BLACKWATER:The Mysterious Saga of the Caskey Family (33 page)

This remarkable rampart was twenty-five feet wide at its base, about twenty-two feet high—depending upon the part of town—and about twelve feet broad at the top. With every fifty feet or so of the levee that was completed, a layer of topsoil was added to the top and sides, and immediately planted with grass. Black women in the community made forays into the forests and dug up smilax, small dogwoods, hollies, and wild roses, which were also planted in the red clay walls. Further to guard against erosion, Early had slips of kudzu placed at the base of the levee on both sides in great holes filled with pulverized cow manure. He had been assured that no amount of fertilizer could burn the roots of that rampaging vine.

Early and Morris Avant conferred every day, and Morris pointed out that the speed with which the levee could be built was in direct proportion to the number of men they had working on it. Early did a little figuring and a little more talking with Morris Avant and his foremen, then went back to the town council and asked whether they wouldn't authorize money for the building of another dormitory to house more workers. The cost would be offset by the overhead expenses saved in the quicker completion of the project. Early was told to do whatever he saw fit, and the Hines brothers went to work the next day.

Early did not worry about finding workers now to fill that dormitory, for it had become known all over south Alabama, south Mississippi, and the Florida panhandle that wages, room, and board were to be had in Perdido. So when the Hines brothers finished the second dormitory, and two more colored women had been hired on to help in the kitchens, every man in search of work on the levee was accommodated. They drifted in from God-knew-where, appearing suddenly out of the forest or entering town on the buckboard of a wagon bringing in clay or simply trudging in on the road from Atmore. They all went by nicknames, and none seemed to possess a history entirely unblemished.

These men worked so hard all day that it was a wonder that they had the energy, after the sun went down, to sit up for their meals in the dormitory kitchen. But the men ate voraciously, and seemed not to know the word "weariness." At night, even more so than during the day, Perdido seemed to have been invaded by these men; people now locked their doors. The levee-men were rowdy, and they consumed vast quantities of the liquor brewed up on Little Turkey Creek. Two little Indian girls on a swayback mule brought in ten gallons of the stuff each day and sold it at the dormitories every morning before school, entrusting the proceeds to their teacher until school was over. A gambling den run by Lum-mie Purifoy opened in Baptist Bottom; his ten-year-old daughter Ruel passed her evening serving rotgut liquor by the tin-cupful. Two white women, it was whispered, had been driven up from Pensacola by a colored man in a yellow coat. They were the very lowest sort of white women, and actually rented a house in Baptist Bottom. The door of that house, it was said, was never closed to a man who knocked on it with a silver dollar in his fist. Perdido's three policemen tried to stay away from these purlieus of the levee-men at night; even with their pistols, they were no match for one hundred and seventy-five powerful, brawling drunks. It was a mercy that, after dark, these men tended to keep to themselves. Only occasionally might three or four of them be seen reeling up Palafox Street, leaning against store windows with closed drunken eyes; and once in a while they made nuisances of themselves in the audience at the Ritz Theater with rude noises and obscene commentary on the movies. Very occasionally a black man would have to bar his door and plead pitifully for the purity of his daughter while the daughter ran deftly out the back way.

Yet the white workers—no-good, unpleasant, and possibly dangerous—were a, necessary evil. They would go away after a year or so, but the levee they built would protect Perdido for an eternity.

It was the summer of 1923, and the whole town seemed to stink with the sweat of the levee-men. The construction on the eastern bank of the Perdido had been finished. Two sets of concrete steps had been built into the aides of the levee, and a track had been beaten into the earth along the top. This was a favorite promenade of the colored population after church on Sunday, and colored children played there all day. From the windows of the town hall, the levee was a bright red wall, and after a rain it became shining red and was a dominant feature of the landscape.

Work had begun just behind the town hall now, and before long it would seem as if the Perdido below the junction were flowing meekly through a deep red gully. Already the river seemed to have surrendered much of its former belligerence and pride.

