The Tangled Bridge (23 page)

Patrice put her fingers to her temples. They were at the near corner of the rail yard, close to a main road that was as nameless to Patrice as any of them. (On which one of them did their mother live?)

In the absence of direction from Patrice, the boys were now shouting ideas for how to proceed.

“We should hole up in one of these rail cars—”

“Let's walk a spell—”

“—til first light, then we can—”

“I'll be right back…”

Patrice snapped out of her reverie. “What? Wait!”

Trigger was already striding away from the Ford but he stopped dead at Patrice's command.

She said, “We must stay together at all times. All four of us.”

“I gotta go,” Marie-Rose said.

“Me too,” Gil said.

And Patrice did as well. She sighed, looking around. The rail yard was quiet.

“Alright, but we stay within earshot of one another.”

The boys headed for a nearby tree and Patrice took Marie-Rose to a stack of crates, but as they approached, they heard a cough. Patrice paused, listening.

“Who's—” Marie-Rose started to say, but Patrice placed a hand over her mouth and pulled her back.

“Who was back there?” Marie-Rose whispered when they were walking back to the Ford.

“A vagrant, I think.”

“I still gotta go!”

“You wanna go with a vagrant standing there watching?”

Marie-Rose was quiet for a moment, and Patrice said, “You'll have to go behind the tree.”

“With the boys standin there?”

“Better them than a vagrant.”

“What's a vagrant?”

“Someone in front of whom you ought not pee.”

They walked over to the tree while the boys sat whistling and shuffling by the Ford. Marie-Rose got going on her business, but for all that talk Patrice couldn't bring herself to do so as well. She heard other sounds—human sounds—in other corners of the rail yard. Perhaps it wasn't as deserted as it had seemed. She watched the shadows while Rosie was occupied. She saw that someone had carved something on the tree trunk. Hard to see in the darkness, but it looked like a drawing of a train. After all, they were standing in a rail yard.

From somewhere in the city, a bell tolled once.

“That for church?” Rosie asked.

“No, I think it's just chiming the hour. It must be one in the morning.”

And suddenly it all seemed so stark. They needed to figure out a way to hide from their mother. Truly hide. But for now, they needed food and a place to sleep. None of these things seemed possible. She had to think of something to do next. Anything!

Rosie finished and Patrice took her by the hand and led her back to the Ford.

“We have to look for Ferrar,” Patrice announced to the other three.

Silence. The boys exchanged looks.

Rosie screwed up her forehead and looked confused. “Ferrar?”

“Yes. Ferrar. After he healed up from the gunshot, he said he was going to New Orleans.”

Gil said, “But he's … with that light. I don't think the river devils will abide.”

Patrice said, “No river devils around for now. Ferrar's the only person we really know here in New Orleans. We saved his life.”

Trigger grimaced and adjusted his hat. “We
were gonna
kill him but didn't follow through. That ain't the same as saving his life.”

“Isn't.”

“How we gonna find him?” Marie-Rose asked.

“We'll just … ask around.”

She looked in the direction of the piano sounds. “We'll ask over at that place.”

“Good idea.” Trigger was in motion, looking downright gleeful at the idea of following the gay music.

Patrice and Marie-Rose fell in after him.

“What about our bags?” Gil called.

Patrice stopped and turned. “Oh.”

Trigger waved him off. “They'll be fine. Come on!”

“No, he's right,” Patrice said, wary of the dark corners of the rail yard where she'd heard coughs and groans.

She looked at her brothers and sister. “This isn't Terrefleurs. We can't leave our belongings behind because someone might try to take them.”

Gil got to untying the bags and they hauled them from the rumble seat. Patrice gave Rosie Francois' Bible and took Rosie's luggage herself. No one seemed to notice that Patrice had no bag of her own. They walked together into the street paved with big round stones, unlike the dirt or crushed shell roads back home, and it felt uneven beneath her feet.

The music was coming from a brick warehouse. They could see lights and hear laughter. But as they approached the doors, Patrice started to feel foolish.

