That Night at the Palace (22 page)

As it turned out, Juanita really had inherited a good head for business. The Farm was the largest and most successful farm within miles. Eventually she had houses built for the people she hired to work the fields and tend the cattle. Granted, none of it would have been possible without the money generated by the “business,” but as Mr. Hamilton joked, “If the house ever burned down, Delilah would still turn a profit off corn and turnips.”

One Saturday afternoon just a few weeks after Sarah’s sixteenth birthday, she was walking home from spending the day at her friend Clara’s house in Maydelle. Clara’s parents had come to know and love Sarah, though they were initially slow to accept the girl. They knew where Sarah lived and were, understandably, hesitant to let their daughter become friends with someone from such a background. They, of course, knew Marie from church and admired her dedication and hard work each year at the annual spring revival. Marie explained that although she lived on The Farm, Sarah had never been in the house, and she doubted the young girl knew any more about what took place inside than did Clara.

So that Saturday as she turned off the main road onto the lane leading to the house, as she had done a hundred times before, she had no cares in the world. She was running later than normal, and as the rays of sunlight gave way to dusk, she picked up her pace as much as she could, knowing what trouble she would be in if she didn’t get home before dark. Not many visitors came along during the day, but on the occasion that an automobile passed as she walked up the road, she paid no attention to them, and they, understandably, were too focused on their destination to notice her.

Then, as it was just about dark, a sedan with two young men in it pulled up beside her. The young man driving asked, “Hi! Would you like a ride up to the house?”

Sarah was a little frightened by the boys and shook her head, continuing on her way.

But the men were not so easily deterred. “My name’s Peterson and this is my little brother, Richard. He’s never been to the farm.”

Sarah tried to ignore them, but they persisted.

“Do you live here at the farm?”

“Please leave me alone.”

“Look she talks,” Richard joked.

“Come on, get in. We’re goin’ the same place as you. There’s no reason you should walk all that way.”

Sarah stopped and looked at them. She was not out much when men were coming to the Farm, so she didn’t see many of them, but the ones she did see were always much older than these two. These men were not much older than she. Sarah looked up at the sky; it was almost dark. She then looked down the lane, knowing that she was still a long way from home.

“You’re going to the house?”

“Yeah,” Peterson answered with a smile.

She hesitated for a few moments and then nodded. Peterson, the driver, got out of the car, and she climbed into the seat between the two men.

As soon as Peterson was back in the car Richard asked Sarah, “So what’s your name?”

“Sarah.”

“Isn’t that haunted cemetery around here?”

“Sure. It’s right down the road,” Peterson responded.

“I’ve never seen a ghost. Have you, Sarah?”

“I need to get home.”

Richard put his arm around her. “Oh, come on, we won’t be long.”

Peterson put the car in reverse and headed back to the main road.

“Please,” she pleaded, “I need to get back.”

“You look frightened,” Peterson stated as he headed the car up the road and away from the lane, “there’s no reason for a girl like you to be afraid of a couple of boys like us.”

“I really need to get home.”

Richard produced a bottle from bottle from the floorboard, “Here, have a drink. It’ll make you feel better.”

Laughing, he pushed the bottle to her lips. She tried to resist as alcohol splashed all over her dress. She swallowed some. It burned and caused her to cough.

Peterson pulled the car up to a cemetery gate.

“My little brother’s never been to the tomato farm. Why don’t you give him a little taste of what he can expect?”

Richard started kissing and groping her.

Now in tears she pleaded, “Please stop.”

She began trying to push him away as Peterson took a long pull from the bottle. Richard finally opened the door and stepped out of the car. He pulled on Sarah, ripping her dress completely open.

“Come out here with me. There’s no room in the car.”

Standing outside the car he tried to pull her out, but she continued to resist. Laughing, Peterson gave her a shove, and she started sliding off the seat. Continuing to fight, she kicked at Richard and he fell into a slight ditch on the roadside. Sarah tumbled out of the car on top of him. Seeing her chance, she took off running down the road in the direction of the house. Richard got to his feet and began to run after her while Peterson sat laughing.

Sarah slipped through a barbed wire fence on the roadside, leaving a piece of her torn dress hung on the wire. Richard tried to pursue but got hung up in the fence. Having played in these fields all of her life, she had no trouble finding her way through the corn rows and woods and easily found her way back home.

Richard eventually got through the fence but lost her once she got into the corn and finally gave up. In the distance, Peterson could be heard laughing.

It was another thirty minutes before Sarah got home. Her dress had been torn to shreds, and she had scratches and cuts all over her arms and legs from running through bushes, woods, and cornfields. With tears streaming down her face, she recounted what had happened to Marie, who, upon hearing the story, ran into the house to get Juanita.

Embarrassed and still frightened, Sarah re-told her ordeal to her mother. Though hardened and bitter from life, Juanita had surprising compassion when it came to Sarah. Regardless of what hardships life had thrown her, Juanita was a good mother who worked tirelessly to give her baby a future.

Early the next morning Juanita and Marie took the farm truck into Jacksonville. Juanita decided that Sarah should not be living behind the house. She needed to be away from that environment. It had happened once and it could easily happen again.

After a little looking, they found a nice little whitewashed building just off Commerce Street. Juanita had often thought about opening a produce store, and this was a good opportunity. Sarah and Marie could live in the apartment on the second floor, and they would sell vegetables in the store downstairs through the summer and dry goods during the winter. The place really didn’t need to make money; the other business provided plenty of income, but still, it wouldn’t hurt if it turned a profit.

So Sarah and Marie began their little produce store. A year later Sarah finished her education, and at her mother’s insistence, she enrolled in the Alexander Collegiate Institute there in Jacksonville. She was not a good student and hated school. There were very few women in the institute, and every man there reminded her of the two brothers who drove her to the cemetery that terrible night. Finally, after a couple of long nights of arguing, Juanita finally relinquished and Sarah left school to work full time at the produce store.

