Two Legacies: Book 1

Chapter 1

1958

The casket lay open. Only a man in his early sixties and a slight youth remained in the mortuary. The man’s black suit covered his six-foot lean frame without a wrinkle. Immaculate white hair and a face as though carved in stone marked him. The youth bore a strong familial resemblance to the man. Face heavy with grief, a lock of unruly wavy hair hung over his forehead. The cowlick over his left ear threatened to spring up, but never quite made it. Dry now, commanding eyes stared unseeingly at the coffin.

The youth made himself look at the face of the woman in the casket. She had been beautiful once. The ravages of time and the stress of catering to the needs of her husband, the most respected lawyer in Austin, had left permanent frown lines the morticians had not been able to eradicate completely between her eyes. Only her face was exposed. Her gray hair had been arranged to cover the deep wounds on her neck.

The youth watched the man turn and walk out the door, his back ramrod straight. Where the hell were you, father, when she needed you? He wished he could cry, but the grief was buried too deeply. Where were you when anyone needed you! he screamed silently in his head. His gaze returned to his mother’s pasty face. This isn't the way you wanted to be remembered. I love you, Mom. He turned and left the room, trying to walk proudly.

His father, already seated in the limo, glanced at his son and, his voice expressionless, said, “Come, Rett.” Rett B. Hawkins got into the car and sat next to his father, refusing to watch as pall bearers wheeled the coffin to the hearse. You aren't alive there, Mom. This whole thing is a farce. You should die as you lived, with music and fun all around you, not this dirge of weeping and wailing.

The trip to the cemetery took almost half an hour, though he knew it was a twenty minute drive. A man he didn’t know ushered them to the grave-side. The elder Hawkins accepted the offered chair, but the son stood, separate from both his father and the rest of the crowd, and watched as the minister said a few words.

His mind wandered. You never believed this shit when you were alive, Mom. Dad, why the hell have you done this to her in death? You never understood her free spirit, her love of life–or her love for you. Do you even know how much she loved you? No. All you know about is protocol and what will look right to others. To hell! with the others, Sam Hawkins. Take care of your own!

As they walked away from the grave, associates of his father approached. One said, “If there's anything we can do, Samuel, anything at all, just let us know.”

Sam Hawkins shook his head and they walked on toward the limo. Rett heard the other lawyer say, “Shame. I sure hope they catch the bastard who did this. Sara Hawkins was a lovely lady.”

The first replied, “I wish Sam would let go. He can't hold the grief in like that without it eating him alive.”

Rett looked at his father. Grief? He doesn't know what the word means. They didn't speak, even after returning to the southern plantation house where Rett grew up. His father went into his room and shut the door. Rett stood uncertainly, looking at the closed door, then walked down the steps into the walk-out basement, to the only retreat he ever knew in his life.

The grand piano stood in one corner of the sunlit room which opened onto a wide patio. His mother's music stood open. He could still smell the perfume she always wore. The cleaners had done a good job removing all reminders of her death, but, when he closed his eyes, Rett could see her as he found her, lying next to the piano bench in a pool of blood, her clothes torn half off, her position leaving no doubt that the man who killed her raped her. His father hadn’t entered the room since.

He picked up the flute lying on the piano and walked to the door, looking down across the meadow where he and his mother had often ridden horses. The music he played was for her, for her love of life and everything she had meant to him.

He didn't hear his father’s approach. His angry voice disturbed the quiet. “Stop that! You have no right!” His face contorted by rage, he clenched fists by his sides.

Rett turned to his father, his face unreadable. He held the flute lightly in his right hand, but switched it to the left. I have more right than you. He walked past his father, up the stairs and to his room. Closing the door, he removed a good-sized back pack from his closet. The flute case downstairs would keep until later.

Looking around the room, he wondered if he really needed any of the things he saw. The closet was well ordered, but he took only necessities: jeans, cotton shirts, socks and underwear and a few things from the bathroom. He picked up his mother's picture and laid it carefully among the clothing.

I don't know how you knew what I'd need, Mom. Thank you. He took his birth certificate, a checkbook and a savings pass book from the drawer and stuffed the latter two in his pocket. He had some idea how long he could survive on the amounts shown in each. With the packing finished, he put the pack carefully in a corner of the closet and left the house.

