Cajun Waltz Read Online Free PDF Page A

a huddle whose dour contrast to the prevailing mood few but Richie noticed. For Jenks and his friends, seeing Walter excite the room killed any fun they might have found here. Walter’s skin shone darker in the lamplight. He sweated like a field hand through his suit and his greased hair had loosened into wiry coils. Cajuns showered him with cheers that seemed to give the deputy personal offense. Richie played on, trying not to let foreboding dampen his good time.
    A young woman brought them alcohol between songs. Walter yipped, “Oh darlin’!” each time she appeared, no one caring anymore whose lips touched the communal cup. The moments seemed a ripple in the room’s noisy wash until Richie noticed Jenks watching with stony reproach. He hoped that Walter would smarten up and let the woman be. She didn’t make it easy, lingering in front of him with her eyes cast dreamily upward. Richie glanced again at Jenks. The deputy’s attention had switched to Angel, where it remained as if hypnotized.
    People waited for Walter to start the next tune. He called out to the room, “Y’all gonna let a Neg take a leak?” Laughter erupted. Walter hopped off the crate and darted through the side door to relieve himself outside. Tonight’s celebration was nothing if not a call of nature.
    Angel took the moment to lift the rubboard from around her neck. It got warm under that sheet of metal. Perspiration had turned her dress wet and sheer across small pointed breasts naked beneath the material. She seemed unaware of the nubile vision she made. Holding the rubboard in one hand, she raked the fingers of her other hand through her hair to cool the back of her neck. Richie turned away in embarrassment. His eyes fell on Jenks, who was still staring at Angel. The deputy looked lost in wonder till he realized Richie was watching him. His reaction might have been milder if he’d only been leering. But getting caught in a state of rapture over a nigger’s daughter was something else again.
    Walter bounded back inside like a vaudevillian taking an encore. The room’s energy had cooled. Families and couples made to leave, thanking him as they headed out. The moonshine woman went up to him. She withdrew a handkerchief from under her bodice and dabbed his brow. There was cause for surprise in this—white woman, black man. But the real rarity came when she refolded the hankie and returned it inside her dress, his sweat against her skin. Few saw the exchange; she rejoined her kin leaving the hall and disappeared into the night. But Deputy Jenks took note.
    He and his friends waited till the wagons and motorcars thinned out around the hall. It was after midnight. Walter and Richie had collected their pay and were loading up the Ford. Angel had climbed in and was already half asleep with her head on her arms. The plan was to stop at an all-night diner and then continue southwest toward her home on the Gulf, resting at roadside and hopefully hitting another fais do-do somewhere on the way tomorrow. Richie and Walter stood by the trunk of the motorcar, counting out the money. “Turn you Cajun yet,” Walter laughed.
    â€œOr colored,” Richie said, taking his half.
    Footsteps hissed in the long grass behind them. Richie and Walter were turning to the sound when blows came down with thuds and cracks, hardwood hitting muscle and bone. Driven to the ground, Walter received extra pounding while Richie sprawled facedown beside him with his brain ringing and someone’s boot on his neck. Men stood over them in the dark, panting and grunting as if breaking rocks. Walter curled up to shield himself but his forearm was snapped by one swing of an ax handle and the side of his head was next.
    It was too dark to see much blood. The men threw Walter limp into the gully. They got behind the Ford and with a rowdy heave pushed that in, too, Angel still inside; Richie later wondered if he’d heard her