The Cottoncrest Curse (24 page)

But last night, the red spreading across her white blouse was not the wine he had spilled from her glass when he had accidentally bumped into her. In his dreams the red was blood. Endless streams of blood, staining her white blouse crimson, pouring over her dress and onto the floor, and spreading into thick pools that threatened to fill the room. Barrels of blood poured from her slit throat. And behind her, instead of her mother, there was a golem, a creature of mud and evil, shrieking with glee, “
Verem essen toiterhait un deiges lebedikerhait.
” Worms eat you up when dead, and worries eat you up alive.

At Jake's own elbow at the party was not his brother, Moshe, but another golem, who held a long knife in his wicked, oozing fingers. He thrust the blade into the girl's breast, screaming with horrific delight, “
Tsores tsezegen di hartz.
” Troubles cut the heart.

Again and again, the golem shoved the knife into her bosom as blood spurted in rivers. They were now swimming in blood. They were in a sea of blood, and it threatened to drown them, but the golem's laughter only increased, echoing insanely over and over.

Jake had awoken with a start, the cackling of the golem still resounding in his head.

After that he tried to stay awake, for when he closed his eyes for even a minute, the dream returned, and he would again be treading in blood to the golem's incessant mirth. It continued that way throughout the night, sleep enveloping him and the nightmare awakening him.

He couldn't wait for dawn. The only thing to get it off his mind was to start walking. Keep heading south, Marcus had said, for those in Lamou would find you before you found them.

Jake looked up at the moon through the canopy of red bark oaks and hickory and hanging moss and gnarled vines that entwined their way ever higher. The North Star was fading as dawn approached.

It was tough to gauge distances here. He knew how long it took on the road, but now there was no road and no path.

Lamou couldn't be that much farther. At least, that was what he hoped.

The children had woken before dawn and silently slipped out the door. They knew their tasks.

The older ones went to the lean-to shed, retrieved the scythes, sharpened them on the whetstones, and headed out into the fields to start cutting the cane. The younger ones fetched the water and left the buckets outside the back door for their mother. They brought the wood for the stove from the chopped and split pieces on the woodpile. Then they followed their older siblings out to the fields. Their task was to stack the cane that their brothers and sisters sliced down so that it all could be loaded onto wagons and taken to the Cottoncrest mill to be processed.

All of them worked with the utmost caution while near their house. The oldest wasn't yet fourteen. They didn't dare wake their father. They had seen the bruises on their mother's face, and although she had told them she had just been careless and had slipped and fallen, they knew better. They could see the way she cowered when their father approached. They knew the signs when their mother fell silent whenever their father was in the house. They did not want to anger him and feel his wrath.

The sky had started to brighten when Tee Ray got out of bed and observed, to his satisfaction, that the children had already left. They were good kids, he thought. This would be last season they would ever have to cut cane. This would be the last season they would have to fetch wood. From now on someone else would do it for them. From now on they would be able to go to school, to dress in fine clothes, to live in a house that wasn't tiny, like this cabin, but was magnificent in all its splendor. It was what all of them deserved.

Tee Ray stretched, yawned loudly, and then pulled on his trousers and boots. The anger from the night before was gone. He felt good. He knew exactly what he had to do today.

Mona had heard the children leave but had not dared move in the bed. She had felt Tee Ray get up and pretended to be asleep. Now that he was moving about the cabin, she still kept her eyes closed and tried to maintain the slow and steady breathing of one still deep in slumber.

Tee Ray opened the door to walk to the woodpile and was pleased to see the children had already brought the wood and water. He stoked up the stove and started to prepare coffee, dropping two large scoops of inexpensive chicory blend into the black porcelain pot. They couldn't afford pure coffee now, but soon they would, and he swore to himself they would never drink the chicory blend again.

The aroma filled the small cabin, and Tee Ray went to the side of the bed and softly shook Mona's shoulders. She continued to pretend to be sleeping.

“Wake up, ol' girl,” Tee Ray said.

Mona was surprised at the tone in his voice. It was actually gentle.

