Standing at the Scratch Line (82 page)

The driver’s door was yanked open and a gasping man fumbled with the key. Marco lay on his back ready to shoot the face that looked over the seat. Then the car roared to life and swerved out past the burning cars and accelerated down the gravel road through the gate. The car continued to accelerate despite the ruts and holes in the road. Marco found himself bouncing hard on the floor and was occasionally thrown against the door as the car turned sharply at high speed. Marco thought, This fool is going to kill both of us driving at this speed on this narrow country road.

Marco pulled himself up onto the seat and discovered he was being driven by Corlis’s colored driver. “Bradley?” Marco tapped the man’s shoulders. Bradley turned his head and saw Marco’s bloody face and screamed. The car shot forward as Bradley stamped his foot down on the accelerator pedal. The car now careened off the road as Bradley had difficulty maintaining control of the vehicle. All the while Bradley continued to holler at the top of his lungs.

“Stop this goddamned car!” Marco ordered, pressing the barrel of the derringer against Bradley’s face.

“Is you a ghost?” Bradley wailed, his eyes wide. “ ’Cause if’en you’s a ghost, I’s already dead!”

“You fool! I’m no ghost! I’m the man you drove here earlier this evening! Now stop this car!”

“I ain’t lettin’ no ghost suck up my soul! I ain’t stoppin’ ’til I get’s to a church!” The car hit a large puddle of water and skewed sideways before Bradley could control it. They tipped precariously as their hydroplaning tires hit a few patches of dryness and were briefly snagged by the absence of water. Bradley was loudly intoning a prayer as he wrestled the car back in the correct direction without losing too much speed. “Oh, God, I’ll go to church every Sunday and tithe my ten percent. Just don’t let this demon get me! Ain’t it enough I got King Tremain on my plate and I ain’t even begun to ask fo’ help with him yet!”

Marco fired one barrel of the derringer through the passenger-side windshield. The glass shattered. Some of it stayed together, spiderwebbed with small fractures, but the pieces from a large hole were blown back into the car, little flying razors cutting and embedding themselves into flesh. Both Bradley and Marco received numerous cuts from the shattered glass.

“Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!” Bradley wailed even louder.

“Stop this car! Stop it or I’ll shoot out your window too!”

The shattering of the window seemed to have gained Bradley’s attention for he slowed down and pulled off the road. As soon as the car rolled to a stop, Bradley opened his door to get out.

“Where are you going?” Marco demanded, jamming the hot barrel of the derringer against the man’s cheek.

“Ooowww!” Bradley cried. “That hurts! I’s just givin’ you a chance to return to where you’s from that’s all!” He was rubbing the gris-gris around his neck furiously.

“Look at me, you fool! I’m bleeding but I’m not dead! Look me in the eye, or I’ll shoot you myself!”

Bradley quailed. “Folk say you look a demon in the eye, it take yo’ mind! Lord knows I don’t need that. If’en you’s don’t mind, Boss, I’ll watch my foots for a while.”

In frustration, Marco slapped Bradley on the back of the head. “You superstitious fool! If you look at me, you’ll see I’m not dead!”

“Ain’t necessary to be smackin’ on folks who scared of the supernatural, suh!” He raised his eyes warily, ready to flinch and look away.

“I jumped out the goddamned window, you idiot! That’s how my face got all cut up!”

“Well,” admitted Bradley. “I ain’t ever heard of a ghost usin’ no gun! Maybe you is what you say you is, but how did you get in here?”

“I hid in the car before you came! I’m losing my patience with these stupid questions. You hear that?” The sound of distant sirens was drawing closer. “Either you drive me back to my hotel, or I leave you on this road to find your own way home.”

“I drives you,” Bradley agreed. “It ain’t gon’ be safe for a colored man out here tonight with all these white mens dead.”

“What are you going to do about King Tremain? He’ll be looking for you. Are you ready to stand up to him now?” Marco asked to distract himself from his own fears.

“You jokin’ ’bout somethin’ that’s serious fo’ me. I’s gon’ have to leave town. He the kind of man who’ll kill yo’ whole family just to get to you. He one mean and crazy nigger! Ain’t nobody standin’ up to him! He done blowed up the sheriff’s whole house!” Bradley slowed the vehicle as they entered New Orleans again.

“Did you know your boss, Sheriff Mack, was going to kill me?”

“I’s just the driver, suh. They don’t tell me nothin’! Oh, look, it’s another funeral. Whoever this is, they wanted to die in style! They got a big band and even their second-liners are in uniform! Whooeee! That take money!” Bradley stopped the car to let the funeral procession pass.

A brown-skinned woman stepped out of the crowd and came over to the door. Her head was wrapped in a yellow kerchief and she wore big gold bangles in her ears. She leaned down to look into the car window at the driver and asked, “You Bradley O’Malley?”

Bradley was suddenly very humble as he answered in a servile tone, “Yes’m, Sister Bornais. I done bought gris-gris from you befo’. In Congo Square, you remember?”

“Yes, I remember you. You the sheriff’s man!” She leaned down closer and said, “I bring you a gift.” She opened her palm and blew some red and green powder in Bradley’s face. She stood up with a laugh and said loudly for all to hear, “It is a gift from King Tremain and with it, I curse you! I curse you with pain and blindness until you die! And you will die soon, sheriff’s man!”

Bradley began to scream immediately. “My eyes! My eyes! I can’t see! Oh, Saint Jude, help me!”

