The Land (45 page)

He took a pause. “I like you, Paul. I told you that before. You do good furniture work. My wife is still bragging on that chifforobe you made for her. But like I told you, that's what you need to be sticking to, working with your hands, not trying to handle business. You stay to working with your hands, then you'll do well by that. You didn't take my advice before, but you best take it now. You let this here Hollenbeck land go. Settle up your dispute with Mister Granger. I told him you was a good boy and that you'd just gotten in over your head and no doubt you didn't mean to chop his trees. You settle up your accounts with him, and if you still want to farm and raise a family, then you sign on with somebody and you sharecrop some land. You stick with what you know and don't be trying to do things you just not suited for. Now, that's the best advice I can give you, Paul.”

I told B. R. Tillman, “Advice wasn't what I came here for.”

After that I went straight to the telegraph office and did what I hadn't expected to do, and one of the hardest things too. I sent a telegram to Cassie and asked her, if she could spare it, to send me the money I needed. I told her that if she could spare me a loan, to send a bank draft to Strawberry within ten days. That's all the time I had. I didn't put much hope in Cassie's being able to help me, but I was desperate enough to ask. I left the telegraph office with a heavy heart and went to Luke Sawyer's store. There I bought several boxes of preserve jars for Caroline's vegetables.

“Got a lot of canning to do, I see,” said Luke Sawyer as he figured my bill.

I just nodded.

Luke Sawyer eyed me over the spectacles. “How your crops doing?”

I looked away, then back to him. “I no longer have any crops. Filmore Granger's taking back the forty.”

Luke Sawyer studied me with steady eyes. “I heard,” he said. Neither he nor I spoke of the obvious, that Filmore Granger had reneged on our deal. “So what you going to do now?”

“Leave his land.”

“What about Hollenbeck's land?”

I shrugged. “Way things stand right now, I won't be able to buy it.”

“But you've already invested money in the place.”

“Looks like I gambled and lost,” I said.

“You just going to let that good money be thrown away, then?”

I didn't answer.

Luke Sawyer stared at me, then went back to figuring the bill. When he finished, he looked at me again. “What if I lend you the money you need?”

I stepped back from the counter, startled by his offer. I could feel my blood rushing, and I glanced away overwhelmed by what this could mean. My head began to pound with the possibility of saving the land. I could have a place of my own, a place to take Caroline. I could keep my promise to Mitchell.

“Well?” said Luke Sawyer. “What about it? I'd give you the same terms as the bank.”

“No,” I said, and it was hard. “No, sir. If things go wrong, I couldn't repay you.”

“The land would stand as collateral.”

I said no again. “I thank you, Mister Sawyer, but I couldn't be beholden to you.”

“You could always work off your debt with me.”

I smiled and declined once more. “I'd be an old man by then.” I never wanted to be indebted to another white man, to have personal ties to another white man, but I could see in Luke Sawyer's eyes that he truly wanted to help me and I could feel in my heart his regret that I wouldn't let him. I thanked Luke Sawyer again, paid for the preserve jars, and left the store. Luke Sawyer never knew how hard it was for me to say no to his offer and walk away. I wanted the land that bad.

 

Upon my return to the forty the following evening, Caroline and I sat outside in front of the fire and spoke quietly once more while Nathan slept. I told Caroline about the bankers, about their refusing me the loan for J. T. Hollenbeck's land, but I didn't tell her about the wire. I knew Cassie would send me what she could, but she had her own family to worry about, and I doubted if she had the money to send. I now regretted putting that burden on my sister, and I didn't want to burden Caroline with a false hope. I didn't tell her about Luke Sawyer's offer either, because I didn't know how to explain to her how I could have turned him down.

“Then I s'pose nothin' for Nathan and me t' do but go on back home,” Caroline said.

I nodded in agreement. I didn't want her to go, but I didn't tell her that. I had nothing to give her now. Still, I figured to watch out for Caroline—and her child—even if she wasn't my wife. I refused to break my promise to Mitchell.

