Mississippi Cotton (25 page)

“What in the world were you thinkin,’ BB?” I heard Sheriff Bilbeau say.

I looked at Casey and Taylor and whispered, “I thought he had just told him what he was thinkin’.” They looked back at me and shrugged.

“I think it’s one of those questions you aren’t supposed to answer,” Casey said. “It means you weren’t thinking.”

BB’s face tightened and his fists seemed to clinch. He must know he had not been thinking. “I was jus’ trying to help Looty. I know it prob’ly wasn’t the right thing to do, but I wanted to help him.”

Mr. O’Grady moved around behind BB and Ben. Both remained rigid in their seats. He took off his hat and scratched his head. He ran his hand through his hair before replacing his hat.

“Do you know you could go to prison? They don’t let jail birds go to college. In case you ever planned to go.”

This was getting serious. It had always been serious, but now they were talking about jail—and not just the city jail or the county jail but prison. Prison sounded a lot worse than jail. Prison was where guys like James Cagney went.

“Now, one thing we got to get straightened out is this business at the river. It’s hard to believe that y’all jus’ happened to be fishin’ there, and jus’ happened to find this body. I mean—you can see what it looks like, you taking his rifle and all.”

BB’s lips quivered. For a minute I thought he was going to cry. He looked scared. His mouth opened, and he took a deep breath.

“We didn’t just happen to be there, Sheriff. We were invited.”

For a minute the ticking of the pendulum was the only sound. Sheriff Bilbeau said nothing; he just pushed his hat back on his head and stared at BB.

Mr. O’Grady leaned forward with his foot propped on a chair and waited for the sheriff to continue.

“Invited?” Sheriff Bilbeau said. “You wanna s’plain that BB?”

BB turned toward Ben. Ben leaned forward in his chair, looked at BB and nodded.

“We were invited one night by a lady,” said BB. “A lady named Sarah. She called Daddy one night and told him a story. It was a pay phone, ‘cause he’d heard the operator ask for thirty-five cents.”

Ben nodded in agreement.

Sheriff Bilbeau pulled up a chair right next to BB and Ben. He turned the chair around and leaned on the back with his arms folded. “Maybe you better tell us the story. Tell us what she told y’all.”

The police station door swung open and Cousin Carol came in, followed by Cousin Trek and Big Trek both taking long strides to keep up with her.

“What in the world is goin’ on?” Cousin Carol spoke first. “Where is Billy Joe?” Her words ran together like that radio guy Walter Winchell, hardly pausing for breath. “How long have y’all been here? Where is Ben? Where is BB? Did Earl come down? Was he out there when the sheriff got there? Are y’all all right?”

“Jus’ hold on, Carol. We’ll get Billy Joe out here and find out what this is all about. Now jus’ calm down some,” said Cousin Trek.

Mr. O’Grady came out of the interrogation room. His hands were up in front of his chest, like a pass blocking tackle fending an onslaught. “Calm down, calm down. Now ever’thing is okay with the boys, Carol. We jus’ had to bring ‘em in so they weren’t left out there by themselves. We couldn’t find Earl at the time, and we thought it was bes’ jus’ to bring ‘em here. They ain’t in no trouble.”

“We’re okay, Daddy,” Taylor said. “But they got BB and Ben in there. They’ve been arrested haven’t they, Mr. O’Grady?”

We waited for the answer. We weren’t sure they were under arrest, or if they were just being asked questions. In a way we were afraid to know the answer. We wanted to believe BB hadn’t done anything wrong.

Mr. O’Grady looked at us. He used both hands to hitch up his gun belt before turning to Cousin Trek. Big Trek didn’t seem surprised, but that might be because he had seen so much in life as to not be surprised at anything.

“We’re holdin’ ‘em until we get the report back on the ballistics, for the rifle. If it’s the gun that killed that man then BB’s gonna have some explainin’ to do. An’ Looty is gonna be wanted for murder, I’m afraid.”

I squirmed in my chair.

“When did you get the rifle?” Big Trek asked.

“This mornin’.” Sheriff Bilbeau came in from the other room, leaving the door open. He looked back at BB and pointed at him with his thumb. “He jus’ giv’ it to us. Been hidin’ it all this time. I’m not sure what his intentions were. Said he was jus’ helpin’ Looty.”

