A Hanging at Cinder Bottom (28 page)

Out front of the main house were parked two black Oldsmobile Runabouts. They’d come in on a flatcar from Cincinnati two days before, their arrival orchestrated to mark the Beavers’ return on the state’s forty-seventh birthday.

Sunlight refracted in the chafing dish, and Sallie squinted as she laid plates on a big lawn table. Al had fashioned it by bolting a de-hinged barn door on two sawhorses. It was covered in a white bedsheet.

Harold Beavers lowered his ledger book and sat down. “Some piece of hill plateau,” he said. He unscrewed the cap on his flask and poured its contents in his coffee.

Al Baach sat across from him, Abe to Al’s right. Rufus Beavers and Mayor Trent sat at the heads of the table.

Al stretched his bad leg, his boot sole pressed against the sawhorse, and he thought of how very strange it was that two months before, his oldest boy’s coffin had sat atop the very same prop.

“Mrs. Baach,” Harold Beavers said, “these biscuits is savory.”

She thanked him kindly.

Harold was going to run for the House of Delegates. Never mind he hadn’t lived in the district, much less the state, for twenty years. He had an address at the Alhambra. He had a new young wife who’d once won a Bathing
Beauty Pageant in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. She was still in Florida, awaiting his summons. He told her he had business to attend to before she graced his boyhood home. He didn’t tell her the business, a substantial portion of which was to throw a leg over every new whore in town.

Rufus Beavers thought his brother’s fresh wife too young. She was less than half his age. He ate fast and dredged every inch of gravy he could. He watched his brother laugh and blow his nose. Once, Rufus had his own sights on the legislature, but that time was long past.

Harold Beavers’ seated posture was bad and he wheezed at the chest. He craned his neck to watch Sallie’s backside as she walked to the house where she’d manage the chocolate cake. When she was out of earshot, he said, “Let’s us cut short the tittle-tattle and get something done.”

Trent had no appetite. He said, “Democrats are surging. Midterm will more than likely bring about a swing.”

Rufus shook his head. “There’s movement,” he said. “But it’s only the panhandles, and they been halfway there for a while anyhow.”

Trent was not in agreement. “There’s a Raleigh County man throwing money. Braxton too.”

“Them two is preaching prohibition,” Rufus said, “and any fucking Democrat who goes dry is a loser.”

It was the truth. Republican or Democrat, no dry candidate would ever carry the black belt, or any county for that matter, for temperance was not the workingman’s way.

Harold chewed with his mouth open. He looked at Al. He asked, “Is there any Jew that will court the prohibitionist candidate?”

“No.”

“How many Jews in Keystone now?”

Al thought. “Three hundred?”

Abe looked at his food while he ate. He’d begun to wonder by then if it was Harold Beavers who’d pulled the trigger on Jake, for no other had the man’s accuracy from long distance. And, from what Abe could gather, the Beavers had lit out for Florida the day after the shooting on Buzzard Branch. But here the man was, and though Abe listened to him close, he heard no guilt in his voice. Though he looked at him careful, he saw no culpability in his eyes.

Harold took up his knife. He put it in the jar of apple butter and commenced to spread his toast. “How many niggers?” he asked.

“Thousand,” Trent said. “Give or take.”

Harold laughed wheezy. “This has become some kind of place.” He’d heard the Baaches were rearing a half-black child. He aimed to get a look at the boy before day’s end. “I remember when there wasn’t any road or rail for twenty miles.” He waved at the ridges around them with the butter knife. “I climbed from peak to post like a goat.” He drank down his coffee and set the mug back hard. “That’s back when they used to call me Sneakup,” he said. “Sometimes Harry.” He laughed at the memory of his old good times.
“Or they’d use my full moniker, you see. They’d say, ‘Lookout! Here comes Sneakup Harry Beavers.’” He laughed harder and raised up the empty coffee mug and banged it back down as a gavel. “Order!” he shouted. “Circuit Judge Rufus Beavers in session, kept in the black by way of his little brother, the newly minted delegate-elect from the county of McDowell, Sneakup Harry Beavers!”

Abe laughed genuine. The man had a way with words.

Harold took note of his enthusiasm. His good looks. “Boy, you’ve always had a smile that could sell used snuff, ain’t you?”

Abe shrugged his shoulders.

“How many nicknames you had boy?” he asked.

