Dark River Road (28 page)

“Rough crowd,” Donny said, and Chantry nodded.

“Can be.”

“You ever been here before?”

“Once.” He didn’t mention that it’d been years ago when Rainey had still been working and brought him with him to meet a man about another business deal that hadn’t worked out. He didn’t remember now why he’d been with him, but he did remember that Mama had been furious when she learned Rainey took him inside. She’d said it was a dangerous place for adults, much less for children.

This was a different kind of danger than the kind at the Hamburger Shack. Fights there were mostly between groups of kids from different counties. Here, grown men carried weapons like knives and guns, and a fight could quickly get out of hand. Even the law stayed away most of the time, and rumor had it a few bodies had been dumped in the backwash for turtles and catfish to feast on. Klan kill. That was probably just rumor.

Most of Mississippi had changed since Civil Rights. Blacks and whites lived next door to each other, worked together, went to school together, and some even became friends. White boys dated black girls, black girls dated white boys, and babies were born that borrowed from both to blend the differences. It was accepted. But not everywhere. Not in Quinton County. It was a reminder of the Old South, the one that had existed after the Civil War and before Civil Rights and Martin Luther King and integration. Before the Federal government stepped in to make sure everything was fair and just and legal and no discrimination thrived. It wasn’t something that went down easy with a lot of folks. A war had been fought over states’ rights, over the right of local government to make its own rules and set its own ways. Down here, people still planted Confederate flags in their front yards and wore tee shirts and baseball caps that said
Hell no, we ain’t forgotten.
The War of Northern Aggression was still fresh in the minds of people almost a hundred and thirty years removed from it. And lingering sorrow lay underneath bitter acknowledgment of defeat, of what “might have been” if only the South had had more factories, more men, more guns. More miracles.

Change didn’t come easy to people entrenched in old ways, even in big towns where there was a layer of sophistication and civilization to smooth over old resentments and hatreds. Some places, change didn’t come at all. Whites still had their own places to go, blacks had their places to go, and the two didn’t mix. If they did, it was like trying to mix oil and water. Fire and tinder. Combustible.

“So what’s Tansy doing singing here?” Donny wanted to know when they walked in and stood off to one side, checking it out. No one had carded them when they came in, just took their money at the door. Waitresses in tight tops carried loaded trays of beer to the tables and the noise level was par with standing next to a working jackhammer. The crowd was instantly recognizable: Rough. Redneck. Ready for trouble.

“Damned if I know. Some kind of contest.” He had to shout for Donny to hear him over the jukebox blaring out a country song.

They moved up closer to the stage where a band was setting up and some microphones were being tested. The jukebox still played. Shrill whistles cut through a Loretta Lynn song. Some guy let out with a Rebel yell, that loud call that had sent shivers down Yankee spines and carried men from both sides to their deaths. Chantry got an uneasy feeling that had nothing to do with being underage. The Hideaway was worse than he’d remembered, worse than he’d heard.

What the hell was Tansy thinking coming here? Reputation didn’t come close to the reality of it. This was no place for a fifteen year old girl, black or white, that was for sure. He had to find her and get her out of here. Quick.

“Come on,” he said to Donny, who stuck close as a cocklebur to his back. They headed for the stage. He asked some guy in a battered cowboy hat where the contestants were waiting, and he jerked his thumb toward a heavy black curtain strung across the rear of the stage.

“Back there.”

Tansy stood nervously beside a huge black amplifier, sipping from a plastic cup and trying not to show how scared she was. Chantry saw it, though, in the way her eyes looked too big and bright and her chest rose and fell a little too quickly. He walked straight over to her.

“Have you lost your mind? Girl, what are you thinking?”

She glanced at Donny hanging back behind him and her face got tight. “Chantry—no one
knows
. Not here.”

For a moment he just looked at her; then he understood. She was passing. He guessed it was possible. Anyone looking at her for the first time would only see a beautiful girl with thick dark hair shot through with red, big gold eyes and skin that only got a pretty tan in the summer sun. Winter time, like now, she was whiter than Cathy Chandler. No one would see a black girl.

“I need that money,” she said. “Don’t fuck this up for me.”

