The Cottoncrest Curse (17 page)

Of course, to fear Tee Ray didn't mean that you had to respect him. No one respected Tee Ray, except for the Knights. Not even Tee Ray's own family respected him, except Tee Ray's pleasant fool of a wife and his motley run of children.

No respect but plenty of fear. That's why, when Tee Ray and the Knights rode tonight, they would terrorize the countryside. And what would the upright citizens of the parish do? Nothing.

Tee Ray and Bucky's theory made sense, but it was a theory that Dr. Cailleteau realized Raifer had reached first and which Bucky, in his own slow way, had picked up. Cailleteau's old friend, right-handed Augustine Chastaine, couldn't have shot himself in the left temple, and he loved Rebecca so much, how could he harm her? Someone must have done them both in. And if someone did them in, then that someone would have to be found.

So, Raifer would let the Knights ride. He didn't have any good excuse not to. Once Tee Ray and Bucky had started talking about the peddler, Raifer couldn't very well not pursue it. A peddler with a knife was as good a place to start as anywhere. Raifer and Bucky certainly couldn't scour all of Petit Rouge Parish looking for the peddler.

All the argument and bobbery to the contrary, Tee Ray and the Knights could probably find the peddler faster than anyone, and whatever harm was done would have to be dealt with later.

Raifer had warned Tee Ray to do what he had to do but not to hurt anyone. Dr. Cailleteau doubted Tee Ray and the Knights would comply. And even if they did, all Raifer had said was don't harm anyone—he hadn't said don't harm anything. Tee Ray and the Knights would do some damage tonight, that was for sure.

Dr. Cailleteau looked up at the sky. The thunderstorms were curving away; they wouldn't reach Cottoncrest or Parteblanc, but the warmth in the air was gone, and a damp coolness descended.

The Louisiana weather in October could turn in a few hours. Dr. Cailleteau flicked the whip on his horse's haunches, and the creature picked up its pace. Dr. Cailleteau wanted to get back to his house and light a fire before it got too chilly. He'd crush some mint in a glass and add some sugar and bourbon and loosen his vest and pull off his shoes.

As his horse turned the bend in the road, Dr. François Cailleteau took one last look over his shoulder at Cottoncrest, whose white columns were silhouetted against the dark sky. He and Augustine Chastaine used to sit during the long winter evening hours in front of a fire in Cottoncrest's book-lined study, picking up a volume in Greek or Latin and reading to each other or talking in French, reminiscing about the past and commiserating about the present. But the one thing they never talked about was the war. That was too bitter a subject for both of them, and what could they possibly say to each other that would give solace?

Merely to have returned home alive was sometimes hell enough. It certainly had been that for Augustine Chastaine.

He hit her in the head with the back of his hand. The blow was so strong it knocked her down to the floor of the small cabin.

She didn't whimper. She didn't cry. That would only make it worse. She wiped the blood from her split lip with the cuff of her blouse and started to get back up.

Just as she was almost erect, holding onto the mantel over the fire-place for support, he came at her again, swinging his big clenched fist toward her face.

She shut her eyes and waited for the blow. It caught her in the cheek, and she collapsed from the pain.

She lay there on the hard, rough floor, trying to ignore the stinging ache in her jaw and the ringing in her ears. She tried to remain motionless. Unresisting. Still. If she didn't fight back, if she didn't protest, if she did nothing, he would eventually stop.

The blood ran from the cut on her lip. She dared not raise her hand now to stem the flow. She could feel its warmth running down her chin and its salty taste in her mouth.

Tee Ray Brady took the knife she had handed him so proudly, only moments before, and, kneeling down, shook it in front of her face.

“Open your eyes! Open them, Mona, or I swear I'll pluck one out right now with this here Jew knife.

Mona Brady slowly opened her eyes and tried to show no emotion. No fright at the deadly blade that Tee Ray was flashing back and forth in the air, inches from her nose and cheek and forehead. No fear at the anger that contorted his face. No flinching at the little specks of spit that coursed from his lips and dampened her face as he yelled.

