The Cottoncrest Curse: A Novel Read online

  When he was sharpening, there was plenty of time to talk. And when there was time to talk, there was time to sell. Pans. Pots. Needles and thread. Rough loom fabric and pieces of fine lace. A few yards of French silk taffeta. Cotton silk printed to look like brocade. Less-expensive weaves with bouquets of bluebells, roses, and tulips scattered among pale stripes the color of spring leaves. Percale-weight toile with cherry-red wreaths and garlands. Even a few scraps of velvet and tapestry fabric, perfect for cuffs or collars. You had to ease into it, however. Let the customer ask. Don’t push. If you did it right, the customers sold themselves, and then they even thanked you.

  Mona Brady worked the butter churn with slow, even motions. Her thin calico dress was damp with perspiration from her efforts. It was early October, and the first cold snap had not yet occurred, although the weather at this time of year could change abruptly.

  Mona was worrying silently about all of her problems. Tee Ray and the kids were out in the fields, but the crop wasn’t going to yield much. They’d never get out of debt at the Cottoncrest store. Tee Ray and the kids wouldn’t be back until late, and then they’d be hungry. Got to get the butter ready, then shell the peas and make the cornbread. And the garden still had to be weeded.

  “Oh, Mr. Gold, we can’t afford none of your fancy blades.”

  Without looking up from his work, Jake responded, “I’m not trying to sell you a knife, Mrs. Brady. No, not at all. I just want you to try one. Hold one in your hand. Cut something with it. Of course, you need to save your money. These are tough times.”

  Mona Brady thought about what he was saying. He was right. She had to save her money. Of course, there wouldn’t be any harm in just trying out one of the Peddler Man’s knives. Just to see how it cuts.

  Today

  Chapter 2

  “Even though your great-great-grandfather’s death certificate read ‘Jake Gold,’ that’s not the name he was born with.

  “Yaakov Gurevich. Now, that was a name. Jake remade his name, just as he remade himself. Yaakov Gurevich. Jacob Goldenes. Jacques Giraudoux. Jake remade himself time and time again.

  “Jake used to say that it was all the blood that drove him from Russia. The blood from the cattle. The blood from the chickens. The blood from the sheep. The blood from the Jews.

  “Jake—or Yaakov, as he was known then—grew up in a small village not too far from Bialystok. Yaakov’s father was a shochet, a butcher. The job of a butcher was critical to the life of a Jewish community back in those days. The laws of kashrut had to be observed strictly if you were to keep a kosher home, and of course, everyone kept a kosher home.

  “Now, your mother and father have never kept kosher. I know they serve shrimp at parties and order lobster bisque at those fancy restaurants, so you’ve never been to a kosher butcher. Kashrut requires that not only the death of the animal be as painless and quick as possible but also that the blood be drained.

  “After being quickly killed, shechitah, with a single knife stroke across the windpipe and the esophagus, right through the jugular, the animal is hung head down so that as much blood as possible will drain from its body. The cutting must be as quick and as painless as possible for the animal, and the laws of kashrut require that the knife be sharpened each time it is used.

  “The shochet carries out a bedikah—an examination—to make sure that there is no defect in the animal, for a defect, such as missing or defective organs or broken or fractured bones, will prevent the animal from being declared kosher.

  “You know why the blood is drained? It’s in the Torah, right in Leviticus. You know the phrase, he that eats any blood, ‘his soul will be cut off from his people’? You don’t know it? Well, it’s there. Look it up. Not only does the blood have to be drained, but the remaining blood has to be drawn out, either by salting or roasting it over an open flame.

  “Little Yaakov was intimately involved in the process. He helped tie up the animals. He held them so that his father could kill them. Every morning and evening he used buckets to help his father clean up the blood that came from that day’s butchering.

  “As a little boy, Yaakov learned the laws of kashrut and all the tools and methods of a shochet. How could he not, living in that house? But he didn’t like to kill the animals, and he didn’t like all the blood. He much preferred to work with his father’s customers, the ones who brought their cows or sheep or chickens in for butchering, or with the ones who came to buy a cut of meat for a family meal or a chicken for a Shabbat dinner.

