That Night at the Palace (6 page)

It was finally agreed that if he bought his own vehicle, the town council would keep him supplied with gas and oil. It soon became a running joke down at the domino hall that if the town council knew beforehand how much oil that Ford leaked they would have bought him the prowler he wanted.

“Hey, Jefferson!” Cliff shouted with a wave as the old Ford rambled toward them.

The chief pulled the truck to a stop and the three kids walked up to the window.

“What are you kids doing out here?”

“We went up to the old ghost town,” Jesse answered.

“New Birmingham?” the Chief asked smiling.

“You know about it?” Jewel asked excitedly.

“Sure. We used to hike up there all the time when I was your age.”

“What are you doin’ here, Jefferson?” Cliff asked.

“I like to come out and check on these folks now and then, that’s all.”

Jesse looked around at the little town, “I bet you make a lot of arrests out here.”

“Nope, not a one. Once in a while one of these fellows gets drunk and I take him in and let him sleep it off, but they never cause any trouble. I really just take them in so I can give them a good meal and a decent place to sleep. Most of these folks don’t get much to eat.”

Jesse looked around somewhat ashamed at his remark.

“You kids want a ride back to town?”

“Sure, Chief,” Jesse replied for the three of them.

“Hop on the back,” Jefferson told them unnecessarily as Cliff and the other two were already climbing onto the flatbed truck.

#

The Chief pulled over at McMillan’s and stopped. The kids hopped off the flatbed, and Cliff walked over to the cab.

“Thanks for the lift, Jefferson.”

“Anytime,” the chief replied as he pulled away and headed up toward Main Street.

“Hey, Jefferson!” Cliff suddenly shouted as he ran up to the truck.

The chief stopped and looked back at Cliff who, followed by the other two, came to the window.

“Jefferson, if you could give those people down there some food, would you?”

“Well, sure,” he answered, “do you have a stockpile of food that you want to take down there?”

“No, I was just wondering,” Cliff said, and then he turned to walk off.

Jefferson watched Cliff walk away. If it were any other kid, he’d be a little puzzled at the question, but Jefferson knew better than to try to figure out what was on Cliff’s mind. That kid, he had long since decided, would either end up rich or in jail. Cliff was one of those people who had no fear of taking a risk and less fear of the consequences. He smiled and waved at the kids and then pulled away.

“Okay, what are you cookin’ up?” Jewel asked Cliff as she and Jesse caught up with him.

“Nothin’.”

Jesse and Jewel look at each other, neither buying it.

“Nothin’, my butt,” Jewel replied.

“Let me think on it a while, and I’ll let y’all in on it when I have a plan.”

#

COUNTY ROAD 36,

ONE MILE SOUTH OF ELZA, TEXAS

12:31 a.m. June 27, 1936

Cliff and Jesse walked quietly along the long gravel road. It was after midnight, and neither boy wanted to get caught. Under his arm Cliff carried a rolled up tarp. Finally they came to a road crossing, where Cliff stopped.

“Now will you tell me what we’re doing out here?” Jesse asked in a loud whisper.

From across the road and hidden by the shadow of a large live oak tree, Jewel answered, “Stealing watermelons.”

Jesse and Cliff both turned their heads in her direction in shock.

“What are you doing here?” Cliff asked in even a louder whisper.

“Same as you. Stealing watermelons,” she answered with both innocence and sarcasm as she walked over to the two boys.

“How’d you know?” Cliff asked.

Jewel rolled her eyes at Cliff.

“The only person you fooled is him,” she said somewhat loudly, glancing at Jesse, “I’m surprised Chief Hightower isn’t out here.”

“How’d you know we’d be here and not someplace else?

“You won’t feel bad about stealing from Mr. McAlister. Everyone knows that he plows half his crop under.

In the distance a dog started barking.

“Be quiet,” Cliff demanded and then added, “Well, as long as you’re here, you may as well help. Here’s what we’ll do. Jesse and me will go into the field and bring you watermelons. You pile them up in the ditch next to the road. We’ll cover ‘em with the tarp and some dirt and come get them tomorrow.”

Jewel saluted mockingly. “Yes, sir, Colonel.”

Jesse laughed as a perturbed Cliff led the two of them through a barbed wire fence into a watermelon patch.

