Blackwater: The Complete Caskey Family Saga (23 page)

“I intend to do just that, Miz Caskey,” replied Early Haskew in a voice that would have reached her had she been sitting at the table in Elinor’s house. “That’s why I’m here. And I sure do like my room upstairs. I just wish you hadn’t gone to the expense of that drafting table!”

“If that drafting table can save us from another flood, it’s gone be worth every penny I spent on it. Besides, I don’t believe you would have come to live with us if I hadn’t had that thing ready waiting.”

After dinner, when James had returned to the mill and Mary-Love and Sister and Early were sitting on the porch with glasses of tea, they noticed Zaddie Sapp passing by, evidently off on some errand for Elinor. Quickly, and in a low voice, Mary-Love said, “Sister, tell Zaddie to come up on the porch for a minute.”

Zaddie rather wondered at the summons, for she was Elinor’s acknowledged creature and as such hardly welcome in Mary-Love’s house—or even on that porch. Zaddie still raked Mary-Love’s yard every morning, but Mary-Love could scarcely bring herself to nod a greeting to the twelve-year-old.

“Hey, Zaddie,” said Mary-Love, “come on inside. There’s somebody I want you to meet.”

Zaddie came through the screen door and onto the side porch. She stared at Early Haskew, and he stared at her.

“Zaddie,” said Mary-Love, “this is Early Haskew. This is the man who’s gone save Perdido from the next flood.”

“Ma’am?”

“Mr. Haskew is gone build a levee to save Perdido!”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Zaddie politely.

“How you do, Zaddie?” shouted Early Haskew, and Zaddie blinked at the force of his voice.

“I’m fine, Mr. Skew.”

“Haskew, Zaddie,” corrected Sister.

“I’m fine,” repeated Zaddie.

“Thank Mr. Haskew, Zaddie, for saving you from the next flood,” instructed Mary-Love.

“Thank you, sir,” said Zaddie obediently.

“You’re welcome, Zaddie.”

Zaddie and Early Haskew looked at each other in some puzzlement, for neither had any idea why this meeting should have been brought about. Zaddie wondered why she had been called over to be introduced to a white man when only that morning she had been shooed away when she tried to peek into Miriam’s carriage. And Early wondered if it were Mary-Love’s intention to introduce him to every man, woman, and child—white and colored and Indian—whose life and property would be protected by the levee he intended to build around the town.

Sister thought she had the answer. In the dissemination of information Zaddie was as efficient as a telegraph, and Elinor would learn of Early Haskew’s presence in Mary-Love’s house as surely as if a Western Union man came to the door and handed over the message in a yellow envelope.

Mary-Love said to Zaddie, “We have kept you, child. Weren’t you on an errand for Elinor?”

“Yes, ma’am,” replied Zaddie. “I got to go fetch some paraffin.”

“Then go do it,” said Mary-Love, and Zaddie ran away.

Mary-Love turned to Early and said, “Zaddie belongs to Elinor and Oscar. You’ve met my son.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“But you haven’t met his wife Elinor, my daughter-in-law?”

“No, ma’am.”

“I suppose you will,” said Mary-Love offhandedly. “I hope you have the chance, that is. They live next door in that big white house. I built that house for them as a wedding present.”

“It’s a fine house!”

“I know it. But you’ll see, Mr. Haskew, when you’ve been here a little longer, that there’s not much back-and-forthing between these two houses.”

“No, ma’am,” said Early Haskew politely, quite as if he understood all about it.

“Well...” said Mary-Love hesitantly, then abruptly concluded, “that’s all.”

. . .

The town council meeting that evening was attended not only by the directly elected members of the board—Oscar, Henry Turk, Dr. Leo Benquith, and three other men—but also by James Caskey and Tom DeBordenave as vitally interested parties and as millowners. Before these men Early Haskew presented a rough plan, timetable, and schedule of expenses for the construction of the levees.

