Mr. Deveroux, do you really think that the Klan could stop the mail from coming to Nellum’s Crossing?”

“Naw, too many whites get they mail at the general store too, including Black Jack hi’self. They ain’t got nothin’ to do with it! Them Klan boys is just cowards, sneakin’ up on unsuspectin’ colored folk. I hope they never ride on me and mine, but if they do, there’s gon’ be less of them afterward. I swear to God!” For several seconds, his normally passive expression turned into a terrible snarl. His Choctaw blood had left him with high cheekbones and slanting eyes, which gave him a striking and savage look when angered. People often called him “The Indian” behind his back. He didn’t like the label so no one said it to his face. Both he and his nineteen-year-old son were men of great physical strength, and though Walter was not known for his temper, he was known to be tremendously tenacious once he had made a decision. He tipped his hat to Serena. “ ’Scuse my swearin’, Rena. I got sort of het up!”

“I’m with you, Pa,” volunteered his nineteen-year-old son in support. “Somebody got to stand up to these dogs. All colored folks ain’t afraid of them, shoo!”

Jonas dunked the hot piece of iron into a vat of cold water and the hiss of steam shot skyward. “That new road is what’s causin’ all the problems,” he said as he inspected his work. “There’s plenty big money to be made. Ain’t no way they gon’ let no coloreds stay on that land! That swampland gon’ be some of the most precious land around here when that road gets built. It’s like W. E. B. DuBois says, we caught in an economic trap.”

“They could make plenty money jes’ buyin’ the colored out,” countered the older Deveroux. “Ain’t no reason to kill peoples who just want their fair due. It look like they don’t think that the colored got any rights!”

“And they say that colored folks ain’t got regular smarts,” Jonas said as he swung the doors of the kiln open and extracted another red-hot piece of metal with a pair of even longer tongs. It didn’t pass his inspection and he returned it to the fire. “To have a decent, God-fearin’ life under Jim Crow, you got to be twice as smart as the average white if you colored.” He started pumping the bellows. Jonas opened the kiln, assessed the flame, and turned to call his apprentice, but the young man had anticipated his request and stood behind him with an armful of wood. Jonas nodded his head appreciatively and indicated to his apprentice with a gesture of his hamlike hand. “Now you see, if Dante here was white, he’d be goin’ to one of them big-city colleges and learnin’ all ’bout engineerin’ and such. But he ain’t, so he’s stuck with me. He gon’ have a good life, but he gon’ work twice as hard to find pleasure in it. This here work ain’t challengin’ for the mind. It don’t take no highbrow mental doin’s.”

“Seems to me,” Walter Deveroux began as he spat out his piece of straw, “anytime you’s workin’ fo’ yo’self, it take up yo’ whole mind just to keep it that way; keepin’ the bank from fo’closin’, keepin’ them grain scalpers from cheatin’ on yo’ harvest; tryin’ to buy decent seed stock. It be true most farmin’ don’t take much highbrow thinkin’, but keepin’ it yo’ farm takes all yo’ mind and yo’ heart and everythin’ else you can put to it.”

Serena wasn’t participating in the conversation. She had purposefully walked to the other side of the smithy when Dante LeBrie became the topic. Dante was one of the few realistic options, in terms of marriage, that she had available. He had already indicated his interest in courting her a number of times and, frankly, Serena did not want to reveal her decision until the possibility of escaping to the lights and laughter of city life had been completely squelched. She saw some intricate metalwork on several tall, wrought-iron gates leaning against the side of the smithy. Each of the upright bars in the gate was in the shape of a spear, the shaft topped by a long blade.

“It’s beautiful, ain’t it?” Dante asked, standing slightly behind her. Serena nodded and said nothing. Dante continued, “It’s one of the biggest jobs we’ve had since Black Jack had a new wrought-iron front fence put in.”

“Who’s it for?” Serena asked, not really curious but attempting to be polite.

“King Tremain,” Jonas answered as he took the piece of iron out of the kiln and pounded it a few times experimentally.

“Now that’s the dude that the Klan ought to mess with!” Gerard Deveroux declared, with a small laugh.

“Yes, sir,” Dante agreed. “He got himself quite a reputation as a gambler who’s good at protectin’ his winnin’s.”

“I heard from John-Boy Basin that this young Tremain fought in the Big War,” the older Deveroux scoffed. “Then the fool had the gall to tell me the boy fought with the Three hundred Sixty-ninth.”

“Tweren’t no fool if he tol’ you that,” Jonas answered. He pounded the piece of metal around the curve of the anvil. He stopped to take a breath and continued talking. “King Tremain came by here on the mornin’ of July Fourth, the day he kilt Chess and Eddy DuMont. He was wearin’ his service uniform with sergeant stripes and that white rattler insignia on it. So, I asked him straight out, was he in the Three hundred Sixty-ninth, and he took a picture out of a big envelope. Get this, it showed him standin’ in the same line as Henry Armstrong Johnson getting metals pinned on his chest.” Jonas beckoned Dante to assist him with the pedal grinder. Once Dante got the stone spinning at a decent speed, Jonas began honing the edge of the long metal blade that he had hammered into shape.

