The Land (42 page)

The night before the Perrys were to head home, I went directly to Rachel Perry with my worry about Caroline. “It'd be best she go,” I said.

Rachel Perry studied me in silence, then asked, “Why?”

I was taken aback. All she'd been hearing were reasons why for the past several days. She waited, staring at me.

“The baby, for one,” I said. “With Caroline being pregnant, there's no telling what kind of problems she might have.”

“Caroline done told me there's a woman two or three miles 'way can help her.”

“I just thought she'd want to be with her mother.”

“Well, 'cordin' t' Caroline, this here Ma Jones could take care of anythin' I could. What other reasons you got for her t' leave?”

I was silenced. It was obvious.

“Well?”

“We'd be two unmarried people on this place, Miz Perry. Even with Nathan here, there could be talk.”

Rachel Perry nodded and sighed. “No matter what ya do, folks talk. Seem some folks got nothin' better t' do. Now, I'm gonna tell you somethin', Paul Logan. I gots my worries 'bout Caroline stayin' on here, but I ain't been tryin' t' get her t' leave. That's my husband's doin'. I ain't tried t' get her t' leave 'cause I agrees wit' her. This here's her place now. She needs t' keep it. She needs t' work it. She needs t' be on it. I wants her t' have somethin' of her own.”

Rachel Perry's words moved me into another time and another place

“Now, far's this other thing 'bout you and her livin' up here not married, Caroline done said you willin' t' marry 'cause that's what Mitchell wanted. Well, Caroline told me she wasn't marryin' nobody jus' 'cause Mitchell said t' do it, so don't you worry 'bout it. One thing I want you to know, though, Paul Logan. I liked Mitchell. He had a way 'bout him. But I figure you t' be a steady man, and I be proud t' call you my son, things work out that way. I don't think my girl could do no better.” Rachel Perry's eyes met mine, and that was all she said.

The next morning at dawn Sam and Rachel Perry, Hugh, and Callie with her baby got onto their wagon and headed back to Vicksburg. After they left, Caroline, Nathan, and I went back to our daily business of chopping the trees, hacking the branches, and burning the brush. We said few words among us, even though our thoughts were on Mitchell and missing him. That night we sat at the outdoor fire for a spell before turning in, and Caroline said to me, “In all this time I ain't asked you 'bout the land.”

“Land?”

“The land you was wantin' from J. T. Hollenbeck. You'd gone off t' Vicksburg t' see 'bout gettin' money for it,” she reminded me.

I nodded. “Seems so long ago now.”

“I know,” Caroline agreed. “Whole lifetime.”

“Well, didja, Paul?” asked Nathan. “Didja get it?'

“I got it.”

“Knowed ya would!” he exclaimed, sounding much like Mitchell.

Caroline smiled. “Mitchell done told me anybody could get it, you could.”

I smiled too. “And he used to tell me he didn't have any faith.”

“Well, he sure done had faith in you. He told me he give you a paper for his half of the forty t' use as you seen fit.”

I nodded. “Is that all right with you?”

“I ain't worried 'bout it.”

“I intend to put the forty up for sale. It'll help me pay for Hollenbeck's land, that along with a crop. I'd figured to sell Thunder for the rest of the money.” I glanced across at her and she met my eyes. “I'll have to figure something else.”

Caroline only nodded. For some time we sat in silence. Then Caroline said, “Mitchell know 'bout you gettin' Mister Hollenbeck's land?”

“First thing he asked me.”

“Well, I'm glad.”

“One thing I always intended was for Mitchell to see it—the land, I mean. But seemed like we were always too busy. I regret that. It's truly something to behold.”

“Well, maybe his baby and me, we can see it for him,” she said.

“I hope that too,” I murmured.

Soon after, the three of us fell into silence, but that was all right. After a bit we all went off to our sleep. We'd gotten through another day without Mitchell, and somehow the next day we went on with another one.

