BLACKWATER:The Mysterious Saga of the Caskey Family (76 page)

The trouble was, no one knew the extent of James's fortune. Yet this lack of knowledge proved to be the solution to another Caskey problem. Ever since Billy Bronze and Frances Caskey had got married, Billy had had a great deal of time on his hands, particularly after he was released from the Air Corps. He volunteered his services to the local Veterans Administration office and four evenings a week taught radio and accounting to ex-servicemen who drifted back to Perdido. But most of the time Billy felt useless, left alone all day with the women while his father-in-law Oscar and his sister-in-law Miriam went off to the bustling mill. He had declined an offer to work at the mill because he knew nothing of the lumber business. He understood that Oscar had made the job proposal only out of charity. Miriam, speaking with greater candor, had said: "We'll be glad to put you on the payroll as long as you promise not to go out and get in everybody's way." Billy wanted not only to work, but to work at something useful.

Frances, however, liked having her husband at home all day. She enjoyed the fact that he could drive her to Pensacola for an afternoon movie or down to Mobile for some shopping. But she saw also that he was restless. One morning in the winter of 1946, as Frances and Billy lay in bed together, Frances turned to her husband and said, "Maybe Miriam could find you a place in the office at the mill. I know you don't know anything about trees, and you don't like working out-of-doors, but you're fine with a pencil and an adding machine."

"No, no," protested Billy, "don't do that! Please don't say anything to Miriam!"

"Why not?" asked Frances, puzzled.

"Just think for a minute," said Billy. "Just think how hard Miriam works at that mill."

"She runs it!" said Miriam's sister proudly.

"That's just it," nodded Billy. "Now what do you think would happen if I suddenly started to show up there every day?"

"You'd help her run it better."

Billy shook his head. "No, no. Don't forget that I'm a Caskey now. So if I went to work in that office, people would start coming to me because I'm older— and because I'm a man. Pretty soon I'd have more power than Miriam, not because I was any better than her at it, but just because I was a man. Miriam knows that, and she doesn't want me there. And I don't blame her for one minute."

"You think that's what would happen?"

"I know it," returned Billy definitely. "I am not going to interfere with your sister. She has worked long and hard. But," said Billy, taking Frances in his arms, and pressing her head against his bare chest, "maybe what I could do..."

"What?"

"I could keep books. That's what I do best."

"But you just said that you didn't want to interfere—"

"I'm not talking about the mill," said Billy. "I'm talking about keeping books for the family, being a kind of personal accountant for everybody."

"You think you could do that? Daddy says that everything's so confused."

"I could do it without giving it a second thought. I inherited that from my father. Keeping books is how he made all his money. He was so good at it. At night he'd go down to his office and look through the books for ten minutes. Next day he'd go out and make five thousand dollars. I never saw anything like it."

Frances was so excited by the idea that she pulled her husband out of bed and hurried him down to the breakfast room. She then insisted that he explain his proposal to Elinor and Oscar.

"Let me look things over," Billy said. "We ought to be able to figure out just what everybody's got. It wouldn't be a bad thing to find out what kind of shape you're all in."

"Not a bad idea," said Oscar, "but I don't know where to tell you to begin, everything's so mixed up. See, we did pretty badly in the first years of the Depression and pretty well during the war. Then everybody was dying for a while, and there were wills to contend with, and who left what to who, and people borrowing from each other, and I don't know what all else. The way it works now is if somebody needs some money they go to Miriam, and Miriam writes a check."

"It shouldn't be that way," said Billy. "That's nothing against Miriam, but everybody should know exactly what they've got. That way nobody's going to feel cheated, and—believe me—you'll all make more money."

Elinor appeared to like this idea, and asked: "What do you need?"

"I need to see whatever you've got—papers, wills, deeds, bank statements, certificates, every bit of paper any of you can lay your hands on. First I'll have to see what belongs to each of you personally and what belongs to the mill. If it belongs to the mill, then I'll pass it along to Miriam and let her deal with it. This'll help her get things straightened out, too. After I know what everybody's got, I'll be able to see what we can do to make it a lot more." Billy shrugged and laughed apologetically. "I'm not greedy, you know. It's just that all this is in my blood. I see a balance sheet and all I can think is, how do I make those totals bigger?"

