Blackwater: The Complete Caskey Family Saga

  On the always wordless drive back to Perdido, Frances tried to remember exactly how she had spent those hours in the water; tried to recall how far out she had gone, how deep she had dived, what fish she had seen. But the sun beat against her eyelids, and she could fetch back nothing more than a vague impression of having plunged so deep that the sunlight produced only a dim sea-green radiance. Or she could summon up only a hazy recollection of having sat cross-legged on the undulating sandy bottom four miles out, or of having stalked and devoured sea trout and crabs that came temptingly near her. All these things were dreams, doubtless, for how could they have been real? Though Frances had spent four hours in the water, and had had no breakfast, she was never the least bit hungry when she trod up the sand toward the blanket on which Miriam lay sunning. At home her father urged her to eat just a little dinner, but her mother always said, “If Frances says she’s full, then we ought to leave her alone, Oscar. When she wants food, I guess she knows where to find it.”

  Chapter 44

  Creosote

  One cloudless pink dawn in September 1938, Frances Caskey was sitting on the front porch of her family’s house with her towel draped over her shoulder and a bathing suit on under her dress, waiting for Miriam to emerge from the house next door. No one in the family had been able to determine just why Miriam took Frances to the beach with her every day. It might have been to allay any suspicion that she was meeting a boy in Pensacola, it might have been that Miriam was surreptitiously glad of her sister’s company, but whatever the reason Frances was happy to be taken along. On this particular morning, however, Frances waited but Miriam did not come. Although the two sisters had gone to the beach nearly every day for the past two months, they had spoken little, and Frances did not feel assured enough of their relationship to be able to knock on Miriam’s door.

  Elinor was surprised to find her daughter still sitting on the porch when she came down to breakfast about an hour or so later.

  “What happened to Miriam?” Frances’s mother asked.

  “I don’t know. Do you think she’s sick?”

  “I’ll send Zaddie over to speak to Ivey,” said Elinor. “Ivey’ll know.”

  Zaddie returned in a few minutes with alarming news. “Miss Miriam packing up! Miss Miriam going away for good!”

  At the moment this information was delivered, there was the sound of a door slamming, and Frances, Elinor, and Zaddie turned in time to see Miriam with two suitcases marching out the front door and down the sidewalk toward her roadster. Frances, bewildered, called out to her sister, “I guess we’re not going to Pensacola this morning.”

  “I guess we’re not,” returned Miriam. “Do I look like I’m dressed for the beach?” She wore a white dress buttoned up the front and low-heeled red shoes. “Do I usually carry suitcases to Santa Rosa?”

  “No,” said Frances. “Where are you going?”

  Miriam had already turned back toward the house. She spoke over her shoulder: “I’m going to college!”

  No one had anticipated it. Not even Sister had an inkling of Miriam’s plans. Sister stood nervously on the front porch with a cup of coffee, watching as Miriam, now being assisted by Bray, carried bags and packages out to the car. James Caskey came out onto his porch, having sensed that something was up. Sister called over to him, “Miriam’s going off to college this morning!”

  “No!” cried James Caskey. “Where’s she going?”

  At that moment Miriam emerged with three hatboxes.

  Sister replied to James pointedly, “I don’t know. She hasn’t told us yet where she’s going.”

  All three Caskey households watched Miriam’s roadster fill up with boxes and suitcases. Frances had gone to her room and changed out of her bathing suit and was now once again on the porch. Danjo phoned Queenie, who arrived in haste. When finally the roadster would hold no more, Miriam turned at the end of the sidewalk and faced her assembled family.

  “If y’all must know, I’m enrolling this morning at Sacred Heart in Mobile.”

  “But that’s a Catholic school,” ejaculated Queenie.

  “I’m converting,” snapped Miriam, climbing into the roadster. She started the engine, put the car in gear, and without further word pulled away from the curb. As she was turning the corner, she waved her hand once in an offhanded and general farewell to the open-mouthed Caskeys.

  . . .

