One More River (16 page)

Oh, there was something between them, alright. Maybe he was naive to think it was a pure thing, unconsummated, a thing of the spirit. Horace wondered if there were secrets flying about his house, phantom passions barely glimpsed, whizzing through the air like bats in the night.

No, he decided. No. It couldn’t be. He shook himself head to toe to let some sense in. Neither one of ’em could fool me.

He was asleep long before Bernard got home around first light. Aurora Mae went to bed in the kitchen, because it was a hot night, she said, although it was passably cool. When she heard Bernard’s footsteps, she went to the door and sighed with relief that he was in one piece, chipper even, given his springing walk, his big beaming smile. She opened the door with one hand to let him in. Something squirmed around inside his shirt.

What you got there? she asked. You catch me a squirrel for supper?

Bernard pulled out a puppy, a tiny Cavalier spaniel, its soulful eyes and long, sweet ears the biggest things about it. For you, my lady, he said with a sweeping bow, popping the dog in her arms. She squealed, then gave Bernard a short, gracious hug. The top of his head barely reached her clavicle. He shared his brief nuzzle in paradise with the little dog she cradled between her breasts. The puppy licked his nose. He didn’t care. It was the happiest moment of his life so far.

Where’d you get that dog? Horace asked as they walked to work.

I had a plan. It didn’t pan out, then I had a stroke of luck.

Do tell.

Alright.

Bernard paused for effect then plunged into his story with gusto. He drew it out where he could, made it short and snappy where necessary, and imitated voices. He was more entertaining to Horace than Saturday night revival hour on the radio.

First thing I did was go to the river, to a spot I know close to the town but suitable private for what I wanted. It was a hot walk. I got there long enough after sunrise to bathe in the river without too many insects feastin’ on me. There was no way I was gonna walk into Saint Louis with the day’s dirt all over me. I don’t know if you noticed that bundle with me this mornin’? My city clothes. After the river bath, I laid out on some rocks until I was dry and changed into ’em. Left my work clothes up a tree. I slicked down my hair, spit-shined my shoes. Topped off with a boater. From a distance, if you squinted, I looked as dashin’ as any river dandy, you can count on that.

When he got to the outskirts of civilization, he went straight to the docks, boarded the first gambling boat he came across, and strolled about the deck with a confident familiarity of such places. He tipped his hat to the back of his head. As a protection against pickpockets, he kept his hands deep in his pockets where he fondled the five dollars and thirty-nine cent that represented his life’s savings. He picked out a gaming table, intending to double his stake to achieve the grand sum of ten dollars, which he figured was what a fine pup like the one Aurora Mae wanted would cost. When he strode up to the Great Wheel of Fortune, he was supremely sure fate would be kind. He slunk away six minutes later utterly broke and convinced he was cursed beyond measure. One thing for certain, he could not return home empty-handed.

He made his way to the part of town where shops for every type of luxury item could be found, whether lace, silver, buttons, threads, hats, chairs, beds, pipes, or pets. He stood in front of a pet store window where a load of puppies frolicked together and caged birds chirped around them like cheerleaders. He sized up everything he could see through the window: the chipped countertop, the dirty windowsills, the stray clumps of fur, feathers, and pellets littering the floor. Alright, he thought, alright. A new plan came to him. It wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t the worst and it might work out. It was worth a try, anyway.

He went into the shop and thanked God a woman was behind the counter. She looked at him quizzically, with almost a smile on her face, a middle-aged entirely forgettable woman with mud-colored hair and rust-red eyes. He took a deep breath and called upon all the fast talkers and gamesmen floating around in his blood to help him out here, help his ugly self the hell out here. He needed to charm this woman into giving him what he wanted, what he needed so bad. Primary among the solicited was his daddy. On the love you once bore for my mama, Harvé, when she was a good girl who cared for you alone, help me find the words I need to make this woman bend to my will.

And his daddy, along with all the other great, dead river men of his people, complied. For ten minutes, Bernard leaned on the countertop and chatted up Miss Loretta, the owner of Buck’s Pet Shop. He professed his dearest love for animals of all kinds, particularly little lapdogs like that cute-as-two-buttons-in-a-row puppy over there. He bemoaned the loss of his savings on the pleasure boat, fool that he was, as one thing his daddy’s helpful spirit whispered in his ear was that a little bit of truth was the anchor to every successful pitch, and that was his. He suggested to Miss Loretta that her place was in need of some cleanup—not that he faulted her housekeeping, but the cleanup required was heavier than a lady should do. Surely she was a widow woman, he could see that, in need of a man to help out some. He told her that in exchange for one of those pups, he could make her place shine as if it were a new-minted penny out of Denver. Within ten minutes of walking through the door, he got the job of sprucing things up. The puppy was all but a few drops of sweat away from being his.

