Standing at the Scratch Line (51 page)

“It be on three, four years since I last seen you, Mr. Loebels,” Roy agreed. He was very uncomfortable with the fact that Kaiser was positioned behind him, so he stood up and changed the direction that the chair was facing, allowing him to see both Loebels and Kaiser.

“What’s on your mind, Roy?” Loebels prompted.

“Well, suh, Mr. Loebels, I got somethin’ kind of personal to talk about with you and I don’t feel all that good talkin’ in front of Lieutenant Kaiser.”

“Lieutenant Kaiser is my nephew and my blood. If it can’t be said in front of him, it can’t be said.” Loebels was cautious. He would not send his nephew from the room until he was absolutely sure that Roy was not a threat to his safety.

Roy stood up. “That’s too bad, Mr. Loebels, ’cause I got some information I knows you want. It’s too bad we couldn’t talk and work out a deal.” Roy turned and walked toward the door.

“Wait a minute there, Roy,” Loebels called out before Wilcox opened the door. The word
deal
had his heart pounding. Perhaps the deeds would still fall into his hands despite all of Harley’s machinations. “My nephew is privy to all my private affairs. I can assure you that whatever you say to me will be kept under the strictest confidences. Not even the sheriff will hear of it.”

Loebels’s reference to the sheriff seemed to change Roy’s mind, for he turned to face the two men. He studied them for a few seconds and asked in a doubtful voice, “You’s blood kin?”

“He’s my sister’s son,” Loebels confirmed. “What kind of deal are you looking for Roy? Let’s talk a spell.”

Roy walked over to the chair he vacated and sat down. “Sheriff Mack says he knows the low-down polecats who broke into Klan headquarters and murdered some of our men while they was relaxin’. These dogs murdered good men without givin’ ’em a fightin’ chance. The sheriff knows who these killers is, but won’t give the names to us law-abiding white citizens! He don’t care that our headquarters been violated! He ain’t interested in servin’ the citizens of this parish!” Roy pulled a plug of chewing tobacco from a packet that he took from his pocket and stuck it into his mouth.

“I don’t have a place to spit in here,” warned Loebels.

Roy grunted in surprise and removed the slimy wad from his mouth and put it back into the packet and continued speaking. “We don’t want nothin’ but justice. The Bible say, ‘. . . an eye for an eye.’ We wants to avenge this here cowardly act! We got a reputation to uphold here. We can’t have nothin’ like this happen and do nothin’! We’ll be the laughin’ stock of the parish!”

“What’s your deal, Roy?” Loebels asked.

“You help us, we’ll help you! You get us the names, we’ll get you the deeds. And you have to help us fix up our headquarters too.”

Loebels nodded. “That sounds good, Roy, but what about the sheriff? I don’t see how we can carry out any such plan while he’s around to break it up.”

“Maybe it’s time he wasn’t around,” Roy growled with vehemence.

“What about Harley?” Loebels asked. “You were working pretty close with him for a while, weren’t you?”

“He cares more about them deeds than he do the Klan. He sat and watched that fat pig of a sheriff insult me and say that I had nigger blood and didn’t do nothin’! If that don’t beat all, the sheriff said that to me!”

While Wilcox was talking, Loebels and Kaiser looked at each other. Both men realized they needed to search no further; the instrument was in their hands.

M
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On the day Serena’s mother died, a monstrous thunderstorm came rumbling out of the gulf, opening floodgates of water and slinging bolts of lightning at the darkened landscape. Serena was in the kitchen preparing the afternoon meal when she first heard the grumbling bass of faraway thunder and then the light patter of raindrops as blustery winds swept across the roof. Serena went to the back window to look through the curtains at the sky. Gray and charcoal clouds roiled across the heavens like ink spilled in water.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her father and one of her sisters standing on the back porch. Her father was angrily shaking his finger in the girl’s face. Every once in a while a gust of wind would bring a trace of her father’s rough tones. Serena stepped closer to the window, pulled back the curtain, and saw that it was her younger fourteen-year-old sister, Christine, who was the object of his anger. “Tini,” as she was called (pronounced “Teeney”) was trembling in front of her father, her big eyes blinking in fear and confusion. Tini didn’t know why her father was angry at her. She didn’t know she was a pawn, but Serena understood it and it made her hate her father. Serena had seen the look on her father’s face earlier that morning when he saw Tini laughing with her during breakfast. She knew it would only be a matter of time before he made Tini pay a penalty for the crime of consorting with the enemy.

