Shivaree (3 page)

“Now, children,” Mrs. Green said, “I need you two to take a moment and give your mama all the loving you can.” Her words caused Willy to feel nervous butterflies in his stomach. “You two gotta say your good-byes here before we get to the station, ’cause we’re gonna play pretend once we get there.”

“Play pretend what?” Joy pulled her face back from their mama’s bosom, and faced Mrs. Green with an upturned chin and wary eyes.

“Well,” Mrs. Green said, her voice taking on a musical quality. “We are gonna play pretend that your mama, she ain’t your mama, and that you two are my grandbabies, been down here visiting for a spell, but now heading home. Your mama, she ain’t gonna come all the way in with us. She gonna wait across the street and watch us play.”

“I don’t want to play that,” Joy said.

“Ah, sure you do,” Mrs. Green said, “it’ll be fun.” Mrs. Green nodded at their mama, signaling with a small gesture of her hand that Joy needed to be put down.

Willy could see his mama was fighting back tears as she lowered Joy to her feet. “You a big girl now,” she said. “Too big for your mama to carry.” Still, Joy resisted the separation, wrapping her arms tight around their mama’s skirt.

“Go on,” Mrs. Green said, nodding toward his mama. “You go give her a hug, too.”

Willy didn’t have to be told twice. It suddenly dawned on him that this was happening no matter how much he or Joy protested. Their mama pried Joy loose, then knelt down so that she could hold them both at once.

Too soon, Mrs. Green came and took Joy by the hand. Joy tried to tug herself away, but Mrs. Green held firm, and soon Joy surrendered. Mrs. Green held out her free hand to Willy. “Hand me that tin. I’ll carry it, and you and your mama take turns with the case.”

THREE

The world outside the window disappeared in a blink as the train drew near Conroy. One moment it was there, the next, Corinne saw nothing but a swathe of dirty white. Fog, denser than any she had ever witnessed, had descended on the train, swallowing it whole. Unlike the cascading mists that crept over San Francisco’s Twin Peaks, this fog seemed like a rigid and unyielding curtain.

“It’s the paper mill that causes it,” said an elderly man across the aisle. Corinne spotted a leather satchel on the seat next to him. His case was distinctive, and it marked him as either a doctor or a veterinarian. There was something prim about the gentleman—the crispness of his collar, the careful way his manicured hands held his hat on his lap, the precision of his tie’s four-in-hand knot. No, this man did not spend his days plodding around pastures. Then again, maybe Corinne had just grown accustomed to a rougher crowd, people for whom fineries were unaffordable luxuries.

“I’m sorry?”

“The fog. It’s steam from the paper mill.” He nodded toward the window. “Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is McAvoy, Wilson McAvoy.”

“I am pleased to meet you, Dr. McAvoy.”

He narrowed his eyes in puzzlement, but then he caught sight of his own case, and a smile tilted his lips up. “Ah, you are a very observant young lady . . .” His pause implied a question.

“Corinne. Corinne Ford.”

“Well, Miss Ford, be glad the train won’t stop in Conroy long, because the smell the plant gives off is rather pungent. I, on the other hand, do not share your luck. I run the infirmary at the mill and do most of the doctoring around the county.”

“I’m a nurse myself,” she volunteered.

“Is that so?” he asked, and turned a little so that he could see her better. “If I may ask, what is your destination?”

“I’m actually getting off in Conroy also,” Corinne said. In Korea, it had seemed the most natural thing in the world to accept Private First Class Elijah Dunne’s proposal of marriage and agree to follow him wherever he called home. War gave every situation a heightened sense of urgency. While in a war zone, there was not an abundance of time to consider options; one simply looked for the most expedient solution to the problem at hand. The promise of a new beginning with the handsome, if somewhat callow, soldier she had nursed back to health in Korea had been Corinne’s solution. With it would come a new name and a new home, thousands of miles from San Francisco, a place to which she could never return.

Corinne’s nursing skills, combined with an urgent need to flee, had led her into the Army Nursing Corps. And the Nursing Corps had led her to Incheon, on the west coast of Korea, not much below the now all-important 38th parallel.

For a moment, Corinne was not on this train to Conroy, Mississippi. Instead, she was walking through a boxcar in a refugee train, dousing the displaced with DDT to control the pests they carried on them. On the first of those trains, when she still believed the conflict would be short and the riders soon returned to their homes, she tried to offer comfort, to hearten her charges, though few of her words were understood. On the last train, just a month before she herself left Korea, she avoided the eyes of those she sprayed and bandaged. And she no longer flinched as she covered the corpses that would be removed from the train, freeing up a bit more space for those who might still live.

