Bandit Queen

by Jane Candia Coleman

  A voodoo charm! I’d been in New Orleans long enough to know about such things—the secret rituals, the orgies, the power of belief in magic when all else seemed hopeless. I put the little bag in my pocket, ready to believe anything.

  “The lousy bastard!”

  Lily was sitting beside the bed, holding a cloth to my face.

  “He didn’t mean it.” Why I was defending Frank, I didn’t know. It was more like I was shielding myself.

  “The hell,” Lily said.

  “I made him mad. It was my fault.”

  “He was born mad. And worthless as tits on a boar.”

  I cringed away from her language and her assessment of Frank’s character, but she wanted none of it.

  “Get rid of him,” she croaked. “Before it’s too late.”

  Of course, I didn’t listen. How could I admit I’d made a mistake? How could I crawl home, all my foolishness visible in the scars on my face?

  She knew I wasn’t listening and shook her head sadly. “Here,” she said. “Have a spoon of this. It’ll make you sleep. And you can keep the bottle. You’ll need plenty with that son-of-a-bitch.”

  It was my first experience with laudanum, but it wasn’t my last by a long shot.

  “I didn’t mean it! Oh, God, darlin’, believe me. I wouldn’t hurt you. Something got into me, but it wasn’t you. Forgive me? Please?”

  I was in his arms again, where I belonged, and his lips were kissing away the bruises, wiping out the pain.

  “Shhh,” I murmured. “It’s over. Done. It’s all right. I love you.”

  But it wasn’t over. Looking back on my life, I don’t know how I survived.

  Chapter Nine

  We left New Orleans in a far different manner than we arrived. Frank had a job tending bar on one of the boats, and, to pay my fare, I was hired on as a chambermaid. The irony didn’t escape me as I changed dirty linen and washed out waterclosets and slop jars in those lovely cabins where I’d once been a passenger. I wasn’t bitter. I was too tired for that, and too frightened that I’d do or say something to set Frank off. As it was, he’d been unhappy about me having to work for my passage, especially when he discovered that Julian Plummer was aboard.

  “Don’t get any ideas about servicing the passengers,” he warned me as we left. And to make sure that was impossible, he punched me in the eye.

  It took two weeks for the swelling to disappear, and by that time we were being put ashore at an unnamed landing somewhere in Arkansas because Frank had been accused—and been found guilty—of marking a deck of cards for a friend, one of the professionals who made a living on the river. It wasn’t unusual for the bartender to mark cards, but getting caught was.

  “Just my luck,” he snarled, as we stood on the muddy bank and watched the boat move away upstream. “Maybe it’s you,” he said. “The millstone around my neck.”

  I didn’t answer. I was afraid to for fear he’d leave me there without money and with nowhere to go. Mute, I fought down tears as he picked up his bag.

  “Come on,” he said. “There’s got to be a town someplace in this wasteland,” and he walked away, leaving me to follow, struggling with my own bag that banged at my legs with every step.

  For four years we worked the river towns, moving from one to the next, sometimes by boat, sometimes by wagon, and once even on foot. Natchez, Vicksburg, Memphis, Cairo, sometimes flush, sometimes penniless, me following where Frank led like the beaten dog that I was—without hope, without a thought except the next meal, the next place where I could lie down and lick my wounds.

  We were in Natchez when the letter from my mother reached me, informing me of my father’s death. The letter was a month old, so there was no question of my going back for the funeral or to take care of Mama in her grief. Besides, we were broke and had been for over a year.

  Natchez-Under-the-Hill was crawling with better gamblers than Frank could ever hope to be. He usually fleeced the innocent, the newcomers, and left them wondering what had happened. But in Natchez he was outclassed, and losing made him mean. That day I had a black eye and had stayed in bed in spite of the sultry heat, too miserable to make an effort to wash or to try to disguise my bruises.

  I read the letter several times, then crumpled it in a ball, and threw it across the room. My mother was a widow. I wished I was. I wished I was home in that house near the lake where the wind always blew cool, and where innocence was a blessing. Instead, I was sitting here in a filthy boarding house, exhausted, sick from the heat, aching in every bone, and scared that when Frank came in he’d beat me again just to vent his frustration.

