Blackwater: The Complete Caskey Family Saga (80 page)

“Miz Caskey, you in my way. I’m not never gone get breakfast on the table ’less you get out of here and leave me alone.”

Sister knew that tone in the black woman’s voice, so she backed out of the kitchen and returned to her bed, though not to sleep. Now that Ivey had agreed to assist her, Sister began to worry that Ivey would dally, and that the changes in her fate would not be rung in time.

An hour later, Sister and Miriam went down to breakfast together. When they had finished, Ivey dropped a small, corked blue bottle into the pocket of Sister’s dress.

“When you see him coming,” said Ivey in a low voice, “when you hear his voice, drink this.”

Sister pressed her hand against the bottle. Poison was stored in blue-glass bottles. “What will it do?”

“Drink every drop,” was all Ivey said, and then she turned away.

. . .

Miriam had finally grown so self-confident in her identity and position at the Caskey mill that she sometimes allowed herself to fall into conversation with her mother. After all, Miriam was in close conference with her father four or five times a day, and it hardly seemed acceptable that she completely ignore her mother. Besides, more than a quarter of a century had passed since Elinor had done the unforgivable—given Miriam away in exchange for her freedom from Mary-Love. Everyone in town accepted the fact that Miriam and her mother would never be close, and the understated reconciliation of the two was looked on rather as the affection between a dog and a cat is seen: an object of curiosity, and sentimentality—and fascination. After all, one never knew at what moment the cat might claw out one of the mooning dog’s eyes, or when the dog might snap up the cat in its fierce jaws.

Miriam and Elinor, however, had a common ground and interest that provided sufficient reason for a number of small private conferences. This common ground was money—the desire for the Caskeys to be even richer than they already were. Miriam would never have allowed her mother to speak to her on the subject of her manner of dress, or young men, or her conduct in regard to Sister or Queenie, but Miriam’s ears prickled with interest when Elinor spoke to her of the Caskey finances. Sometimes, to everyone’s surprise, Elinor and Miriam could be seen out in the yard, rocking slowly in one of the swings that hung between two of Elinor’s water oaks. Miriam sat with her legs drawn up beneath her, and Elinor used one foot to keep the swing in motion; they were absorbed in deep conversation, the subject of which they would never subsequently reveal.

When Oscar called them in to supper, mother and daughter would enter the house separately, as if to deny what everyone had seen. And if Oscar in a whisper ventured to say to his daughter, “I’m so glad you and Elinor are starting to get along,” Miriam would reply only, “It’s less trouble to speak than it is not to speak, Oscar. That’s all.”

One Saturday afternoon early in April, Miriam and Elinor were sitting in the swing and quietly talking when Elinor suddenly said, “Let me ask you, Miriam—”

“What?” said Miriam suddenly and aggressively, as if she expected her mother to open some inappropriate matter of discussion.

Elinor paused for a moment, then asked a question that Miriam certainly hadn’t expected: “How well do you know Grace and Lucille’s farm?”

Miriam looked at her mother mistrustfully. She still wasn’t used to being alone with her, and had been suspecting that Elinor would eventually use this quiet time together to put one over on her. She was now instantly defensive, trying to figure out what trick might lie behind this innocent question. Miriam decided to take it quite literally, and to answer with complete truthfulness. “I know how to get to there,” said Miriam carefully. “And I’ve seen maps of the whole place. I know the house. I’ve been in the orchard, and one time Grace took me out to the pigpen and showed me a sow she had paid eight hundred dollars for. Once I went to see Luvadia in the little house that Escue built for her on the other side of the pond next to the graveyard there.”

“What about the swamp south of the property?”

“Well,” said Miriam, with a loud exhalation of disapproval, “I know you encouraged her to buy it, and I know she bought it. I’ve seen it on a map, too, and it’s enormous, four times as big as the farm itself. I know what she paid for it, and I know that it was the biggest waste of money since—”

“It wasn’t a waste of money,” said Elinor quietly.

“She cain’t farm it!” cried Miriam. “She cain’t do any cutting on it, ’cause there aren’t any roads—and most of it is just swamp and quicksand anyway. She cain’t sell hunting licenses—you know there are big cats still in that swamp? Big cats and alligators. So you tell me why it wasn’t a waste of money.”

