Read Online Blackwater: The Complete Caskey Family Saga by Michael McDowell - Free Book Online Page A

insignificant sons—and who had ever done that before? Such energy expended in a strange community seemed to indicate a firm purpose at work—and what could Miss Elinor’s purpose be?
    “I am sorry for that child,” said Mary-Love emphatically as she and Sister sat rocking on the front porch, peering through the screen of dead-looking camellias to James’s house and watching for Elinor Dammert to appear at one of the windows. Mary-Love and Sister had been back in their house for nearly two weeks, and still the stink of the flood wasn’t out of everything.
    “What child, Mama?” Sister was embroidering a pillowcase with green and yellow thread. So much linen had been ruined!
    “Little Grace Caskey, that’s what child! Your tiny cousin!”
    “Why you feel sorry for Grace? She does fine as long as Genevieve stays away.”
    “That’s what I mean,” said Mary-Love. “For all intents and purposes, James has got rid of that woman, I am thankful to say. James had no business being married in the first place. James was not cut out for marriage, and he should have known it as well as everybody else in this town knew it. You could have knocked the entire population of Perdido down with a feather—the same feather—when James Caskey came back here with a wife in a sleeping compartment. Sometimes I think James was smart, and signed a paper with Genevieve that said she could come to Perdido, get pregnant, leave him a baby, and then go away again forever. I wouldn’t be surprised if he signs a check every month to the liquor store in Nashville giving Genevieve an open account. An open account at a liquor store would keep Genevieve in Moose Paw, Saskatchewan!”
    “Mama,” said Sister patiently, “I never ever heard of that place.” It was the habit of mother and daughter to maintain contradictory stances on any question: if Mary-Love were excited, then Sister remained calm. If Sister waxed indignant, then Mary-Love became conciliatory. The technique had developed over the course of many years, and now was so natural to them that they did it without thinking or willing it to be so.
    “I made it up. But, Sister, James got rid of that woman—we don’t know how, we are just grateful that he did—and what does he do first chance he gets?”
    “What?”
    “He takes in another who’s just as bad!”
    “Miss Elinor?” asked Sister in a voice which suggested she didn’t think the comparison was justified.
    “You knew who I was talking about, Sister.”
    It was hard to rock steadily on the front porch now that so many of the floorboards had been warped. Grady Henderson’s Fancy Goods Store had brought in a shipment of scented candles, which were bought up immediately. One of them burned now in a saucer on the floor between Mary-Love and Sister; its scent of vanilla did something to cover the rankness of the river soil that had been deposited all around the house. Bray and three men from the mill, which wasn’t yet back in operation, were systematically turning over all the dirt in the front yard, burying what had been laid down by the flood.
    “Mama, your voice carries. Don’t let Miss Elinor hear you.”
    “She won’t hear me unless she’s listening at the window,” replied Mary-Love, in an even louder voice. “And I wouldn’t be in the least surprised if she were!”
    “What don’t you like about her?” asked Sister mildly. “I like her. I don’t see any reason not to like her, to tell you the truth, Mama.”
    “I do. I see every reason in the world.” Mary-Love paused a moment, then suggested: “She has red hair.”
    “Lots of people have red hair. That McCall boy I went to school with—you remember him?—who died at Verdun last year, he had red hair. You told me you liked him.”
    “Oh, not like this woman, Sister! You ever see a color like hers? A color like Perdido mud? I never have. Besides, it’s not just the red hair.”
    “What is it, then?”
    “Where did she come from? Why did she