27

When Ella fell ill and took to her bed, Samuel assumed full responsibility for running the commissary. Macon became the reluctant assistant to Neva Clarkson, who cared for Ella. The boy would run and fetch fresh pans of water, lay washcloths across Ella’s face, and even empty the chamber pot. But it was Keaton who felt that it was up to him to keep Ella from dying.

After Neva Clarkson had given Ella the cocktail of turpentine and sugar that Bonaparte claimed helped his wife recover, she showed Keaton how to measure out the dosage. “How are you holding up?” Neva asked before closing the door to the bedroom where Ella’s sleep was broken by coughs.

Keaton kept his eyes on the rising of his mother’s chest against the sheet. When he shifted his weight in the straight-back chair next to the bed, the floor creaked.

Keaton looked out the window, watching Miss Clarkson walk away with a wicker basket dangling at the crook of her elbow. The washcloth that was drooped across his mother’s forehead slid down over her right eye.

Easing the dresser drawer open, Keaton flipped through the pants that his mother kept folded inside. He had seen her put the card that came with the puppet that Lanier sent into the drawer. Although she had never told any of them that the puppet was from Lanier, Keaton had suspected. The wooden toy was painted with the same almond-shaped eyes as the miniature versions he had crafted in the barn. When Ella was at the store, Keaton had found the postcard under the pair of khaki pants that were permanently stained with turpentine. Keaton had said nothing to his brothers about the card. Part of him was fearful that Samuel would use the card against their mother and further his talk that she had been carrying on with Lanier.

Holding the postcard with the black-and-white photograph of a streetcar idling toward the camera, Keaton looked at the address and then over at Ella. Her chest rose and sank with her gasping breath. Tucking the card inside the waist of his pants, he looked out the window and watched the people move about their business as if it were any other day. Only the masks on their faces indicated what they were hiding from.

At daylight when Samuel opened up for business, Neva Clarkson took her place in the chair in Ella’s room. With everyone distracted, Keaton went to his bedroom and pulled out the empty seed sack that he had taken out of the storeroom the day before.

Careful not to stand in view of the windows that lined the side of the store, Keaton walked directly under them, brushing his shoulder against the splintered wood of the outside wall. Mr. Busby’s wagon was tied to the hitching post by the corner just like it was every last Friday of the month, influenza or not. Mr. Busby had spent the day before busily photographing those who had been reluctant to have their picture made. “Pictures last forever . . . long after our souls have left the bodies,” Mr. Busby had told them, scaring them into letting him position them against the black velvet and securing celluloid proof that they had ever existed. “Off to Apalachicola and down to the dock tomorrow to photograph a dead man they’re shipping home to New Orleans,” Mr. Busby said the day before when Keaton came in to get another stick of peppermint for his mother to suck on. “Lots of people wanting portraits of the dearly departed all laid out in their Sunday best. Business is up twofold. But it’s a shame how it came about, of course.”

After the beekeeper walked from the store with the veil of his hat hanging down the back of his neck, Keaton lifted up the tarp over the wagon that had once been bright red but was now faded orange from exposure to the sun. Inside the moldy-smelling wagon, Keaton put the sack of clothes under his chest and pushed away the sharp ends of a candelabra that poked at his leg. Lodged between a torn screen printed with hand-sewn blue jays and a chunk of green marble that had once been a fireplace mantel, Keaton listened to the chatter of those who went about their business and waited for the man who would unknowingly secure his passage to New Orleans.

When Mr. Busby’s wagon stopped at the post office in Apalachicola, Keaton waited until he heard Mr. Busby grunt as he climbed off and tied the horses up to the hitching posts. The sputter and then roar as an automobile gained speed and passed by on the road tangled with the sound of Mr. Busby pitching his services to a woman on the sidewalk. The woman sternly said, “No thank you,” and Keaton could make out her steps as she walked away on the wooden sidewalk. Keaton counted to fifty and figured that had given Mr. Busby enough time to make it inside the post office. He slowly lifted the edge of the tarp. A boy not much older than himself nailed a leaflet to the side of the hitching post and then darted across the street, not realizing that two of the leaflets had fallen to the ground. Dover’s Powder for Pain: Do Not Fear When Fighting a German or a Germ. Keaton slipped out the back of the wagon, pausing only long enough to untangle the end of the croaker sack containing his belongings from the leg of a broken chair.