  Everyone was stunned, particularly Sister. They had become so accustomed to Miriam’s daily trips to the beach and to her ever-deepening tan that they had forgotten all about the question of whether or not she was to go to college. Now, however, they agreed that it had been very much in character for Miriam to have done it the way she did.

  “That girl,” said Elinor, “had rather slit her throat than tell you the time of day.”

  “Here are the keys to the car,” said Oscar to his daughter. “You go on down to the beach alone.”

  Frances shook her head. “It wouldn’t be the same.”

  Though the dust raised by Miriam’s roadster still lingered in the air above the road, Frances already missed her sister. The weeks of driving together to and from Pensacola Beach had convinced Frances that her sister’s taciturnity, her impatience, her curt manner of speaking were only part of Miriam’s essential character.

  After breakfast, Oscar went over and visited Sister. They sat on the side porch in the swing. “I suppose this was as much of a surprise to you as it was to the rest of us,” Oscar said.

  “It was,” said Sister desolately. “I always wondered why Miriam would never let me pick up the mail at the post office, why she insisted on going by herself. It must have been because she didn’t want me to see any letters that were coming to her from Sacred Heart.”

  “I don’t think I know anybody who ever went there,” said Oscar. “Why you suppose she picked that school?”

  Sister shrugged. “Oscar, I long time ago gave up trying to figure out why Miriam said or did anything at all. I love her, but I don’t understand her.”

  “She sure is like Mama,” said Oscar, shaking his head.

  “Except she’s young,” Sister pointed out, “so it’s worse.”

  “What are you gone do?”

  Sister glanced quickly at her brother. “What do you mean?”

  “Now that Miriam’s gone. Now that you don’t have to stay here and take care of her anymore—not that Miriam ever needed much taking care of. You going back to Early? Where is he these days, anyway?”

  “Ohio,” said Sister vaguely. “Or Kentucky. Or somewhere.”

  “You going back up to Chattanooga?”

  “Oh, I thought I’d stay around here for a little while. I’m sure Miriam forgot something or other and is gone want it sent down. I guess I better wait around to see what it is.”

  “Elinor could do that if you wanted to get on back to Early.”

  Sister didn’t reply.

  “Well?” said Oscar after a few moments.

  “Oscar,” said Sister, rising in haste, “you stop going on about this, you hear? You let me do what I want!”

  “All right,” said Oscar, confused and abashed by his sister’s vehemence. “I just thought—”

  “You thought wrong,” said Sister in a low voice. “This house belongs to Miriam, and she said I could stay on as long as I wanted. I would appreciate it if you would not come over here early in the morning and try to sweep me out of it!”

  “Sit down, Sister. I didn’t mean to get you upset.”

  Sister sat down again, but crossed her legs, put her elbow on her knee, and cradled one cheek in her turned-up hand. She was the very picture of a southern spinster of the patrician variety—tall, slender, with prematurely wrinkling parchment skin that was powdered with the scent of roses. When not pinched in a scowl, the intrinsically fine features of her face drooped. Although her expression lacked both robustness and determination, she very much resembled her dead mother. Mary-Love would have been proud. This lack of strength was the
result of all the years of Mary-Love’s taunts and slights and domination.

  “Sister,” said Oscar softly, “see, I just didn’t know you were having trouble with Early...”

  Sister sighed. “It’s not trouble, Oscar. It’s just that I don’t particularly care to go back to him right now.” Oscar said nothing, and Sister continued tentatively, “Early travels, he’s always on the road. So many places are raising up levees, you’d think the whole world was in danger of flooding. Or maybe it’s just that there’s somebody up in the CCC that likes Early a whole lot, and gives him work. I don’t want to go with him to all those old places.”

  “What about your house in Chattanooga?”

  “I’d be all alone there! That’s not my home—this is my home. If I’m gone be all alone, then I might as well be here in Perdido. You and Elinor hate having me next door, is that it?”

  “That is not it and you know it. We just want you to be happy.”

