Diamond Duo

by Marcia Gruver

  He shook harder. “You know right well she is.”

  Thad sensed trouble and crossed to stand beside Bertha. Annie pulled free, and Bertha closed the gap between them and touched her arm. “Wait, Annie. Don’t go. It’s me.”

  The “Abe” character tilted his chin toward Bertha. “Who is this? How does she know you?”

  “I tell you, I don’t know! I never seen her before in my life.”

  Abe grasped both of Annie’s shoulders and leaned close to her ear, hissing every syllable through gritted teeth. “I asked you a question, Bessie. Who is this girl?”

  Annie winced under his cruel hands. “I swear I don’t know.”

  “Don’t give me that. That’s twice now she’s called you Annie.”

  “I don’t know what her game is,” Annie shouted. Her voice lowered to an ominous tone. “I bet she heard you call me that.” She leaned close and attempted to focus bleary eyes on Bertha. “Go away, little girl. I don’t know you. Why are you trying to make trouble for me?”

  With that she pulled away from Abe’s grip and reeled down the street. “Come on, baby. I thought you were in a hurry to get back to the room. We ain’t getting no closer standing around here.”

  The man watched her go with narrow, flashing eyes. He gave Bertha another suspicious scowl then followed Annie up the road.

  Bertha stood on the grass where she had backed away from Annie’s angry words.

  Thad joined her there and slid one arm around her shoulders just as Annie’s voice floated back to them on the night air. “Don’t be silly, sugar. Why would I waste my time on that foolish child?”

  Bertha turned and burrowed her face against Thad’s shirt. “Oh, Thad. That’s exactly what I am. A foolish child.”

  He tightened his hold around her. “Don’t take it to heart, Bertha. Your friend’s so pie-faced she could enter her profile in the county fair. She’ll remember you tomorrow, when she sobers up.”

  Bertha looked up at him, her lips trembling. “That’s what you don’t understand. She remembered me, all right, but for whatever reason, she doesn’t want him to know. I think I just got her in terrible trouble. Lord knows what he’ll do to her now.”

  She shuddered and pressed close to him again. “Did you see his eyes?”

  Across the top of Bertha’s head, Thad watched the man named Abe wrestle the woman named Annie up the steps of Brooks House. He breathed a prayer of thanksgiving that Bertha didn’t see it. In the distance, the struggling couple disappeared through the door, and Thad tacked on one more prayer.

  He asked the Lord to send an angel for Annie.

  Saturday, January 20

  Sarah stepped out the back door with every intention of feeding the chickens. The second her feet touched the cold, damp boards of the porch, she scampered back inside for her shoes and a wrap to lay over her shoulders.

  Most days the weather stayed so warm and dry she wandered the place barefoot, especially the hard-packed trails leading to the barn and the chicken yard. Sarah loved feeling the smooth dirt under her feet. Some mornings the earth would be cool against her skin. On others the heat from the day before lay just below the topsoil.

  Walking barefoot outdoors was a new experience. Folks in St. Louis wore shoes all the time, from field workers to scullery maids, and it disgraced the household to be caught without them. Things in Jefferson were different, and Sarah had to admit she liked going without her shoes.

  But not today. Yesterday’s storm had chugged through like a steam engine pulling a chilly caboose. And from the looks of the dark swirling sky, the tail end of the rain-train was in no hurry to leave the station.

  There would be no sunrise setting for her clothesline daydreams, no bright rays dancing through her garden rows. She would slap the clothes on the line willy-nilly then ply the hoe in haste. She prayed that the rain held off till her laundry dried and that the cold would spare her greens.

  But first came those chickens. The wayward, self-centered fowl were confused about the sort of bird God made them, considering they skulked near the back porch each morning like vultures. Squawking and sparring, they followed her to the chicken house where they belonged to start with and pranced around with jutting necks and impatient mutters while she dished out a bowlful of feed.

  “Wait your turn, sisters.” She swatted a speckled red pair away from her legs. “First one to peck me winds up on the table.”

  She had a good mind to leave them to scratch out a breakfast of crickets and worms the way the good Lord intended. Except she feared finding the lazy critters on their backs, drumsticks aimed at the sky, stone dead of starvation. And there would go Henry’s eggs.