“Gave it to you?” Big Trek asked.

“Well, I think he slipped up. Might not have meant to ‘give’ it to us. But when we went out to Looty’s Sunday early in the morning’, you know, when we found the watch. Well, when we started up toward the house he said, ‘Watch out there’s a couple of loose boards on the front of the porch.’”

Sheriff Bilbeau paused and relit a cigar stub about two inches long he had been fooling with. “I didn’t start thinkin’ about it ‘til after we left. I was focusin’ on the watch so much. It was on the mantle next to that old jar of dirt, or whatever. Anyway I got to thinkin’ about loose boards and how he’d been real careful, it seemed to me, to keep us from unloosing ‘em, in case we tripped on ‘em. This mornin’ I got Billy Joe, and we went out and pulled ‘em up. There was the rifle, carefully wrapped in an old bedspread.”

I peered through the open door at BB. He jus’ sat in the chair. He stared straight ahead. Not at us. Not through the open door, so I wondered if he was trying to think of something else, like scoring touchdowns or chopping cotton, or something that would take his mind away from here. He sat straight in the chair with no expression—no smile—no nothing.

“How long before y’all know if it’s the gun that killed him?” Cousin Trek asked. He glanced through the door at BB and gave him a slight nod.

“They should know before the day’s over. I got some people over at county lookin’ at it,” the sheriff said. “We’ll at least have that part cleared up.”

“And what about that watch?” Mr. O’Grady asked.

“What watch?” Cousin Carol asked. “This is getting to be too serious for these boys to be involved. I think we need to get them on home,” she said.

We all looked at each other. A comment like that could get us pulled out of the room just when things were getting interesting.

A highway patrolman walked in. “I got a call on my radio,” he said. “It wasn’t the rifle. The bullet doesn’t match. They’ll get the official report to you in about an hour.”

Our presence was momentarily forgotten with the good news. I looked at BB. His big white smile was forming. Casey and Taylor grinned at me.

“Not the rifle?” Mr. O’Grady looked at the sheriff.

“Now what about the watch?” Big Trek said. He had said little until now. Though he talked a lot around me and Casey and Taylor, it was usually because he liked to tell us stories. But when important things were at issue he usually didn’t comment unless it was pretty heavy on his mind. He always studied on things before he spoke. He stood up, banged his pipe on the trash can and walked over to the window.

“ Sheriff Bilbeau and Billy Joe found a watch at Looty’s Saturday night. The night Ben came over to our house. You remember, Daddy. That pocket watch,” Taylor said.

Casey looked at me, a nervous grin crossing his face. We were supposed to have been asleep and not known Ben had come by. I guess no one noticed because Cousin Trek talked right through it.

“I remember, son. I’m asking them. What about it?”

“What’s your point, Mr. Mayfield? We know about the watch,” the sheriff said. “Looty told us she brought it before last Saturday. The last night he saw her.”

Big Trek turned from his stance at the window. “Well, now you got a watch that’s almost sure ‘bouts from the dead man—a watch found at the home of the guy whose rifle was not the murder weapon. It seems to me what you’ve got is what the story-writers call an irony.”

“How’s that, Mr. Mayfield?” Mr. O’Grady asked.

“Well, you found evidence from a man’s house that makes him look innocent—the rifle. But you also got evidence found in the same place that makes him look guilty, the watch. It’s ironic. Or maybe better said, a paradox.”

“Well, paradox or not, we’re getting’ to the bottom of this.”

I could still see BB and Ben sitting in the other room. I could tell they heard the news. Ben had put his arm over BB’s shoulder. Neither seemed guilty to me. Ben and BB sure looked relieved that they were no longer suspected of helping a killer.

Cousin Carol had temporarily lost interest in getting us home and listened as intently as the rest of us. Ben and BB came into the front office. I guess they knew they weren’t going to prison.

Just then, the front door opened and a deputy sheriff walked in with a man and a woman. The woman looked old and haggard. The man looked tired. It was Looty and the straw-haired lady.

Ben spoke first. “Hello, Looty. Miss Sarah.”

I had never thought about her having a name. I hadn’t even asked on the bus.

Her first words were to me. “Hello, Hon. How’er you doing?” She remembered me. Her lips turned up, trying to smile. But her eyes could not hide sadness.

Looty sat down. He said nothing, took out a red bandanna and wiped his brow.

