by Richard Peck
“WHO IN THE DAMMIT TO HELL IS SQUABBLIN’ OVER THAT GIRL’S BONES LIKE A PAIR OF STARVED COYOTES?” Uncle Miles pushed his way up to the front of the crowd and glared.
“Now what?” Brulatour asked, exasperated. “Who is this rustic?”
Uncle Miles ignored him and turned on Jake. “Listen, McCulloch, that little gal was robbed of her fortune by Thibodaux fifty years ago. I’m here to see you don’t rob her of her dignity now. This here is one time you don’t cash in on the dead.” Jake glanced nervously around at the gathering crowd of future clients and looked mortified.
“Quite right,” said Brulatour. “My sentiments exac—”
“And as for you,” Uncle Miles jerked around, “you got no stake in the matter whatsoever.” He smacked his eighty-five-year-old hands together like he might stretch Brulatour out on the lawn.
“You see this boy here?” he said, jabbing a finger toward me. “Me and him is the Alpha and Omega of this whole business. I raised that hitchin’ post over Inez Dumaine in 1861 and this boy communed with her spirit here lately. If anybody is going to see her safely to her restin’ place, it’ll be him and me, which is what we’re goin’ to do.”
And which is what we did, though I had not foreseen the possibility of making a trip to New Orleans with Uncle Miles, and I doubt if he’d thought of it before that moment himself. In the midst of the listening throng, I saw Blossom Culp watching, her eyes as black as ebony and both ears cocked.
“Out of the question!” Mother said from the sidelines. She’d stepped up in time to hear Uncle Miles’s closing remarks. “Alexander will not be accompanying you to New Orleans or any other place, Uncle Miles. What a harebrained idea!”
“Surely it is time the boy saw something of the world.” The voice came from someone standing just behind Mother.
“I never heard such a crazy notion,” Mother said, turning to see the speaker was Mrs. Van Deeter. “Oh, do you really think so? Perhaps you’re right.”
That’s how Uncle Miles and I happened to be down at the depot that very day to catch the 4:30 train. Jake McCulloch washed his hands of the whole affair. So the box containing the bones of Inez and Trixie rode on the seat beside the Van Deeters’ chauffeur. Mrs. Van Deeter shared the back seat of the Cadillac with Mother, who was glad enough to be seen driving all the way across town in such style and company. Dad took me in the Mercer, and Lucille and Lowell were on the back seat together.
Lowell was still covering the story, but every time I glimpsed behind, he and Lucille were sitting closer. And whispering. It was somewhat disgusting but a big improvement over Tom Hackett.
“You are to pay your own way on this trip, Alexander,” Dad explained to me. He’d given me two ten-dollar bills to pin into my underwear and a pocketful of change. “And keep your eye on Uncle Miles. Since he won’t act his age, you’ll have to be grown-up enough for two.”
Chapter Nineteen
Uncle Miles sat upright in the day coach, and I sat across from him, looking out at the bean fields and black earth that gave way to the rocky yellow land of the southern part of the state.
When the conductor came through to look at our tickets, he told us we’d have to change at Carbondale for the Illinois Central’s Panama Limited. Uncle Miles tried to look like he knew that already, though if he’d ever been over this route, I figured he’d be lecturing me on it. “We got a box in the baggage car ahead ridin’ on our tickets,” he told the conductor who said it would be shifted at Carbondale and not to worry about it.
Uncle Miles replied, “I will worry about it as long as it’s my responsibility. There’s a feller back in the parlor car—a big, red-necked rebel, very mouthy, who will steal that box if he has half a chance.”
The conductor found that somewhat humorous. He looked Uncle Miles over, noting he wore an old blue suit under a pair of overalls, which was his complete traveling outfit. “So you reckon to be robbed by a parlor-car passenger. What are you shipping, a trunk full of gold-mine shares?”
“No,” said Uncle Miles, squinting at him, “a dead body.” The conductor moved on.
A candy butcher came through next, selling oddments off a tray. “Never buy eats on a train, Alexander,” Uncle Miles said. “They charge two prices. I had some sandwiches made up which will see us through.” He patted his tool kit that doubled as a valise. “I reckon your dad give you money, but it isn’t for throwin’ around.”