He walked the four blocks to the nearest bus stop. A twenty minute bus ride took him to the bank. When he walked out, he carried two cashier’s checks in his pocket–one from savings and one from checking. No doubt bank officials would call his father sometime before the day was over, but he returned home within thirty minutes, picked up the flute case from the music room, packed the instrument in it, retrieved the pack and put in the case. The cashier's checks and birth certificate he stashed in the lining.

His riding boots tied on, he took a last look around the room. Back in the basement he retrieved his sleeping bag from its storage space and tied it to the pack also. He ran his hand lovingly over the piano and walked out the door with the pack on his back.

Watching the two mares and colts romping in the pasture, he supposed they had been sleeping somewhere. He walked down to the barn. The day was already warm for March and he welcomed the coolness inside the old adobe structure. “I'm going to miss you, Barney,” he said, tracing the outline of the white patch between the horse's eyes. “Take good care of the kids.”

He jumped onto the gelding and loped him down the pasture to the highway where he could get a ride going someplace. What can I do to survive? Horses are all I know well. I don't have enough experience to get on at a breeder's. Maybe the track. They don't ask questions and I've met some handlers and jockeys. He turned the gelding loose and climbed through the fence. His back to the only home he’d ever known, he started down the road toward the coast, thumbing his way as each vehicle approached.

A trucker hauled him to the wharf in Houston. At the docks, he saw two barges, ready to leave. He watched the men on both for fifteen minutes, then walked brazenly up to a man he had pegged as barge master. He was big, well over six feet and Rett had to look up at him.

“Where ya headed, kid?”

“New Orleans.”

“Got any money for the trip?”

“Not much, but I got a strong back and I can take orders real well.”

The man laughed. “I like your attitude, kid. Not many around anymore what'd say that. How much money you willing to pay?”

Rett shook his head. “Ain't got but a fiver. I'll give you half.”

Grinning, the man stuck out his hand. “Call me Rex. It's six days to New Orleans. Sure nobody's going to come lookin' fer you?”

“If they do, I'm of age. Names R.B., Rex.”

Rex jerked his thumb toward the center of the tub. “Stash your pack in the wheel house and Foz'll tell you what to do.”

Foz, even bigger than Rex and black as jet, grinned, his whole face turning white with teeth. He was a few years older than R.B. and held out his hand. “You a working white boy?” he asked.

R.B. nodded. “Rex said you'd tell me what to do.”

They were out of sight of Houston by nightfall and the work began for R.B. He was put to doing everything from scrubbing the deck to cleaning the latrine, but he didn't complain. He thought of his mother more than once, but refused to acknowledge he even had a father. When Foz asked, “Where's your folks, R.B.?” he answered, “Carlsbad.”

“You're a long way from home,” the other said and R.B. only nodded. He no longer had a home.

###

The channel widened and didn't claim as much of the four man crew's time. After chow one evening, one of the other crewmen, a tall, brown-haired white man, about the same age as Foz, who answered to “Dave”, pulled a beat up clarinet from his bunk and started to play. R.B. had never heard the music before, but he recognized the jazz beat. Foz used an empty wooden barrel as a drum and the two men made music.

“Know anything about music?” asked Dave, resting his lip after a long set.

“A little,” admitted R.B. “Can I play with you?”

“Whadaya play?” asked Foz.

R.B. knew better than to tell them. He dug out the flute and assembled it, knowing both men would have a jeer on their faces when he returned, but not giving a damn. “A flute!” guffawed Foz. “What the hell can you do with that?”

“Just play.”

Before they played ten bars, he added the flute's voice. Before another ten bars, the expressions on their faces changed. They played for twenty minutes without stop.

“Hot, damn, kid,” said Dave. “You know something about music all right. Who taught you?”

“My mother,” said R.B., wondering if he'd have a fight on his hands over that. He'd had more than one at school.

Foz chuckled. “Any white woman can teach a kid the soul of music's got my vote, Dave.”

The two exchanged glances. R.B. wasn't sure what it meant, but Dave said, “Where you bunking in New Orleans?”

“Don't know,” answered R.B.

“Foz 'n me got room for one more. What you planning on doing?”

R.B. shrugged. “Get a job mucking up at the track, I guess.”

“Know much about horses?” asked Dave.

R.B. grinned. “About as much as I know about music.”

“And I suppose your mother taught you that, too,” said Foz.

R.B. nodded, and suddenly felt his world falling apart, wishing for her, knowing she'd never be there again. He walked to the rail and started playing. No one bothered him and no one joined him for minutes, but then the clarinet started playing with him, and before long Foz joined.

