It took Al a week to get all the new merchandise unpacked and displayed to its best advantage, a skill that Elizabeth refused to master. A staunch Baptist, she told Al when he first opened the store that he used deceptive practices when he placed items in ways to entice innocent country folks. She never said that she’d not do it, but she had managed not to. When he got too busy with cotton hoeing or picking and didn’t get into Independence for a while, he always found items methodically folded and squarely stacked. She could arrange the bolts of fabric and a display of bonnets to look as austere as a military supply center.
The day he planned to leave, he rose early, intending to be on the road by daylight. The streets seemed eerily quiet, even the birds and the roosters remained silent. The air lay still and hot, too hot for the middle of September.
The screech of the corral gate brought the liveryman from inside the stable. “Never thought I’d be so glad to see a man. That mare of yours is having a spell. She’s in heat, been acting up half the night, upsetting ever horse in here. Even the mules are riled up.”
Miss Millie’s stall had plenty of space, giving her room to turn away, snort and wall her eyes when Al stroked her neck and reached for her twitching withers. “Come on, ol’ girl, I’m getting you out of here. “Easing his body against her side, he fished in his pockets for a cube of sugar. Her soft mouth lipped the treat, and then her head lurched away from his touch. “I better take her on home.”
The liveryman shrugged, leaned on his rake half asleep. “She woke me whinnying and then she got the whole barn restless and stirring around. I’m worn out, and so is half this lot.”
The men struggled to hitch her to the wagon and even as she pulled into the street, she jerked until Al had to rein her in to keep her from running.
The road stretched ahead like a ribbon of silver in the fading moonlight. He let Miss Millie pick up her pace. The early morning cicadas that usually buzzed a tuneless chorus were silent. Only Al’s voice offered a soothing refrain. “I bet you need to run, ol’ girl. You’ve been penned up in that stable far too long. No wonder you’re stir crazy.” The mare perked up her ears, listening to his voice. “I know about needing to run. If this damn leg would let me, I’d get out there and race along with you.”
At the fork in the road toward Brenham, Al said, “Let’s get you home. I’ll take the freight wagon into town this afternoon.”
The road curved up to an incline and tunneled into a grove of oaks, plunging the little carriage from creeping morning light into darkness. Miss Millie jerked her head at the distant rumble of thunder and tried to move into a full run. Al held her tight and kept his voice to a soothing banter. The breeze swept cool against him as the hill crested into a black mountain of clouds looming on the horizon. Miss Millie snorted, jerking her head as a streak of lightning cut blade-thin through the blackness, followed by a long, low rumble. “That’s a good thing, ol’ girl. We need a soaking rain. We don’t mind getting wet.”
The next flash lit the sky, and the thunder roared a long, loud growl, quickening the mare’s pace. Al firmed up the reins. The rain hit needle sharp and then pelted in crashing waves that rocked the carriage, causing the horse to rear in terror. Al held her firmly and finally gave up trying to shout over the noise of rain and wind. With each flash of lightning, he could see the road was already washing in rivulets. The mare’s hooves splashed through the churning water.
A bolt of lightning cannoned hot through a nearby oak splitting its base in a deafening roar of thunder and exploding trunk. A crashing limb hit hard against the buggy hood, then scraped onto the wheel and sent the carriage careening. The reins burned through his grip as Miss Millie reared with a terrified cry, ripping one of the shafts from the buggy, flipping it onto its side and plunging Al into blackness alongside the road.
He roused, clutched at mud as he tried pulling himself out of the ditch that seemed near full of water so cold that his teeth chattered. Searing pain shot through his entire left side, which refused to move with him as he tried crawling onto the road. He called for Miss Millie, but if she were nearby, the noise of wind and howling rain muffled his voice. In the white glow of steady lightning flashes, he tried to see down the road, to search for someone or something to grab for leverage out of the rushing water. He must not pass out again. He had to be alert enough to call out if someone came by. He tried remembering what day and what time the stage would be coming this way. Was it Saturday? If it came along, he couldn’t be in the middle of the road. They might run over him. It didn’t matter; he couldn’t move that far. He tried to yell loud enough for a driver to hear him, but his shout sounded more like a braying calf.
