Magnolia City (42 page)

“Really? Then you owe me a favor.” As they ambled along the sidewalk, she cocked her head at him coquettishly.

“Five thousand would be a mighty big favor, baby.”

“Come on, Kozak, you’re a gambler. Take a chance on this. I’ll not only make you partners with Cleveland, but hook you up with his whole consortium of investors.”

He screwed up his mouth and shrugged. “It’s tempting, baby. I’ll come out and have a look.” He dipped his head under her hat brim and winked. “Besides, I like a woman with a little nerve.”

It took another day to complete the transaction with Kozak. They’d settled on four thousand dollars. Hetty signed the well over to the Kozaco Company, glad she insisted on being full partners with Garret. She asked for a certified check, which she took straight down to the First National Bank on Fredonia Street and cashed, buying a money order for three thousand dollars made payable to Cleveland Yoakum, then dividing the rest of the money up into three stashes of $333.33 each that she stuffed into bank envelopes provided by the teller.

In the cool of the following morning, they lifted Pierce, still sleeping, out of his cradle, said a long good-bye to the Hillyers, loaded up the last of their things, and slammed shut the tailgate of the truck. When Hetty set her purse down on the seat, a packet of letters peeked out along with the bank envelopes. She’d found them yesterday when rifling through the doghouse for the logbook on the well. Letters Garret’s mother had written him, all signed
Arleen
in big fancy loops. Why was he hiding them out there? She was dying to read them but didn’t have time right now. Perhaps they’d explain why he left.

By lunchtime, they were well on the way south. Hetty found the clumsy Wichita exhausting to drive on the highway and almost fell asleep as the day grew hotter. In her drowsiness, though, she was suffused with warm relief as the prickly branches of the pines thinned out and smudges of post oak trees began to whip by in the corner of her eye. There was now something malignant in the dark green of the Piney Woods, trees that grew needles instead of leaves.

They spent the night in the room Pearl had kept at her boardinghouse in Houston, then drove to the Settegast slums after lunch to tell a mother that her son was dead. Hetty pulled up in front of the Waller house and turned off the motor. Late summer sun drenched the treeless street. The cab of the truck quickly turned into an oven. Hetty glanced toward the house. The porch glowered back at her. Thistles grew three feet high in what passed for a front yard. Two bare wooden steps waited for her to climb them. She began to sweat. She looked at Pearl.

“I hope you’re not expecting me to tell her,” Pearl said, dabbing the moisture off Pierce’s forehead. “I’ve never met the woman.”

When the windshield began to steam up and the steering wheel was too hot to touch, Hetty pulled out the choke. “I’ll go see Cora. I always think better at my aunt’s river house.” Hetty pushed the starter button.

T
he sound of a fountain trickling woke Hetty up. Sunlight flickered on the bed beside her. The day was warming up. It must be late in the morning, perhaps even noon. She could hear birds chirping—dozens of them out there in the trees. Through the French doors, the smell of the San Antonio River floated up to her with the morning mists. She rolled over and stretched. Her bladder felt extremely full. How long had she been sleeping? She had no idea. She remembered taking Pearl back to the rooming house, then dropping off the money order to Cleveland Yoakum and telling him he’d have the rest of the money in a few weeks. She remembered driving to her aunt’s house in San Antonio and walking up to the front door to ring the caravansary bells. She remembered sitting on her aunt’s sofa sipping mescal out of a snifter, but not much after that.