  “So, Yaakov became adept at negotiating with customers. He was smart. When he was ten and eleven, he could figure all the angles. He instinctively knew when to push for a higher price, when to give in to an offer, and what goods to take in exchange for the butchering job. In fact, Yaakov was so good at negotiating that sometimes he helped his Uncle Avram out at the tailor shop. While Yaakov’s father dealt only with other Jews, Avram had not only Jews but also Cossacks as customers.

  “Yaakov had a quick mind and a quick ear. Yaakov didn’t ‘sound Jewish’ when he spoke Russian. He could talk to peasants like a peasant and to Cossack officers with the accent of one raised in a Cossack home. For his classmates he would mimic the rebbe’s talks in Hebrew. That always got him into trouble, for the rebbe would walk in and find the boys laughing at Yaakov’s antics rather than studying. Even at home, Yaakov was a chameleon. His sisters would hear their mother calling them to stop lounging around the garden and come into the house immediately to complete their chores. Once inside, however, they would find that it was only Yaakov, who, with pitch-perfect intonation, had fooled them.

  “But all of Yaakov’s accents couldn’t protect him in Russia. After Czar Alexander II’s assassination in 1881, Russia was beset by increasing political and financial problems. Czar Alexander III’s solution was simple—blame the Jews. The pogroms began. Their intensity increased. Over 150 Jewish settlements were set on fire. Yaakov’s family was right to be worried. The village down the road had been attacked, the women raped, houses and businesses destroyed. Jews weren’t safe anywhere.

  “Not only were individual Jews at risk; the entire Jewish culture was in jeopardy. The Czar had reinstituted compulsory military service for Jewish boys. Starting at ages ten or eleven, the boys were forcibly taken away and put into the army. Cantonists, they were called. Cantonists were lost to their family for a long, long time—a minimum of twenty years. But they were also lost to their religion. Conversion to Russian Orthodoxy was ‘strongly suggested’ by their superiors, and their superiors’ suggestions were the law.

  “You’ve heard of Moshe, haven’t you? Yaakov’s older brother? No? That’s all right. With no children of his own, Moshe Goldfarb is just a memory. Part of my memory and now part of yours. Moshe had left years earlier to escape being a Cantonist.

  “Growing up outside of Bialystok, Yaakov never knew Moshe. Moshe had been gone since Yaakov was six months old. Yaakov’s older twin sisters, Beruriah and Leah, still grieved over Moshe’s absence even as they shed tears of joy with their mother when, once or twice a year, they would get a short letter, written in Moshe’s spidery handwriting, that somehow made it to them from New York. He was fine, Moshe would write, and there would be American money folded carefully into the letter, money that they couldn’t spend but that they knew was being sent for Yaakov.

  “Can you imagine how difficult it must have been for Yaakov’s parents to have sent one son away, knowing that they would never see him again, only to be confronted with having to do it again with their youngest son, their baby, a son who could take over the business and was so adept at handling their customers and even the Cossacks who went to Uncle Avram’s?

  “The Cantonist crusade would be coming to the village shortly. The pogroms were heating up. Only recently, in the fields outside the village, a young rabbi had been attacked and his head split open with a scythe. He had stumbled into the synagogue, blood pouring from his wounds. He had lost an ear. Yaakov’s father and uncle
had helped the young rabbi out, bandaging his wounds, hiding him for the night.

  “The danger was upon them. Yaakov’s parents knew that there was no time to waste.

  “Yaakov always said that it was blood that drove him from Russia. It seems strange, doesn’t it, that it was blood in Louisiana that ensnared him.”

  1893

  Chapter 3

  “It’s the curse, ain’t it, Raifer? The curse that done ’em in.”

  Deputy Bucky Starner, sweat dripping from his forehead onto the fine rug on the upper landing and mingling with the drying pools of blood, was looking at the bodies with a combination of fear and excitement. Fear that the curse was real. Excitement because this was the biggest thing that had happened in Petit Rouge Parish in his lifetime.

