The Cottoncrest Curse (37 page)

“‘Made the mistake of telling Daddy about it one day. Do you know what he did? Went over to Ganderson's house and told him to stop it. My Daddy told Ganderson that he could take care of his own family without the help of anyone.'

“‘Without the help of anyone,' I repeated as I wrote that down in my notebook. ‘So Ganderson stopped?' I asked.

“‘No. It kind of became our secret. As I got older, the handshake I received contained four bits, then it contained a dollar bill. A real dollar bill. My Daddy sometimes had to work three days or more for that, and I got it only for a handshake.

“‘Do you know what found money does to you? Makes you lazy. Makes you fail to appreciate hard work. Makes you forget how diffi-cult earning money can be. Also makes you think like you deserve it for doing nothing.

“‘It was when I turned sixteen that it ended.'

“‘Why?' I asked.

“‘My Daddy was reduced to taking odd jobs. No better than nigger work. I had dropped out of school years before. I pretended to work, but I was living off the money that Ganderson slipped me. Gave half of it to my Daddy—my mother was dead by then—letting him think I was earning it across the river. But I was really spending it like I owned the world. Spent the week drinking and whoring in Baton Rouge. Came back on the weekend, saw Ganderson, and then gave half of what I got to Daddy and saved the other half for my trip out on Monday. Enough to last the rest of that week, and then it would start again.

“‘I got to the point where I think my Daddy was embarrassed to talk to me. We didn't talk much, the older and the bigger I got, and when he did talk, it was about niggers and Jews and Papists and Tee Ray Brady. He kind of lumped them all together.

“‘The Friday of the week I turned sixteen, I showed up at Gander-son's, expecting the usual handshake. What did he do? He handed me one hundred dollars. That was more money than I had ever seen. My Daddy, I don't think, ever saw that much in his lifetime. I know he never had that much, ever.

“‘Did I thank Ganderson? Did I say anything? No. I just took it, like it was my right. My Daddy wasn't home. I left twenty on the table. That would take care of him for a long time.

“‘As for me, I took the ferry to Baton Rouge and from there got on a train to New York. Lived like a king. And when the money ran out, I joined the army. It was just a few weeks before the First World War broke out.

“‘Didn't make it back in time to see my Daddy before he died. Didn't write him. He couldn't read anyway.

“‘Daddy died hating Jews and niggers and the high and mighty on plantations and all. And Ganderson. That's why, when I got back, I spit on Ganderson's grave.'

“And then, as Matthews finished off his glass of bourbon and poured himself a fourth one, he said something I'll always remember. ‘Crazy old Ganderson. Thought he was trying to help me. But all he did by giving me money was make me ashamed of my Daddy. Can you imagine that? Ashamed of your own father.' ”

1893

The railway station was crowded. On the engine a worker was stoking up the coal-fed fire. As a head of steam was being built up, sparks drifted down in the early morning, a light snowfall of red and black ashes.

Tee Ray, badge pinned on his coat, rifle at his side, scanned the swarm. Bucky had described the peddler's outfit. Big black hat with a broad brim. Long black coat.

If the Jew were here, Tee Ray had no doubt he would find him. Despite the horde of people, the Jew would stand out.

Tee Ray climbed upon the big wooden luggage cart, its wheels chest high. From here his view would be unobstructed.

The front cars were for whites. That's where the Jew would go. That's where any white man would go. Those were the cars to watch. Scores of women, children, and men boarded. First-class passengers. Others in less-fancy apparel. They stood their turn in line.

Porters loaded luggage, hauling it through the entry doors between the cars or grunting as they lifted heavy bags onto boxcars.

Children let loose high-pitched yells as steam hissed and descended in clouds onto the platform.

The conductor was blowing his whistle. Last call.

The remaining passengers pushed forward on the platform, calling out over their shoulders to their families a final good-bye as they climbed up the steep steps into the entranceways between the cars.

The white passengers were all aboard. There was no sign of the Jew.

Tee Ray looked in disgust as the last of the Negroes moved onto the train. Slow. No hurry. As if they had all the time in the world.