“No one can help you!” she cackled. “Call anybody you want, it will not change yo’ fate!” She stopped when she saw Marco staring at her. She reached into her bosom and pulled out a pouch and poured more powder into her palm. “Does the white man want to try some of this medicine?” she asked as she came over to the window, but Marco pushed the window up and locked it. She stood outside the car laughing. “The white man is afraid! The white man is afraid!” Bradley was now in a full panic. He was blathering incomprehensibly as he writhed in the front seat.

Marco reached over the seat and grabbed the man by the shoulders, but Bradley twisted easily out of his grip. “Get a hold of yourself!” he shouted. Bradley arched his back violently and screamed. Marco saw his contorted face straight on and was horrified. Bradley was foaming at the mouth and there appeared to be blood running from his eyes.

Bradley began mumbling. “I got to get out! I got to get out! Let me out!” He began kicking the door in a frenzy. Marco reached over and unlatched the door, which swung open, and Bradley pushed himself out of the car onto the street. He began screaming and clutching at himself. A crowd of people now surrounded the car, watching Bradley’s frenzied actions. He staggered to his feet and began to run haphazardly through the crowd. People made way for him. No one wanted to touch him. Sister Bornais followed him screaming, “I curse you, sheriff’s man! I curse you!”

Marco watched as the crowd slowly followed Bradley’s movements down the street. The key was still in the ignition. Marco pulled himself over the front seat and started the car. His ankle bothered him when he applied brakes or changed gears, but he drove the vehicle out of the intersection and headed toward his hotel. He didn’t recognize the street names and turned the wrong way and drove into a cul-de-sac. He turned the car around and drove back to Ramparts Street, one of the few streets he knew. There was a crowd of people halfway down the block standing around a horse-drawn beer wagon. A police car arrived and as the crowd backed out of its way, Marco saw the reason for the assembly. A man wearing a gray jacket lay crushed beneath the wagon’s front wheel. Marco turned the car abruptly in the opposite direction and drove away as fast as the traffic would permit.

S
 A T U R D A Y,  
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 U N E   2 5,   1 9 2 1
   

There are clear summer nights in the foothills of the Ouachitas when the blue light of the pale moon causes the jagged-peaked mountains to glisten as if they were made of silver. The sky itself appears to have been brought lower and closer to earth by the weight of the glowing moon. The stars twinkle and the Milky Way beckons. The silver mountains rising out of the inky shadows of countless ridges seem to scrape against the sky itself. It was on such a night that King and Sampson returned to Bodie Wells.

It was nearly twenty minutes past nine when Sampson pulled the truck in behind the store. When King stepped down from the truck he noticed there was a light shining in a small room off the back entrance and there were numerous lights still on the second floor. The back door opened and a man’s scratchy voice called out, “Who done pulled they truck behind this sto’?” King could see the barrel of a shotgun sticking out the door.

King stepped in the shadows and called out, “King Tremain. Who are you?” Pistols were in his hands.

The man put down the shotgun and came outside. “It’s me, Lightnin’ Smith. Yo’ Missus say I could stay here after the twister done destroyed my place. You best come on in here quick and see her. She mighty sickly.”

King found himself running up the back steps, through the hallway to the staircase leading to the second floor. Three at a time and he was at the head of the stairs, then down the hall to their bedroom. He opened the door and saw Ma Wrangel and Wichita Kincaid sitting by the bed putting cold towels on Serena’s forehead. Serena appeared to be sleeping fitfully. Her head kept turning back and forth and her legs twitched sporadically.

“What’s goin’ on here?” King demanded as he walked toward the bed.

“Lower yo’ voice. We got us a sick chile here,” Ma Wrangel advised, changing a towel.

“How she get sick?” His voice was lower, but there was still urgency in it.

The two women looked at each other and then Ma Wrangel turned to him and said, “She fell from a stepladder and hit the floor badly.”

“Did she hit her head?” King asked as he knelt by the bed and touched her hand. Serena’s skin seemed to be on fire. King repeated his question. “I asked you, did she hit her head?” The two women looked at each other again. “What you keepin’ secret?” King asked as he looked from Ma Wrangel to Wichita and back.

Ma Wrangel answered slowly. “The fall was hard, but that ain’t what’s got her lyin’ on the edge of death. . . . She uh, . . . uh—”

Wichita interjected in clipped tones. “She took some potions I made and it looks like she took more than I told her to.”

“What kind of potions?” King asked, an edge creeping into his voice.

“Potions that help cause a miscarriage,” Wichita replied.

“What?” King asked, not comprehending the words being said.

“She wanted to lose the child!” A trace of exasperation entered Wichita’s words.

King stood up and turned to face Wichita. “What child?” he growled.

Wichita felt a sudden chill. She shivered. She was in the presence of a dangerous man and she had heard a tone in his voice that made her feel that danger might not be too far away.

“Ain’t no use in turnin’ yo’ anger on us,” Ma Wrangel said as she wrung out a towel that had been soaking in a bucket of ice water. “Serena is with chile,” Ma Wrangel explained as she continued to dab Serena’s face and neck. “She say she want to lose it! She say she got to lose it, ’cause it’s a white man’s chile. The white man who raped her while she was gettin’ you free. She say it’s LeGrande’s chile. She done killed him dead. Now she want to kill his chile. She don’t care if she kill herself. She say she got to do it, ’cause she done seen the hate in yo’ eyes. She know you can’t love no white man’s chile. And she think maybe you gon’ hate her for havin’ his baby too.”

King felt as if he had been clubbed in the stomach with the butt of a rifle. Serena was pregnant by LeGrande. Serena had allowed herself to be violated to save King and she hadn’t told him. Now she was prepared to risk her own life in order to get rid of the unwanted baby. He immediately felt guilty for all the angry thoughts he harbored against her.