The field belonged to an old man by the name of Jeremiah McAlister, whose farmhouse was about a quarter of a mile further up the road. Mr. McAlister had been a pig farmer for most of his life. In fact, his house was practically wallpapered with ribbons from his many grand champions at county fairs and one ribbon, of which he was particularly proud, from the Texas State Fair in Dallas. For years, most of his crops served only as food for the pigs, but a few years back he decided that he was too old for pigs and sold off his stock. He still farmed a few crops like turnips and corn and watermelons, the best of which he loaded each week into the back of his ’34 Ford pickup and hauled them up to Jacksonville to sell at War Memorial Park. The rest of his crops, the watermelons that were too small, for example, he simply let rot and then plowed under. This made for a good fertilizer, but, in Cliff’s opinion, was a terrible waste of good watermelons.

Within minutes Jesse and Cliff were carrying large handfuls of smaller watermelons to the fence, where Jewel would take them and stack them neatly in the ditch. Within an hour the three had at least two hundred watermelons stacked orderly in the ditch. When they finished, they covered the watermelons with the tarp and then added some dirt and brush, so that if a car passed, which was pretty unlikely, no one would notice.

As they stood admiring their labor Jesse asked, “Okay, wise guy, we got the watermelon, how do we get ‘em to the shantytown?”

Cliff rolled his eyes, and Jewel began to laugh.

“What?”

“I swear, Jesse,” Cliff began, “you make the best grades in school, but if you had to match wits with a jack-ass you’d need crib-notes.”

#

It was a little after noon when Chief Thomas Jefferson Hightower’s faded powder blue Model-AA Flatbed rolled up the dirt road. Cliff sat in front with the Chief while Jesse and Jewel rode in back.

“Pull over to the right where the roads intersect,” Cliff instructed.

Jefferson didn’t know what the kids were up to, but knowing Clifford it probably wasn’t good. Obviously there couldn’t be too much mischief involved, or else they wouldn’t have invited the Police Chief. The chief had to admit that he was both a little flattered and entertained that the three kids chose to include him in one of their little escapades. Still, as he pulled the truck to the side of the road, Jefferson couldn’t help but fear that giving Cliff Tidwell and his two accomplices a ride could cost him his job.

As Cliff climbed out of the truck, Jesse and Jewel were standing on the flatbed scanning the area for witnesses.

“Anything?”

“No, we’re clear,” Jesse replied as he climbed down.

Jewel stayed in the back of the flatbed while the two boys pulled the tarp off the watermelons. The three had worked out their plan as they walked home. In order not to raise suspicion in case anyone found the watermelons, the boys followed their normal routine of working at McMillan’s. At around noon the three would have a soda across from Anna-Ruth’s (that was mostly for Jesse). Then they would head over to the domino hall where, if he held to his normal schedule, they would find the chief, and Cliff would talk him into giving them a ride in his truck. Once they were out of town, the rest would be easy.

“And as soon as Mr. McAlister notices that his crop is missing a couple of hundred watermelons, everybody in town will come after the three of us,” Jesse said, putting an ending on Cliff’s plan.

“Don’t you get it?” Cliff argued, “Jefferson is our alibi. No one is going to accuse us of stealing watermelons when everybody at the domino hall knows we were with the police chief.”

Of course, Jesse and Jewel knew full well that, chief or no chief, if Mr. McAlister notices those watermelons missing, those two boys would get the blame.

When Jefferson stepped out of his truck and saw the enormous pile of watermelons, he almost blew his top, “What have you three done?” he said, almost yelling.

“Jeez, Jefferson, do you want the whole town to hear us?” Cliff scolded.

“You three are going to get me fired. Jeremiah McAlister will be in my office screaming to have you kids arrested.”

“All we’re going to do is haul them down to the shantytown. Besides, he can’t blame us. Everybody in town saw us leaving with you,” Cliff reasoned.

“That’s the part that’ll get me fired.”

“Oh, come on, Jefferson,” Cliff went on as he and Jesse began picking up watermelons and handing them up to Jewel, “You said yourself that you’d help those people if you could.”

“I didn’t say that I’d commit larceny, which is exactly what this is.”