Tee Ray climbed down from the luggage cart, rifle in hand. There was no need to wait here all day. He would come back an hour before the afternoon train.

At the far end of the platform, one last pair of Negroes was getting on. A young woman and an older one. The younger one in a dress and a brightly covered tignon was adjusting the thin cloak over her shoulders. She then helped the older one up the stairs into the Jim Crow car. The old lady wore a shawl over her blouse; it draped down almost to her skirt. Walking with a cane in one hand, she carried a large black bundle under her other arm. The old lady had an unusual, misshapen black bonnet covered with wilted green leaves pulled low over her face. Tee Ray thought that the old lady was probably as ugly as her bonnet.

Tee Ray paused one more moment to look closely at the old lady. No, he was sure. The older one was not Sally. And no sign of Marcus. Sally would not travel without Marcus.

The younger one, though, looked familiar.

The door closed.

The train started to pull out.

Tee Ray realized it was Jenny, her long hair hidden beneath the tignon.

As the train moved slowly down the tracks, gathering up speed as it left the station, Tee Ray ran, clasping the rifle tightly. He hoped that the small Derringer he had stuck in his belt, the one the Orleans Parish Sheriff had lent him, the one he had not told Bucky about, wouldn't slip out.

As the train cleared the station, Tee Ray was holding onto a handle, pounding on a door with his rifle as the tracks rushed by below his feet.

The conductor, spotting the badge on this wild man's coat, opened it.

Tee Ray entered the train.

Outside the train's windows to their left, the marsh that curved around the northwestern edge of New Orleans stretched out to the horizon, and to their right was a vast expanse of water. The tracks, atop miles upon miles of wooden pilings, skirted along the edge of Lake Pontchartrain. Then the rails bore north, nestling the narrow spit of land that ran through woody swamps.

The engine pulled six passenger cars followed by more than a dozen boxcars, several flatbeds, and a caboose. The conductor was working his way down the train, collecting tickets, starting with the first-class cars.

Back in the two Jim Crow cars, right before the boxcars, a number of passengers had unpacked their breakfasts. They had spread on their laps the old newspapers in which they had wrapped a biscuit or a scrap of ham or a piece of French bread and ate slowly, savoring the taste. They had to make the food last the entire trip. It was all they could do to afford the ticket. There was almost no money left to purchase the expensive items at the stations at the numerous stops along the way to Chicago.

Near the back row of the last Jim Crow car, Jake, dressed in Jenny's spare blouse and skirt, sat demurely next to the window. “Is it still straight?”

Jenny fiddled with the silver hairpins that held the broad felt brim of Jake's hat in a curled, decorative edge on one side and the thick, drooping greenery that hid the edges of the folded brim on the other. With the strange shape and the wilted leaves, it was unsightly, but, pulled down enough, it helped to hide Jake's face and stubbly beard.

It was the beard, not the color of Jake's skin, that was the problem. If passengers, no matter how white they looked, boarded the Jim Crow cars, no one looked twice. They were simply mulattoes who, unlike Homer Plessy, knew their place.

The front door of the car opened. The conductor entered, asking for tickets. He folded each into three parts and punched a hole through the thick paper. One part he put in the pocket of his coat, one part he gave back to the passenger, and one part he put into the metal holder that stuck up on the back of each seat.

Jake pulled the folded blanket that he hoped others would mistake for a poor woman's shawl more tightly around his neck and raised its frayed edges high on his cheeks.

Jenny glanced over. Jake's stubble of a mustache was clearly visible.

The conductor was still taking tickets at the front of the car. Before he could look up and observe them, Jenny pulled out a kerchief and pretended to wipe Jake's nose, helping an old lady suffering from an October cold. Jake took the kerchief and, bending forward in his seat and leaning on the stout branch he had picked up outside the cemetery to use as a lame old lady's cane, continued to wipe his face.

The conductor finally came to their seat. Jenny, as obsequious as she could be, handed over the tickets they had bought with Zig's money. The conductor, without giving these two women any thought at all, punched the tickets. There was no point in spending any energy on coloreds or spending any more time than necessary in the Jim Crow cars.

Finishing with his task, the conductor headed back toward the front of the train.

Jenny sighed with relief.