“Miriam,” said her mother, “this is between you and me, you hear?”

Miriam didn’t respond. The idea of a confidence between Elinor and herself was not appealing.

“Miriam?” Elinor prompted after a moment.

“I don’t make promises like that.”

“I’m not asking for promises,” said Elinor. “I just don’t want you to say anything about what I’m going to tell you until the time is right...and ripe.”

“What is it, then?”

“I know that land
looks
worthless. It looks worthless on the map. It’d look worthless if you rowed down the Perdido and looked at it from the river or if you were foolish enough to go traipsing around in it. I know that. And that’s why Grace was able to get it so cheap.”

“No piece of land is ‘cheap’ when you buy that much,” Miriam pointed out. “Grace spent nearly everything that James left her. Now she doesn’t have anything to fall back on.”

“Grace didn’t pay for all that land herself,” said Elinor.

Miriam gave a small start. This was news to her.

“Oscar and I put up most of the money for that property,” Elinor stated evenly.

“Why?”
demanded Miriam, stunned.

“Because,”
Elinor replied in the same tone of voice, “underneath that swamp there is nothing but oil, oil, oil, and more oil.”

. . .

The next day, Elinor and Miriam drove out to Gavin Pond Farm. When they knocked on Grace and Lucille’s door, no one answered. Miriam went around to the side of the house, and then called out, “I see them! They’re out in the pasture.”

The sun shone bright and hot in a cloudless cerulean sky. The pecan trees wore their brightest spring leaves, whole and luscious, not yet covered with summer’s dust or set upon by caterpillars. And below the trees, the pasture was awash in blooming clover. Lucille sat amid the ravishing red blossoms, with three-year-old Tommy Lee and two-year-old Sammy Sapp gamboling at her side. Grace stood a few yards in front of them taking photographs. The scene was a child’s palette of colors: the blue sky above, the green pecan trees in the middle, and the red clover beneath. When the wind blew it seemed that the earth was covered in a sheet of flame.

Lucille saw Elinor and Miriam and waved.

Mother and daughter went out into the pasture. Miriam allowed her photograph to be taken with her mother’s arm around her waist; Miriam picked up Sammy and Elinor picked up Tommy Lee and Grace snapped another picture. Then Elinor took a photograph of Lucille, Grace, and Miriam all sitting together in the clover.

When they returned to the house, Miriam turned to Grace and said, “Have you got those maps of that land you bought?”

“Of course,” Grace replied.

“Can Elinor and I have a look at them?”

Puzzled, Grace said yes. The maps were spread out on the dining room table, and while Grace and Lucille went into the kitchen and prepared iced tea, they heard Elinor and Miriam speaking in low voices. Lucille peeked through the door, then went back to Grace and whispered, “They’re pointing out things on the map.”

“What on earth,” said Grace, entering the dining room with a tray of glasses, “are y’all looking at on that map?”

Miriam and Elinor looked up in one motion, and each with the same bland smile said, “Nothing...”

. . .

On the drive back to Perdido with the late afternoon sun shining blindingly in their eyes, Miriam demanded of her mother, “How do you know about that oil?”

“That’s my secret with somebody else,” said Elinor.

“What does Oscar say about this?”

“I haven’t told him yet,” said Elinor. “He still thinks it was foolish to put up money for that land.”

This amazed Miriam as much as anything she’d heard yet. “You mean you’ve told
me
, but not Oscar?”

Elinor nodded.

“Why?”

“Because,” said Elinor, “Oscar knows everything there is to know about trees, and he doesn’t know much about anything else.”

“I
don’t know anything about oil,” Miriam pointed out.

“But you do know about making money for the family,” said Elinor, “and that’s why I came to you. If I went to Oscar, Oscar would say, ‘Elinor, we’ve got enough money as it is, and I don’t know anything about oil.’ But if I come to you, you’re going to go right out and see if you can’t make some money off it. A lot of money.”

Miriam considered this as they drove through Babylon. On the highway toward Perdido, she said, “Why should I do anything? I’m not going to make anything off it. Why should I take the trouble? All that land belongs to you and Oscar and Grace and Lucille.” This wasn’t said with animosity, merely with thoughtfulness.

“No,” said Elinor. “Grace and Lucille own a quarter of it, Oscar and I own a quarter of it, we gave a quarter to Frances and Billy, and...” She paused significantly.