  I got up and dragged myself to the window, hoping to catch a bit of breeze. None came, but I stayed, leaning on the sill and watching the dock hands load pigs onto a decrepit little river boat, a sad reflection of the floating palaces that traveled the Mississippi. The door slammed, and I held onto the sill, frightened, cowering, beyond helping myself.

  “Pack up. We’re leaving.” Frank’s eyes were bloodshot, and his hair hung past his collar.

  How many times had I heard those words? When was it that I’d stopped caring? “Where?”

  “Saint Louis. I got a job on Little Bertha out there. It’ll pay your way.”

  I said: “My father’s dead.”

  He was fishing under the bed for his boots. “Sorry,” he said. “But don’t expect you can go to the funeral.”

  “It was a month ago.”

  He turned around and sat on the floor, looking at me—still in my nightgown, my hair unkempt, my cheeks swollen. “A good thing they can’t see you now,” he said with a sneer.

  “Yes. It is.” I bent over the drawer that held what clothes I had left, trying to hide my tears.

  “Things’ll change when we get someplace decent,” he said, realizing, too late as always, that he’d been cruel.

  I didn’t answer. Words had a way of coming out wrong, getting twisted, and used against me.

  It was mid-afternoon when Little Bertha pushed off against the current, her cargo squealing in the hold. And I knew I’d carry the sound and the stink of those pigs with me the rest of my life—that and the knowledge that the man I’d once loved was now the man I hated with all my soul.

  In St. Louis, all the talk was of the Chicago Exposition, and it caught Frank’s imagination. “We’ll go there,” he said. “There’s money to be made in a place like that. All those fools come to spend their cash.”

  I agreed without enthusiasm. One place was as good as another. Except that in Chicago my life changed forever.

  “Hey, kid. What’s the matter?” Joe’s voice roused me from what had become a nightmare.

  “Nothing.” My nose was bleeding again, probably because I’d been crying in my sleep.

  “You hurtin’?” He lifted the lantern and peered across at me.

  I hurt, all right. The trouble was, I didn’t know what hurt worse—my heart and pride, or my body.

  “Leave me alone. I’ll be fine,” I said, fumbling for the bottle in my pocket.

  He sat back. “No need to get smart. I was just asking, is all.”

  His concern hurt me, too. I wasn’t used to kindness, didn’t know how to respond to it. Only one other person had ever showed me kindness, and that was Dan Sandeman.

  Yes, and look where that got you, a voice inside me said. If it hadn’t been for him, you wouldn’t be here.

  That was partly true, but I’d learned a valuable lesson from Dan, and maybe more than one. I’d learned I could sing and make money doing it. I’d also learned that Frank’s behavior was unacceptable to decent people, to men like Dan.

  Well, with any luck, maybe I’d find Dan again. He’d said he was heading West. I wiped my nose on my sleeve. The bleeding seemed to have stopped. Then I looked across at Joe, who was watching me.

  “Hey,” I said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound nasty or anything.”

  “That’s okay, kid.” He leaned his head against the side of the car. “I�
��m putting out the light. That all right with you?”

  I nodded. Perhaps in the dark sleep would come more easily.

  Chapter Ten

  I was walking down one of the small side streets of the Chicago World’s Fair grounds, and I was singing. Alone, I was often happy and able to forget my circumstances. Alone, I could dream, and no one to stop me. Frank had a day job as a shill outside the hall where Little Egypt did her famous hootchy-kootchy dance—it was supposed to be daring, but I thought it was rather silly—and I was free to do as I liked.

  I saw every show and exhibit, some over and over. I’d gone back many times to Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show just to watch Annie Oakley, “Little Miss Sure Shot,” shoot dimes and playing cards out of her husband’s hands, and I always walked through the Women’s Pavilion just for inspiration.

  There were so many women doing things, making their mark. I saw the actress, Helen Modjeska, and heard a lecture on the roles of women by Julia Ward Howe. It all made me think, something I usually tried not to do, because then I had to ask myself why I stayed with Frank, why I put up with the beatings, and his reminders of my lack of worth. What I should have questioned was his possessiveness. Why did he want me if I was, as he said, dull, incapable, a millstone around his neck?