Jake put down the kerchief, but he kept his face to the window. Jake did not want to take any chances, even though Jenny had assured him that no one in this Jim Crow car would say anything, no matter how strange a bearded lady might appear to them. They were not about to complain to—or seek help from—a white conductor.

It was curious, he thought. All his life, when he had sought protection, he had found it, and women always seemed to be involved. He had found safety by hiding beneath the skirts of women leaving Russia. Jeanne Marie had helped him escape from Lamou. Now he was seeking to safely leave Louisiana by hiding, with the help of a woman, in the skirt of a woman.

Jenny leaned over and said, just loud enough so that Jake could hear her over the rumble of the wheels, the creaking of the wooden passenger car, and the metallic groans of the couplings of the train. “Taking a final look at Louisiana? I think it will be the last time either of us see this state.”

In the front of the car the door opened. A murmur rose from the passengers.

Mothers hugged their children and shushed for them to be quiet. Old men, former slaves all, quickly cast their eyes down to the floor; they didn't want to be mistaken for being uppity. Strong young men turned and looked out the windows, trying to avoid the glare of the angry white man who had just entered, a lawman's badge prominently pinned on his coat.

Jake kept his face turned against the window, the back of his head facing into the car. He wondered whether he had conquered all his fears pertaining to trains. The fear of the Cossacks discovering him on the train in Russia. The fear as he hid beneath the women's skirts, hearing the tread of boots passing by, separated from him only by an opaque veil of petticoats and linen.

But that was then. This was now. But the fear was still there. He didn't turn.

The intruder was looking for him, no doubt, and the dress wouldn't hide his stubbly beard and mustache, and he couldn't pull the blanket up at this point without being noticed.

Looking at the man's reflection in the window, Jake hoped that the intruder was scanning faces and bodies, not windows.

If Jake could see the man, the man could see him. Floating over the images of the moss-laden cypress trees and palmetto-filled marsh that rushed by the window outside hovered the ghostly, transparent figure of Tee Ray holding a rifle.

Jake immediately pressed his face as close as he could to the window so that his hat would hide his features and his own reflection would not be seen.

Tee Ray spotted Jenny and strode forward, pointing a rifle at her. “Nigger, you ain't leavin' Louisiana. You're under arrest. I know you gotta know something about the Jew. You don't do as I say, I'm gonna shoot you dead right here.”

“Get up, nigger!” Tee Ray commanded Jenny, approaching her, rifle held level at his waist, its barrel pointing directly at her chest. Tee Ray ignored the woman in the seat next to Jenny, obviously so terrified of him that she wouldn't turn around. That was as it should be. Let them all keep to themselves.

Jake remained motionless, his face frozen against the window. He forced himself to be still. There was nothing he could do at this moment. He had to wait, as difficult as that was.

“The rest of you,” Tee Ray called out as he moved through the car, “stay seated.”

The passengers did as they were told. The white man had a badge and a gun. He was angry and upset. None of them moved. They awaited his instructions.

Tee Ray prodded Jenny with the barrel of his rifle. “You heard me, nigger. Up!”

Jenny slowly rose to her feet.

Jake still did not remove his face from the cold window. He could not turn around without endangering both Jenny and himself.

Tee Ray pointed to the rear door of the carriage. Jenny walked ahead of him, his rifle in her back. There was only one more row of seats between the rear door and the spot where Jenny had been seated.

“Now,” Tee Ray called out loudly so everyone could hear him, “this is law business. You ain't seen nothin', and you ain't gonna say nothin'.”

Jake heard the rustle of Jenny's dress and the scuffling of Tee Ray's boots as they moved toward the back of the car. Now it was time to put an end to his fears. Now was the time to act, while Tee Ray's back was to him.

Jenny reached the rear door.

“Open it!” Tee Ray commanded.

At the same moment that Jenny complied, pulling the door open and filling the compartment with the loud rush of wind and the roaring clatter of the wheels on the track as the train speeded through the woody marsh, Tee Ray felt a sharp object in his lower back and heard a man's voice say firmly, “Drop the rifle, or I'll slice your spinal cord in half. You'll be crippled for life.”