Shades of Black: Crime and Mystery Stories by African-American Authors (3 page)

When their eyes happened to meet, the schoolteacher gave Walter Lee a brisk nod. Then she turned her attention back to the book on the table in front of her.
Anna and the King of
something or other, Walter Lee had seen when she came in the lounge carrying it.

“George,” Johnny called out, snapping his fingers. “Over here. Bring me another bourbon.”

No point in telling the man that his name wasn't George. He was one of them kind that called any porter who worked for the company after George Pullman. “Coming right up, sir. May I get you something, ma'am,” he said to Ruby.

She smiled and shook her head, but she was watching the boy, David, as he climbed up on a chair to peer out the window.

She got up and went over to kneel down beside him. “What do you see out there?”

“Can't see nothing,” the boy said. “It's dark.”

He jumped down from the chair. “I'm hungry, Mommy.”

His mother looked up from the knitting that was lying untouched in her lap. “David, when we were in the dining room, you wouldn't eat.”

David jumped up and down. “I'm hungry.”

Walter Lee turned from setting the bourbon on the table in front of Johnny and spoke before the man could get out the harsh words he saw forming on his lips. “I'll be glad to get him something from the kitchen, ma'am.”

“Thank you,” she said, more tears in her eyes.

Nerves. The woman was nothing but a bundle of nerves. That was plain to see. No wonder the boy was acting up. Children could sense it when grown-ups aren't feeling up to being in control.

He brought the boy the sandwich he had asked for and a glass of milk and persuaded him to sit down in front of one of the small tables to eat.

The boy pulled the sandwich apart. Crumbled up one slice of bread, then started licking at the peanut butter and jelly on the other slice.

Ruby'd come and sat down across from the widow. She was chattering on, trying to get the widow to talk. Walter Lee glanced over at Johnny. Johnny was nursing his bourbon and watching Ruby.

The major was watching her too. Not that she wasn't the kind of woman who drew men's eyes. But it seemed to Walter Lee that the major was watching her kind of odd. He had come into the lounge and sat down in the chair that young David had climbed up on. For a few minutes, he had been staring out the window into the darkness, with his back turned on the others. Then he had suddenly turned in his chair and started staring at Ruby.

That had been about the time Ruby said to the widow, “I know how it is, honey. I was engaged to someone during the war.”

Her friend Johnny had frowned at that.

“He was wounded,” Ruby said. “They sent him home to a hospital here, and they did all they could. The doctors and nurses . . . but he . . .
well, he died later.” Ruby sighed. “But you have to go on, you know. You can't just let yourself get down and stay that way. You've got your kid.” She smiled. “I always wanted a kid.”

The schoolteacher looked up from her book. “Children are a considerable responsibility. You're young and pretty. Do you really want to be tied down?”

Ruby turned to look at her. “If I met the right man—”

“And presumably you thought you had when you met your fiancé,” the schoolteacher said.

“I knew I had,” Ruby said. She shook her head. “But the war screwed up a lot of lives, didn't it?”

Johnny said, “Hey, you, still got me.”

He said it like he wanted to sound like he was making a joke. But he sounded hurt. Like a little boy, Walter Lee thought.

Ruby laughed and jumped up from her chair to go to him. “Of course, I have you, honey. I was just talking about the past.” She bent and kissed his cheek. “But that's over and done. We're going to Chicago to have ourselves some fun.”

“Porter, may I have a scotch and soda, please,” the major said, his voice hoarse.

It was the first time he had spoken since his “good evening” when he'd come into the lounge. Heads turned in his direction. He flushed and turned to look out the window again.

“Coming right up, sir,” Walter Lee said.

When he brought the drink over to the major, he noticed again the tremor in the man's hands. Could be shell shock. Some of the soldiers coming back had that.

He should be grateful himself, Walter Lee thought as he had many times before. He'd been a year or two too old to be called up. So he'd stayed here safe at home, his body and his mind still whole. No man's blood on his hands.

“Porter, may I have a cup of tea,” the schoolteacher said, breaking into his thoughts.

“Yes, ma'am, I'll get you a cup from the kitchen.”

It went on like that for the next hour or so. Other passengers passed
through the lounge, stopping on their way to the observation car or coming back through from the dining room. But it was the passengers who had gotten on in Lexington that lingered.

Even the minister and his wife came in.

“Good evening, folks,” the preacher said, before he was halfway through the door. His voice, rich and deep, filling the lounge. “We thought we'd come out and be sociable.”

He glanced over at the bar that Walter Lee was standing behind. “Think I'll have a nightcap, porter. Something for my digestion.”

“A glass of sherry, Byron,” his wife said. “A glass of sherry would be nice. I'd like one too.”

The preacher nodded at Walter Lee. “Two glasses of sherry. Your best.”

“Yes, sir,” Walter Lee said, reaching for the bottle. Well, at least, the man wasn't a hypocrite. Come right out and had his self a drink. Let his wife have one too.

His wife glanced around, settling on a seat by the widow and Ruby, who'd gone back to sit with her. “Eunice Harcourt,” she said. “That's my husband, Byron. Who are you ladies?”

“Ruby Jeffries,” Ruby said, looking amused again.

The widow tucked her knitting into her bag as if she was thinking she might need to make a run for it. “Joanne Burton.”

Eunice nodded. “We saw you arrive . . .” She paused. “With the casket. Your husband?”

The widow's hand fluttered to her throat. “Yes. I'm taking his body back to Chicago. His family . . . they want him buried there.”