  Bucky had been happy last year when the Sheriff hired him, even though his friends had made fun of the way he proudly wore his badge on a shirt so encrusted with sweat and mud and grime that it seemed to have a life of its own. But now Bucky’s friends were going to know that he was someone important. He would be someone people came up to talk with. To listen to. All because he had seen the bodies, had seen the blood of the curse.

  Sheriff Raifer Jackson made no comment. That boy was green and naive. But the boy did as he was asked. If only he didn’t run his damn fool mouth off.

  Raifer stood silently next to Bucky. The bodies sprawled below them on the curved staircase. Colonel Judge Chastaine’s hand held the pistol clasped tightly in a death grip, finger on the trigger. The Colonel Judge had blown his brains out after he had viciously slit her throat. The Colonel Judge couldn’t have used the knife and held her and the cane at the same time; that’s why the cane was a few feet away. He had left the cane on the landing, had done her in on the stairway, had thrown the knife away and pulled out the gun, and had then shot himself.

  Maybe Bucky was right. Maybe the curse was to blame.

  But did she expect to die? Was this a suicide pact, or was it something else? Was there a look of fear in her face?

  “Bucky, go down a few steps and turn her head where I can see it; I want to see what her face looked like.”

  “Raifer, she was beautiful. You know that. Everyone knew that. We all saw her. Do you really want to look at her all dead and everythin’? And I’m gonna mess up my boots with all that blood. It’s spread all over everywhere.”

  “Bucky, it’s a fine time for you to start worrying about your boots.” For the first time today Raifer smiled. Bucky’s boots were cracked, one heel partially broken off, and they hadn’t seen boot black since Bucky’s daddy bought them years ago, before wearing them in and wearing them down, before handing them off to his son to replace an even worse pair that Bucky had been wearing.

  “Get on down there and move that hair aside and turn her face so that I can see her expression.”

  Bucky complied. Raifer was not only his boss, but also the toughest man in the parish. And the fairest.

  Bucky carefully picked his way down the staircase, but with each step drying blood coated his shoes and left splotchy marks on the few portions of the carpet runner that were not already soaked. There was no easy way to do this, with her body sprawled the way it was, with the Colonel Judge’s body on top of hers and her head lodged against the banister.

  Bucky gave up trying to keep his boots out of the blood. Planting one foot on a lower stair and one on an upper stair, he straddled her body, her dress nestling against his trousers. Trying to avert his eyes from the scene and the Colonel Judge’s rigid gaze looking blankly through him, Bucky reached down and grabbed a handful of her hair. Gently lifting her head, Bucky turned it so Raifer on the upper landing could see her face.

  The head was easy to turn.

  Too easy.

  Bucky gave a yell and fell backward, her hair still in his hands. Lifting her head had completely separated it from her body.

  Too frightened and shocked to let go, Bucky held her hair in his grasp as he tumbled down the stairs, her skull bouncing against the wall at the end of the tether of tresses in his fist.

  Chapter 4

  “You all right there?”

  “Yeah, Raifer. It just startled me a tad, that’s all.” Bucky was sitting on the edge of the veranda, his heart continuing to pound, the glass of water that Jenny had brought him half drained.

  Jenny had retreated back into the house to care for Little Miss, who was being confined to her first-floor room and who still hadn’t been told anything about what had happened in the house last night. Surely the Sheriff wouldn’t think of entering Little Miss’s bedroom and disturbing her in the slightest, but Jenny closed the door behind her, just to be sure.

  Raifer could see that although Bucky tried to act calm, his right foot, encased in the bloody boot, was tapping constantly on the top step and his face was still pale.

  “Tell you what. Why don’t you stay here and keep an eye out to prevent anyone from coming in while I finish up what I have to do inside.”

  “Good idea,” Bucky agreed with relief.

  Raifer walked through the large front doors and examined the bloody head lying on the floor at the foot of the stairs. The cut that had severed her neck was cleanly made. There were no ragged edges except below the nape where Bucky had twisted. No ragged lines evidencing a sawing motion. The Colonel Judge had done this in a single stroke.

