"Blackwater - 01 - The Flood" - читать интересную книгу автора (McDowell Michael)

James Caskey, Oscar's uncle and Mary-Love's brother-in-law, was a quiet, sensitive, fastidious man to whom trouble came easily and left grudgingly. He was slender ("bony," some said), mild, and quite well-off, at least by the standards of a small town in a poor county of an impoverished state. He was unhappily married, but his wife Genevieve, to Perdido's relief, spent most of her time with a married sister in Nashville. He had a six-year-old daughter called Grace, and he had—despite the possession of that wife and daughter—the reputation of being marked with "the stamp of femininity." He lived in the house his father had built in 1865. This had been the first substantial home raised in Perdido, though by current standards it was modest: just two parlors, a dining room, and three bedrooms—all on the same floor. The kitchen, which had originally been detached, had now been annexed to the house by the construction of a long addition, containing a nursery,
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a sewing room, and two bathrooms. The house was old-fashioned, with high ceilings, large square rooms, brick fireplaces, and dark wainscoting, but James's mother had had taste, and the place was well furnished. Now, James did not know what remained to him in the house which had lain seven days wholly submerged beneath the muddy water of the upper Perdido. When Bray rowed him through town, James Caskey could tell where his house was only by looking at his sister's house next door (which was two-storied) and by the brick chimney of the kitchen, which was higher than those of the parlors.
James, however, had given little thought to the contents of his house, though he loved every stick of his mother's furniture, loved everything that had belonged to her. He had to think of the mill, whose loss, whether total or only temporary, meant hardship for the whole community. The Caskey mill, owned jointly by James and Mary-Love and run jointly by James and Mary-Love's son Oscar, employed three hundred and thirty-nine men and twenty-two women, white and colored, ranging in age from seven to eighty-one—these last a great-grandson and a great-grandfather who stenciled the Caskey trefoil onto the boards of the company's specialty woods: the pecan, oak, cypress, and cedar. Because these three hundred and sixty-one persons would suffer greatly if the mill could not be brought back quickly into operation, James Caskey had Bray row him over to the still submerged mill so he could see what, if anything, might be done.
James Caskey's rickety frame made him appear frail, a general impression intensified by his movements, which were habitually slow and deliberate and displayed (as far as was consonant with a body that tended to jerkiness) some amount of flaccid grace. He certainly had never spent much time in the Caskey forests, and it was suspected that he didn't know as much about trees as a Caskey ought
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to know. His disinclination to tramp about forests and have his boots muddied, his trousers ripped with briars, and his way impeded with rattlesnakes was well-known, but he was a splendid worker in the office, and no one in town could compose a better resolution or draft a subtler letter. When the town proposed incorporation to the state legislature, James Caskey represented Perdido before that assembly, and after a fine speech there it was universally wondered why the man had never gone into politics.
James's examination of the mill-yard showed the Caskey warehouses in deplorable condition. Even those that were closed were ruined, for the water-soaked wood had buckled and warped. The lumber in the open sheds had all floated away to God only knew where. Inventory appeared a complete loss. The offices were wrecked too, but James had had the sense to fill two wagons with records current and immediately past, and these had been taken to higher land. They lay now under hay in the barn belonging to a potato farmer, but the mill had lost all records of everything before the year 1895. Tom De-Bordenave was in a much worse fix however, for he had opted to save lumber before records; the lumber was lost anyway, for the barn in which it had been stored had eventually washed away as well, and now he had no record of bills outstanding, of future orders, or even of addresses of his best Yankee customers.
After a couple of hours being rowed uselessly about his submerged mill and calling out commiserations to Tom DeBordenave, who was in another little green boat, looking over his adjoining property, James Caskey was taken back past his submerged house to the forest track that led to the Zion Grace Baptist Church. Bray, of course, had already told him of the strange appearance of the red-haired woman in the Osceola Hotel, and he had heard the same story from his nephew. James was more than
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a little curious to see her. No one in Perdido had talked about anything but the flood for so long that he was glad of the opportunity to hear about something that had nothing to do with water.
That Miss Elinor had remained the night at the Zion Grace Baptist Church he knew from Bray, because Bray had fetched another mattress from Annie Bell Driver's house. James Caskey hoped that Miss Elinor would be sitting out in front of the church when he walked past; that would save the subterfuge of seeking out Mary-Love or Sister or his daughter inside the church and bringing the conversation and the introductions gradually around to the rescued young woman.
Bray tied the little green boat to the exposed root of a tree at the edge of the floodwater—it had already subsided to such an extent that when they emerged on to dry land they were still within sight of Mary-Love's house on the edge of the town line. Mr. James and Bray walked rather quickly through the springy, damp forest.
After a few minutes of silence Bray, who was walking in one wagon track while Mr. James walked in the other, ventured the opinion that Mr. James would be better off "if he left that lady alone."
"Why you say that?" asked James curiously.
"I say that 'cause I know what I say."
James shrugged, and replied, "Bray, I don't believe you know what you are talking about."
"I do, Mr. James, I do!" cried Bray, but there was an end to the argument. Mr. James wasn't going to lengthen it by demanding specifics of Bray, and Bray wasn't going to volunteer any hard information on Miss Elinor for the simple reason that he hadn't any; and he wasn't going to tell any of his suspicions either, which were notably formless and might—if Miss Elinor proved to be nothing more than what she appeared to want to appear—reflect badly upon Bray.
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After all the chilly floodwater that had passed beneath Bray's little boat, the forest seemed warm and dry and safe. James Caskey walked along smiling, turning his head quickly when he heard quail call, trying to see them but not succeeding.
"That her," said Bray in a hoarse whisper when they came within sight of the Zion Grace Church.
Elinor Dammert sat on the front steps of the church with James's daughter Grace huddled in her lap—it was almost as if she had been waiting for him there and had secured Grace in order to facilitate their meeting.
Bray hurried on toward the Driver house, but James, thanking the colored man for his trouble that afternoon, went up to the church and introduced himself to Elinor Dammert.
"You're visiting Perdido at a bad time," he remarked. "We cain't offer you but a poor sort of hospitality."
Elinor smiled. "There are worse things than a little high water."
"Is that child bothering you? Grace, are you bothering Miss Elinor?"
"She's not," said Elinor. "Grace likes me pretty well."
Grace hugged Elinor's neck to show her father how much she liked the new young woman.
"Oscar told me you lost all your money in the flood."
"I did. It was in my case, along with my certificates and diplomas."
"That's a real shame. I blame Bray. But we can get you on the Hummingbird back to Montgomery, at least."
"Montgomery?"
"Isn't that where you come from?"
"Went to school there. Huntingdon. I come from Wade, up in Fayette County."
"Send you back to Wade, then," said James with
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a smile. "Doesn't Grace want to see her daddy?" he said, unfolding his arms with a jerk that might have put one in mind of a child's jumping jack.
"No!" cried Grace, holding more tightly still to Elinor.
"You must think I've got someplace to go," said Elinor over Grace's shoulder.
"Not Wade?"
"That's where my people are from. All my people are dead," said Elinor Dammert, squeezing the child in her arms.
"I'm sorry. What will you do, then?" James Caskey asked solicitously.
"I came to Perdido because I heard there was a place in the school. If there is one, then I'll stay and teach."
"You know who you should ask, don't you?" said Grace from the arms that encircled her.
"Who should she ask, Grace?" said James.
"You!" cried Grace. Then, turning to Elinor: "Daddy's head of the board."
"That's right," said James. "So you should be asking me."
"That's who I'll ask then. I heard there was a vacancy."
"There wasn't," said James, "at least not before the flood."
"How do you mean?"