They talked for hours, always about the present or the future, and not about the past. But south of Jackson, some four hours into the journey, Joel said, “Stella and I believe you know a lot more than you’ve ever told us.”
“About what?”
“About Pete and Dexter, about Mom. About what happened. You know something, don’t you, Aunt Florry?”
“Why is this important now? Everybody’s dead.”
“The night Dad died, you went to see him at the jail. What did you talk about?”
“Must we rehash this? That was one of the worst nights of my life.”
“Typical Banning response, Aunt Florry. Take the question, duck it, and try to wiggle away without a response. Where did you and Pete learn to be so evasive?”
“Don’t be insulting, Joel.”
“I’m not. Just answer the question.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Why did Dad kill Dexter?”
“He never gave me a reason, and, believe me, I pressed him hard. He was a very stubborn man.”
“No kidding. I figure Mom had an affair with Dexter Bell and somehow Dad found out about it when he got home from the war. He confronted her and she was overwhelmed with guilt and shame. She cracked up or whatever, and he wanted her out of the house. Wilbanks convinced Judge Rumbold she needed some time away, and Dad drove her to Whitfield. After that, Dad could never accept the fact that his wife had been unfaithful, especially given the nightmare he survived in the war. Think about it, Aunt Florry, he was over there starved nearly to death, wiped out with malaria and dysentery, getting tortured and abused, then fighting in the jungles, and she’s home sleeping with the preacher. It drove him crazy, and that’s why he killed Dexter Bell. Something snapped in Pete’s mind. Your response, Aunt Florry?”
“You think your father cracked up?”
“Yes, and you don’t?”
“No, I think Pete knew exactly what he was doing. He was not crazy. I’ll buy the rest of your story, but Pete was thinking clearly.”
“And he never told you this story?”
She took a deep breath and glanced out her window. The pause gave the real answer, but she did not. “No, not a word.”
Joel knew she was lying.
There was no chance of snow in New Orleans. The temperature was in the fifties, the air clear and crisp. Miss Twyla greeted them with a flurry of fierce hugs and loud hellos, and served them drinks as her maid unloaded the car. Florry brought enough luggage, all hastily packed, to stay for a year. Joel mentioned possibly getting a room at the Hotel Monteleone on Royal Street, but Twyla would have none of it. Her elegant town house had plenty of bedrooms and she needed some company. They sat in the courtyard next to an old fountain with water dripping from a cement tiger, and talked about this and that. As soon as Florry excused herself for a moment, Twyla whispered to Joel, “She looks awful.”
“It’s been a rough time. She’s blaming herself for my mom’s death.”
“I’m so sorry about that, Joel. Florry was hospitalized, right?”
“Yes, for a few days. Chest pains. I worry about her.”
“She looks pale and thinner.”
“Well, I guess she needs some gumbo and jambalaya and fried oysters. I’ve hauled her down here; now you feed her.”
“I can do that. And we have better doctors down here. I’ll get one to look at her. The family genes are, how shall I say it, not too promising.”
“Thank you. Yes, we tend to die young.”
“And how is the lovely Stella?”
“Okay. She didn’t want to come back so soon, so she stayed in D.C. It’s been a rough time.”
“I’ll say. What you folks need is some good luck.”
Florry was back, shuffling along as her large tent of a dress flowed behind her. She was already happier being with Twyla in the big city. On an old wooden table that supposedly came from a farmhouse somewhere in France, a maid arranged a platter of raw oysters and poured cold wine.
They ate and drank and laughed deep into the night. Once again, Ford County was in another world.
Late the following morning, Joel stumbled from his bedroom with an aching head and dry mouth. He found water, quenched his thirst, and badly needed coffee. A maid quietly showed him the front door, and he stepped into the bright sunshine of another perfect day in the Vieux Carré. He steadied himself, found his footing, and ambled down Chartres to Jackson Square and his favorite little café, where the coffee was strong and half chicory. He drank one cup, paid for another to go, and walked across Decatur, through the French Market, and up the steps to the levee walk, where he sat on a bench. It was his favorite spot in the city, and he loved to loaf there for hours and watch the river traffic.
At home in his late father’s library, there was a picture book of New Orleans. In one photo from the 1870s, dozens of steamboats were docked side by side at the port, all laden with bales of cotton from the farms and plantations in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. As a kid who daydreamed a lot, Joel had convinced himself that the cotton from the Banning farm was on one of those boats and had been shipped to New Orleans for export. Their cotton was important and needed by the world. The people who worked on the boats and docks made their livelihoods because of their cotton.
Back then the docks were rowdy and chaotic, as steamboats swarmed in from upriver and hundreds of stevedores scurried to unload them. That was all gone now. The great river was still busy, but the steamboats had been replaced by low, flat barges carrying grain and coal. In the distance were battleships resting from the war.
Joel was captivated by the river and wondered where each vessel was headed. Some were going farther south, to the Gulf; others were returning. He had no desire to go home. Home meant the last boring semester of law school. Home meant meetings with lawyers and judges and the winding-up of his father’s wretched affairs. Home meant saying farewell to the land, the house, to Nineva and Amos, and the others he had known his entire life.
He puttered around New Orleans for three days, and when he was finally bored he hugged Florry good-bye and left town. She had settled in nicely and seemed to be quite at home.
He drove to Biloxi and managed to surprise Mary Ann’s father at his office. Joel apologized for the intrusion, but did not want her to know he was in town, and there was no other way to do it. He asked Mr. Malouf for his daughter’s hand. Ambushed, the gentleman really had no choice but to say yes.
That night, Joel had dinner with his soon-to-be fiancée, and slept on the family’s sofa.
Chapter 49
The year 1950 began with as much dreariness as was expected. On January 26, in John Wilbanks’s splendid conference room, he and Joel assumed one side of the table while Burch Dunlap and Errol McLeish took the other. Chancellor Shenault, without a robe, sat at the end and refereed the negotiations.
Joel, as substitute executor, signed a deed that conveyed title to the 640 acres, with home, to Jackie Bell, now officially Jackie Bell McLeish. To avoid any misunderstandings with Florry, the land had been surveyed and platted so that the parties involved knew precisely where the property lines ran. All buildings had been identified, and a separate deed listed them: stables, chicken sheds, tractor barns, cow barns, pigpens, the shotgun home of Nineva and Amos, the foreman’s house used by Buford Provine, and fourteen shacks in the woods that were currently inhabited by the field hands. A bill of sale listed the personal property: Pete’s 1946 Ford truck, the John Deere tractors, trailers, plows, planters, every piece of farm equipment down to rakes and shovels, along with the horses and livestock. McLeish would get it all. He had allowed Joel to purchase the 1939 Pontiac for $300.