"When do you want to start?" asked Elinor.

"As soon as possible. But don't you think you'd better speak to the others first?"

"Why?" asked Elinor, certain of her position in the Caskey family. "They're going to say yes."

So Billy went right to work on getting the monetary affairs of the Caskey family in order. Elinor rented him a little office downtown and bought him a desk and file cabinets. He employed Frances as a secretary, not because she was efficient, but rather because she so much delighted to be in his company, even when he was silent and absorbed in his work. One by one the Caskeys came to Billy with all the documents they could find and told him everything they could remember about the family's financial dealings for as far back as they could go. Billy took notes and asked questions.

Miriam and Billy worked together. Before the real net worth of the family could be determined, all the transactions that pertained directly to the mill had to be separated from personal business. Miriam was glad to be of help in this for it would ultimately serve to clarify her own work. While her sister and husband were closeted in his office, Frances would wander about the outer room, looking at magazines and staring out the window at the kudzu-covered levee.

By April, Billy had got the family finances straightened out, and after dinner one Sunday afternoon the Caskeys all gathered on Elinor's screened porch. Even Grace, Lucille, and Tommy Lee had come in from Gavin Pond Farm for the day.

Elinor made only a brief introduction: "Billy has been kind enough to agree to take care of us from now on. I want everybody to listen to him and do exactly what he says."

At this, Billy stood, made a self-deprecating nod, and spoke: "Now, I don't want anybody to think that I have jumped into all this and am trying to take over, because that's not it at all. I'm just a son-in-law accountant, and what I've tried to do is get this family's money business straight—"

"Probably for the first time ever," interjected Sister.

"I looked over all the papers you brought me, and I tried to get everything in order. I'm taking care of everything so that nobody but me has to think about it. You have all been very patient, not getting upset " because you thought maybe I was prying into your private affairs—even Grace brought me her books on Gavin Pond Farm, and I think I'll be able to help her build up her herd out there. If y'all have any questions from now on come to me with them, because I think I know about what's what."

"You are doing so much!" cried Sister.

"You may think it's a lot," said Billy, "but it's not. Sister, that's the trouble. You really don't have any idea how much money you have. You want to go to New Orleans, you go to Miriam and you get two hundred and fifty dollars in cash, and that's what you call bookkeeping. I'm here today to tell you that you've all got entirely too much money to treat it like that."

Something in Billy's tone and manner reminded the Caskeys of the Methodist preacher's sermon that morning. Billy was pointing out the errors of their financial ways, and exhorting them to tread paths of greater fiscal responsibility.

"How much have we got?" asked Oscar.

"Well," said Billy, "of course the greatest portion of the family wealth is tied up in the mill and the plants. So Miriam and I have been working closely to see if we couldn't determine exactly how much all that is worth." He turned to Miriam, who stood up with some papers in her hand.

"I'm not gone go into details, 'cause it's not necessary," Miriam said with characteristic bluntness. "Most of you wouldn't understand them anyway. There are two points. First point: James had a half-interest in everything. Sister and Oscar have a quarter-interest each. That is to say, all the real money is divided up between Sister, Oscar, and James's estate. That's not a complaint on my part, that's just stating the case. Second point: The mill and the Caskey lands together are worth approximately twenty-three million dollars." Miriam again took her seat.

"Good Lord!" cried Queenie.

No one else spoke—no one had had any idea that the value was so great. None of the Caskeys had ever considered attaching a number in dollars to the operation.

"We just wanted to give you an idea of the size," said Miriam. "See what I mean? Everybody was surprised. Oscar," she said, turning to her father with a rare smile, "even you didn't expect it to be so much, did you?"

"I sure didn't!"

"Your private fortunes are much smaller," said Billy. "For many years most of the personal profits have been reinvested, and not always in the strictest manner."