“Then it’s true that he fought with the Three hundred Sixty-ninth Battalion?” Walter Deveroux questioned incredulously. “He ain’t nothin’ but a little more’n a boy.”

“That boy is the real thing!” Jonas affirmed. “You heard how he took care of them DuMonts, didn’t you? He didn’t even break out into a sweat. It was over before anybody could get there to stop it.”

Walter shook his head. “And I heard he the same one that did Lester too?”

“Yep, Tremain and DuMont feud been goin’ on at least one hundred years.”

“I guess them DuMonts is pretty sorry to see him come home, huh?” Walter asked with curiosity. Like most good people, he thought the DuMonts were trash, but the Tremains didn’t have a good reputation either. They were known to be wild and dangerous.

“Don’t get it twisted. Everybody that messed with him is sorry, even his own family. They scared of him too, almost as much as the DuMonts. Seems like while he was away his mother died fo’ no reason and somebody else done took over his father’s farm. By the way, they don’t call him King, they call him ‘Bordeaux’ after his grandfather.”

“I knows the one!” Gerard interjected. “My pa used to talk about him. That’s the Bordeaux that kilt all them white people and hid out for years in the bayous?”

“Yeah, used to be a lot of talk about that one,” Walter answered. “They used to send parties of mens into the swamp after him and only ’bout half would come out.”

“He’s the one that was eventually catched with the help of a colored man?” Dante asked.

“And that colored man was a DuMont,” Jonas confirmed.

Serena was adjusting the bridle on one of the mules when Dante came over to talk to her. It was the moment she feared: he would ask her for her decision and the truth was that she had made no decision.

“How you been doin’, Rena?” he asked. Dante continued braiding a hackamore from leather thongs as he awaited her answer.

“I’m doing alright. Just working hard,” Serena said as she stooped to pick up the water buckets, but Dante put a hand on her shoulder.

“I’ll get them buckets, Rena. You done any thinkin’ ’bout what I asked you?”

Serena could not bring herself to look him in the face. She stared at his hands, watching his fingers manipulate the thongs into a linking braid. The fear that Dante was probably the best opportunity for marriage she would ever get caused her to speak softly. “Can’t really say that I have, Dante, least ways not to say yes or no.”

“Well, I just want to do right. I been kind of talkin’ with Antonia Martin and I’m thinkin’ of askin’ her father if I can come a-courtin’. I thought I’d make sure of yo’ answer first.”

It was decision time. It was true she didn’t love him, but there was no contesting that he was a decent man who was ambitious and was willing to work hard in pursuit of his dreams. Whoever he married would have a good life, but that was not enough for her. She knew she had to let him go. “You’re a good man and can offer a woman a good life, Dante, but I want to live in a city. I want to see some things before I settle down and have children. I thank you for asking me. I hope we can stay friends.”

“Ain’t no problem, Rena. I appreciates yo’ honesty and not keepin’ me hangin’. Truth is, I just wants to settle down and get my family started. In two years I’ll have completed my apprenticeship and I got to be ready to move. Jonas say he’ll help me set up my own shop. I’s lookin’ fo’ward to workin’ fo’ myself.”

With a heavy heart, Serena climbed aboard her wagon. “Good luck, Dante. See you, Jonas,” she called as she snapped the reins and headed the mules for home. By the time she was out of sight of Nellum’s Crossing, tears were running down her face. She realized that she had irrevocably slammed a door on one of her options of escape. She cried not out of lost love, but because of the terrible odds against her attaining her desires. When the tears had passed, Serena was left thinking about the soldier called King Tremain and wondering whether there would be any future with him.

S
 A T U R D A Y,  
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Friday day and Saturday morning passed extremely slowly for Serena. She had trouble containing her sense of expectation. She did not know what the next meeting with King Tremain would produce, but she was anxious nonetheless. She wanted to wear her new white dress that she had worn when she had first met him, but she knew that would arouse too many questions from her family. She decided at last on a clean brown frock with a white collar. It complimented the light brown color of her skin. Her mother, despite her physical discomfort, noticed Serena’s excitement. She helped Serena tie her hair up in a colorful bandanna. Her mother asked no questions, but sent her off with a weak hug and a smile. As Serena drove the wagon out of the yard, her father yelled at her to hurry back because he needed one of the mules later that afternoon to pull out a stump.

The drive to Nellum’s Crossing was uneventful. When she pulled the wagon up to the loading dock of the mill, King was standing there bare-chested with her sacks of milled grain.

“How do, little lady?” he asked as he shouldered one of the sacks and dropped it in her wagon.

“Fine,” she answered, noticing the definition of his muscles in his arms and chest. “Where’s Mr. Mack?” she asked, trying to seem nonchalant.

“He and the Missus took off for town. They wasn’t expectin’ no other pickups today and I told ’em that I would handle yo’ load.”

“They must really trust you,” she commented wonderingly. “How did you get to be so close to a man who would cheat colored people out of their hard-earned grain?”