The levee was to be in three parts. The largest and most substantial portion would be raised on either side of the Perdido below the junction. This would protect downtown and the area of millworkers’ houses to the west of the river and Baptist Bottom to the east. The bridge over the Perdido just below the Osceola Hotel would be widened and raised to the height of the levee, and gentle approach ramps constructed. In large measure, this was a municipal levee, for it protected the greater part of residential and commercial Perdido. A second levee, half a mile long and connecting with the first, would be raised on the southern bank of the Blackwater River, which came from the northeast of town from its source in the cypress swamp. This levee would protect the three sawmills. The third portion of the levee was shortest of all; it would run along the southern bank of the Perdido above the junction, and would protect the five homes belonging to Henry Turk, Tom DeBordenave, James Caskey, Mary-Love Caskey, and Oscar Caskey. This levee would end a hundred yards or so beyond the town line. When the rivers rose again, as was bound to happen in the course of things, the levees would protect the town, and only the uninhabited lowlands directly south of Perdido, along the course of the river, would be flooded.

In four months, Early would have detailed plans. Construction of the levee could begin immediately thereafter. The work would take at least fifteen months for the double levee along the lower Perdido, and six months each for the secondary levees. The cost he estimated to be about one million one hundred thousand dollars, a sum which momentarily staggered the town council.

Early sat back for the remainder of the meeting while the leaders of Perdido thrashed out the question. In 1919 the town had lost considerably more than the projected cost of the levee. If the town grew and the mills cut down more trees and produced more lumber, Perdido stood to lose even more in a subsequent flood. Therefore, if the money could be in any way procured, the levee ought to be built. James and Oscar, agreeing by a simple nod between them, offered to pay Early’s expenses while he made up detailed plans for the levee. This would be the Caskey’s contribution to the town that had fostered them. Thus authorized and encouraged to forge ahead, Early took his leave of the meeting.

After the engineer had left, and many had said how highly they thought of the man, the leading citizens examined Early’s figures again and determined that the municipal levee would cost seven hundred thousand dollars, the levee along the Blackwater would cost two hundred and fifty thousand, and the levee along the upper Perdido, behind the millowners’ homes, would be one hundred and fifty thousand. The millowners, in separate conference, decided that they should bear the cost of the levee behind their own homes and that they should split with the town the cost of the levee that protected the mills. This lowered the town’s burden to eight hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, and that at least
sounded
a good deal better than one million one hundred thousand.

James agreed to drive to Bay Minette and call upon the Baldwin County legislator to see what could be done about a bond issue through the state government. Tom DeBordenave would talk to the banks in Mobile.

At all events, everyone felt better after the meeting. The flood of 1919 had been so disastrous, so unexpected, and the town had been so unprepared, even this first step toward protection seemed like a great deal to the town council. They imagined what it would be to have the levees in place. The waters of the Perdido and the Blackwater might rise high against Early Haskew’s earthworks, but Perdido children, with sunny faces, would play at skip-rope and marbles on dry earth that was far below the level of the dark, swirling water lapping ominously on the other side.

. . .

That evening, while Oscar was at the meeting of the town council, Elinor sat with her sewing on the upstairs porch. Zaddie joined her there, and told about the strange thing that had happened to her that afternoon at Miss Mary-Love’s.

“Why she want me to meet that man?” asked Zaddie curiously and with complete confidence that Elinor would be able to supply the answer.

Elinor had put down her sewing. Her mouth had tightened. She stood and went over to the porch railing. Her pregnant belly created only a little sway and awkwardness in her purposeful walk. “Don’t you know, Zaddie?”

“No, ma’am.”

Elinor turned and with barely suppressed anger said, “She wanted you to meet that man so you would come back here and tell me about it, that’s why!”

“Ma’am?”

“Zaddie, you know Miss Mary-Love won’t give me the time of day—”

“No, ma’am!” agreed Zaddie emphatically, as if that state of affairs had been reached only through some cunning stratagem of Elinor’s.

“—but she wanted me to know that
that man
was back in town.”

“You mean, Mr. Skew?”

Elinor nodded grimly.

“Why Miss Mary-Love want you to know that?”

“Because she knows how much I hate Early Haskew, that’s why. She did it to perturb my mind, Zaddie. And I’ll tell you something, it
does
perturb my mind!”

“Why?”

“Zaddie, don’t you know? Don’t you have any idea?”

“No, ma’am.”

“You know what that man wants to do? He wants to dam up the rivers. He wants to build levees all around this town to keep the rivers from flooding.”

