New Mercies (25 page)

“Middlin’,” she replied. “I tell Miss Nora we got mens here last evening—varmints. Ezra see them passing and repassing in their autocars just as dark come on, and he hide by the house and stand watch.” Aunt Polly took a breath and continued. “They stop and get out the car and was drinking and carrying on so, it sound like Judgment Day. That yard was overstocked with white mens. See you the carcass of their doings.” She motioned to the front yard, where the weeds were trampled. The area was strewn with jars and bottles. An ax handle leaned against the porch, and big sticks, probably clubs, were scattered about.

Mr. Sam picked up a stone jar lying on the porch and smelled it. “Corn liquor.” He tossed it into the weeds.

“Ezra, he stand by the house, looking out at ’em, not saying nothing, and he think they don’t see him. After a time, the mens gets up whiskey courage and they starts for Miss Amalia’s room. They meant to prank with it. He say stop, but they don’t stop, and two of them go after Ezra with a club. Ezra, he old, but he strong, and he break their heads with that old ax handle.” She looked proud when she pointed to the handle. “But then the others come
on him, and Ezra can’t come nigh doin’ all of ’em. They get Ezra down, and they wear him out with a cowhide. Then they cut on him. It ain’t right what they done. It ain’t right at all.” Aunt Polly began to shake. “They meaner than bulldogs, just like the patterollers and the Ku Kluxers. Last night just like them terrible times come again. Lord have mercy, I never been so worse scared. I ’sturbed in my mind ’bout that.”

“How badly is he hurt?” I asked, putting my arm around Aunt Polly to stop her from shaking. Under my hand, the fabric of her dress was thin, and her bones felt loose, as if they had come unhinged under her skin.

Aunt Polly wrung her hands. “He don’t say. Ezra savin’ on his words. You know that. They ain’t kilt him, but they gave him good attention. He cut some and bruised some, and he got his licks and lumps. His eye shut, and he got misery in his arms. But he been hurt worst in his time, and I don’t find no bones broke. I doctor him, and he all right now, to my knowing. He resting at the quarters.”

“Aunt Polly’s known for her doctoring,” Mr. Sam said. “On occasion, I myself have preferred her services over those of Dr. Aldrich.” He winked at me. “The good doctor treats nervous men as well as nervous ladies.” When no one found his remarks amusing, he cleared his throat.

“It don’t look like nothing’s mortifying on Ezra,” Aunt Polly added.

“Mortifying?” I asked.

“Infected,” Pickett said.

“I blames myself,” Aunt Polly continued. “I heard them old squinch owls all week, so I put salt on the fire. I put me a fork in
the door, too, but it don’t do no good.” She looked at her hands while she talked, then glanced up at me, shamefaced. “I thought it was you bring us grief. But turn out it were them mens. They worse than the Bad Man.”

“The devil,” Pickett muttered by way of explanation.

Aunt Polly must have remembered our earlier discussion about her being a Presbyterian, because she added, “Salt in the fire ain’t hoodoo. It’s just common sense.”

“Common sense indeed. I do it myself,” Mr. Sam said without a trace of sarcasm. I tightened my arm around Aunt Polly to show that I agreed.

“You tell Ezra he did a fine job,” Mr. Sam said. “Tell him Miss Nora is grateful to him.”

I said I would tell him myself and would stop by before we left. “That was a courageous thing he did for me, standing up to those brutes.”

“He didn’t done it for you, Miss Nora. He done it for Miss Amalia,” Aunt Polly said, drawing away from me a little. “He don’t want such as that picking amongst her belongings, poking through her life like they got the right. Ezra always look out for Miss Amalia.”

“Of course.” I wanted to thank her but was afraid she would think my gratitude presumptuous. The lives of those three—Amalia, Ezra, and Aunt Polly—had been intertwined for threequarters of a century. “Did Sheriff Beecham catch the men?”

By way of answer, Aunt Polly, Mr. Sam, and Pickett stared at me as if I were an imbecile. Finally, Aunt Polly said, “I don’t know about no sheriff.”

“Oh.” I felt foolish. “How did Ezra get away?”

Aunt Polly gave a little smile at that. “I and Ezra knowed they’d come, now that you’re here.”

Mr. Sam answered my questioning look. “Larcenous folk figure you’ll be taking anything of value that belonged to Miss Amalia. So they know they best loot Avoca whilst they got the chance. This may be the first attempt to rob you, Miss Nora, but it will not be the last.”

