Blackwater: The Complete Caskey Family Saga (62 page)

“Who is it?” called Dollie Faye weakly. “Who’s not going to church this morning?”

Into the room walked two visitors the likes of which Dollie Faye and Dial Crawford weren’t accustomed to—town people, moneyed people; people whose clothes were new, store-bought, and neither dusty nor faded.

“Yes, ma’am, yes, sir, what can I do for you?” said Dollie Faye, attempting to rise from the bed.

“Don’t you dare get out of that bed, Miz Crawford!” cried Queenie.

“Miz Crawford,” said James, “you probably don’t know us from Adam and his little sister, but Queenie and I have come to apologize and make amends.”

“For what?” said Dollie Faye, still trying to get out of bed. Queenie went around and put a stop to
that.

“It was my boy,” said Queenie in a low doleful voice, “who pointed a gun at your head yesterday!”

Dollie Faye fell back against the pillow in surprise.

“Your
boy!”

“Yes, ma’am,” said James.

“He is no good,” said Queenie. “I could
kill
him for scaring you like he did.”

“Your boy smell of creosote?”

“No, ma’am,” said James. “That was the other boy. That was Travis Gann. He
is
no good.”

Dollie Faye, who seemed to have recovered slightly, turned to Queenie and said, “Your boy wasn’t the one who said he was gone kill me. It was the other one—the one who smelled like creosote. Your boy didn’t want to be there. I could see it in his face. He was ’bout scared as I was.”

“I’d
like to scare him,” said Queenie vehemently. She took a chair beside the bed, and leaned forward confidingly. “I’m gone tell you something, Miz Crawford,” she said in a low voice. “My boy Malcolm takes after his daddy. His daddy was in the pen, more than once, though I am ashamed to have to say it. The best thing I can say about Malcolm’s daddy is that he has been dead for the last five years.”

“Now Miz Crawford,” James said, glancing at Dial and seeing instinctively that he was not to be an active part of any of this business, “we have brought you some money to make up for what those boys took.”

“I nearly forgot, I was so busy apologizing!” cried Queenie, and opened her purse. She handed ten twenty-dollar bills to Dollie Faye.

Dollie Faye cried, “This is so much! I only had twenty dollars in the register yesterday. What’d they do with all them pennies, anyway?”

“Spent ’em at the track,” said Queenie with a vigorous nodding of her head. “Every damn one! Oh, ’scuse me, Miz Crawford. I didn’t walk in this house with the intention of swearing in your face.”

“Y’all call me Dollie Faye.”

“Dollie Faye,” said James, “Queenie and I want to know what we can do for you.”

“Not a thing more, thank you,” replied Dollie Faye hastily. “I am taken care of. People have been real good. And you have given me
too much
money.”

“When are you gone be able to get out of this bed?” asked Queenie.

“Doctor says I ought to be here a week. See, I’ve got pressure trouble. Mama died of it. But I’m gone be all right. I
got
to be all right, ’cause I got to get up and run that store. Dial—that’s my husband over there in the corner—don’t even know how to run the register. And don’t know much about stock neither, when it comes down to it. Sometimes I let him wash off windshields, but not much more than that. Used to have a boy to pump gas, but he run off somewheres...”

“You’re not gone get out of that bed,” said James Caskey sternly.

“I wish I could stay in it,” said Dollie Faye, “but there’s people ’round here depend on me and this store.”

“I’m gone run it,” said Queenie, squeezing Dollie Faye’s hand.

“You?!”

“I used to work in the Ben Franklin up in Nashville, the big store they had up there. I know how to work a register.”

“Queenie’s real quick,” James assured her.

“But you cain’t just up and run my store for me!”

“I know why you’re refusing,” said Queenie in a low earnest voice. “It’s ’cause you don’t want the mother of the boy that put a gun to your head hanging around. You don’t want to have to look in her suffering face.”

“No! It’s just that it’s so much trouble out here. There’s always somebody wanting something special that only I know anything about, and—”

“Cain’t I step back in here and ask you things?”

“I guess you could...”

“It’s settled then,” said Queenie firmly.

“You cain’t pump gas,” objected Dollie Faye.

