“Of course.” I wanted to thank her but was afraid she would think my gratitude presumptuous. The lives of those three—Amalia, Ezra, and Aunt Polly—had been intertwined for threequarters of a century. “Did Sheriff Beecham catch the men?”
By way of answer, Aunt Polly, Mr. Sam, and Pickett stared at me as if I were an imbecile. Finally, Aunt Polly said, “I don’t know about no sheriff.”
“Oh.” I felt foolish. “How did Ezra get away?”
Aunt Polly gave a little smile at that. “I and Ezra knowed they’d come, now that you’re here.”
Mr. Sam answered my questioning look. “Larcenous folk figure you’ll be taking anything of value that belonged to Miss Amalia. So they know they best loot Avoca whilst they got the chance. This may be the first attempt to rob you, Miss Nora, but it will not be the last.”
Aunt Polly nodded. “That how come Ezra been keeping watch. Last night, from down at the quarters, I hear them passing and passing and I knowed there’s a plenty of ’em and Ezra can’t take every and each one. So I wrap up in a old sheet of Miss Amalia’s and paint on a scare face with flour, and I go through the garden calling ‘Whoo whoo’ and clattering two tin pie plates together, a-wick, a-whack, and those mens scatter off. Jesus Christ, peas and rice! They don’t tell their heads from their foots. The big hat, he run like Old Scratch after him.”
“The devil,” Pickett whispered, “and ‘the big hat’ is the most conceited one.”
Mr. Sam said, “Unfortunately, when they sober up, they’ll realize you were just cutting the monkey for the white folks.”
Aunt Polly nodded. “They won’t hardly lose no time coming back. So I stand out here waiting for ’em.” The old woman must have loved Amalia a great deal to risk her life to defend Avoca.
“They’re too cowardly to bother you in the daytime,” Mr. Sam said. “But come nightfall, the infidels will be back.”
“My cake, Aunt Polly, I pray to God to watch out for you,” Pickett said.
“Oh, I taken care of myself. No need to wear God out,” Aunt Polly replied. She straightened up a little and looked away, embarrassed by her pride.
“Of course you did, but we don’t dare ask you to do it again,” I said. “Can’t you arrange for a guard, Mr. Sam?”
Mr. Sam said he would hire someone, then told Aunt Polly to go back to the quarters and jolly up Ezra. “Anything he needs, just let me know.”
Aunt Polly thanked him, then took my hands in hers and made me promise to see Ezra before I left.
After Aunt Polly disappeared, Mr. Sam said, “Poor stove-up black devil. It’s a wonder he wasn’t stroked. That would certainly scare me into heart failure.”
“There’s something here that puzzles me,” I said. “In Natchez, can drunken white men beat up a Negro with impunity?”
“I declare it to be wrong, but that’s the way of it,” Mr. Sam said.
“It’s not so easy,” Pickett interjected. “If Ezra didn’t recognize them, what good would it do to report the fight? Who would the sheriff arrest? And if Ezra did know who attacked him, it would be the word of a Negro against the word of a white man—more than one, in fact. People in the South class off, and the word of a Negro isn’t worth much against a white’s. No white jury would convict those men on Ezra’s say-so, and of course colored folks don’t serve on juries. Just by bringing charges, Ezra would be asking for trouble. Negroes have been hanged for less in Mississippi.”
“It’s not right,” I said.
“That’s not worth denying,” Mr. Sam agreed. “But that’s the way of it.”
Since I couldn’t change anything and commenting further would antagonize my friends, I said, “I know about the Ku Klux Klan. What are patterollers?”
“The real pronouncement is patrollers,” Mr. Sam said.
“They were low-born white trash mostly, mean old boys,” Pickett explained. “Back before the War, they hunted slaves who were off the plantation without permission. They chased down runaways for the reward money. The Negroes were scared to death of them.”
“With good cause,” Mr. Sam added. “God bless anybody they caught. The patrollers gave them pecks of trouble, turned their dogs loose on them, beat them so bad that they died sometimes. Of course, we don’t have patrollers anymore.”
“Don’t you?”
“Ma’am?” Mr. Sam said as he and Pickett exchanged glances.
I had gone too far, so I said quickly, “Why don’t we go inside.”
