Rainwater (7 page)

But there was also a disquieting aspect to the program. The cattle that weren’t culled from herds for meatpacking were destroyed and buried in pits at the point of purchase. It might be a rancher’s whole herd or a farmer’s single milk cow. While the program had been designed to rescue families suffering the dual effects of the drought and the economic depression, seeing one’s lifework destroyed in such a brutal fashion was heart-wrenching.

Brother Calvin continued. “They picked out the fattest ones from the herd—weren’t many—and loaded them on a truck. Hauled them off. The ones left, they herded into the bottom of a hole that’d been dug, big as this house. Six of them marksmen lined up along the rim of it.

“Mr. Pritchett went inside the house with his wife and kids and closed the door. He just couldn’t bear to watch those cows get shot where they stood. Didn’t seem to matter to him that he’d been paid for them. His heart and spirit was broke down.”

In the telling of it, the preacher’s rolling voice gained strength. It bounced off the walls of the kitchen as though he was in the pulpit warning of hellfire and brimstone. “Then they opened fire. First shots spooked the cows. They’s bawling as they dropped. Cows, calves, ever’ last one.”

It made Ella ill to think of such carnage. Margaret pressed a hand to her trembling lips. Mr. Rainwater’s lean jaw was working as though he was grinding his teeth.

Ella said, “I know it’s necessary. It’s intended to help. But it just seems so cruel.”

“Especially to the man who’s toiled day and night building a herd,” Mr. Rainwater said. “Who beat you up, Brother Calvin? Why?”

The man wiped his eyes with his scratched fist. “Those folks in shantytown heard about what was going to happen out at Mr. Pritchett’s place. They came. Coloreds and whites together. Joined up on account of they’s all hungry. They came with whatever knifes and hatchets they had. Brought washtubs and cooking pots, thinking they could butcher those cows, get what meat was to be had off those skinny carcasses before it spoiled out there in the sun or was covered up with dirt. Folks that’ve been living on flour, water, and poke salad greens ain’t particular about their cuts of meat.”

His eyes began leaking again. “But soon as those government men left, some locals moved in to see that the dead cows didn’t get butchered. They’s led by a rifle-toting white man with a purple birthmark on his face.”

“Conrad.”

Mr. Rainwater looked sharply at Ella, who’d spoken the name.

“Conrad Ellis,” she said. “He has a birthmark that covers most of his face. A port-wine stain, I think they call it.”

“I say it’s the mark of Cain,” Margaret muttered.

“He’s a bully, always has been,” Ella said.

“He be meaner than sin.”

Ignoring her maid’s sneer, Ella went on. “Mr. Ellis, Conrad’s father, owns a meatpacking plant. He buys from most of the local ranchers.”

“People getting free meat would be bad for his business,” Mr. Rainwater remarked. “So he sent his son out there to make sure those folks didn’t get any.”

Ella frowned. “Conrad wouldn’t need an excuse. He enjoys beating up people. He’s always spoiling for a fight.”

“Especially since—”

“Margaret.”

Ella’s implied reprimand stopped the maid from saying more, but she looked madder than a hornet as she came to her feet, mumbling, “I’ll put some coffee on.”

Mr. Rainwater divided a curious look between Ella and Margaret, landing on Ella, who ignored his unspoken questions and returned her attention to Brother Calvin, who was saying, “That white boy was sure enough spoiling for a fight today.” He drained his glass of tea and carefully set it on the table.

“Soon as those government shooters cleared out, those shantytown people, me with them, ran down into that hole and started butchering those cows. Long as they were dead anyway, they could feed folks. Tonight. Not wait till the government got around to distributing canned meat. That was my thinking. And Mr. Pritchett’s, too, I guess, ’cause him and his wife come back outside and were passing out kitchen knives to anybody who didn’t have one.

“Then those boys roared up in a pickup truck, blaring the horn and shooting off firearms. They spilled out the back of that truck, waving baseball bats and rifles and yelling for those folks to scatter. When nobody paid them any mind but kept on hacking off pieces of those cows, they began knocking heads with the bats and the butts of their rifles. Men, kids, women, didn’t matter.”

“Where was the law?”