Jesse and Jewel began to laugh a little, knowing that the chief had lost this battle to Cliff before it even began.

It became obvious to Chief Hightower as he watched that the kids had no intention of stopping. Realizing that he was involved whether he wanted to be or not he said, “Well, if we’re going to do this let’s make it quick. Cliff you get in the ditch and hand them up one at a time to Jesse. Jesse, you hand them to me and I’ll hand them up to Jewel.”

In moments the four had the truck loaded. The kids covered the watermelons with the tarp and tied it down. Then, all four hopped into the cab and the chief drove the truck right down Main Street and out to the highway and then up the old dirt road to the shantytown.

#

The people of shantytown stayed back at first as the three kids pulled the tarp off the watermelons. Usually when they encountered a police uniform it was to beat them and drag them off to jail or beat them and run them out of town. Either way, it involved a beating.

The boys seemed unaware of the situation, though the cop clearly understood. It was Jewel who caught on and broke the ice. She spotted a pregnant woman with two kids and picked out one of the biggest melons and took it over to the woman, broke it open, and began handing chunks to the two kids. The little ones scarfed the melon down like it was the best meal they had ever eaten. As the children finished it up, the girl went back to the truck and grabbed another melon and took it to the lady.

“Have it for supper,” she said as she handed her the melon.

By this point a few of the other homeless men and women began walking over to the truck, and the two boys handed out melons. The police officer simply stood next to his truck and lit a cigar.

Soon three lines formed, one in front of Cliff, one in front of Jesse, and a third in front of Jewel. Shakes Blankenship was in Jesse’s line.

When he stepped up to the boy, Jesse handed him a melon and turned to grab another. As Shakes started to walk away, Jesse said, “Hold on, take another one. We have plenty,” and handed the former stockbroker a second melon.

Shakes looked at the boy who only the day before he had contemplated killing and said, “Thank you,” and turned and walked away.

Jesse watched the man walk off into the woods as he continued to hand out melons to the hungry people.

#

MCALISTER’S FARM

7:00 a.m. June 28, 1936

Jesse, Cliff, and Jewel were all three standing in one of Jeremiah McAlister’s fields, each with a burlap sack of seed hanging off their shoulders and a hoe in hand working their way down a two acre stretch. When Mr. McAlister saw that his field had been raided, he didn’t bother to go to the police station. Instead he went directly to Cliff’s father. Ned Tidwell didn’t bother listening to any of Cliff’s claims of innocence; he simply searched out his son’s two accomplices and took them all to Mr. McAlister and worked out a deal.

McAlister, in reality, wasn’t all that angry but would have preferred the kids asked rather than just stealing from him. If he had known they were taking the melons to the poor people down at the shantytown he would have given them all they wanted. It was Cliff’s dad who insisted that the kids work off the price of the watermelons. Had McAlister shown up at Jesse’s house, Murdock would have simply handed the old pig farmer twenty dollars and sent him on his way. But Ned didn’t have twenty dollars, and more importantly, he wanted the kids to know just how hard old Jeremiah McAlister worked to plant those melons. So for the next week or so the kids would, as Ned Tidwell put it, “become re-acquainted with the fine art of planting watermelon seeds.”

Cliff was angry. He had a well-planned and, quite frankly, foolproof alibi that would prove there was no possible way the three were involved in the disappearance of old man McAlister’s crops. Unfortunately his own father refused to even hear his defense.

Jewel was, in all honestly, pleased that her involvement in the caper was assumed, making her feel like a real part of the gang and not just a sidekick. She would have preferred that if she had to get caught it could have been for a less strenuous infraction, though.

Jesse had no doubts that the three would get caught from the very beginning. Being friends with Cliff Tidwell, he had long-since learned, was often adventurous, but those adventures almost always had a price tag.

“Jewel,” Jesse began, “have you noticed that every time we get into trouble it’s because of something Cliff got us into?”