Beneath the constant heat, the workers were wearier than before, but instead of dampening their spirit at night, the warm weather seemed to cause them to drink more and to carouse with greater vehemence and noise. On these summer nights, when respectable Perdido sat on its porch for air after supper, the racket made by the workers on the far side of the river was a distant but very audible roar, punctuated occasionally by a coherent shout. Perdido rocked grimly, and fanned its face, and said in a low voice,
I
sure will be glad when those men have gone back to wherever it was they came from. And to be on the safe side, hunting guns that usually weren't taken out until deer season were cleaned and loaded and propped in the corner behind the front door. The unspoken fear was that the two white women from Pensacola who had taken up scandalous residence in Baptist Bottom would prove insufficient for the "needs" of the workers.

One night, in the midst of the heat—and the rocking, and the fanning, and the worry—the telephone rang in Oscar Caskey's house about ten o'clock, an advanced hour for the call to be anything but an emergency. Oscar and Elinor were sitting on their upstairs porch as usual and Oscar went to answer it. He came back in a few moments and said, a little uneasily, "It's Florida Benquith, she sounds worried."

Elinor got up and went to the telephone. Oscar hung about and listened to his wife's end of the conversation. This wasn't much, for Florida was a great talker and on this occasion she had more than usual to say.

"Listen, Elinor," she began without preamble, "I'm sorry to call you like this, but I thought you ought to know what happened—or what we think has happened, because we're not sure yet. I've just now sent Leo on over there."

"Are you talking about Queenie?" asked Elinor calmly.

"Of course I am! I was standing in my kitchen, Elinor, putting away plates. My window's open for a little breath of air and suddenly I hear all kinds of carrying-on coming from Queenie's house—and it's not Queenie going on after those two children either, it's Queenie's voice and a man's voice and who is Queenie arguing with? is all I can think. So I turn out the light and step out on the back porch so they cain't see me—I didn't want 'em to think I was spying, and anyway I wasn't, I just wanted to make sure Queenie was all right—and I'm listening but I cain't tell what anybody is saying but they keep on with it. Then I hear Queenie holler 'No!' and then I don't hear anything else. Elinor, I tell you, I was starting to get worried."

"What'd you do?" said Elinor.

"I run to get Leo. He's in the living room, reading. I bring him out on the porch and I tell him what I heard and we just stand there listening, but we cain't hear much. We cain't hear anything at all, in fact, and I tell him what I heard before and he says, 'It's probably James Caskey over there telling Queenie she's spending too much money down at Berta's, that's probably what you heard.' I say to him, 'If it's James Caskey visiting over there, then why are all the lights out?' And he doesn't know. So we just stand there in the dark, and then I say to Leo, 'Leo, maybe I ought to give a call over there and make sure she's all right.' And Leo says, 'That's a good idea,' and I'm just about to go inside and pick up the telephone when Leo whispers to me, 'Stop.' So I stop and I look out across the yard and there is somebody coming out of the back door of Queenie's house and it's a man."

"What man?" asked Elinor.

"That's just it, we have no idea what man. But, Elinor, both Leo and I were almost positive it was a levee-man. He snuck around the front of the house and looked around and then he took off like lightning. I know it was a levee-man, I just know it and I think something happened to Queenie, so I sent Leo right over there. I told him don't even knock, just go on in, and he did it. So he's over there now and I'm on my way over and, Elinor, I think you better come too."

Florida hung up and Elinor turned to her husband and said: "Well, Oscar, it looks like one of your levee-men has gone and raped Queenie Strickland."

In the darkened room Queenie sat weeping on the edge of the bed. She had pulled on a skirt, but hadn't bothered to button it. Her underslip was soiled and torn, and she had drawn a house jacket around her bruised shoulders. Florida had made some of Elinor's special Russian tea and taken it to her, but the cup sat untasted on the small table beside the bed. Elinor and Oscar arrived, and Florida said immediately, "Well, Elinor, you've just got to talk to her. She won't let us call Mr. Wiggins." Aubrey Wiggins was the chief of the three-man Perdido police force.

Leo Benquith came in from the kitchen.

"Is she all right, Dr. Benquith?" Elinor asked.

Dr. Benquith shook his head. "Elinor, what happened here tonight..."

"I know, I know," said Elinor soothingly as she sat down on the bed and put her arm about Queenie's shoulder.

