All Men Fear Me
Page 13
“Me, too. I’ll tell you, I’m going to have arms like tree trunks by the time this war is over.”
“I hope you won’t have time to develop those tree trunks, Charlie. I’d just as soon the war would come to a speedy and honorable end and Mr. Ober won’t have need for extra hands.”
Charlie almost missed the comment. The slab of pie that his mother had placed on top of his lunch had captured his attention. He had taken a bite before it dawned on him what his companion had said. “Are you against the war, too?” He tried not to sound accusatory.
Henry’s blue eyes widened. “I hope no person of goodwill wants war.”
Charlie sighed. “Well, no…” he said, though he wasn’t entirely sure he meant it. “But it wasn’t our fault that we had to get in it.”
Henry’s gaze slid away and he shrugged. “I hope it’s over soon, whatever it takes. I did register for the draft so if my number gets called I’ll go if I can. Though when I tried to volunteer they wouldn’t take me because I got the asthma.”
Charlie gave his companion a critical once-over. Henry was a good-looking young man, tall and well grown, older than Charlie by maybe eight or ten years. “You afraid of getting shot?” Charlie asked.
Henry didn’t look up from his squirrel stew. “Naw. I been shot at before. I just don’t fancy living in a mud hole for months on end with a passel of overripe soldiers.” He shot Charlie a sly glance. “Of which I would directly be one.”
“Who shot at you?”
Henry shrugged. “Some Mexican. Sometimes the Mexicans like to take a little target practice across the border. Or maybe some drunk Texican. Who knows? It was just a rough Saturday night in Brownsville. A bullet whizzed by my ear and I hit the dirt. Never did know where it come from. Didn’t have my name on it, though.”
“You ever shoot back at the Mexicans?”
“Sometimes. They don’t much like us gringos, and us gringos return the favor.” Henry didn’t sound overly concerned that citizens of the two countries made a habit of taking potshots at one another. “I think America should be more worried about Mexico than Germany, though. They’re a lot closer and hate us a lot more. I don’t think Germany wants to tussle with us.”
If there was anything Charlie loved, it was arguing about the war. “Well, then why—?”
Henry did not feel the same way about debate. He cut Charlie off. “Hey, what do you think about old Win Avey getting his throat slit like that?”
He could not have chosen a better topic to distract Charlie. “Ain’t that something? My ma says Avey was always knocking heads with somebody and it’s no surprise that he came to a bad end.”
“He worked here, you know. He was one of the supervisors on this very shift. My uncle is of the same mind as your ma, that Avey was a scoundrel.”
“He was a Council of Defense man, though,” Charlie said. “And I heard he was starting up a branch of the Knights of Liberty around here. So it’s mighty suspicious what happened to him. Scott thinks he ran afoul of the socialists and they killed him. He got in a fight with one of them the very night before he died.”
“So is Sheriff Tucker kin to you?” Henry seemed more interested in Charlie’s familiarity with the lawman than in Win Avey’s demise.
“Yeah, he’s my dad’s cousin. His daddy and my grandpa were brothers.”
Henry grinned. “So y’all must know all the dastardly deeds that happen around town and who all did them.”
“I wish we did, but Scott plays it close to the vest. Besides, we live so far out in the sticks that sometimes I think we’re the last to hear anything.”
“Sometimes it makes life easier if you don’t know what’s going on.”
“Is that why you came up here to nowhere from all the action in Texas? So you wouldn’t have to know what’s going on?”
“Well, young’un, I came up here because, like I said, I probably can’t get into the service, so my uncle Eric Bent said he could get me some useful war work here at the brick plant.” Henry’s tone was teasing, but Charlie took the hint.
He felt his cheeks heat up. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to act like I think you’re a slacker.”
“You can’t tell a fellow’s situation just by looking at him, Charlie. You never can tell but what he’s making some important contribution to the war effort in secret.”
Charlie’s eyes lit up. “Wouldn’t that be crackerjack? To be a secret government agent on the lookout for fifth columnists here in America? Or to go over to Europe and be a spy?”