Hetty stumbled barefoot down the cold tiles of the hallway until she found the bathroom. When she came out, sounds drifted in from the living room: It was laughter, but not bored adult laughter—the gleeful giggles of a child at play. With a little shock, she recognized the voice. It was her own son, Pierce. She felt so distant from him! Other sounds formed a fugue with the giggles: the ringing of bells, the swishing of a rain stick being tipped to simulate the sound of raindrops falling on dry earth. Hetty stood in the shadowy hall and smiled: Cora had hauled out the old wooden
baúl,
the one Hetty had explored with rapt curiosity when she was a girl. It hid many treasures under its creaking lid, from antique toys to various rattles, whistles, and drums from places like Cameroon or Peru. She peeked around the corner, and there they were: her aunt and her child on the tattered Persian carpet of the living room, Cora’s long pigtail snaking on the floor, four cats batting at the toys Pierce held up. The late morning light had trickled down through the pecan trees and was dropping in spangles onto the carpet, shimmering here and there.
Jesus,
Hetty thought,
it’s been so long since I’ve heard laughter.

Hetty went back to her bedroom and dressed, then stood at the door of the living room. Her son hardly noticed her. “I’m sorry,
Tía,
” she said, walking in. “I didn’t mean to oversleep.”

“Don’t be silly!” Cora jumped up and opened her arms wide, making her silver bracelets jingle and slide. “Come here,
m’ija,
and give your aunty a big hug!” As the arms enfolded her, Hetty caught a whiff of coconut oil and cumin. She held on tight, the earthy smells making her feel welcome. “You always have a home here. Coming to the Cosmos was the right thing to do. I’m on summer break from the college, so we’re at leisure. My only project is to finish some paintings for a show. Now—you have to tell your
tía
everything, but first”—Cora held her at arm’s length and looked her up and down—“I’ve got to feed you.
Ay,
you’re skin and bones!”

“I’m embarrassed, that’s what I am.”

“Don’t be.
Siéntate, siéntate.
” Cora led her over to the sofa and nestled her amid the faded silk cushions, then disappeared into the kitchen. Pierce called to her. Hetty stepped over and pulled out some hand bells from India to distract him. Then she lolled back on the sofa and lit her first Lucky of the day. The smell of corn tortillas warming in Aunt Cora’s kitchen was a bittersweet form of
tor-mento
. She was so glad she’d followed her instinct and come to the river house where she and her baby would be safe for a while.

Soon, Cora emerged bearing a tray steaming with hot coffee and the fresh tortillas that had scented the air, surrounded by bowls of beans and vegetables garnished with guacamole and salsa. Hetty thanked her aunt, then sat up and rolled herself a couple of dripping burritos, practically swallowing them whole without chewing.

The play, meanwhile, continued at a giddy pace on the floor. Cora would reach into the trunk and hide the next toy behind her hand, making the baby stand and peer over her fingers to see what it was.

“Thanks for entertaining Pierce,” Hetty said. “I’m sorry about last night.”

Cora smiled up at her. “My dear girl, you were in no shape to take care of anyone. You were completely exhausted.
¿Qué te pasó?
”

“
¡Ay!
Where to begin . . . ?” Hetty lit another Lucky as she began to retell the whole saga of the Ada Hillyer Number One. The words poured out along with the smoke from her cigarette. Hetty hadn’t realized how much she needed to share what had happened with someone, and Cora—always so
simpática
—made the perfect audience for her recital of tragedy in East Texas. She felt compelled to tell the story again, confessing her doubts to her aunt and even owning up to her own complicity in the crime. “I let things get out of hand,
Tía.
It’s my fault Pick was killed,” Hetty said, shuddering.

“My dear little niece,” Cora said, coming over and taking Hetty’s hands. “You mustn’t blame yourself. You didn’t kill your friend. The men who pulled the triggers on those rifles did.”

“I feel like I pulled the triggers. I feel like I parted the pine branches so they could take aim. I was an accomplice to the crime.”

“Listen to me, niece. Pick was killed because he was a Negro, that’s the simple truth. Ever since the Texas Rangers were formed, they’ve had it in for people of color—any color. There were wholesale slaughters of Mexicans in the valley—I’ve seen pictures. Bodies piled up in a mass grave. All because the Rangers thought Texas should be a country for white men.”

“Is that true?”