Tee Ray was working himself up, his face turning red, as he hit her again. “Buy all the thread and needles you want from that Jew Peddler. Did I ever stop you? Did I ever say not to? No. But buy a knife from him? A knife as sharp as this? A knife you can't pay for all at once but got to have him come back and back again to collect on, only to sell you other
things?
Things you don't want and don't need. Things that don't bring nothing with them but trouble? You are as stupid as the day is long, woman! Got no more sense than a stalk of cane. Or a nigger. Why don't you leave the thinking to me? Women should open their legs and shut their mouths. A woman trying to think is worse than a nigger trying to act all uppity. Nothing but trouble, and you are trouble! Stupid and trouble. Just a piece of filthy manure. That's all you ever have been and that's all you ever will be!”

Tee Ray, his face now contorted in anger, bent over her prone body on the floor and, hitting her once more, screamed so loudly that her ears hurt. “A JEW KNIFE! IN MY HOUSE!!!”

She did not move. She remained limp. She tried not to blink. She tried not to think about her bloody lip and how it would swell up, or about her throbbing cheek and how it would show the dark bruise for weeks and how painful it would be to eat, or about her now-aching ribs, where his latest blow had landed. She let him rant and concentrated on his words, trying to understand his anger, trying to figure out how not to make him angry again.

A Jew knife? A Jew peddler? That's what Tee Ray had said. Who could know that Mr. Gold was a Jew? Jake Gold? That's a good, short American name. Didn't Jews have names that ended in things like
stein
or
berg,
like those rich New Orleans Jews Tee Ray was always talking about? Like Rothstein or Goldberg.

And Mr. Gold didn't have a long curved nose and a hunched back and a black skullcap that Tee Ray said all Jews had. Mr. Gold was nice looking—handsome in fact—with his short black hair and cheerful smile and clever hands that could thread a needle quickly and could sew a stitch as straight as the ones on a store-bought dress.

How was she to know he was a Jew? Of course, if she had known, she wouldn't have dealt with him at all.

Tee Ray had never said anything before. Tee Ray had known for years that Mr. Gold had come by the house whenever he was in the area. Tee Ray had never complained before when she bought needles and thread and fabric from Mr. Gold. His prices were fair, and he was nice to talk to. If Tee Ray had even given her any indication the peddler was a Jew, she would have shooed him away. But Tee Ray had said nothing until now.

Why was it, when he had come home for his horse and said he was going to ride with the Knights, that he got so angry? She had been saving the peddler's knife to give to Tee Ray as a special gift. Christmas was still two months away, and the chance of getting something unusual and useful for Tee Ray was difficult, even if they had the money to buy something. The Cottoncrest plantation commissary had only necessaries, and anything she bought there had to be put on the credit tab, which only reduced their crop share at the end of the year, and besides, Tee Ray did most of the buying there. Where else was she going to get something for him? He hardly ever allowed her to go to Parteblanc, where there was a dry goods store.

Mona had thought she had been doing the right thing, negotiating with Mr. Gold to pay for the knife over time through trade. She had done it all on her own. It had made her proud. Here was something she could do independently, without Tee Ray's help.

She had thought he would be happy that she had done this for him. She wanted to make him happy. She always tried to make him happy in every way she could think of. If he was happy, then he wasn't angry. And if he wasn't angry, he wouldn't beat her.

Mona had been hiding the knife, saving it for a Christmas present, but since the Knights hadn't ridden in several years, she knew today had to be an important time. You ought to give gifts when it's important to give them. That's what Mother Josie, Tee Ray's ma, used to say. “Give them,” Mother Josie had said, “when people will appreciate them, because you never know when times will change or when people will change. People,” she had said, “sometimes change all too quickly.”

Mother Josie had been right. Maybe that was because she had seen people change too quickly toward her. Maybe it was because she knew that her son could change quickly himself, one minute sunny and bright as the early morning and the next moment furious as a thunderstorm. Maybe all these quick changes ran in the blood of Mother Josie's family.

Give gifts when people will appreciate them most. Mona Brady had been sure that Mother Josie was right. That's why Mona had thought Tee Ray would appreciate the knife, when he was excited about riding with the Knights, when the knife could be useful to him.