“Might end up on trial for your life that way, like poor old Mata Hari.” The exotic dancer was still on trial for espionage in Paris, but according to the sensational accounts being published in the papers, her prospects for acquittal were dim.
Charlie’s bottom lip jutted out. He liked the look of Henry Blackwood and had hoped to make a new friend, but Henry seemed to enjoy making sport of everything Charlie said. Henry caught the look of hurt that passed over the younger man’s face, and he gave him a friendly clap on the shoulder. “I don’t mean nothing. It’s just my way to josh with my pals. I’m a mite put out because I can’t get into it like all the other fellows my age. But we do what we can, don’t we?”
Charlie’s mood lifted and he smiled. “We sure do, Henry. We do whatever we can.”
***
“Hey, is that Charlie Tucker?”
Charlie wiped the sweat out of his eyes and turned around to see who had called him. Billy Claude Walker was passing by the clay pit on his way to the machine shop. Charlie gave him a wave.
Billy Claude grinned. “Why, it sure is! Nice to see one of your bunch working a proper job for a change.”
“Just doing my bit for the war effort,” Charlie called.
“I figured you for a German sympathizer, what with that krauthead your sister married. Glad I was wrong.”
Charlie’s mouth dropped open, blindsided by the comment. He glanced at Henry, who was shoveling clay into the dump car alongside him. Henry glared at Billy Claude. “Leave the young’un alone, Walker,” he hollered. “He ain’t the only person in the world with a German in the family.”
Charlie found his tongue. “Kurt can’t help where he was born, Mr. Walker. He came to this country to get away from Germany. He’s a loyal American now.”
Billy Claude laughed. “A loyal American, is he? Well, we’ll see about that. Enjoy your digging, boy!”
Henry stabbed his shovel into the dirt and straightened. “You don’t need to defend your kin to the likes of him,” he said in an undertone.
Charlie nodded, but didn’t reply. He went back to his digging, his good mood gone.
Chapter Thirty-three
“The fine and noble way to kill a foe
Is not to kill him; you with kindness may
So change him, that he shall cease to be so;
Then he’s slain.”
—Charles Aleyn
The beans were about to take over Alafair’s truck garden. The warm, dry, summer had produced a bumper crop of beans of every ilk. The pole beans were so prolific that they were pulling the vines down off of the stakes. Blanche and Sophronia were crawling along the rows, on their knees among the vines, harvesting beans and piling them into bushel baskets while Alafair finished hanging the last of the Monday wash on the line. Chase Kemp and Grace were there, too, though whether they were helping the girls in the garden or not was a matter of interpretation. Alafair had put them to picking beetles off the bean plants and drowning them in kerosene. If their loud expressions of delighted disgust were any indication, they were enjoying themselves very much. Alafair picked up her empty clothes basket when Sally McBride drove up in her carriage and hollered at her from the drive. Alafair walked over to the fence, a bit worried. Her mother-in-law seldom just turned up without a good reason.
“What’s going on, Ma? Is somebod
y sick?”
Sally grinned down at her from the driver’s seat. “Don’t look so worried, honey. Nothing’s wrong. Remember the conversation we had at the house on Sunday? About the folks I take food to every once in a while? I can tell by how your eyes are about to pop out that you do. Well, I’m on my way over there right now and I figured to take you along.”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t.” Alafair’s insides shrank at the very thought. “We’ve got to get these washtubs put away before I start dinner. Besides, I couldn’t leave the little’uns here on their own…”
“Alafair.” Sally interrupted her in mid-ramble. “It’s two hours before you have to start dinner. You have plenty of hands for the task and we won’t be gone more than an hour. Blanche is old enough to keep these ruffians in line for that long.”
Alafair climbed up into the buggy, but only so she could protest in an undertone. “Ma, why are you wanting me to do this so bad? Why, it’d be awful if we were seen to consort with such types. What would everyone think?”
