“What good is the money to me? You are so stingy I never benefit. I don’t even have servants.”
“You have no call for complaint. You don’t sit to table with me, you have run off my friends with your airs, you never made me welcome in the bedroom.”
“Coward.” Lola dangled the word, thick and accusing, her voice slightly unsteady, and T.O. realized she too had been drinking. “Using me because you are afraid for your own personal safety. You never meant to put aside your colored family.”
“You knew about the children from the beginning,” Joseph said tiredly. “You pretended to take me, children and all.”
“How often do you sneak over to Cornfine Bayou to see that mulatto woman and her mongrels? Do you suppose you can use your money to place those children somehow into decent society? I married a fool. It can never happen.”
“I want them to inherit what it took my whole life to earn, the way any father would.” There was passion building in Joseph’s voice now. “You are cold and uncharitable, unable to grasp flesh-and-blood needs.”
“Fidelity and support is your obligation under the law, and you have given me neither. Ten years as your wife means it is I who should inherit. You forced me to sign back the land donation you gave before we married, and I did so because you were my husband, entitled to obedience. No one explained my rights to me then. But your shameful conduct now forfeits all such respect.”
“You were never forced,” Joseph said quietly. “You gave back the land donation in front of witnesses. It is far too late to change that now.”
Lola began to cry. “I am alone and friendless in the middle of nowhere,” she said between sobs. “I want to move into town. I cannot go on living in this house.”
“I built this house and made too many sacrifices to tolerate this contempt of your life in it. It wouldn’t be proper for you to live alone in town, and I have no intention of moving.”
“There are people willing to help me,” Lola said thinly, tears gone. “I am not as defenseless as you imagine.”
“Have you been putting our business before strangers, Lola?”
“The whole town talks about us, and what to do about the evil you have brought in their midst. I am a churchgoing Catholic woman, virtuous and honest, and I am tired of being exposed to the lowest creatures on this earth. I have been too shamed and too humiliated before now to publish to the world my unhappiness, and unwilling to give up my profound religious duty as a wife.”
“Other wives take care of their men. You could learn a lesson from that.”
“I performed for years as best I could under the circumstances, but the good people of the community are not going to stand by quietly any longer.”
“I will leave the land to my children, the only ones who bring me happiness.”
Lola’s voice firmed. “You seek happiness no place else, preferring the company of Negroes over decent people, trying to pull me down, too, but I will not let you do it.”
“You mean less than nothing to me.”
There was a pause between the two of them, as if the exhalation of the one’s vicious breath needed time to provide fuel for the other’s response.
“The children you set such store by are an abomination before God,” Lola said. “The oldest girl, just like her mother, taking up with any Frenchman she could entice with her free and easy ways, producing babies without a husband, without decency. Too bad the little nigger bastard survived. And the oldest boy, timid, afraid of his own shadow, hanging off your every word. No wonder you are so fond of them all. They are the only ones who look up to you.”
Lola’s words entered T.O. like poison, contempt and loathing so strong and thick that it passed through the walls of the house on Billes Landing and directly under his skin, full strength. T.O. turned away from the house. Their fighting filled him with dread instead of soothing him. Soaked through, he retraced his steps toward Cornfine Bayou, stumbling repeatedly on the tangled undergrowth that pulled from below.
Distracted, he almost didn’t hear the approach of horsemen coming through the woods at first, until they were almost on him. There were at least two riders, and he heard the nearby snort of a hard-ridden horse as one of the riders stopped in the path he had been getting ready to take. T.O. eased himself behind the base of a wide oak tree, pressing his back into the damp trunk, closing his eyes against the rain.
“Hold up. I don’t want to go any farther. Can’t we do this another way?” It was Antoine Morat. T.O. recognized the voice at once. He was careful not to move, willing himself invisible, slowing his breathing to drive the pounding from his ears.
“You’ve waited a little late to go soft.”
T.O. didn’t recognize the voice of the other man.
“I tell you I can’t do it,” Antoine said.
“What happened to your big talk? The old Frenchman brought it on himself, carrying on the way he has. That land rightly belongs in your hands, the right hands. Have you forgotten your own son’s needs so quickly?”
“But Lola wasn’t supposed to be part of this,” Antoine said.
“There’s no other way, otherwise it all reverts to her. Do I have to remind you how much you need the money? And now, him making all this trouble about the inheritance, cutting you out entirely. He’s laughing at us. There isn’t a respectable man anywhere in these parts who would excuse his behavior with the colored woman.”
“I tell you I just can’t do it. He’s my cousin.”
“By the time you get your nerve up, there won’t be anything left to fight for. I can’t hold him off forever from finding a means to pass the land the way he wants. Meanwhile he’s selling off bits and pieces of the property to the railroad, and Lola and the rest of the Grandchamps have their hands out, too, expecting a share.”
“Lola thinks she’s in with us.”
“There’s no helping that now.”
“I won’t do it. We’ll go and talk to him. Make him see reason.”
“The old fool is too bullheaded to reason, or we wouldn’t have had to come this far. We’re beyond talk. Let’s go. We need to get it done.”
