Summer of Pearls Read online

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “A pearl starts out as something that galls the shellfish—whether it’s an oyster or a mussel. It could be a grain of sand the creature can’t get rid of. Could be that some pearls start as parasites living off of the shellfish. Anyway, the animal takes this thing that frets it, and covers it with the same stuff it coats the inside of its shell with. Covers it and covers it until it’s not a problem anymore, but a thing of beauty.”

  She turned her mouth into a voluptuous smirk. “What about the tears of angels?”

  “There may be some truth to that, too. Don’t you believe in angels?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t you believe they cry?”

  She paused, thinking. “Yes.” She spoke now with less bitterness. “I even know why.”

  Billy nodded. “Sell the pearls and use the money to your advantage. That’s my advice.”

  She folded her arms in front of her. “I don’t need your advice. They’re my pearls. I won’t agree to sell them just because you come in here with a bunch of stories and put a high price on them.” She scoffed. “What makes you think I believe you? What do you care about me?”

  He shrugged. “Well, if you change your mind, I’ll contact the pearl-buyer.” He stood, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket. “I found something today. I want you to have it.” He came around the table as he untied a knot in the handkerchief. He turned the corners back and revealed the white pearl from Goose Prairie Cove. He picked it up and placed it in her hand. “This one’s worth another hundred and fifty or so.”

  Carol Anne was seething. Now she had him figured out. He knew what she was, and she knew what he wanted. In spite of his fancy talk and his good looks and his heroism, he was just another riverboat man. She suddenly doubted that he had ever read about pearls at all, or had ever been to the South Sea. He was just making it all up to exaggerate the value of the gift, hoping she would respond in kind.

  Still, she was ready to earn that pearl. He didn’t know about her power. She could snuff the lantern and turn him into someone else. He would never even realize it. She would keep the pearl, and under its rainbow luster, imprison a million visions of bliss. She didn’t need him. She only needed his pearl. She closed her palm around it and began deciding who he would be when he crawled into her bed.

  “Like I said, I’ve had some bad luck with pearls. I’d just as soon somebody else had it who appreciates it.” He went to the door and put on his hat. “Like the moon through a rainbow.” He smiled. “I’ll remember that.” Then he was gone.

  Carol Anne opened her hand and looked at Billy’s gift. She angled her palm and let the perfect sphere roll down her fingertips, onto the velvet. It bumped against another pearl and quenched, in an instant, all the silly images associated with it. Like a ripple from a stone thrown in the water, the power of the new white pearl spread outward and rinsed the fragile fantasies from each of the others, leaving them quiet and dead. Now only Billy’s pearl remained animated with hopes and desires.

  She burst through the door and ran down the steps. She sprinted around the corner of the store and saw him crossing the street toward Widow Humphry’s inn.

  “Mr. Treat!” she cried.

  He turned.

  “Contact the pearl-buyer.”

  He nodded and waved. “Call me Billy.”

  6

  THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD GENTLEMAN. IF YOU think you’ve found one, he’s got you fooled. I don’t care how often he says please, thank you, and yes ma’am—in his private mind, he’s another person.

  Take me, for example. I was well-liked by adults in Port Caddo. They thought of me as a fine boy. Of course, a few of the men who could remember being fourteen were on to me, but the ladies had no clue. My mother, I am sure, thought never a lecherous idea crossed my mind. She would have been horrified had she known the truth.

  Cecil Peavy’s old man, Joe Peavy, was a horse trader in Port Caddo. He was an expert judge of horseflesh. He could look at horses’ legs and tell you how it would feel to ride them. He would comment on the muscling of the thighs, the curvature of the hips. He liked horses spare in the flank and round in the loin. He knew them from throatlatch to tail, from hock to knee. He could even look at a mare and tell you whether or not she would ever “fall apart,” meaning to break down and lose her fine conformation at a certain age.

  Well, that summer I started applying Joe Peavy’s principles to females of the human species. There was nothing gentlemanly about the way I ogled girls and young women, sizing them up like horseflesh. I too liked them spare in the flank and curved in the hips. And I could give you my opinion as to whether or not they would fall apart before the age of twenty-seven.