“
¡Sí!
Poker Face killed Pick because he knew he could get away with it. And that’s not your fault.”

“It’s not?”

“No. You’re not to blame yourself any longer. I won’t let you.” Warm sympathy flowed out of her eyes and enveloped Hetty.

“But I feel like I have a noose around my neck that’s choking me.”

“That’s your guilty conscience tugging on you. Have you told his mother?”

“I couldn’t face her. Would it be all right to send the news in a letter, Aunty?”

“Would you want to receive news like that in a letter?”

The light in Cora’s eyes changed. It shifted to a look both distant and austere, a coolness that set Hetty on edge. “I can’t tell her in person,
Tía
. It would be too hard.”

Cora continued to watch her with pitiless clarity in her gaze. “It’s up to you, of course, but if you hope to get that noose off your neck, you’ll do it. You’ll go and tell her the truth.”

The afternoon was old by the time Hetty rolled up to the Waller house in Settegast. The porch looked gaunt as she stepped across its warped floorboards, the front door wrinkled with flaking white paint. Hetty stood there a long time before she knocked. The children must have been down the street playing, because Velma answered the door alone.

“Miss Hetty?” she said, looking over her shoulder to see if Pick stood behind her. “Is my boy done up east?”

All Hetty could do was nod. She asked if she could come in.

The windows were open in anticipation of the cool evening, but there were no screens, so flies buzzed about. Turnips were cooking somewhere. A green brocade sofa, tattered and stained, slanted across the small room across from a cabinet missing one leg. They sat at either end of the sofa. Hetty leaned against the arm and turned in Velma’s direction. Her face, as black as Pick’s, was pitted with eyes used to bad news, permanently stained with disappointment. “I have something to tell you, Velma,” she started. “It’s not good. I’m sorry.”
No euphemisms,
Hetty had promised herself.

Velma’s face contorted. “About my Pick?”

Hetty nodded. “I’m afraid he’s . . . dead.”

Velma shuddered and began wailing. “Oh, Lord! Dead? Pick dead? Don’t let it be! Don’t let it be!” Her cries scalded Hetty’s ears as she lost control and rocked back and forth on the sofa howling, “Oh, Lord. Oh, Pick! Pick!”

Hetty slid over and touched her while she swayed and moaned. Velma’s plaintive cries threatened to dredge up Hetty’s own guilty grief, but she swallowed it back as hard as she could.

Hetty heard whispering, and the children filed in from the rear of the house, drawn by their mother’s howls. Lewis hung back in the door while Addie and Ollie held on to each other in their gingham dresses, eyes large with fright. Only Minnie came up to her mother and asked what was wrong.

“Pick is dead!” Velma sobbed out. Addie and Ollie looked down, ashamed, and Lewis frowned at Hetty as if she herself had murdered his brother. Minnie tried to hold her mother to stifle her violent howls, but Velma threw her arms wildly in the air to fend her off. Hetty slid back across the sofa and clamped her heart shut. The looks on the faces of the children were cutting too deep.

“Who killed my boy?” Velma asked, wiping her eyes with her fingers.

“A Texas Ranger,” Hetty said, wishing she had a hankie to give the poor woman.

“How come? He was a good boy.”

“They said he was pumping oil illegally.” Hetty took a deep breath and tried to keep her voice steady. “I’m afraid it’s partly my fault. I asked him to do it. He wanted to keep working so he could send money home.” Hetty took out one of the bank envelopes containing $333.33 and set it on the sofa between them. “I want you to have this.”

Velma glanced askance at the bulging envelope, then glared at Hetty out of swollen eyes. “You think you can buy me off?”

Minnie walked over to Hetty with a look of uncomprehending hatred and began hitting her on the leg, over and over, harder and harder. Hetty didn’t try to stop her.

When she got back to the rooming house, Pearl asked how it went.

