The Cottoncrest Curse

by Michael H. Rubin

  “You’ve accomplished a miracle, Jenny. When Rebecca began to show, she stopped going out. The Colonel Judge didn’t want to tell anyone until they were born. He had to be sure they didn’t die in childbirth, that they were born alive and could survive and inherit Cotton-crest. And yet, once they were born…”

  “I know, Mr. Jake. He never recovered, did he? Just withdrew more and more into himself. I sometimes think he aged more in the six months after the twins were born than he had aged in the last ten years. When I got to Cottoncrest, the Colonel Judge and Rebecca were so happy. He was like a young man again. And after the twins were born, whatever was young in him dropped away, never to return.”

  Jenny and Jake sat in the cemetery. Jenny wrapped her cloak around her more tightly. The damp chill from the October night air and the cold from the crypt’s stone steps penetrated deep under her skin.

  “The problem was, he didn’t know, Mr. Jake—not until the twins were born.”

  “Did you?”

  “ ’Course. From the moment I got there. But I was not going to tell anyone. That was her secret. But once the twins came, he knew. It broke his heart, I think. He wanted to love them, but he couldn’t. He wanted to hate her, but he couldn’t do that either. He was so torn.”

  Jake thought back to all his conversations with the Colonel Judge. On the lower veranda. On the upper gallery. In the library. The Colonel Judge often said he would do anything to keep his nephew from getting Cottoncrest. He would honor the General’s wishes.

  Maybe that was why, when the Colonel Judge met Rebecca in Philadelphia, he had fallen in love with her so quickly and had married her before leaving Pennsylvania. He was both in love with her and in love with what she represented—a way to save Cottoncrest. But the longer they were married, the more concerned he became. Without children, when Little Miss was gone, what if something happened to both Rebecca and him? Tee Ray would then inherit Cottoncrest, despite the fact that the General had tried to disinherit Tee Ray’s mother.

  “Mr. Jake, until those children were born, the Colonel Judge, he didn’t know she was passing for white. But once they came out, once he saw the boy, white as Rebecca, and the girl, darker than me with kinky black hair, he knew. It destroyed him, didn’t it? A colonel of the Confederacy with a mulatto wife and mulatto children. His own flesh and blood.”

  Jake didn’t say anything. How could he tell Jenny what the Colonel Judge had confided to him that fateful night, more than a year ago? That, because of his war wound, the Colonel Judge would never be able to have any children.

  Today

  Chapter 82

  “Since Hank Matthews said he had bought Cottoncrest for his dead daddy, I told him he must have loved his father very much.

  “‘Loved him? Don’t know if you could call it that. He was a tough man. Big in every way. Big beard. Big arms. Big voice. Big strap of a belt that he’d whip me with. Blacksmith he was, until there weren’t any enough need for blacksmiths to make a living. He refused to go back to sharecropping. Said he’d rather die than sharecrop on Widow Brady’s plantation.’

  “You know, some people get misty-eyed talking about their fathers, but not Matthews. It was almost as if he had distanced himself from both the man and the memory.

  “He leaned over to refill my glass, which was less than half-empty. ‘What’s the matter, boy? Can’t hold your liquor? If you’re going to sit here, drink with me, unless you’re too proud to do that.’

  “What could I do? I picked up the glass and drank deeply. It wasn’t time yet to show him what I had brought. Not yet.

  “So, I asked him what was it like, growing up in Parteblanc. That was a way to get into the subject.

  “‘You know what it’s like to be poor—really poor?’ he asked me. Then he just leaned back in that chair, staring up at the big oak. ‘I saw at a glance from your clothes and your manner that you have no idea. Being dirt-poor—if you don’t know any better—is not that bad. When you’re young, you just think that’s the way things are. You have nothing to compare it to. Except for the really rich—and you know you’ll never be like them—you’re surrounded by people in your same condition. What you have, they have, and what you don’t have, none of your friends have. But worse than being poor, you see, is getting a whole lot poorer. Then you see the difference. Then you remember what it used to be like. And that’s the worst.’