Lights bounced in the distance. He stared, blinking his eyes, not sure if he was conscious or slipping away from reality. The searing pain and staccato flashes of lightning became one blinding nightmare. He tried to distract himself by searching for the lights that kept disappearing. He had to be ready if it was the stage. He had to be alert and yell at just the right time.
Thunder shook the ground and drowned out his voice as he called out to the lights that bounced closer. Then, he felt hands clutching at him and Hébert calling his name. “Get the quilts and the tarp. Lift him easy. His shoulder’s all messed up.”
Al heard the yell and wondered if he made that sound as they placed him in the wagon. When he roused again, still shivering with the cold, he realized they were moving. He heard Hébert talking to him.
“Don’t pass out on me. You got to stay awake. We’ve been searching all day. Miss Millie went crazy wild. Tried jumping the corral fence with part of the shaft still attached. Never saw a horse so broken.”
“Broken?”
“Mundy had to put her down. Then, we headed out looking for you. We knew you’d be in a mess from the looks of the mare. We kept following the parts of your buggy that Miss Millie dragged to splinters.”
They cradled him into the house in a tarp and placed him on the kitchen table. Mama Zoé waited with warm water and herbs that made him groggy. Mundy spread his great bulk across Al to hold him down while Hébert pulled the bone back into his shoulder. He screamed once and passed into merciful oblivion. When he woke, he lay in bed, and Mama Zoé was freezing him with cool rags.
“Be still. You’re burning with fever. I need to cool you down.”
Hébert pulled up a chair. “You think you crippled your knee? Wait till you see what you did to that shoulder. Your whole left side’s a mess.”
“If I’d realized we were heading into a storm, I wouldn’t have taken Miss Millie into it.”
“Can’t blame yourself. Nobody expected a storm that fierce. It tore up half the county.”
“You’ve already heard about the damage?”
Hébert laughed. “It happened a week ago. You’ve been out of it for a long time. Yes, and I got papers from the store this morning. I’ll read you all the damage when you feel like listening.”
“I feel like it now.” Al tried to raise up, but a bullet of pain shot through him.
“Telegraph out of Victoria says a cyclone blew in from the Gulf of Mexico and tore up the Indianola port something awful. Hundreds died. Then the winds cut across the rest of the state—”
“Wait,” Al’s heart felt like it stopped. “What else did it say about Indianola? Did it list the dead?”
Hébert cocked his head, frowned at Mama Zoé who had settled on a stool at the end of Al’s bed, her lips moving as her polished rosary slipped through her fingers. He shook out the paper and read, “It says they don’t know how many died. Estimates say in the hundreds. There was a murder trial going on. People had come to see the trial and filled all the hotels and boarding houses. The tide washed out the road leading out of town and ate away the railroad bed. Reporters from Victoria rode horseback for nine hours to get in to see the damage. It swept the business section clean from Powderhorn Bayou to the railroad tracks.” Hébert folded the paper. “Do you know folks in Indianola?”
Al ran his hand across his face and slowly through his hair. “I knew a merchant from there. A long time ago.” Amelia. Amelia. He could still feel the softness of her hair against his cheek, her fingers tracing his back. “Will you search through the rest of the papers for any more news?”
“Sure, man.” Hébert gripped Al’s shoulder and stood. “Mama told me she tried to dry out the letters in your pocket. They were soaked through and fell apart.”
“Toby will wonder why I haven’t written.”
“I sent him a letter when I was in Brenham. Told him you broke your shoulder. I didn’t mention the broken ribs or the beat-up skull that’s made your face blacker than most of the Negroes around here. I figured with him starting school, he didn’t need to be fretting over you.”
“That’s good. But I’ve got to write, so he’ll know you weren’t lying.” Al grinned at the man standing beside his bed, the man who had cared for him yet another time. “I’m in debt to you again.”
“None of that. It’s all worked out.” Hébert headed toward the door and called over his shoulder. “You keep resting and don’t start aggravating yourself.”