  I knew every vantage in town that facilitated a regular look at girls, and many of them were situated around Snyder’s store, for Pearl Cobb was the ideal against which all other specimens were judged.

  Behind the store there was a large oak tree with a comfortable fork about twenty feet up that afforded a perfect view of the stairs leading to Pearl’s room. I often perched there after dark, hoping to see her ascend. Then I would watch the window and wonder what she was doing. Occasionally I would see her through the curtains. I wasn’t exactly a Peeping Tom, for I had no real malicious intent. I was just a fourteen-year-old boy with raging curiosities.

  I was there in the oak tree when Billy Treat went up to Pearl’s room, and I hated him. I thought I knew what he was going to do with the pearl that should have belonged to me. That’s why I was so surprised to see the lantern come on. I saw them sit together at the table. They talked. Then they stood. Then he left.

  I didn’t know what to make of Billy. I was at first relieved. He hadn’t used his pearl as others had used theirs before him. He wasn’t trying to trade it in for the vague pleasures of Pearl in the dark. Then, somehow, I knew that that was what made him dangerous. He was a gentleman and I was not.

  I saw Pearl run from her room, down the stairs, around the store. I heard her call out to him. She came home alone.

  It confused me. Was he going to ruin everything Pearl Cobb was, or was he going to rescue her as he had rescued me from the sinking riverboat? I feared and respected him, admired and hated him. He wasn’t a particularly nice fellow to be around, but I liked him. I feared he would find work elsewhere and leave town, and at the same time, I couldn’t wait for him to go.

  Thankfully, something happened in Port Caddo that took my mind off of Pearl Cobb and Billy Treat for a while. Some workmen came up from Shreveport in a government snag boat to remove the remnants of the Glory of Caddo Lake from the bayou channel. The snag boat had been built to winch stumps and dead trees up from the waters and cut them into harmless pieces. Those snags, as they were called, had ripped open the thin wooden hulls of many a riverboat.

  Every snag boat I ever saw floated on two hulls that would straddle a snag. A steam winch between the two hulls would lift that snag out of the water where the steam-powered saws could cut it up. The snag boat was invented by Henry Shreve, the old riverboat genius and founder of Shreveport. For years, the government employed him and his snag boats to clear the Great Raft from the Red River, so steamers could navigate above it. Shreve had been dead more than twenty years that summer, but his inventions were still whittling away at that immense logjam on. the Red.

  This snag boat that was pulling the old Glory apart usually worked at removing the Great Raft, but had come up through Caddo Lake to clear the wreck from our channel for us.

  Between baiting our trotline and checking it for fish, Cecil Peavy and Adam Owens and I spent a lot of time on the Port Caddo wharf watching the snag boat work. Billy Treat also came out to watch when he wasn’t cooking or cleaning up the kitchen in Widow Humphry’s inn. He seemed very interested. Every evening when the snag-boat men quit work, he asked them what they had found.

  One day a steamer came up Big Cypress Bayou and instead of tying up at the Port Caddo whar
f, it anchored first beside the snag boat in the channel. The rousters put a gangplank between the two boats and we saw a fellow in alligator shoes and a silk tie cross the gangplank to the snag boat. He poked around for a long time, asking questions and writing things down. Then he had one of the snag-boat men bring him to the wharf in a rowboat.

  “That’s him,” the snag-boat worker said, pointing at Billy, who was standing on the wharf at the time.

  “Are you Billy Treat?” the man asked, stepping up on the wharf. He was a chubby fellow of about forty, dressed in slick New Orleans styles, stained with sweat. He grew little-bitty mustaches that looked like they had been drawn on with a pencil.

  “Yes,” Billy said.

  “You were the cook on the Glory of Caddo Lake?”

  “Who are you?” Billy asked.

  The man stuck out his hand. “Joshua Lagarde, Delta State Insurance Company, New Orleans. We hold the policy on the Glory of Caddo Lake. The owners have put in a claim.”

  “The owners?” Billy said. “Captain Gentry was the only owner I knew of.”

