East of Orleans (34 page)

“Hell, have I got any whiskey left or have you sorry bastards done drank it all? Yawl are just like the damn Yankees, flying in here like a swarm of locusts, taking what you can and leaving nothing,” said Jules.

“What’s the matter with you tonight, boss?” Hoyt eyed Jules suspiciously.

Across the table, a pair of blue eyes twinkled and a silver-haired gentleman said, “Now, you fellows know, Jules has a young wife at home. I’d be ill, too, if I had to leave something that looked as good as she does and then come down here and have to look at all you ugly bastards.”

Quick smiles traveled around the table and roars of laughter were heard.

“Raise you,” said a voice.

“John, is that brother of yours still buying up old slave shacks to rent out to sharecroppers?” asked Jules.

John twisted the end of his moustache and said in a slow drawl, “I think so Jules, but hell, you know how tight he is. Course, I don’t reckon, I have to tell you that. You’ve done business with him before, haven’t you? What you wanting to do, get rid of some of yours?”

“Yeah, I’m thinking about it,” Jules said.

“It’s a damn shame, what them niggers are doing over there, ain’t it, boss?” said Hoyt.

Jules thought hard for a moment. “Hell, I’ve done everything I know to do. I give them a place to live, help haul the crops to the auction, and then I even give em a little money and hell, they still want to steal from me. I can’t be here and over there, too. It’s just gotten to be more than I can handle.”

Foghorns could be heard in the distance of the dark cloudy night.

If there was one thing Jules McGinnis did not believe in, it was a woman in business or sticking her noise in her husband’s business. There had been a movement on the outskirts of town. Some of the Negroes had been protesting that they had not been treated right since the war. A few of the protestors had managed to get their hands on some guns and it was not safe traveling to Beaufort at night. But as dangerous as it was, Isabella had no intention of staying home. She was making that trip to Beaufort with Jules and that’s all there was to it; besides, it was not night.

Jules pulled in front of the house and Priscilla walked out on the verandah and said, “She’ll be ready in a minute, Mister Jules. Shure is nice, you taking Miz Isabella on dis ride with you dis morning. I knows she’s real happy bout dat.”

Jules raised his brow and smiled. Isabella ran out of the house and climbed up into the buggy. Jules clutched her arm and their eyes met. “You seem to feel better this morning,” he said gently.

A wicker pony carriage being pushed by a black mammy strolled past them as they moved out into the street. Isabella turned her head and ignored Jules. She hoped Jules would not mention the carriage.

“What are you mad about?” asked Jules.

“I ain’t mad about a thing.”

“Why don’t we try and have a nice day,” he said, staring at Isabella.

“That’s fine with me.”

The ride into Beaufort was pleasant. The rain from the night before had cooled the air, but it was still humid. Isabella had braided her long hair, but tendrils curled up around her face and neck. She looked like a child who had just come in out of the rain.

Isabella’s eyes were on the road. She observed the charcoaled ruins left by
Sherman
. Lazy blankets of moss hung from massive oak trees, often shading headstones of Confederate soldiers. The closer they got to Beaufort there were fields sprinkled with black women and their young; sometimes still nursing at their breasts. Isabella saw a young mulatto girl with three little children. Two pulled at her calico apron and one was in her arms.

After traveling miles through the tall marshes they were finally there. Isabella raised her eyes to the crowd of women and children that looked at her with troubled gazes. Jules abruptly jumped out of the buggy and closed the door behind him. His voice became loud and he dominated the conversation. Isabella observed the crowd. She had never seen so many women and children that looked so thin and desperate; you could see the fear in their eyes. Where were their men?

“Afternoon, Miss Eve, your old man around?” Isabella heard Jules say to a young mulatto woman.

“Nawh sir, he ain’t. He been gone a while now. Mister Jules I need to talk to you bout some things.”

“Go ahead, I’m listening.”

The pretty mulatto woman seemed shy as she unrolled a piece of paper in her hand and handed it to Jules.

“What do dis paper say? Mrs. Willingham, she say, it say something bout you selling dis place. Why you want to do dat? Where you think us women folks and dees chilluns gonna go?”

Isabella climbed out of the buggy and walked closer so she could hear the conversation. She noticed the mulatto woman’s small waist. Then a Negro girl of about twelve walked up. She was just a child, but Isabella noticed that she was going to have a baby. Isabella glanced at the girl whose name was Eve, and the girl looked away.

“Mister Jules, de guvment say dat we got de right to stay here as long as we pay our money and we done dat,” said Eve humbly.

“Eve, the money has not been paid and furthermore, your men have been selling some of the crops and not giving Hoyt the money.”

“Selling crops and not giving Mister Hoyt de money? Dat’s a lie!”

Dear God! That sounds just like Hoyt to take these peoples’ money and keep it, thought Isabella.

“Eve, I’m just gonna tell you what I heard,” said Jules.

“What’s dat, Mister Jules?”

“I’d hoped I wasn’t gonna have to mention this, but Hoyt said, Moses’s boy and some of the other Negroes have been making a deal with some Yankees, selling my crops and keeping the money.”

“You forget what Mister Hoyt say, he ain’t telling you de truth.”

“Well, then where’s the crops and my money?”