In the days and weeks that followed, I don't know how I would have made it without Caroline and Nathan. Each day I woke, I thanked the Lord for Caroline's stubbornness and her determination to stay. Having her still on the forty gave me the will to go on, and having Nathan gave me some of the help I needed. Thing was, though, I figured I'd have to hire on another man to provide at least part of the work Mitchell had done. But I put off doing that. I kept Tom Bee on, and exhausted myself with the kind of hours Mitchell and I had put in when Filmore Granger had demanded more trees. Caroline objected mightily to the amount of work I was doing, but I didn't heed her words to slow down. I figured I knew better than she what it would take to ensure that all the trees I'd contracted with Filmore Granger to cut would be off this land by the date we'd agreed.

I had since Mitchell's death thought things through about J. T. Hollenbeck's land. I had already paid eight hundred and fifty dollars and made the first monthly payment of twenty-five dollars, plus the five-dollar interest charge. If I gave up on buying the land, I wouldn't be getting any of that back. J. T. Hollenbeck had made that clear. More than losing the money, I didn't want to lose the land. I loved that land. It touched my soul. I intended to keep on paying the notes. To help pay the final thousand, I had planted more cotton than I had figured to do before, and added to that, I was planning on selling all but one of the mules once the timber was cleared. Maybe, just maybe, if cotton prices were good, and I could get a good price for the mules, I could make up some of my loss.

I counted my money. What with paying the monthly note to J. T. Hollenbeck and already paying Tom Bee, I knew I'd be out of cash before I took over ownership of the forty and could sell it. When I'd made my deal with J. T. Hollenbeck for the monthly payments, I'd figured on Mitchell, and I'd also figured on being able to finish several pieces of furniture for cash money. I finished two lamp tables I had taken on order from Luke Sawyer and took them to him. Out of the money he paid me, I paid him for the oak I'd used for Mitchell's coffin and let him know it would be a while before I could make his cabinet or anything else. I told him I regretted I couldn't keep my bargain with him about the cabinet, but I no longer had the time for furniture making. It was the first time since I had left my daddy's house that I had broken my word, and it pained me that I was breaking it to Luke Sawyer. I asked him to send his orders to another furniture maker, and he wasn't happy about that. I also asked him about possible buyers for the forty acres. He said he'd ask around.

Now there was no more money coming in. I let both Nathan and Caroline know that, but I didn't tell them about how low my cash was. I figured that was my problem and somehow I'd solve it. But in the meantime, in order to keep up with the logging, I had no choice but to hire on another worker. The man I hired was a young friend of Tom Bee's by the name of Horace Avery. Right after I hired him, I went all the way up to Jackson and I sold my daddy's ring. That next month, I went to Jackson again and I sold my mama's watch. Both were hard things for me to do. The watch and the ring had more meaning to me now, and I thought long before selling them, and I looked for a way not to have to do it. But in the end, I knew that my mama, and my daddy too, would have done the same as me. I had no choice. I had to stretch my money. I had to save the land. When the note came due again on J. T. Hollenbeck's land, I went to Vicksburg to sell my furniture tools to Luke Sawyer.

“So what's going on down there?” Luke Sawyer asked as he looked over his spectacles at me, much the same as he had done the first day I'd met him. “You don't look good.”

“It's difficult without Mitchell.”

“'Magine so. But things so bad now you got to go sell your tools?”

“I've got to make ends meet until I've paid off my debt on the Hollenbeck land. I'll get more tools after that.”

Luke Sawyer gave me a long look, then shook his head at my predicament. “It's a shame,” he said, “'bout that palomino.”

I nodded in agreement.

Luke Sawyer pressed his lips firmly together and he seemed angry when he spoke once more. “You could've gotten a good price for him. That was one fine horse!”

Again I nodded.

Luke Sawyer cleared his throat, as if to relieve his anger. “You told me once, Paul, you'd sell that horse when the time was right. To my figuring, you might have thought the time was right when you signed for that Hollenbeck land. Am I right?”

I met Luke Sawyer's eyes. “Selling him was in my plans.”

“Makes sense to me. How much were you counting on him bringing?”

