BLACKWATER: II THE LEVEE is an original publication of Avon Books. This work has never before appeared in book form. AVON BOOKS A division of The Hearst Corporation 959 Eighth Avenue New York, New York 10019 Copyright © 1983 by Michael McDowell Front cover illustration by Wayne D. Barlowe Published by arrangement with the author Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 82-90516 ISBN: 0-380-82206-7 All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by the U. S. Copyright Law. For information address The Otte Company, 9 Goden Street, Belmont, Massachusetts 02178 First Avon Printing, February, 1983 AVON TRADEMARK REG, U. S. PAT. OFF. AND IN OTHER COUNTRIES, MARCA REGISTRADA, HECHO EN U. S. A. Printed in the U. S. A. WFH 10 987654321 In THE FLOOD, Volume I of the BLACKWATER saga, Elinor Dammert is discovered awaiting rescue in a curiously undamaged room on the second story of the nearly destroyed Hotel Osceola in Perdido. The only person still remaining in the flooded town, she tells her rescuer, Oscar Caskey, that she had slept through the hotel evacuation four days earlier and has been trapped, without food or drink, ever since. This will not be the last of the strange events involving Elinor and water—some of them horrible, some merely inexplicable—that the town will witness. Elinor soon charms James Caskey, Oscar's uncle; wins the undying affection of little Grace, James's daughter; and incurs the enmity of Mary-Love, Oscar's mother. Mary-Love watches with increasing rage as Elinor insinuates herself into the bosom of the Caskey family, snaring the heart of Oscar and marrying him behind Mary-Love's back. But Mary-Love has her revenge. If she can't have Oscar to herself, then neither can Elinor—for with the continually unfulfilled promise of a house as a wedding gift, Mary-Love keeps the newlyweds under her own roof, biding her time. Only when Elinor gives birth to a daughter do she and Oscar make their escape. However, to gain their own home they must relinquish their baby daughter to Mary-Love. She will accept nothing else as replacement for her son; Elinor is willing to pay the price. Perdido, Alabama pop. 1,200 SITE OF LEVEE W\ 1. OSCAR & ELINOR CASKEY'S HOME 2. MARY-LOVE CASKEY'S HOME 3. JAMES CASKEY'S HOME 4. DeBORDENAVES HOME 5. TURK'S HOME TO GULF OF MEXICO CHAPTER 13 The Engineer "Oh, Lord, protect us from flood, fire, maddened animals, and runaway Negroes." That was Mary-Love Caskey's prayer before every meal, learned from her mother who had hidden silver, slaves, and chickens from the rapacity of starving Yankee marauders. But in these days, safety from a fourth danger was silently appended both in her own mind and in Sister's: Oh, Lord, protect us from Elinor Dammert Caskey. Elinor, after all, was a woman to be feared. Into the well-regulated lives of the Caskeys of Perdido, Alabama, she had brought trouble and surprise. Having mysteriously appeared in the Osceola Hotel at the height of the great flood of 1919, she had cast a spell first over James Caskey—Mary-Love's brother-in-law—and then over Oscar, Mary-Love's son. She had married Oscar much against Mary-Iiove's desire. Elinor had hair that was the muddy red color of the Perdido River, but no family connections or financial portion. And in the end, she had taken Oscar away from Mary-Love, carried him to the house next door, and left her own child in payment for the right to take departure. That, Mary-Love considered, only showed Elinor to be a woman for whom no sacrifice was too great on the field of battle. She was a formidable adversary to Mary-Love, who had never before had anyone question her sovereignty. If Mary-Love and Sister had been protective of the infant Miriam before, how close did they hold her now! Two weeks had passed since Elinor and Oscar had moved out, and as yet Elinor had shown no sign of repenting of her bargain. Mary-Love was fifty-one and would never have another child of her own. Sister was just under thirty, and had no prospects of marriage; it was unlikely she would possess a daughter other than the one her sister-in-law had given up to her .'They wouldn't leave the child alone for an instant, for fear that Elinor—watching from behind one of the newly hung curtains of her back parlor— would rush over, swoop the child into her arms, and carry her back in sneaking triumph. Neither of these women intended to relinquish Miriam even though all the world and the law should demand it of them. Mary-Love and Sister, in the beginning, had steeled themselves against what they imagined would be constant visits from Elinor. They were certain she would make suggestions for a better way to do this or that for the child, would burst into tears and beg to have Miriam for only an hour every morning, would moon over her daughter's crib, and would endlessly seek opportunities to snatch her away. But Elinor