The Cottoncrest Curse: A Novel

by Michael H. Rubin

  A nasty grin crawled across Tee Ray’s face. “Come on, boys, we’re gonna have some fun in Little Jerusalem. Gonna whip up on some niggers tonight.”

  Chapter 39

  “I don’t know how you did it. I been scared ever since it happened. When we found the Colonel Judge and Miss Rebecca, my skin was crawlin’ like crawfish dumped in a boilin’ pot, and my wits were as fidgety as a grasshopper, and yet there you was, calm as calm could be, doin’ what had to be done, tellin’ me and Marcus and Cubit and Jordan what had to be done. You was right. Everything you said. The things had to be moved right then. We did it. The room had to be rearranged before dawn. We did it. And all the while, you was out there in the middle of the night, traipsing who knows where to get them safe. How you stayed so collected, I don’t rightly know.”

  Sally walked slightly behind Jenny as they moved north along the river road, the soft rush of the Mississippi River in their ears. To the west the sky was red from the setting sun. To the south the sky was red from the fire in the cane fields. But ahead of them the sky was already dark. That was good. It was safer for them in the dark.

  “It was you that stayed so collected when all this started, Sally. If it hadn’t been for you, Rebecca would have been dead long before. Yet there you were, calmly telling all of us what to do.”

  Sally brushed off the compliment. “That’s nothin’, nothin’ at all. Weren’t anythin’ I hadn’t done lots and lots of time before. But you? No one has ever done somethin’ like that.”

  “When you come right down to it, neither one of us had a choice.” Jenny readjusted her cloak as the temperature continued to drop. “We both did what had to be done because not to do it would have been worse.”

  “Well, when I do what I usually do, I just get myself started and follow on through. But the other night I had the conniptions. My stomach was all tight like. And ain’t none of us got no sleep, but at least we had things to do. Unlike you, at least we could stay in and around the big house, haulin’ the stuff down the back stairs and breakin’ it up and buryin’ it, like you said. Ain’t none of that won’t ever be found. But you was up all night and gots to have traveled miles and miles before you got back. Must’ve half-run on your way back, from the looks of you. Yet, you got cleaned up so quick and seemed so calm that by the time Mr. Raifer and Mr. Bucky came out, you looked like you hadn’t gone any farther than from Little Miss’s room. ’Course, I don’t want you to tell me where you went. Don’t ever want to know that.”

  “No, you don’t. That’s the only way you and Marcus will be safe. What you never know you can’t reveal.”

  “Lord, I was worried that if Marcus talked any longer to Mr. Raifer, he was goin’ let somethin’ about them slip for sure. You were right that we all gots to leave. It’s for our own safety. And for their safety as well.”

  Chapter 40

  “Hell, Tee Ray, there ain’t no one here and ain’t no one been here for a long time. Don’t know how these niggers live—don’t got hardly nothin’ in their cabins. Nothin’ worth takin’ anyways.”

  Jimmy Joe, his sandy hair blowing in the gusty wind, stalked out of Cooper and Rossy’s cabin, a half-empty bottle of the Colonel Judge’s bourbon in his hand. He paused to take another drink and then passed the bottle up to Forrest, who was sitting high on his horse, his saddlebags bulging with bottles. He knew that there were children who lived in Little Jerusalem, but there weren’t no sign of them either. No toys. No blankets. No cribs. Hell, he had it up to here with children anyway, what with Maylene whining all the time about wanting to have kids. And now they had one, and what difference did it make? That kid was whining all the time, just like Maylene. It was like they was related. Sometimes he wished that the baby and Maylene both would just go away.

  “Just like Cottoncrest, Tee Ray,” Forrest said, wiping his beard on his sleeve after taking a swig and passing the bottle on to the next rider. “The niggers done flee’d. What did we tell you. Ain’t no one was at Cotton crest when we got there ’cept Little Miss, and she was just kind of dozin’ in her chair in her room. None of them darkies around at all. They all had left the big house and are now prob’ly doin’ whatever darkies do when they think ain’t no one watchin’. So, we just ‘freed’ these here bourbon and whiskey bottles that the Colonel Judge ain’t got no more use for, just like you asked us to.”

