by Mike Blakely
“I guess,” Cecil said. “Me and Ben have to go back to the Academy in a couple of weeks. Adam’s old man will have his ass out in the fields, if the flood left them anything to harvest. We don’t have a trotline. We don’t have any mussels to feed the hogs. We don’t have a boat to haul water in, or any pearl-hunters to sell water to.”
“We ain’t got a damn nickel for all the work we done all summer,” Adam added. “Ben don’t even have his Ashenback no more.”
Esau stood and looked at us sadly for a moment. He was trying to think of something to say that would cheer us up. I beat him to it.
“But we’re still partners,” I said. “Always will be.” I started to hike up to the hog pens. “Well, come on,” I said, looking back. “Don’t y’all want to see them run?”
I saw the eyes of Adam and Cecil brighten, and knew I had said the right thing.
We let the logs down on one side of our pigpen and had a great time chasing the hogs into the hills, yelling like wild Indians until we were too winded to run any farther. Then we collapsed in the pine needles and talked for hours about everything that had happened that summer. We had survived fights over girls and money. We had gotten rich and gone broke together. We were better friends than ever.
We made a promise to one another that morning under the pines, and we never forgot that promise. We vowed to remain friends and partners until we died. The three of us turned out different when we grew up, but we never lost our friendship. The last time all three of us were together, we were old men, fishing on Caddo Lake. Now I’m the only partner left.
I wish the summer of pearls had ended right there. In fact, as my partners and I walked back to Esau’s shack about noon, with the intention of helping him clean his place up, I was sure it was over. I knew that none of the good things about that summer would ever come back, but I didn’t think anything else bad could happen. That’s when I looked out over what had once been Goose Prairie Cove and saw a familiar figure slogging through the mudflats.
At the time, nobody had connected Judd Kelso with the Christmas Nelson gang or the attempted pearl robbery. The only two witnesses to the crime—Brigginshaw and Colton—were gone. With Captain Brigginshaw wounded, Constable Hayes hadn’t interrogated him thoroughly on the subject. Trevor may have told Billy about Kelso’s involvement in the robbery attempt, but Billy was missing, too, and presumed by almost everybody but Carol Anne to be dead. In fact, it wasn’t until years later that I was able to prove Kelso had taken part in the crime.
“What the hell is he doing?” Cecil asked the old Choctaw.
Esau sneered as his black eyes angled toward the drained cove. “Lookin’ for mussels.”
“Pearl-hunting?” I asked.
Esau nodded.
“What for?” I asked.
“He’s a fool,” the old man said. It was the first time I had ever heard him speak ill of anybody. “You boys come to help me clean up?”
“Yep,” Adam said. “What do you want us to do?”
“Just take everything out to dry. Then we’ll shovel the mud.”
I worked around Esau’s place for a couple of hours, until I looked up and saw Kelso sitting in one of Esau’s chairs, covered with mud. He was holding a keg of whiskey over his head, letting the liquor trickle into his mouth from the open spigot. He cut his malicious little eyes toward me and caught me staring at him. I was afraid of him. I had seen him rough up the rousters on the old Glory of Caddo Lake. It worried me to have him there with no Billy Treat or Trevor Brigginshaw around to handle him.
Cecil, on the other hand, threw a shovelful of mud right past him and went to talking business with him as if he were any other citizen. “Find any pearls?” he asked.
Kelso put the keg on his knee. “Hell, no. Ain’t like it’s your business anyway, boy.”
Cecil leaned on the shovel handle, as he had been doing most of the afternoon. “What are you going to do with one if you do find it? We don’t have a pearl-buyer anymore.”
The gator eyes squinted as Kelso smiled. “Don’t you know?”
“Know what?”
“Boy, how old are you?”
“fourteen.”
“Haven’t you ever got your peter wet?”
Cecil straightened. “Maybe I have.”
“Maybe!” Kelso put the keg in the mud and laughed. “That’s a sure sign you never have if you have to say maybe. Boy, when I was you age, I had me my own nigger gal. Got her three times a day if I wanted.”