“Don’t think hard of us,” Pickett whispered as she set the soda-pop bottles on the porch, placing them beside the door, then followed me into Amalia’s room. “We’re getting better. Things were much worse in my coming-up years.”
None of us cared to pursue the conversation. I went directly to the desk and opened the drawers, relieved to find that everything was as I’d left it the day before. “The jewelry goes with me. I won’t be so lucky the next time somebody comes around.”
“We can all commence,” Pickett said, taking a large kerchief out of her pocketbook. She folded it on the diagonal, then wrapped it around her hair and tied it in a knot at the top of her head. “There are some Nu-Grape boxes in the car. You pack whatever’s worth saving, and I’ll carry it off to the Buzzard’s Nest for safekeeping.” When she returned with the cartons, she was wearing a man’s shirt over her dress.
We placed Amalia’s jewelry and other valuables on the desk and her papers on top of the bed. Mr. Sam would take the latter to his office. Pickett went around the room, picking up mementos and objects d’art and showing them to me. “How big is this place, Mr. Sam?”
“I’ll measure it one day,” Mr. Sam replied, then indicated the volumes he had taken from the bookcase. “These have always been a favorite of mine.” He pronounced the word “fave-orright.” “The captain was partial to first editions. I shall store them in my office, where you can go through them at your leisure,” he said.
“You’re welcome to keep them.”
“I’ll thank you till you’re better paid.” He bowed.
“It’s not so much of a gift, since it would cost a fortune to ship them to Denver.”
“You’ll find no better home for them. Mr. Sam is the bestread man in Natchez,” Pickett said. She laid the AB quilt on the desk. “It’s a beaut, isn’t it? I insist most emphatically that you keep it. Do you know that at one time Miss Amalia was considered the most accomplished needleworker in Natchez?”
“Miss Amalia joyed to quilt,” Mr. Sam said. “She and Aunt Polly sat here of an afternoon making story quilts. Aunt Polly drew her stories from the Bible, but Miss Amalia . . . Lord, I don’t know where she got hers. She gave me a big and fat quilt once, said the story was about a man who took care of his neighbors.” Mr. Sam paused so that we would know without his having to tell us that the story was about him.
“Why, of course she did, you helpful old thang,” Pickett said. “If they weren’t all used up, those quilts must be stored somewhere around here.”
While Mr. Sam concentrated on the books, leafing through them and reading passages out loud, Pickett and I packed the items we had collected, marking the cartons for Mr. Sam’s office or the Buzzard’s Nest. The things I wanted to take back to the hotel went into a separate box—Amalia’s jewelry, a workbasket with bits of fabric inside, a silver candelabra, and the quilt that had caught Pickett’s fancy and mine. Because I might find other things to add to my carton, I set it on the floor beside the desk, while Pickett and Mr. Sam carried the rest of the boxes to the cars.
When she returned to the house, Pickett ran her hand over the footboard of Amalia’s bed. “This was made by Prudent Mallard. It’s very rare.”
I told her I’d already decided to keep it, and I asked Mr. Sam to arrange for shipment to Denver.
“I shall give it my full attention,” he replied.
After Pickett examined the rest of the furniture in the bedroom, the three of us went through the great hall and then into the dining room. Pickett waved
her hand at the water-stained furniture. “Ruined! Shame on you, Miss Amalia!” But she clapped her hands when she saw the china, exclaiming, “This is exquisite! Families like the Bondurants ate off this priceless Old Paris. There was no such thing for them as a second-best set of china or crystal. If I didn’t already have a dining room full of dishes, I’d buy them from you. Have you a use for them?”
“My mother,” I said, delighted with the idea. “She’d love them.” Mr. Sam said he would arrange to have the china crated.
“Now this,” I said, going into the hall and pointing at the marble statue of Amalia and her dog. “What in the world can be done with it? Even if the thing could be shipped home, there’s no place for it.”
“Pity to let it go to ruin,” Mr. Sam said. “That statue was quite a conversation piece in its day, you know, what with the dog’s tail lopped off. And this head.” He pointed to the riding crop Amalia held in her hand. “You can see where there’s a man’s head engraved on it. We never knew the truth of who it was. Of course, we had our suspicions.”
“Maybe it’s a likeness of the sculptor,” Pickett said.
“Maybe,” Mr. Sam replied.