If she wanted to sleep at night, Corinne needed to believe in the righteousness of her experiences overseas. If the American troops had been more successful over there, the sound of the brass bands would have drowned out any questions of whether the military involvement had been right or wrong. Only in defeat did the country fall quiet enough for the small questioning voices to be heard. But what was done was done, and what had been lost was lost. She squelched the plaintive voice inside herself, pushing it into a little box and locking it up tight.

“I’ve faced worse,” Corinne said, more as an encouragement to herself than as a response to her fellow traveler. Two years of the smells of blood and feces in tent hospitals and trains. “Much worse,” she said and offered him a grin.

“You from up north?” her companion asked, causing Corinne to wonder why he’d made that assumption. “Your accent,” McAvoy explained.

“Oh, no. Out west. California,” Corinne said, suddenly tiring of the old doctor’s attention. Intentional or not, he was forcing her to relive too many memories. The scents and sounds of war gave way to the feeling of a gun recoiling in her hand. Her mother’s screams and the sight of her stepfather clasping his hand over a wound and tumbling forward. If only she’d had the nerve to kill him outright, she might have been able to go home after a while.

“The fog burns off around noon,” the old man offered by way of apology. “At least it usually does. And you’ll get used to the smell quickly. I barely notice it any longer, except after I’ve been away awhile. Pardon me if I am being intrusive, but I feel compelled to ask: What could possibly bring a young lady such as yourself to Conroy?”

The trained slowed and blew its whistle to announce its impending arrival. “A proposal of marriage,” Corinne responded.

“Then I suppose congratulations are in order,” he said, his words partially muffled by the sound of the train’s brakes.

“Thank you.” Corinne acknowledged the expression of good will with a smile and a slight nod. A nagging voice told her that she should be glowing, a blushing bride-to-be, but this was as close to effusive as she was likely to get at the moment.

“May I inquire as to the name of the lucky young man?” McAvoy said and stood. “Conroy is a small town; if he’s from around here, chances are good I know him.” He chuckled. “Truth is, chances are good that I
delivered
him.” The doctor offered Corinne his arm to help her rise. She took it, allowing him a sense of gallantry, even though she trusted her own strength to stand.

“Elijah Dunne,” Corinne said, leading the doctor to the exit. His silence caused her to look back at him. McAvoy’s complexion had gone gray.

“Mr. Dunne,” he said, with a smile that looked about as genuine as the one Corinne had pasted on her own face. “Didn’t have the pleasure of bringing him into the world, but I did nurse him through a bout of measles. He’s a fine young man. A hero. A credit to his country.” The doctor rattled off these rapid-fire platitudes as he hastened Corinne off the train.

He stopped in his tracks once he’d guided her onto the platform and, after a little more consideration, added, “He’ll always have that limp, but they did a fine job of saving his leg.” Corinne had played no small part in that concerted effort. “I hope his buddies keep his injury in mind on your wedding night.” He smiled at Corinne’s perplexed expression. “We got us a little tradition in these parts called shivaree. Folk gather outside the new couple’s house and make all kinds of racket. Try to force their way in. If they manage to get to the groom, they’ll spirit him away before . . . well, before he gets the chance to enjoy his newfound conjugal rights.”

Corinne shook her head in disbelief.

“No, I’m not kidding,” the doctor continued. “The poor fellow gets dumped miles from home, and sometimes spends his whole wedding night just trying to get back to his bride. It’s gone by the wayside for the most part, but the rowdier boys ’round here still keep it alive, and your Elijah’s friends have oft been counted amongst the unrulier.”

Corinne wondered if the old doctor was just having her on. “I’m sure that may have been true when he was younger . . .”

“I must be off now,” McAvoy interrupted her, seeming not to have noticed she was speaking, “but I wish you two young people the best. If I can be of any service, you know where to find me.” He nodded in the direction of the pulp plant. “Just follow your nose.”

The steam from the train, as it fired up and chugged away, spilled into the thick haze like milk pouring into cream. The porter, a black man in a black hat with gold trim, emerged from the fog, his body not appearing to possess three dimensions until he drew near enough to pierce the mists. “Passengers’ waiting room straight ahead, Miss,” he said. “I’ll bring your bags around for you momentarily.”

“Thank you,” Corinne said, “but I was told that there would be a car waiting for me?”

“No, ma’am. No cars waiting, but I am sure your escort will arrive shortly. You just go on in and make yourself comfortable. I’ll make sure you are informed as soon as they arrive.”

Corinne thanked the porter and approached the building. Perhaps it was the fog that had delayed Elijah’s arrival? But no, if the fog’s appearance and disappearance could be timed, as the doctor had implied, then Elijah would have factored in its presence. Her hand connected with the door as another thought occurred to her, sending a shock through her system. Perhaps Elijah had changed his mind? He had been sent home with a Purple Heart six months before Corinne could arrange to be decommissioned. His letters had come regularly for three months straight, but then a month, perhaps six weeks, had passed without her receiving a word from him. He began corresponding again without providing any explanation for the break. Corinne had assumed his intervening letters had simply been lost. She shook off her worry. Coming here, marrying him. Those were the right choices. This was her new life, and she might as well embrace it.

