The Cottoncrest Curse (14 page)

“Let me see that,” Dr. Cailleteau asked.

Bucky stood up and handed the knife to the doctor, who took it and used it to cut the end off of a fresh cigar he pulled out of his pocket.

“Damn clean cut, that I'll admit. Sharp as a fleam.”

“A fleam?” asked Bucky.

“It's a small lancet,” Dr. Cailleteau explained, “that we used in the war for bloodletting, sharp as could be so that when you were cut you hardly felt it.”

“It proves it, though, don't it, Raifer,” Tee Ray said, the sneering grin still on his face.

Jenny, looking out from behind the curtains of the second-floor window and listening to the men below, saw Tee Ray's expression, and it frightened her. On this man a grin was pure evil.

“The Jew,” Tee Ray continued. “The Jew did it. He's the only one who comes here. He's the only one who has seen the Colonel Judge and Rebecca in the last year. He's the one, like Bucky has said, who was talking foolish religion and doubting our Lord Jesus.”

Raifer shot an angry stare at Bucky. Bucky was revealing what Marcus had disclosed during an investigation. And the fact that he told Tee Ray was all the worse. Bucky would have to be dealt with. Later.

“He was the one who has the knives. He was here for blood. That's all them Jews want is blood, you know. Blood for their ceremonies and their bread and such.”

“Bobbery and applesauce,” Dr. Cailleteau said, deftly flipping the knife toward Tee Ray, where it landed right next to the toe of his boot, the blade sinking almost all the way to the haft in the dirt. “This isn't the kind of knife that killed the Colonel Judge. It was a regular old blade, honed sharp, but not a fancy knife like this.”

Tee Ray turned to Bucky and asked, as if relying on Bucky to determine the answer, “You don't think the Jew was stupid enough to use his own knife, one that anyone could tell what was his, and then leave it for others to find, do you?”

Bucky thought a moment and then responded. “ 'Course not. He was clever. All them Jews think they're so smart, but they ain't smart enough for the likes of us. He done did it with a regular knife to make it look like he weren't involved. Just like a Jew to do that, isn't it?”

“Sounds right to me, Bucky,” Tee Ray said with emphasis.

“More bobbery, Tee Ray,” Dr. Cailleteau sighed. “I know that you put all these ideas into Bucky's head.”

“I've 'bout had enough of you, Doc. Here we are, Bucky and me, tryin' to help Raifer find out who killed the Colonel Judge and all, and all you can do is insult me.”

“Applesauce! Bucky said you told him you wanted to pay your last respects to the Colonel Judge. You didn't respect the Colonel Judge any more than he respected you. I guess this has nothing to do with degrees of consanguinity, does it?”

“Consan-what-tery?” Bucky blurted.

“Consanguinity,” Dr. Cailleteau explained, “degrees of relationship.”

Bucky was confused. “I don't understand.”

Raifer pulled the knife from the ground near Tee Ray's boot and started to wrap it up again with the others in the canvas. “Cousins. Relatives. Aunts. Uncles.”

“Why don't you tell Bucky,” Dr. Cailleteau said to Tee Ray.

“Ain't nothin' to tell,” Tee Ray responded, walking over to Dr. Cailleteau and staring him straight in the eye with a cold expression. “Don't know what you're talkin' about, what with them big words and fancy ways.”

“You don't scare me, Tee Ray,” Dr. Cailleteau responded, moving a step forward. Dr. Cailleteau's huge stomach, protruding underneath the vast yards of his jacket, forced Tee Ray backward. “Now, why don't you tell Bucky what we all know. The Colonel Judge would never have let Cottoncrest fall to you.”

Bucky's eyes opened wide. He looked at Tee Ray with admiration. “You got a chance to get Cottoncrest? How?”

“Anyone can see, Doc,” Tee Ray said savagely, “that all that fat has gone to your brain. You're as crazy as Little Miss. It's clear that the Jew did it. He killed them. He cut Rebecca. He killed the Colonel Judge. He planned it all. Jews are like that. Scheming. Sneaky. Full of mysterious ways and secret languages. Well, he ain't gonna get away with it. Me and the others are going find him and bring him back so justice can be served.”