  It was early June. The sun was warm, and a cool wind was blowing off the lake, and I was simply happy, singing an old French song my grandmother had taught me years before.

  “Sur le pont, D’Avignon…,” I listened to myself, warbling like a small bird in the midst of the jostling crowd. And then came the words that changed my life.

  “Hey! You, Frenchy!”

  At first I paid no attention, not making the connection between me and the language of the song. Then a man with a dark, close-trimmed beard stepped in front of me.

  “You speak English?”

  His question was so unexpected that I laughed.

  “Of course,” I said. “Why?”

  “Where’d you learn to sing? I need a singer bad.”

  I couldn’t remember a time when I hadn’t sung. Music was a part of me that I’d denied for the past years. Around Frank I hardly spoke, let alone sang.

  I shrugged, avoiding past reminiscences. “I don’t know. In school, I guess. And at home.”

  Brown eyes examined me from head to foot. “Rosalie ran off with a Turk last night. Without her, I’m finished. I’ll have to close. You looking for work?”

  Although I hadn’t admitted it, even to myself, I was feeling useless. Bored. Frank was gone all day, and he gambled at night. I was lonely and restless, especially faced with the example of so many women who were doing worthwhile things.

  “Who’s Rosalie?” I asked.

  He made a face. “My main attraction. And she took off with some guy with a ring in his ear after the last show.” He took my arm. Strangely, I wasn’t afraid. “Come on in here, and let’s see what you can do.”

  He led me into a false-fronted building. The sign over the door said Sandeman’s Wild West Dance Hall in red and gold letters. Inside were tables and chairs and a small stage with a painted backdrop of mountains and a sunset sky.

  “My show,” he said. “It’s not Buffalo Bill’s, but it won’t even be here if I don’t replace Rosalie.” He handed me a piece of music. “Try this.”

  The song was “After the Ball.” It had premiered at the fair and was on everyone’s lips. I knew it by heart, and I put my heart and what I’d learned in my sojourn in New Orleans into that audition.

  “Jesus!” he said when I’d finished. “Jesus!”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “Be here at seven,” he said. “First show’s at eight. You get ten bucks a night, and you keep the tips. There’s always a bunch of guys throwing money.”

  Ten dollars a night! It was a fortune! I thought of all the things I needed—new shoes, because I’d walked holes in all of mine, silk stockings, maybe even velvet ribbons for my hair.

  “What’s your name?” he wanted to know. “I’ve gotta change that sign.”

  “Pearl,” I told him. “Pearl Hart.”

  He grinned suddenly. “Great name. It’ll drag ’em in. All you got to do is get up on that stage and sing. Maybe dance a little. I’ll run you through before the show. Hell, Rosalie learned, and if she could, you can. My name’s Dan Sandeman. See you at seven, and don’t…for Christ’s sake…be late.”

  I almost wasn’t there at all. Frank was enraged when I told him. He paced the floor, and his boot heels sounded like pistol shots.

  “You’re my wife! I make enough to live on without you going out exposing yourself to every Tom, Dick, and Harry in Chicago!”

  He turned and looked at me. Those green eyes I had once thought so beautiful were narrowed into slits.

  “Or is that what you want? To be a little whore? God knows, you wouldn’t even be good at that, if you act like you’ve been acting with me.”

  It was true. The passion of our early days had been left somewhere on the long trail up the river. Along with my pride and my faith in myself, it had been beaten out of me.

  “You’re wrong, Frank,” I protested. “It’s not that…!”

  He cut me off. “You go back and tell this…what’s his name…to forget it. Or I’ll do it for you. You’re my wife, not some hussy prancing around like those Egyptians.”

  “It’s only till he finds somebody else. Rosalie ran off with a Turk.”

  The explanation struck me as ridiculous, and I giggled, more from nerves than anything. But it was the wrong thing to do.

