Standing at the Scratch Line (63 page)

Sampson backed off the shotgun but kept it pointed directly at Elmo.

Elmo pulled back out of the doorway and rubbed his neck angrily. “I ain’t gon’ fo’get that! Ain’t nobody put a gun on me and lived to the followin’ season.” He pointed a finger at Serena. “I’m gon’ remember you too and what you said ’bout my family! You gon’ be mine and I’m gon’ break you! You high-yellow—”

Serena interrupted. “Kill him, Sampson, if he says another thing!” Sampson moved forward with a smile, ready to pull the trigger. Elmo stepped back with a look of fear on his face. “Good-bye, Mr. Thomas!” Serena said as she slammed the door in his face.

There was a moment of silence, then Elmo could be heard screaming to the street at large: “Tremain is a damn coward! I went to call on him and he sent his woman to the door! He a yellow-bellied back shooter! He can’t stand up to nobody who’s lookin’ him in the eye! I’m gon’ come back here on New Year’s Day and turn him out and I’m gon’ burn his sto’ to the ground. I swear this on my brother’s grave!”

Serena and Sampson stood looking at each other as they listened to Elmo’s voice slowly wane in the distance. Sampson signed that he would sleep downstairs on guard for the night. She gave his arm a grateful squeeze and went back upstairs.

She walked straight over to the highboy and picked up the letter and opened it.

There were two sheets in the letter. The smaller one, perhaps half the size of its partner, was written in the same scrawl as the envelope. It was from Captain Mack and it began,

. . . I don’t know if this is one of my brother’s tricks or not, but a woman came here named Mamie. She had a little boy with her who she claimed was your son. I didn’t tell her nothing, but she gave me a letter to send to you. She told me that you told her I was about the only family that you had. I can’t tell you how good that made me and Martha feel, boy. We told her, we didn’t know where you was, but if we got a chance we would forward her letter. I hope you and your new wife is doing good. No matter what you thinking, don’t come back here! Corlis has people all over the place looking for you. You done shot his leg off and now he’s madder than an alligator with eggs.
    
If you decide to come back, don’t come to the mill! Corlis has got people watching us. Go to Poindexter’s and he’ll contact me. We’ll still find a way to help you just like when you was seventeen and needed money and a horse.
    
You take care of yourself, boy. You all we got.

Serena’s hands were trembling when she began to read the second letter:

Hello King,
    
I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed you since you’ve been gone. You’re one of a kind. I never had a chance to tell you how grateful I was that you appointed me manager of the Rockland Palace. A regular paying job is on the path to happiness. Cap or one of the guys stop by every once in a while to make sure things are running well. The Palace is one of the most popular places in New York City and we regularly take in a profit. Life is so crazy. Now that I don’t need the money I get from singing, I have more offers for work than I can handle. I have an offer to be part of a traveling revue. I really want to do it. I want to see where my singing career will go if I invest time in it. But I have a problem and it’s not the Palace. Vince knows the ropes better than I do.
    
I don’t know how to tell you this, but six months after you left, our son was born. Yes, I knew I was pregnant before you left, but I didn’t want you to stay if that was your only reason for staying. If you stayed, I wanted it to be because you loved me. It was hard for me to accept then, but I realize now that you didn’t know how to love.
    
I came looking for you to find out whether you had learned how to love in the time that you’ve been gone. I hoped that there still might be a future for us. Even if we can’t get together, I thought you would like to see your wonderful son. He reminds me so much of you. He is not even a year old and he’s already walking. He is tough and fearless. Nothing scares him. I was hoping that I could leave him with you while I travel with the revue.
    
I have been talking with your lawyer friend Goldbaum and he’s the one who told me you were in New Orleans. I have been here two weeks and no one knows where you are. Please contact me as soon as you get this. I’m staying at the Tri-Color Hotel on the edge of Storyville. I really love the music that’s being played in some of the clubs down here.
    
Oh, by the way, a friend of yours invited me out to his farm next week. He wants to see your son. The man’s name is Alfred DuMont. He says he’s known you all your life. I’m really looking forward to some home cooking.

Your loving Mamie

Both letters slipped from Serena’s grasp and fell to the floor. She could barely walk back to her rocking chair. She seemed to have lost contact with her legs; they did not respond as they should have and trembled on the verge of collapse. She dropped into the chair like a dead weight. She sought to calm herself by putting her hands in her lap and taking long, regular breaths, timing them with the movement of the rocking chair.

She had seen a worn photograph of this woman in King’s belongings when they moved from the Toussant to the villa. She had asked him about the photograph and he had told her that Mamie had been his woman in New York. Serena had studied the woman’s photograph a long time. It portrayed a voluptuous and very dark-skinned woman dressed in big city finery in a park setting. The woman was so dark that the features of her face could only be seen in very good light. She remembered remarking in surprise that she was shocked that King would go out with someone so dark. His response had been crushing. She could recall the exact words he said: “Don’t get caught up in that color shit! Army taught me if you got the blood of Africa in you, it don’t matter what color you are, you ain’t white! It’s just another way the white got you hatin’ yo’self. Until every man jack of us is ready to be proud for what we do, rather’n what we looks like, we gon’ kickin’ our own selves in the ass! In the army I seen this color shit mess up a squad of men. Don’t be bringin’ no high yellow shit to me! I hate that!”