He blew out a sigh. “What if someone out there
 . . .
”

“They won’t,” she said when he paused. “Leon works here as a stock boy sometimes. He said he hasn’t ever seen anybody we know.”

“So how does Leon feel about you being here?”

She looked away, stared at Donny a minute, and then shrugged. “We disagreed on a lot of things. I do what I’ve got to do, he does what he’s got to do.” When Chantry didn’t say anything for a minute, she nodded toward Donny. “What about him?”

“Donny’s cool.” He glanced over his shoulder and Donny jerked his chin in agreement. He looked back at her. “This still feels risky. What if someone recognizes your name?”

She smiled. “They won’t. Trust me.”

“Why do I suddenly feel really scared.” He shook his head. “Damn, girl. I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“So do I.”

“All right. Guess we’ll sit out front and listen to you sing. Knock ’em dead.”

“I intend to.” Her smile was brave but he saw the slight quiver at the corners of her mouth and knew how scared she was. Her hands shook a little when she smoothed them over her short denim skirt, and the fringe on the front of her Western style shirt shivered with the quick rise of her chest. She’d opened the top buttons some to hint at what lay beneath, had a red handkerchief knotted around her neck and wore cowboy boots. All she needed was a big white Stetson to look like a rodeo queen.

Chantry gave her a kiss on the cheek and squeezed her hands, then he and Donny went back out front to find a place to sit or stand. He wished this feeling of doom he had inside would go away. Not even a beer helped tamp it down. The waitress glanced at them when they ordered two Bud longnecks, but took their money and their tip without a word. She had big hair and a big chest, and looked like she’d been rode hard and put up wet and wasn’t about to take any shit from anyone. He guessed she didn’t care who the money came from as long as it ended up in her hand.

When management pulled the plug on the jukebox and announced the contest, no one in the club seemed to care but kept on talking and laughing. The smell of frying burgers and pizza mixed with the squeal of a microphone, then the first riffs of a guitar chord. Some guy came out on stage to a smattering of applause, probably from friends and family, and sang a Charlie Daniels song about the devil going down to Georgia. He did pretty good with it, and the crowd got stirred up some at the rousing beat. The next contestant slowed them down with a country ballad that was slow and sad and sweet. She wore tight jeans and a tee shirt, and she had big yellow hair and one of those comfortable shapes that’d turn to fat one day but was easy on the eyes now. Several in the crowd seemed to know her.

Then Tansy stepped onto the stage, looking nervous but determined, and the announcer said in his bored tone that it was her debut and they should welcome Rainbow. Someone laughed. Tansy flinched slightly, but stepped up to the mike and looked out into the crowded room where people were still laughing and talking and getting restless. A voice yelled to hurry up and get this over with so they could plug back in the jukebox.

“Sure thing, boys,” she said into the mike, her voice low and sultry and sexy, and so unlike Chantry had ever heard her that he had to stare hard to be sure it was really Tansy. “I just want to sing you a little song first.” The back-up band launched into the first chords, and she grabbed the mike off the stand. She didn’t sing so much as tell a story in that powerful, haunting voice he’d heard her use before, dredging up memory and emotion even from this rough crowd as she belted out
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
. It was an old folk tune from the sixties, a song that touched on suppressed wounds, old hurts, times long gone and best forgotten. It was a song that conjured up images of war and defeat and determined pride. Of a land and men and women beaten, but not conquered.

And it brought rapt attention from the crowd that had gone quiet and still, and when she reached the part of the song that went, “
and all the people were singing, la, na na na na na
” they sang with her, lifting longneck bottles into the air and moaning sorrow for a life long since passed and probably not ever as good as its promise anyway. Chantry couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe this rowdy crowd of rednecks felt so deeply, that Tansy had touched them in an elemental part of their emotions with just her voice and someone else’s song.

He looked over at Donny and saw something akin to admiration shining in his face and in his eyes as he stared at the stage and a fifteen year old girl who’d brought grown men to their feet with her song. No doubt about it. Tansy had won the contest like she’d said she would. How had she known? How had she known how this crowd would react? He’d never have guessed it. Not in a million years.