  “Then I’m happy right here, and I’d appreciate it if you would speak one word to everybody concerned, Oscar. Say I do not want to leave this house unoccupied. Say I don’t know what would become of Ivey if I went away. Say I am providing a place for Miriam to come home to on her holidays. Say anything you want. Just don’t let people keep coming up to me the way you just did, and saying, ‘Sister, I know Early’s gone be glad to see you...’”

  Oscar promised to ease his sister’s way.

  . . .

  A card arrived two days later with Miriam’s address on it, but nothing else. Both Sister and Frances wrote to her immediately to say how much she was missed. For the next two weeks they hoped for a reply, but no response to their bashfully tender letters was forthcoming. They did not write again.

  Sister was seeing what it was like, for the first time in her life, to live alone. The only really difficult time was in the early evening after Ivey had gone home to Bray in Baptist Bottom. Sister ate her supper alone, and sat on the porch and sewed or looked at magazines. At these lonely times, she didn’t miss Miriam so much as she missed her mother. Sister was forty-six, but she felt a lot older. She was married, but she thought of herself as an old maid. One morning she said to Ivey, “Ivey, does your daddy still raise bird dogs?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Then I think I’m gone go out and get me one.” She did just that, and having had experience with Early’s pit bulls, she was able to wean the puppy successfully herself. She loved the dog very much and called it Grip. Grip eased Sister’s loneliness, though Ivey had dire predictions regarding a bird dog not brought up to hunt.

  . . .

  Queenie quit work at the Caskey mills when James gave up his office there. Her salary, however, continued to be paid out of her brother-in-law’s pocket. In exchange for this support—though the bargain was never formally struck between them—Queenie became more than ever a steadfast and indefatigable companion to James. James and Queenie sat on his front porch in the morning, and drove around town in the afternoon. Sometimes they drove down to Pensacola or Mobile for lunch or else went shopping together; James liked to buy clothes as much as Queenie did. Some days were devoted to his wardrobe, other days to hers. Queenie and James were so intimate that without hesitation Queenie could admit, “James, when I first came to this town—when was it, 1922 I guess—I put it in my head that I was gone get rid of Carl and marry you, ’cause you were a rich widower.” She laughed the old shrill laugh that had become dear to him.

  James laughed too. “Queenie, you were barking up the wrong tree. I was an old man even then, and I never was cut out for marriage. My daddy always used to say I had the ‘stamp of femininity’ on me, and I wasn’t ever gone be any use to anybody—man, woman, or child.”

  “Your daddy was wrong! That was a terrible thing to say to you.”

  James Caskey shrugged. “Carl’s dead,” he said. “You want me to marry you now?”

  “You’re too old, James Caskey.”

  “I’m sixty-eight.”

  “That’s too old,” squealed Queenie. “I’m only forty-eight, that’s just two years older than Sister. I’m gone go out and look for me a young man...”

  In such merry chafing they passed their days and evenings together. And if either had problems or difficulties they never hesitated to confide in each other. Just at this time, Queenie’s principal difficulty was with her son Malcolm.

  Malcolm disliked his work at the mill, which was monotonous, noisy, and ill-paying. He did not stop to consider that he was unqualified for anything else. He lived at home, for he hadn’t money to live elsewhere. He was rude to his mother and sister. He had taken up with a bad crowd in town. His particular crony was one Travis Gann, who painted utility poles with creosote at the mill. As a consequence of that pervasive odor, it was impossible for Travis to sneak up on anyone. His whole house smelled of it. Even his dog stank of the tarry substance. Travis, who did not have a mother to keep him in check, had all of Malcolm’s bad habits and tendencies, but he had a few more years of experience than Malcolm. Malcolm was, in a sense, apprenticing himself to Travis Gann and his ways.

  Queenie knew about Travis Gann. She knew that her son went with Travis to the racetrack in Cantonement on Saturday, and lost what money he had not spent on liquor the night before. She knew that when Malcolm went out of the house after supper he was on his way to Travis’s. Malcolm’s clothes began to smell of creosote.