  At the thought of her husband and his eggs, she stood up and scoured the surrounding fields. He’d been up since daybreak hoeing trenches to drain standing water and trying to plow the grassy rise, so she knew he’d be mighty hungry by now.

  She covered the feed and slipped out of the chicken yard, fastening the gate behind her. As she neared the porch, she spotted Dandy in the distance, plodding on the east side of the farm. Henry couldn’t be far behind.

  Sure enough, he passed into her line of sight from behind the house, shoulders bent, head down, and far from a point where he might stop anytime soon. She still had plenty of time.

  Sarah hoisted the metal tub full of washing off the porch and struck out for the bayou. Her thoughts flew to the day before when she’d complained about cool water and a breeze up her skirt and realized folks never knew when they had it easy. She reckoned she’d trade the nip she felt that day for the teeth-chattering chill she suffered now. When she reached the water’s edge, she dumped the laundry on the ground and kneeled down to let cold, clear water run into the pail.

  Henry had shown her how to dip just the rim of the pan so she wouldn’t take up sludge or the muddy bottom water, but she still had to watch what streamed in at the top, or she’d fill it with floating debris.

  She smiled. Her first time to try she’d dipped so low she caught a perch. The poor fish didn’t know what to think about swimming with dirty overalls, but it pleased Henry to no end. He’d held it aloft and declared it “eating size” then set out to prove it by laying his chores aside and catching a stringer full to fry alongside hers for supper.

  Sarah pushed the memory back and dragged the sloshing wash-tub to shore. She decided it wouldn’t hurt the bundle of clothes a bit to soak until after breakfast. The day should be warmer by dinnertime.

  She crested the rise and sighted Henry again. Looked like she still had time to hoe, but pure laziness crept in, so she decided against it.

  Dickens had moseyed out to find her. When the old hound saw her top the hill, he lowered his lanky body to the ground and wriggled up to meet her.

  “Morning, boy. What you doing way out here?” She scratched behind his ears, and he thanked her by curling his long tongue around her wrist. When he tasted bayou water on her arm, he sat upright and got busy drying her off. He had to be starved, or he’d never have moved from the porch. She drew her shawl around her shoulders and set out for the house to feed him.

  Despite his hunger, Sarah beat old Dickens to the yard. She ducked into the kitchen and poured bacon grease over stale bread, threw on the scraps of beans and corn bread left from supper, then spooned the slop into the rusty metal dish beside the steps.

  She stood up, her mind on starting Henry’s breakfast, and heard a low whistle. Jennie Simpson lumbered up the road in the distance. She waved, and Jennie waved back.

  The tonic. Jennie’s energy tonic had entirely slipped Sarah’s mind. Thankfully, she had a batch made up in the pantry.

  Dickens lifted his droopy snout from the dish and rolled onto his side with a groan. Sarah shook her finger at him. “You might try chewing, Dickens. Make it last longer.”

  He didn’t respond and appeared half asleep, his nose just inches from the plate. The old hound could do with a shot of restorative himself.

  Jennie made it to the far cor
ner of the yard and cut across to the back of the house.

  When she got within shouting distance, Sarah shaded her eyes against the cloudy-day glare and smiled in her direction. “Morning, stranger.”

  “Morning, Sarah,” she called, breathing hard. “It sho’ nuff cold out here.”

  “You poor soul. I can’t believe you walked all this way in such grievous weather.”

  Jennie laughed her good-natured laugh. “Honey, don’t you worry. I’s bundled up real good.” She patted her ample thighs. “And got all this extra paddin’ to keep me warm. ’Sides, I ain’t had no choice. I needs that tonic to keep me going.” She made a wrinkled face and shook her head. “Gots a tiresome workday ahead at Doc Turner’s.”

  Sarah couldn’t help thinking the get-up-and-go Jennie used to walk from town would’ve taken her through two days’ labor, but she kept such thoughts to herself. “Well, I’m sure glad to see you, at any rate. You’re just in time for breakfast.”

  “Breakfast?” Jennie stopped at the bottom step, panting and clutching her side. “Well, I already took me some biscuit and gravy right ’fore I left home, but I wouldn’t want to offen’ you none.”

  Sarah stifled a grin and turned to open the screen. “Come on in and let a body cook for you for a change. You can just sit back and watch.”

