The Drought (15 page)

Under normal circumstances Lola Edwards would have beamed at a teenager coming in to find out about their hometown but the heat had taken its toll. She had a pinched look on her face and she spoke in a strained whisper that seemed to cause her pain. “What exactly are you looking for?”

He hesitated, “Well you got anything written by Edna Mae?”

Ms. Edwards pulled her lips into a mew of distaste. “You mean her collection of essays about the drought? You know it’s not exactly accurate.”

He lied. “That’s okay. I just want to read about Coach Bryant and the Junction boys.”

She raised her eyebrow but stood up and led Jar over to the reference section. She couldn’t help muttering as she slid her fingers down a line of books, “It really should be in the creative non-fiction section.” Her fingers stopped their search and plucked a thin volume off the rack. “Here it is.”

He took the book, thankful it wasn’t thick, and sat down at one of the tables. Stenciled across the front cover in gold lettering were the words,

The Junction Drought

1949-1954

A Collection of Essays

By Edna Mae

He flipped through the thin volume catching snippets of the past. There were black and white pictures of large termite mounds. The first caption read:
Termites consumed roots as well as parts of the root crown
. Next to the first was a picture of a rancher driving a snowplow. The caption beneath this picture read:
In some areas, sand dunes reached six feet
.

All of the pictures were bleak, each one portraying a dry, alien terrain. Toward the back of the thin book there was an essay about Coach Bear Bryant, and his trip to Junction, Texas. When the team arrived there were 111 football players, ten days later only 35 remained, the rest had quit the team, sneaking away one by one.

The field where they practiced football, in temperatures ranging over a hundred degrees, was near Jar’s house. He couldn’t imagine anyone playing football in this heat. Flipping through the book again he found a name that grabbed his attention. It was under an essay titled,
After the War
, as told by JP Anderson

Lloyd Tanner came back from the war, like many small- town soldiers, with his eyes wide open.

Jar skimmed the next paragraph stopping when his eyes hit the word gypsies.

Had it not been for the arrival of the gypsies he may have been one of those men who slipped into the night and walked away from Junction, never to be heard from again. Junction was a small town filled with decent people. Like most small towns, Junction didn’t embrace strangers. These strangers were dark, mysterious and transient.

The narrative switched into first person directly quoting JP.

A 1931 Ford pick-up truck pulled into the filling station. Lordy, it was a sight. It was painted bright yellow and the back was filled with luggage and on top of all those bags were people. Well they pulled into the filling station and I was politely turning them away, when here come Lloyd Tanner crossing the street. As I recall, I told the old man driving, “No sir, we don’t serve gypsies, vagabonds or niggers.”

Lloyd stepped up and said, “JP, just what do you think you’re doing?”

A red color crept up my neck and my face was starting to turn. I whispered to Lloyd. “This is straight from Mr. Wells. I can’t go against what I’ve been told, I’ll lose my job.”

Lloyd, he looked toward the station and he could see Herman Wells peering out the station window. And he said, “It seems to me Mr. Wells would want as much business as he can get.”

I whispered again. “He says he doesn’t want to encourage the likes of them to hang around Junction.”

The absurdity of that last statement caught Lloyd and sent him into a coughing spell. He said, “Well damn, son. How do you suppose they’ll get out of town if you won’t sell them some gasoline?”

Realizing the dilemma, I backed away and said, “Let me go on and ask Mr. Wells.”

Lloyd waved me on and said, “You go on, tell Herman, Lloyd Tanner said to stop being so uptight.”

I wasn’t about to repeat those words. While I was inside, I could see Lloyd had taken to the gypsy girl sitting inside the cab. He was leaning in, talking to her real sweet like. I don’t know what they were saying but when I came back, Lloyd was talking about the war. I broke in on their conversation and said, “Mr. Wells said I can pump them a gallon. Just enough to get them on to the next town.”

Lloyd cast an annoyed look toward the station. “Well damn, ain’t he a generous saint.”

I wrung my hands in nervous agitation. The dark men and women were staring at me from the back of the truck. One of those women was carrying a tiny baby. The old man looked like he was ready to cast a curse. I pumped the gallon quickly, and topped it off a little. Then real quick wiped the front window and the headlights with a cloth. I said, “No offense, it’s not me, I’d sell you the gas if it were my station, I’m just doing my job.”

The old man got back in the truck and cast the girl a dark glare for flirting with Lloyd. The engine sputtered back to life and as they started away. Lloyd ran along side and yelled, “What’s your name?”

The girl flipped her dark hair and called back. “Anselina.”

The old man reached over and pinched her leg as they pulled away.

Impatient to find out what would happen next he flipped forward to see where it was going. Skimming, he missed how Lloyd Tanner met up with the gypsies again. He picked up the narrative on page 73.

Word got around the gypsies was staying on Tanner’s land. The townsfolk didn’t like it and pretty soon Lloyd and his new friends had to go clear over to Friedburg to get provisions. Over time, things might have died down had it not been for the heat that coincided with their arrival.

Jar’s heart started to jackhammer in his chest as he continued to read.

At first it was a typical heat wave. The ranchers were a tough lot and they waited with patience for rain. But the months rolled on and the rain didn’t come. It didn’t take long for a few townsfolk to start mumbling about gypsies and curses. But it was just mumbling. Lloyd Tanner and the gypsies kept to themselves and avoided the town.

