The Land (6 page)

All the boys were silent at first, then one of them laughed nervously. “Ah, we was jus' joshin' wit' him, Mitchell.”

“Yeah,” said another. “But then he gone and lit into R.T. there for no reason. He the one started it! Got what was comin' t' him!”

“Yeah! Jus' 'cause he got a white daddy, he think he can do whatever he wanna!” put in R.T. “Well, we don't be 'lowin' no white niggers t' be beatin' up on us. He ain't no better'n us!”

“He done said he was?” asked Mitchell.

“Well . . . might ain't said it, but might well as've. Sittin' there readin' that book.”

Mitchell looked at the ground and saw the torn pages and the book lying now facedown in the mud. “Yeah . . . yeah, I see what ya mean, how Paul done started it and all. See how he done torn pages outa his own book and riled y'all. Well, y'all wanna fight this boy, then fight him fair, one at a time, but don't y'all be jumpin' him like ya done or y'all gonna have me t' fight right 'long with him.”

“Ah, Mitchell, what ya doin' takin' up for him?” retorted R.T., getting to his feet and wiping at the blood Mitchell had drawn. “You used t' couldn't stand him yo' own self! I recalls correctly, you used t' always be beatin' up on him!”

“Yeah, that's right, and I ain't never had no help t' do it neither. Like I said, y'all wanna fight him, that's fine with me, but y'all go jumpin' him like ya done, all of y'all knockin' him round at once, I'm gonna back Paul up. Now, y'all got a problem with that?”

R.T. glanced at the other boys, then back at Mitchell, and shook his head. “Naw, ain't got no problem.”

Mitchell nodded at the understanding and dismissed any grievance he had with R.T. “Look, I got me a wagon stuck in the mud down a ways. Y'all wanna come help get me out?”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” the boys said, seemingly happy to do whatever Mitchell asked.

“'Fore ya do, though,” added Mitchell, “y'all best pick up all them pages outa Paul's book there. And next time don't let him rile ya so.”

R.T. and the others did what Mitchell said; then all of them went with Mitchell to help him with his wagon. I suppose I could have gone to help too, seeing how Mitchell had helped me out, but Mitchell hadn't asked me to come and I figured the others wouldn't have wanted me along anyway. I had no need to go where I wasn't wanted.

After they were gone, I sat on the bank alone and tried to put my book together. Although some of the pages were crumpled and muddy, they were still readable. I wiped them off as best I could, then put them in order and laid them in the binding. Afterward I just sat there thinking on those boys jumping me, then a while later, I went back to my reading, even though my right eye was swollen. I wasn't about to let R.T. and those other boys and their ignorance chase me from what I wanted to do.

I was still sitting there reading with my one good eye when Mitchell came back. “Some reason thought you'd still be here,” he said. “Don't you ever get tired of readin'?”

I looked up at him. “Not really.”

Mitchell shook his head as if finding it hard to understand that and sat down. “Got the wagon unstuck.”

“Good.”

“You know R.T. and them others, they had plenty t' say 'bout ya.”

“S'pose they did.”

“They said you gone and threatened them.”

“Threatened them?”

“Yeah. Said they was on your daddy's land and maybe they mess wit' you, they'd be off it.”

I took a moment. “I suppose it did come out that way.”

“Paul, you wanna get along with these boys, how come you bringin' up your white daddy all the time?”

“I didn't bring him up. They did.”

“Don't matter,” said Mitchell. “Your daddy's the boss man—the white boss man—and you got no right t' throw that in their face.”

“And they've got no right to judge me 'cause of who my daddy is. I'm not ashamed of who I am, and I'm not ashamed of my daddy!”

Mitchell was silent.

I closed my book and stared at him. “You figuring maybe I need to be?”

Mitchell looked at me. “Not figurin' anythin'. Jus' can't understand how it feels t' have a white daddy, that's all. Can't figure out how you could love a white daddy who owned your mama and you. Can't figure how you can be so crazy 'bout them white brothers of yours neither, when once y'all all grown, they'll be the boss and you'll be jus' another nigger.”

I got up from the bank. “They never use that word to me, and that's not how it's going to be.”

“What make you think so?”

“Because they're my family.”

Mitchell nodded and faced the pond. “Still can't figure it.”

“I've got to go. I'm going hunting.”

“Who wit'?”

“With my daddy.”

Mitchell looked around at me. “Good huntin', then” was all he said.

 

“Mitchell been beating up on you again?” asked my daddy as we set up camp that evening.

“No, sir. Some other boys.”

“How do they look?”

I grinned up at my daddy. “'Bout the same. Mitchell helped me out.”

My daddy nodded, and the two of us went about building a fire. We were planning to hunt coon later in the night, and in the morning hunt some wild turkeys. My daddy often took me hunting. Sometimes we all went, my daddy and my brothers and me, though Hammond and George often went hunting on their own. There were times too when my daddy took just Robert and me. But the times that were most special were when it was only my daddy and me on a hunt. At those times I had my daddy all to myself, and I cherished that. I learned many things from my daddy, and when I was a small boy, there seemed no one like him to me. I'm not ashamed to admit it. In those early days I adored my daddy.

Now, when my daddy would take me on a hunt, he often talked about when he was a boy, and it made me proud when he said I reminded him of himself. “You're much like me,” he told me once. “When I was a boy, I loved to read and I loved horses. I loved this land too. My granddaddy had gotten it before I was born, back before the turn of the century, when there were plenty of Indians settled around here. There still were some here when I was a boy, and I got to know a few and they taught me a lot.”

