Magnolia City

by Duncan W. Alderson

  “If this is a joke, Mother, I don’t find it very funny.”

  Nella just smiled at her and had more packages unwrapped. Kettles began clanging, and canvas ducking snapped.

  “Hey, look at this!” one of the bellhops shouted. The rest of them joined him, kneeling around some kind of lamp.

  “Another gem,” Nella said. “A carbide spotlight. I’ve thought of everything. Folding cots, a kerosene stove for cooking.”

  “Now that we’ll use,” Pearl said.

  Garret was drawn to the group of squatting men who had unfolded the handles of the lamp and were trying to figure out how to work it. He was able to show them right away, after a quick fiddle with cans and fuses. In a twinkling, a fierce bluish light scalded the wet streets.

  “Where’d you learn how to do that, honey?” Hetty asked.

  “In Butte,” he said. “Down in the mines.”

  He turned the spotlight on her, and a searing light shot out, penetrating her very bones. All of them drew in their breath as he shone it up and irradiated the whole porte cochere. He aimed it at the truck, and Pick was frozen in its beam, horrified.

  “The light travels three hundred feet, they told me,” Nella said, not recognizing Pick or, if she did, not wanting to acknowledge his presence. Garret dimmed the lamp, and the Negro face faded back into obscurity.

  “That one’s for fun, but here’s something serious.” She kicked off the top of a shoe box and hauled out a pair of high hobnail boots. “Friendly Fives! Only five dollars a pair and de rigueur in the oil patch.”

  “We’re wearing galoshes, in case you hadn’t noticed, Mamá.”

  “Trust me, dear, you’ll want knee-highs.”

  “Why?”

  “Because whenever a new oil field is opened, it rains.”

  “Mother, you’re embarrassing me.”

  “It’s true, oddly enough.” Her father stepped forward, snapping the brim of his Borsalino. “I remember Will Hogg telling me stories about rowing in a boat down the main street of Beaumont after Spindletop came in. It’ll rain; you can count on it. I hear it’s already started.”

  “I told you so,” Pearl said. “But is that true, really? It always rains when they strike oil?”

  Nella nodded sagely. “In biblical proportions.”

  “Why is that, do you suppose?”

  “Madame,” Nella said, lifting her eyes above their heads and gazing off into the skies glowering down at them. “When we invade the stillness of the earth, the heavens know.”

  Chapter 12

  As Garret followed the braid of roads to the northeast, Nella’s words wove themselves through her daughter’s thoughts... “the heavens know.” Harris County receded behind them, its grasses thinning like hair over bald spots of sandy loam that started to line the side of the road. Pines began to appear, clumps of them tangled together in black silhouettes against the slate of the sky. Hetty’s eyes followed them up . . . and there it came. The rain. Cold sheets of it washed down from the clouds onto their windshield, swallowing up the Wichita truck on their tail. Garret would slow down until an orange speck would flare up in the distance, getting closer and closer until it chugged up on their rear. Mists drew into the trees, giving the forests a Nordic look.

  Hetty shivered, a thrill of cold and expectation. She was heading north to a whole new life and had no idea what it would be like. In spite of having Kirby Allen for a father, she’d never been in an oil field, just seen one from a distance. She wondered what she and her husband would find. Would this rain really go on for forty days and forty nights? That sounded like another one of Nella’s fables, yet everything about oil was, she had to admit, a little magical. The way the Indians revered it for its miraculous healing powers. The way diviners and fortune-tellers told men where to drill. The gushers that thundered up from deep in the earth like volcanic geysers. The sudden riches. The lives that were changed. How will mine change? she thought as she looked out the window.

  It was slow going with the truck on their rear. Places appeared out of the mist as they climbed up rolling hills in the incessant rain: Pearl’s hometown of Lufkin . . . then Nacogdoches . . . Henderson. The pine trees thickened, and night seemed to rise out of them when Garret finally found the left turn that would take them into the town of Kilgore itself. They slid off the pavement onto the muddy track of Main Street, finding it clotted with traffic both coming and going. A necklace of headlamps was strung ahead as far as Hetty could see. They eased along, following the curve into downtown, rolling up the windows to shut out the acrid smell that floated in the air. The rain let up a little as it grew darker.