Serena allowed the curtain to fall back into place. She felt tired, as if the energy had been drained from her. Resignedly, she took off her apron and prepared herself to go outside and confront her father. When Serena reached the back door, she heard something crash to the floor in her mother’s bedroom. She paused for a moment, undecided whether to continue outside or to go upstairs and check on her mother. She decided that her mother needed more immediate attention. She hurried upstairs and found her mother half out of bed. Serena lifted her mother back onto the bed and picked up the bedside table that had been knocked over. The bottle of laudanum was on the floor as well, but its cap was still on securely. Serena picked up the bottle and looked at her mother. It was obvious that she was trying to reach the laudanum and overturned the table in the process.

Her mother had weakened to the point that she could not sit up unassisted. Her eyes were blurry and unfocused and her voice was a congested whisper. She waved her hand at her daughter to come closer then gurgled a word that sounded like laudanum and pointed to her mouth. Serena knew what she wanted. She shook her head. “I can’t give you more, Mama. You just had a big sip of it an hour ago.”

Silent tears streamed down her mother’s face. Again she gurgled a word and pointed to her mouth.

“Please understand, Mama. I’m trying to do what’s best. I can’t let you kill yourself. Mama, please.” Serena began to cry. She saw the discomfort that her mother was in and she was intimately familiar with her physical deterioration, for she had watched it progress day by day. Serena was truly confused because there was a voice within her that kept saying, Let her die quickly with dignity. Let her kill herself with the opium-laden medicine. Yet Serena was not yet ready to consign her mother to a coffin.

The sound of her father’s boots climbing the stairs gave Serena a less painful direction in which to focus her energies. Her father walked through the bedroom door and she turned to face him. There was no expression on his face. Father and daughter exchanged stares for nearly ten seconds before he broke eye contact. “I wants to speak private like with my wife.”

There was an air of dismissal in her father’s tone that infuriated Serena, as if he could sweep her aside like so much dust. She planted her feet and made no effort to leave. Instead she decided to challenge him. “Where’s Tini?” she demanded.

Charles Baddeaux gave his daughter a cold look. Then a smile suddenly broke across his face. “I sent her to clean out the stalls in the barn while I take the buggy to the Crossing for my Elders’ meeting.”

“You’re going to the Crossing in a storm like this?” Serena asked, surprised that an Elders’ meeting could be so important that it would be attended even in a major storm. Before he could answer, his words sank in and Serena deciphered the true meaning. Everyone knew that Jethro would not allow himself to be harnessed to the two-wheel buggy, so Homer had to be the mule her father was using.

Her father said nothing. His smile lingered.

“You didn’t move Jethro out from his stall first, did you?” Serena asked slowly.

Her father’s smile only grew broader in response.

“You know that she’s afraid of Jethro! You know how he’s getting more temperamental all the time! How could you?” Serena started to rush out of the room and realized that she still had the bottle of laudanum in her hand. She sat it down on the bedside table and swept out of the room amidst her father’s laughter.

“Ain’t nothin’ gon’ happen. Tini’s so afraid of that mule she won’t go near him!” he shouted after her.

Serena flew out the back door and across the yard to the barn. She didn’t really expect Tini to be harmed, but one could never be sure with Jethro. Tini did not have the confidence necessary to handle the larger farm animals.

Jethro was standing near a bale of hay in the center of the barn when Serena entered. The mule was munching away while keeping an eye on Tini, who was cautiously approaching him from the side. Serena watched the mule sidle away from Tini without ever leaving the bale of hay.

Serena marched over to Jethro and grabbed his bridle firmly. The mule attempted to turn its head and bite her, but Serena smacked the animal across its nose and led it toward its stall. At the gate of the stall Jethro reared up, ready to continue his resistance. Serena grabbed his closest ear and tightened her grip on his bridle. She let the mule feel her weight as he lifted her off the ground. The struggle ended quickly for Jethro understood pain. He entered his stall without further struggle. Serena guided the mule in from an adjacent stall and spoke soothingly to it.

Serena left Tini to sweep out the barn and walked back to the house in the pounding rain to look in on her mother.

As soon as she entered the room, Serena knew something was wrong. It was the silence. There was no sound but the steady beat of the rain. Gone was the rhythmic rasp of her mother’s labored breathing. Serena rushed to the bed where her mother lay motionless.

Lying with a slight smile on her face, her mother lay with eyes closed. From her expression it seemed that she had at last found peace. The empty bottle of laudanum was between her arm and her side. Serena picked up the bottle and stood for a moment wondering whether her mother had helped herself or her father had given it to her. There was no immediate sensation of grief, merely relief that the ordeal was over. Serena sat down next to the bed and picked up one of her mother’s cold hands and held it next to her cheek. She sat for nearly twenty minutes in this position, until she heard Tini enter the house. Serena kissed the hand and whispered, “Good-bye.”