  Lagarde mopped his neck with a handkerchief and shook with a chuckle. “Gentry didn’t own the boat, Mr. Treat. He sold it six months ago to pay off some gambling debts. The new owners simply insisted that he continue to pose as captain and owner so as not to damage trade. At least that’s the story they give.”

  “Who are these new owners?” Billy asked.

  “I’m not at liberty to say. I would appreciate your cooperation, Mr. Treat, but you’ll have to let me ask the questions.”

  I nudged Adam Owens. “Run to my pop’s office and tell him there’s a story on the wharf,” I said. Adam wasn’t listening to what was going on anyway. As long as I knew him, he never cared much for gossip and intrigue. He died a simple working man. He took off at a run toward my pop’s newspaper office, delighted to have something to do.

  “Now, Mr. Treat,” Lagarde said, “the fellows on the snag boat have brought up the steam engines and all their fittings—the throttle, the valves, etcetera. I’ve found something quite curious about them. All the valves were closed at the time of the explosion. Do you have any idea why?”

  “Yes, I do,” Billy said. “There was nobody in the engine room when the boat blew up … .” He went on to tell how the explosion had occurred, and he told it in such detail that it gave my pop time to arrive. Pop walked up real casual and pretended to be watching the snag-boat work. But he was in easy listening distance of the insurance man. Billy was just finishing up by explaining how the Glory’s engineer had climbed into the yawl only minutes before the boilers blew.

  “Why would he do that?” Lagarde asked.

  “His story was that he wanted to check something on the paddle wheel as the boat got underway.”

  Lagarde scribbled something down in a notebook. “How much do you know about steamboats, Mr. Treat?”

  “I worked on the Glory for a year and a half. I knew her pretty well.”

  “Do you know what this is?” He motioned to the man in the rowboat, who handed up a large iron cylinder, pretty badly mangled.

  Billy took it in one hand. “Used to be a safety valve.”

  “Notice anything unusual about it?”

  “Yes. The valve lever has been loaded down with extra weight.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I think you know what it means, Lagarde. It defeats the purpose of having a safety valve in the first place, doesn’t it?”

  Lagarde chuckled again and took the valve back. “The men couldn’t find the other two safety valves. This one came from the only boiler that didn’t explode. Who do you suppose might have loaded the lever down?”

  “You’d have to ask the engineer.”

  “I have a Mr. Judd Kelso listed as the engineer.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Any idea where I might find him?”

  “Right now,” Billy said, “he’s probably over at old Esau’s saloon.”

  Lagarde’s eyes widened. “He’s still here? He hasn’t left town?”

  “No. I hear he’s got family around here.”

  “Have you noticed him spending money freely, making any large purchases?”

  Billy Treat glanced at me. “He’s been flashing a big roll of bills.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “I’ve seen it.”

  Cecil stepped up. “Me, too. That big around.” He made a circle with his fingers.

  Joshua Lagarde mopped his face and smiled. “Where is this saloon?”

  “A couple of miles from town,” Billy said. “I’ll walk over there with you, if you’d like.”

  “Why not drive?” Pop said, turning suddenly and stepping up to the men. “I was thinking about taking a buggy over there and having a little drink this afternoon anyway.” He nudged Lagarde.

  The insurance man smiled and licked his lips.

  I don’t know how my pop did it, but he could tell you half a man’s life just by looking at him. That’s what made him such a good newspaper man. He had Joshua Lagarde pegged as a drinker the instant he saw him. Pop wasn’t normally a drinker himself, but he’d swallow a few to get in on a good story.

  “Ben, you and your friends go hitch the buggy,” he said, even before Lagarde accepted his offer.

  Well, we didn’t own a buggy, but I just sang out “Yessir” and ran to Cecil’s daddy’s livery stable with Cecil and Adam, and we led a horse and buggy back down to the wharf. My pop often used us boys as his special agents to run errands and ferret out good newspaper stories, and we loved it.

  “What kind of business are you in, Mr. Crowell?” asked Lagarde as he and Pop and Billy Treat got into the buggy.

  “I own a print shop,” Pop said, never mentioning the newspaper. It was true. He did a lot of printing on the side.

