Blackwater: The Complete Caskey Family Saga Read Online Free PDF Page A

millowners said nothing of difficulty and inconvenience, did not mourn their homes and their belongings, smiled for the children and the servants and themselves, and made quite a pet of little Ruthie Driver. The Zion Grace Church had been their home for five days.
    . . .
    On Easter Sunday morning, Mary-Love Caskey and her daughter, Sister, sat with Annie Bell Driver in the corner of the church. They were the only ones awake in the large room. Caroline DeBordenave and Manda Turk lay closest to them on adjoining mattresses; they were turned toward each other and snoring lightly. The servants lay with their children in the far corner, now and then stirring, or crying out softly at a dream of high water or water moccasins, or raising a head and looking blearily about for a moment before falling asleep again.
    “Stand outside the door,” said Mary-Love quietly to Sister, “and see if you see Bray and your brother coming up the road.”
    Sister rose obediently. She was thin and angular, like her widowed mother. Her hair was the usual Caskey hair: fine and strong, but of no particular color, and therefore undistinguished. She was only twenty-seven, but every woman in Perdido—white or black, rich or poor—knew that Sister Caskey would never marry or leave home.
    The wagons with all the Caskey, Turk, and DeBordenave goods had been drawn up before the church and were guarded day and night by one or another of the servants with a loaded shotgun. The DeBordenaves’ driver sat sleeping now on the buckboard of the wagon nearest the road, and Sister walked quietly so as not to disturb him. She peered down the wagon track through the pine forest in the direction of Perdido. The sun was just rising over the tall pines and shined in her eyes, but the light in the forest was still dim and green and morning-misty. She craned her head this way and that. The driver stirred on the buckboard, and said, “That you, Miz Caskey?”
    “Have you seen Bray and my brother?”
    “Haven’t seen ’em, Miz Caskey.”
    “Go on back to sleep then. It’s Easter morning.”
    “The Lord is risen!” the driver cried softly, and lowered his head to his chest.
    Sister Caskey shaded her eyes from the watery morning sun that was the color of cheap country butter. A man and a woman stepped through a veil of mist in the forest and paused in the wagon track.
      . . .  
    “Where’d your girl go?” asked Annie Bell Driver.
    “Well,” said Mary-Love, craning her head. “I told her to walk outside and see if she could see Oscar and Bray. They went into town to see what the damage was. I didn’t want them to, Miz Driver. I didn’t want them in a rowboat. Oscar since he was little was always trailing his fingers in the water, not thinking about it. There’s nothing in the water but water moccasins and leeches, I know it for a fact, so I told Bray to watch out for him. But Bray doesn’t pay any attention,” Mary-Love finished with a rueful sigh.
    Sister appeared in the doorway.
    “You see them, Sister?” demanded Mary-Love.
    “I see Oscar,” said Sister with hesitation.
    “Is Bray with him?” asked Mary-Love.
    “I didn’t see Bray.”
    “I want to speak to Oscar,” said Mary-Love, rising.
    “Mama,” said Sister. “Oscar’s got somebody with him.”
    “Who is it?”
    “It’s a lady.”
    “What lady?” Mary-Love Caskey went to the open door of the church and peered out. She saw her son, a hundred feet away in the track-road, standing talking with a woman who was thinner and more angular than Mary-Love herself.
    “Who is it, Mama? She’s got red hair.”
    “Sister, I don’t know.”
    Annie Bell Driver stood behind Mary-Love and Sister. “Is she from Perdido?” the preacher asked.
    “No!” cried Mary-Love definitely. “Nobody in Perdido has hair that color!”
    . . .
    From the live oak where Bray Sugarwhite deposited Oscar Caskey and the rescued Elinor Dammert a wagon track ran through the pine forest. It went past the Zion