Blackwater: The Complete Caskey Family Saga (61 page)

“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 stomach.

“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?”

“No!” shouted the principal. “I haven’t got time for foolishness.”

Queenie Strickland’s automobile was not in front of her house. Inside, Lucille told the sheriff that Malcolm and Travis Gann had taken the car out about an hour before, but hadn’t said where they were going.

“Old Travis,” said Sheriff Key, “he works at the mill, don’t he?”

“Yes, sir,” replied Lucille. “And he just
stinks
of that old creosote. I don’t let him come near me! You want to see one of them, Sheriff?”

“I want to see ’em both.”

“You want me to give ’em a message?”

“I want to sit on your front porch and wait for ’em to come home is what I want. What’s your name?”

“Lucille.”

“Lucille,” said the sheriff, “you got some iced tea? I sure am hot.”

Malcolm Strickland and Travis Gann were arrested that evening by Charley Key, charged with armed robbery, and thrown into the five-cell lockup in the Perdido town hall. Queenie and James appeared there about ten minutes after the doors had been slammed shut on the two men.

Malcolm sat sullenly on a bench against the outside wall, shading his eyes from the harsh glare of the single electric bulb dangling from the ceiling. “Don’t say it, Ma.”

“Say what?” demanded Queenie. “That you’re no good? That you’ve finally done it this time? Well, I will say it. You’re no good, Malcolm Strickland. You certainly have done it this time. And you, Travis Gann,” she turned to the smirking man sprawled in another corner of the cell, “you put my boy up to this.”

“Lord, Miz Strickland,” drawled Travis, his creosote stench filling the cell, “I couldn’t have talked Malcolm into doing anything he didn’t want to do.”

“Mama, Uncle James, are you gone get me out, or are you just gone stand there and preach?”

Queenie wouldn’t reply.

“We’re gone get you out,” said James softly.

“Good,” said Malcolm. Both men rose.

“Not you, Mr. Gann,” said James Caskey.

“Aw, hey...” he protested. “I don’t have no rich relatives to pay my bail.”

“Then you’ll just have to stay in here and rot,” said Queenie. “Malcolm, are you gone promise me before you get out of here?”

“Promise you what, Mama?” asked Malcolm apprehensively.

“That you are never gone have anything more to do with this man in your entire life?”

Travis Gann grinned.

“Sure. Mama, you know how much we got?” Malcolm said ruefully, glancing at Travis. “We got twenty-three dollars.”

James shook his head. “It’s costing me a hundred to get you out of here.”

Charley Key appeared with the keys of the cell in his hand.

“Mama,” said Malcolm in a low voice, reaching for his mother through the bars, “am I gone go to jail?”

“Where do you belong?” she returned tartly. “You belong in jail for putting James and me through this shame.”

“Evening, James,” said the sheriff. “Evening, Miz Strickland. You got a lousy excuse for a son here.”

“I was just telling him that, Sheriff,” said Queenie. “But he’s not as bad as his friend there.”

“Your mama’s got a tongue,” remarked Travis Gann, as Malcolm was being let out of the cell. “Miz Strickland, you ought to watch that tongue of yours. Someday somebody might come up to you and tear it out of your head and wrap it around your neck and choke you to death with it. And who’d get you out of jail
then
, Malcolm?”

“Watch out, Travis,” murmured the sheriff. “Don’t go threatening people now. Somebody might start to take you serious, and lift your chin with a rifle barrel. Lift it right through the top of your damned head.”

Queenie pulled Malcolm a few feet along the corridor out of Travis Gann’s sight—but not out of range of his laughter. “Let’s go,” she said to James.

James was in front of another cell, chatting with two former mill employees; they had been hired by James thirty years before. They were in jail for brawling. “Hey,” he was saying, “you two are too old to be fighting over a woman. And you’re too poor to be fighting over money. What was it?”

“Plain old hard times,” replied the one.

“Nothing else to do,” returned the other.

Outside, James paid both men’s bail.

. . .

Out on the Bay Minette road, in the house in back of Crawford’s store, Dollie Faye Crawford had taken to her bed. She was surrounded by neighbors and relatives who had flocked to her in the time of her distress. It was universally judged that she had almost had a stroke. Her blood pressure, as a result of the terrifying incident, was dangerously high. Her husband Dial rocked peaceably in a corner of the room out of everyone’s way.

The store was shut, but friends and relatives bearing gifts of food and consolation out of Bibles marked with scraps of paper knocked on the side door of the house. They were admitted by a faded little girl who had been given a pocketful of cookies from one of the jars on the counter of the store in payment for the task. At around eleven o’clock on Sunday morning, the day after the robbery, everyone had gone off to church, and Dollie Faye and Dial were left alone. There was a timid knock at the door, and the little girl opened it.