Eunice leaned closer. “And none of them come down to help you? They shouldn't have left you to—”

The widow stood up. “They . . . I told them I could manage. Excuse me, please. David, come . . . it's time for your bedtime.”

David puckered up his face for a moment, as if he was going to argue. But instead, he jumped up from the floor and ran over to take her hand.

Walter Lee's gaze went to the major, as the man came to his feet. “If there is any way I can be of service, ma'am,” he said to the widow.

She paused, looking like she wasn't sure what to say. Then she shook her head. “Thank you . . . there's nothing.”

“Why don't you come on back and join us after you get him tucked in,” Eunice Harcourt said. “You don't want to sit there alone in your room.”

But the widow didn't come back. Johnny and Ruby and the preacher and his wife ended up playing cards. And what would his Hester Rose say about that? Walter Lee thought, grinning to himself. A preacher in his collar playing cards.

'Course, they weren't playing for money, so maybe that made it all right.

The major made a half movement, as if he was going to stand. Then he groaned and fell back into his chair. Before anyone else could move, the schoolteacher was on her feet. “What is it?” she asked him, bending down beside his chair.

“Cramp. Cramp in my leg.”

Without as much as a by your leave, she had his pant leg up and was rubbing at his leg and telling him to try to relax it. A few minutes later, he settled back, looking pale but not like he was hurting anymore.

“Thank you,” he said.

“You're welcome.”

“How did you know what to do?” the preacher's wife asked her.

“My mother used to have trouble with her legs,” the schoolteacher said. She sat down at her table again and picked up her book.

By then Dwight Kent, the cartoonist, had come into the lounge. He asked for a cup of hot chocolate. Walter Lee had to go out to the kitchen to get that. When he got back, Dwight had his big pad out, and he was sitting there in the corner, drawing.

When Walter Lee put the cup down beside him, he saw that Dwight was sketching the preacher on his pad. Not line for line. Just strokes of his pen that caught the man—the way that collar he was wearing didn't go with his mouth or his dark eyes that were sliding looks in Ruby's direction. Dwight made it almost look like two little horns were just beneath the preacher's thick black hair.

Walter caught himself before he chuckled out loud. But Dwight had seen Walter Lee sneaking peeks at his work. He flipped the pages of his
pad backward so that Walter Lee could see the other drawings he'd done in the same quick stokes. Ruby looking like an angel, except for the smile on her full lips. And the preacher's wife looking like a little brown mouse with its nose wiggling.

And there was Johnny, looking like he was about to bust out of his shirt and jacket. Full of his self as could be.

Dwight winked at Walter Lee and turned in his chair so that the schoolteacher was in his line of vision. Walter Lee picked up an ashtray and fiddled around nearby so that he could see what Dwight would draw.

The boy should be ashamed of himself—and he ought to be ashamed of himself for looking, Walter Lee thought when Dwight gestured him over.

He'd drawn the schoolteacher with her hair down and flowing about her shoulders and her glasses in her hand. She was smiling, like she was looking at some man and telling him to come and get her.

But, then, the boy had seen what Walter Lee had. The schoolteacher had given up on herself too easy.

Still she wouldn't approve if she saw that drawing. Walter Lee gave Dwight a shake of his head and went back to his bar.

Walter Lee saw Dwight glance at the major. Drawing him too, most like.

He didn't get to see the sketch of the major until the preacher's wife said it was getting late and the card players agreed that it was bedtime. The major limped out behind them. That was when Dwight brought his pad over.

Without a word, he flipped to the major. Walter Lee almost winced. This one was cruel. There in the strokes of Dwight's pen was a man, face half in shadow, eyes wide with fear. Hands clenched.

Before Walter Lee could speak, Dwight flipped the page. Walter Lee laughed out loud. There he was himself. But instead of his cap, Dwight had drawn him holding a top hat like magicians used—pulling a rabbit from that hat.

“Why you'd draw me like that?” Walter Lee said. “How'd you know I like magic tricks?”

Dwight smiled and shook his head. “It just occurred to me when I was watching you dealing with all of them.”

Before Walter Lee could say anything, the door opened again. It was Ruby. “Porter, I meant to ask about when we get into the station in the morning—”

She broke off, her eyes on the pad. “What's that?”

“I'm a cartoonist,” Dwight said.

“Can I see?” she said, smiling and reaching for the pad.

She laughed as she flipped the pages, delight on her face. Until she got toward the end, then her smile faded. “You shouldn't have drawn the major like that,” she said.

“That's what I saw when I looked at him,” Dwight said.

“The soldiers who fought . . . the man I was engaged to . . .” She shook her head. “Things happened to them. Not just to their bodies.”

She stared down at the drawing of the major, and then she began to flip back through the pages. Not laughing now.

Walter Lee glanced at Dwight. The boy's eyes were glinting, his lower lip curled.

Walter Lee cleared his throat. He didn't like the boy as much as he'd thought he did.

“What did you want to ask, ma'am?” he said to Ruby.

She had paused over another one of the drawings. She was frowning. “There's something about . . .” She looked up, her eyes going from Walter Lee to Dwight. “It . . . was nothing important. I'll ask you in the morning.”

Walter Lee was sitting in the men's washroom polishing the shoes the passengers had left for him to shine, when the brakes screeched and the train jerked. He was thrown from his chair as the train came to a stop.

Lord, they must have hit something on the track.

He jumped up and grabbed his jacket.

In the corridor, the doors were opening, passengers asking what had happened. He went down the line, calming them down and making sure everyone was all right. Then he hurried toward the door separating the sleeping quarters from the lounge. He needed to find the conductor.