Isabella watched Eve raise her eyes, trying to hold back the tears.

“Where’s Moses and his boy, Eve? Where’s your old man?” Asked Jules.

“I can’t say,” said Eve.

“Well, if you can’t say, then there ain’t a thing I can do for you and the others,” said Jules, rubbing his eyes.

“What does dat mean?”

“That means, that if the money you and the rest of the sharecroppers owe me for the crops ain’t paid by Tuesday, then I have no choice but to ask Hoyt to tell y’all to leave.”

“Mister Jules, what you mean? You see dere ain’t no one here but us womenfolks and chillins. How you think we supposed to pack up ourselves and be out of here by Monday night? Dat ain’t but four days! Where is us women gonna go?” Eve reached down and touched a little boy’s nappy black head with her small calloused brown hand.

Isabella stared hard at Jules. “Jules, you can’t do this,” whispered Isabella. Her eyes quickly surveyed the white fields dense with cotton. “Besides, who will look after this cotton? What are you gonna do with it all?”

Jules lit a cigar and looked out across the fields. “Hell, little lady, I’d rather those crops burn than have niggers stealing from me.”

“But you don’t know they stole anything,” said Isabella.

Across the fields, black arms reached down and then back up, many with babies strapped on their backs, others with them at their breasts. A few of the women walked through the field with a baby on their hips and holding the hand of a toddler. They were walking toward Isabella and Jules. Through the tall grassy fields they came. Isabella counted eight young Negro women carrying babies. They stood, waiting and listening. Isabella looked up and saw the depressed looks on their dark faces.

Jules saw old Moses come out onto the porch of one of the shacks and he summoned him to the field.

As her husband and Moses walked away, Isabella glanced at the small army of black women with pleading eyes. One of them held a sleeping child against her shoulder. Isabella’s eyes went to Eve. “Eve?”

Eve nodded.

“Listen to me. I know what it’s like to worry that your house is gonna be taken from you. I’m gonna try and help. I don’t know yet what I’m gonna do, but I’m gonna figure out something. With my heart and soul, I swear on the life of my little girl I will be back.” A silence fell over the women. “Not a word of this can get out, you hear?” Isabella looked at the women, mostly still girls. She thought about the time her daddy told her how, during the war the slave women would stand on the side of the roads and give water and food to sick, wounded and weary Confederate boys.

Small clouds formed in the sky and a faint wind blew. Isabella looked up. “It looks like rain.” Looking out across the fields of cotton and corn were shanties lined up in a row.

“Where’s your men?” asked Isabella.

A woman swollen with child touched her belly and said, “They gone. The only man left here is old Moses.”

“Where did they go?” asked Isabella.

A red cloud of dust blew across the road and the women saw a man in a buggy. The young pregnant girl reached for Eve’s arm, her eyes grew wide with fright.

“What’s the matter?” Asked Isabella.

“You know Mister Hoyt’s a bad man,” said Eve with a stern face.

Isabella noticed tears stream down the young pregnant girl’s face. She glanced down at the girl’s belly and their eyes met. “Hoyt? Did Hoyt do this to you?”

Eve’s eyes flickered like a burning flame. “She ain’t the first. He came out here once with a man named Jacob and dat man is worse dan Hoyt and I ne’er thought there could be such a thing as a man on dis earth worse dan Hoyt.”

Sudden pain shot through Isabella and her eyelids stung with tears. She had hoped that she would be dead ten thousand years before she ever heard Jacob Hartwell’s name again.

“Where are your men?” Isabella asked again.

“Dey miles away from here. Dey been rumors dat something bad was gonna happen.” The women glanced at Eve, looked at each other and then dropped their eyes. “Dat Jacob is more evil dan de devil.” Eve leaned into Isabella and whispered, “Old Moses heard Jim Brown say dat Hoyt and dat Jacob fellow had been messing with his girl. Two days later, they found Jim dead. He had been shot in the head and left in the swamp.”

“Is that all Moses said?” asked Isabella.

“He say Jim’s hands were tied behind his back and his tongue was cut out. Then when Hoyt came over here threatening something about selling Mister Jules crops, old Moses told the menfolk to leave until dis thing cooled down and he had a chance to talk to Mister Jules.”

Isabella glanced at the women,
s crops Old Moses told the men away; he did not want to admit it.by sister to Isabella than her own child. Even so it was
then heard voices and saw Jules and Hoyt walking toward her. Isabella’s eyes met Hoyt’s. She gave him a hard look and then turned to the women.

“We have to hush, here they come. Hold on. I’ll be back in a couple of days. Remember, just keep the faith. I’ll be back.”

The women looked at Isabella with new eyes. They turned and walked back through the fields.

“Hold on,” whispered Isabella.

Jules climbed into the carriage and he and Isabella rode down the dusty road away from the thick fields of cotton and shanties.

Isabella stared at Jules for a moment and then said, “You don’t care a thing about them, do you?”

“Woman, don’t start on me.”

Isabella turned her head and looked out at the partially standing, burned out plantations. Brick chimneys and rock fireplaces were sometimes all that was left, but it was enough to carry an eternal reminder of Sherman and his soldiers. Isabella glanced at Jules and suddenly, he reminded her of Rollins Hartwell.