It was the first time they had argued. She saw another side of him that day, the side that strangers saw. It was clear that he felt very strongly. She saw it in the flash of his eyes, tone of his voice, his use of vulgarity, and the heavy, ominous presence that seemed to appear out of nowhere. She said nothing more to him about the subject of color, but she did ask him to get rid of the photograph. He refused. She started to make an argument, but he cut her off once more with the intensity of his words. “I ain’t arguin’ with you! I’m keepin’ it! It’s important to me! Don’t get it twisted! I married you, not her! Worry about today, not a yesterday you can’t change!” Without waiting for her response he had stalked out of the room and she knew better than to follow him. Serena picked up the photograph again, trying to see what King had seen in the woman. What Serena saw was a big, black, overdressed country nigger woman with hot-combed hair putting on airs. Serena was not only irritated that King refused to get rid of the photograph, but also that he had gone out with a woman so dark. She had carefully placed the picture back in his papers and left the room. From that moment on, she had felt that the woman’s presence had invaded her house, and it did not take long for her resentment of Mamie to grow into hatred. She didn’t speak to King about it, but it was never far from her thoughts.

Serena had known this woman was going to be trouble when King refused to get rid of her photograph. The letter was merely confirmation of her premonition. As Serena rocked in the chair, questions began to march past, some answered, some unanswered. What did this child mean? Was it possible that King had met up with this woman and had decided to live with her because of the child? No, that wasn’t like King. He would honor his vows to Serena, but he might bring home this child. Serena wondered what this meant for her, for her dreams. For one thing sure, her dream family didn’t have some other woman’s half-African bastard as her oldest child. That damned Mamie didn’t have the courtesy to die a natural death! Maybe the DuMonts might be helpful in this situation. She sat rocking in her chair until the light of day signaled a new sunrise.

T
 H U R S D A Y,  
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 E C E M B E R   3 0,   1 9 2 0
   

Serena rose at six-thirty and it was bitter cold. There was frost glistening on the windowpanes as the morning sun broke over the horizon. She put two logs in the embers of the potbellied stove, bathed in cold water, and dressed for the day. When she went downstairs, Sampson had already made coffee and started a pot of beans, but the fire beneath the beans had nearly burned down to embers. Serena was surprised. It was unlike him to fail to tend to his responsibilities. She called out to him but there was no answer. She rebuilt the fire, poured herself some coffee, and sat at the old wooden table by the window in the kitchen, looking down upon Main Street. During the night, the temperature had fallen well below freezing and the wind had returned. Across the street, Serena saw icicles hanging from the eaves and a post-office poster was flapping back and forth in the wind.

She held the cup in both hands as she sipped the hot, dark fluid and felt its heat. Her mind was unable to escape the cloud created by the letters. She wondered whether she was doomed to the life of a single woman in a strange town. The beans began to bubble on the stove and she rose to move the pot to a cooler area. It surprised her that she felt so exhausted so early in the morning. She heard someone running along the wooden planks that served as sidewalks for Main Street. She looked out the window and saw Cordel Witherspoon rush into Wrangel House. Serena watched as Cordel came out with Florence Nesbitt and Mace Edwards. They were in a hurry. All three ran down the street toward the bank and the doctor’s office. It was obvious something was up. She shrugged, knowing she would learn about it soon enough. Then she heard a sound that she had not heard in a long time. She heard Sampson laughing behind the store. It was not a little chuckle; it was a full-throated belly laugh. Only one person could get Sampson to laugh like that.

Serena picked up the hem of her dress and ran to the back door so fast that she nearly fell headlong. She stumbled into the hallway leading back to the barn. When she opened the door, she saw King working with Sampson, unloading big crates from a large truck. His back was to her as he and Sampson carried a large crate into the barn. Sampson saw her and nodded in her direction with a big smile on his face. King turned his head and caught her eye just before entering the barn.

Serena looked around to see if King was accompanied by anyone, particularly a child. He appeared to be alone, but she feared jumping to conclusions. After a seemingly endless period of time, King exited the barn and walked toward her. She saw the smokey vapor of his breath as he approached her. There was a smile of genuine appreciation on his face as he looked at her, and the look moved her heart. She fell into his arms and felt the reassuring strength of his body against hers. She closed her eyes and let herself melt against him. The image of Flo Nesbitt and Mace Edwards running down the street faded completely from her mind.

After twenty minutes of furious interrogation, which produced no justifiable explanation for his extended absence, Serena wisely dropped the subject and allowed King to persuade her to come out and watch the unloading of the truck. Serena was wrapped in a heavy shawl as she sat on a bale of hay in the barn watching King and Sampson open crates. King was as happy as a child to show her some of the items that he had brought back with him. There was a new gramophone along with ten fragile playing records, several new dresses that Journer had helped him select, and many large bolts of fabric. King was particularly proud of the ice maker, a huge piece of equipment that he had purchased in Louisiana.

King pointed to the ice maker. “This here machine is what’s gon’ make Tremain Dry Goods the only place to get ice in the summer outside of Clairborne. It gon’ make our business. We’ll always have cold beer and sarsaparilla on hand for our customers and we won’t be makin’ no trips to Clairborne for ice. Everybody in Bodie Wells gon’ be buyin’ ice from us.”