Oscar, standing ineffectually by, could only think to say, "Queenie, did you have your door locked?"

Queenie paid no attention to anyone, but continued to sob convulsively.

"Where are the children?" asked Oscar.

"They slept through everything, thank the Lord," said Florida. "So I sent them over to my. house. They're fine."

"You didn't tell those children what happened, did you?" asked Elinor sharply.

"'Course not!" replied Florida. "But, Elinor, we got to do something. That levee-man walked into this house, and he"—out of consideration for Queenie she did not finish the sentence; but then she went on quite as if she had—"and so we got to call up Mr. Wiggins."

Queenie reached over and squeezed Elinor's hand pathetically, as much as to say, Don't...

"No," said Elinor. "Don't call Mr. Wiggins. We don't want to say anything. And, Florida," Elinor went on, turning to Florida and eyeing her with purpose, "you are not to say anything to anybody, you hear?"

"Elinor—" began Oscar, but was interrupted by Leo Benquith.

"This could happen to other people, Elinor. We got to find the man who did this and string him up on the nearest tree. Or buy him a ticket on the Hummingbird—or something. Queenie, you think you could recognize the man who came in here tonight?"

Queenie drew in her breath sharply and held it. With weary eyes she looked around the room and held each person's gaze for a moment. She swallowed back another sob and then said in a low voice, "Yes. I know the man who did it."

"Well, then," said Leo Benquith, "we ought to get Wiggins over to that dormitory right now and drag that man down to the jail. Soon as you feel—"

"No!" cried Queenie.

There was a moment's silence, then Elinor asked, "Who was it, Queenie?"

Queenie sat very still and tried to control her shaking. She closed her eyes and then said, "It was Carl. That's who it was. It was my husband."

Nothing was to be done, then. Leo and Florida Benquith went home; there wasn't any danger that the doctor would say anything, for doctors, after all, held many confidences. Both he and Elinor extracted ironbound oaths from Florida that she would say nothing to anyone. Leaving Malcolm and Lucille with the Benquiths, Elinor and Oscar took Queenie home with them. They went very quietly into the house, hoping to escape the eagle notice of Mary-Love next door.

Upstairs in the bathroom Elinor stripped off Queenie's clothes and set her in a bathtub filled with hot water and sweet-smelling salts. Queenie sat un-moving as Elinor washed her all over. That night Queenie and Elinor slept together in the large bed in the front room.

The next morning, as Queenie picked at her breakfast, Elinor sat by the window and cut up all the clothing that Queenie had worn the night before. She made Queenie watch as she tossed the scraps into Roxie's stove.

Somehow, Carl Strickland had found Queenie out. Probably it hadn't been difficult, for the Snyders— Queenie's family—were nearly all dead, and the ones that weren't dead were dirt poor. It could only have been logical to look for Queenie in Perdido, where her rich brother-in-law owned a sawmill and forest land that a million birds could nest in. Penniless, indigent, forsaken by what little respectability his wife had afforded him, Carl bummed his way down from Nashville. He had been casually offered employment on the levee. He took it, worked part of one day, and found out the whereabouts of his wife that very evening. He cajoled his way into her house and demanded money and support. Fighting with her when she refused him, he hit her, ravished her, and slipped away into the darkness.

Early next morning, Oscar drove down to a work site near the town hall where he knew the most inexperienced men had been set to work and without any difficulty found Carl sullenly helping to turn over a wagonload of clay. Carl was tall and thin, with a coarse face that showed in every crease the man's ill-humor toward the world. Oscar casually called him over and said, "You're Carl Strickland. I believe I met you at Genevieve's funeral."

The easy tone of his voice made Carl grin, for he knew all of Queenie's in-laws were rich, and he somehow had it in his mind that they would just as soon assist him as not. "That's right. I 'member you, too. You're Mr. Caskey, you're old James's nephew, right? Genevieve sure had it easy, living with a man like that. You got as much money as him?"

Oscar smiled, looked around curiously at the work progressing about them, glanced down at his shoes, then up at Carl again, and said, "Mr. Strickland, I got a little something to say to you..."

"What?"

"You better pack your portmanteau and hop on the back of the next conveyance out of this town."