“You do the talkin, Gil,” she said, but then caught sight of Trigger and realized he was carrying a machete.

“Trig!”

The thing was long and dark and curved, and though it served as an everyday tool on Terrefleurs, it looked positively sinister in these streets.

“What in the name of Sam Hill are you doing with that?”

“Figured I'd tote it along in case I need a shave.”

“Don't get fresh! You can't be tappin on doors with a machete in your hand.”

“What was I supposed to do, leave it behind?”

“You were supposed to pack bare necessities only.” She stepped up to the door where they heard the piano and turned to look at him.

“I know, Treesey, but I wasn't sure if we were gonna stay here in New Orleans or head out to the country. Personally, I think we'd fare better in the woods. Build ourselves a little cabin. Can't go hunting here in the city and this part of the river's liable to be overfished.”

She stared at him. Aside from his valise and the machete, he was carrying a frog gig, a slingshot, and a fishing pole, all strapped together. Blood had seeped into the bandage tied around his arm where the stranger had slashed him this morning. Both he and Gil were covered in mud, and the girls weren't much cleaner.

“What a sight, what a fright.” She was trying to sound disgusted though in truth she thought Trig might have a point about trying their luck in the country rather than in New Orleans. The dark building loomed over them and it looked menacing despite all the music.

They hadn't knocked but the door suddenly opened.

“What y'all want here?” a man said.

Behind him was a dim office, but the piano music and the sound of many voices were now louder. This man was tall; no, not just tall—big.

“We … We're…” she began, and then elbowed Gil.

Gil said, “We're lookin for a boy named Ferrar.”

“Never heard of him.”

“He's got an eye that looks like it's bleeding, only it's not.”

“Ain't seen no one like that.”

He moved like he was about to shut the door again, but instead took a long look at Patrice from her shoes to her hat and back down again, and then swept his gaze over the others. “What in the holy fuck of a cotton truck did y'all ride in on?”

And then he roared with laughter. Deep and earthshaking. Slapped his knee to get it all out. Trigger looked at the others and laughed, too, only Trigger is known for his peculiar laugh, so that only made the big man laugh harder. Patrice felt nine shades of stupid.

The big man shuddered it out til he got his breath back. He dragged a match up the wall and lit a cigarette roll, paused, then offered it to Patrice.

“No thank you.”

He then presented it in mock-offering to the others and Patrice had to grab Trig's wrist so he wouldn't try to take it. Not that she objected to him smoking; she just didn't want him to take one from this person.

“How much money do you make?” Marie-Rose asked him.

“Rosie!”

“I just want to know—”

“It's not polite,” Patrice said through her teeth.

The big man just laughed, shaking his head, and cast a sidelong look at Patrice. “Yellow rose. Look at you. So this … Ferrar. He your daddy or your boyfriend?”

“I don't believe that's your business. If you don't know where he is then you can at least tell us where we might go to ask about him.”

He was smiling at her in a way she didn't much care for. “How old are you, honey? Seventeen?”

Patrice waved her younger siblings away from the door. “Come on, let's go.”

But Marie-Rose slipped right past and stepped up to the big man. “She's fourteen. And I'm seven. And if you don't tell us where Ferrar is my brother's going to chop you with his machete.”

This sent the man into fits again, right down to the knee slap, and Patrice and Gil had to drag Marie-Rose by the arm as they headed for the street.

But as they crossed to the end of the street the man called out, “Hey, cotton truck! Hold on now. I'll ask for you.”

Patrice looked over her shoulder, but the hulking form had already disappeared back into the office and was closing the door.

“Never mind him,” she said without slowing stride.

“He's checkin for us,” Trig said.

Gil said, “Come on, Treesey, we might as well see if anyone there knows something.”

She let her younger siblings pull her back toward the doorway. The vehicles on the street had already thinned out from when Patrice was parking Papa's automobile, so that now it seemed desolate. A fresh peal of laughter rose from inside.

“What's goin on in there, a party?” Rosie asked.