  Soon, there were so many cars parked along the street and so many people walking about, it was almost impossible to move. A sign floated by, Brown’s Drugs, and they caught a whiff of hamburgers sizzling inside. Garret and Pick pulled over wherever they could—the whole town seemed to be one big parking lot.

  Nothing had prepared Hetty for what she found when she stepped out of the Auburn onto Kilgore Street. First, she sank an inch or two in mud. Then the noise hit her: engines sputtering, horns honking, wild laughter, men shouting across the street, a constant roaring in the distance as of giant forces being released. She quickly shut the door so it wouldn’t wake up Pierce. Crowds milled about as if they were waiting for a parade to start or for the next gusher to rain black drops over them like confetti. Everyone seemed to be talking, no one listening. Roughnecks waded along the streets in their rubber boots, clothes blotched with grease. There was the smell of rotten eggs in the air, mingled with cigar smoke from the knots of businessmen standing around on the sidewalk bargaining under lowered hat brims.

  Garret came around the car as Pearl wiggled out of the crowd. “Y’all ever seen anything like it?” she shouted.

  “So this is what a boom town looks like!” Hetty said.

  “This is it.” Garret grabbed her arm. “I think we’ve hit pay dirt, honey. Look at the air. Aren’t those silver dollars falling from the sky?” Hetty glanced up and saw what he meant: There was something incandescent about the night, the raindrops sparkling in the car lights, the flares burning like giant candles all around.

  They pushed their way up to the sidewalk, out of the muddy street. “It’s standing room only,” Pearl said. “We’d better get to the hotel if we hope to find a room tonight.”

  “I’m not sleeping till I strike oil,” Garret said.

  “But I hope we’re still eating. I’m starved,” Hetty said. She went to get Pierce, and they edged their way into Brown’s Drugs. There was mud tracked an inch thick on the floor and bodies waiting three deep at the soda fountain. They waited in line beside a gaunt man with a frizz of red hair on his head. He kept eyeing Garret and finally leaned over and shot into his ear, “Got any leases to sell?”

  Garret shook his head.

  “I’m buying all I can today from anybody. It’s at four hundred dollars an acre and going up every hour.” His swollen eyes kept jumping around the room, checking who was coming and going. “And to think, a few months ago they couldn’t give this worthless land away.” He spoke with a nasal twang Hetty couldn’t place.

  “You don’t sound like you’re from these parts,” Hetty said.

  “Jersey, baby.”

  “You came all the way from up there?”

  “Damn right. This is the only place in the country there’s any action. Name’s Kozak,” he said. “You folks new in town?”

  Garret shook his hand. “MacBride. Just drove in.”

  “You may be too late.” He stepped up to the marble counter and asked for a ham sandwich and a slice of pecan pie.

  “I’m not worried,” Garret told him. “I’ve got a one-acre share.”

  “I hope it’s downtown.”

  “Even better. Out on Daisy Bradford’s farm.”

  “Ha! Next you’ll be telling me it’s on Joiner’s lease.”

  “As a matter of fact, it is. We’re members of his syndicate.”

 
“Yeah, yeah, baby, you and everybody else.”

  “Next!” the soda jerk shouted. Hetty leaned on the marble counter and ordered six hamburgers and four chocolate shakes. There was a dim reflection of the crowded room in the mirror behind the stacks of gleaming soda glasses.

  “I just need to find Dad himself. You don’t know where he is, by any chance?”

  “Nobody does. Disappeared.”

  “You mean my certificate’s no good?” Pearl asked.

  “ ’Fraid not, sweetheart.”

  “Don’t worry, Pearlie. Cleve already told us it was worthless. Said we should talk to farmers.”

  “Shhhh!” Garret hissed, frowning.

  “Cleve?” Mr. Kozak’s weary eyes lit up. “Cleve Yoakum?”

  Hetty gave him a proud nod. “He’s our backer.”