Cecil turned red out of anger and embarrassment. “What’s that got to do with pearls?”
“Things is back to usual around here, ain’t they? That goddam Billy Treat and that big Australian son of a bitch are gator bait. The town’s back to what it was before summer. I’m gonna find me a shell slug and go get me a piece of that whore.”
I felt a sickness rise in my stomach. “What whore?” I asked.
Kelso picked up the whiskey keg. “Pearl Cobb,” he said, pouring the liquor down his throat again.
My fear of him gave way to worry and anger. “Her name’s Carol Anne, and she’s not a whore.”
He spewed whiskey from his mouth as the keg came down to his knee. He coughed and laughed as the cruel gator eyes locked onto me. “She was Treat’s whore, wasn’t she? Soon as I find me a shell slug, she’ll be mine.” He put the keg back on the ground. “I’ll owe you for the whiskey,” he yelled to Esau as he trudged back toward the muddy cove.
I watched him dig for mussels and open them all afternoon, hoping he wouldn’t find so much as a dust pearl. If he did, I planned to run ahead of him to warn Carol Anne, and maybe alert Rayford Hayes. I felt as if Billy were counting on me to look after Carol Anne now that he was gone—or until he got back. I was still holding on to the hope I had caught from Carol Anne. The hope that said Billy was still alive and just lost in a cypress brake somewhere, trying to find his way home.
Finally, though, Kelso came up from the cove about sundown without anything to show for his day of hunting. My partners and I left when we saw him coming. He looked to be in a sour mood and we didn’t want to hang around if he was going to get drunk.
When we got to town, I said so long to Cecil and Adam and went home for supper. I didn’t have much of an appetite. All the way through the meal, I worried about Kelso finding a pearl. Maybe the next day, or the day after. I couldn’t talk to my folks about it. Especially not to my mother. They were awful quiet over supper, too. The only thing Pop said was that he was going to have to drop four pages from the paper and go back to a weekly format.
After we ate, I helped clear the table, then started to slip out through the front door.
“Where are you going, Ben?” my father asked.
He caught me off guard. We had a deal that I could go out and prowl at night, as long as I didn’t get into any trouble and came home by nine-thirty. I usually ended up looking through a knothole at Esau’s, or spying on some girl who had a habit of leaving her curtains open. Now I knew, however, that those ungentlemanly pursuits were behind me.
“I don’t know. I guess I’ll go over to Cecil’s.” That was a lie. I knew exactly where I was going, but I didn’t feel comfortable telling my pop about it. He would probably have tried to stop me. I was going to tell Constable Hayes that Kelso had been making noise about bothering Carol Anne. Then I was going to watch her room. But this time I wouldn’t be trying to peep at her through the curtains. I would be guarding her, in case Kelso showed up.
“All right,” Pop said. “Just be back by ten.”
I smiled. “Yes, sir.” Some kids’ folks never let them grow up. When I became a father, years later, I learned how difficult it was to let my kids go out on their own. My pop let me do a lot of growing-up that summer.
Rayford Hayes’ wife, Hattie, greeted me at the front door. “Well, hello, Ben. Come in.” She shouted at her husband, in another room: “Rayford, your little hero is here to see you.”
Constable Hayes came out of the back r
oom, bootless. “Howdy, Ben,” he said. “If you’ve come to check on me, you might as well go home. I’m sound as a horse, thanks to you and your old man. And Billy Treat, God rest his soul.”
“I didn’t come to check on you, sir,” I said. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”
Hayes motioned to a chair near the dark fireplace. “Have a seat,” he said, “and tell me what’s on you mind.”
I looked nervously at Hattie. “Well, it’s kind of … I don’t think Mrs. Hayes wants to hear about it.”
The constable wrinkled his brow at me for a second, then held back a smile. “Well, you heard the boy, Hattie,” he said to his wife. “Excuse yourself.”
“Oh, all right,” she said.