Keaton skipped down the sidewalk with the sack over his shoulder, wondering if anyone would try to stop and question him. He kept looking back, but not even the colored man who swept the boarded walkway outside the inn noticed him. The man kept his head tucked and only occasionally stopped sweeping long enough to straighten the red handkerchief that was secured over his face like a bank robber’s. Once Keaton made it past the first intersection, even Mr. Busby’s white horses stopped watching him and began biting the post where they were tied.

At the dock, Captain Marcum came down to greet him only after a toothpick-thin man named Silverton, who Keaton was sure was named such because of a silver front tooth, skeptically sized him up.

“You came back, did you?” Captain Marcum said with his gray hair perfectly parted down the middle. The ends of his hair hung just below his ears and fluttered with a breeze that drifted off the water. A flock of seagulls hung in midflight over a bucket of fish heads. The yellow in Captain Marcum’s hair seemed brighter in the morning sun, and the seagulls scattered as he passed. “What makes you think I’ll still have you? You did say you’re fourteen, didn’t you?”

Keaton looked down at the bucket of fish heads and nodded, wondering if the captain would figure out that he was only thirteen. The fish head closest to the top had a swollen eye that seemed to be staring right back at him as if the dismembered fish knew that he was lying. “Sir, I can promise you this. I’ll outwork any man you got on this boat,” Keaton said with an assuredness that caused the captain to tilt his head the same way the seagulls looked at the fish heads.

“If that’s true, then I’ll pay you three and a quarter a week. If you’re not man enough for the job, then you find yourself looking at a one-way passage back from New Orleans.”

Keaton decided that he wouldn’t remind the captain that he had originally told him he’d pay three dollars a week. The less said, the better. Silverton pointed to a narrow stairwell that led to the deck below and hollered, “Room at the end. Right over the hull.” He laughed before he walked toward three men who were tossing bales of cotton to one corner of the cargo area.

Down below, the smell of the hull—a tonic of oil and human waste—overtook Keaton, and he pulled the collar of his shirt up over his nose. At the end of the dark, narrow hall, he found a cramped room with blotches of mildew stamped on the wall. Keaton put his sack on the corner of the soiled hammock that he would sleep on. The whistle rang from the top deck, and he jumped.

Back up on the storage deck, Keaton dodged passenger trunks as men with shirtsleeves rolled up to their biceps tossed the cargo around as easily as he and Macon thumped at their marbles. He listened to Silverton go over his primary responsibilities such as keeping the captain’s cabin clean, delivering messages between the engine room and the captain’s perch, and preventing an overflow of the waste in the hull. “We don’t need passengers fretting and getting all in our business,” Silverton told him. The whistle blew once more, and both of them locked their stances, trying to stay balanced as the steamboat pushed away from the dock and headed out into the bay.

Keaton recited in his mind everything that Silverton was telling him. He tried not to let the man that lisped with the piece of silver in his mouth notice that he was gazing off just above his right shoulder. He had about as much control over the boil that stirred in his stomach as he did over his fear that he was making a mistake. Nodding at Silverton, Keaton pictured Samuel reading the note that he had left for him under his pillow. Samuel would probably make fun of him for leaving a note like a lovesick girl. He preferred to think of it that way as opposed to Samuel vowing to beat him for running off the way their father had. I’m not running off, Keaton kept repeating to himself as he mumbled “umm-hmm” to Silverton’s mandates.

“Are you hearing a word that I’m saying?” Silverton asked. A spray of his spit landed on Keaton’s arm.

“Yes, sir,” Keaton answered. But he never turned his eyes away from the sight of Wefing’s marine hardware store that stood majestically on Water Street just over Silverton’s shoulder. Long after Silverton had tossed him the broom to sweep pieces of cotton from the deck, Keaton stared at the building until it became a tiny square on the horizon. Moving behind the tallest bale of cotton at the front of the bow, Keaton gripped the broom, looked away toward the Gulf that was unfolding like a clean, gigantic blackboard, and bit his tongue, struggling not to cry like a scared little boy.

Lanier stayed away from the influenza tent as long as he could. Every time he closed his eyes he saw Harlan’s face with the sores covering his lips and the bones of his cheeks under yellowed skin so thin it seemed like it was already decaying. Lanier tried to rub away the chill that never left his system after seeing the inside of the tent. Each time he did, he felt the broken skin where the woman had clawed him in a dying fit.

Lanier kept telling himself that Harlan was not worth saving. In fact, he made it a point to walk three blocks out of his way to work at the United Fruit Company just so he wouldn’t have to pass Jackson Square. Buckling his pants and pulling on his boots, Lanier never noticed the first light of day that cut through the thin curtain and fell upon the stacks of books. Reason might agree that Harlan Wallace was better off dead, but Lanier’s heart told him otherwise.