Oscar blushed. "Billy, let me say—"

"Nobody's blaming you, Oscar," said Sister. "You're the one who built the mill up, and if twenty-three million dollars is not enough to keep us all off the streets, then we all might as well lay down right now and give up the ghost."

"No," said Billy, "it's not so much that things were unfair, they were just confused. Money was borrowed and never paid back. Money that should have gone to Sister was used to buy new machinery, and so forth. Nobody's accusing anybody of anything, and the fact is—and you all know it—that the mill could very well have folded up without Oscar doing what he did. All I've been trying to do is to separate things out again, so you all know where you stand. That's what I've done. Oscar Caskey is worth, in personal holdings and entitlements exclusive of the mill, approximately one million one hundred thousand dollars."

Oscar whistled, and Elinor's smile was well satisfied.

"Sister Haskew is worth approximately one million three hundred thousand dollars."

"Y'all," cried Sister, staring around the room with an astonished eye, "I'm gone buy me a new car tomorrow!"

"James Caskey," said Billy, "was worth approximately two million seven hundred thousand dollars, exclusive of his half-interest in the mill. And that fortune, as you know, will be divided three ways— equally—when the will is probated."

"Lord," cried Queenie, sitting on the glider with her grandchild in her lap, "James has gone and made me rich as Croesus."

"Now," continued Billy Bronze, "there is no reason why this family can't be a whole lot richer. You've got money now, and once you've got money, it's the easiest thing in the world to make more."

"What for?" asked Grace. "Who needs millions and millions of dollars? Why do we need any more money than we've already got?"

Miriam turned to her cousin with a sour face. "So you can run out and buy your four hundred old heifers, that's why."

"I don't want four hundred," said Grace, unperturbed. "My pasture's not that big. I could use about eighty—unless I cleared more land..."

"I'm not against making more money," said Oscar. "I think we should, in fact. I just don't know how to go about it. Billy, do you?"

"Yes," said Billy, "I think I do."

Miriam nodded. "Billy knows what he's talking about. If it were my decision, everybody in this room would sign over power of attorney to Billy and let him do what he wants."

"You don't have to do that," said Billy, a bit nervously. "All I would like to do is make recommendations, and if you like them, then you can go through with them. That's all. Here's what I'm suggesting: Miriam and I will work together. Miriam will take care of the mill, like she's been doing—just fine— all along. And I'll take care of your personal money. If you need some cash you don't go to Miriam anymore, you come to me instead."

"It sure would save me some bother," said Miriam, "not to have to write those damned checks all the time."

The Caskeys all acquiesced to Billy's proposal, and after that Sunday afternoon on the screened porch, they never saw themselves in the same light again.

They possessed far more money than any of them had suspected. Elinor was proud, as if she considered that her advice and support of Oscar during the hard years had made the fortunes possible. Sister was elated, for how could her husband touch her when so much money would have kept at bay someone far more dangerous and insistent than Early Haskew? Grace and Lucille were lost in dreams of pastures and herds and newly cleared land. The possibilities for the family seemed endless, but at the same time things seemed a bit vague. For the next few days, they looked about feverishly for things to spend money on. Sister bought a new car for herself, and another for Miriam. What's more, she bought Billy Bronze one, too. In her new car Sister drove Roxie, Ivey, Zaddie, and Luvadia down to Pensacola and turned them loose in one of the nicest dress shops in town, saying, "We are not leaving this place until I have squandered five hundred dollars, and I mean it."

On the whole, however, the Caskeys didn't spend much more than they had before. They simply became conscious of their wealth. Billy was very busy, in his office downtown. He took over the running of Queenie's household, so that she would not be embarrassed for funds while James's will was still in probate. He conferred with Grace about the building up of Gavin Pond Farm. Sister came twice a week to find out how quickly and by how much her net worth was increasing. Oscar and Miriam visited him frequently, and Billy was often closeted in deep financial discussions, particularly with his sister-in-law. Frances was enormously proud of what her husband had done—and was doing—for the family. The Caskeys urged Billy to accept a salary for his work, and he did so without demur.