Aunt Polly nodded. “That how come Ezra been keeping watch. Last night, from down at the quarters, I hear them passing and passing and I knowed there’s a plenty of ’em and Ezra can’t take every and each one. So I wrap up in a old sheet of Miss Amalia’s and paint on a scare face with flour, and I go through the garden calling ‘Whoo whoo’ and clattering two tin pie plates together,
a-wick, a-whack
, and those mens scatter off. Jesus Christ, peas and rice! They don’t tell their heads from their foots. The big hat, he run like Old Scratch after him.”

“The devil,” Pickett whispered, “and ‘the big hat’ is the most conceited one.”

Mr. Sam said, “Unfortunately, when they sober up, they’ll realize you were just cutting the monkey for the white folks.”

Aunt Polly nodded. “They won’t hardly lose no time coming back. So I stand out here waiting for ’em.” The old woman must have loved Amalia a great deal to risk her life to defend Avoca.

“They’re too cowardly to bother you in the daytime,” Mr. Sam said. “But come nightfall, the infidels will be back.”

“My cake, Aunt Polly, I pray to God to watch out for you,” Pickett said.

“Oh, I taken care of myself. No need to wear God out,” Aunt Polly replied. She straightened up a little and looked away, embarrassed by her pride.

“Of course you did, but we don’t dare ask you to do it again,” I said. “Can’t you arrange for a guard, Mr. Sam?”

Mr. Sam said he would hire someone, then told Aunt Polly to go back to the quarters and jolly up Ezra. “Anything he needs, just let me know.”

Aunt Polly thanked him, then took my hands in hers and made me promise to see Ezra before I left.

After Aunt Polly disappeared, Mr. Sam said, “Poor stove-up black devil. It’s a wonder he wasn’t stroked. That would certainly scare me into heart failure.”

“There’s something here that puzzles me,” I said. “In Natchez, can drunken white men beat up a Negro with impunity?”

“I declare it to be wrong, but that’s the way of it,” Mr. Sam said.

“It’s not so easy,” Pickett interjected. “If Ezra didn’t recognize them, what good would it do to report the fight? Who would the sheriff arrest? And if Ezra did know who attacked him, it would be the word of a Negro against the word of a white man—more than one, in fact. People in the South class off, and the word of a Negro isn’t worth much against a white’s. No white jury would convict those men on Ezra’s say-so, and of course colored folks don’t serve on juries. Just by bringing charges, Ezra would be asking for trouble. Negroes have been hanged for less in Mississippi.”

“It’s not right,” I said.

“That’s not worth denying,” Mr. Sam agreed. “But that’s the way of it.”

Since I couldn’t change anything and commenting further would antagonize my friends, I said, “I know about the Ku Klux Klan. What are patterollers?”

“The real pronouncement is patrollers,” Mr. Sam said.

“They were low-born white trash mostly, mean old boys,” Pickett explained. “Back before the War, they hunted slaves who were off the plantation without permission. They chased down runaways for the reward money. The Negroes were scared to death of them.”

“With good cause,” Mr. Sam added. “God bless anybody they caught. The patrollers gave them pecks of trouble, turned their dogs loose on them, beat them so bad that they died sometimes. Of course, we don’t have patrollers anymore.”

“Don’t you?”

“Ma’am?” Mr. Sam said as he and Pickett exchanged glances.

I had gone too far, so I said quickly, “Why don’t we go inside.”

“Don’t think hard of us,” Pickett whispered as she set the soda-pop bottles on the porch, placing them beside the door, then followed me into Amalia’s room. “We’re getting better. Things were much worse in my coming-up years.”

None of us cared to pursue the conversation. I went directly to the desk and opened the drawers, relieved to find that everything was as I’d left it the day before. “The jewelry goes with me. I won’t be so lucky the next time somebody comes around.”

“We can all commence,” Pickett said, taking a large kerchief out of her pocketbook. She folded it on the diagonal, then wrapped it around her hair and tied it in a knot at the top of her head. “There are some Nu-Grape boxes in the car. You pack whatever’s worth saving, and I’ll carry it off to the Buzzard’s
Nest for safekeeping.” When she returned with the cartons, she was wearing a man’s shirt over her dress.

We placed Amalia’s jewelry and other valuables on the desk and her papers on top of the bed. Mr. Sam would take the latter to his office. Pickett went around the room, picking up mementos and objects d’art and showing them to me. “How big is this place, Mr. Sam?”

“I’ll measure it one day,” Mr. Sam replied, then indicated the volumes he had taken from the bookcase. “These have always been a favorite of mine.” He pronounced the word “fave-orright.” “The captain was partial to first editions. I shall store them in my office, where you can go through them at your leisure,” he said.