Lloyd had gone ahead and married his gypsy girl and had given a parcel of his land to Anselina’s father as a bride price. Anselina was already with child. O’course as I recollect they lost that first baby must a been about 1949. The gypsies though had ties to the land and to the area by virtue of their own blood. They weren’t going anywhere.

He turned the page. The rustle of pages in the quite room earned him a pinched look from Ms. Edwards. Ignoring her, he settled deeper into his seat.

The first real threats came in 1950. Anselina was a proud woman and it bothered her they had to avoid the town. She had herself a respectable man, she was a married woman and she wanted to stroll through the town common like all the other townspeople. Lloyd, I imagine with some trepidation, accommodated her wish and they headed into town. They had no sooner parked the truck and they had a crowd forming. The crowd started rocking the truck back and forth, yelling out, “Go back where you came from. Take your damn curses and go home.”

After the incident, the frequency of vandalism out on Tanner’s land increased. A rock through a window, an occasional flat tire, unexplained fires, and some of the animals were killed. The vandals used the blood to paint messages. “It’s time to move on.”

Things escalated from petty vandalism in 1953. A few of the gypsies were riding out on Route 377 in that old yellow Ford, probably coming back from Freiburg. Some of the local boys decided to take matters into their own hands and they ran the truck off the road. A woman and a toddler were in the back along with three other men. They were all killed when the truck rolled.

A few of the gypsies did put Junction behind them. Anselina’s family stayed on until early 1954. I guess Griffin came along sometime that year. It was the same year the good people of Junction came onto his grandfather’s land and burned everything. Anselina’s family was lost in the fire. It weren’t long after the fire, Anselina slipped away. She left Junction and never came back. After her departure, the heat disappeared as mysteriously as it had come. That alone proved to the townspeople of Junction they had done what needed to be done.

Jar flipped through the rest of the slim book until he caught sight of a picture that made his blood run cold. He stared at the black and white image of a girl with sunken eyes. It was the same girl who had haunted his dreams. He looked at the caption and breathed the little girl’s name, “Maple McManus.”

He closed the thin book with trembling hands. He would have swiped it, but Lola Edwards watched him as if she could read his thoughts. Leaving the book on the table, Jar walked out of the library. There was a golden glow over Junction as the moon rose into the night sky. Jar pedaled across town, feeling the hot air against his face. The girl with the sunken eyes stayed with him and he knew first thing in the morning, he was going to ride out to Maple McManus’ ranch.

Reserve, Louisiana

A single pass by Chick’s told Nathan he didn’t want to venture inside. The place was packed and Nathan didn’t have the stomach to discuss Gwen Doucet’s butchered Collie over lunch. He pulled past the diner and parked in the library parking lot. He’d already been there a few days back, looking up the topic of Voodoo, but he figured a second glance at some of the reference material couldn’t hurt. He’d grab something to eat later.

Mary Dugas, the librarian, greeted Nathan with a tight smile. Understanding her cool detachment, Nathan touched the tip of his hat in a show of courtesy and nodded toward the reference section. Mary had reported her missing Boston Terrier back in May. At this point, there was little doubt what the fate of her favorite pet had been.

She acknowledged his unspoken request with a single sentence. “Don’t go leaving a big mess,” and continued scanning a pile of returned books.

He settled into a hard plastic seat and the smell of musty books enveloped him. As he flipped through the books on Voodoo, he recognized various names like Barron Simondi and Marie Laveau. Summers in Reserve had exposed him to stories about voodoo. As a teenager he had even gone out to St. Louis Cemetery and marked Marie Laveau’s tomb with three Xs, desperately wishing for Margo Roussel to fall in love with him. Margo had gone on to marry Keith Devare and Nathan had grown up and come to realize voodoo was simply a mixture of old wives’ tales and exaggerated accounts publicized by Hollywood.

Gwen Doucet’s butchered collie wasn’t an exaggerated account. He’d seen it, had to cut it down himself and break the news to Gwen. He pushed the books away in anger. He could read every book published and not get a bit closer to knowing who in his town had cut up that dog. One statistic had surprised him. Fifteen percent of the people surrounding New Orleans still practiced voodoo. The sacrifice of dogs had also raised an eyebrow. Goats, chicken and sheep, yes—but dogs? More than ever he wanted to talk to Nute. Somehow, he knew the old guy was involved. But Nute as Roland had called it had, “gone missing.”

Nathan left the library an hour later, still confused. He was almost to his truck when he felt someone watching him. He glanced toward Chick’s Diner and saw Narried standing at the back entrance of the restaurant. She didn’t appear to be looking in his direction. In fact she was leaning against the back wall, smoking a cigarette. She could be waiting for a delivery or simply taking a break but he sensed she was waiting for him.

Following his instincts, he walked across the parking lot. He pointed toward her cigarette and asked, “Mind if I bum one?”

Narried exhaled with a wide smile, blowing a plume of exotic smoke in his direction. “You don’ smoke.”

“I could always start.”

“Mmm.” She pointed toward the library with the hand still holding the cigarette. “You fine anytin’ intrestin?”

He watched the line of smoke hang in the air and wondered what brand she smoked. The cigarette looked like a slender cigar, brown with gold etching.

“Just doing a little research.”

She raised an eyebrow. “About Voodoo?”

Had it been anyone else, he might have been embarrassed, but she breathed the words into the hot air like they had meaning.