“One thing, Paul-Edward,” she said. “ 'Fore I leave this place, there's one thing.”

“What's that?”

“I don't want Mitchell left here. I wants his grave where I can go to it, and once I leave from here, I ain't plannin' on steppin' foot on this place again. I don't want Mitchell buried where he ain't wanted.”

I nodded. “I'll take care of it.”

We were silent awhile thinking on our own thoughts. Then Caroline chuckled on a sudden and I glanced over. “Just was thinkin' 'bout what a lucky man that Filmore Granger is.”

“How's that?”

“'Cause if Mitchell was here, Filmore Granger'd be in his grave!”

I smiled, knowing that was likely true. “Mitchell must be turning over in
his
about now.”

“I reckon,” Caroline agreed.

“Maybe I should go do what Mitchell would've done,” I said. “I feel like it.”

“And get yo'self hung? Paul-Edward, Mitchell ain't gone way he done, Filmore Granger'd be dead, all right, but so'd be Mitchell, jus' the same.”

We were silent again. I knew Caroline felt my sorrow, and I felt hers, both about these acres we had lost and about Mitchell. “I'll take you home before the month's out,” I told her.

She looked at me across the firelight and said softly, “I'd rather be goin' with you.”

I met her eyes, then looked away. “I've got no place to go.”

 

During those days while I waited to hear from Cassie, I helped Caroline in picking the garden and with the canning. I also made a crude trailer, and Nathan and I began to pack what few things we had. Now, it was in my mind, and Caroline agreed, that we should leave the day before Filmore Granger said we had to be gone. One thing we didn't need was for Filmore Granger to show up with a bunch of white men to put us off. Two days before our move, I rose early, long before the dawn, and rode into Strawberry. There was no bank draft waiting for me.

I didn't go back to the forty. Not right away. Instead, I went to the land. Now, I should've gone straight to J. T. Hollenbeck and told him that our deal was off, that I couldn't pay him his money. But I couldn't do that. I had two more days to think of this land as mine, and I wasn't ready to give it up, even if there was no hope in keeping it. I had thought of going to J. T. Hollenbeck, telling him my circumstances, and asking him for more time. But J. T. Hollenbeck had made it clear he wanted his money when it was due or the deal was off. All the money I'd already paid him would be forfeited. I had agreed to that with my signature. There was no changing it now.

I walked the land. I walked the meadow and the forest and finally rested by the coolness of the pond. I stayed there a long while, then went back to the slope and up to the rock where I'd first laid my head. I knelt down by that rock and I prayed. I prayed long and hard. Then I just sat looking out across the meadow and the forest until the sun set and the day darkened.

 

When I got back to the forty, Caroline was standing by the bridge that crossed the creek. “There's a man waitin' for ya,” she said. Her face was anxious. “A white man. He . . . he says he's your brother.”

At first I just looked at Caroline, then I looked up the road. A buggy was stopped in front of the cabin, and a man stood beside it. Nathan sat on a stump nearby watching the man. I got down from the mule to walk with Caroline. “How long has he been here?” I asked.

“While,” she answered, and we walked to the cabin without another word.

As we neared, I saw the man clear. It was Robert. I hadn't seen him in more than ten years, but I knew who he was. I would've known him anywhere.

“Paul,” he said to me.

“Robert.”

“Cassie sent me,” he said, and shook my hand.

There was a fire burning in the outside pit. I motioned Robert toward the stumps, and he and I sat down. Caroline went into the cabin and she called Nathan in behind her.

Robert looked around as the door closed. “I heard about Mitchell. I'm sorry.”

I nodded but said nothing.

“Cassie told me too about Mitchell's wife and the baby on the way . . . must be hard for her.”

“She's managing,” I said. I wanted to know why Robert had come. I didn't ask about our daddy or George or Hammond or anyone else; I wasn't interested in catch-up talk. “You said Cassie sent you?”