did none of those things. In fact, Elinor never came to see her daughter at all. She rocked placidly on the front porch of her new house, and corrected 10 r the pronunciation of Zaddie Sapp, who sat at her feet with a sixth-grade reader. Elinor nodded politely to Sister and Mary-Love when she saw them, or at least when it was impossible to pretend that she had not seen them, but she never asked to see the child. Mary-Love and Sister—who had never before been so united upon any issue whatsoever—conferred and tried to puzzle out whether Elinor ought to be trusted or not. They decided that, for safety's sake, her aloof attitude should be considered a tactic to put them off their guard. So their vigilance was maintained. On Sundays, Mary-Love and Sister took turns staying home with the child during morning service. One or the other would sit in the same pew with Elinor, nod politely to her, and speak if the occasion allowed. But then Mary-Love suggested, as a taunt to Elinor, that she and Sister should both attend church. Elinor, seeing them there together, would realize that little Miriam was alone, protected only by Ivey Sapp—but she would not be able to escape the service and fetch her daughter out. Sister and Mary-Love were always careful never to leave the house on Sunday morning until they had seen Oscar and Elinor drive off to the church together, for fear that one day Elinor might remain behind and purloin her daughter before the first hymn had been sung. One Sunday, however, Mary-Love and Sister both happened to be away from the front window when Oscar drove off. They assumed that Elinor had gone with him. At church they discovered, to their terrible dismay, that Elinor had remained at home, to tend Zaddie through the mumps. Their voices trembled through the hymns, they heard not a word of the sermon, they forgot to rise when they ought to have risen, and remained standing when they ought to have sat down again. They rushed home, and discovered Miriam sound asleep in the crib that was 11 kept on the side porch. Ivey Sapp crooned a wordless song above her. Next door, Elinor Caskey sat on her front porch with the Mobile Register. Nothing in the world could have been easier than for Elinor to walk right across and up onto the porch, hold off Ivey with a stern word, lift Miriam out of her crib, and march straight back home with her. But Elinor had done no such thing. Elinor, Sister and Mary-Love concluded, did not want her daughter back at all. Convinced as they were that Elinor had in truth given up her daughter—though at a considerable loss to understand how she could have done such a thing—Sister and Mary-Love began to wonder what Oscar thought of the business. Oscar did sometimes visit his mother and sister, though he never took meals with them, and, as Sister pointed out, he never entered the house, but confined his visits to the side porch. Sometimes in the late afternoon, if he saw them on the porch, he'd come across and sit in the swing for a few minutes. He'd speak his greeting to his sister and his mother, then would lean over the crib and say, "How you, Miriam?" quite as if he expected the six-month-old child to answer him in kind. He didn't seem particularly interested in his daughter, and would merely nod and give a little smile if Sister described some surprisingly advanced or fascinatingly comical event in Miriam's development. And soon taking his leave with the excuse that Elinor would be wondering where he was and what he was doing, he would say, "So long, Mama. Bye-bye, Sister. See you later, Miriam." By the repetition of this pattern, which served only to emphasize the slightness of the hold their company and proximity held over him, Sister and Mary-Love came to understand that in gaining Miriam and jettisoning Elinor, they had also lost Oscar. 12 In the great new house on the town line Oscar and Elinor rattled about in their sixteen rooms. In the evening, he and Elinor sat down at the breakfast room table and ate the cold remainder of that afternoon's dinner. The kitchen door was propped open so that Zaddie, who stood at the counter and ate her own identical meal, should not feel lonely. Every other evening, when the bill changed, Oscar and Elinor went to the Ritz. Even though admission was only, five cents, they always gave Zaddie a quarter to get into the colored balcony, whether she went or not. When they got home, they sat out in one of the four swings on the upstairs sleeping porch. In a bit, as Oscar desultorily rocked the swing with the toe of one shoe, Elinor would turn and lay her head in his lap. Together they would stare through the screen at the moonlit Perdido, flowing almost silently behind the house. And if Oscar talked at all, it was of his work, or of the valiant progress of the water oaks—which,...
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