“Mister Edward,” I said when he told me that, thinking of my own Indian blood, “you ever meet my mama's daddy?” Now, I always called my daddy “Mister Edward,” just as Cassie and my mama did, though I had come on my mama and daddy in their quiet times and had heard her say his name out straight Edward and that was all. It seemed peculiar to me at first that I called my daddy by a formal name while Robert and Hammond and George called him “Daddy.” But my mama had broken both Cassie and me when we were still little from ever calling Edward Logan “Daddy.” She had broken that misspeaking with bottom-warming spankings whenever we did. When I asked my mama why Cassie and I couldn't call our daddy the same as Robert and George and Hammond, she said simply, “They're white and you're not, and their mama was his legal wife.” I didn't ask her again about it after that, and I settled into addressing my daddy as if he were not, and after a while calling him “Mister Edward” was the same as calling him Daddy, or at least that was what was in my mind.

As for what my daddy called me, sometimes when we were alone, he called me Paul-Edward. That's because my mama had wanted to name me Edward after him, but my daddy had said it wouldn't be fitting, seeing that none of his boys with his white wife had his name. Out of respect for her, he said, he couldn't give it to me official-like, but he would think of me that way. So there were times when my daddy called me Paul-Edward, and my mama and sometimes Cassie did the same, but it was only between them and me.

“No, can't say that I did,” my daddy said in answer to my question. “I heard of him, though. My own daddy told me about him. His name was Kanati; means the lucky hunter. My daddy said he left with some of his people headed west into Alabama or Mississippi before the soldiers made them go. From what my daddy told me, Kanati knew they'd be made to go because folks like my daddy and others wanted the Nation's land, and there was nothing to be done about that. The Army was set to drive Kanati's people out, and your granddaddy didn't want any part of any soldiers.”

“Wish I could've known him.”

“Well, I know your mama wishes that too. She always wanted to know him herself.”

“You expect we'll ever meet up with him? I mean, you expect he'll ever come back?”

My daddy looked at me then and answered me truthfully, as he always did. “I don't expect that's likely, Paul.”

“This land,” I said, “it belonged to his people first.”

“That's a fact,” my daddy agreed. “Maybe that's where you get part of your love for the land. Now, of all my boys, you and Robert seem to have the most feel for the land. I know Hammond loves it as home, and so does George, but I figure Hammond will end up in business somewhere, and George has always been cut out to be a soldier. So when I pass on, there'll be you and Robert to take care of the place. Robert loves the land and has a good head, but I don't know if he's up to the hardships of farming. Besides that, he doesn't have a feel for the animals, especially the horses. I don't mean he doesn't care about them, I mean he just doesn't have a kinship with them, and you do. Why, the way you can calm a horse and ride him is an amazement, even to me.” My pride swelled up when my daddy said that. “I was a good rider as a boy, but you're much better. You tend to know animals. Robert doesn't, but he does love this land.”

“Then we can take care of it together.” I dreamed on that.

“Perhaps so,” said my daddy thoughtfully. “Thing is, though, when you get grown, you maybe'll want to leave this place and go out on your own.”

“Leave it?” I questioned. “Why would I ever want to leave it?”

“Maybe one day,” he said, “you'll know the answer to that question.”

In the many times we had hunted together since he had said that, I had not yet figured out the answer. There was, as I saw it then, no reason to leave. But on that night after the boys had torn my book and beaten me, my daddy said to me, “I've decided to send you away to school.”

I stared at him across our campfire. “Sir?”

“I want you to have an education and a trade. I want you to have a means of supporting yourself.”

“B-but,” I stuttered, “I know plenty already. I've been studying here, and you and Hammond and George, you all taught me—”

“What we taught you is only a beginning. Now, there are some colored schools opening up in Georgia and elsewhere where colored boys and girls are going for higher education, and there's a school in Macon you can go to, part-time, and later on, you want to take more schooling, you can do it. But what I want you to concentrate on learning now is a skill you can always use, something you can always depend on to earn some money.”

“Like horse training?”

“No. Like carpentry. Not just knowing how to nail two pieces of wood together, but how to build something fine and of quality. There'll always be a need for that. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself was a carpenter, so you know you couldn't ask for a better trade. You can use your horse training too, but carpentry is something solid and dependable, and there'll always be a need for it. You're good with your hands, Paul-Edward, and there's no question in my mind that you've got a good head. You can learn whatever you set out to learn. That's why I'm sending you to study with a man I know in Macon. He builds the finest furniture around. You can learn a lot from him. You can go to school while you're there too.”

“Robert'll go to school with me then? He'll study with this man too?”

“No. I'll be sending Robert to school, but not there. I'm thinking on sending him to a boys' school in Savannah.”

I was bewildered. “But why can't we go together? We've always studied together. Why not now?”

My daddy took a moment before he answered. “Because you're growing up.”

“But that's got nothing to do with it.”

“Oh, but it does,” said my daddy. “It's got everything to do with it. Robert needs an education, and so do you. But you can't be educated in the same way.”

“But—”

“Robert's white and you're a boy of color. I can't educate you in the same school—you know that. I can't educate you in the same way either. I need to look out for what I think is best for each of you. Later, when you become of age and maybe want to do something different, that's up to you. Right now, though, we'll do things my way. Come the fall, Robert'll go to Savannah to school, and you'll go to Macon to study. That's just the way it's got to be. I figure that's what's best for both of you.”

I didn't figure that was what was best for us though, and neither did Robert. The next night after that trip, I spent the night in my daddy's house, as I sometimes did. While Robert and I were waiting for sleep, Robert said to me, “Our daddy talk to you about sending us off to school?”

“Yeah,” I replied, and we both were silent.

“Well,” said Robert as the moonlight slipped over us, “I don't want to go. I don't want to go off to any Savannah school without you.”

“Well, I'm not real happy about going to Macon myself,” I said. “I'd rather stay right here.”

“Me too,” Robert agreed.

“But our daddy said I need a trade. Said you did too.”