  Laughter rumbled in the big woman’s chest. “I ain’t that shift-less, chile. I might be able to crack an egg or two.” She stopped and winked. “But I’ll let you fry ’em.”

  Once inside the kitchen, Jennie seemed to forget even the promise to help. She perched her behind in a cane-bottomed chair and caught Sarah up on all the doings at Brooks House while Sarah did all the cracking, frying, and serving of eggs–alongside bacon, biscuits, and grits.

  Henry trudged through the door and hung up his coat and hat just as Sarah slid a sheet of golden-topped biscuits from the oven. He took one look and hustled to wash up, with a grin and a nod toward Jennie as he passed.

  Having just arrived at the scandalous part of her tale, Jennie offered him only a scanty tilt of the head. She was still talking when Henry came back in and settled across from her. Not just with her mouth–thrusting shoulders, waving hands, and rolling eyes stressed the finer points of Jennie’s stories, not to mention the constant bob of her head. And she prattled with nary a break throughout the meal.

  Sarah smiled across the table at Henry as Jennie wound up her latest yarn with a slap to her knee and a laugh to rival Dandy’s bray.

  “I’m tellin’ you,” she crowed, “I ain’t never seen a body run so fast. And his wife right behind him with a broom. Funniest sight I ever seen.”

  Henry nodded in agreement, his cheeks too full of egg to laugh, but his manner laughed along with her. He swallowed and beamed at Jennie. “And the funniest thing I ever heard.”

  It rested Sarah’s heart to see Henry appear so carefree. Far too soon, he sopped the last bit of running yolk with his last bite of biscuit, stood up, and reached for his coat.

  “Pains me to leave good company, but I got a few acres standing between me and quitting time.”

  Jennie gazed up at him with big eyes. “How you working that soggy ground, Henry?”

  He shrugged. “Ain’t no way to plow the dirt. Too wet. Thought I’d try to turn over the grassy hill on the east field. Hard work, though. Too much rain, I guess.” He tugged his hat down on his head. “Old Dandy don’t much cotton to it.”

  Jennie cackled. “Cain’t say as I blame him. You take care, Henry. It sho’ was good talking to you.”

  Talking at you, more like.

  The spiteful thought came to Sarah’s wayward mind in the time it took to blink. She felt ashamed for thinking it, but it was nothing short of the plain truth. Jennie Simpson could talk a soup bone from a dog’s mouth.

  The door shut behind Henry, and Sarah’s heart gave a tug. Her husband worked too hard. That was the plain truth, too.

  “Wish he’d stayed a mite longer,” Jennie said, echoing Sarah’s own thoughts. “He won’t get to hear me tell ’bout Miss Bessie.”

  “Who?”

  Jennie leaned closer and raised her voice, as if shouting would give Sarah better recall. “Miss Bessie Monroe, over to Brooks. Number four?”

  Sarah gave her a blank stare.

  “We talked about her yesterday. That highfalutin couple what come in on the northbound train.”

  “Don’t you mean Miss Annie Moore?”

  “Who Miss Annie?”

  “The woman in Mr. Stilley’s store. Don’t you remember? I told you I saw her in Stilley’s with those two reckless girls?”

  Jennie shook her head. “I don’t know nothing ’bout no Annie. The gal what’s staying in number four’s named Bessie.”

  Sarah’s brows knit together. “I’m certain they called her Annie Moore in the store. We must be talking about two different folks.”

  “Can’t see how. Ain’t but one woman staying at Doc Turner’s.”

  Sarah shrugged. “Never mind. Go on with the story you’re busting to tell.”

  Jennie’s eyes opened up and her voice dropped to a whisper. “It’s about Miss Bessie and her man. Sarah, them two spar like wet cats.”

  “They have a squabble?”

  “Honey, squabble don’t tell it all. You could hear them all over the house. I heard her crying from the third floor.”

  “What was it all about?”

  “Something ’bout he woke up from a drunk and she ain’t wearing her bustle, and so where is it. And then he find her fancy parasol in the closet, soaking wet and covered in mud, and her jus’ finished swearing she ain’t never left the room.”

  “My, my.”