“Wait. Did you find Ezra?”
“Not a word. I checked out Camptown. They didn’t get much damage in Brenham. Mostly it was the east part of the county that got torn up.”
“I should have gone on to Brenham instead of heading back here with Miss Millie.”
Hébert turned, leaned his hand against the top of the door frame and shook his head. “You’re the beatingest thing I’ve ever known. You’re not responsible for the whole world. Sometimes folks have to manage for themselves. Now, stop fretting.”
Al labored over a letter to Toby. After composing several drafts, he settled on a version that assumed time and distance had healed the raw wound. He made it lively with local news and described his broken shoulder as a simple carriage mishap. He added that Hébert and Mundy had gone to Columbus to buy another horse and came back empty-handed. The price got jacked up. The story would be reminder enough that if Hébert dressed as a white man instead of a farm laborer like Mundy, he wouldn’t have been cheated. He mentioned in a postscript that the vote to draft a new constitution had passed and work had begun.
By mid-October, Al had healed enough to tolerate the jarring ride into Brenham in the freight wagon. The storm had broken the heat; the moisture made the mornings feel cool. The rains flowed deep into the cracks in the earth and painted fields with a blanket of green seedlings. The trees, with leaves washed clean, lifted their limbs and welcomed birds that sang almost forgotten melodies.
Al drove directly into Camptown, nodding to women who stopped sweeping their porches and watched him pass. Men walking along the street tipped their hats and moved on. Maybe they felt uneasy after the Constitutional Convention. Al read in the Austin paper that the representatives worked on clauses that revised the jury system, required that jurors be literate. He couldn’t blame the blacks for their distrust. Even the white Republicans who held county positions often excluded the colored party members.
The Parson house looked the same as it had almost two months earlier except that green weeds grew around the large rock below the open door. Ezra appeared in the entrance.
“You still look pretty beat up.” Ezra did not smile his toothy, boy grin. Instead, he stared at Al beneath half-closed lids.
“I came to check on you. Hébert and I have been worried because he couldn’t find you.” Al began maneuvering to get down from the wagon, using his cane to balance himself.
“I heard about him nosing around.” Ezra made no effort to offer his shoulder.
Al stood by the rock, looking up to Ezra leaning against the door frame. “Hébert said you and Ella haven’t been in school and you’ve not been to the store for work.”
From the darkness came a voice, raspy and angry. “You tell that man we don’t need a piddling dollar a day.”
Ezra’s great black eyes pooled. He blinked back tears and whispered, “We don’t need no white folks watching after us.”
“Speak up to that man, Ezra.” The voice was sharp, nearing a shriek.
“I’d like to visit with your mama.”
“She’s sick. Don’t feel like no company.” Ezra began backing into the darkness.
“Has she seen the doctor?”
“Ain’t no doctor going to come here. Niggers don’t have doctors. Niggers have to take care of themselves. And that’s what we’re doing.” The voice reached a screaming pitch.
Ezra’s shoulders dropped slightly.
Al leaned forward and set his cane on the rock. “I’m not leaving until I know what’s going on. I know something has happened. I can’t help until I know what. Talk to me, Ezra.”
Ezra’s eyes narrowed, never left Al’s face. “One of Toby’s college boys came for a visit while I was off working in your store. He tore into Ella. He took all he wanted of my sister. When he got to this door, he threw two dollars on the floor. Said it was worth it to get some from such a little hole.”
Al thought he might vomit as rage shook him, made it hard to form the words. “Who was it? Who did such a thing to that child?”
“Mister Jarrell Packerman. He told Ella that he was a planter, a true man, not a drop of nigger blood in his veins.”
“Did the sheriff find him?”
“We didn’t call the sheriff. Mama says he works for you white folks.”
“I want to talk to your mama. Then, I’m going to the sheriff.” Al grabbed the door facing with his right hand and pulled himself past Ezra into the cabin. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness before he saw Ella huddled on a pallet in the corner. “I’m so very sorry, Ella.”
The child turned her head, clutching her arms about her frail body.