Tee Ray turned to Raifer. “That's right, ain't it Raifer. When I bring him in, you got to hold him, and he's got to be tried. And then hung. Or maybe the hanging just ought to come first.”

Upstairs, behind the curtain, Jenny heard it all. She thought she had solved all of their immediate troubles the other night. But now it was clear that other problems were looming. She had to find Marcus and Sally quickly. There wasn't much time.

Marcus trudged down the road cautiously. He had been careful to slip out the back of the big house. Jenny and Sally were right. If anyone saw him, it would be all over.

It had been a good life. Not a great life, but a good life. No money, of course. Slaves didn't get money before the war, and even now, what was a house servant to expect? They got what they needed, as long as they stayed where they were. Credit at the Cottoncrest sharecropper store; of course, they had to shop there during the permitted time—a half-hour before the store opened for the white sharecroppers and only if they used the back door and didn't go inside. They also got a small cabin with a tin roof over their heads and a real wooden floor. That was something he and Sally really liked, that wooden floor. Plenty of food; there were always leftovers they could have after Sally had finished serving Little Miss and the Colonel Judge in the early years. And after Miss Rebecca came, she even made sure that Sally took back some of the sweets as well, to share not only with Marcus but also with Cubit and Jordan and their families.

But now all of that was over. After these many years on Cottoncrest, their time here was ending. Jenny was right. They had to get ready now to move. Tonight. The Knights were going to ride, and that meant nothing but trouble. But that wasn't the worst. No. The worst was that thing with the usufruct and all.

He hadn't understood it at first, and he made Jenny explain it to him three times before it began to sink in. He hadn't ever paid any attention before to what the law said about when people die. Didn't want to. The law never helped him, and he knew all he ever wanted to know about death anyway. He had seen more than enough. Sometimes it still haunted his dreams. That's why he hated foggy days and smoky fields.

But Jenny knew a lot about what the law said about when people die. She said that whether someone like the Colonel Judge had children or not, the law controlled what happened to what he owned. If you had children, Louisiana forced you to leave at least half, and sometimes more, to them. But if you don't have any children—if you can't have children or if you had them and they have disappeared and gone forever— then it goes to your nearest blood relative. If your momma is alive, as the Colonel Judge's was, then one fourth goes to her and the rest to your brothers or sisters, or if there are none of these, to your brothers' and sisters' children, and if there are none of these, to your nearest cousin.

This was all too confusing. Jenny said it all made sense, but it seemed just a waste of time. Who, but a few white people, would ever have enough after they died to worry about leaving anything but debts? But it got even more confusing. Jenny had said that the Colonel Judge really didn't own all of Cottoncrest anyway. Now, that didn't seem right. The Colonel Judge had been the General's only surviving son. He ran the plantation. He made all the decisions.

But Jenny said that the Colonel Judge only owned half. The other half was owned by Little Miss, and even the Colonel Judge's half was subject to what sounded like something dirty. “Usufruct,” she said. Marcus made her pronounce it again and again before he got it right. Strange word. Meant something about Little Miss not only owning half of Cottoncrest on her own but her also having the right to use and live and get all the profits from the Colonel Judge's half as long as she was alive.

And now, whoever got the Colonel Judge's part was getting it subject to Little Miss's usufruct.

But with the Colonel Judge dead and with Little Miss not in any condition to make decisions about anything, who would take over the plantation? If Jenny wasn't there to feed and bathe and clothe Little Miss every day, Little Miss would forget to eat and would waste away, not that she wasn't already as thin and bony as Job's turkey.

Jenny had overheard young Mr. Bucky say something about Tee Ray having a chance to get Cottoncrest, and that would have been enough to raise the fear of the devil in anyone. But when Jenny heard Tee Ray telling the Sheriff that Tee Ray was going to look for the Jew Peddler man, well, that meant the Knights were going to ride. And if the Knights were going to ride, no one was safe.

That was why Marcus had to get to Little Jerusalem as soon as possible to warn Cooper and Rossy and Nimrod and Esau and the others before the Knights came riding down on them.

Jenny had told Marcus to get out to Little Jerusalem and then not to come back to Cottoncrest. Don't come back ever, she said. Even Sally had agreed, although there were a lot of tears. They would all meet up—Sally and Jenny and Marcus—at the spot they knew. Cubit and Jordan would get their kin out, and by tomorrow morning there would be no one left in the cabins near the big house.