Serena stood up and went out to the head of the stairs. She called down to Tini. “Please come here.”

“I’m soaked. Let me get changed first. Those old milk cows are so stupid, they wouldn’t come in out of the rain. I had to drive them into the barn.”

“Mama’s dead, Tini.”

“Oh, God!” Tini cried out. “This must really be my day! Everything bad seems to be happening to me today.”

“This didn’t happen to you, Tini. It happened to Mama,” Serena reminded her.

“You know what I mean,” Tini answered. “I love Mama. I didn’t mean nothin’ bad.”

“Tini, I need you to dress for wet weather, because I want you to go over to Old Mr. Tillman’s and see if he’ll let you use one his horses to ride over to where Della’s cooking for Mr. Shannon’s work crew.”

“Can we say a prayer for Mama? I feel we ought send her off with a few words.”

Serena nodded. “Sure, that’s a good idea.”

“Let’s go outside and stand on the front porch like Mama used to do when it rained hard like this,” Tini suggested.

The two sisters stood out on their front porch and prayed without speaking. The rain fell steadily, creating a continuous drumroll on the corrugated metal of the porch’s roof. Serena composed her prayers, but they seemed insubstantial and lacked the love, strength, and lyricism she desired. She was just too distracted to pray in the manner she thought appropriate. She waited until Tini was finished, then sent her on her way. Serena walked across to the barn to saddle Jethro and go tell her father.

When she reached the barn a horseman rode up and little Amos slid off the saddle and ran toward Serena. It was raining so hard that Serena could not make out the other rider, but when he alighted from his horse, she saw that it was King under a broad-brimmed Stetson.

After a brief discussion with King, Serena got Amos into some dry clothes and a rain slicker. She said nothing to her brother about their mother’s death. It really wasn’t the right time to tell him; there was too much to do to stop and explain to an eight-year-old that a life had passed. She bundled him out the door with the explanation that she was going to help at the church. Amos was so excited to ride on King’s horse again, he didn’t even ask about his mother. All three of them rode King’s horse through the rain to the Tillman place. Tini was just then riding a fat little pony out the gate as they arrived. Serena waved her on and slid off King’s horse with Amos in tow. Serena informed the Tillmans of the situation and asked if Amos could stay with them until the following day. Mrs. Tillman, a tall, angular, brown-skinned woman with sunken, cavernous cheeks, nodded her head understandingly and assured Serena that Amos would be fine.

The ride into Nellum’s Crossing was extremely wet and cold. Serena rode behind King on his horse and while King’s body blocked out the wind, the rain, which fell steadily, trickled down her face and neck underneath the hood of her oilskin coat. It was nearly three and a half miles to the Crossing. Both King and Serena were soaked by the time they reached Stedman’s Blacksmith Works. After his horse had been fed and watered, King joined Jonas and Serena, who were standing and talking by the smithy’s main anvil.

Jonas nodded his head to King in greeting and said, “Rena told me she got to see her father. I told Rena here that I would send one of my apprentices to get him from his, uh, meeting.”

“Don’t go through any trouble for me,” Serena said in clipped tones. “Just tell me where the Elders are meeting.”

“Well, it’s a ways from here,” Jonas said cautiously.

“Where can it be if it’s not at the church?” Serena demanded. “I’ll just go over to the church myself and talk to the caretaker.”

King stepped forward, his hat in his hand. “All Jonas is trying to do is let you stay in the warmth while he sends one of his boys.”

“I want to go! I want to be the one to tell him!” She wanted to confront her father over the empty bottle of laudanum. “Just tell me where he is!”

King paused for a moment. “All we is doing is trying to protect you. You just lost your mother. Ain’t nobody want to see you hurt worse.”

“What do you mean?” Serena asked suspiciously.

“Your father ain’t at no Elders’ meeting,” King admitted. “He got himself a little thing goin’ with the schoolteacher.”

“What? How long have you known?”

King thought a moment, then said, “A couple of months, maybe—”

Serena looked at him. Her eyes were grim. She said through gritted teeth, “You’ve been lying all this time! Take me to my father!”

King squared up in front of her. Now his eyes were glinting with anger. “I’ll take you to your father, but first let me straighten you out!” King tapped his chest. “I never lie. Lyin’ means you afraid somebody might know the truth. I don’t care who knows the truth. I’m from the old school: my word is my bond.”

“Just take me to my father!”

King turned without a word, put on his hat, and led Serena out into the rain. They walked half a mile along a heavily forested ridge of cedar toward Duncan Hollow. King did not stop or wait for Serena to catch up until they reached Widow Marshall’s house.