The Land (46 page)

 

Now, I can't express how I was feeling about then. There aren't words to say my feelings. When I finished the letter, I read it again. I heard Robert returning and I put the money and both letters in my pocket. I wanted to go into the cabin to tell Caroline the news Robert had brought, but I stayed myself from that. I wanted to have J. T. Hollenbeck's papers of ownership of the two hundred acres before I told Caroline anything.

“You know, Paul,” said Robert as he settled on his stump again, “I was out around this area about a year and a half ago.”

“I know. Mitchell brought back word from Vicksburg that you'd been there.”

Robert's face showed his surprise. “Well, if I'd have only known you were here, I'd've looked you up then. Cassie never told us where you were, until now.”

“I asked her not to,” I said. “I thought that was best.”

Robert nodded and looked at the fire. “Something you ought to know, Paul, something I've been wanting to tell you all these years. That day I told our daddy about you riding that horse, I wasn't trying to get you in trouble. I just didn't want to see you get hurt.”

I stared at Robert, but left my thoughts unsaid. All these years he had worried about that, but he still had said nothing about turning his back on me. He went on, talking of other things and I listened to his words and no longer dwelled on his betrayal. We had long ago gone our separate ways.

Caroline came from the cabin and offered us supper. Robert accepted, and the two of us ate alone by the fire. After we ate, Robert gave me my mama's broach. I opened it and gazed upon my mama's and Cassie's pictures. Robert watched me and was silent as I closed the broach again and slipped it into my shirt pocket, over my heart. Later I saw Caroline glance out the window, but as it drew late and Robert stayed on, I saw the light dim inside. Nathan came out and bedded down in the shed. Robert and I sat on by the fire and talked late into the night. Robert didn't ask about my business or why I needed the money Cassie had sent, and I didn't tell him. I told him nothing about the land or my dreams. Robert told me of our daddy and of George, who was still out west somewhere, and of Hammond and his family. He said that our daddy spoke of me often. He said too our daddy wanted to see me again, but that he wouldn't come looking for me. My daddy said I was the one who ran off, and I needed to be the one to come home and I had to do that on my own. Robert asked me about my running off, and I told him the truth of that. We spoke of the years since then. But neither of us spoke about what was really between us.

The night passed with our talk as when we were boys, but not as easily as then, and when the dawn came, Robert readied himself to go. He had had no sleep, but then neither had I. I gave him coffee, but he would take no breakfast except some corn bread from the night before. He got into his hired buggy and I said good-bye, not knowing if I would ever see him again. Then after he was gone, I mounted one of the mules and, without going in to see Caroline, rode off with my mama's and Cassie's letters and all they contained in my pocket to meet with J. T. Hollenbeck and take title to my land.

 

I put aside my pride about asking a white man for help. Before I made the turn up the Hollenbeck road, I went over to see Charles Jamison. I had decided that the world was as it was and I needed to put my trust in somebody. I wasn't going to play the fool again. “You once offered me your help,” I said to Charles Jamison when I'd been ushered into his study. “I'd like to ask it of you now.”

“And what's that?”

“I need a legal paper that'll hold up, no matter what color the parties happen to be.”

Charles Jamison pulled on his ear. “This about that Hollenbeck land?” Underlying his question was the reason I needed such a paper. But he didn't ask it and I knew without asking him that he too had heard about Filmore Granger and the loss of the forty.

“Yes, sir, it is,” I said. “I need to sign on it today, but I've got to know it'll hold.”

Charles Jamison nodded and asked no questions as to how I'd come up with the money to conclude the deal with J. T. Hollenbeck. “Oh, it'll hold, all right. I'll go with you and we'll just make sure it'll hold.”

He took some papers from his desk drawer, got his hat, and went right then with me to J. T. Hollenbeck's place. As it turned out, I made a good choice with Charles Jamison. He read all the legal papers, made changes in them, and before the transaction was done, pulled out his own agreements concerning the buying of Hollenbeck land and had me read them. In the end, the wording on his purchase and mine were the same, except for the acreage bought and the money owed. Then Charles Jamison himself signed as a witness to the transaction. In all, it took several hours before the deal was settled and I rode away with the ownership papers to my two hundred acres.

Finally, I had the land.

 

The sun was at midday by the time I returned to the forty. Caroline had dinner waiting, but I wasn't hungry. I wanted just to finish packing and leave. “You said we'd leave come dawn tomorrow,” Caroline protested. “We leave now, no way we get t' Vicksburg 'fore dark. We be on the road at night.”

“Doesn't matter,” I said. “I just want to be away from here.” I told her nothing else and she accepted my wanting to leave earlier than I'd said, I supposed, because she understood the pain I felt and the anger too at being on a land I had thought would be mine and was not. She didn't ask me anything about where I'd gone in the morning or about my visit with Robert. Maybe she thought it wasn't her right to ask. I don't know, but she didn't. She simply began to pack all those things that had been left unpacked, while Nathan and I went to the oak where Mitchell was buried and began to dig up his grave.

We brought the coffin and gently set it in the wagon. Then I took the window I had made, with the glass Mitchell had bought, and replaced it with wood. After that, Nathan and I broke down the beds and loaded them on the wagon, as well as the table and the chairs. We packed all the preserved goods, also the bushels of corn and peas and other vegetables, and placed them on the wagon trailer. The rooster and hens we put in crates, loaded them too, and tied the cow to the back of the trailer. We gathered everything that could be gathered, and loaded two years of living on the forty onto that wagon and trailer. Then I helped Caroline up to the seat of the wagon, and Nathan climbed on the back. I looked around once more at the cabin and the shed I'd built, at the road I'd cleared, at all the land open now because of Mitchell and me. I looked at the cotton crop blanketing the field, and I climbed onto the wagon and left it all. I didn't look back.