Sally was five feet tall and round as a dumpling. But anyone who crossed her soon regretted his mistake. She drew herself up. “Alafair, the Pharisees asked Jesus why he was keeping company with criminals and prostitutes. And he said, did he not, that it was the criminals and prostitutes who needed the grace of God and not the righteous people? Well, I don’t aim to let the judgments of the Pharisees in town get in the way of doing a small good deed to our local criminals and prostitutes. And I don’t want you to do so, either, if I can help it. These are human women, sugar, who have fallen as low as they can go. How can it hurt to show them some kindness?”
Alafair bit her lip. What could she say? That she had to live in this town? That her actions would reflect on her children, and she’d do anything to keep from causing them grief? What if she was seen and she had to explain to her family what she and Grandma were doing talking to a bunch of whores?
Sally was regarding her with keen black eyes, waiting to see which way Alafair would jump. Alafair didn’t want to pay a call on a passel of soiled doves, not even as an act of Christian charity. But even more, she didn’t want her beloved mother-in-law to think less of her.
Sally’s expression softened. She could tell that Alafair was weakening. “You don’t have to speak to any of them. You don’t even have to get out of the carriage. I always put the top up and come up the back way around town. Nobody will see.”
“You promise we’ll be gone less than an hour?”
“Less than an hour.” Sally’s eyes crinkled with amusement. “Even if I have to throw this food basket into the yard as we gallop by. Come on, honey. It’s good for your soul. You’ll see.”
“But look at me. I’m in my washing clothes and have soap on my sleeves. Let me take off my apron and change my hat, at least.”
“No excuses, now. You think the girls will turn up their noses at your outfit? Besides, you ain’t even going to talk to them, remember?”
Alafair’s resistance collapsed in the face of the juggernaut that was Sally’s will. She climbed down long enough to charge Blanche with keeping her siblings on the job while she and Grandma ran a brief errand. Grace whined to go along, but Alafair refused with such force that she dropped the subject and hastily resumed drowning bugs.
Sally turned her horses onto the section road and headed toward town at a breezy trot. The two women rode in silence for a time, Sally secure in the rightness of her path and thus happy as a puppy with two tails. But Alafair was bitterly ruing her decision to go along with this ill-considered errand.
They reached the main road, but instead of turning right into town, Sally turned the carriage left and drove north for a quarter-mile, until she reached a rutted farm path that circled around Boynton to the east. Alafair shrank back into the seat when they passed in sight of a farmhouse, but they saw no one.
Alafair finally ventured a comment. “I cannot imagine what would drive a woman to a life like that, not to mention run a business that shames others of her own sex, some of them barely girls. Why has Scott never closed down her institution?”
Sally kept her eyes on the road. “I asked him the same question not long after she came to town. He said that she’s real protective of her girls and runs a clean house. He told me that for years there was a similar establishment out in the country, south of town. Did you know that?”
Alafair’s eyebrows shot skyward. “No, I didn’t.” She wasn’t surprised that none of her men had mentioned that fact to her, but there weren’t many women in town who would have kept that titillating bit of information to themselves. The minute Rose’s place opened last year, churchwomen of all denominations had sent a delegation to the mayor to demand that the fallen women be immediately run out of town. The mayor and town council had promised to consider the problem, but nothing had ever come of it.
Sally continued. “Rose was one of the girls at the old place. The previous bawdy house was a den of iniquity, according to Scott. It was run by a devil of a woman called Star Karsten who used her strongman to keep her girls in line, then she robbed them of their shameful wages on top of it. Finally she got stabbed during some big dust-up at the house. The woman didn’t die, but never quite recovered, either. I reckon when she closed down, Rose saw a business opportunity.”
“Well, why does he let her stay and not that other woman? I don’t care how nice she treats her poor girls, that’s a horrible life for them.”
Sally shrugged. “Scott seems to think that if it ain’t her, it’ll be someone worse.”
Alafair wasn’t going to accept that explanation. “But why must we have such a place here at all? What about our children?”