When R.B. lowered the flute, they were silent before Dave said, “We honor our departed with a wake, R.B.”

“She'd have liked that,” he said.

###

R.B. remembered his mother bringing him to New Orleans when he was eleven. The city fascinated him, as it had her. They had celebrated her fiftieth birthday listening to jazz on Bourbon Street. She took him to museums and large plantation houses, but he remember only two things vividly–the music and the races at the Fair Grounds. He wasn't used to the big rangy Thoroughbreds, only their stockier Quarter Horses. The big animals moved with a grace he never forgot. She told him, “This is the way God meant horses to move, Rett.”

Foz and Dave bunked in a single room with another musician. Harry played base and was a night owl. R.B. took a while getting used to his roving around at all hours. He arose about the time Harry went to bed. The room was already crowded with drums, base and two sets of bunk beds, but they made room for him, especially after Harry listened to him play, and his already hound-dog face got even longer.

They played for coin somewhere along Basin Street. They didn't make a lot of money, but they had a good time–and they made music. Dave was good and the acknowledged leader of the group. R.B. enjoyed them for about a week, then he started wishing he had a horse.

The next morning at first light, he put on his riding boots and took a bus to the Fairgrounds. Race season was just getting under way, with new horses moving in regularly. This wasn't a circuit track, but New Orleans people loved their horse racing. Many of the owners were shoe-string operators with an old, rust-bucket pickup and dilapidated trailer, but the one or two horses they stepped out of the trailer were well cared for and ready to run.

R.B. walked around the barns, looking for signs that somebody needed a hand. Ready to give up after several hours, a man maybe fifteen years older than himself, dressed in authentic-looking cowboy garb, said to him, “You know anything about horses, kid?”

He turned to the questioner. “Some,” answered R.B., trying not to sound too interested.

“Ever do any ponying?”

R.B. hadn't, but he had led the mares and colts around the pasture on Barney. “Some.”

“Lookin' for a job?”

“Might be.”

The other nodded. “Thought as much. I might could use a boy interested in ponying a couple of good geldings. You're light enough you ain't gonna hurt them. Come over to the stall and let's see how you set a horse. What's your name, son?”

“R.B.”

“Just R.B.?” The boy nodded. “They call me Pops Williams.” He stopped at a stall with a brown horse. “Let's see you saddle up Brown here and pony Gus around the track a time or two.”

Saddling was no problem except that Brown was almost seventeen hands and R.B. was only five-six. He threw the saddle up on the gelding's back, keeping it from going on over with a strong hold on the stirrup leathers. He carefully checked the girth and the folds of skin behind the horse's elbows before he turned to the bridle. That was another matter. Brown threw up his head and there was no way R.B. could have reached it. He looked around, saw a metal milk carton, brought it over, stood it on end, stepped up and slipped the bridle over the horse's head.

Williams chuckled. “You'll do if you can ride.” He haltered the bay in the adjoining stall and brought him out. “Give you a leg up.”

R.B. shook his head and vaulted onto the big brown horse. He looked down at Williams, grinned and reached for the halter lead. “How you want them paced?”

“Choose your own for now.”

R.B. walked the horses to the track, then trotted about a quarter around to warm up. The brown horse's trot was not the smoothest he could remember. He eased the brown into a lope but the bay wanted to trot. He dropped the brown back to a trot, turned him toward the rail, since the led horse was away from the rail, turned him back down the track and pushed the bay into a lope.

In excellent shape, neither horse breathed hard after the first lap, so he stepped up the pace. As he rode, he watched the bay until he settled down, then he enjoyed the gallop. After two full laps he thought they'd probably had enough. The brown was breathing harder than he expected, but when he dropped them to a walk, the horse took a big gulp of air and his breathing returned to normal. The bay tried to pull away and buck, but with a firm grip on the lead, R.B. gave him a couple of jerks to settle him down.

When he got back to the gate, Williams smiled. “I thought you had the look of a horseman, son. How many mornings a week can you come ride?”

R.B. shrugged. “All of them if there's enough riding.”

Williams nodded. “Good. You're hired.”

The pay wasn't much, but it was steady and often more than all four musicians made in a night. That afternoon, R.B. took the two cashier's checks and put them into a savings account in a local bank. He took out enough cash to pay for the next week's groceries, but he'd not use the rest unless he had to.

When he got back to the room, he handed Dave part of the cash, grinning. “My first pay for pony boy. Maybe we can eat, anyhow.”

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