“Or Bayard Lott,” Pickett suggested. “After all, he was the handsomest man in Natchez in his day. Quite a catch.” She gave me a sly look. “And hips! Oh my. Even as an old man, he had those hips. Didn’t he, Mr. Sam?”
“Oh, indeed not!” Mr. Sam blushed.
Pickett gave me a sideways glance and said no more. Instead, she volunteered to check with the library to see whether there might be a place for the statue there, but she was not hopeful. “Marble statues go begging here.”
I asked if she wanted the gold chairs in the parlor.
“One can’t have too many ballroom chairs.” She looked at the staircase that curved around the statue of Amalia. “Are we going up?”
“Ezra says it’s not safe.”
“Why, what is safe in Natchez?” She eyed the steps expertly. “It doesn’t look so bad. Shall we?” Without waiting for an answer, she started up the stairs, then turned and said, “Fraidy cats.”
Mr. Sam followed, wheezing a little. “I have never been above the first floor,” he told us as he tested each step before putting his weight on it. When the three of us reached the top of the stairs, we looked around, disappointed at the shabbiness.
Floorboards were broken through, and the ceiling was soiled with water stains. Where the roof was torn away, we saw sky. Tattered wallpaper curled away from the walls, leaving bare plaster like onion skins. The remains of a chandelier lay in one corner, and the floor in the center of the hall was damaged from where the fixture had fallen. The only furniture in the hall was a large table with a mirror beneath it.
“The mirror doubles the amount of light in the room,” Mr. Sam said. “Look you.” He used his cigarette lighter to light a kerosene lamp that sat on the table, then set the lamp on the floor in front of the mirror. The hall glowed.
“No such thing. Who’d put a lamp on the floor? Why, it’s like hiding your lamp under a bushel,” Pickett scoffed. “Miss Emilie put the mirror there so she could see if her petticoats showed. You’ll find petticoat mirrors all over Natchez.”
We peered into the bedrooms, where sheets heavy with dust covered the massive beds and dressers. “It smells like a dead Dutchman in here,” Pickett said, holding her nose as she walked into one of the bedrooms. With her free hand, she pulled back the dust cloth that protected a love seat. Mr. Sam held the lamp close to the intricately carved wood, and Pickett exclaimed, “It’s a Belter!” I knew Belter and told her I did not care for the fussy style. In a second bedroom, she announced, “Another Prudent Mallard.”
“Would anybody steal furniture?” I asked.
“No, but they’d burn it,” Pickett replied. “There’s a dealer in New Orleans who would dance a jig to have these things. The least I can do is to arrange to sell them for you.”
As we inspected the rooms, I picked up a handful of items to take with me—a crystal powder box, a handful of tin soldiers, bits of ribbon and lace, a sampler dated 1824, which was beautifully executed but not as interesting as the one in Aunt Polly’s kitchen—and set them at the top of the stairs. Pickett opened a wardrobe in one bedroom and discovered a cache of Amalia’s quilts, which I said I wanted shipped home.
We made a full circle of the hall, until only one room remained; the door to it was closed. I opened it and found a bedroom flooded with sunshine. The rest of the second floor was dark, with only slats of light coming through the closed shutters, but in this room, the louvers were open. Old lace curtains at the windows fluttered like laundry on a line.
“What in the world?” I muttered. Filling almost the entire room was a tepeelike tent. Its peak was too high for the room and had been folded against the ceiling. Ropes attached to the sides were stretched to the corners of the bedroom to hold the canvas structure in place.
“A Sibley tent,” Mr. Sam said. “Now where’d the Bondurants get hold of a Yankee tent?”
The flap was open, and I pointed to a bed inside.
“The tent keeps the rain off the bed—and the plaster from falling on it, too,” Pickett said, pointing to the ceiling, where light came through the broken places. The tent was badly waterstained. “It’s probably the bed Ezra slept on.”
“Ezra sleeps in the quarters,” I said.
“He lives in the quarters. He slept here in case Miss Amalia had need of him,” replied Mr. Sam, correcting me.
“To protect her?”
“Oh that, and to administer to her wants. It’s quite common really,” Pickett said. “My nursemaid, Sugar, slept on the floor beside my bed until I was married. I think she’d still be sleeping there if Buckland hadn’t put down his foot.” She sighed. “I do miss her. If I tell Bucky I need a blanket or a glass of water, he gets crabbed and cross and says to get it myself. Sugar was much more accommodating.”
