Man in the Blue Moon (16 page)

“Now, Earl, no need to let your imagination run wild,” Clive said, raising his hand. “I’ll personally see to it that things are smoothed over.”

Earl stared at the patch of uprooted sandspurs. “I promised my wife I’d never . . .”

“Oh, certainly.” Clive walked back and forth in front of the cinder blocks. He snatched the top of one of the weeds, and the bloom ripped. “You know, the sheriff here can attest that I esteem nothing of more importance than loyalty. Except for maybe discretion. Is that a fair statement, Sheriff Bissell?”

The sheriff pursed his lips and nodded.

“So, Earl, here’s what I’m willing to do.” Clive took out the money clip again and began peeling away bills. He folded the edges perfectly. “I’m going to pay you to keep showing up at Ella Wallace’s place. You don’t ask any questions. Fact of the matter, you don’t talk beyond what is simply necessary. You just follow my instructions. You can do that, can’t you, Earl?”

“Now I didn’t go there aiming to work like a pulpwooder. I was just helping for the—”

Clive closed his eyes and held up his hand again. “The only worry you have right now is following instructions. Because it would be a travesty—a mortal sin, you might well say—to let that pretty daughter with the mind of a child and the body of a filly end up in the crazy hospital harnessed to the wall like a mare on breeding day.”

Earl reached for the bottle again but this time didn’t bother to hide it. Pulling the whiskey from his pocket, he swallowed what remained, wiped his chin, and threw the bottle to the ground. It landed against the side of a cinder block, cracking the glass right down the middle.

Mr. Busby picked up a vase with gold-chipped cherubs that he had acquired from a woman named Prescott in Moultrie, Georgia, who claimed that it had once belonged to Thomas Jefferson. He had stayed in the woman’s carriage house with faded floral wallpaper that was missing in patches, exposing mildew on the boards. To pay for his lodging, he took a photograph of the big-hipped woman sitting on a peeling veranda, holding the granddaughter, whose face was as round as a full moon and whose hair had been tied in peach-colored bows, special for the occasion.

Inside the carriage house that night, Mr. Busby was developing film and placing pictures in thin silver frames that were scratched and dented. He was behind in his work and stayed up until well past midnight developing the photographs of people he had met on his circuit. They were different ages, sizes, and stations in life, but most were connected by the same setting: a black velvet backdrop, wingback chairs, and a bearskin rug stained with baby vomit and urine from a prized foxhound.

The photograph taken of Ella Wallace and her family was particularly clear, so he made two copies, one that he would give to Ella as a gift marking the day she finished cutting the timber and the other for his display table. Holding the eight-by-ten picture up to the light that flickered from a lamp on the small table, Mr. Busby squinted at the corner of the image. At the edge of the picture, Lanier could be seen in side profile, walking away from the group. “Look at that trash,” Mr. Busby said and shook the picture that he held with small pliers. Who would want a common laborer in a family portrait? His hair, long enough for a woman, in Mr. Busby’s estimation, was smeared in motion much like a fluttering of angel wings. But then the smear seemed to become something with potential.

The grime on the faces of Ella and the others was juxtaposed with enough hope in their eyes that Mr. Busby couldn’t help but make comparisons of his work with that of celebrated photographer Jacob Riis. From an elderly couple in Waycross, Georgia, Mr. Busby had bartered a family portrait taken in front of their crackled, four-column house and pictures of their puny Brahman bulls for a copy of Riis’s book
How the Other Half Live
. That was over a year ago, and ever since, the pictures inside the book continued to feed his dream of having his own version of the hardscrabble people published for all the world to see. He spent the hours on the road picturing his name sprawled across the cover of such a book, exacting the imaginary type copy and calculating advances from a publisher yet to be secured.

Selling himself on the idea that the appearance of Lanier—looking down at the ground with his tall leather boots in midstride—made the photograph more art-worthy, Mr. Busby stuck it inside the wet-stained leather satchel that contained his other commissions. He packed up his equipment, propped it next to a rusted chamber pot with a portrait of General Grant on the bottom, sipped from his flask of whiskey, and stripped naked before climbing into bed.

Starting tomorrow, he would display the photograph and explain to the unrefined that the smear of the man walking in the corner of the image was representational of a celestial being standing watch over the brokenhearted woman who was working like a man to provide for her children.

“Wrapping day,” Bonaparte kept saying as the majority of the men who had first appeared like apparitions in the morning mist helped him drive spikes into the cypress that had been cut. Lanier and two other men dropped the chains they carried on their shoulders to the bank of the river where the cypress had been transported by the oxcart. Branches of a dogwood tree rattled with the quaking sound of the chains meeting the earth. Samuel and Keaton helped the men wrap the ends of the logs with chains until the product of their work became two rafts.