Now, Luke Sawyer was a good judge of horse prices, and I knew his questioning me was not just out of curiosity. “He could race and he could win, and he looked to be only about five or six years old. I figure he could have brought me just about as much as that forty acres I'm chopping.”

“That much, huh?” Luke Sawyer rubbed his chin. “That'd be about four hundred dollars, then. That's a lot of money.”

“I know.”

“Well, I've got one good bit of news for you. Found a man who's interested in that forty acres of yours. His name's John Lawes, and he'll come down and take a look at it. If he says he'll buy it, you can count on it.”

“Good,” I said.

Luke Sawyer looked at me closely. “I suppose. But what about the rest of the money you need? I understand the banks turned you down.”

I took a moment. I hadn't told Luke Sawyer that. “I'll figure something. Right now, though, all I'm trying to do is keep up my payments on the land note and get title to the forty so I can sell it.”

“You've taken on a lot, Paul.”

I half smiled.

“And like I said, you don't look good.”

I shrugged.

Luke Sawyer suddenly grinned. “You could come back to work with me. Full time.”

“That wouldn't get me the money I need.”

“S'pose not,” Luke Sawyer agreed, “not 'less I get in another herd of horses fine as that batch brought in three years ago, and that ain't likely.”

I conceded to that with a nod, looked down at my tools, then back at him. “What I need now is cash money, Mister Sawyer, and I figure these tools can bring me some. I've come to you because I thought you'd appreciate their worth.”

“So what if I need for you to make me some furniture?”

I shook my head. “I couldn't do it. I just don't have the time. That's why I asked you to get yourself another furniture maker.”

Luke Sawyer sighed. “All right, all right. I ain't liking this, not one bit, but I'll buy your tools. You just think over what I said. If you decide to come back and work with me, the door's open.”

I thanked him for that.

“Now I suppose we gonna hafta haggle price.”

“Just give me your best offer,” I said.

Luke Sawyer studied me over the spectacles, and without even looking at the tools, he made his offer. There was no haggling. I knew he was giving me more than the tools were worth.

I worked seven days each week. I chopped the trees and I tended cotton. I worked with fever and I worked with pain. I worked as I had with Mitchell before Caroline came on the forty. I pushed myself until I could push myself no further. Everything in me needed to keep my promise to Mitchell and to myself. I needed to secure this acreage so that I could buy J. T. Hollenbeck's land, and I needed to have a place for Caroline and her baby. Once that was done, then I figured I could take the time to rest. It wasn't until I woke one morning with a fever burning so high, I almost passed out, and had the dysentery and legs so weak, I had trouble standing, that I recognized the Lord had put a halt to my working.

“Maybe ya listen t' me now!” Caroline fussed as she tended me. “Told you long time ago, Paul-Edward Logan, t' stop all this hard workin' like ya do!”

“But, I've got to—”

“Ain't gotta do nothin' but rest like I tell ya to. I'm in charge now.”

“But the trees—”

“They get cut, don't ya worry,” she said as she hovered over me with a cool cloth. “I see t' that. Don't be forgettin' this here's my land too.”

Well, Caroline did see to it. I stayed on my cot for almost a week with my weakened body, and from the dawn on until late nightfall, I heard chopping outside the shed. When I finally was able to get up, Caroline warned me, “You bein' bedridden, it's the Lord's way of lettin' you know you ain't in this by yo'self, Paul-Edward Logan. He got His hand in it too, and He tellin' ya t' slow down. Y'all'll get it done, but in His time, not yours.”

I smiled at her. “But I'm sure He expects me to do my part.”

“Just don't you die on me,” she ordered. “I can't hardly carry on for both you and Mitchell.”

Once I was back on the slopes, I learned from Tom Bee that it was not only he, Horace, and Nathan who'd been cutting the trees, but Caroline too. I began to worry even more about her and the baby. Even once I had my full strength back, Caroline continued the work she'd begun when she'd first come on the forty. She plowed, she planted, she weeded, and she burned the brush—that in addition to all the daily house chores she did. All she gave up at my insistence was chopping the trees.