“My boy can,” whispered Queenie, leaning forward. “See, I’m gone make him quit his job at the mill. He wasn’t any good at it anyway, and I don’t want him hanging around with those men—he might find himself another Travis Gann. I’m gone bring him out here and make him work off what he stole from you. But you’re not even gone see him, I’m not gone let him step foot in this store. Just looking at him might send your pressure up. I saw that little bench out in front, and he’s gone sit out there all day long pumping gas, and if Mr. Crawford’s weary of washing windshields, then let him take his ease, ’cause Malcolm will do it for him.”

. . .

On the following day, the Crawford’s store was opened again, and Queenie Strickland had installed herself behind the counter in her second-best dress. Malcolm was out front pumping gas as instructed. James was there too, and he sat and visited with Dollie Faye, every now and then addressing a remark to Dial Crawford, who nodded sagely and kept rocking. At noontime and with Dollie Faye’s permission, a very red-faced Malcolm was ushered inside and made a stammering apology. Dollie Faye said, “What you did was wrong, and you near about broke your sweet mama’s heart. But I forgive you, Malcolm, for her sake and for your own.”

For the next two weeks Queenie presided over the store; Malcolm went on pumping gas, and James continued to sit beside Dollie Faye’s bed. Even when Dollie Faye had recovered and resumed her place behind the counter, Queenie and James were not much less assiduous in their attendance on her, and Malcolm kept his place at the pumps. Malcolm’s trial was scheduled for the first Wednesday in November, the day after the elections. Queenie drove Dollie Faye to the Bay Minette courthouse and sat with her in the courtroom all the morning long. There were two murders to be tried before the armed robberies came up and the two women observed the proceedings with interest.

Malcolm and Travis were tried together. Dollie Faye testified to the events of that September Saturday. Travis Gann had threatened to blow her head off, he had raised his gun and taken aim, he had carried the money off himself. Obviously ill at ease during the robbery, Malcolm Strickland had cautioned against violence. Dollie Faye was convinced that he had been roped into the whole business completely against his will. She testified that she believed that Malcolm would have come to her rescue had Travis actually attempted to kill her. Moreover, since the crime, Malcolm had more than made up the money that had been taken from her by assisting with the running of the store. Everybody in the courtroom had seen him pumping gas, changing oil, and washing windshields. Dollie Faye had nothing but good to say about Malcolm Strickland and his mother and his uncle, who had been good to her like good Christians ought to be.

After Dollie Faye’s testimony Malcolm Strickland was let off with a reprimand, while Travis Gann was sentenced to five years in the Atmore penitentiary.

At the defendants’ table, the two young men looked at each other.

“I guess,” said Malcolm, “it looks like I’m out and you’re in.”

“I guess,” said Travis Gann with a grin that Malcolm did not expect.

“Hey,” said Malcolm, “five years—that’s a long time. I’m sorry...”

“Don’t be sorry,” said Travis, still with the grin. “They’re sending me to Atmore. You know how hard it is to get out of Atmore?”

Malcolm shook his head, grateful that because of the court decision he had no use for such information.

“Getting out of Atmore,” said Travis, “is like climbing over a rotten log in some old farmer’s pasture, that’s what getting out of Atmore is like.”

“You ought to wait till you get in there, before you start thinking about getting out,” warned Malcolm.

“No, not me. I’m already thinking about what I’m gone be doing once I’m free.”

The senseless grin seemed to be frozen on Travis’s face and it was beginning to make Malcolm uneasy. Queenie and Dollie Faye were beckoning to him. Malcolm turned back to Travis and asked: “What you gone do, Travis?”

“I’m gone teach some people a lesson, that’s what I’m gone do.”

“Who you talking about?”

“I’m talking about people walking around free that ought to be in jail with their friends, that’s the first kind I’m talking about.” Just in case Malcolm had not understood this, Travis Gann punctuated the statement by poking a finger against Malcolm’s chest.

“And I’m talking about an old lady who don’t mind seeing her boy’s best friend get himself in real trouble. An old lady,” Travis went on with greater specificity, “who had just as soon see me rot in jail as not.” Travis turned his grin toward Queenie and called out, “Hey, Miz Strickland, you better come get your boy here ’fore I get him in any more trouble.”

At this, Queenie marched over and took Malcolm’s arm. She said, “Travis Gann, you got what you deserved. I’m not a bit sorry for you.”

“I know that,” Travis said, still grinning. “I know it very well. But maybe someday you will be. Sorry, I mean.”