T.O. caught the sour odor of his own fear leaking out in his sweat. They were headed out to his father’s place. He should follow them. And do what? This was a matter for the law, so only white could help. He couldn’t get tangled up in white business without hanging himself somehow. He would have to explain why he was out in the woods, how he happened to overhear the conversation. He wouldn’t be believed and would end up being blamed for something.
T.O. shook, wet and weak against the tree, caught in indecision long after the riders had gone.
At last he straightened up and began to move with as much of a sense of purpose as his legs would allow.
42
T .O. was so jittery that he made Emily nervous as they worked side by side in the garden, tying back the string bean vines. High-strung, like his father. When T.O. had refused to go to the sawmill this morning with his brother, Joe, for the second day in a row, Emily put him to work around the farm, thankful he wasn’t out snooping around Billes Landing. She was convinced he was keeping something from her.
The weekend had come and gone, she hadn’t heard yet from Joseph, and she was worried. She had lived through Joseph’s black moods before, and the sooner he found a new lawyer and proved to himself he was in control of his own affairs, the sooner he would break out of the grip of despair that held him fast.
Emily heard the horses before she saw them and was surprised to see her son Joe riding with the sheriff and several other men toward the house. Something was very wrong. They must have gone by the sawmill first to get Joe and bring him back to Cornfine Bayou. The men tethered their horses at the side of the house and dismounted. Emily threw Joe a questioning look, and Joe lifted his shoulders slightly, signaling that he didn’t know what this was about, either.
“We’re here on official business,” the sheriff said to Emily, “here to talk to everyone in your
house.”
“Go collect the girls and Maman Philomene,” Emily said to T.O. To the men she said, “Let’s go inside.”
The sheriff, a heavyset man with a doughy face and stubborn stubble, followed Emily to the front room, sitting on the far end of the same couch where Suzette half lay, half sat, a quilt tucked neatly around the lower half of her body. This was Suzette’s regular day place, surrounded by a small pile of socks and other garments waiting to be darned or patched. The sheriff’s circle of men continued to stand. Although it was only midmorning, the sheriff looked as if he were at the end of a particularly long day. As they waited he glanced at the oil painting hanging over the mantel. A flickering question registered briefly in his eyes and disappeared again.
Philomene and the girls entered the house quietly, stray bits of hay still clinging to their clothes. T.O. followed. Barely subdued panic flooded the faces of both girls. They stood along the wall in a tight clump, and Mary took Josephine’s hand.
There wasn’t a single rustle or cough, and the sheriff seemed to wait overlong for a silence already descended in the room. Finally he turned to Emily.
“There’s been an occurrence out on Billes Landing,” he said, speaking in English. “Joseph Billes and Lola Grandchamp are dead.”
* * *
There was a collective gasp that met in the middle of the room, impossible to separate into individual sound, belonging to each of them. The sheriff paused, judging reactions to the news, looking boldly from one face to another, making no attempt to disguise his scrutiny.
“On Saturday night or Sunday morning, Joseph Billes killed his wife by shooting her in the back, and then turned a gun on himself,” the sheriff said. “I have a list of questions, the same questions we’re asking all his neighbors and relevant acquaintances.”
Emily had trouble keeping up, already a beat behind trying to translate the sheriff’s English words to French. She had just seen Joseph, touched the warmth of his cheek, stroked his hair. Joseph dead? It couldn’t be true. She exchanged the briefest of glances with Philomene; her mother’s face was impassive, but her gaze reached across to steady Emily. Joseph wouldn’t have murdered Lola. Or turned the gun on himself. But if Joseph and Lola were dead, someone would have to pay. Was it someone in this house they had chosen? Emily steeled herself against the endless possibilities of what could turn dangerous because of these white men in her house.
“Joseph is dead?” she couldn’t stop herself from asking, although it was as much a statement as question.
The sheriff nodded, then made a small beckoning motion with his hands. One of his other men brought forward a sloppily wrapped bundle and handed it to the sheriff.
“Evidence, collected at the scene of the crime,” he said.
He unfolded the cloth to reveal an old-style French pistol, a Winchester rifle with a dark walnut stock, and a large pocketknife. Why were there so many different weapons? Emily had to pull her eyes away from the objects in front of her. The French pistol was Joseph’s. The rifle and knife were not.
The sheriff addressed himself to the Billes men. “Do you recognize this pistol as belonging to Joseph Billes?” he asked.
The brothers looked from one to the other.
“Just answer the questions, boys.”
Emily saw T.O.’s eyes go soft and silently willed him to stay strong.
“No, sir, I never saw that gun before.” T.O.’s voice had fled to a whisper.
“I don’t recognize it either, sir,” Joe said.
Then the questions came in rapid succession: How about the rifle? Have you seen the knife before? How often did Joseph Billes drink whiskey? How much? Would you consider him a drunk? When did you see him last? Did he seem troubled or bothered? Did he seem a rational man or a desperate one?
“I haven’t seen my father since Christmas,” T.O. said. “He seemed fine then.”
“I saw him last Wednesday,” Joe admitted. “I borrowed a team of his oxen to do some hauling, but we didn’t talk long. There was nothing different than usual.”