“Wrapping day,” Ella repeated in a chorus. She massaged the hard callus on her index finger the same way others might rub a rabbit’s foot for luck. The sun beat down on her and the mosquitoes circled. She rubbed the rough spot on her hand harder.

Bonaparte took the lead in easing the raft of cypress logs onto the water. He held the spike that he would use to help guide the raft in a way that reminded Ella of the Bible illustrations of Moses holding up a rod to part the Red Sea. Rays of the stinging sun filtered through the trees that guarded the river and sprinkled out across the dark water like a scattering of diamonds.

“Two days to go till that note gets paid,” Keaton said and held on to the side rail that Lanier had built as a safety measure. No one repeated Keaton’s words. The date that officially would mark whether Clive Gillespie’s bank took ownership of the farm was firmly planted in the minds of all who took positions on the raft.

Narsissa stood on the front end, her rubber boots gripped to the grooves in the wood. Samuel was wild-eyed, watching Bonaparte and clutching one of the spike poles the same way he did. Keaton sat on a box that had once contained a shipment of china and now held their supply of water and food. Lanier held the rope that was all that secured the four-foot-wide raft of cypress to the riverbank. He reached up with his other hand, offering it to Ella. She licked her lips, feeling the stare of the men who remained on shore. With her first uneasy step on the log, she felt herself slipping on the slick surface of the wood.

“Easy,” Lanier whispered. His breath was as hot as the sun on her neck. She got her footing before turning back and waving at the men, who grew smaller as the raft took to the river’s current.

“Thank you,” Ella wanted to yell. “When we come back, we’ll have the party of all parties,” she had planned to say that morning as they bundled the wood. “We’ll burn that note and dance and drink until sunup,” she tried to shout as the raft of wood rocked and moved downriver. But the words would not form on her dry tongue. The red lines she had marked on the calendar with the girl holding a Coca-Cola flashed through her mind. The remaining days between her dreams and her challenges were still wide-open spaces on paper.

Some of the men on the shore waved their hats and shouted back at Ella. Others walked away, vowing to keep Bonaparte honest in repaying the favor of helping the woman who sheltered the healer. But Earl said nothing. He walked back to the oak tree that had been struck by lightning and split down the middle. He wedged his hand inside the rotted trunk and pulled out his bottle of spirits. As he sauntered past Wallace Commissary, the Closed sign dangled sideways from the window on the door.

Reverend Simpson’s Model T roared with the sound of a broken muffler, and the back wheel hit a mud puddle as the car passed Earl on the road. The floral-printed scarf that Myer Simpson wore on top of her head fluttered about in the breeze of the passenger seat. Earl darted into the shadow forming behind Ella’s store. He kept his head tucked toward the ground and his hands planted inside the pockets of his pants. He fingered the sharp spikes that Bonaparte had told him to nail into the side of the raft. Instead, Earl had slipped the four-inch spikes into his pockets until they protruded from his side like a spare bone attached to his thigh, then pounded away just like he was told.

Behind the store, where an oak branch scratched against the tin roof, Earl leaned against the side of the building that was discolored with mildew. Knocking back the bottle and letting the liquid burn his throat, he cussed Clive Gillespie for making him pretend to take orders from a colored man.

In Apalachicola, Reverend Simpson and his wife, Myer, drove past the white-column Orman house with its lawn that swept down to the river.

Myer sat up straighter. “I wonder if Judge Orman will be there?”

Reverend Simpson gripped the steering wheel tighter and the automobile hit a hole in the road. “Judge Orman has more sense than us. He knows a circus when he sees one.”

“Will you stop being so contrary,” Myer said. “Circus or not, this man has the ear of town leaders. This man . . . this charlatan could teach you a thing or two about promotion if you’d pay attention.”

“And all this time I thought I was called not to be a respecter of people,” Reverend Simpson said without looking away from the road to Main Street. “And fix your scarf. It’s crooked.”

When they pulled up to the Franklin Inn, where the press conference was being held, Brother Mabry was standing on the porch, having his photograph made by a stringer for the
Chicago Tribune
. Just before the flash went off, Brother Mabry placed his hand on the shoulder of the man who stood on the step below him. Professor Seth Listerman, the botanist hired to help substantiate Brother Mabry’s claims. The professor, a man in his early fifties with silver hair parted straight down the middle and a protruding overbite that caused a slight slur of words, held up a long tree branch that had the length of a Christmas fir but the leaves of a fern.

“Eden, you say?” asked a young man with sagging britches held on his thin waist with a tattered belt.