“The sheriff and a carload of deputies were there. Watching, but doing nothing till Mr. Pritchett took up a shotgun. He was shouting at those boys to get off his place and leave those poor shantytown folks alone, that all they wanted was meat that was gonna go to waste. Sheriff told him to put down that fool shotgun before he killed somebody.”

Here the preacher began shaking his head and weeping more copiously. “I saw this myself. That mean one with the birthmark went up on the porch and yanked a little boy straight out of Mrs. Pritchett’s arms. Couldn’t’ve been more than two or three years old. He threatened to bash that child’s skull in if Mr. Pritchett didn’t lay down his shotgun and let him and his buddies get on with the business of making sure the government program went off like it was s’pposed to.”

“Christ.”

The minister looked at Mr. Rainwater with soulful eyes. “The Lord forgives you the blasphemy, Mr. Rainwater. It was an awful sight. Dreadful in His eyes, too.” He wiped tears from his eyes again. “I don’t think Mr. Roosevelt had this in mind, do you? Anyhow, seeing his wife goin’ all hysterical, and his baby boy’s life threatened, that well-meaning Mr. Pritchett just give up.

“He dropped down on the steps of his porch and watched as those mean boys chased hungry folks back to shantytown. All he could do was sit there and cry over that bloody mess left in his pasture. He’d seen most of those cows born, probably helped pull some of them out of their mamas. To see ’em just shot like that, then wasted …” The preacher lost his will to continue.

When he stopped speaking, the only noises in the kitchen were those of the burbling percolator on the stove and Solly tapping his shoes together. Finally Ella asked, “What happens now?”

“They’ll be buried.”

Brother Calvin agreed to Mr. Rainwater’s explanation with a nod. “There were front loaders parked down the road from the farm, ready to roll, fill back up the hole they’d dug.” He shook his head sorrowfully. “I know men have gotta get whatever work they can. But I don’t know that I could ever hire on to shoot dumb cows and their calves. I don’t know that I could bury their carcasses in a pit while hungry children, within shouting distance, were crying and needing supper tonight.”

Mr. Rainwater leaned across the table toward him. “You were trying to help the shantytown people and got caught in the fray?”

“That’s right. I go down there sometimes and hold services for those folks,” he explained. “I encouraged them to be ready when those shooters went out to the Pritchett farm. I promised them meat. At least a bone for a soup pot. I didn’t count on men threatening to brain little boys with baseball bats.” His massive shoulders shook as he began to weep in earnest. “I feel responsible for ever’ blow struck.”

Ella laid a comforting hand on his forearm. “You’re not to blame, Brother Calvin. You were trying to help.” She looked across at Mr. Rainwater. “You know Dr. Kincaid better than I do. Do you think he would go to shantytown, treat those people with the worst injuries? I can’t ask him to do that, but you’re his kin.”

He stood up and began rolling down his shirtsleeves. “I’ll go now.”

“Stop back here before you leave for shantytown. Margaret and I will gather some things.”

He nodded as he left through the back door.

Ella was waiting for them when Mr. Rainwater returned a half hour later with Dr. Kincaid. “I need some help,” she called from the front porch.

The two men carried boxes of food, clothing, and household items from the house and loaded them into Mr. Rainwater’s car. “You did all this in the brief time I was gone?” he asked as he hefted a flour sack filled with clothing that Solly had outgrown.

“I’ve been collecting it for a while, waiting for the right time to give it away.”

While the men were stowing the last of the things in the car, Ella rushed back into the kitchen, asking Margaret to keep a close eye on Solly and promising to return in time to serve dinner. Then she grabbed her hat and went running out the front door. “Wait, I’m coming.”

“That isn’t necessary, Mrs. Barron,” the doctor said. He was sweating profusely.

“I know it isn’t necessary, but I can help.”

“Maybe Margaret would be better suited—”

“Margaret is a Negro, Dr. Kincaid. I don’t want to put her in danger of reprisal from a group of bigoted hoodlums. They enjoy bullying. They like it even better when their victims are colored people.”

The doctor looked toward Mr. Rainwater for reinforcement, but Mr. Rainwater took her side. “You can’t argue with that, Murdy.”

The doctor clapped his hat on his head. “Let’s go, then. Mrs. Kincaid is having a hissy fit as it is. She swore to send the law out looking for me if I wasn’t back in an hour.”

But an hour wasn’t near enough time to see everyone who had sustained an injury in the melee at the Pritchetts’ farm.