“And?”

“And Oscar and I signed over a quarter of it to you.”

“To me?” Miriam exclaimed. “I don’t need any presents from you,” she added hastily.

“It’s not meant to be a present. Oscar thinks of it like that, of course, but I made sure you got some because I knew that if you didn’t have an interest in it, you wouldn’t do anything about it.”

“And I wouldn’t have!” said Miriam with pride in her selfishness.

“So one-quarter of that property is yours.”

“Why does everybody keep talking about it as Grace’s then?”

“Because it’s part of Gavin Pond Farm, that’s all. And we wanted to keep the details secret.”

“Does Grace know that it’s been divided up this way?”

Elinor nodded. “She knows that Oscar and I put up most of the money. It’s the same as with the will: we all have quarter-
interests,
Miriam. It’s not that you own any particular four thousand acres, it’s that you own a quarter of the whole—and that you get a quarter of any money that land brings in.”

“Does Grace know about the oil?”

Elinor shook her head. “Just you and me.”

“What would Grace say if we were to send people out there to start drilling?”

“My guess,” said Elinor, “is that Grace wouldn’t like it one little bit.”

“For the time being,” said Miriam thoughtfully, “we ought not to say a word to anybody.”

Elinor smiled. “A secret between you and me.”

“Yes,” said Miriam, with reluctance. “I guess. I’m going to have to do a little thinking about this. Have you told Billy?”

“No. Just you.”

“Let me speak to Billy, if you don’t mind. Billy could probably be of some help.”

“If you like. But please ask him not to say anything to Frances,” cautioned Elinor. “Frances sometimes speaks when she ought not to.”

“Don’t worry. Billy won’t say anything.”

For the rest of the trip back to town, the two women were silent. Elinor drove with eyes half-closed against the lowering sun; Miriam was lost in concentration. She looked up in surprise when Elinor brought the car to a halt in front of her house. “Oh, we’re here already!” she said in astonishment.

Elinor started to get out of the car, but Miriam held her back with a word. “That quarter-interest,” she said. “The quarter-interest you and Oscar signed over to me.”

“What about it?”

“That was a gift, wasn’t it?”

“Absolutely not,” said Elinor as she got out of the car.

. . .

The remainder of that evening, Miriam was lost to the world. She sat absently at her parents’ table, paid no attention at all to the conversation on the upstairs porch after supper, and later could not fall asleep for thinking of the oil that lay under the swamp. She did not even hear Sister’s knock on the door of her room.

The knock was repeated, and finally Miriam called out in the darkness, “Sister?”

“Miriam,” said Sister, opening the door softly. The hallway behind her was dark, too. “Miriam, am I waking you up?”

“No,” replied Miriam. “What’s wrong?”

“I wanted to speak to you. I couldn’t sleep.” Sister came in and sat at the foot of Miriam’s bed. Though only fifty-five, Sister seemed to have aged beyond those years in the past month. Her dress and hair were untidy, her air abstracted. She was worried, everyone knew, about Early’s return.

“Why couldn’t you sleep?” asked Miriam.

“I’m worried about Early.”

“I thought he’d already be here by now,” remarked Miriam. “It’s already the second week in April.”

“Don’t say that!” cried Sister. “I cain’t hardly eat for thinking about what I’m gone do when he comes back.”

“What
are
you gone do?” asked Miriam curiously.

“I don’t know!” wailed Sister. The darkness seemed to increase her woe. “I don’t know what to do! I feel like running away!”

“You’d better do it soon, then,” said Miriam matter-of-factly.

“Where would I go?”

“Where would you
like
to go?”

“I don’t want to go anywhere. I don’t know anyplace but Perdido.”

“You’ve been lots of places, Sister.”

“I haven’t been anywhere in ten years, it feels like.”

“Sister,” said Miriam with some impatience, “if you don’t want to live with Early, then you don’t have to. I don’t know what all this fuss is about. When he shows up, just tell him to go away.”

“I don’t even want to see him!”

“Then
you
go away. And let’s you and me just stop talking in circles about this.”

With a quick movement, Sister grabbed Miriam’s ankles beneath the bedspread.
“You
deal with Early.”

“I will not,” said Miriam. “Early is not my husband. This is none of my business.”