“Miss El’nor, we don’t want no more floods,” said Zaddie cautiously. “Do we?”

“There aren’t going to be any more floods,” said Elinor emphatically.

“Ivey say there might be. Ivey say it all depend on the squirrels.”

“Ivey doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” said Elinor. “Ivey doesn’t know anything about floods.” She paced quickly back and forth along the long porch railing glancing now at Mary-Love’s house, now at her splendid grove of water oaks, but staring mostly down at the muddy red Perdido flowing swiftly and silently behind the house. Zaddie stood quite still with one raised hand grasping the swing chain as she watched Miss Elinor.

“None of them knows about floods or anything about the rivers, Zaddie. You’d think they’d have learned something, wouldn’t you, living so long around here, where every time they look out the window they see the Perdido flowing by, where every time they go to work or go to the store they have to cross a bridge and see the water flowing under it, where they catch their fish for supper on Saturday night, where their oldest children get baptized, and where their youngest children drown. You’d think they’d know something by now, wouldn’t you, Zaddie?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Zaddie quietly, but Miss Elinor did not even turn around to look at the black girl.

“They don’t though,” said Elinor bitterly. “They don’t know anything. They’re going to hire
that man
to build levees, they’re going to pretend that the rivers aren’t there anymore. And, Zaddie, Miss Mary-Love’s going to see to help this project along, even if she has to take money out of her own purse to do it. And do you know why?”

“Why?”

“To spite me. That’s why she’s doing it, and for no other reason in the world. Lord, that woman despises me!” Elinor turned suddenly back, strode forward and threw herself into the swing. She looked at Zaddie, who had seated herself cautiously in the swing beside Elinor. With one swift kick Elinor propelled the swing into motion. She pressed both hands against her belly, and when she spoke her words seemed to join in rhythm with the jerking chain.

“Zaddie, do you know what we’re going to see a few months from now when we sit in this swing?”

“No, ma’am. What?”

“We’re going to be looking at a pile of dirt.
That man
is going to block our view of the river with a pile of dirt. And Mary-Love is going to be out there with a shovel helping. She’ll do it to make me mad. And she’ll put a shovel in Sister’s hands. And she’ll have Miriam out there in a baby carriage, and she’ll lean over and she’ll say to Miriam, ‘Oh, you watch, child, you watch me ruin your mama’s view! You watch me raise up earth in front of your real mama’s eyes!’ Oh, I hate it, Zaddie! I hate it all like hell!”

Elinor rocked in the swing and stared out at the Perdido. Her breath was harsh and uneven.

“Miss El’nor, can I ask you a question?” said Zaddie timidly.

“What?”

“What if they don’t put up the levee? Won’t there be another flood? Sometime, I mean. Miss El’nor, people died in that flood!”

Elinor put her foot down sharply and the swing stopped with a jerk, nearly pitching Zaddie out onto the floor. Elinor turned and looked directly into the black girl’s face.

“Zaddie, you listen to me. That levee—if it ever gets built—is not going to do this town one bit of good.”

“What you mean?”

“I mean that while I am alive and while I am living in this house, whether there’s a levee or not there will be no flood in Perdido. The rivers will not rise.”

“Miss El’nor, you cain’t—”

Elinor ignored the protest. “But, Zaddie, when I am dead—whether there’s a levee or not, this town and everybody in it will be washed off the face of the earth...”

When Zaddie went to Elinor with news of the arrival in town of Early Haskew she had not known that this man was to live in the house right next door. Mary-Love would have given much to see Elinor’s face when she learned that Early was to sleep in the bed in the room that Elinor herself had occupied not so many months before. Oscar, not anticipating his wife’s reaction, had mentioned this only in passing that evening. The following evening Oscar and his wife were walking past Mary-Love’s house on the way to the Ritz and saw Early sitting on the porch with Sister. Elinor stopped in her tracks, turned and marched home, and wouldn’t speak a single word to Oscar for the rest of the night. She strung a hammock on the upstairs porch and slept within sight of the river.

Calmer next morning at the breakfast table, she said to Oscar, “Your mama wants me to lose this baby.”

Oscar raised his eyes in astonishment. “Elinor, what do you mean to say!”