Ella and Mr. Rainwater doled out aspirin tablets and consolation to those with minor injuries, while the doctor treated the worst of them. He set the bones of grim-faced men who swigged moonshine to brace themselves against the pain. He bound bleeding wounds. He stitched what gashes he could with his limited supplies, then smeared antiseptic salves over the rest when his suturing threads ran out. He helped birth a stillborn baby from a woman who tiredly said it was a shame her child was dead but she couldn’t have fed another mouth anyhow. His little soul was better off in heaven, she said.

When all the wounded were treated, Ella and Mr. Rainwater circulated among the rickety lean-tos, patched tents, pasteboard boxes, and rusty cars serving as shelters. They passed out clothing, cast-off household items, and foodstuffs they’d brought. The eyes of the people looking back at Ella were either apathetic toward her generosity or pathetically grateful for it. She found both reactions equally disturbing.

When she’d given away everything she was carrying with her, she picked her way through the encampment back to Dr. Kincaid, who was giving instructions to the woman whose baby had been born dead.

He backed away from her bed, which was the lid of a box that she’d dragged into the shade of a pecan tree, and placed his hands in the small of his back as he straightened up. He’d left his suit jacket and hat in the car. His shirt was dirty and damp with perspiration. There was a smear of blood on his sleeve.

“We’ve done a little good, I think,” he remarked.

“Not enough.”

“No. Never enough.” He smiled at Ella grimly. “All the same, we’d better be on our way before Mrs. Kincaid sends out a posse.”

“Will there be any pain?” Ella asked him.

“Not much, no. The child was small, only seven months along. As births go, it was reasonably easy.”

But then he realized that Ella wasn’t talking about the woman who’d lost her newborn. She was looking at Mr. Rainwater, who was shaking hands with a man dressed only in grimy overalls. At each of the man’s legs was a grubby, barefoot child, clinging to the dirty denim of his daddy’s pants with hands that were even dirtier. The man was holding a third child in his arms. Ella had heard him telling Mr. Rainwater that his wife had died of tuberculosis a week ago, and that he didn’t know how he was going to look for work and take care of his children at the same time.

She was too far away to hear what the two were saying to each other now, but she imagined that Mr. Rainwater was telling him not to lose hope. He released the man’s hand, tousled the hair of one of the children, and turned to make his way back to her and the doctor.

She looked at Dr. Kincaid, her question hovering between them.

“Yes,” he said.

A shudder passed through her. She swallowed dryly. “Can you give him something for it?”

“When he asks for it, yes.”

“Will he? Ask.”

The doctor watched his kinsman winding his way around campfires and huddles of people. “Yes, Mrs. Barron,” the doctor replied bleakly. “He will.”

SIX

The Sunday following the incident at the Pritchetts’ farm, someone driving a pickup truck threw a bottle through a window of the AME church during the evening worship service. The bottle narrowly missed striking an elderly woman who was sitting on the end of the pew nearest the window, but beyond shattering a large pane of glass, it did no other harm. Leaving a wake of shouted racial slurs and a cloud of dust, the pickup sped away.

Brother Calvin’s melodious voice kept his congregation under control. None of the women panicked, none of the men went after the pickup. When the frightened children had been quieted, Brother Calvin continued his sermon and, by the conclusion of the service, had added ten converts to his flock.

The preacher’s face still looked battered, but the cuts on it and one cracked rib were the extent of his injuries. Miss Violet Dunne’s take on the minister’s participation in the incident at the Pritchetts’ farm was “He’s lucky they didn’t lynch him.”

Although Ella’s position on racial matters differed greatly from the spinster’s, she did agree with that summation. She felt that Brother Calvin had been fortunate to escape with his life.

It was first believed that the attack on the church was racially motivated, a warning to coloreds not to meddle in concerns that were basically reserved for whites, like government issues. That general opinion changed when, the very next night, two tents in shantytown went up in flames and a bag of horse manure was dumped into the creek from which the people who camped there drew their water.

It seemed the prevailing bigotry extended to poor whites and hoboes, too.

But after those incidents, Conrad Ellis and his crowd apparently lost interest in organized terrorism. They reverted to their customary forms of mischief making—reckless driving, public intoxication, and behaving obnoxiously at every opportunity.