  “‘That’s what happened to us. Just getting poorer and poorer. And nothing that my Daddy did changed anything. That man seemed to have the worst luck. Wouldn’t talk to his old friends because of some grudge he had about something they did to him years before when he was a member of the Knights of the White Camellia. Wouldn’t ask for help. Just took it out on me. He’d get angry at the slightest thing, and he’d pull off his belt. Never hit me with all his strength, that I know. If he had, he’d have cut me in half. I’ve seen him pick up an anvil by himself. You know how heavy that is?

  “‘I knew better than to mess with my Daddy. I just took those beatings, even though they were most undeserved.’

  “Here he was, an old man, and the scars of his childhood were still with him. I had put down my pen, and I was just listening. I was trying to be empathetic, not saying anything but trying to nod my head in the appropriate places to let him know I was paying close attention.

  “He finally fell silent. But I needed him to continue. We had to get further before I pulled out my folder. I needed to steer the topic to his relationship with Ganderson. I just was unsure about how to do it in a subtle enough way.

  “I tried a different approach. I asked him whether all these beatings gave him less respect for his father in any way.

  “‘Hell no,’ he told me. ‘I respected the hell out of him. I mean, after all, he was doing the best he could do, and yet the best was not enough. What I wanted to do more than anything else was to please him. He hated niggers. I would show him that I hated them more, as was only right. He hated Tee Ray Brady’s widow and all of that family. I would hate them more and get revenge for whatever Tee Ray had done to him, which I did. He hated ol’ man Ganderson, despite, or maybe because of, what Ganderson did for me. So, I grew to hate Ganderson too. Spit on his grave the day he died, I did.’

  “Ganderson! He had gone and mentioned the name all on his own! And yet he talked about spitting on his grave in such a self-satisfied way. I hadn’t expected that. I had thought he would have loved—no, that’s too strong a word—maybe respected, or at least missed, Ganderson. Yet hatred was what poured through Hank Matthews. Pure, mean old hatred. You know what they say. Siz nit mit vemen tsu geyn tsum tish.

  “Okay. Yes, yes. You don’t know Yiddish. I forget more and more these days of what happened recently and dwell more and more on the past. It’s a Yiddish expression—he wasn’t someone you would want to sit down to dinner with. But the morsel I had brought with me was going to give him plenty of food for thought.

  “And now that he had mentioned Kenneth Ganderson, I had the opening I had been waiting for.”

  1893

  Chapter 83

  “Do you think it will work, Mr. Jake?”

  “I don’t see why not. Have you ever taken a train?”

  “No. Never.”

  “But it’s true what Antonio told me, isn’t it?”

  “Sure is, Mr. Jake. That’s what Louis has been spending all his time on. He was working on it before I left to go to Cottoncrest, and he’s still working on it now. He’s trying to get the passenger car case heard in the Supreme Court. I’ve seen the pleadings he’s going to file. Homer’s name is right there, right on papers going to the U.S. Supreme Court. Homer Adolph Plessy versus J. H. Ferguson. Of course, Louis can’t argue the case. Can’t even put his name on the briefs if it is going to have any chance to be heard. Two white lawyers, Al Tourgee and Jim Walker, have their names on the briefs, but it’s Louis who’s behind it all.”

  Jake didn’t care about the lawsuit. He didn’t care about the legal issues. The imp
ortant thing was that Jenny had confirmed what Antonio had said.

  Jenny began to shiver with the cold, despite her cloak.

  Jake opened up his long black coat and held out his arm. Jenny snuggled into the warmth of his coat, into the warmth of his embrace. She rested her head on his shoulder and drifted into sleep.

  Jake stayed watchful, his eyes continually scanning the two entrances to the cemetery.

  There was no time for any carelessness. There was no time for any mistake. There was no time for any lapse in attentiveness.

  Dawn would be here shortly.

  Today

  Chapter 84

  “I pretended at first not to know anything about Kenneth Gander-son. I asked Hank Matthews who Ganderson was and why he spit on Ganderson’s grave.