“I’m here.” The voice rattled.
Al moved closer and could see the growing point of light coming from a cigar. The woman held it to her lips and drew heavily.
“You’re the wonderful Mister Al who took my boy off, had him working in your fancy store. He left his sister available for one of your boy’s friends.”
Al sucked in his breath to calm himself to keep from pointing out that she was off being entertained by gentlemen friends. “I’m here, Mrs. Parsons, to help. I’m going to the sheriff. I’ll bring Dr. Petty to see about—”
“Don’t bother yourself. We’ll manage. I can’t work no more. Ella’s going to be ready soon.”
“Ready? Tell me I’m not hearing what I think you’re saying, Mrs. Parsons.” Al had never in his life thought of hitting a woman, but he wanted to slap Malaila Parsons out the front door. He leaned with both hands on his cane to steady himself.
“Your white trash damaged her. Now, she can soak your white friends for some good money.”
The tiny girl lay still as thrown-out slop.
Al stared down at the boy. “Why didn’t you get word to me? Why didn’t you go to the store, tell Wally what happened?”
“Tell that white man about my sister? You don’t understand. Those white folks in your store tell me and my color to come in the back door. They’re pansy nice when you’re around, but when you leave, it’s different.”
Al looked around the room, bare except for the rickety table and pallets on the floor. A thin cloth hung over the only window turning the light that burned through a faded red. “I want all of you to gather up your things. I’ll take you home with me. Get you in school at my place.” He looked at Malaila Parsons still sucking on her cigar. “You, too, Mrs. Parsons. Get your strength back with some of Mama Zoé’s good cooking. Then we can find work for you—”
The laugh came loud, followed by a spasm of coughing. “You must be crazy. I got us away from the drudgery at ol’ man Affleck’s grand Glenblythe Plantation. You’ll never get me near the dirt again.”
“How about the children? Let me take them. Get them away from this element.”
“You mean, away from me? You white men talk about the element. But, I’ve noticed you like to partake of the element pretty regular. If you don’t leave right now, I won’t call the sheriff. I’ll call my neighbors. They don’t like white folk any better than I do. All I have to do is shout one time that you’re raping my daughter. They’ll tear into you like mad dogs.” She flicked cigar ashes into a tin can. “I mean it. Git from here.”
Al looked at Ezra who had moved back to the door.
“Like she says. You better git.” His eyes shifted away from Al’s gaze.
Al softened his voice. “I’m available to help. Anytime, Ezra.” When he reached the wagon, he could see Ezra standing back in the shadows watching him.
The sheriff, an elf-sized white man, stood on the porch in front of the jail, a flimsy-rolled cigarette anchored between his lips as he extended his hand to Al.
“Did you know Jarrell Packerman raped a ten-year-old girl a few weeks ago?” As soon as the words left his mouth, and he saw the steely narrowing of the sheriff’s eyes, he wished he’d not sounded so threatening.
“A colored child?”
“Ella Parsons. In Camptown.”
The sheriff slung the butt of his cigarette toward the street and ran a gnarly hand under his rumpled felt hat. “That’d be Gerard Parsons’ baby girl?” His eyes looked watery, old for a man who couldn’t be more than thirty. “I’ll get my Negro deputy to go with me out there to see about her. They helped elect me but going with a colored deputy makes me a little more welcome.”
“What about Packerman? You need help going after him?”
“The bastard left for Brazil a couple weeks ago. His older brothers bought themselves a sugar cane plantation and plenty of niggers to work it.”
“I feel like puking,” Al said. “Before the war, white planters ranted about creating a slave empire across the South that would stretch into the Caribbean. Lately, I’ve heard some of them went all the way to Brazil.”
“Whites are clamping down.” The sheriff’s head kept shaking. “My deputies have been going to the meetings in Camptown. Trying to calm their fears. Lynchings have gotten so bad in the counties along the Brazos that some coloreds are talking about an exodus. Going up to Kansas on the Katy Railroad. I’m about to think it’s a good idea.”