When she left, I told the constable about what Judd Kelso had said that afternoon at Esau’s saloon. I could tell by the expression on Hayes’ face that he took me seriously. “So, Kelso’s back at Goose Prairie,” he said, rubbing his head. “I was hoping he would stay at his place over on Long Point.” He leaned back in a creaking wooden chair and asked me a lot of questions, several times making me repeat exactly what Kelso had said about Carol Anne.
“I could keep an eye on her place,” I suggested.
“No, Ben, don’t do that. That’s not your worry. I’ll have a talk with her tomorrow and warn her. Delicate subject, though. Maybe I’ll send Mrs. Hayes to do it—woman to woman. Anyway, I wouldn’t worry about it. Kelso’s not likely to bother her unless he finds a pearl, and that’s not likely, either. I bet he’ll give up and quit town in a day or two, go on back to Long Point, or head to Shreveport to find work on another steamer. Sure won’t find any steamers to work on around here.” He got up. “Thank you for bringing it to my attention, though. I’ll keep an eye out for him.”
I rose and shook the constable’s hand. Just as I was leaving, Hattie burst into the parlor from the back room, pale as a sheet and out of breath.
“My God, woman!” Rayford said. “What’s gotten into you?”
“It’s gone!” she said, gasping.
“What’s gone?”
She pointed into the back room. “The leather case with the pearls and the money in it!”
“What do you mean, ‘gone’?” her husband demanded.
“I just went to check on it again, and it’s not there!”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes!”
“When was the last time you saw it?”
“I took it out to look at the pearls just before supper. Then I put it back. Now it’s gone!”
“Gone where, woman?”
“The window was open,” she said, almost crying. “I think somebody reached in and stole it!”
A terrible notion struck me. “Mr. Hayes,” I said, “what if Kelso took lit?”
“Now, calm down, everybody,” he said. “Just stay put. Let me get my pistol and I’ll look into this.”
But I could not stay put or wait for Hayes to find his pistol. Kelso could have stolen the pearls an hour ago. He could have been in Carol Anne’s room long enough to …
I tore out through the front door and barely heard the constable shouting at me to wait. I wondered what I would do if I found Kelso in Carol Anne’s room. I didn’t have a clue. I just knew I had to get to her room fast.
I knew the hidden passageways of Port Caddo better than anybody. I cut behind houses and leaped picket fences like a deer. I sprinted like a boy with a mean dog on his heels, but felt twice as terrified.
I had seen too many things go wrong already. The Glory of Caddo Lake had sunk, almost taking me with it. The pearl beds had been drained. The riverboat channels had run shallow. Billy and Trevor had been swept away by the flood. I could not stand to think of Judd Kelso forcing himself on Carol Anne now. That would be the worst thing of all. Port Caddo had seen enough ruin for one summer.
When I turned the back corner of Jim Snyder’s store, I saw no light I in Carol Anne’s room. I sprinted up the stairs, taking three steps at a time. I have never run faster in my life, but I felt as if I were wading chest-deep in molasses. A thousand thoughts went through my mind before I reached the top of the flight.
I pounded on the door. I heard someone call my name from back toward Hayes’ house. I probably didn’t wait half a second before bursting into Carol Anne’s room.
I spoke to her as I entered, took two steps, and tripped over a bulk on the floor that I knew in an instant was human. I landed on the leather satchel and heard pearls rolling across the wooden flooring. I bounced once, scrambled to the back of the room, and turned to see the vague form of a human torso against the faint moonlight streaming through the door. One pale moonbeam glinted against the metal handle of a knife, jutting straight up from the dead body.
I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. The clothes were wadded and wrinkled in such a way that I couldn’t even tell if the dead person was lying face-down or face-up. But I could clearly make out the severe lines of the knife handle, its blade buried deep in the corpse.
I heard people coming, but could not move. I thought of every possibility. At best, the body belonged to Judd Kelso. At worst, it was Carol Anne. I might as well have been dead myself for all the good I did huddled on the floor. I suddenly wondered if I was the only living person in the room. Maybe a knife would find my chest next.
I heard footsteps on the stairs and heard my father call my name. The light from a swinging lantern cast strange shadows up the staircase. When it filled the doorway, the light blinded me for a second. Then I identified Judd Kelso, lying dead on the floor between my father and me, and felt a surge of relief. At my feet was the leather satchel, money and pearls spilling from its open mouth.