She pressed the latch and pushed the heavy door open. Dark faces turned up to look at her, a mixture of apprehension and curiosity playing on them. A woman, not much older than Corinne herself, stopped in the process of gathering her belongings to look at her through tear-reddened eyes. Corinne could tell without asking that the other woman had just said good-bye to someone she held dear. Her sense of loss was so acute that it reached out through her eyes and needled at Corinne’s heart. “Oh, no, Miss.” The porter hurried up behind her. “This here is the colored waiting room. I’m sure you’ll be much more comfortable in the big waiting room. Here, let me show you.”

“Sorry,” Corinne said and let the door close. It banged shut with a much louder
clack
than she would have wished. Once it was closed, she noticed the sign reading “Colored” for the first time. She had nursed white soldiers, black soldiers, Oriental soldiers, and civilians. All of them with the same red blood.

“Nothing to be sorry for, Miss. You just follow me, and we’ll get you settled.”

Corinne had just turned to accept his invitation when she heard an unfamiliar voice calling her name. “Miss Ford? Miss Corinne Ford?”

She couldn’t make out anyone’s features in the fog, so after a moment she stopped trying to pin down the source of the voice. “Yes. I’m Corinne.”

A man with a long, steel-gray beard waded to her through the thick air. “I’m Charlie Aarons. I work for the Dunnes. I’ve been sent to fetch you.”

“Oh?” Corinne asked. “Is everything all right? Elijah had written that he’d be here himself to meet me.”

“Don’t you worry none. Everything’s fine. Elijah just has his hands busy with a difficult foaling. Thing’s coming out wrong way first.” He clasped his dirty hand over her shoulder and guided her in a bum’s rush away from the platform.

Corinne knew she was marrying into a farming family, and difficulties with horses and other livestock would inevitably arise from time to time. Rather than allowing herself to dwell on the fact that Elijah hadn’t arrived as promised, she decided to dive head-on into the role of farmer’s wife. “Take me to him. Perhaps I can help.”

The old man fixed her with his gaze and smiled. One of his eyes was covered in a cataract; it was unlikely that he could perceive more than shadows through it. His other eye remained a sharp, burning blue. “Good Lord, no,” he said. “That ain’t no kind of thing for a lady to get herself into.”

“But I’m a trained nurse,” Corinne protested.

“I ain’t questioning that, but Elijah’s mother told me to bring you straight to her, and she’s the one who pays my wages, so to Mrs. Dunne we go. Boy,” he said, addressing the porter.

“Yes, sir?”

“Put the young lady’s bag in the back of my truck, and there’ll be a shiny new dime in it for you.”

“Thank you, sir,” the porter said and, shifting the bags under his arms in order to get a better grip, crossed over to the decades-old red Ford truck that had emerged from the fog. As he neared the bed of the truck, Corinne jumped at the sudden sound of snarling and barking. Three enormous brindle canine heads with cropped ears reared up over the side of the truck, saliva flicking as they growled and showed their fangs.

The porter reacted by jumping back, but he kept a tight grip on the bags he carried. “I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t think your dogs are gonna let me get any closer.”

Charlie doubled over with laughter. “You right about that one, boy.”

“It’s all right,” Corinne said. “Leave the bags there, I can manage.”

“Sorry, Miss,” the porter said.

“You have nothing to be sorry for.” The porter tipped his hat and headed back toward the station.

“Wait a moment,” Corinne called to him. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” she asked, turning to Charlie.

The man stroked his grizzled beard. “No, don’t think so.”

“You promised this gentleman a dime.”

Charlie narrowed his eyes and leaned in toward her. “I promised this
boy
a dime if he put your cases in the back of the truck. They ain’t in the back of the truck, are they?”

Corinne shook her head, sickened by Charlie’s behavior, but not secure enough in her new surroundings to call him out. She dug into her coin purse and found two quarters. She approached the porter and held them out to him. “Thank you.”

The porter looked past her without meeting her eyes. “Oh, no, Miss. I can’t take your money off you. The gentleman is right. I didn’t earn it.” The look on his face caused Corinne to glance back at Charlie. The old man’s glower served as a warning sign to the porter, and she knew she’d be doing him no good if she insisted. She returned the coins to her purse.

“You have a good day, Miss,” the man said and hurried back to the station.

Corinne wondered how a man such as Charlie would have found himself in the Dunnes’ employ. Elijah had seemed to be great friends with Washington and Jones, two of the black soldiers in their unit, playing cards and drinking with them. Corinne didn’t believe he harbored racial hatred, or would condone this uncouth man’s treatment of the porter. She decided she would have some words with Elijah about his employee’s behavior, but for now she would say nothing.