Sarah worked hard, and the little store flourished. Soon she began taking produce from several local farmers. And since farmers were coming in almost every day, she began selling other things that they needed such as farm tools and feed, and of course overalls and tractor parts.

A couple of years after she began working full time at “The Farm Produce Store” Sarah noticed a young man hiding behind the grubbing hoe display looking at her, but she couldn’t get a good look at him. She really didn’t give him any more thought until the next day when she walked out to the post office to buy stamps.

She didn’t see the car following her as much as she sensed it. Finally after she looked back a couple of times the car drove on past her and parked on the street a little ahead. Still not concerned, but curious, she continued on along the sidewalk. She tried not to look at the car, but she could tell that the driver was definitely watching her.

Then as she passed Richard Crawford, the younger of the two brothers, stepped out of the car and asked, “Hey sweetie! Remember me?”

Sarah froze; even before she turned around she knew the voice and was terrified. Turning, she looked at the face that she had tried to block from her memory then spun and began walking quickly up the sidewalk.

Richard, smiling broadly, chased after her.

“Come on, I just want to take you for a ride.”

“Please go away,” she pleaded without stopping.

“Don’t be that way. I just want to have some fun.”

“I’ve got to go.”

“I’ll get my brother; he’s married now, but he still likes to have fun.”

She began walking faster to get away from him. Finally he grabbed her arm.

“Come on,” he began, still smiling. “We’ll pay whatever you want.”

Terrified and in tears she tried to pull her arm free.

“Please let me go,” she said much louder than she intended.

People along the street looked at them, and Richard quickly let go. His smile quickly went away.

“I don’t know why you think you’re too good for me, but I don’t have to take insults from a whore.”

Tears streaming down her cheeks, she turned away from him and began running up the street. With fire in his eyes Richard watched her run away. He then noticed people along the street looking at him. He quickly turned and went back to his car.

For the next two weeks Sarah lived in terror, almost never leaving the store or apartment above. Finally, after a week and knowing that Marie had long since concluded that something had happened, Sarah sat down with both her mother and Marie and told them about Richard. It was decided, though Sarah objected, that they would sell the store and open a new business much farther away.

The following day Juanita paid a visit to the First American Bank of Jacksonville Texas where she discussed the value and potential sale of “The Farm Produce Store.” The bank assistant manager, Mr. Grover Beckwith, not only helped the pretty lady assess the value of the store, but out of kindness, he found a local businessman to take the store off her hands.

Juanita, of course, was no fool. She knew before walking into the bank what price she expected to get for the store, and she also knew that, looking her most attractive, she would get a senior representative who would do his best to “lend a hand” and help her find a buyer who would give her a “fair price.”

The businessman that Mr. Beckwith introduced Juanita to took a good look at the store and several good looks at Juanita and made an offer that was considerably more than the price the banker thought the store was worth. Juanita, to Mr. Beckwith’s surprise, smiled broadly and declined the offer, to which the gentleman naturally countered. The negotiation continued over a delightful lunch at the only steakhouse in Jacksonville, where Juanita eventually agreed to a price that was ten percent more than she had hoped and thirty percent more than the stupid banker thought the store was worth.

Juanita split the proceeds three ways. Twenty-five percent went to Sarah and twenty-five percent went to Marie since the two of them had managed the business and, frankly, were the reason it had done so well. The other half went to an account Juanita kept for Mr. Horace McCracken Hamilton. Again, Juanita was no fool. One does not skim on business partners, especially those who claim to be in the lumber business but were actually bootleggers.

Sarah and Marie were given a month to find a place to go, but for the time being they could continue living in the apartment while they helped the transfer of ownership. Juanita, of course, had to go back to her real work. Businesses like The Farm didn’t manage themselves.

A little before midnight on the same day the sale was finalized, “Miss Delilah’s Tomato Farm” was raided by Texas Rangers, Texas state highway patrol officers, and United States Treasury investigators. Everyone in the house was taken to jail. As it turned out, Mr. Horace McCracken Hamilton, who happened to be in the house at the time, was the subject of an ongoing investigation into his finances. Mr. Hamilton, of course, had legal representation and was released on bail almost immediately.

The ladies who worked at the farm were not quite so fortunate. Because Mr. Hamilton had been making some headlines as a result of his bootlegging connection, the judge was not so quick to let them go. Normally they might spend a night or two in jail, but under the circumstances each of the ladies of “The Maydelle Tomato Farm” were sentenced to six months at the Goree Unit of the Texas prison system outside Huntsville.

Almost all of the men arrested at the raid were released within hours, the judge not wanting to destroy any of their reputations for a simple lapse of good judgment. Only two men received any jail time, and those two, Peterson and Richard Crawford, would have been released had they not tried to escape from the raid by attempting to fight off the officers. Assaulting an officer of the law would have gotten both of them at least six month to a year in the state penitentiary, but after hitting a state patrolman Richard grabbed a Texas Ranger from behind while his brother smashed a wooden chair across his face, breaking his nose. As a result the two were given five years each in the Eastham Unit near Weldon.

For Juanita, the consequences of the raid at the farm were far worse. Though Mr. Hamilton received half of the profits as the Treasury Department Investigators concluded, the title to the property was in her name, and therefore the business belonged to her. That did not stop the Treasury Department from confiscating all of her property and bank deposits in their investigation of Hamilton. Thus she had no money for representation. So, two weeks to the day after the raid at “The Maydelle Tomato Farm,” Juanita Carrillo Burney pleaded guilty to charges of prostitution and money laundering and was given a ten-year sentence at the Goree Unit of the Texas Prison System.