Pop looked at the dead man as Constable Hayes came to his side, gasping for breath, holding his pistol in his hand.
“Ben,” Pop said. “Are you all right?” He hurdled the dead man and helped me up.
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“Who?” He pointed at the body and looked at me as if I might have stabbed Kelso myself.
“I don’t know. I tripped over him coming in.”
Hayes put his hand on Kelso’s throat. “Still warm,” he said. “Hasn’t been long.” He looked at me. “What about the woman? Where is she?”
“She wasn’t here,” I said. “She’s gone.”
24
CAROL ANNE COBB VANISHED FROM PORT CADDO LIKE A FOG, AND THE mystery over who killed Judd Kelso began. I have heard all sorts of theories. Most people believe Carol Anne killed Kelso, then fled town, fearing Kelso’s people over at Long Point would seek revenge.
I never did believe that. If the knife had been in Kelso’s back, I could have considered it. But I never saw how Carol Anne, a healthy young woman though she was, could have overpowered Kelso face-to-face.
Some wild imaginations have come to the conclusion that I killed Judd Kelso. They say I caught him trying to force himself on Carol Anne and plunged the kitchen knife into his chest. They say Carol Anne agreed to disappear then, to make everyone think she had killed him, so the Kelso clan wouldn’t come after me.
Take my word for it, that theory is hogwash. Even if you won’t take my word, consider this: at fourteen, I wasn’t strong enough to take on Judd Kelso, either. And as long as they lived, my Pop and Rayford Hayes swore I couldn’t have killed Kelso. They had entered Carol Anne’s room only a minute behind me. They knew I didn’t have time to kill Kelso and help Carol Anne disappear.
Besides, if I had killed Kelso, I would still be bragging about it today instead of denying it.
A third theory says the Christmas Nelson gang killed Kelso for trying to take all the pearls and money for himself. That doesn’t make a lick of sense, of course. Trevor Brigginshaw’s satchel was left in Carol Anne’s room. Those outlaws would have taken it with them if they had killed Kelso. Kelso was killed for reasons other than greed.
The wildest explanation of all says that Billy Treat rose from the swamps and killed Judd Kelso to rescue his tr
ue love. I liked this theory, of course, but where was the proof? For four decades, I tried to think of a way Billy could have come out of the flood alive. It wasn’t really all that difficult to imagine. Billy could swim like an alligator and hold his-breath almost as long. He could have survived the flood that washed him and the Australian out of the Port Caddo jailhouse.
But why did it take him two days to get back to town? Over the years, I came up with a lot of possible reasons. Maybe Brigginshaw survived the flood, too, and Billy had to help him escape to Louisiana before returning to Port Caddo.
Or, if Brigginshaw drowned, which seemed more likely, Billy could have been trapped in a cypress tree anywhere between Carter’s Chute and Whangdoodle Pass for a full day before the water went down. A stranger to Caddo Lake, Billy could have wandered another day in the swamps trying to find his way back to town.
Then what? Perhaps Billy got to Carol Anne’s room shortly after Judd Kelso did, or shortly before. Either way, once both men were there, the fight started, and Kelso grabbed a kitchen knife. Billy took it from him and killed him with it. He would have been strong enough, even after spending two exhausting days in the bayous. He had plenty of motive.
And Carol Anne’s disappearance? How did I explain that one to myself? She and Billy were wise to quit town after Kelso was killed. The Kelso clan had been thick in the old Regulator-Moderator feud. Violence didn’t spook them. They would have sought revenge.
Eventually I found out what happened, but you’ll have to take my word for it. There is no solid proof. Only my word. You have to understand that the summer of pearls became a lifelong obsession for me. A few years after it was over, started investigating all its angles and facets, and continued searching for clues for forty years. I repeatedly questioned everybody involved, from Giff Newton to Emil Pipes. I searched old records and newspaper reports. I turned up a lot of evidence, but the final proof found its own way to me.