“Sugar’s been dead for some time,” Mr. Sam reminded her.
“Yes, that’s another reason she doesn’t sleep beside me anymore.”
I started to laugh, but Pickett had not made a joke, so catching myself, I said, “If this is Ezra’s room, we shouldn’t intrude.”
“Nonsense. It’s your house. You have a perfect right to go wherever you like. Ezra understands that,” Pickett said. “You won’t want this bed. It’s just an old slave bed—wooden legs with canvas stretched over them. But Ezra does have another one of Amalia’s quilts—or maybe it’s Aunt Polly’s.” She handed a folded quilt to me. “Too bad it’s so worn.”
“Too bad.” I returned the quilt to the bed.
Pickett walked across the room to a wardrobe and opened it. “Nothing much here, either. Just a few clothes.” I looked beyond her and saw a pair of worn shoes and faded shirts and canvas pants, wash-worn and folded.
Pickett picked up a large unframed photograph that was mounted on cardboard. “Is this Miss Amalia? The workbasket looks like the one you found downstairs this selfsame day, Nora.” She handed the picture to Mr. Sam.
“Oh, yes, that’s Miss Amalia, maybe forty years ago.” He gave the photograph to me.
The picture, printed in sepia, was faded, but Amalia’s face was clear. She sat on the steps of a gazebo, a book in her lap, the workbasket beside her. Behind her, chickens pecked in the dirt near a stable, and a man—Ezra perhaps—held a horse by its bridle. Next to him stood a woman wearing a turban and a calico dress, but she had turned her head as the shutter opened, so her face was out of focus. The woman might have been Sukey Pea, and perhaps Ezra had kept the photograph because it was all he had left of her. The moving blur could be the way he remembered her, a kind of whirlwind in his life.
“Is this Ezra’s wife?” I asked.
“Did he have one? I’d not heard of it,” Pickett said.
“Oh, you wouldn’t have. That was a long time ago, about the time this picture was taken, most likely. But I remember her.” Mr. Sam chuckled. “She was ni
ce and soft-goin’, with a backside that looked like she had melons stuck in her hip pockets. I guarantee you she was wild. She did not walk a chalk line.”
“She did not what?”
“She wasn’t faithful,” Pickett explained.
“Miss Amalia told me Ezra was a punkin head to jump the broomstick with her.” He laughed.
Without my having to ask, Pickett explained, “ ‘Jumping the broomstick’ means they got married. That was how they did it in slavery days.”
“I thought Miss Amalia’d run the both of them off the place when they got married. Wasn’t nothing happened on Avoca without her say-so, and she figured if Ezra, who was her especial favorite, did as he pleased, the others would, too, and it bothered her mind. Of course, that marriage didn’t last long. Sukey Pea mistreated Ezra terrible, and Miss Amalia joyed when Sukey Pea ran off with some brutish fellow. It didn’t surprise anybody. Sukey Pea was a prodigal. She flirted her skirt at every man who passed, and fornicated up salt crick.”
“Why, Mr. Sam!” Pickett said.
“I beg pardon.” He took the photograph and held it close to his face to hide his blush.
Pickett said, “How can you say such a thing even about a colored woman, Mr. Sam? You’re just like a possum. The longer you live, the less sense you’ve got.”
“The longer I live, the plainer I see things,” Mr. Sam retorted, handing back the picture. “I can’t be positive certain whether that’s Sukey Pea, but it might could be. She never did stand still. Ezra didn’t study anybody after she left, just stayed on with Aunt Polly to take care of Miss Amalia.”
I put the photograph back into the wardrobe, knowing that Ezra would be aware that we had snooped. But he would not say anything to me. As Aunt Polly had told us, he was saving on his words, and as Pickett had said, he probably believed I had the right to snoop.
Ezra’s chamber was the most interesting of the upstairs rooms, the only one that still contained life, and I wanted to spend more time there. But Pickett and Mr. Sam had started down the stairs. When I reached the hallway below, Pickett was holding her wristwatch to the light. “Nora, we’ll meet here at nine tomorrow to commence our work. Mr. Sam, would you be a darling and take her to town? I must scoot.”
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