Chapter 4

301 RED OAK AVE., ELZA, TEXAS

10:45 a.m., Sunday November 16, 1941

There are few people in this world with the patience of Murdock Rose. Twenty-five years in the oil fields will do that to a man. Contrary to popular belief, you won’t get oil by simply stabbing a pipe in the East Texas soil. Sometimes it takes weeks and even months of drilling to get anything up, and that’s if you’re lucky. More often than not you find yourself picking up and moving on to the next lease. Once, he recalled, they dropped fifty wells before hitting pay dirt, but it was worth it. That strike was one of the biggest since the old days when Kilgore had pump-jacks on the school playground. Of course, Murdock didn’t get a piece of it. He was a lowly roughneck in those days. He was lead-man on that rig, which was quite an honor since he was barely out of his teens, but he was a roughneck nonetheless, which meant that all he got were his simple wages. Unlike the company owners, landowners, leaseholders, and bankers who became millionaires off that one hole, he did the labor and only got a day’s pay.

It was a long hard road, but Murdock went from being a roughneck to manager of a region that covered a territory larger than the state of Rhode Island. As such, he could now get a piece of every hole drilled. Mind you, it was a very small piece of the pie, but in four or five years he’d retire quite comfortably. More importantly, Garvis was happy that he no longer came home smelling of sweat and crude. For over twenty years Murdock sank pipe, a job that had taken its toll on his back and had put a lot of good men in an early grave. Those days were over. Murdock rarely drew a bead of sweat these days. His white shirt was always crisply pressed, and his tie was never loose. And, thanks to Monroe’s Tailor Shop and Dry Cleaners, his suits were always clean and freshly creased, even in the brutal August heat. It didn’t hurt, of course, that he could now afford to drive a 1940 Cadillac complete with the miracle of weather-conditioning.

The Caddy was about the only luxury Murdock allowed himself. He had the unimaginable luck to stumble on it while in Houston for a manager’s meeting. It was a rare find. Murdock stopped in the Cadillac dealership because his old Ford spent more time being fixed than rolling. At least that’s how it seemed to Murdock. He really didn’t want a Cadillac. A Chevrolet or Buick would have suited him just fine, but Garvis insisted he needed an automobile that suited his station. Murdock didn’t care in the least about his “station,” but when he spotted the red Cadillac LaSalle through the showroom window, for some reason that now escaped his memory, he pulled the old Ford over and walked in.

The LaSalle, of course, was absolutely ridiculous and without question the worst possible automobile to use driving to and from oil fields. It was bright red with a shine you could comb your hair in and had a chromium hood ornament that looked like a shiny buck-naked angel in flight. After only five minutes in the dealership, Murdock came to his senses and started to walk out when the salesman mentioned those two magic words - “weather-conditioning.” According to the salesman, the automobile had been ordered straight from the factory for a rich oilman, but his wife hated the color and thus he refused to take delivery. Apparently, Cadillac red was not a deep enough tone to suit her sensibilities. That same salesman went on to say that this was the only Cadillac in all of Texas with weather-conditioning, a fact which Murdock Rose knew to be wholly untrue. Three of the board members of Powhatan Oil drove Cadillacs, and all three had weather-conditioning, a fact that Murdock did not hesitate to make known. Furthermore, it made no small commotion in the showroom when he proclaimed he was not about to purchase an automobile from a bold-faced liar.

He was back in his Ford with the motor running when the sales-manager, along with the dealership owner, convinced him to come back in and hear the apology from the salesman and re-consider buying the LaSalle. Murdock, by that point, had long since made up his mind that he wasn’t going to drive around East Texas in a hot automobile as long as one with weather-conditioning was sitting there available to him. His calling the salesman a liar simply served to point out to the salesman, his sales manager, and the dealership owner that he was well acquainted with three of the wealthiest men in Houston and was most certainly the only person who would walk in the dealership that day or even that week or maybe even that entire month who had the means to buy what was very possibly the most expensive automobile in all of Southeast Texas. Murdock ended up in a sit-down meeting with the owner of the dealership who, out of “his apologetic spirit,” took five hundred dollars off the asking price. That “apologetic spirit” naturally was nothing more than a bribe that hopefully would bring Murdock back to buy next year’s model, a bribe that had no chance of paying off. The Ford had served him well for over ten years, and if the Cadillac did anything less he would never consider buying another one.