He gabbed for all he was worth while he worked, engaging Miss Loretta in small talk. Once she opened up, he offered her truckloads of empathy as she related the tale of her dear husband’s death two years earlier.

He was a good man, who knew all about every kind of critter you could imagine, she said, from bugs to snakes to chickens all the way up the ladder to that prince of beasts, the dog. He was an expert breeder, groomer, and trainer, and built up his business from scratch. Before he died, she bragged, there weren’t a huntin’ man along the Mississippi who didn’t know the name of Dudley Buck. Why, people came from as far away as Lake Charles, Louisiana, for a look at his stock. Imagine that, she said, people seeking dogs long-distance when there were dogs of every sort available on every square foot of Delta you can name. That’s how talented Mr. Dudley Buck was. Then, one day, on a Sunday, he jumped into a confrontation one of his bitches was havin’ out the back with a rattlesnake, and he met his end accordingly. Things hadn’t been the same since. Oh yes, I need a man to help out, she said. I’d pay quite well to keep one, too. Look what happened to this place since his death, she continued, as if Bernard had been around all along and wasn’t simply a down-and-out stranger who’d wandered in the door hankering for a pup. It was a shame, an awful shame, wasn’t it?

Bernard agreed and tsked, tsked wherever he could to sound sincere, all the while jittery to finish his job and grab that pup before Miss Loretta figured out she was getting robbed, jittery to head back home to where his own beloved was waiting, alive and blooming. By the end of the day, he had the place in tiptop shape and then Miss Loretta made him a plate of sustenance as she called it. Of course, he was required to eat and compliment her on her cooking and her kitchen as well. Finally, just after sunset, he was out the door with the pup in his shirt.

Miss Loretta said as he left, Why, wait. I have been so rude, I never asked. Forgive me, but what is your name?

And he said, Bernard, m’am. Bernard Levy.

It was the strangest thing. Just like all those years ago in Miss Maple’s classroom, the mention of his name caused an eruption of robust hilarity. Miss Loretta laughed and laughed until she turned purple and looked as if she might keel over. He went back into the store and helped her to a chair while she caught her breath.

Oh, forgive me again, she said, but one of our very best customers in the old days was a Mr. Bernard Levy. From Memphis. And if you could note the difference between the two of you . . .

A creeping sensation came over Bernard’s scalp as if a tide of lice crawled all over it. Later on, he wished dearly he’d paid attention to that feeling. It was prescient. At the time, he just wanted out of there with his prize so he ignored it.

Well, that was odd, Horace said to him when he remarked on the unexpected invocation of his name-twin and his scalp’s curious creep. That was indeed odd.

Yes, it was, Bernard agreed.

Three weeks passed, three weeks during which Aurora Mae was in a constant state of contentment, due to the addition of Maxine, or Maxie, as she named the pup, to the household. She held the little thing in her lap whenever she sat to work at her potions and sewing and such. She stroked her head and murmured to her. She got quite dexterous at using the one free hand for her chores. Whenever Bernard was in the room with them, she cast him gracious looks or held Maxie up from under her front legs to show him the elegant line of her limbs or her sweet, round belly and did everything but call him the dog’s daddy to her mama.

When the three of them sat on the front porch at night, Maxie was always with them, cooed over by the humans, nestled somewhere in Aurora Mae’s person, whether licking her hands or lost in a snoreful nap. She looked like a furry wood elf sitting in the lap of a giant, a sight that amused Horace so much that one night while in his cups he decided to pull a prank. He stole the dog as his sister dozed in her rocker and dressed Maxie in a pair of his sister’s knickers. The wee head with its snub little face and comically long ears emerged from one leg hole and the short, plump legs, squared up with a piece of hair ribbon, came out the other. He took her finest handkerchief, tatted all around with lace, and tied it under Maxie’s chin then gently draped the whole canine bundle over his sister’s shoulder so that it looked for all the world as if Aurora Mae had a most peculiar-looking baby there, one who needed a good burp. It didn’t take a minute for Aurora Mae to wake up. She was startled but once that dissipated, she laughed as hard as her brother. The sound of their gaiety got Bernard out of the privy. He ran across the yard to the house, pulling up the shoulder straps of his overalls. When he got close enough to see what was going on, he, too, broke into a funny fit.