Standing at the tent in the square, Lanier listened as the bells of the cathedral struck six times. Not even the clanging from the steeple could mask the sound of the coughing.

Sunlight bled through the tent ceiling and caused the nuns tending patients in the second row of cots to shield their faces when they called out for supplies from the volunteers. The nun with protruding front teeth came up to Lanier with damp towels balanced on her upheld arm. “Thank you for coming,” she whispered and then whisked past him toward the basin table. The scent of rubbing alcohol and body odor accompanied her.

A man with an unknotted black tie and a teenage boy wearing a golf cap tied the ends of two sheets. On the cot before them lay a four-year-old girl, her eyes wide with anticipation, just like the dolls that Lanier made. It was only when Lanier reached the foot of the bed that he realized she was dead.

Cries from a woman were shrill and then grew fainter as a nun escorted her out of the tent.

Lanier eased toward the pole that held the corner of the tent up. He leaned down over Harlan, debating what sort of greeting he should offer. He opened his mouth but no words would form.

“Wylie Stillis,” Harlan hissed through the space where his front two teeth were once located. His voice sounded more garbled, as if he were speaking underwater.

Lanier flinched at the sound of his father’s name. “No,” he stammered. “No, it’s Lanier. Wylie’s . . . Wylie’s son.”

“Wylie,” Harlan said and turned his head. A patch of hair was missing from the side of his scalp, and a fresh V-shaped scar was in its place. “Wylie. You got out of prison, did you?”

“I’m Lanier,” he said. “Lanier.”

Harlan coughed, and a rope of phlegm wormed out his mouth and onto the sheet. He gasped and exhaled his words. “Wylie, how come you raped that girl and sliced her up?”

“I am not Wylie. Now look at me. It’s Lanier. I’m your cousin.”

“I don’t claim you.” Harlan hacked and the cot vibrated. His fingers trembled as he tried to touch the sores on his lips. “You sliced that girl up like a hog.” Harlan’s body convulsed as he coughed and tried to speak. Phlegm and damnations flew from his mouth.

Lanier felt the shame wrap around him tighter than the sheet that was stretched up to Harlan’s neck. “I’m Lanier. Lanier. I’m trying to help you, if you’ll let me.”

“If anybody needs helping, it’s you.” Harlan tried to lean up on his elbow. For a second Lanier thought that he might sit up in bed. “You rapist and murderer. You left your wife and boy to beg for handouts. You’ll rot in hell.”

Lanier gripped Harlan’s arm through the sheet. It felt like the hind leg of a day-old calf. Harlan kicked until the sheet untucked from the cot. Gnarled yellow toenails broke free and poked Lanier. Jerking away, Lanier lost his balance and landed on one knee.

“Now listen. I tried to help your family just like I’m trying to help you. You left them, Harlan. Do you remember that?”

Closing his eyes, Harlan lifted his hand long enough to crook his finger and motion. Lanier leaned closer. “Wylie, get me my pipe,” Harlan said with haggard, pungent breath. “I got to take my medicine.”

Lanier felt rage building at the base of his skull. It boiled him the same way he imagined the fevers afflicting those in the tent. Everything he’d felt about his father was placed on Harlan. Gripping the side of the cot, he shook it hard enough for Harlan to open both eyes. “Don’t cast stones when you don’t have the rocks to throw.”

Harlan coughed again and arched his back. Balling his fist, he contorted against Lanier’s grip and then released. “Come nearer,” he whispered. Lanier moved closer until he could make out the film that clouded Harlan’s dark eyes. They were dead to the spirit like the eyes of the horses that were forced to pull the carriages around the square.

Harlan raised his wobbling head and managed to grin before spitting a stream of green phlegm straight into Lanier’s face.

A nun screamed orders. Two volunteer medics rushed forward with leather straps. While they tied Harlan’s arms to the sides of the cot, he laughed and gagged all at the same time. None of the rest of them could make out what Harlan was saying, but Lanier understood him perfectly. “Wylie, I reckon to see you in hell.”

It was Macon who found the note that Keaton left on Samuel’s bed. He ran into Ella’s room and jostled Samuel, who sat sleeping, slumped to the side of the rocking chair. Rubbing his eyes, Samuel read the note, silently mouthing each word. I’ve gone to find Lanier so he can help us. Be back soon. Samuel looked at Macon, cursed Lanier Stillis, and then balled the note into his fist. He propped both hands on Macon’s shoulders and led him out into the hallway, feet away from where Neva Clarkson slept in a state of exhaustion on the living room sofa. Squatting before Macon, Samuel looked him straight in the eye and whispered, “Don’t you worry about Keaton. I’ll let the law know tomorrow. He’s big enough to fend for himself until they find him. We got enough to worry about with Mama. And I want you to promise me you won’t tell Mama a word about this. Now is the time we got to be strong. We got to get Mama better. She can’t get better if she’s worrying about Keaton.”