  Us boys didn’t get to ride to the saloon with the men, but I found out later what happened. I asked Pop about it, and read his report when it came out in the paper. Years later, I came across the notes he had made after the meeting at the saloon. He had amazing recall for details and could repeat a conversation almost to the word after the fact. In his Port Caddo Steam Whistle article, he didn’t use much of the conversation that took place at Esau’s saloon, because it didn’t prove anything conclusively, and Pop didn’t print rumor or speculation. But his notes say the meeting went like this:

  Lagarde: Mr. Kelso, were you the engineer on the Glory of Caddo Lake the morning she blew up?

  Kelso: I damn sure was.

  Lagarde: Were you on the boat when she blew?

  Kelso: Of course.

  Lagarde: Mr. Treat says you were in the yawl.

  Kelso: Well, I was, but I was right beside the boat. I was going to have my apprentice tow me behind the boat so I could listen to a thumping sound I heard in the paddle wheel and try to figure out what was making it. (Kelso very indignant toward Treat.)

  Lagarde: Why wasn’t anyone in the engine room when the captain gave the signal to steam ahead?

  Kelso: I told my apprentice to let the yawl down and get back into the engine room. He was slow, I guess.

  Lagarde: Where is your apprentice now?

  Kelso: I don’t know. He went off looking for work.

  Treat: He rode the Sarah Stevens down to New Orleans to find a job. His name is Reggie Swearengen. (Kelso glowering at Treat. Lagarde writing notes.)

  Lagarde: Mr. Kelso, in your opinion, what caused the boilers to explode on the Glory of Caddo Lake?

  Kelso: They were old, and the niggers threw too much wood under them.

  Lagarde: As far as you know, were the safety valves on the boilers in good working order?

  Kelso: Yes.

  Lagarde: How do you know?

  Kelso: I set them myself.

  Lagarde: Did you hear them releasing steam at any time before the explosion?

  Kelso: I didn’t notice. I guess they did.

  Lagarde: Mr. Kelso, we have recovered a safety valve from the wreck. It was loaded down
with extra weight. Can you explain that? (Kelso nervous. Goes outside to relieve himself. Gone two minutes.)

  Lagarde: About the safety valves, Mr. Kelso.

  Kelso: Yes, I just remembered. Captain Gentry checked the valves the night before the blowup. I saw him.

  Lagarde: What are you saying?

  Kelso: I’m saying he checked them.

  Lagarde: Why didn’t you mention that before?

  Kelso: It didn’t seem worth it. He was always going behind me and checking things.

  Treat: He never checked my work.

  Kelso: (Angry.) You’re just a goddamn cook, Treat!

  Lagarde: Mr. Kelso, are you suggesting that Captain Gentry may have intentionally blown the boat up?

  Kelso: If the safety valves were loaded- down, he must have done it. I know I didn’t.

  Lagarde: Why would Captain Gentry want to blow up the Glory of Caddo Lake?

  Kelso: You’re the investigator. You tell me.

  Lagarde: Captain Gentry had nothing to gain. He didn’t have the policy on the boat. He didn’t own it.

  Kelso: (Doesn’t seem surprised.) Maybe he did it for whoever it was that did own it. The son of a bitch! He could have blown us all to hell, but just ended up killing himself! (Laughs.)

  My pop’s notes also mention that Billy didn’t drink, that Kelso insisted on paying for Lagarde’s drinks from a large roll of cash he carried in his pocket, and that after a few rounds, Lagarde let it slip that the owners of the Glory of Caddo Lake were suspected in a number of other insurance-fraud cases.

  In his article, Pop only mentioned that insurance fraud was suspected and that the explosion might have been intentional. He didn’t even print Kelso’s name, but word got around town that Kelso was a prime suspect. Before long, it was plain that everybody in Port Caddo considered him a murderer. But Kelso was hardheaded and stayed around. He avoided nobody. It seemed he wanted to taunt us. He was an idiot. The days of vigilante lynch mobs were not that far behind us. I guess he figured he was protected because he came from a big family of ruffians, all of them living over at Long Point.