It was nearly dark when we pulled in at Carbondale. “We’re gettin’ into foreign parts now,” he said. “They call this end of the state Little Egypt, and they’d as soon cut your throat as to look at you. It’s rough territory.”
The Panama Limited was waiting for our train, and quite a number of passengers crossed the platform to get on it. I recognized Brulatour by his white suit, skipping across from one parlor car to another. The box with Inez was already on a baggage cart, and Uncle Miles watched until it was put aboard. He told me to skin on up into the train and stake out a pair of facing seats. And that was how I happened to be looking out the window in time to see a surprising sight.
Just as the platform cleared of passengers, somebody jumped down out of the baggage car of the Bluff City train and rocketed across to the Panama Limited. In the dimness I saw it was Blossom Culp, swinging a bundle of her possessions tied up in a bandanna.
Then the platform was empty but for the trunk handlers who were rolling the carts away. And I knew Blossom had transferred to the New Orleans train the same as we had, only quicker. I’d told her already that she’s everywhere at once, and she seemed bent on proving the point.
When I woke up next morning, palm trees were flashing past the train window, like the fluttering pages of a Sunday school paper. I’d slept with my feet out in the aisle and had sweated through my knicker suit. Uncle Miles was sitting up, very alert, but his teeth were out. “State of Mississippi,” he managed to say, “stinkin’ hot and dirt poor.” The plush on the seat prickled something fierce, and with a sandwich in my pocket I set off to the washroom. When I was done in there, I kept walking through the train.
I stumbled along through four coaches and the dining car, and nobody stopped me. There were caged-off parts to the baggage car, but not locked up. I counted four coffins among the jumble of trunks before I finally spied the bronze handles on Inez’s box. And unless I’d been having one of my visions back on the Carbondale platform, I figured Blossom was not far off in this traveling graveyard.
“All right,” I yelled out over the train noise. “Rear up, Blossom! I know you’re in here.”
And above a pile of swaying crates Blossom’s head rose. Her hair was a bird’s nest, and planted on top was a sad old straw hat. She appeared to have passed a sleepless night. I gave her the kind of out-of-patience look that Uncle Miles often gave people.
And she said, “I can go where I please. I got twenty-eight dollars of my own money.”
“I don’t doubt that,” I told her. “You got it selling trips through our barn. And what’ll your mama think when you turn up missing?”
“She don’t care,” Blossom said. “It’s just one less mouth to feed to her.”
“How come you’re stowing away among the coffins and the baggage if you’re so flush with money?”
“I was afraid they wouldn’t sell me a ticket, and I didn’t know what it might cost. Besides, I’m guarding this box here. I’m going to help you see Inez safely to her rest.”
“Many thanks for that,” I sneered, “but I guess Uncle Miles and I can handle those arrangements.”
“Maybe you can,” she replied, “but all I know is that the Brulatour fellow was nosing around this baggage car late last night, and where was you then? He’ll steal your thunder if he can and Inez too.”
“Blossom, you’re the champion busybody of the world. I don’t see where you fit into things at all.”
“You have the Gift and could see Inez’s spirit with your own eyes and hear her words too. I ain’t receptive, but I got some wisdom you don’t. I
know what it’s like to be lonesome, like she was.” She turned her face away. Though her chin looked firm, her mouth quivered. And I saw that I had maybe said the wrong thing.
“Well then, as long as you’re here, you better come back to the chair car with me and Uncle Miles.”
“And get flung off the train by the conductor for not paying? No, indeed.” Blossom shut her eyes and shook her head.
“Oh come on, Blossom, like as not he won’t even notice you.”
“Some people can see me clearer than you can, Alexander. You can see a dead girl easier than a living one. But I reckon you will change in time.”
“That’s a silly thing to say, Blossom,” I told her, but in a way I knew it wasn’t. “They’ll only catch you when we pull into New Orleans.”
“They didn’t catch me at Carbondale,” she replied, and her head sank below the packing cases. I handed the sandwich down to her, which she took.