  Tee Ray rode his gray roan slowly around Little Jerusalem. The other men remained on their horses and waited for him to finish, not daring to do anything until he gave the instructions. To pass the time, they passed the bottle among themselves, each taking a sip and handing it to the next one.

  The bottle finally reached Bucky, who brought it to his lips and, tilting it up too far, overfilled his mouth. The bourbon spilled out over the corners of his lips. Bucky tried to swallow quickly to keep the rest in, but it was too much. He began to choke, and the rest spewed out of his mouth. The other riders backed their horses quickly out of the way to keep from getting sprayed.

  “Can’t keep your seat in the saddle, and can’t keep your liquor in your mouth, Bucky,” Jimmy Joe said with disgust. “Tell you what, you just stay on your horse far from me ’cause I got no interest in seeing what you can’t keep in your pants.”

  Forrest and the others laughed loudly.

  Too loudly, Bucky thought. He’d still show them. They’d learn to respect him.

  Tee Ray, hearing the laughter, came riding up, holding his old rifle. He wished he had taken his other pistol as well, but now it was too late. “Shut your gaps and stop callyhotting! Are you so liquored up from elbow crookin’ that you can’t see what’s goin’ on?”

  “Them darkies are long gone, Tee Ray. We can see that.”

  “Jimmy Joe,” Tee Ray shot angrily back at the huge, sandy-haired man whose forearms were as big as Tee Ray’s thighs, “you don’t see nothin’. Look over here.”

  Tee Ray pointed to the hoes and rakes on the muddy ground. “Ain’t no farmer, even a nigger farmer, just leaves their tools on their ground to rust, not with the rain that passed through here. And look at this garden. It was being tended to. Them tools ain’t rusty, and they ain’t muddy. Jimmy Joe, I know you got muscles, so why don’t you use some of them to open your eyes. Come on. What do you see here?”

  Jimmy Joe didn’t need Tee Ray to be larkin’ on him, but he took it anyway. There was plenty of liquor in his saddlebag for later on to forget his problems.

  Jimmy Joe squinted hard in the dimming light at the spot on the ground where Tee Ray was pointing. “Mud. Lots of mud, Tee Ray. Deep ruts and stuff filled with water. That’s what I see.”

  Tee Ray, rifle still in hand, jumped off his horse, throwing the reins to Forrest to hold. “Your eyes ain’t connected with your brain, Jimmy Joe? What’s caused the ruts? Them is the ruts of a cart or a wagon. And them’s fresh ruts. So, where’s the wagon? And where’s what was in the wagon? You said you looked in this cabin?” Tee Ray turned his back on Jimmy Joe and the others and walked into Cooper and Rossy’s home.

  Jimmy Joe slowly dismounted and, pushing down his anger, followed Tee Ray. Bucky, now seeing his tormentor, Jimmy Joe, brought to earth, dismounted as well. Bucky was not going to miss what else Tee Ray might say to the big man.

  Inside the cabin was dark. It smelled of sweat and stench and old grease. The smoke and steam from too many meals had permeated the walls, giving off a slightly rancid odor. And although it smelled just like Tee Ray’s own cabin, to Tee Ray it didn’t smell the same at all. To Tee Ray, all the smells of Little Jerusalem were the smells of niggers.

  Tee Ray lit a match and looked around for a candle. There was none. A forlorn-looking mattress lay on a crude bed frame in the corner. Tee Ray took his knife from his belt and made a long slash though the mattress ticking and, reaching inside, pulled out a handful of dried moss. He threw the mattress on the floor in the center of the room, on top of the loose dirt, and lit the moss that was spilling out. A small fire erupted, throwing off a musty smell but
little illumination. Gray smoke curled through the cabin, drifting out the door and spiraling up the chimney.

  “See, I told you, Tee Ray. Ain’t nothin’ here. No food. No candles. Nothin’.” Jimmy Joe kicked at the rough-hewn table. A leg broke off, and the table fell to one side and hit the floor with a hollow thud, loose dirt flying.

  “I see it, Tee Ray, I see it,” Bucky called out excitedly. “Jimmy Joe didn’t see it, but I do!”

  Jimmy Joe glared at Bucky. “What do you see? Empty cabin. Dirt floor.”