So late that Friday evening, Murdock Rose cruised into Elza in weather-conditioned comfort. The automobile didn’t garner too much attention because by that time of night the streets were almost empty, which pleased Rose considerably. The only thing that caused him to have any hesitance of buying the LaSalle was that the blasted thing was such a bright red that from now on he would be the center of attention every time he so much as drove to church, a benefit that pleased Garvis well beyond his understanding.

Despite being worn out from the long drive up from Houston, he had to take Garvis for a ride as soon as he got into the driveway. He fully expected Jesse to come along, but he’d made the mistake of telling the boy that the Ford was sitting at the Cadillac dealership in Houston and it was his if he wanted to go down there and bring it back. Thirty minutes later Jesse and Clifford Tidwell were halfway to Conroe in that noisy coupe Cliff drove. They camped out somewhere along the way, and by lunchtime Saturday they had that old Ford on blocks in the driveway with the motor scattered in a hundred pieces all over the yard. By Monday morning those boys had that car running like it was brand new, a talent that Murdock was utterly unaware the two possessed. Had he known, to his wife’s chagrin, Murdock Rose would most certainly still be driving around town in an eleven-year-old Ford.

As much as Murdock liked the weather-conditioned Cadillac LaSalle, Garvis liked it at least ten times more. Murdock saw the weather-conditioning as simply an added perk, albeit a very nice one. Garvis rather, loved the fact that it was a Cadillac. And, more importantly, a LaSalle, the top of the Cadillac line. Even more importantly, it was bright red with lots of chromium, unlike the plain black Ford sedan. She loved the fact that every eye turned when they drove through town. As she had said more than once, “The Roses are the envy of every ‘dirt farmer’ in East Texas.” Whenever she said such things, Murdock would point out that those “dirt farmers” bought the petroleum that paid for the overpriced collection of bolts.

Murdock resented her condescension. His father and grandfather before him had at some point in their lives worked the fields. More importantly, had it not been for the oil boom, he himself would more than likely be picking cotton or herding cattle.

Garvis, however, was never put off by Murdock’s remarks. She didn’t like living in a small town, let alone one that didn’t have so much as a decent restaurant. When she married Murdock she never envisioned that they would spend their entire lives in tiny Elza. Her father, Horace McCracken Hamilton, God rest his soul, had been owner of the Hamilton Lumber Company and Timber Mill in Henderson, and as such did business with just about everyone in the oil fields.

One such oilman was Mr. Nehemiah Rice Nightingale, who had been President and General Manager of the Frelinghuysen-Nightingale Petroleum Company before he sold the company to the Powhatan Group in Houston, when it became Powhatan Oil. Mr. Nightingale was a wealthy man long before he sold Frelinghuysen-Nightingale Petroleum but after the sale he was, for a time at least, very possibly the richest man in all of Texas, which was saying a great deal.

Mr. Nightingale also happened to like betting on the horse races at Fairgrounds racetrack down in New Orleans. In the early 1920’s, Garvis’s father desperately needed to lock up a lumber contract with Mr. Nightingale, so he arranged a little trip to the track. Horace McCracken Hamilton made a huge event of the little junket, as he called the trip, by arranging for no less than three private rail cars complete with sleeping berths, a cook, and a free-flowing bar. That was no small feat, considering it was the beginning of Prohibition and would have landed all of them in jail if caught. Thus, no less than a thousand dollars was invested to ensure that the railroad conductor kept any passengers from knowing what was going on in the back of the train.

The alcohol was the easy part. Garvis’s father supplied lumber to the Whittlesey Brothers and - though it was only rumored, but Garvis knew it to be a fact - he also supplied grain and cane sugar for the Brothers. The Whittleseys operated stills all over East Texas, and some people claimed that they were at least partly responsible for the grain alcohol that kept New Orleans’ infamously decadent Vieux Carrie lubricated during those times.

Garvis’s role on the excursion was to help serve Mr. Nightingale’s needs - most specifically to make sure that his liquor glass stayed full. But her real purpose, at least according to her mother, Mrs. Horace McCracken Hamilton, was to make sure that her father didn’t get so drunk that he began saying insulting or offensive remarks to one of the most important oil men in all of Texas.