So, after Tee Ray had saddled the horse, when he had come inside to get his gun, when she could see he was happy and excited, she had proudly unwrapped the knife from the scrap of fabric in which she had hidden it. She had handed the gleaming knife to him and told him, with a smile on her face, that she had gotten it specially just for him, for Christmas, from Mr. Gold all on her own, without spending any of his credit at the Cottoncrest commissary. She had told him, thinking that it would make him happy, that this was his Christmas present but that she was giving the knife to him now because she was sure he would find a good use for it tonight, when the Knights rode, because it was so sharp.

And that's when he hit her.

Mona stayed motionless on the floor even after Tee Ray, still yelling, knife in hand, rose up and went to the cabin door.

Tee Ray held the knife and thought about what to do. It was exactly like the ones he and Bucky had found in the trunk in the Cottoncrest barn. Bucky was coming to ride with the Knights. Bucky would recognize it. Bucky would talk. Couldn't keep his mouth shut if he wanted to.

Tee Ray went outside, leaving Mona lying on the floor. He had thought about getting his other pistol from the peg it hung on above the mantel, but the knife was more important. He crossed over the scraggly yard to the outhouse and opened the door. He used the point of the knife to pry into the wood; it cut deeply with little effort. It was a fine knife. It was a damn shame, but there was nothing to be done.

Tee Ray dropped the knife into the pit below, where it sank with a gurgle in the thick slosh of urine and feces.

The late-afternoon sun setting in the west did not give much illumination to Jenny's tiny third-floor room, with its low ceiling and small window facing south. Jenny did not dare light a candle. Jenny's little window on the topmost floor of Cottoncrest could be seen for miles, and a candle would draw attention. She didn't need any attention. There would be enough attention tomorrow, when they found her and the others gone.

Jenny was trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, even though only she and Little Miss were in the house. The Sheriff had left a while ago, and Dr. Cailleteau had departed even earlier. Little Miss had been sleeping soundly, snoring, when Jenny had crept upstairs.

Jenny wrapped up the few belongings she planned to take, looking sadly at all the rest she had to leave behind. Her good dress? There was no room for that. Her Sunday church hat? No room. A second pair of shoes that Miss Rebecca had given her? The worn kid gloves with only a tiny hole in the left thumb that Miss Rebecca was going to discard until Jenny asked politely for them? The French books from the downstairs library that Miss Rebecca and the Colonel Judge let her read? No room for any of these.

Jenny pulled out her long, stiletto hairpins, the silver ones Rebecca had given her, and tied her hair back with a tignon. She looked one last time at the small quarters that had been her home for the past few years. Her high bed, its cypress frame holding a real moss-filled mattress, was the finest available. The cypress dresser with four deep drawers. The tiny mirror that Miss Rebecca had given her. The box with six spermaceti candles and the glass hurricane lantern into which they fit. These would be the things she would remember.

But these things had to be abandoned. Her life, Jenny realized, was one long road of abandonment, but then she never had expected anything else. Her father had abandoned her mother, but her mother had expected it and loved him nevertheless, even though he never again came to her New Orleans house on Rampart Street, even though he never came to see his daughter or even inquire about her.

Jenny's mother was not bitter about that, and her mother had told Jenny not to be bitter either. That's just the way things were. Planters' sons were like that. It had been like that since the days of the Quadroon Balls. Even during the war, a white boy could fall in love with a high yellow woman.

And it was love, true love, Jenny's mother had insisted, even though it could not last. Even though the planter's son had worn a Confederate uniform.

When New Orleans had been captured by Farragut and the planter's son was unable to escape the city, Jenny's mother had hidden her lover in the house on Rampart Street until the war was over.

Yet, after all that Jenny's mother had done for him, despite the fact that she loved him more than anything, when the war was over the planter's son left the house on Rampart Street to return home to Opelousas to marry some blonde-haired white girl.

Jenny's mother had not complained. The planter's son had left her the house, had signed it over to her. That was a sign, said Jenny's mother, of true love, even though he had abandoned Jenny's mother while she was pregnant. The planter's son also had left her some money. It was enough money for Jenny's mother to start a small business, a school for young Negro girls to teach them to read the French they spoke, to teach them to read En glish as well, to prepare them for the freedom that they now had.