  “‘A meddler,’ he said. ‘My Daddy didn’t want any handouts. He didn’t want any sympathy. All he wanted was to do a day’s work for a day’s pay, but although he worked from almost dawn ’til twilight, the pay wasn’t there. The century had turned. We passed through ought-six and ought-seven, and the blacksmith business kept dropping off. And yet there was still old man Ganderson coming by once every six months or so. Bringing a basket of food. Paying too much to get his horse shod. Slipping me candy and, as I got older, sometimes slipping me money. He would see me on the street and stick out his arm. Put ’er there, little fella, he’d say, and when I reached out to shake his hand, in his palm would be a quarter.

  “‘Made the mistake of telling Daddy about it one day. Do you know what he did? Went over to Ganderson’s house and told him to stop it. My Daddy told Ganderson that he could take care of his own family without the help of anyone.’

  “‘Without the help of anyone,’ I repeated as I wrote that down in my notebook. ‘So Ganderson stopped?’ I asked.

  “‘No. It kind of became our secret. As I got older, the handshake I received contained four bits, then it contained a dollar bill. A real dollar bill. My Daddy sometimes had to work three days or more for that, and I got it only for a handshake.

  “‘Do you know what found money does to you? Makes you lazy. Makes you fail to appreciate hard work. Makes you forget how diffi-cult earning money can be. Also makes you think like you deserve it for doing nothing.

  “‘It was when I turned sixteen that it ended.’

  “‘Why?’ I asked.

  “‘My Daddy was reduced to taking odd jobs. No better than nigger work. I had dropped out of school years before. I pretended to work, but I was living off the money that Ganderson slipped me. Gave half of it to my Daddy—my mother was dead by then—letting him think I was earning it across the river. But I was really spending it like I owned the world. Spent the week drinking and whoring in Baton Rouge. Came back on the weekend, saw Ganderson, and then gave half of what I got to Daddy and saved the other half for my trip out on Monday. Enough to last the rest of that week, and then it would start again.

  “‘I got to the point where I think my Daddy was embarrassed to talk to me. We didn’t talk much, the older and the bigger I got, and when he did talk, it was about niggers and Jews and Papists and Tee Ray Brady. He kind of lumped them all together.

  “‘The Friday of the week I turned sixteen, I showed up at Gander-son’s, expecting the usual handshake. What did he do? He handed me one hundred dollars. That was more money than I had ever seen. My Daddy, I don’t think, ever saw that much in his lifetime. I know he never had that much, ever.

  “‘Did I thank Ganderson? Did I say anything? No. I just took it, like it was my right. My Daddy wasn’t home. I left twenty on the table. That would take care of him for a long time.

  “‘As for me, I took the ferry to Baton Rouge and from there got on a train to New York. Lived like a king. And when the money ran out, I joined the army. It was just a few weeks before the First World War broke out.

  “‘Didn’t make it back in time to see my Daddy before he died. Didn’t write him. He couldn’t read anyway.

  “‘Daddy died hating Jews and niggers and the high and mighty on plantations and all. And Ganderson. That’s why, when I got back, I spit on Ganderson’s grave.’

  “And then, as Matthews finished off his glass of bourbon and poured himself a fourth one, he said something I’ll always remember. ‘Crazy old Ganderson. Thought he was trying to help me. But all he did by giving me money was make me ashamed of my Daddy. Can you imagine that? Ashamed of your own father.’ ”

  PART XII

  1893

  Chapter 85

  The railway station was crowded. On the engine a worker was stoking up the coal-fed fire. As a head of steam was being built up, sparks drifted down in the early morning, a light snowfall of red and black ashes.

  Tee Ray, badge pinned on his coat, rifle at his side, scanned the swarm. Bucky had described the peddler’s outfit. Big black hat with a broad brim. Long black coat.

  If the Jew were here, Tee Ray had no doubt he would find him. Despite the horde of people, the Jew would stand out.

  Tee Ray climbed upon the big wooden luggage cart, its wheels chest high. From here his view would be unobstructed.