“Washington County’s one of the last that’s still voting in a few Republicans like you for local offices.” I sound like a damn optimist. Nobody believes Republicans will last for long.
The sheriff fumbled with a ring of keys jangling next to his gun holster. “I’ll lock up. Pick up my deputy on the way to see about the Parsons. I hear Malaila’s making do with work on the side.” His eyes were level, accusing, waiting for Al to comment. When Al didn’t respond, he went on. “Her kind of life don’t look good. It appears to white folks like niggers are free as birds. Flitting around thinking they can take over. People say niggers oughta be thankful for getting out of that African hell hole. We’ve given them a chance to be good Christians. And look what they’ve done—whoring, gambling, laying about, and then cocking around trying to get elected to our legislature.”
Al stared at the twisted little man. “You must have forgotten that you rode into office on votes from those colored people.” Al turned to leave, then stopped. “If Packerman ever comes back, will you get him?”
“You bet we will.” The sheriff stepped off the porch and walked off toward Camptown, his keys slapping noisily against his thigh.
Al clenched his fists against the throbbing in his arm and shoulder. He inched slowly off the porch and realized he didn’t have the strength to lift himself up to the wagon seat. He grabbed one of the mule’s bridles and tried not to limp as he led the animals to the livery stable.
When he walked into Water’s Mercantile, Wally rushed to meet him, his arms extended for a barrel hug. “Hold it, Wally. Before I explode, I want you to know I’ll fire your ass if you have another colored person come in the back door. You are to welcome them just like you welcome all our customers.” Al felt himself swaying and reached for the counter.
“Al, you’re pale as clabber.” Wally grabbed a chair. “Sit right here. I’ll get a fresh dipper from the well.”
Al watched the fat little man’s butt flop as he walked faster than he’d moved in twenty years. When he returned, his face looked red as the dipper. His hands trembled as he handed it to Al.
He took a drink, leaned against the counter, and poured the remaining water over his head. “I meant what I said about serving all customers, but I’m sorry I said it as I did.”
“You just scared the shit out of me. I thought you were about to have a stroke. You looked like a dead man come back from hell.”
“I’m still there, Wally.” Al noticed a colored woman coming in the back door. “Hello, ma’am. From now on, you come in the front door. That back door is only for hauling in merchandise.” He glanced at Wally, then looked at the woman. “If you’re ever again told to come in the back door, you let me know when I get to town.”
The woman smiled, pulled her purse up to her chest and looked at Wally.
“That’s the policy, Mrs. Ferguson,” Wally said. “You tell all your friends that’s the way it is from now on.”
Mrs. Ferguson smiled at Al. “Thank you, sir. We’ll be regular if the front door be open.”
“It will.” Al nodded toward Wally. “I’m going upstairs to rest. Will you put that bundle of newspapers under my arm? I’ve got some reading to do.” He couldn’t raise his left arm to grip the railing. Instead, he leaned his right shoulder against the wall for balance and gutted it up the stairs. The room had never seemed big, but it loomed large as he limped between the table and stove and then dropped to the bed.
The news about the Indianola storm said bodies spread for twenty miles along the coast. Only five business houses survived. Stein Mercantile was not on the list. The docks were all ripped away. They shot looters, which had put a stop to the problem. No papers listed the dead. The district attorney said the town was destitute, a quarter of the population gone. Nine-tenths of the houses destroyed. Al drifted into fevered sleep, let the paper drop to his chest.
Amelia tried to swim toward him, but waves pushed her back. His arm hung in a vise of torn lumber, and he struggled to get loose. He jerked one final time, and his arm came off turning the water red.
He woke in a sweat. He had rolled onto his left side and aggravated the shoulder. The window framed the moon, full and tinged to a harvest orange. Only this year, there would be no harvest and no income. The store’s account balances would continue to grow. He could sell some of his land, use the money for Toby’s schooling next year, and buy a comfortable buggy for the trip to Indianola. He had to see for himself. See if she survived. See if she remembered.
A shout made him jump. Drunks were stumbling along the street. He was little different from those lost souls––a fool about to jump into a crazy plan. And he didn’t care.