“Yes,” said Robert, his voice changing as it took on a tone of business. He pulled out an envelope and handed it to me. Cassie's writing was upon it. I didn't open it. I looked at Robert with questions in my eyes. “Cassie came out to the house from Atlanta about a week ago,” Robert said in answer. “She said she was getting ready to sell that plot of land belonged to your mama—”

“Land?” I questioned. “What land?”

“That ten acres your mama's house is on.”

I was caught by surprise. “But . . . I thought that land was our daddy's—”

“So did I,” said Robert. “For a long while. After you were gone, though—” Robert's eyes met mine at the mention of my running off, before he went on. “After you were gone, our daddy told us your mama had bought it from him. He said he'd told her he would just give her the land, but she said she didn't want that. She said she didn't want him to give her anything. She wanted to buy the land herself at the market price. But one thing she asked him to do. She asked him not to tell you, not sure why.”

I looked at Robert, but I had no words to say.

“Anyway,” Robert continued, “when Cassie came home, she said she wanted to sell that plot of land right away. Seeing that it was right at our doorstep, she wanted to know if our daddy was interested in buying it back. Our daddy asked her what she wanted for it, and she said she figured five hundred dollars was fair, seeing that it was right in the middle of our place. Our daddy didn't fight her on it, even though five hundred dollars is way more than that ten acres is worth. He bought it from her.”

I turned the envelope over in my hands. “She say why she wanted to sell?”

“Just that the time was right.”

“Then she asked you to bring this to me?”

Robert nodded.

“And our daddy didn't ask more?”

Robert shrugged. “It was hers to sell—and yours.”

I looked at the envelope, then held it out to Robert. “I don't want money from my daddy.”

Robert didn't move to take it. “It's not from him, Paul. It's from Cassie. She never told him a word about you.” He studied me. “Look, like I said, it was yours and Cassie's to sell.”

I turned the envelope over again and looked directly at Robert. “Cassie tell you why she wanted you to bring me this?”

“Just before she left, she asked me if I could make the trip for her here. You most likely know she's expecting again—”

“No, I didn't know.”

“Anyway, she couldn't make the trip herself, and she couldn't send her husband, Howard, because of his business. She said it was important that you have this before tomorrow, and she didn't trust the banks to see that you got it. So she asked me to bring it to you. She didn't tell me anything else, but she'd told me enough. I took a train, hired a buggy, made inquiries how to get here, and here I am.”

I was silent before I asked, “You tell our daddy what Cassie asked?”

Robert met my eyes. “No. That was between Cassie and me. She asked me not to tell him. All I told him was I had some business to take care of.”

I looked again at the envelope.

“Aren't you going to open it?”

I slapped the envelope against the palm of my hand and gazed into the fire. Robert glanced at me, then got up, stretched, and without another word walked away toward the creek. For several minutes after he was gone, I stared at that envelope.

Finally, I opened it.

Inside was a bank draft for eleven hundred dollars, all the money I needed, plus some. Also inside were two letters. One was from Cassie. The other was from my mama. I opened Cassie's letter first.

Cassie wrote that she had sold our mama's land. She said she'd sold what few things our mama had left that she figured would bring some money too, all except for a broach with our mama's picture in it and her own, which she was sending along with Robert. She said the rest of the money came from her and Howard's savings and from what they could borrow against their business. She said she knew how important this land was to me, and she wasn't worried about getting her money back. She said anything she had done was what our mama would have wanted. She said our mama had told her to sell that bit of land of hers when the time was right and to give the money to me. She said she figured the time was right now.

My hands trembled as I opened my mama's letter. I tore open the envelope, and five bills fell out. They were all twenty-dollar bills. I picked them up in wonder, folded them, and put them back in the envelope. The letter itself was faded, and it was dated on Christmas Day the year Robert had betrayed me. I stared at my mama's letter, saw her words, so carefully and painstakingly written, but as I read, I heard her voice too, every sound of it. It was a letter that made me weep.