Here, Daddy, look at your baby here, Aurora Mae said in all good humor, handing him the wrapped-up spaniel pup, which he made a great show of tenderly accepting and cradling in his arms.

There was a full moon that Saturday night. It never occurred to them that anyone would be watching or listening to their foolishness, but it so happened that Cousin Clyde was coming home from a visit to a ’cropper’s farm down the road. He crossed in front of the big house from a distance, so they didn’t notice him. They weren’t looking anyway. Cousin Clyde was drunk enough to see what he thought he saw, and hear what he thought he heard. He had enough lingering meanness over the refusal of his mama’s cough medicine for him to develop conviction and decide to blab about it.

By Sunday morning, half the cousins heard that Aurora Mae had a baby by that funny-looking, little white man she kept around, a baby as homely as he was and as much a freak of nature as she. Naturally, they were all scandalized. Whoever knew she was carryin’? they asked one another until someone offered that a woman Aurora Mae’s size might carry high and hide it quite well.

A handful of cousins liked to go Sunday mornings over to the Jesus Christ of Abundant Mercy Pentecostal church, because they had a white preacher there, a man with more fire and brimstone under his tongue than the Black Baptist and the A.M.E. preachers combined. One of those cousins couldn’t keep her mouth shut on a morning buzzing hot with the shock and spice of fresh-cooked gossip. When the white preacher asked her how that heathen cousin of hers who bossed the colony like an old-time overseer was doing and was Aurora Mae any nearer to Jesus, she told him. And didn’t that cause an unwholesome crop of unexpected problems.

It’s unclear how the story of Aurora Mae and Bernard’s baby got around so fast, unless you accept as gospel that white preachers have big mouths when it comes to the sins, real and imagined, of black folk. It’s more unclear why no one ever corrected the story. It didn’t take half a day for the cousins to learn Clyde had been mistaken. They all had a good laugh about it by Sunday supper, but the news never did make it out into the wider world.

Two nights later, Bernard went out hunting with Horace as the larder was light. They walked a long way into the woods before they could find game that didn’t spook the second the hunters sighted it. It was as if the critters close to the house knew something evil was up, and they’d withdrawn deep under brambles and rock to escape humanity. Eventually, the men took down a scrawny pheasant too old to hear them approach and a possum in similar condition, then gave it up and trudged on home.

Not two hundred yards from the front porch, they found the yard dogs, all three of them, bleeding out from gunshot and writhing their last. They ran to the house. The door was open. Maxie was dead on the floor. The wall next to her battered little body was streaked white, rust, and gray with the pup’s bashed-in brain matter. Everything else was a mess of shattered glass and busted-up wood. Aurora Mae was nowhere to be found.

The cousins told them what they knew. One of them, Cousin Mags, was at the house selling some roots she’d gathered to Aurora Mae when they heard gunshots outdoors, followed by the whimpering of dogs. Cousin Mags took off out the back but was afraid to go farther and risk being seen, so she hunkered down in the bush. She heard the whole thing and saw parts of it. She told Horace and Bernard what happened.

Five night riders came up on horseback looking for an ugly half-white baby borne out of blackest sin, a child of the devil. From behind the door, Aurora Mae bellowed at them. There ain’t no baby here!

But they didn’t believe her, so they broke in. She fought ’em, Lord love her, she fought ’em hard, but there were five of ’em, to her one and only self. Didn’t matter how big she was, they had shotguns and knives, too. Over and over, they beat her to make her give the baby up. When that failed, they cut her. They hurt her so bad after a while maybe she would have given that baby up if she had a baby to give, but she did not, so they tortured that poor li’l dog to make her talk, and by then, she could not. Then they tore up the whole house looking for the child of the devil. At last, they started in to rape her, and when they were done they took her away with them, because, they joked, there was so much of her she weren’t half used up. The one with the biggest horse slung her over his saddle like a piece of damn meat, Mags said, and bim, bam, boom, they was gone.