“Oh,” Abe said, “two or three.” He wondered how many straight days Harold Beavers had been stewed. He knew the look of those eyes. He’d worn them himself and sometimes still did.

Such eyes couldn’t see through a ladder.

“Man needs three nicknames at a minimum,” Harold said. A crow alighted on the high branch of a pitch pine and cawed. “What nickname was it they called your brother?” He pretended to search for a word. “Mary, was it? Nancy?”

Abe smiled. “Knot,” he said.

Al cleared his throat. “Preacher. Some call Jake Preacher.” He had his arms crossed over his belly. His black cap was sweat-stained in front.

Harold took out his tobacco and a paper and made a cigarette.

Abe said, “Why don’t we speak on your purchase of this land.”

“This boy has always been full up on the finest ideas,” Rufus Beavers said.

Al stood and walked toward the sound of the children.

“You’ll have to excuse Daddy,” Abe said. “He’s not yet come to peace with the transaction.” He put his elbows on the table and leaned forward. He explained to the Beavers brothers the finer points of the transaction’s timeline, which he and Henry Trent had been speaking on for weeks, alone in Trent’s office, Rutherford having been excused each time. The price had already been negotiated. The closing date was set for Monday, July the fourth, the only day that both Mr. Hood and his lawyer could travel to Kimball for the transfer of deed. The name on the contract would be Rufus Beavers, and on the sixth day of July, a crew of builders would break ground. They’d stand alongside Harold Beavers and have their picture made for the paper, and the headline would proclaim that two things were coming: the Westward Addition and the ascending sixth district delegate-elect.

“It will be a fine affair,” Harold said. He was getting itchy for town.

“Indeed.” Rufus eyed the second house and imagined it as campaign headquarters. He looked beyond it to the bones of a madman’s chapel and imagined its foundation laid across with dynamite and lit by a lengthy wick.
Boom
, he wished to intone aloud, but he refrained. He shut his
eyes and saw the Westward Addition in full swing. He saw switchbacked roads, paved, leading to terraced homes, redbrick foursquares with milk-skinned children playing out front. The children made gleeful sounds. None were colored. None had crossed an ocean to end up in the Westward Addition.

Trent said, “It will all come together nicely,” though he wondered at the very sound of the words if it was so.

Al strode back toward the table, his weight on his cane.

Harold Beavers wrote dates in his ledger book and slammed it shut. “Why in the hell ain’t we signing papers today?” he asked.

Al sat down stiff. “The lawyer of Mr. Hood finds mistake on surveyor’s plat,” he said. “You will have ten acres more than was known, to the east.” He pointed up the mountain. The men looked where he pointed.

Abe could scarcely keep back a smile. His daddy had told the lie they’d rehearsed, and he’d done it convincingly. The truth was that the lawyer had already gotten the papers in order, and the sale had already been made. The buyer was never to have been Rufus Beavers. The buyer was in fact a newly retired politician. He was a prohibitionist preacher and friend of Mr. Hood. The owner of the land on which they now sat and dined was a man who’d never set foot there, a man with unquestioning faith in his son’s written word. He was Oswald Ladd Sr., smiling signer of power-of-attorney forms, father of the frail boarder Abe had seen
off to Virginia the very day before, deed and documents in hand, telling him, “Just give us two weeks to clear off and it’s yours.” Abe had groomed the junior Ladd for a month, and the man had boarded the train grinning, content in the knowledge that his daddy was the next owner of Hood House and its acreage, that together they would draw up plans for a prohibitionist temple of godly converters who would settle on the mountain, look down upon Sodom, and configure their cleansing of the three thousand lost.

Up the ridge, a turkey vulture soared. The Beavers brothers watched it, happy at the thought of more land.

Harold imagined the bird exploding midflight.

Rufus wondered about the status of the chocolate cake.

The children could be heard in the trees at yard’s edge. Baby Ben made a squirrel call and Agnes answered.

Harold Beavers said, “When do we get to sit and turn over some cards?” He’d been playing more as of late, and he was looking to separate somebody from his bankroll, preferably Abe Baach or the big city marks he’d roped.

“Abe and I have worked all that out,” Trent said. He resented having to repeat what he’d already told Harold the night before, but he was accustomed to the man’s lack of memory. “Chicago Phil is due back in Keystone either today or tomorrow.” He eyed Abe for confirmation and was given such in a nod. “Abe has kept him on the line by way of enticement.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Harold Beavers said.