  “It may be a dirt floor, but look, it ain’t all as empty as it seems.” Bucky strode over to the fireplace. He ran his hand over the top of the mantel. “Look at what I see’d. No dust. Someone was livin’ here, takin’ good care of this place.”

  Jimmy Joe spit, the glob landing next to Bucky’s boots. “ ’Course they was livin’ here at some point, but they was takin’ good care of what? Of dirt? What did they eat? Dirt? Not that niggers won’t, you know. They’ll eat almost anything.”

  Bucky bent down and, with his own small knife, cut into a corner of the mattress lying in the dirt. He pulled out some moss and, going over to the fireplace, kicked some of the thick ashes to one side and laid the moss down in the center and started blowing on it. After less than a minute the moss began to smolder. Bucky blew several times more, and the moss burst into flames.

  “They was here, Jimmy Joe, see? Hot coals. It ain’t been that long since they done left. They must’ve taken that cart, what ruts Tee Ray done found, and moved it out with all their goods into the woods.” Bucky was proud. He had shown Jimmy Joe how smart he was, and he knew that Tee Ray couldn’t help but be impressed.

  Tee Ray motioned to the bed frame and the upside-down table. “When even Bucky can figure this out, Jimmy Joe, why don’t we leave the heavy thinkin’ to him and the heavy bustin’ up to you.”

  Jimmy Joe nodded, gritting his teeth. He didn’t like Tee Ray’s tone of voice, but he was good at busting up things, and he felt like doing it now. He lifted up a big foot and brought it crashing down on the bed frame, cracking one of the sides. He lifted up the rough planking that formed the headboard and smashed it against the stout logs that comprised the cabin’s walls. Then he broke up the table and tossed it into the fireplace.

  Tee Ray, followed by Bucky and Jimmy Joe, emerged from Cooper and Rossy’s cabin, the smoldering mattress beginning to die down and the broken table in the fireplace beginning to flame up.

  “Don’t y’all see?” Tee Ray proclaimed to the horsemen who had gathered outside the cabin. “We rode fast here from the cane fields. Ain’t no way that the Jew Peddler Man and that nigger Marcus with him could’ve beat us. Yet, Little Jerusalem here is empty, and the niggers here can’t have left more than an hour ago.”

  Tee Ray remounted the gray roan. “Someone must have told them that the Knights were ridin’ tonight. Well, let ’em flee. Let ’em be scared of us. They got a right to be scared ’cause the Knights ride for right.”

  “THE KNIGHTS RIDE FOR RIGHT,” a chorus of voices echoed back loudly. It was their motto. The Knights of the White Camellia rode for right, for what was right was white, and what was white was right. The Ku Klux Klan Act was supposed to have put an end to the Klan and masked riders, but the Knights of the White Camellia didn’t need masks. Petit Rouge Parish was so small that everyone knew everyone else’s horses anyway. A masked rider could be easily identified by his steed. The Knights of the White Camellia rode unmasked and unop-posed.

  “What we’re gonna do is to make an example of whoever warned these niggers,” snarled Tee Ray. The horseman yelled their approval.

  “When we catch him, we’re gonna whip him so hard that even his own mother wouldn’t know him to give him shelter in a hurricane.” The horsemen roared again. Forrest pulled out another full bottle from his saddlebag, took a drink, and passed it to Tee Ray.

  Tee Ray drank deeply and, deliberately bypassing Jimmy Joe, handed the bottle on to Bucky. Jimmy Joe looked away to hide his disgust. Bucky! Ain’t no way that Tee Ray was gonna get his hands on the bottles in Jimmy Joe’s saddlebag now.

  Bucky carefully took a drink and, smiling broadly as it went down his gullet, took another.

  “That’s the way, Bucky,” congratulated Tee Ray. “You’re drinkin’ like a real man. Now, Bucky, I think you’re ready. You want to be a Knight?”

  A Knight? Tee Ray was inviting him to be a Knight? In front of all the others. Tee Ray had honored him mightily.

  “The Knights ride for right,” Bucky replied in as forceful a manner as he could muster, dropping his voice down an octave to try to sound more forceful, like Raifer. “You know, in my official position as an official officer of the law, I’m always for right, Tee Ray.” Then he added, a little too hurriedly, with more gratitude than he intended to show, “I’d be right proud to be a Knight and proud to ride for right.”