  The front cars were for whites. That’s where the Jew would go. That’s where any white man would go. Those were the cars to watch. Scores of women, children, and men boarded. First-class passengers. Others in less-fancy apparel. They stood their turn in line.

  Porters loaded luggage, hauling it through the entry doors between the cars or grunting as they lifted heavy bags onto boxcars.

  Children let loose high-pitched yells as steam hissed and descended in clouds onto the platform.

  The conductor was blowing his whistle. Last call.

  The remaining passengers pushed forward on the platform, calling out over their shoulders to their families a final good-bye as they climbed up the steep steps into the entranceways between the cars.

  The white passengers were all aboard. There was no sign of the Jew.

  Tee Ray looked in disgust as the last of the Negroes moved onto the train. Slow. No hurry. As if they had all the time in the world.

  Tee Ray climbed down from the luggage cart, rifle in hand. There was no need to wait here all day. He would come back an hour before the afternoon train.

  At the far end of the platform, one last pair of Negroes was getting on. A young woman and an older one. The younger one in a dress and a brightly covered tignon was adjusting the thin cloak over her shoulders. She then helped the older one up the stairs into the Jim Crow car. The old lady wore a shawl over her blouse; it draped down almost to her skirt. Walking with a cane in one hand, she carried a large black bundle under her other arm. The old lady had an unusual, misshapen black bonnet covered with wilted green leaves pulled low over her face. Tee Ray thought that the old lady was probably as ugly as her bonnet.

  Tee Ray paused one more moment to look closely at the old lady. No, he was sure. The older one was not Sally. And no sign of Marcus. Sally would not travel without Marcus.

  The younger one, though, looked familiar.

  The door closed.

  The train started to pull out.

  Tee Ray realized it was Jenny, her long hair hidden beneath the tignon.

  As the train moved slowly down the tracks, gathering up speed as it left the station, Tee Ray ran, clasping the rifle tightly. He hoped that the small Derringer he had stuck in his belt, the one the Orleans Parish Sheriff had lent him, the one he had not told Bucky about, wouldn’t slip out.

  As the train cleared the station, Tee Ray was holding onto a handle, pounding on a door with his rifle as the tracks rushed by below his feet.

  The conductor, spotting the badge on this wild man’s coat, opened it.

  Tee Ray entered the train.

  Chapter 86

  Outside the train’s windows to their left, the marsh that curved around the northwestern edge of New Orleans stretched out to the horizon, and to their right was a vast expanse of water. The tracks, atop miles upon miles of wooden pilings, skirted along the edge of La
ke Pontchartrain. Then the rails bore north, nestling the narrow spit of land that ran through woody swamps.

  The engine pulled six passenger cars followed by more than a dozen boxcars, several flatbeds, and a caboose. The conductor was working his way down the train, collecting tickets, starting with the first-class cars.

  Back in the two Jim Crow cars, right before the boxcars, a number of passengers had unpacked their breakfasts. They had spread on their laps the old newspapers in which they had wrapped a biscuit or a scrap of ham or a piece of French bread and ate slowly, savoring the taste. They had to make the food last the entire trip. It was all they could do to afford the ticket. There was almost no money left to purchase the expensive items at the stations at the numerous stops along the way to Chicago.

  Near the back row of the last Jim Crow car, Jake, dressed in Jenny’s spare blouse and skirt, sat demurely next to the window. “Is it still straight?”

  Jenny fiddled with the silver hairpins that held the broad felt brim of Jake’s hat in a curled, decorative edge on one side and the thick, drooping greenery that hid the edges of the folded brim on the other. With the strange shape and the wilted leaves, it was unsightly, but, pulled down enough, it helped to hide Jake’s face and stubbly beard.

  It was the beard, not the color of Jake’s skin, that was the problem. If passengers, no matter how white they looked, boarded the Jim Crow cars, no one looked twice. They were simply mulattoes who, unlike Homer Plessy, knew their place.

  The front door of the car opened. The conductor entered, asking for tickets. He folded each into three parts and punched a hole through the thick paper. One part he put in the pocket of his coat, one part he gave back to the passenger, and one part he put into the metal holder that stuck up on the back of each seat.