“Come on, Mona, the coffee'll be ready soon, and I've got to head down to Lamou to catch the Jew Peddler, but when I do, all our troubles'll be over. You'll be able to dress a fine lady. You'll be able to sleep until noon if you want. But we got to get movin' now. The children are already out in the fields, and they'll be comin' back for breakfast before you know it, hungry as a black bear comin' out of hibernatin'.

Mona was amazed. All the anger was gone. He was back to his old self. He was the Tee Ray she had fallen in love with.

She rolled over and pushed the hair out of her eyes, ignoring the bruises and the pain. “You promise?”

“The young ones hungry? No need to promise. You know it to be true.”

Mona smiled, “Go on, you. I know that. I mean dressin' like a fine lady and sleepin' 'til noon if I want.”

“No need to promise that either. It's as good as done. All I gotta do is give that Jew to Raifer, dead of course, and that'll be it. The Jew killed the Colonel Judge and his wife, and ain't no nigger gonna get Cotton-crest.”

“But she didn't look—” Mona stopped. Tee Ray's eyes had retreated into narrow slits. He was clenching his teeth. This was not a good sign. She had said the wrong thing.

“I told you, Mona, how people
look
ain't nothin'. It's what people
is
— that's the thing. She was mulatto through and through. An octoroon. One of her great-grandparents was black. She was a nigger no matter how white she looked. Why do you think the Colonel Judge never had her family down? Why do you think they came up with that story about how she was an ‘orphan'? Why do you think some high yellow gal goes and gets some gimpy ol' gray-haired cuss to marry her? She wants to escape and pass for white. That's why. And she could smell his money. If he died and had changed his will and left Cottoncrest to her, why then…”

Mona took his hand and softly stroked it. “It's all right, Tee Ray. She didn't get Cottoncrest. I still don't know how you know these things, but I'm so proud of you.” If she continued to compliment him, his anger might go away.

“The Knights, Mona, the Knights gotta keep together. As I've told you, I've known for a year. Heard it from a Knight who was passing through on a riverboat who sought me out, knowin' I was head of the Knights here. Knowin' stuff is what gives you power, you see, and I was saving that information for just the right moment.”

“You're lucky, then, that you didn't have to confront the Colonel Judge and all about that. Now that the Jew killed the both of them, can't be no one knows the truth but you and me.”

Tee Ray withdrew his hands from her grasp and walked over to the stove to pour the coffee. “The truth. You and me. You're right, Mona. Sometimes it's better that the truth be hidden. Just thank Jesus they didn't have no children.”

“That ol' man!” Mona giggled. “Can you imagine the two of them spendin' a night of horizontal refreshment?”

Tee Ray walked over to the bed with the coffee.

Mona pulled back the covers. “You sure you don't have time for some horizontal refreshment yourself? We got time if you're quick, and you're always quick.”

For the first time in weeks in the house, Tee Ray's unshaven face crinkled into a smile. He put the coffee down on the table. “If they had had a child, then will or no will, that would have been it. The child would have inherited Cottoncrest. Now there's no one but us.”

Tee Ray kicked off his boots and shucked his pants. Climbing back into bed, he reached for her. “Mona, let's celebrate.”

The sun was clearing the horizon and the early-morning light cast long shadows as Dr. Cailleteau hitched up his horse to the buggy. He moved slowly. His joints were stiff, and the cold weather made them ache. He grunted as he cinched the horse into the fittings. When he was younger, he was full of muscle and vigor. But the muscle had turned to fat, and the fat had grown to enormous proportions. He now found himself encased in a body that sometimes even he hardly recognized.

The Colonel Judge had been the last of his old friends, and although the Colonel Judge had grown more distant in the past year, there was something about old friendships that persisted even during the hardest of times. Everyone else in town seemed younger and more energetic but less educated and less interesting.

Raifer rode up on his horse. “You about ready, Doc?”

Dr. Cailleteau climbed up onto the buggy, its wooden joints creaking loudly in sympathy with his own. Dr. Cailleteau flicked the reins, and the horse started to walk slowly down the road. Raifer rode high in his saddle next to the buggy.

They paused in front of Bucky's tiny house. Bucky was waiting for them, sitting on the porch. His horse was saddled and was pawing the ground, its nostrils surrounded by white vapor every time it exhaled in the cold air. Seeing Raifer's impatient look, Bucky swung onto his horse and followed them.