“I suppose,” Patrice said.

“Someone's birthday?”

Gil said, “Naw, too big.”

They listened. A lone horse clopped into the street and when it came into view, Patrice saw in the gaslight that the rider wore a uniform. A policeman. None of the children moved, suddenly uncertain which side of the law they occupied.

The door opened and the big man emerged again. “Simms is comin.”

Patrice didn't ask who Simms was.

From somewhere beyond the street came a burst of hollering. Agitated, as though a fight were occurring. All the children turned toward the sound.

Patrice expected the policeman to turn on his mount and head toward the disturbance, but as she watched him there in the glow of lamplight she saw him glance backward in the direction of the sound, but only for a moment. He turned forward again and continued on atop his horse, gaze dropped, clopping past until he was gone.

Marie-Rose asked, “Ain't a policeman supposed to help if there's trouble?”

“Isn't,” Patrice said.

The big man said, “They don't get involved around here.”

They heard the interior door open, and with it came a rise of sound from the warehouse, then the door closed again. A man approached, small in frame and wearing a striped suit, fedora, and a pencil mustache. The suit looked like it wanted to be something expensive but was made of cheap material. He paused at the exterior door and took in the children with a long gulp of the eye. Patrice and the others stared back. Finally, he adjusted his hat at the big man but said nothing.

“Awright then, come on in,” the big man said.

The children stepped forward but the big man splayed a hand. “Just her.”

Meaning Patrice.

“Never mind then!” Patrice said, blood ready to boil.

Gil stopped her. “Go on in, Treesey, we'll wait right here.”

“We are not splitting up. Not even for a minute.”

“Y'all can wait in the office,” the littler man said, his voice high and thin and his expression receding to boredom.

Trigger said, “You know, Patrice, if there's any trouble…”

To this, the big man started laughing again. “Oh yeah, that one there said he gonna cut me down with his machete knife.”

A fine thing that he liked that, and that the little man thought it funny, too. They had no idea that the true weapon the children had at their disposal had nothing to do with a machete.

The little man stepped forward. “They call you Patrice? I'm Simms.”

And then he lifted his chin toward the big man. “This here's Hutch.”

She nodded at him but that was it. Didn't offer her hand or introduce the others.

Trigger gave her a private look.
It's alright, Treesey.
He took Rosie's valise from her hands.

Patrice regarded Simms and told herself that if it came to it the Lord would forgive her if she had to use pigeonry on him. Or anyone else.

Simms gestured at the door in a way that seemed so easy and confident she would follow that she
did
follow, despite herself, and the three younger children followed, too, at least as far as the office. She looked over her shoulder at them when the second door inside the office opened and the piano music and voices poured forth. Her siblings' expressions puffed up as if the sound lifted them on a rogue wave. It made them look like children to her. Not Guy, Gilbert, and Marie-Rose, but just a group of ragtag little children.

Then, with Simms' hand on her back she was passing through that door, and it closed on those little children's faces.

 

twenty-eight

NEW ORLEANS, 1927

SO MUCH SOUND. THE
piano was near-shimmying in the corner. She'd expected full bright light, but the broad, vast warehouse was surprisingly dim, with most of the light concentrated on the piano. The player's hands darted across the keys, a cigarette at his lips and a lock of greased hair falling forward over his eyes. Folks were smoking, laughing, and shouting at one another though Patrice couldn't imagine how any single one could hear actual words from any other. A bank of smoke rested above their heads as though all their gassing kept the cloud up high rather than falling to floor.

Simms said something to her but she shook her head dumb. The only conversation she understood came from the piano. When she looked back at Simms he was gone. And so she looked at the faces of those in the near vicinity in the hopes that one of them might look like Ferrar's type of acquaintance—someone nearing twenty, black, who set his day by a rooster crow or steam whistle. But these people were nothing like that. Women were snuggled in close to their men, and the men's ties were loosened with their sleeves turned back. They all looked sleepy and jazzed at the same time. Some folks were donning their hats and leaving through the office where her siblings were waiting.