Part 7 (1/2)

”Grace.”

James shook his head slowly. ”She would have.”

”Grace tells all the girls, and one day she told me, too. She's got these pictures, James, you ought to see them-”

”Don't talk about this to me at the breakfast table, Danjo. I don't want to hear it! If you know all about it already, then we don't ever have to mention it again.”

”No, sir!” laughed Danjo.

Following Billy's suggestions, and with James's reluctant a.s.sent, Danjo joined the Air Corps in September of 1942, though he would not be formally inducted until the following June, when he had turned eighteen and graduated from high school. Nothing could be certain in this war, but Billy provided tentative a.s.surances that Danjo, after three months of basic training, would find his way back to Eglin. James could not be happy, however, and thought only of the scant nine months that remained for Danjo to be at home with him.

He sighed to Grace one afternoon, ”Every morning I get up and I say to myself, ”There's one less day Danjo's gone be around.'”

Grace always took the forthright and practical view of any matter. ”You've still got more than half a year of him. Enjoy that, Daddy. Don't ruin it by always thinking of when he's going away. And just remember, he'll be headed back to Eglin before you know it. Two years from then he'll be a civilian again, and he'll come back here and things will be just like they always were.”

”He could get killed. He could get his legs shot 102.

off. I may be dead,” protested James Caskey. ”Things are never 'just like they always were' again.”

Grace slapped a magazine against the arm of the glider with a crack. ”Daddy,” she said, ”you have got to be the silliest man I ever met in my life. I don't know what I'm going to do with you for the rest of this war.”

The efforts of Billy Bronze in the cause of keeping Danjo Strickland and James Caskey together were fully appreciated by the Caskeys. They not only liked Billy, they were now indebted to him. Elinor no longer extended invitations to him, because he only had to appear to be welcomed. He was regarded as one of the family to such an extent that his presence never restrained them from talking about private family matters. He heard details of old family enmities, and new family finances that no one in Perdido knew about. Short, testy arguments exploded in his presence, and little moments of affection were exhibited before him. He became another Caskey son, brother, uncle, and cousin.

The corporal was a favorite also of his commanding officer. He was allowed, so long as he did not abuse the privilege, of sleeping over at the Caskeys on some week nights as well as every other weekend. Oscar lent him one of their automobiles, saying that with gas rationing they had no use for it anyway. Billy Bronze came and went with ever-increasing frequency; the front room was always ready for him. Elinor, trusting both Billy and Frances implicitly, did not even bother locking the linen corridor that connected the two rooms.

One evening in the autumn of 1942-a few hours after Billy Bronze had returned to Eglin-Frances begged a private conference with her mother. ”Very private, Mama,” she said. Elinor took her daughter down the long second-floor hallway, through the door . 103.

with the stained gla.s.s at the end, and out onto the harrow front porch where no one ever sat. Mother and daughter took adjoining rockers. The evening was dark. Crickets chorused in the orchard across the road. Elinor rocked steadily in her chair.

”I bet I know what you want to ask me about,” she said.

”You do?”

”You want me to tell you about husbands and wives.”

Frances blushed in the darkness.

”No, ma'am, not that.”

Elinor paused in her rocking. ”What then?”

”Dial Crawford.”

Elinor laughed. ”Dial Crawford? What on earth have you got to do with that old man? Poor old Dollie Faye. She told me Dial hasn't been right in his head for twenty years, and he's no more help to her than a three-year-old.”

”He washes winds.h.i.+elds.”

”And not much else,” confirmed Elinor. ”What about Dial, darling? What on earth do you want to know about him?”

Frances began hesitantly: ”I... stop out at Miss Dollie Faye's for gas about twice a week, on my way to school, and Mr. Crawford always washes the winds.h.i.+eld. He always speaks, but he has such a funny voice that it was always hard for me to understand what he was saying. For a long time, I had no idea what he was talking about, but in the past month or two, it seems like I got used to the way he sounds, and I can understand him. So we always speak. Some days, even when I'm not stopping, I see him sitting out in front of the store and he stands up and waves. So I wave back. I guess he knows the car, and knows what time I'm gone be coming past.”

”Well? He probably doesn't have much to occupy him.”

104.

”Mama, that's five o'clock in the morning!”

”Country people get up early. Anyway, go on, Frances.”

”Yesterday morning, I had plenty of gas so I wasn't gone stop. But there was Mr. Crawford, standing on the side of the road, waving me down. So I stopped the car, and I said, 'Is there something wrong, Mr. Crawford?' So, Mama, he looks at me, and he says, 'Black water.'”

”Black water?” echoed Elinor, with the same inflection.

”He said, 'Black water, that's .where you came from. Black water, that's where you're going back to.'” Frances glanced at her mother in the darkness, but could not determine her expression. Elinor had stopped her rocking.

”What else did Dial say, darling?”

”He said something else...”

”What?” prompted Elinor with some impatience.

”He said, 'Your mama crawled out of the river.' He said, Tell your mama to crawl back in and leave me alone.'”

Elinor laughed. ”I didn't know I had been upsetting Dial Crawford. Maybe I ought to stay away from there from now on, and let Queenie do all my shopping for me.”

”Mama, what did he mean, that you crawled out of the river?”

”Frances, Dial is a crazy old man. He doesn't know what he's saying, and Dollie Faye ought to teach him to keep his mouth shut.” Frances didn't reply. ”Darling, do you think I crawled out of the river?”

”No, no,” returned Frances hastily. ”Of course not. It's just that sometimes...”

”Sometimes what?”

”Sometimes I think you and I are different-different from everybody else.”

”How do you mean?”

105.

”I don't know how I mean, Mama. It's just that sometimes I feel like I'm not all here, not the way Miriam is, not the way Daddy and Sister and Queenie and everybody else is. I feel like part of me is somewhere else.”

”Where is that somewhere else?”

”I don't know. I'm not sure.” Frances paused. ”I do know where else. The river, the Perdido. Just like Mr. Crawford said, black water, flowing out there behind the levee. And, Mama,” Frances said very softly, ”when I'm there, you're there too.”

For a few minutes, Elinor said nothing. Then she asked, ”And does this bother you?”