 

I took Caroline to the land. I hadn't yet told her I had the deed to it, and as we rolled along, I'm sure she and Nathan too thought we were headed for Vicksburg. In the months since Caroline had come to the forty, she had not been again to Vicksburg and didn't know the roads that would have led us there. As for Nathan, soon after we were off the forty, he fell asleep for a while, and when he woke, he started whittling on a recorder he was making, and was paying no attention to the roads. We were in the woods, and one set of woods pretty much looked liked another to folks not knowing, so I didn't dispel the notion that we were on the road to Vicksburg. I just held my words, afraid of letting my happiness slip before we reached the land. Still, I smiled within myself and maybe that was why more than once I found Caroline watching me. We rode for some while, and when we came onto the land, Caroline looked around and smiled, not at me, but at what she saw. “This sure is pretty country,” she said.

I smiled too and stopped the wagon. “It is pretty, isn't it?” I said.

Caroline took a deep breath of the fresh meadow air. “It's got a good smell.”

I laughed. “You like it, then?”

“Course. Who wouldn't? Just look at all that green. Look at all them fine little hills yonder and that fine growth of trees round the place.” She sighed. “It's a good place to rest.”

“Glad you think so,” I said, and got down. “We'll just stop here.”

“You think that'll be all right?”

“I'm sure it will,” I said, helping her down.

Nathan jumped from the back, and the three of us stood gazing out over the land. “Maybe we can spend the night here, huh?” suggested Nathan.

“I think that's a fine idea,” I agreed. “There's only a couple hours of daylight left, and like Caroline said, it's a good place to rest.”

Caroline frowned. “You don't think the folks own this place'll mind none?”

“I'm sure they won't.” I smiled and took her hand. “Come on. I want to show you something. You too, Nathan.” With Caroline's hand in mine, I led her up the slope. When we reached the top of it, I walked over to my praying rock. “I figure this here's a good place to bury Mitchell.”

Caroline pulled away from me.
“Here?”
She turned, somewhat dazed, then gave me a look that questioned my sanity. “Why here?”

“Don't you like it?” I asked. “You don't like this spot, we can choose another. I just thought Mitchell would've liked it here. He could rest well.”

Caroline hesitated. I'm sure she was uncertain as to what had taken hold of me. “I'd figured on burying Mitchell at Mount Elam.”

“Well, you could do that,” I said. “I just figured, though, maybe you'd like to bury Mitchell here, on our land.”

“Our land?”
Caroline stared out across the meadow with disbelief.
“Our land?”

Nathan just stood silent, his mouth agape.

I smiled.

Caroline slowly shook her head, but she too was silent as her eyes took in the land.

“Well, what've you got to say?” I asked. I'd never seen Caroline speechless before.

She didn't answer me right away, but finally when she looked at me, she said, “This here J. T. Hollenbeck's land?”

“Not anymore. I took title to it this morning.”

Nathan let out a wild holler, leaped into the air, then began to dance around.

“That why your brother come?” asked Caroline ever so softly. “He come 'bout the land?”

I nodded. “He brought the money I needed. My sister, Cassie, sent it to me, she and my mama.”

Again Caroline was speechless.

“So . . . what do you think? You think we can bury Mitchell here?”

Caroline gave me the biggest smile, then she rushed into my arms.

We buried Mitchell before sunset. We said our thanks to the Lord, and all three of us spent the night on the slope beside the praying rock. The next morning I took Caroline's hand and led her through the woods to the pond. There I sat beside her on a fallen log and I said, “You know, Caroline, I loved Mitchell, and I always wanted to do right by what he asked of me. But what I'm saying to you now has nothing to do with Mitchell. I love you, Caroline, and I want you to be my wife.”

Caroline didn't say anything as she looked upward to the trees where the rising sun splintered the branches with its light. I stood and stared up at the light as well before turning to her again. “So, pretty Caroline, how would you like to work this fine piece of earth with me? How would you like to be my wife so we can work this land together?”

Caroline remained quiet, looking up at the trees. When she finally spoke, she said, “Ya know, I always felt safe with Mitchell, just like I felt when I was with my daddy. Safe, like long as I was with them, nothing bad would ever happen I couldn't see through and I'd be happy.” She turned to me now. “I feel the same with you.” Then Caroline smiled her pretty smile at me and once more came into my arms. “I love you too, Paul-Edward,” she murmured against my neck. “I love you too.”

 

That same day Nathan and I put up a shelter for Caroline. Then I rode back toward the forty and gathered up the preacher and his wife, Ma Jones and her family, Tom Bee and his, the Horace Averys, and several others whom we held close, and led them to the land. Caroline and I were married before sunset. The following week Caroline gave birth to our first child, Mitchell's son.

“What we gonna call him?” Caroline asked from her bed.

I cradled the baby in my arms and gazed upon the face of my friend. “Mitchell,” I said. “We'll call him Mitchell Thomas Logan.” I then looked back at Caroline, waiting for her approval.

She was smiling.

LEGACY (Epilogue)