  How the old man could have held Rebecca, who was almost forty years his junior, while he did the cutting was puzzling. Why didn’t she break free of his grasp? Did she allow the Colonel Judge to do this? What was her final thought?

  Raifer took a rag Jenny had gotten for him and wiped the blood off the face. There was no way to tell what Rebecca had been thinking. Her nose was broken and squashed to one side. One eye was partially out of its socket. When Bucky fell down the stairs, her head had been smashed numerous times, as the bloody blotches on the wall paid witness.

  Raifer walked up the long, curving staircase to examine the headless body on which the Colonel Judge’s body rested. She was wearing a crinoline hoopskirt and double petticoats under a silk brocade dress. Here and there, where the blood had not completely soaked through and turned everything shades of crimson, he could see the color of the fabric. White petticoats. Blue dress. Her left wrist, twisted at an odd angle to the torso, was encircled with a silver bracelet. Her shoes were still laced. The blood had drained from her body, coating the staircase. Her legs, now visible with the hoopskirt askew and the petticoats awry, were a porcelain white, as perfect as if sculpted by the finest artist.

  Raifer shook his head as he climbed up the few remaining steps to the landing. What a tremendous waste. When the Colonel Judge had brought Rebecca home, after their wedding in Philadelphia, he had given the most elaborate reception and feast in her honor—a grand in-fare—the likes of which had never been seen in this part of the state.

  The Colonel Judge had achieved his goal. People came from as far away as New Orleans. Some arrived in their fancy carriages, which required that they make the three-day journey up the River Road on the east bank of the Mississippi River, then take a ferry to the west bank to cross over to Petit Rouge Parish. Others, emerging from their grand staterooms aboard one of the few fashionable paddle wheelers that were still plying the Mississippi, were greeted by Marcus and the other boys at the dock in front of Cottoncrest. No shabby riverboats for these people; they traveled only in the grandest of style, as was befitting the great gathering and their host.

  Handwoven rugs from the Continent, rum from Saint Domingue, wine from France, new silverware from England. All had been brought in, boat by boat, coming from the port in New Orleans. Cattle and pigs had been slaughtered for the feast. Hunters were paid to bring in ducks and deer and turkey. The kitchen staff was not big enough to handle it all. House servants from the neighboring plantations had been lent to Cottoncrest to assist. Elaborate desserts were prepared, from ornate cakes to custards and pies to mousses served in multicolored miniature baskets woven from th
e candied peels of lemons and oranges. Old Marcus had supervised it all behind the scenes.

  Raifer remembered the evening well. How could he not? It was only four years ago. The staircase and landing were garlanded with roses. The fragrance of flowers and perfume was everywhere. He remembered his first sight of Rebecca, a glittering presence among women dressed in their most elegant attire and wearing their most expensive jewelry. She outshone them all.

  Raifer, whose Sunday best clothes were clearly inferior to the fine tailoring sported by the other guests, had stood in a corner near the front door. He knew he had been invited because of his office as sheriff; otherwise, he would never have been asked by the Colonel Judge to attend. His family background was not grand enough.

  While the crowd mingled and talked, while the men smoked and drank, while the married women gossiped and the young girls demurely flirted with the young men, a string quartet had played excerpts from French operas by Berlioz, Gounod, Bizet, Offenbach, and Saint-Saëns. Then the conversations slowly quieted. Voices became whispers. Although the main hall was vast, it was not large enough to hold all the guests who now crowded into it from the veranda and the side rooms.

  Raifer had squeezed further into the corner to make room for the others as they all craned for a look at Rebecca at the top of the landing.

  She was the most striking woman he had ever seen.

  Her dark tresses cascaded down onto her pale shoulders. Her skin was perfection. There were whispers in the crowd about her regal bearing, her fine features, and her charming smile. Some said that as she came down the stairs, she looked like a goddess descending to earth from the heavens. But these comments were weak specifics; it was the entirety of Rebecca that was too beautiful to capture in words.