  One Saturday afternoon, as Queenie and James were driving back from Pensacola and passed a road sign pointing toward Cantonement, Queenie said, “I bet if we went over to the dog track we’d find Malcolm and Travis Gann, betting all their money. James, I wish you would go to Oscar and tell him to fire that man Travis. That would make me very happy.”

  James protested, “You cain’t fire a man because he’s taken up with your boy, Queenie. If it wasn’t Travis Gann it’d be somebody else. You know that. Malcolm just takes after Carl, I guess.”

  Queenie shook her head ruefully, and sighed. “What am I gone do?” she said softly.

  . . .

  Queenie was wrong, however. Her son and Travis Gann were not in Cantonement. In Queenie’s car they had driven out on the forest road that led eventually to Bay Minette and Mobile. Six miles out of Perdido they pulled up before a weather-beaten, dusty general store. A tin Coca-Cola sign above the door bore one word: Crawford’s. Both young men got out, carrying shotguns that had belonged to Carl Strickland.

  They went into the store, which was as weather-beaten and dusty within as without. Two long aisles of grimy shelving led back to a grimy counter on which there were large glass jars of cookies and a cash register. Beyond this was a green baize curtain which evidently opened into the house behind the store. Behind the counter stood a weather-beaten and worn-looking middle-aged woman, who said timidly, “You boys ought not bring those guns in here. I’m scared of guns. My daddy shot my mama by mistake when I was a little girl.”

  Travis Gann said, “You give us all the money you got and we’ll take our guns back out.”

  “You gone shoot me?” she asked.

  Travis Gann raised his gun, took aim at her, and grinned. “No, ma’am,” he said, but did not lower the weapon.

  The woman trembled, and falteringly pressed a key of the cash register. She put all the money from the single small drawer of the register into a penny sack that was intended for the cookies from the glass jars. During this transaction Malcolm stood near the door watching apprehensively for anyone’s approach. Travis Gann went closer to the woman and took the money.

  “You...gone shoot me?” the lady faltered again.

  “You got any money in back there?” said Travis Gann, pointing toward the back.

  The woman shook her head. “Dial’s back there. Dial’s my husband. He’s not right,” she whispered, tapping her temple. “Better stay out of there.”

  “You got money back there,” said Travis Gann, casually lifting the rifle in the crook of one arm so that it was pointed at the woman’s st
omach.

  “Let’s go!” cried Malcolm. “Somebody coming down the road.”

  “Bye-bye,” said Travis Gann with a smile and a wink. He and Malcolm ran to the car, awkwardly secreting the shotguns from the sight of those in the oncoming vehicle. As Malcolm started the engine, the car he had seen approaching drove right on past.

  “Let’s go back,” said Travis Gann. “She’s got money in the back.”

  “No,” said Malcolm, moving the car swiftly back onto the road. “Lord God, Travis, I was scared to death in there! I thought for sure you were gone blow that old lady’s head off!”

  “I wisht I had,” Travis mused. “I never done that before.”

  . . .

  Dollie Faye Crawford ran back into the house and got her husband’s gun. She didn’t know whether or not it was loaded. She dashed to the front door of the store and peered through the screen. She just got a glimpse of the car as it sped off and in the dust she couldn’t read the numbers on the license plate. By the colors, however, she knew that it was an Alabama tag. She went to the telephone and called the Perdido police and said to Charley Key: “This is Dollie Faye Crawford out on the Bay Minette road. Two boys just robbed me. They were driving a dark blue Ford, about a ’34 I’d say, with Alabama tags. They took off in your direction. One of ’em smelled just like creosote.”

  “How much did they take?” the sheriff asked.

  “Everything I had,” replied Mrs. Crawford.

  “Miz Crawford, I’ll do what I can. You call up and speak to the Bay Minette police, too, you hear?”

  “The creosote man said he was gone shoot me, but he didn’t,” said Mrs. Crawford, and then she hung up the telephone.

  There were only two dark blue ’34 Fords in Perdido. One belonged to the high school principal’s wife; the other was Queenie Strickland’s. Charley Key rode by the high school principal’s house, and hollered out the window to the principal, who was watering his grass, “You been out robbing stores this afternoon?”