Macon nodded, and tears welled up in his eyes.

“No matter what happens, I won’t leave you,” Samuel whispered. “You understand? I’ll never leave you.”

Nodding faster, Macon reached to hug Samuel, but he had already slipped back into Ella’s room. Running back into the bedroom, Macon threw himself on the bed that Samuel had not occupied for two days and landed facedown on the spot where the note had rested. He buried his face deeper into the covers and cried harder than he had the day his playmate died.

The next morning, an hour after the sun rose, Neva stood over Ella and pressed the moist rag against her friend’s forehead. Macon sat cross-legged at the doorway of Ella’s bedroom. When he saw his mother stir in the bed, Macon ran and grabbed the big wicker fan shaped like a palmetto leaf and began waving it across her. Samuel moved from the edge of Ella’s dresser where the postcard from Lanier had been hidden and grabbed the top of the fan. He slowly shook his head at Macon and motioned for him to move back to the door. Macon took a few steps and then settled against the dresser with his arm propped on top of the crocheted doily that his great-aunt had made.

A cool breeze drifted in through the open window. The sheer curtains twisted and turned like dancing ghosts.

Ella opened her eyes. As if they were connected, the boys and Neva moved closer to the bed as one unit. “You’re better now,” Samuel said. It was more of a command than a question. “You’re better. I can tell. Listen to me, I can tell.” Neva draped her long fingers over his shoulder and squeezed and then patted.

Ella stared at the swirls of yellow in the curtains that twisted against the wind that came in through the bedroom windows. Swimming in the fever that cooked her body, Ella’s mind dreamed in bursts of illuminating color. Color as bright as the kaleidoscope that her aunt Katherine had allowed her to look through on Sunday afternoons. Indeed, her aunt had come to her through the window last evening and told her that colors abound and beauty would never fade with the sun. Ella pretended to know what she meant, but before she could ask any questions, her aunt moved behind the curtain that bowed out of the room with the current of the breeze. The curtain fell back against the window, and there was nothing there but the high-backed chair with the seat made of black-and-white cowhide that Ella used as a place to lay out her robe each night.

Ella rolled her head against the pillow and looked toward the door. She tried to reach out for Macon, but the weight of the sheet locked her down like restraints. She tried to smile.

Samuel nudged Neva. “See, I told you she was better.”

The attempt was lost on Macon. He peeked through the gap between Neva and Samuel. His eyes were as frightened as they had been when the thrush had nearly killed him.

Come here, son, Ella wanted to say, but the words hung in her throat, blocked by the walls of secretions that Neva constantly wiped out of her mouth. When she tried to reach her arm out to him again, Macon slid his shoulder against the wall and stepped backward out of the room.

At the door she saw Lanier and tried to sit up. Lanier’s hair was as bright as the curtains, and his eyes were stronger than she remembered. He held his hands up over Macon’s head and ran his fingers over the boy’s shoulders as if he were playing a game with him. Macon turned away and slipped down the hall. His departure didn’t seem to bother Lanier. He just stood there, dressed in a white linen shirt that dangled at the waist of his denim pants. Ella recognized the tenderness in his eyes that caused her to trust him when common sense dictated otherwise. She tried to rise and greet him. In her mind she beckoned Lanier to stay, but Neva pushed her back against the bed that was contoured and damp from her suffering. “Rest now, Ella,” Neva whispered. “You belong to rest.”

The curtain swept up in the air again, and when Ella looked out the window, she saw Harlan standing in front of the sunflowers. He was wearing a derby hat and a gold chain that dangled from his vest pocket. His shoulders were as broad as they had been before the addiction ravaged him. He moved toward the house with the same purpose Ella had seen when she first met him. The deep-gutted laugh that rolled out like carpet announcing his celebrated arrival caused Ella to shake. Neva replaced the damp rag with a fresh one and then placed a chip of ice on her broken lips. The cool sensation tickled Ella’s senses, and she tried to open her mouth wide enough to take in all of the relief.

Ella jerked her head back toward the door, wanting to warn Lanier that Harlan was coming back for his possessions. But this time when she looked at the doorway, all Ella saw was the chalk mark, shaped like an apple, that Macon had drawn on the door when no one was watching.