The sheriff turned to Emily and repeated the same questions, as if he were already bored with them. In spite of the swift deadening of her mind and the clawing beast housed in her chest, she gave the same answers as her sons. She moved through her exchanges with the law as if they were dancing a slow waltz.
“Yes, I used to live on the Billes place and was moved away by Joseph Billes.
“Yes, I was a neighbor and friendly as such with both Mr. and Mrs. Billes.
“No, I don’t know whether he was in any way troubled.
“No, I can’t remember ever seeing this pistol or that rifle or a knife.
“No, I don’t know what went on between Joseph and his wife, Lola.”
As she spoke, conscious of Philomene’s steady gaze, Emily felt the force of her mother’s voice deep inside her brain. Deny. There were real questions, and the men in her front room didn’t seem interested in asking them. Who could have really done this thing? Caution. What ugly repayment was this for the choices she and Joseph had made? Calm. She wanted to defend Joseph, defend herself, convince these men how impossible it was to think Joseph shot Lola in the back or himself. Grief has to wait.
The white men in her front room seemed easily satisfied with the answers and began to shift restlessly, impatient to get away. Even the sheriff’s heart wasn’t in it. His eyes kept drifting back to the oil painting.
At last the sheriff rose. “We don’t require any more answers at this time, but we might have to come back later,” he said.
It didn’t seem as though they were on a search to lay blame at Cornfine Bayou, and they didn’t bother to question the girls or Suzette and Philomene.
The men mounted their horses and left. Only when the pine trees canceled the sight and sounds of their visitation completely did Emily sit down to cry.
* * *
Soon He [ Joseph ] drew much Money carried it to Emily, devided so much each child, and so much for Buck and Earnest, He went back home and killed His bride made meny tracks of blood over the floor and wrote on the wall with Blood YOU MADE ME MARRIE BUT YOU CANT MAKE ME LIVE, then shot hisself, in 1905.
--Cousin Gurtie Fredieu, written family history, 1975
* * *
The news traveled like wildfire, from the bottoms to the hills, in the towns and back in the country, even into the most remote recesses of the piney woods, but it was Edd Fredieu who brought the first newspaper article out to Cornfine Bayou. Narcisse’s white son often came to visit, a part of the mélange of extended kinfolk, black and white, that collected under Emily’s roof each Sunday. He pulled the newspaper out of his saddlebag and folded it under his coat jacket as soon as he got off his horse. The house was bustling and full, as it was every Sunday, and he waited for an opportunity to pull Emily aside.
“I brought the newspaper for you,” Edd said in low tones. “I wasn’t sure whether you wanted to be alone with the news or not.”
Emily studied her half-brother, full of good intentions. “Just wait long enough for everyone to get here, and then read it out loud for all to hear,” she said.
They gathered in the front room before Sunday dinner, cousins, sister, nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, grandparents, grandchildren. In a shamed voice Edd read the newspaper account of the murder-suicide described to Emily by the sheriff four days before.
Edd finished reading and gingerly laid the newspaper on the small table in the front room, as if it were a breakable thing. There was silence.
Colfax Chronicle, March 2, 1907.
Emily knew then there was no use fighting, what with a newspaper article shamelessly making the claim that Joseph had shot himself in the head with a pistol, cut his own throat, and then come back to shoot himself in the face with a rifle. There would be no true investigation. The town was invested in the sheriff’s account, and to seek a different explanation for the events on Billes Landing would undermine the collective relief that justice had at last been don
e.
Joseph was dead. There was nothing more to do about that. It almost didn’t matter which one pulled back on the trigger or applied pressure to the blade; it was the acting out of the town’s desire, finally snaring Joseph when his offense was over a decade gone. Caught because he tried to leave his children money and land.
Emily felt a hand pushing at the small of her back, moving her, and she found herself no longer in the front room but seated at the dining table, looking up at Philomene.
“We are not bringing this mess to our table,” Philomene said, taking hold of the room’s quiet gloom. “They print up anything that comes into their heads. Dinner is ready, and we aren’t going to let good food go to waste. T.O., we’re short a seat. Bring up another chair and put it at the children’s table.”
The next Sunday T.O. read aloud from a soiled, torn-out strip of newsprint. He said he’d found it in the New Orleans paper.
* * *
A statement found today in the effects of Joseph Billes, the wealthy old Frenchman who last week shot and killed his wife and suicided at their home in Billes Landing, near here, indicates that the double tragedy was deliberately planned. The statement, which is signed by Billes, relates that should he be found dead at any time the end was to be attributed to an unhappy life with his wife. Billes also censured a prominent attorney of this section. The statement was written in French and dated Jan. 29th, of this year.
New Orleans Times–Picayune, March 4, 1907.
* * *
Emily’s carefully hoarded reserve of energy drained away. Joseph had never destroyed his supposed suicide note, as she had done with so many others over the years. Now they used it as evidence that he’d planned to kill himself and Lola all along.
“I don’t know where you got that paper,” Emily said to T.O., “but I hope you have the good sense to keep to yourself and not provoke anyone. We all have to be especially cautious now.”