  “When I went up to clean, she still be crying. And when she cry, he jus’ sit hisself in a chair and read. The louder she bawl, the more he read. Beat all I ever seen.”

  Sarah shook her head. “He sounds hard.”

  “Cold as ice. Shame, too, ’cause she’s a pretty little thing. I asked her how long they been married”–she gave a wide-eyed nod–“you know, to take her mind off it. Only she don’t say a word. He up and say they been married two years. So I asked him how long they been traveling, and she say three weeks. But when I asked where her folks be from, she started crying again.”

  Sarah clucked her tongue.

  Jennie leaned back and stared at the ceiling. “So I asked the gentleman if they be traveling for her health.” Her gaze jumped back to Sarah. “You know, ’cause she acting so poorly like. He say yes they is, ’cause she has a spleen in her side.”

  “A spleen?”

  “Tha’s right.” Jennie placed two fingers beneath her ribs. “It’s right here, next to your gizzard.”

  Sarah nodded.

  Jennie continued, “After that, I don’t know nothing else they said, ’cause my eyes done lit on her hands. Sarah, that woman be sporting diamond rings so big she can’t hardly lift her hands.”

  Sarah leaned forward. “Diamond rings?”

  “Big ones. That’s why folks around here call her ‘Diamond Bessie,’ on account of all her diamonds.”

  “So it is the same woman I saw in Stilley’s.”

  “You reckon?”

  “It has to be. Fancy parasol? Diamond rings? Pretty? Ain’t two strangers wandering Jefferson at the same time to fit that description.”

  Jennie touched a finger to her chin. “Wonder why she go by two names at once?”

  “Jennie, they ain’t no telling why white folk do like they do. You know that same as me.”

  “Hmm. I suppose so.”

  Sarah snorted. “Sounds like Diamond Bessie brought her problems on herself, what with lying lips and missing bustles.”

  Jennie shook her head. “Don’t know what she trying to hide from that man, but they ain’t nothing that woman done to deserve how he treat her. She jus’ kindhearted as they come, Sarah. I can see it in her eyes. Around the hotel she treat everyone the same, black or white. Don’t seem like she see color at all.”
>
  The words hit Sarah hard. Had she misjudged the dark-eyed stranger?

  Jennie pushed her plate away and leaned back, eyes wide and blinking as though she just woke up. “Say, what’s the hour getting on to be? Doc Turner say he gon’ shut the door in my face if I be late one more time.” She turned to look out the window, and panic gripped her face. “How long you reckon I’ve been here flapping my jaws? Can’t rightly tell with those clouds hiding the sun. If it’s too late, I’ll be high-stepping clear to town.”

  Sarah laughed and got up from the table. “If that’s your plan, you will need a tonic.” She crossed to the dimly lit pantry and rummaged around the bottom shelf until her fingers closed around one of the last two bottles in the batch.

  She handed the brown glass container to Jennie. “Take one teaspoon in water every morning. Not boiling water, but it can be hot. Sip it like tea until it’s all gone.” She tapped the cork with her finger. “You’ll feel spry as a girl before you can say Pete’s pig.”

  Jennie raised the bottle and peered at the dark brew. She gave it a shake, but the thick potion just oozed like cold molasses. “You sure I can’t jus’ take a swig right now? It’s an awful long walk back.”

  Sarah scowled. “No, you can’t take a swig. It’s too potent. You liable to take off and fly from here to Brooks House.”

  Grinning, Jennie started toward the door. “That be all right by me. My feet hurt.”

  Sarah walked outside with her and gazed in Henry’s direction. “I could whistle for Henry and have him harness the rig.”

  Jennie waved her off. “Let that man work. If I’m late, I’ll tell Old Doc I came out here after an energy tonic. He’ll be so busy trying to get some of it for hisself, he won’t notice the time.” Chuckling, she stashed the bottle in her pocket and made her way off the porch, lowering one leg at a time and settling her weight before taking the next step. With both feet firmly on the ground, her gaze went to Dickens, still sprawled in the dirt beside his pan.

  “Mercy me! Them’s the biggest ears I ever seen on a hound.”

  Sarah looked over her shoulder at the dog and laughed. “Ain’t they, though? Henry says if we propped up Dickens’s ears with sticks and pushed him off the house, he’d soar from here to Longview.”