“Means he’s in love with Rose Cantu,” Abe told him. “Goldie’s best-looking girl. He couldn’t stay gone less you castrated him.”

They laughed a little.

“It isn’t only that,” Abe said. “I’ve been in his ear about who plays the Oak Slab. I told him Little Donnie is the best there is, and he already thinks he can beat the boy.”

“Why does he think such a thing?” Harold was getting irritable. Thirsty. He smacked his throat where a mosquito fed.

Trent put his hands at table’s edge. “I told you all this last night,” he said. “They partnered at Baach’s table and the boy pretended to lose while Abe won.” Trent had begun to worry that Harold’s reckless ways might corrupt their plan. It was best to keep him in the dark on finer points.

“I’m going to rope him for a week back at our table,” Abe said, “let him go up a grand or so, and then send him and the others to the Oak Slab on Independence Day.”

Trent nodded. “I’ve got their invites pressed and a row of third-floor rooms on reserve. Tickets to Mercurio’s opening night too.”

“Phil’s a magic enthusiast,” Abe said.

Harold shook his head. He said, “And you going to treat ole magic enthusiast like a king, are you?”

Rufus grew tired of it. “We’ll treat him like the goddamned hero of San Juan Hill if we have to Harold,” he said. “The man’s carrying in property that will bankroll your sorry run and then some.”

Harold held up his hands in compliance and said, “Simmer down brother.” He pointed at Abe. “It’s him who I want to play anyhow.”

Abe looked straight at him. “Soon as Phil and the others push off,” he said, “you can come on over and sit at the Wobbler.”

“The what now?”

“It’s the name of Abe’s table,” Trent said. “Rutherford aims to play too.”

The screen door on the main house slapped hard against the jamb and Sallie came on with the cake. Beyond thank-yous, they were quiet as she doled out wedges the size of axe heads.

They ate and grunted to express their pleasure at the dark ambrosial icing.

Harold wondered if it would be improper to ask for a little brandy in his after-supper coffee. She was gone before he could. “What about this championship fight?” he said.

“What about it?” Rufus did not care to speak on Jack Johnson, a man he despised. He’d let his money talk for him. He planned to bet upwards of five hundred dollars on Jim Jeffries.

“Just more money to be made,” Trent said.

“I hear Fred Reed is having a big ole party at the Union Club.” Harold’s teeth were smeared brown. Black crumbs fell from his lips.

“He’s running a special telegraph wire for it,” Trent said. “Hauling in French wine.”

Rufus scoffed. “Thinks foamy wine’ll win him a council seat does he?”

Harold finished his cake and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “July fourth shapin up to be one busy day. Best be sure your police is ready to put down any sore-loser niggers when Jeffries lays Johnson on the canvas.”

“No need for that,” Trent said. “They’ll have their money on Jeffries.”

“Who will?”

“All of em. Most anyway. They ain’t fools when it comes to a smart bet. No colored man can beat Jim Jeffries.” Trent looked at his associates. They’d been in Florida too long. He said, “Fred Reed plans to put two hundred dollars on white.”

The children hollered and laughed in the woods. The hider had been sought and found.

Little Ben waddled quick across the cut weed lawn toward the house. Agnes followed. “Well, hide the whiskey and bend the knee boys,” Harold Beavers said. “God’s children comin this way.”

They paid him no mind. Children had no use of men like those at the table. Agnes leapt from grass to back stone step. She glanced in their direction and let the door settle quiet behind her.

Each man aimed his ear then at the sound of an approaching automobile. Its engine roared louder than the Oldsmobiles that had struggled up the same rough path that morning.

“I believe that might be Phil now,” Abe said. He stood.

The other men did not, though they turned their heads to see a top-down vehicle of Persian red cresting the hill. It was piloted by a slick-haired man in a gray lounge suit. Beside him was Tony Thumbs, monkey Baz in his lap. They picked up speed on the flat and tore a straight line at the lawn’s big table.

Now the men stood, for they sensed they might be run over otherwise.

Ten yards off, the driver cut his wheel and mashed his brake pedal. The white spokes of his wheels seemed nearly to bend. The gold-gilded headlamps and grill flashed like a smile, and cut grass spat on the tablecloth.