  He grabbed me and shook me until I thought my neck would snap. “Don’t you laugh at me! Don’t you ever laugh at me! Understand?”

  He’d black my eyes if I didn’t answer. I wouldn’t be able to go out for weeks. His fingers bit into my flesh. He was strong. And dangerous.

  “Yes!” I screamed, not caring who heard. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

  He let me go so suddenly that I tripped and fell. Lying there at his feet, I was more defenseless than ever, and I covered my face with my hands.

  “Shut up!” He kicked at me with the toe of his boot. “Just shut up. You’ll have the whole damn’ street in here.”

  Anger, pain infected me. “Whose fault is that?” With the prize of inde pendence uppermost in my mind, I shouted at him for the first time, and it roused his fury even more.

  “Yours! You come in and tell me you have some kind of job, cavorting on a stage. You tell me. You don’t even ask my permission. Who in hell do you think you are?”

  I rolled away and struggled to my feet. It was best to put a little distance between us. “I’m your wife,” I told him, keeping my voice down, though it shook with anger. “I’m a person, just like you are.”

  “Person!” he mimicked. “Person. I pay the bills, in case you hadn’t noticed. And I want you here when I come home. Somebody has to keep an eye on you, since you can’t seem to do it yourself.”

  I remembered the jewelry and the dresses we’d sold to pay Frank’s debts. I remembered the lice-infested boarding houses in all those river towns. Sure, he paid the bills, but I was the one who went begging. I couldn’t speak for the words crowding into my throat—and for the knowledge that, if I did manage to get them out, he’d beat me worse than before.

  Instead, I unbuttoned my blouse and looked at the bruises he’d left on my arms—huge, purple welts, spreading over white skin.

  “I hope Rosalie’s gown has long sleeves,” was all I said.

  “What in hell are those marks on your arms?”

  I was standing in front of Dan, dressed in Rosalie’s costume that was too big and made me look like a clown.

  “Marks?” I stalled for time to think.

  “Oh, Christ! Who’s been at you? Your boyfriend? Your pimp? Don’t lie to me. I’ve got enough problems.” He ran his fingers through his hair and glared at me.

  “Nobody. This dress is too big.”

  “Can you fix it?”

  �
��I’ll try.”

  I thought I’d distracted him, but, as I discovered later, he was rarely, if ever, distracted. He came close and put his hands on my shoulders. They were big hands, warm, oddly gentle. “Listen to me,” he said. “No decent man hits a woman. Got it?”

  I nodded. “It’s all right,” I said. “Really, it is.”

  “Crap!” He examined my bruises. “Are you nuts, letting some guy do this to you?”

  Loyalty won out. Loyalty and some idea that I had to keep from looking like a fool. “He’s my husband,” I said. “And I’m not a whore.”

  “Oy. A husband who beats his wife. And I had to hire her.” He put his hands on my shoulders again. “You tell this husband…he puts marks on you again, he’ll have to answer to me. Dan Sandeman. And maybe to the police. You hear me?”

  “I hear you,” I said, knowing that I would never repeat his words to Frank. He’d be so angry he’d really hurt me, and then what? I couldn’t go home again. Nobody there would believe me, or if they did, they’d say it was my fault. That I’d driven Frank to violence. That I’d made my choice and had to stick to it. Everything was always the fault of the woman. Or so all the women—and men—that I knew always said.

  “Where’s a needle and thread?” I asked Dan. “We haven’t got all night.”

  I sang for Dan Sandeman that summer and into the fall, sometimes accompanying myself on the guitar. I sang the ballads of Stephen Foster, “Daisy Belle,” and “After the Ball.” I sang the songs I’d heard and memorized in New Orleans, and I danced, picking up my skirts to show the red shoes and black lace stockings that had been my first purchases.

  “What’s that husband of yours say about those stockings?” Dan wanted to know.

  “I didn’t tell him.” And I wasn’t about to. The memory of my lovely red dress burned deep.

  “Pretty little thing like you,” Dan said. “Why don’t you leave him?”

  I shook my head. How could I explain my own worthlessness to this man who believed I was someone else, someone capable? I’d end up sounding as foolish as I was.