  “Then you got nothing to worry about, baby. That’s what he said? Talk to farmers?” He scratched his sandy hair. “Of course! They had a drought here, lasted for years. Why didn’t I think of that? Talk to farmers. It’s so simple. But I guess that’s why Cleve is the Cliff.” The man grabbed his sandwich and tucked it tightly under his arm like he was afraid somebody was going to steal it. “Thanks for the tip, baby. And let me give you one. You’re wasting time on that Joiner business. Don’t believe me, check it out yourself at the title company. It’s just down the street.” He elbowed his way through the crowd.

  “Are they open?”

  He shouted back over his shoulder. “You kidding? They never close!”

  When their order was ready, they added trimmings to their hamburgers and sacked everything up. Pearl took food to Pick, who was reluctant to get out of the truck. Garret wouldn’t eat until he’d settled the claim on the land. He set off in the crowd with his portfolio of papers as the rain swelled, sending Hetty and Pearl to squeeze into the bench seat of the Auburn. They pulled their hamburgers out of the crinkling wax paper, smelling of onions and pickles. Pierce woke up, and Hetty put him to her breast while she nibbled, covering herself with the rebozo Aunt Cora had given her. Thunder cascaded over the town.

  When they finished eating, they lit up Lucky Strikes and wiped off the windows so they could watch the parade of people going by. Their favorite sight was the odd woman strolling by in gaudy beach pajamas, twirling raindrops off a parasol.

  It seemed to take Garret forever to return, diving into the driver’s seat soaked and shivering, saying that the title company had verified that Joiner’s shares were useless—all the leases long ago spoken for. He had sold more land than was available. Everybody was filing claims against him. It could be months or even years before affairs were settled.

  “Wait’ll I write Odell about this,” Pearl said.

  “You heard what Kozak said, land’s going up every hour. Where am I going to find a lease?”

  “Talk to farmers—but not tonight. First we need a hotel room.” She rolled down the window and asked a passerby where the hotel was. He pointed ahead of them. Garret swerved out, waving for Pick to follow. The traffic didn’t look too bad in that direction.

  They soon found out why. A block or two down the street, the drenching rain had softened the mud even more and the Auburn seemed to float for a moment and then sank to a stop. Garret could only get the tires to spin a little, adding the smell of burning rubber to rotten eggs. He scrambled out and shouted, “Goddamn it!” as he went down. Hetty stepped out the other side and saw the muck rising over the running board. She could feel something thick and icy spilling into her galoshes, oozing between her toes. She looked back at the truck, but it had stopped short of the mire.

  Pearl peeked out and said, “I guess we’ll need those knee-highs your mother sent after all.”

  “Oh, shut up!” Hetty whispered under her breath.

  Hetty isn’t standing on mud any longer. She is barefoot on smooth cool sand where the morning sun glimmers through pine shadows. She hears a ripple of water nearby, sees it sparkling out of the corner of one eye. Out of the other, she sees a hill rising into the light. She looks up. Two pine trees bend together overhead as if to mark the spot. Their brown needles lie scattered at her feet like the pickup sticks she and Char played with as girls.

  She grabs a handful and throws a pattern. They turn colors, all pointing in the same direction . . . toward an Indian woman sitting on a throne at the foot of the hill. Her black garments are polished and hung with many fringes upon which white beads glisten. She surveys Hetty with the arrogance of a tribal queen, triangles tattooed at the corner of each eye, a black line from brow to chin dividing her face exactly in half. Without knowing why, Hetty approaches the throne and kneels. “Drink this,” the mysterious woman murmurs, “it will make you well.”

  She lowers a clay vessel filled with the blue-black water the Indians traveled far distances to find. It is so dark Hetty can see her own face reflected in it and, above her head, the visage of the Indian queen crowned by the moon and stars. But isn’t it morning? She drinks, tasting its bitter medicine. The earth rumbles, and a baby starts to cry. The woman descends from the throne and stands holding Pierce in one arm, the vessel in the other. Hetty knows she is to choose. She reaches for her baby and, when the Indian turns her back and walks into the forest, Hetty sees that her train is made of many turkey feathers. They smell gamy like Garret. He hasn’t bathed for three days now. She puts Pierce to her breast. Her milk comes in and draws her eyes open. She wakes.