Tansy’s eyes found him in the crowd, and she smiled as the band played the last notes and lingering echoes of the lyrics still hung above the smoke and brief stillness. He saluted her with his beer, and she put a foot back and bent from the waist with her arms outspread. Accepting the applause and stomping of feet and Rebel yells just like she’d been expecting it. It was her moment of triumph.

Then, above the noise, Chantry heard someone shout, “Hey, that’s Chantry’s little nigrah gal.” He froze. His first thought was
Rainey
, but when he looked toward the source he saw Beau and Rafe standing only a few feet behind him, grinning like they’d said something funny.

His anger sparked, but not many had heard Beau holler over the racket of stamping feet and yells. It wasn’t too late to save Tansy’s night. He started toward his stepbrothers.

“Oh shit,” he heard Donny say, but he followed right behind him anyway.

“What the hell you think you’re doing?” Chantry demanded when he was a foot from Beau. “Trying to start trouble?”

“You mean with your little nigger gal? Hell, Chantry, if you want to stick your dick in her that’s up to you. Just don’t bring her ‘round here.” Beau looked off to his side, and Chantry saw a burly group of men sitting at a table and listening. Iron workers, from the looks of most of them. Other men sat there, too, dressed a lot better but still tough and narrow-eyed. “That right, boys?” Beau said louder, and jerked his head toward Chantry. “Is this the one you saw at the Hamburger Shack with that little yella gal? Sniffing her out like she’s a bitch in heat? Hell, he just needs to—”

That was as far as Beau got before Chantry hit him. The blow snapped Beau’s head back and made him drop his beer, and then it was on. He drove him back against a stout wooden post. Beau went backward before he could get in a lick, then he lurched forward and punched back, quick hard jabs with a fist the size of a ham hock, catching Chantry so hard on the jaw he saw stars. He shook it off like he’d learned to do as a little kid, and put all his weight into the next punch. Beau went down with Chantry on top of him and in the dim light afforded by strings of cheap Christmas lights strung from pole to pole like bunting, he could see surprise reflected in his eyes.

He did his best to put all the lights out in Beau’s eyes.

Someone tried to pull him off but got shoved away, and Chantry was vaguely aware of Beau struggling to get up. That gave him a sense of satisfaction, but nothing like seeing Beau down on his back with his nose bleeding and an arm slung over his face to protect it. It was probably best he got pulled off Beau before he did real damage, and some guy slung him to one side, then hauled Beau to his feet. Chantry took the opportunity to get lost in the crowd. No point in being stupid enough to hang around and end up with three or four against him.

He looked around and saw Donny slugging it out with Rafe. They were pretty evenly matched, both tall and wiry, but Donny had the advantage of determination while Rafe had a few years and muscle on him. The whole place had erupted into a huge brawl. It happened that way sometimes. One fight sparked another, someone got knocked into someone’s table or girlfriend, and men just started slugging it out. Truthfully, on a Saturday night just about any excuse to fight would do fine. Even the women got in on it, some of them as rough as the men they were with, using fists and feet and hair-pulling. It was better than a matinee at the Clarksdale movie theater.

Two men jumped him and Chantry went sideways, knocking over a table and breaking a chair. It splintered beneath the combined weight of all of them, cheap wood and plastic going in several different directions. He fought free, shoving and punching with reckless, mindless intensity until he stood breathing hard on his own. He turned to find Donny again and saw him several feet away, going at it foot and fist with one of the iron workers. Another guy came up behind Donny with a beer bottle in one hand lifted in the air, and Chantry launched himself at him like a missile. They both went down, sliding across a floor littered with bits of glass and wood and spilled beer.

The guy got hold of his shirt but he had him down pretty good, smashing his fist into his face, when something made Chantry glance to the side, a premonition maybe. Another iron worker came at him with a broken beer bottle, something ugly in his eyes and twisting his mouth. There wasn’t time to get out of the way even if he hadn’t been held fast by the man he was pounding, and like everything was in slow motion, Chantry saw that he was about to get gutted like a fish and there wasn’t much he could do except go sideways in desperation.

Then quick as a snake, the broken side of a chair slashed down at the man’s head and he went down like a felled ox, sprawling on the floor with the broken bottle still held tight in one fist. Chantry looked up to see who’d saved him, and Chris Quinton looked back.