Mr. Nightingale accepted the invitation, and though it was specifically stated that the invitation extended only to him and his immediate family, the oilman chose to bring along a dozen of his drinking buddies. One of those buddies was a young, tall roughneck named Murdock Rose whose family, Nightingale bragged, had been in Texas all the way back to the Alamo. An honor only a true Texan could appreciate. Garvis’s father, though, was not at all impressed with the man’s pedigree; the Hamiltons had been Texans back in the days of the Republic when Horace’s great-grandfather had migrated from Louisiana. As far as Hamilton was concerned, Mr. Rose, like all of the men Nightingale had brought along, was not invited, and thus they were enjoying a very expensive vacation at Hamilton’s expense.

Unlike her father, Garvis was awe-struck by the tall young man. First, because he was rugged and very good looking, but also because she had heard Nightingale remark more than once that Mr. Rose was a natural oil man and would someday be running
Frelinghuysen-Nightingale Petroleum.

So naturally as they made the long trip to New Orleans, young Garvis made every effort to get to know this young man who was destined to become Texas’ next tycoon.

Murdock, however, showed little interest in the girl, regardless of how much effort she took to make herself look irresistible to him.

Garvis naturally had no clue that Murdock was way out of his element. Up to this point in his life he had never so much as been on a train, let alone in a private car. As a matter of fact, he had never traveled more than fifty miles from Nacogdoches, where he grew up. Nightingale insisted that he come along and “help spend this lumberjack’s money.” That meant he had to go out and spend a week’s wage on a suit of clothes since his wardrobe amounted to a half-dozen work shirts, two pair of work pants, and one well-worn pair of bibbed-overalls.

Garvis also did not know that although Murdock’s great-grandfather had in fact been at the Alamo, he had been the only one of our brave heroes to run away from the battle; thus, instead of going out in glory, he brought nothing but shame on his family. This family disgrace was something of which Murdock mysteriously seemed unaffected. Of course once they were married Garvis was reminded of it every time she had to write her last name. Unaware of Murdock’s family’s humiliation and the fact that he was not a tycoon in the making, Garvis fell head-over-heels in love long before they got anywhere near New Orleans.

During their day at the track where, as her father later said, “Nightingale and his boys tried to gamble away the lumber mill,” she made every effort to look her best and was rarely more than a few feet away from Mr. Rose.

It wasn’t until that night that he showed any real interest in her at all. Mr. Nightingale insisted that they have dinner at The O’Dwyer Brother’s Original Southport Club despite the fact that Hamilton had arranged for a steak dinner to be prepared back on the train. Nevertheless, at Mr. Nightingale’s insistence they all hopped into some Packard limousines and headed to this “restaurant.” Had her father known that The Original Southport Club was in reality a notorious speak-easy and casino, there was no way he would have allowed his “precious princess” to come along.

The “restaurant” was a large, beautiful old home on Monticello Avenue and sat at a bend in the river surrounded by other such homes. Behind the house was a lovely garden with fountains and waterfalls and a spectacular view of the Mississippi. As they walked in the door, Nightingale explained that although the business was totally illegal, there was little risk of a raid because of the relationship the owners had with certain members of the local law enforcement and government. He said that it was not unusual to see Senators and even movie stars at the tables. Sure enough, they were there less than five minutes before someone pointed out Fatty Arbuckle playing roulette.

Horace Hamilton was in a bit of a quandary; he had to take care of Nightingale’s whims, regardless of how costly, but he could not tolerate his daughter sitting around in a speak-easy with the Jezebels that he saw hanging on the arms of the fools gambling away their hard-earned money. Thus he asked Murdock if he would be so kind as to sit outside in the gardens with Garvis while he tried to keep Nightingale from spending what was left of her dowry. Hamilton had recognized his daughter’s infatuation with Murdock almost as soon as they had left Henderson. Had the young man been like any of the other oil stains that Nightingale had brought along, he would have made sure that Garvis was kept a safe distance away. But Mr. Rose was considerably different from those other gentlemen. For one thing he had the hands of a man who worked for a living. The others in the group appeared to be accountants and lawyers, but not this man. This was a young man who earned his living through hard work. More importantly, he was a man who showed considerable promise. Nightingale was not the kind of man to toss around compliments lightly; if he said Rose would go far in the oil business, he would probably do so. More importantly, he probably wouldn’t have invited the young man along if he didn’t expect him to be very important one day.