  Garret bent over, pulling on his shirt. It was dark inside the Auto Tent, where they’d been sleeping, but a cold light leaked through the windows of the car. Garret tried to stand but bumped his head on the canvas ceiling. Pine needles crunched under his feet, the only thing between them and the mire they’d been forced to camp on. She couldn’t hear rain at the moment, but everything was damp. Their clothes were piled on suitcases, boots and shoes on the floor of the Auburn. Cots and the cradle took up most of the room. Garret yawned and crawled out through the car seat. Hetty tried to get comfortable while she nursed, but found herself all cramped up with the memories of the last two days.

  After getting stuck in the mud the other night, they’d pulled on Nella’s knee-highs. Hetty had been glad to have them, but hated her mother for being right. When they’d waded down to the Kilgore Hotel, she’d known it was hopeless the minute she walked in. The lobby had been full of cots! With people lying in them! They had laughed, of course, when she’d asked for a room. The same stinging laughter she’d heard from her parents that made her feel so small and naive. The clerk had sent them over to the Cot Houses on Commerce Street, horrid places with no heat or light where you could rent a bed for an eight-hour shift for fifty cents. It was hardly a place for a family, the beds occupied by itinerant workers who moved from one oil field to the next.

  They would have driven to another town, but the rains simply made the roads impassable. Eventually, someone told them they could camp down in the Hollow, which sounded romantic until they got there. A dark, stinking place where all kinds of riffraff had taken up residence under a forest of loblolly pines. The headlights of the truck revealed dwellings made of cardboard boxes, houses hammered together from tin cans and scrap lumber, people huddled under old blankets over steaming fires. At first, Hetty had refused to enter the Hollow, but it started raining even harder and everyone was exhausted and their car was bogged down in a sinkhole back in town and she simply had no choice. Pick steered the truck carefully through the ramshackle “town” until they found an empty spot on the outer fringe that they could claim as their own.

  That first night had been horrible, trying to raise the tents in the heavy rain, everything soaking, the baby screaming. More than once Hetty was ready to call it quits and go home, but her husband’s grit got her through. Garret stood in the rain, soaking wet, and told her, “I’ll never give up, never.”

  It had taken a team of four mules to pull their car out the next morning, its lower half encrusted with mud like a plague of barnacles. Still, they’d pitched Nella’s amazin
g Auto Tent over it and had been a bit dryer and more comfortable last night.

  A shopping trip yesterday with Pearl made Hetty realize how difficult life in Kilgore was going to be. Garret had dropped them downtown, which had looked so vibrant their first night, but now revealed itself to be a sodden, depressing mess, little more than a string of low brick buildings facing the railroad tracks. There were long waits to buy groceries, mail a letter, or get a telephone line for long distance. Hundreds of umbrellas bumped along the few sidewalks, and derricks were being hammered together in every block. Just crossing the street was a major operation. A glass of water cost as much as a Coke and still tasted funny. Warm showers could be had for fifty cents but only in the back of Tulsa’s, a barbershop near the train station with a distinctly masculine clientele.

  “I’ve had it!” Hetty lost all patience when her shopping bag split open as they stood in the rain outside Brown’s Drugs waiting for Garret. “We have to pay to go to the bathroom and because we’re women we can’t even take a goddamn shower.”

  “Now don’t go borrowing trouble,” Pearl said, stooping to rescue the groceries. “We just need to get us some big tin washtubs. That’s all we had to wash ourselves in when I was a girl.”

  “Great! I can hardly wait.” Hetty sighed, glad that she’d followed her hunch about bringing her friend along. The rain seemed to reach right down to Pearl Weems’s East Texas roots and bring them cracking back to life. She was putting out feelers, taking charge. Under a tarp Pick had slung between two pines, she’d already set up kitchen—firing up the kerosene stove and unpacking Nella’s cook kit. At the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company over on Main Street, she’d shown Hetty all the best brands to buy: Marrett’s Potted Meats, hominy grits by Red and White, lard from the Wickham Packing Company. “There’s lard and then there’s lard,” she’d said, picking out a meaty ham bone to throw into a pot of black-eyed peas for supper last night.