Heading back through the train, I was determined to tell Uncle Miles that Blossom was a stowaway. But I lost my resolve since nothing much could be done about her short of New Orleans anyhow.
He thought I’d been absent longer than necessary, so I got him talking to take his mind off that. “What are we going to do when we get down there?”
“Do? Well, first and last we’re goin’ to keep that Brulatour feller from makin’ a public spectacle and hoggin’ the attention. And we’re goin’ to put up at a quiet place that takes payin’ guests and then scout around to find the graveyard where the Dumaine folks is laid away. Then we’re goin’ to stick Inez in with them. And of course I will be showin’ you somethin’ of the city.”
“How are you going to do that, Uncle Miles, in a place you’ve never been before?”
“Why, boy, I been to New Orleans! There and back on a riverboat. I been everywhere I ever wanted to go and two or three places I never even wanted to see! I have lived a long time, Alexander, and most of it with itchy feet.”
“Oh,” I said.
“I was down in New Orleans in—lemme see—eighteen hundred and ninety-one. It was the time the Black Hand murdered the police chief, and then they was all lynched in Congo Square. The Black Hand is a gang of outlaws and like as not they still flourish, as anything evil will down there.
“Oh, there is lessons to be learned in New Orleans you won’t find in your school books, Alexander. It is a town entirely give over to fleshly pleasure, a free and easy place, full of people walkin’ abroad who anywhere else would be in jail or a madhouse. High livin’ and low livin’, good drink and bad women ...”
Uncle Miles shook his head and seemed to go off into a reverie. “Music day and night,” he mumbled. “The cars clatterin’ and the women callin’ from the balconies, and the boats hootin’ over the levee. I guess it’s about as fine a place as I know of.” Then he nodded off to sleep and didn’t stir till we were under the canopy of the New Orleans depot.
People move different down in New Orleans. That was the first thing I noticed about the place, before we were even off the train. They bounce and sashay along like they’re in a musical play on the stage. There was a brass band playing on the platform, and the bandsmen shuffled their feet in time to their song. They were playing “Nearer My God to Thee” in ragtime.
When Uncle Miles heard the music, he was on his feet, squinting out the open window. “That’s one of them burial society bands!” he said, banging his fist on the window. “And looky over there past them gates. They got a horse-drawn hearse backed up. Look at them purple plumes on them horses!
“Well, Alexander, that big-mouth Brulatour and his newspaper has got us outflanked. He’ll turn the whole thing into a vaudeville act.
“I was in hopes we’d be left to go about our business in peace, but they’re too many for us. Seemed like we was the only family Inez had, Yankees though we are, and not even Catholics. I took it as a sign when she appeared to you, since I’ve felt bad carryin’ the old captain’s guilty secret these many years. I wanted to do right by her before my time was up.”
The train had come to a halt by then, and people were crowding down the aisle. But Uncle Miles sat in his seat, and I’d never seen him look as whipped. Frail even. I cast about for something to perk his spirit. But all I could think of was that Blossom in the baggage car was the only ace in the hole we had and hardly worth mentioning.
Brulatour’s big straw hat bobbed past the window, and he was shortly to be seen surrounded by his newspaper brethren. There were some ladies crowding around him too, in big hats with parasols or fans. He was bowing and scraping to them. In New Orleans they put their socializing before business.
Which is not Blossom’s way.
Chapter Twenty
“Keep a-walkin’ and don’t get drawed into that Brulatour mob,” Uncle Miles said when we got off the train. But nobody marked us as we dragged our valises toward the gates.
I had my eye out for Blossom and saw her right away up by the baggage car. She was on the platform, holding the bandanna full of her traveling gear behind her. She seemed to be passing the time of day with the men who were unloading the train. I never saw her look any more innocent.
Farther off, I noticed one of the big coffins from the train being eased into the fancy hearse. And that offered something heartening to say to Uncle Miles. “If that hearse is for Inez, they have got into a mix-up over the boxes.”