“As bad as I thought it’d be. The children were there.” Hetty told Pearl how they’d reacted. Her leg still ached where Minnie had beaten out her rage. Minnie never could hold back her feelings. But Hetty had deserved the thrashing the child had given her. It had been a kind of penance—just not enough of a penance. The commission Cora had given her hadn’t worked. She was still stalled in her sin, the whole world choked with it. Hetty felt like one of those wells they’d seen in the Splendora field, surrounded by barren earth where only goat weed would grow. She carried its greasy mud on her hands and smeared everything she touched. Things died around her; sidewalks cracked under her feet. She was toxic with guilt. Even the children could see that.

“I don’t know how I can let someone like Velma Waller upset me so much,” Hetty complained to Pearl.

“It’s the children, you said so yourself.” To ease Hetty’s distress, Pearl went over to her closet and pulled out something dark. “I done messed up. I forgot to give you Pick’s Sunday suit. Take it to his mother tomorrow. Try again.”

Hetty spent a ragged night with Pearl. When she pulled out her pack of Luckies in the morning, she found the stash of letters from Arleen MacBride, peppered with flecks of tobacco. She scanned a few while she smoked. The big swirling handwriting was difficult to decipher at first, but she managed to extract some essential details. Arleen had been forced to take in boarders. The once-grand residence of a senator was now little more than a rooming house, but the situation, Hetty noted, was highly romanticized by the letter writer. Arleen talked as if she were a society hostess and these were her celebrated guests. Hetty could find no clue as to why Garret had been so careful to hide his mother’s letters away. She stuffed them back into her handbag half read.

After breakfast, she drove back over to the Ward. When Velma opened the door a crack, Hetty held up the clothes and said, “I’ve brought Pick’s Sunday suit. You don’t have to let me in.”

She passed the hanger through the door and turned to go when Velma said, “Com’on in, ma’am.”

The house felt cooler in the morning air, and the children were nowhere to be seen. Hetty sat at one end of the couch while Velma spread the suit between them as if Pick were sitting there himself. She kept fingering the gray wool, smoothing the wrinkles out of it. Hetty spotted the bank envelope over on the cabinet. It had been opened.

“Velma, about the money, I—”

“I’ll take it.” She didn’t look up at Hetty.

“I’m not trying to buy you off. It’s what we owe Pick. He would want you to have it.”

“I know.” Velma went over and picked up the envelope, then perched on the edge of the sofa and fanned out the bills. She seemed awed by them, as if she’d never seen that much cash together at one time.

“My Pick was a good boy,” she kept saying as she tried to count the bills with trembling fingers. “Look what he send me. All this money. Lord, I can’t hardly count that high, but I’ll make it last. I can manage. You know I can manage.”

“It should help with the kids. We don’t want them getting sick again.”

Velma stuffed the money back into the envelope and slipped it into the vest pocket of the suit coat, as if her son had just walked in the door bringing it home. “This is hard for them. They don’t understand where their brother be.”

“Will Minnie hate me forever?”

Velma looked up from the suit, her eyes softened. “Oh, Miss Hetty, you wouldn’t do nothing to hurt my boy, I know that.”

“You do?”

“Sure. You done so much for Pick. You was his savior.”

“Pick, dear Pick. I never dreamed they’d kill him. I’m so sorry, Velma.”

“I know you is.”

“Will you forgive me then?”

“I don’t keep room in my heart for hate. I just can’t.” She smoothed the lapels of the suit again and buttoned the coat. A whiff of Pick’s scent rose into the air between them. “This grief is hard to bear. I can testify to that.”

“It’s horrible for me. I feel responsible.”

“How come?”

Hetty gave her such a miserable look she reached out. They clutched each other’s hands over the buttoned-up Sunday suit. Velma began crying. “It ain’t we women who take life. We give it. The Good Book say you bring forth children in pain. It don’t say nothing about watching what happens to ’em after. That’s the real pain.”

“I should have sent Pick home—I’m sorry.”