Then she started talking just like she had on the bus, uncomplicated. She wasn’t excited or anything; she just started telling her story in her own simple, way.

“His name was Draco Marcus, a dang carpetbagger’s son from Chicago. His daddy was a carpetbagger and had come down here stealing whatever he could more’n thirty years before Draco came. Jus’ trash his daddy was. And so was Draco it turns out. His daddy done told him if he wanted to make his fortune to get his-self down here in this rich Mississippi Delta land. There was plenty of ignorant hicks and dumb niggers that’d be easy to be givin’ up their land. ‘Jus’ easy pickin’s and all’, he said. Didn’t matter that the war had been over for almost forty years, there was plenty of folks to make easy money off of still.

“Mr. Jackson McComb had saved his land after the war and wanted it left to his slave boy who was Ben Samuel’s daddy. Mr. McComb said in his will that if anything happened to Ben’s daddy before Ben was twenty-one, then the land was to be kept by law with a widowed landowner hereabouts that he trusted—Elizabeth Nash. Sure enough, Mr. McComb, he died, around 1900. Ben was jus’ a boy, ‘bout twelve. I was a young gal then myself. Jus’ fifteen.

“But ole Draco Marcus didn’t know ‘bout this. I don’t even know for sure he knew ‘bout Ben til after that night. He just thought Ben’s momma and daddy was there by theirselves.”

Mr. O’Grady leaned forward. “What night…uh, Miss…uh…”

“Sarah. My name’s Sarah,” she almost whispered. “And I mean the night the panther supposed to done killed Ben’s momma and daddy.”

“Supposed to?” Sheriff Bilbeau said.

“Draco done it. He chopped them up with a machete and clawed them with a trowel to make it look like a panther got ‘em. He had chopped up a panther he had trapped, and took one of its claws for to use in spreadin’ tracks around. Didn’t know Ben was in the room under the covers or I guess he’d killed him, too. I guess he thought if the owners was dead he could get some tax collector to sell him the land. I don’t know what he thought really. He was just trash, like I already said.”

“How is it you know all of this, Miss Sarah?” the sheriff asked.

She seemed to be dazed for a second. Then she looked at Looty. “Cause Draco told me. After they was killed and he found out about Ben’s land going to my momma, he said he wanted to marry me and take care of me and my momma and her land. But my momma wasn’t havin’ any of it and told him so. He stayed around for four or five years before he realized the carpetbagging days was over. But he had me fooled, and one night he had his way with me before he left for good. And he left me my boy.”

“Your boy?” someone asked.

She put her arm around Looty’s shoulder.

I looked at Taylor and Casey. I wondered if they knew what was going on. I wasn’t sure. I began to wonder if we were going to be told to leave. But no one told us to.

“Miss Sarah. Sarah Nash?” Mr. O’Grady said. “What happened after that?”

“I was ashamed and left my boy…” she paused to squeeze Looty’s shoulder with her hand, “…with my momma. I went off to Arkansas. I married a fine gentleman who was a tent wrangler in the circus. We done alright, ‘til he got killed one night went he got electrocuted by lightning.”

“What did you ever hear about Draco Marcus?” Cousin Carol suddenly spoke.

“Oh, honey, not too much. Word was he was in and out of jail over the years. When he wasn’t in Parchman or some other jail he was supposedly hanging out with a bunch of river rats over around Greenville.”

“How come you never told anyone about him killing Ben’s momma and daddy?” Sheriff Bilbeau asked. “You said a minute ago that he told you.”

She lifted her head a bit to answer and the light from the ceiling reflected from the wetness in her eyes. “Didn’t know before that night. All these years and didn’t know. Thought it was really a panther. Not until that night. That night about three weeks ago.

“I’d taken the bus to Greenville from Clarksdale. I wuz goin’ to get me some medicine from a place I know-ed about close to the river bridge. I ran into Marcus down there. He was after Looty. Somehow he’d found out that Looty wuz his son. He really got wild-eyed. Said he was too old to work, and he could sell that land and he’d git some cash. Said he’d one time chopped up two niggers, and weren’t nothin’ gonna stop him from getting’ Looty’s land now. But it’d be easier if I wuz to help him. Being as how Looty was so simple-minded like me, he said. That man didn’t never love nobody but hisself.”