The center of the town was still quiet except for a bear of a man, his blond hair sticking out of his hat, opening the barn door to the blacksmith shop.

“Mornin', Jimmy Joe,” Bucky called out. “You goin' down to Lamou with Tee Ray and Forrest?” Before Jimmy Joe even had a chance to answer, Bucky added proudly, “You know, I'm goin' down myself as the official presence. Gonna arrest that Jew. Gonna be a grand sight bringing that Jew back, all tied up and ready to face justice.”

Jimmy Joe only grunted noncommittally. He threw open the barn door and started to unlatch the long shutters on the wall. Jimmy Joe didn't care about the cold. Once he had the fire lit, it would be hot enough. He had several horseshoes to make today. He wasn't going anyplace where Tee Ray could try to give him commands. Tee Ray was getting too high and mighty. The Colonel Judge's death had done that. Made Tee Ray think he was better than the rest of them.

Bucky pretended to ignore Jimmy Joe's lack of response. He dug the rowels of his spurs gently against his horse's flanks, and the horse broke into a trot as it hurried to pull alongside Raifer and Dr. Cailleteau, who had not stopped as they passed Jimmy Joe's blacksmith shop.

Bucky felt good. Raifer had put him in charge of the Lamou trip, one that was certain to lead to the arrest of the Jew Peddler. “You can come on later and catch up to us if you want,” Bucky yelled cheerily over his shoulder. Jimmy Joe ignored him.

“Hold it down!” Raifer snapped, as Bucky slowed his horse and joined the small procession. “You don't have to wake up the whole town.”

Dr. Cailleteau turned to Raifer. “Trying to give that boy instructions on how to behave and expecting him to follow them is like shoveling flies across a barnyard.”

Bucky bristled. “That's not fair, Doc. Besides, Raifer here tol' me to be ready to go to Cottoncrest with you and then to go on to Lamou, and you see, I was ready when you got to my place. All prepared in every way. Got my gun here. Got my rifle. Got my handcuffs and my rope. I'm ready for whatever happens.”

Bucky noticed, for the first time, that the back of Dr. Cailleteau's buggy was filled with more than his black medical bag. “What you got there?” he inquired.

Dr. Cailleteau sighed with exasperation, both at Bucky's ill- mannered insistence and at his grammar. “I do not ‘got' anything.”

“Sure you do. I see what-all you got there in the wagon—just don't know what it is.”

“I
have
everything I need, Bucky. A blanket and shawl for Little Miss. Laudanum, if she needs it, in case she gets too upset by what's happening. Moss bedding for her to lie on for our trip back into town if we need to bring her back. Now, Bucky, you have all the answers you should need until we get to Cottoncrest.”

They proceeded along in silence for almost an hour. Finally, around one of the vast curves of the Mississippi River, gleaming a silvery brown in the early-morning rays, they could see the top of the big house at Cottoncrest. They would be there in another thirty minutes or so.

Bucky was several hundred yards ahead of them. When he was out of earshot, Raifer rode up close to Dr. Cailleteau's buggy. “I'm going to leave you with Little Miss. I'll send Bucky on to Tee Ray's cabin to see if he can catch up with him before Tee Ray takes off. Can't have him stirring up any more trouble than necessary.”

Raifer urged his horse into a gallop and caught up with Bucky. Raifer made Bucky wait until Dr. Cailleteau's buggy drew alongside, and then the three of them continued on together.

“Bucky, you've got to let Dr. Cailleteau be the first there. If Little Miss is really alone, if the darkies have really abandoned Cottoncrest, I don't know what mood she'll be in. The Doc has to be the one she sees first. Even if she doesn't recognize him, he knows how to handle her.”

“It's a shame, Raifer,” Dr. Cailleteau said. “If she is aware enough to realize that the darkies have left, then she'll know enough to be heart-broken, for she can't live at Cottoncrest alone, and that's been her home for more than fifty years. It's like her own child, she loves it that much. You know, she's lost the General, she's lost her daughter, she's lost all her sons, and now Cottoncrest may be losing her. But if the coloreds really have left Cottoncrest, there's nothing else to do but bring her back to Parteblanc and get someone to look after her. Then, dammit, I'll have to train someone.”