  “Proud is the right feelin’ to have,” said Tee Ray, tapping Bucky on the shoulder with his rifle, “ ’cause I so declare that you are now a Knight of the Camellia of the First Order.”

  A Knight of the First Order! Bucky could barely restrain the grin that kept creeping to his lips. First Order. That was appropriate. Bucky should be first among all the others. After all, hadn’t he shown, time and time again, that he was invaluable? Hadn’t he shown Tee Ray and the others how he could see things that others couldn’t, like a moment ago when he had spotted, as Jimmy Joe kicked over the table, a glow in the ashes caused by the draft? He could figure out things others couldn’t. He was important.

  Tee Ray didn’t tell Bucky that the Knights had thirty-two orders and that the First Order was the lowest rung. “Bucky, since you patrol as official Petite Rouge deputy out here in Little Jerusalem, you know who lives where, right?”

  “Right,” Bucky said proudly. Already they were depending on him.

  “Whose cabin is this?” Tee Ray inquired, pointing his rifle toward the one with the open door and the smoldering mattress.

  “That’s Cooper’s.”

  “Where’s old Nimrod’s place?”

  Bucky lifted his arm to show them.

  “Then, Bucky, as your first order of business as a Member of the First Order of the Knights of Camellia, you’re gonna lead us in making an example of old Nimrod and his takin’ his people away so that you, an official officer, can’t question them about the Jew Peddler murderer. You’re gonna show Nimrod and the rest of those niggers they can’t mess with the law and they can’t mess with the Knights, right?”

  “Right,” Bucky responded promptly. It had to be an important task for Tee Ray to ask him, instead of any of the others, to do it.

  “Come on then,” Tee Ray said, urging his roan toward Nimrod’s house. “You get to start the fire. Let’s burn that nigger Nimrod’s cabin to the ground.”

  Chapter 41

  Keith stood, gun in hand, barring the way. He had moved out into the swamp beyond the woods because he and Peggy wanted to be left alone. They wanted to be someplace where they didn’t have to talk to anyone but each other. They wanted to be someplace where small children didn’t taunt them. About the way that he walked. About the way that he spoke. About the way that Peggy talked.

  “NO!” he said, raising up his gun.

  “You know me,” the old man said, leaning a thick branch that Cooper had found for him to use as a cane. “Nimrod. You recognize me, don’t you, Keith?”

  Keith peered hard at the old man’s face. “Yes.” Keith spoke slowly. Deliberately. He was always that way, as if thinking about what to say and then speaking it was difficult for him. Which it was.

  “And you know Esau and Cooper and Rossy and the rest of us, don’t you?”

  Keith looked slowly from face to face. “… Yes.”

  “There are bad times right now, Keith. The Knights are riding, and we’ve had to leave Little Jerusalem.” Nimrod waited patiently as Keith tried to absorb the old man’s words.

  After a lengthy silence Nimro
d added, “I know you don’t like company, but with the Knights out tonight, we need a place to stay for a bit. If we had more warning, we wouldn’t have come here… we don’t want to bother you and Peggy. It appears that the storm passed, so we’ll just stay here outside. And we’ve brought some food to share, so we won’t trouble the two of you.”

  This was a lot of information at once, and Keith’s forehead knotted up. “Trouble,” he finally said.

  “No,” Nimrod responded gently, putting his hand on the young man’s arm, “we won’t be no trouble.”

  “Trouble!” Keith shot back. “Trouble, trouble, trouble.”

  Rossy, her baby on her shoulder, walked forward through the crowd to talk to Keith. “Keith, we grew up together. I promise you…”

  Keith got a frightened look as he stared at her baby. “Baby. Trouble. Much trouble!” He backed up several steps, limping on his clubfoot.

  Rossy was gentle. “What trouble, Keith? How can a baby cause you trouble?”

  Keith glanced back anxiously toward his cabin perched on stilts next to the bayou, its windows dark. Even though the sun had set, there was a three-quarters moon rising, visible for now, although shortly it would be obscured by the swift-moving clouds. The wind in the treetops created a low, constant whisper, but as she listened carefully, Rossy could hear, in addition to this, a low moan.

  “Is that Peggy? Is she all right?”

  A look of anguish overtook Keith’s face. “Baby. Trouble. Peggy.”