“The torreya tree sample,” Professor Listerman said in an authoritative, affected nasal voice that he had perfected with the aid of Brother Mabry’s vocal coach. “Only a sample of the rare flora that can be traced to Eden.” He held the branch higher, and an ant crawled out from one of the leaves.

“The who tree? How do you spell that?” asked a man whose belly lapped over his belt. He scribbled down the letters that Professor Listerman patiently provided.

“So, where’s the apple tree?” a young man asked. The others in the semicircle laughed, and two flipped the covers over their notepads and walked back toward the dock where the steamboat awaited them.

“Hear me now,” Brother Mabry said. “Genesis says nothing about an apple tree. That’s man’s logic. It reads that Eve plucked fruit from the
tree of knowledge
.”

“Professor, hold up that branch a little more to the left,” the man with the wide waist said. He flapped the pages of his notepad at the photographer. “Eden, they say?”

“Eden,” Brother Mabry affirmed and then placed his hand on the lapel of his crimson velvet jacket.

“Eden?” Reverend Simpson asked as he and Myer walked toward the press corps that stood on the lawn of the inn.

“Who would believe such foolishness?” Myer asked and straightened out the wrinkles on her skirt.

“Don’t you know that foolishness sells papers, Mrs. Simpson?”

The flash of the photograph lit up the porch like lightning, and Professor Listerman stumbled with momentary blindness as he walked through the front door of the inn.

Inside, Clive Gillespie had assembled town leaders and Sweetwater Jim Stephens, the Democratic machine in the Florida panhandle. Mahogany ceiling fans clipped the air that was thick with the sound of chatter and the smell of salt that drifted in through the open windows. A waiter with a lopsided bow tie served chilled shrimp on a platter covered in wilted lettuce. Mayor Cox filled his plate twice before almost tripping, making way for Brother Mabry. “Right this way, preacher.” Clive Gillespie blocked the mayor and pulled Brother Mabry closer to the group assembled underneath the seven-foot sturgeon that hung on the wall.

Brother Mabry’s wide hand covered the platter as he scooped up six of the shrimp in one sweep. Clive Gillespie clutched a glass of tea with a chip of melting ice. He held on to Sweetwater Jim with the other hand. “Brother Mabry, this is the man I was telling you about, Sweetwater Jim.”

Licking cocktail sauce from the corner of his mouth, Brother Mabry nodded and then smiled to a couple who interrupted the introduction by wanting to share that they heard him preach once at a crusade in Chicago.

Clive gave a sudden jab of the elbow in the direction of the couple, missing the husband and hitting the wife in the ribs. The woman gasped, recoiled in horror, and darted toward the side of the room where the mayor stood. “Sweetwater Jim will make the roads possible for us,” Clive said.

“Oh, yes,” Brother Mabry said in a voice loud enough to be heard over the roar of a steamboat signaling its arrival at the dock outside. “Revenue generated from sales tax alone will more than cover it. Hear me when I tell you that the people will flood the gates of this city.”

“Flood?” the Greek café owner asked. “No flood. No Noah’s ark here.”

Brother Mabry smiled while others erupted in laughter. “What would you say if I were to show you the very wood that Noah’s ark came from? Wood known only to this area.”

The café owner raised a bushy eyebrow and cut his eyes toward Clive, then back to Brother Mabry and back to Clive once more. “You believe this man’s fairy tale?”

“Remember, at first they scoffed at Noah, too,” Brother Mabry said with a wave of his finger at the café owner. A couple of people giggled, and then the room grew still. Noise from a passing car and chatter from a group of children out on the sidewalk trickled in through an open window. The crowd parted and mumbled as Brother Mabry made his way to the corner of the room where Professor Listerman stood next to a cherrywood table adorned with an object draped in red velvet. When Brother Mabry snatched the velvet cloth away, Myer Simpson gasped.

“Ladies and gentlemen, if you go back and study the Word, you’ll see that the ark was built with gopher wood.” Brother Mabry raised his eyebrows at Professor Listerman, who fidgeted with the red velvet material he now clutched. “Professor, keep me honest, but is this not indeed the rare—some might even have said extinct—gopher wood we found at the mysterious spot in this county?”

“Indeed,” Professor Listerman whispered at first and then, when Brother Mabry lifted his hand upward, spoke louder. “Indeed it is gopher wood.”

“Well, I declare,” Lovey, the sheriff’s wife, said. She jostled with the postmaster to get a better look at the wood, aged with crevices and discoloration.

“Now, now,” Professor Listerman stammered. He spoke so fast that his lisp began to form into the rhythm of a song. “I want to just add that science speaks to the uniqueness of this place. Dr. Chapman, the renowned botanist of his day, documented his findings—solid, scientific findings—all documented in
Flora of the Southern United States
. He was the expert of botany in his day. He was . . .”