The fact that Little Miss had to be left alone was terrible. But what they feared if they stayed was worse.

Marcus had walked almost three miles along the road that hugged the bank of the Mississippi River, although he was only a mile or so from Cottoncrest as the crow flies. The river twisted and turned and doubled back on itself in huge curves, some as long as a couple of miles, others longer. As Marcus passed the dirt road that cut west from the river through the cane fields, the road leading to the area where Tee Ray and the other sharecroppers' homes nestled against the woods, he moved quickly and cautiously. He didn't want to be caught by Tee Ray and the others. If they saw him out of the big house, there would be questions and trouble and not necessarily in that order.

The smoke from the burning cane fields drifted across the road, blocking Marcus's view even of his feet and causing him to choke. There were another two miles of fields along the river road still to go, for the Cottoncrest plantation ran for miles and miles along the river. Marcus slowed and felt his way, step by step, down the road. He bent over; the lower he got to the ground, the less dense the smoke was. He walked liked that, hunched over almost in half, for quite a ways.

He hated the smoke. He hated not seeing what was around him. It was like being back at Port Hudson after the Colonel Judge had left that day to lead what was the last charge before the surrender. Up on the bluff early in the morning, before daylight, they could see the outline of the yardarms of Farragut's steam frigates against the moonlit sky. As dawn began to break, they could make out the crews on the decks getting ready, the ships' cannons being elevated for shooting. They could see smaller boats being lowered on the far side of the ships, being loaded with men.

The Colonel Judge had sent Marcus down to the part of the Port Hudson bluff known as Fort Desperate, where Marcus was put to work with other slaves on repairing the earthworks. Every six feet they had sunk upright one stout timber. Jammed lengthwise against them, like the wall of a house, were ten tree trunks, one on top of the other. Row after row, one upright timber and then ten tree trunks. Behind the tree trunks they had piled the heavy clay earth of Port Hudson, five feet high and two feet thick. And whenever possible, they would offset one of the logs in the wall a bit so that they could dig a hole—a box twelve inches on a side—clear through the mound of clay.

Once the slaves had finished a section, most of the soldiers would stand behind the earthworks and fire down at the blue-bellies in the river. Others would kneel down in the mud, rest their rifles in the holes in the wall, and blast away at those below.

Every day for six weeks the positions were bombarded by the big cannons. You could stand behind the embankment on the bluff and see the billow of smoke from the ship's guns. The first one was always silent. Just a puff of smoke, and the ship would shutter, and little waves would move away from the boat in increasing circles. But no sound. Then you heard it. A rustle through the air, like a great bird. The rustle became a whistle, and then the boom of the cannon reached you, pounding the air so hard it hurt your ears and you could feel the sound in your stomach. Then the sickening crash of the cannonball and the crushing of timber earthworks and the crunching of bones and the screaming of those who had been hit.

And then blood and body parts and men dying all around you. Men dead and those who were soon to be dead and those in such agony only death would help them. And then you couldn't see anything, for you were keeping your head low, and the booms of the cannon and the crashing and the crushing was all around you, and then the smoke rose from the Union guns and from the Confederate guns, and all was noise and confusion and panic.

Marcus had hated it. Hated every minute of it. Hated it all the more because he had been there, waiting on the Colonel, serving him his meals in his tent, when Port Hudson had first been attacked. And what made it all the more hateful was that on the first day of what became a six-week siege, the Unionists who had led the attack on Port Hudson had been men like himself. The Corps d'Afrique, it was called. Organized by General Benjamin Butler in New Orleans to fight for their freedom, it was the first troop of slaves who were armed and permitted into battle. They had charged up the bluff on that first day of the siege, and they were beaten back viciously by those under the command of his own Augustine, not yet a colonel. His own master was resourceful and clever, and scores of bodies of black men in blue uniforms were left scattered on the mudflats below the Port Hudson bluffs. Bloated bodies that were a feast for the buzzards that coasted overhead in long, slow patterns. Bloodied bodies that were a warning to the rest of those on the Union boats who thought they could easily take this Confederate stronghold.