Sally chuckled, amused at Alafair’s righteous indignation. “You’d better ask the town council about that, hon. I blame the men. As for the women, who knows? Rose has had a pretty sad life. Don’t judge her without knowing what drove her to it.”
Alafair was feeling cautiously relieved as they drove up the dirt path that ran along beside a few houses at the edge of town. Just before they reached the turn to Kenetick Street, Sally guided the carriage into a wide drive behind a plain, two-story clapboard house that edged up to an empty field. She reined at the back door just as an enormous Negro man came down the steps to greet her. He offered her a hand down and a big smile. “Hello, Miz McBride. Nice to see you.”
Sally retrieved the basket from the backseat and passed it to him. “Hello, Dave. I brought y’all some dried apples, a sack of pecans, and a few loaves of fresh bread to go with the extra jars of jam I had in the pantry. Is Rose up and about?”
Dave was eyeing the jam jars with anticipation. “Now, ain’t that nice? Thank you, ma’am. Last I seen Miz Rose was at the breakfast table. I’ll tell her you come by.”
Alafair’s eyes were glued to the back door, where an attractive if somewhat frowsy older woman stood at the screen, watching. She was clad in a dressing gown and holding a tea cup in one hand. The expression on her face was anything but welcoming.
Sally was aware that she was being watched. Before she stepped back up into the carriage, she nodded at the woman. “Good morning, Rose. Hope y’all enjoy the eats.”
“We don’t need your charity, Miz McBride,” Rose said.
“I know you don’t need charity, Rose, so just think of it as a neighborly gift.”
Rose made a disparaging noise and disappeared back inside as Sally turned the carriage and headed out.
She snapped the reins and the horses picked up the pace. “See, now, Alafair, I told you this trip wouldn’t take but a blink.”
Alafair was aghast. “Why, Ma, you made me think that you and that Rose woman were best of friends. She didn’t appreciate your charity a bit, or that a respectable woman would even speak to her, much less bring gifts!”
“Nobody likes to be pitied, Alafair. Besides, the Lord wants us to try. He don’t care if we succeed.”
Sally clicked her tongue at the horses and they picked up the pace. “Do you remember Gertrude Bent? No? Well, she was a real nice woman who used to belong to my ladies’ sewing circle. She got the cancer and I went by regular to sit with her and bring food so her and her husband wouldn’t starve. Her house is right across the lane from the brothel. Rose’s place looks like any other house during the day, so I hadn’t even given it a glance. But then once while I was visiting, Rose and a couple of her girls came over to look in on Gert. They brought a real pretty wool blanket for her since she was always cold. Rose took one look at me and left, but the two sporting girls walked right in and made themselves at home. They were bawdy, all right, but I liked them for the way they teased and joked with Gert. After they left Gert told me that they had all kindly looked after her ever since she got sick, and several of them had told her their stories. Even sinners can be kind. So after Gert passed on, I resolved to try and be kind myself, for I expect them women don’t get much kindness in their line of work.”
“But she doesn’t even appreciate what you’re doing, Ma. You could become a subject of gossip if word gets around. Why do you insist on taking food over there to them if they don’t need it or want it either?”
Sally emitted a derisive pfft. “I’m too old to care what anybody thinks, Alafair.” That seemed to be the end of the conversation, but not long after Sally turned the carriage off the main road toward Alafair’s place, she said, “You know that after Shaw’s daddy died, me and the young’uns were left in bad spot.”
“Yes, I know it.”
“I had six children under twelve, one just weaned. Jim had taken out a loan to buy ten more acres of hillside for logging. He wasn’t cold in the ground before the bank called in the loan. I had the cabin and yard, and fifty acres of woods. I could have found a buyer if the bank had given me time, but I think old Plummer, the banker, smelled an opportunity, so he foreclosed. I was in a bad way. Jim was gone and all those babies and I hadn’t had time to take a breath. I was left with the cabin and yard, but no means to make a living.”