“You’re welcome to keep them.”

“I’ll thank you till you’re better paid.” He bowed.

“It’s not so much of a gift, since it would cost a fortune to ship them to Denver.”

“You’ll find no better home for them. Mr. Sam is the bestread man in Natchez,” Pickett said. She laid the AB quilt on the desk. “It’s a beaut, isn’t it? I insist most emphatically that you keep it. Do you know that at one time Miss Amalia was considered the most accomplished needleworker in Natchez?”

“Miss Amalia joyed to quilt,” Mr. Sam said. “She and Aunt Polly sat here of an afternoon making story quilts. Aunt Polly drew her stories from the Bible, but Miss Amalia . . . Lord, I don’t know where she got hers. She gave me a big and fat quilt once, said the story was about a man who took care of his neighbors.” Mr. Sam paused so that we would know without his having to tell us that the story was about him.

“Why, of course she did, you helpful old thang,” Pickett said. “If they weren’t all used up, those quilts must be stored somewhere around here.”

While Mr. Sam concentrated on the books, leafing through them and reading passages out loud, Pickett and I packed the items we had collected, marking the cartons for Mr. Sam’s office or the Buzzard’s Nest. The things I wanted to take back to the hotel went into a separate box—Amalia’s jewelry, a workbasket with bits of fabric inside, a silver candelabra, and the quilt that had caught Pickett’s fancy and mine. Because I might find other things to add to my carton, I set it on the floor beside the desk, while Pickett and Mr. Sam carried the rest of the boxes to the cars.

When she returned to the house, Pickett ran her hand over the footboard of Amalia’s bed. “This was made by Prudent Mallard. It’s very rare.”

I told her I’d already decided to keep it, and I asked Mr. Sam to arrange for shipment to Denver.

“I shall give it my full attention,” he replied.

After Pickett examined the rest of the furniture in the bedroom, the three of us went through the great hall and then into the dining room. Pickett waved her hand at the water-stained furniture. “Ruined! Shame on you, Miss Amalia!” But she clapped her hands when she saw the china, exclaiming, “This is exquisite! Families like the Bondurants ate off this priceless Old Paris. There was no such thing for them as a second-best set of china or crystal. If I didn’t already have a dining room full of dishes, I’d buy them from you. Have you a use for them?”

“My mother,” I said, delighted with the idea. “She’d love
them.” Mr. Sam said he would arrange to have the china crated.

“Now this,” I said, going into the hall and pointing at the marble statue of Amalia and her dog. “What in the world can be done with it? Even if the thing could be shipped home, there’s no place for it.”

“Pity to let it go to ruin,” Mr. Sam said. “That statue was quite a conversation piece in its day, you know, what with the dog’s tail lopped off. And this head.” He pointed to the riding crop Amalia held in her hand. “You can see where there’s a man’s head engraved on it. We never knew the truth of who it was. Of course, we had our suspicions.”

“Maybe it’s a likeness of the sculptor,” Pickett said.

“Maybe,” Mr. Sam replied.

“Or Bayard Lott,” Pickett suggested. “After all, he was the handsomest man in Natchez in his day. Quite a catch.” She gave me a sly look. “And hips! Oh my. Even as an old man, he had those hips. Didn’t he, Mr. Sam?”

“Oh, indeed not!” Mr. Sam blushed.

Pickett gave me a sideways glance and said no more. Instead, she volunteered to check with the library to see whether there might be a place for the statue there, but she was not hopeful. “Marble statues go begging here.”

I asked if she wanted the gold chairs in the parlor.

“One can’t have too many ballroom chairs.” She looked at the staircase that curved around the statue of Amalia. “Are we going up?”

“Ezra says it’s not safe.”

“Why, what is safe in Natchez?” She eyed the steps expertly. “It doesn’t look so bad. Shall we?” Without waiting for an answer,
she started up the stairs, then turned and said, “Fraidy cats.”

Mr. Sam followed, wheezing a little. “I have never been above the first floor,” he told us as he tested each step before putting his weight on it. When the three of us reached the top of the stairs, we looked around, disappointed at the shabbiness.

Floorboards were broken through, and the ceiling was soiled with water stains. Where the roof was torn away, we saw sky. Tattered wallpaper curled away from the walls, leaving bare plaster like onion skins. The remains of a chandelier lay in one corner, and the floor in the center of the hall was damaged from where the fixture had fallen. The only furniture in the hall was a large table with a mirror beneath it.