“Oh there is my brother now who I have come down to the station to meet,” Blossom sang out and pointed a finger at me. “And that fancy box with the handles up in the baggage car belongs to him!”
“Things is happenin’ pretty fast,” Uncle Miles muttered to me. “Who is that peculiar-lookin’ little gal?”
I told him she was one of us, since there was no time to go into detail. Then I peered over my shoulder to see if Brulatour was bearing down on us. But he was still in the knot of his confederates and admirers.
Between us, Blossom and I could just heft the box. “Cut out,” Uncle Miles said. “I am just behind you.” And I guess Brulatour was so sure of his triumph that he didn’t check his hearse, for we saw it clopping away as we climbed up into a jitney. Our driver strapped Inez’s box on the back.
Uncle Miles asked him if he knew where St. Charles Avenue was. The driver told him it was hard to miss as it was the major boulevard of the city. “Then see if you can find Mrs. Pomarade’s Colonnade Guest House on it, for that’s where we’re puttin’ up.” The driver replied that Mrs. Pomarade was as hard to miss as the boulevard. And then we drove off through the steamy brick streets of New Orleans.
Blossom had no more experience riding in jitneys than I had. But she straightened her hat, crossed her ankles in her high-topped shoes, and put on quite a ladylike display.
“I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure,” Uncle Miles said, peering past me at her.
“This here is Blossom Culp,” I said. “She stowed away in the baggage car and is from Bluff City.”
“A Bluff City girl and I don’t know her?” said Uncle Miles, very puzzled.
“My people are not in a position to have much carpentry done,” she told him, very dignified. There was a show of understanding between them from the first minute, and I felt somewhat left out.
“I take it you have run off,” he said, “which is liable to be a worry to your folks.”
“Very little worries them,” she replied, “and roving is in our blood.”
“Now that,” Uncle Miles said firmly, “is a thing I can understand. It appears you worked a switch with a couple of bodies. That bein’ the case, how’d you do it?”
Blossom held up her bandanna bundle. “I had a pencil stub in this poke,” she said. “And last night I come across a shipping label on the floor of the baggage car. One of them that says This End Up. It was a blank one, and it come to me I might put it to use. So I lettered on it Body of Inez Dumaine, New Orleans. My spelling is good, and my lettering is even better.” Blossom folded her hands primly in her lap.
&
nbsp; “Yes, go on,” Uncle Miles urged her.
“Well, I had me a look around at some of the other coffins being shipped south and tried to figure which they’d unload first. I picked one, peeled the label off it, and stuck my new one on. It wasn’t a sure thing, but it worked.”
“Well damn me to hell,” said Uncle Miles, staring at her in deep admiration.
“So when we pulled into New Orleans this evening, I nipped out of the baggage car and through the car where they eat and eased down out of the train when nobody noticed. Then I stepped up to where you seen me on the platform. There wasn’t nothin’ to it.”
“Alexander,” Uncle Miles jabbed me hard in the ribs. “There sets a girl with all her wits about her.”
I said nothing.
Mrs. Pomarade’s Colonnade Guest House, while needing paint, was an immense fine place with a leading glass front door behind pillars. There was only a small sign in the yard to tell it was a private hotel. A maid answered. She took a long look at the three of us and nearly shut the door. But Uncle Miles boomed, “Tell her Miles Armsworth from up yonder.”
We all pushed the box into the front hall. The maid didn’t like that, and later when she learned what it contained, she took fright. We were shown into a sitting room being dusted by another maid. She worked her feather duster and her hips together in a snappy rhythm. And she was singing at the top of her voice, “If you ain’t gonna shake it, what’d you bring it for?”
Presently, a very unusual-looking big woman stepped in from the hall. I’d never seen anything to equal her appearance, and haven’t since. Her face was made up very clownish, and there were brush strokes painted above her eyes to represent lashes. She wore a large and lacey dress, mostly yellow, and high-heeled shoes with no backs to them. There was a variety of combs in her hair, which must have been the reddest in America.
“Why Miles Armsworth!” she said, “Aren’t you dead? The girl said you was from up yonder, but now I see she only meant Bluff City. It’s grand to see you, you old b—”