Queenie took Malcolm out of the courtroom. Travis Gann was returned to his cell to await transfer to Atmore. Two more defendants took the young men’s place at the table, and Alabama law and justice continued.

That afternoon, sick of pumping gas and even sicker of his enforced penitence, Malcolm Strickland stole his mother’s car, drove to Mobile, and joined the army. He did not think it necessary to tell his mother of Travis Gann’s thinly veiled threats. It couldn’t be
that
easy to escape from Atmore.

After Miriam’s departure for college, Sister remained aloof from her brother Oscar and his wife. But one evening in November, Sister sat in her dining room alone, eating leftovers and gazing out the window at Oscar’s house next door. She could see her brother and his family having supper in their dining room. Frances was talking, and Oscar and Elinor were laughing at whatever it was their daughter was saying. Sister could even faintly hear their voices. She had a sudden revelation. She ran out and across the sandy yard, then called up toward the dining room window, “Hey, Oscar! Elinor!”

Elinor came to the window, and peered out into the evening gloom. “Sister?”

“Can I come in for a few minutes?”

“Of course you can. Come on in.” Elinor went into the front hallway.

“Elinor,” said Sister as she stepped inside the house, “I want to apologize. I cain’t
imagine
what I was thinking of.”

“Thinking of when?”

Oscar appeared in the dining room doorway with his crushed napkin in his hand and his mouth still full of food. “Hey, Sister, how you?”

“Oscar, you know how I am. I’m as lonesome over there as an old rail fence stretching off into nowhere.”

“Then why haven’t you come to see us before?”

Sister went into the dining room, sat at the table, and accepted the cup of coffee that Zaddie brought to her. “I don’t know where my head could have been,” said Sister.

“Sister, what
are
you talking about?” said Oscar.

“The reason I haven’t come to visit was because of Mama and Miriam. Neither one of ’em ever came here any more than they absolutely had to.”

Oscar and Elinor nodded in silent assent.

“But Mama’s dead and Miriam’s gone off to school, and I was sitting there all alone, seeing your lights over here, thinking, ‘Well, I cain’t go over there, Mama’d kill me or Miriam wouldn’t speak to me.’ Then all of a sudden I realized how foolish I was being, so here I am.”

Oscar laughed. “Sister, those two had you
trained.”

“They sure did!”

“I hope you’re going to come over and see us all the time, now,” said Elinor.

“I sure would like to,” sighed Sister. “And maybe I will.”

“What’s going to stop you?” asked Elinor.

“Who knows?” said Sister darkly. “That’s the problem with this family—you cain’t count on anything staying the same for long.”

Thereafter, Elinor and Oscar wouldn’t hear of Sister’s eating supper by herself in that dark old house. In the afternoon, Elinor frequently called across the yard, “Sister, come on over here and keep me company.” Sometimes, Sister and Elinor went shopping together. “Elinor,” Sister once said, “you married Oscar seventeen years ago. We’ve all grown old since then, but this is the first time you and I have spent any time together. I get mad at Mama and Miriam when I think of all the things they kept me from doing.”

“Blame Mary-Love,” returned Elinor. “Don’t blame Miriam. Miriam wasn’t grown up. You could have told Miriam what to do, and Miriam would have had to do it. You were weak, Sister. But after being brought up by that mama of yours, I don’t see how you could have been any other way.”

. . .

There were other alterations in the relationships within the Caskey family that autumn. When Malcolm ran away to join the army, Queenie was distraught, and begged James to send somebody to fetch him back. But James argued that Malcolm was twenty-one and could do what he pleased. “Besides,” James pointed out while they were choosing an automobile to replace the one Malcolm had stolen, “you have always said that what Malcolm needed was a good dose of army discipline.” So Queenie allowed herself to be lightened of the burden that had been her son. She no longer worried about him, but indulged herself to a greater extent than ever before in James’s company. Lucille complained that her mother was never at home, and that she always knew where to find her, which was over at Uncle James’s. James and Queenie gossiped, James and Queenie went shopping in Pensacola and Mobile, James and Queenie had no secrets from one another. Then they began making visits in Perdido as a couple. Some lady in town would say to her friend, “I’m bored to death. Let’s call up James and Queenie and see if they won’t come over and talk a spell.” Or another lady would say, “Let’s ride by James’s house and see if Queenie and him are out on the porch.”