~ Life On The HomeStead ~

by

Mary Jean Kelso

Charlie Cooper, a black man that Trace, Tom and Bill Thompson saved from a lynch mob late last summer, clacked his tongue to the horse pulling the small buggy he had borrowed from the Thompsons as he drove his new wife, Effie Mae, to New Mexico from a brothel near Waco, Texas. They headed for the little house that came along with the new job he had been offered. He looked at Effie Mae, with the large watermelon-sized belly that took the place of her lap, with concern. He hoped the jerking ride wasn’t making her too uncomfortable

“What cha got there, girl?” Charlie teased her earlier in the day when he arrived at Pearl’s place outside of Waco, where she’d been staying. He was eager to claim his bride and cart her off from near the Texas border to their new home in New Mexico.

Effie Mae considered Pearl Hornsby, a local madam, her second mother since she had taken her in when Effie Mae was ten and her real mother died.

“You take care of my girl, you hear, Charlie?” said Pearl, the large white woman, dressed in a voluminous skirt that hung from a high waistline designed to hide some of her bulk, as she hugged the diminutive black girl tight to her bosom.

“Yes, Missy Pearl. I surely will.” Charlie looked about nervously. He held his new felt hat in both hands and fingered its edge. He turned the brim slowly in his fingers. As excited as he was about their future together, he was equally fearful of threats from certain white men living around the Waco area.

He well remembered the time, a few short months back, when some of the local men had tried to hang him and was grateful to Pearl for trying to stop them. He ran his two-tone index finger around inside his shirt collar where it felt too tight and sticky in the humidity. He could still feel the burn of the rope that had been placed around his neck when he thought about the close call he had had.

He worried, now, that some of those same men might still be around. Of course, if Mister Tom, Mister Trace and Mister Bill hadn’t stepped in, Missy Pearl might not have been able to stop them by herself. She probably wouldn’t be able to hold them off now if they took a notion to come here and found me standing at her back door.

Charlie wanted to get on the road and out of the Waco area as soon as possible. He tucked the hat under his arm and picked up Effie Mae’s two worn carpet bags, one in each hand.

Despite the anxiety he felt being back in Waco where danger seemed to lurk in every shadow, excitement rushed through his body as life had finally seemed to have turned around and was treating him well for a change. He had the resources to provide a good living for the new family he planned to make with Effie Mae and the baby.

“Now, you be sure to write me, Effie Mae. I didn’t teach you your letters for nothin’. Let me know what the baby is,” Pearl went on. “There’s some new clothes in there for both you and the baby.” Pearl pointed at one of the bags Charlie lugged to the buggy.

Pearl rattled on. She hated to let Effie Mae go down the steps that would take her away from her house for what she felt would be forever.

Charlie dropped the bags into the buggy and came back to the door. He asked softly as though not wanting to interrupt the two women’s goodbyes, “You ready to go, Effie Mae?”

“Yes,” she choked back tears.

Pearl hugged her again.

“Thank you, Missy Pearl. You surely did save my life when my momma died. I couldn’t have had any better replacement.”

“Go on. Don’t you fret none. You and Charlie are going to have a wonderful life. Maybe I’ll have business in Albuquerque one of these days soon. That’s near where you all’ll be livin’. I’ll have to see this baby,” Pearl stroked Effie Mae’s belly.

“You’re more than welcome anytime, Missy Pearl,” Charlie told her. “I’ll take real good care of Effie Mae, I promise.”

“I know you will Charlie.” Pearl choked back tears. “You go, now, girl.”

Effie Mae turned and Charlie took her hand to help her down the steps of the large house where Effie Mae had finished growing up in relative comfort over the past eight years.

Charlie helped her into the small carriage, still darting quick glances around the area hoping he didn’t see any threatening locals nearby. He wanted to put Waco behind him quickly while there was still daylight.

~ * ~

“Pearl!” Adam Witherspoon bellowed like an angry bull as he booted the back door of her kitchen in not long after Charlie and Effie Mae had left.

Men mounted on several horses sat their saddles while they waited for Adam Witherspoon to say his piece to the local madam.

Pearl came into the kitchen. She reached for the broom as a weapon and swung it up in front of her attempting to hold the intruder at bay.

“What do you want, Adam Witherspoon? I told you not to come around here anymore,” Pearl said as she used her staunch body clothed in its long dark cotton frock to block his way. Quickly she flipped the broom handle widthwise, gripping it in both hands to block the man’s rotund belly at arm’s length.

“I heard that nigger was back here. I told you, both, if he ever showed his black hide around here again, I’d finish the job I started. You hidin’ him here?”

“You leave Charlie and Effie Mae alone. The sheriff knows you nearly hung him before. You do either one of them any harm and I’ll have your hide.”

“I got six men outside that feel the same as me. We done told you not to let that black bastard mess around here.”

“And I told you, the only woman he’s interested in is Effie Mae. Now, they’re married and they are having a youngun’ and you leave ’em alone!”

Pearl wanted to run the man out of the house, but she knew the longer she stalled him the farther Charlie and Effie Mae could get away from her place near the Brazos River.

“I ain’t foolin’ with you, now, Pearl. Where you hidin’ him?”

Adam Witherspoon stomped into the dining room and headed up the stairs toward the working girls’ bedrooms.

Let him look. Pearl felt as if a clock was ticking in her brain. Every second was another step away for Charlie and Effie Mae. If they get a good head start he won’t be able to catch up to them. Charlie’s smart. He’ll get down the road fast and possibly take a route they won’t think to look for him on—once he gets across the river.

Adam Witherspoon’s boot kicked the bottom of the first bedroom door he came to on the second floor.

A woman’s scream answered the loud bang his foot made on the wooden door.

“What the hell you think you’re doin’, kicking in my door, Witherspoon?” a woman’s voice called out.

A disgruntled man’s voice broke in, “Get the hell outta here, Adam.”

Adam Witherspoon saw the man reach for his gun where his gun belt hung on the iron bed post.

He slammed the door shut and moved aside in case the man shot through it.

“What you got such a hate for Charlie for anyway, Adam?” Pearl called up. She saw no need to climb the stairs yet. There was only one way out and that was down, past her. If she could get Adam talking, she might buy more time for the couple to get away.

Adam Witherspoon moved on to the next door.

Another scream reached their ears when he shoved the door open with his fat-padded shoulder.

By now, every girl and customer was up and dressing. Men pulled their pants on and reached for their pistols.

Adam Witherspoon decided a further search could be deadly and turned to retreat downstairs.

“Ain’t none of your damned business, Pearl,” he said as he tried to shove past her.

“Far as I know, Charlie never did nothin’ to you.” Pearl blocked his way as he moved toward the hall.

At last Pearl was next to the staircase where the lower hallway went to other rooms and past her own bedroom. Moving close beside him, she reached inside behind her bedroom door and retrieved a shotgun from its position where it was loaded and leaning against the wall next to the chest of drawers. She hefted it to her beefy shoulder and cocked it.

Adam Witherspoon turned around at the sound.

“Now you get the hell outta my place, Adam, and don’t you ever come back!”