The Land: List 4

Luke Sawyer stroked at his neatly trimmed beard as I broached the subject with him.

Luke Sawyer sighed and turned away from trying to cajole me into furthering our bargain.

I ignored the boy and went on as if I had said nothing amiss, though I felt my anger rising at his using that word to me.

For nearly an hour we traveled over a rutted road, which finally meandered off into a trail in the middle of the forest.

For nearly an hour we traveled over a rutted road, which finally meandered off into a trail in the middle of the forest.

I didn’t figure the soil to become too sodden, not by the moisture I saw now at the end of what had been a rainy few weeks, and it looked to me a mule could manage logs across it.

“I tell you what. You go ahead and cut the timbers you need for your shelters, but only trees less than sixteen inches. I’ll be checking to see that you do. You cut down any of my trees sixteen or more inches, then you’re going to have to answer to me. Another thing, don’t you dare to cut off this section. One thing I won’t stand for is you pilfering my trees to line your own pockets.”

“You keep it,” he said snidely, “so you can remember the terms and your mind don’t get ‘muddled.’ As for me, I keep the terms and every specific about them right here.” He thumped the side of his head with his forefinger, gave me a hard look, and left with his son and the workman.

As for meat, there were plenty of deer for venison, possum, raccoon, rabbit, and squirrel.

Luke Sawyer said I could just take his tools; he trusted me to bring them back. But I preferred to buy the tools. I felt the same way I had when I had rented Thunder from him. I couldn’t be beholden to Luke Sawyer.

He looked at me a bit sheepishly as he confessed that.

I had made only one bed, a crude one at that, and I let Nathan have it.

The next morning before the dawn, I rose before Nathan and rekindled the fire.

There was a bit of corn bread, but not much else, for Nathan and I, after a grueling day’s work, had eaten the most of what was cooked.

I didn’t begrudge Mitchell his time away. I knew folks in love needed to be with each other. Still, there was regret in me that it was Mitchell going off to see Caroline and not me.

Even Mitchell and I, who kept the work going in rainy weather, were forced inside as the brunt of the storms brought winds so hard, we couldn’t even see what was before us.

With shaking hands, Digger picked it up and tried to muster some dignity.

But Wade’s been coming up feeling like folks are folks, and he’s wanting to make some amends. I’m not feeling the same. What’s done is done. My granddaddy and my daddy cared about our land and the folks who lived on it, and I’m not about to apologize for anything they did.

Dinner and suppertime were no less than the breakfast, with vegetables and corn bread, preserved beef or venison, and a pudding or a cobbler of some kind.

“I always done had me a temper. Took after my mama, and she always gettin’ after me ’bout it. I gotta ask the Lord t’ help me ’bout that.” She looked a bit contrite.

Caroline, sitting close to Mitchell, pushed him gently in reproach. “Now, you stop that, Mitchell! What’s between Etta and Paul-Edward is they business.”

“So you saying Miss Etta ain’t the one, huh?” questioned Mitchell.
“Well, she’s nice enough,” I hedged.

Caroline made a guttural sound feigning exasperation with her new husband.

Caroline made a guttural sound feigning exasperation with her new husband. “This man, he don’t tell me nothin’!”
“Now, woman, you know that ain’t true,” denied Mitchell.

Jasper, he done had welts all over him, and he done said our daddy’d been puttin’ a strap regular t’ all the younguns and my mama too.

My brow furrowed. “What about?”

I smiled in jest. “You expecting two hundred acres, then?”
Mitchell’s face was blank. “No,” he said seriously. “Just my twenty.”

I could have told B. R. Tillman all that, but I figured he would still have questioned me more, and I had no intention of disclosing my arrangements with Luke Sawyer.

“So, what are you proposing to me then, Paul? Even if you sell those forty acres of Mister Granger’s for, say, four hundred dollars—and that’s high figuring—that still leaves a lot of money owing. If you want the bank to loan you money to buy this land, what do you have to give us in collateral?”

And you certainly will pay a penalty if you default on this agreement.

“Tom Bee?” I said, still somewhat in a stupor.

I put that off and as the days toward meeting the next note to J. T. Hollenbeck dwindled to within a few, I decided upon selling two of the mules and the wagon instead.

The next morning, early, I set out for Strawberry, and Caroline with Nathan started gleaning the garden. Caroline figured to pick her garden clean and preserve every single vegetable that wouldn’t keep.

Neither he nor I spoke of the obvious, that Filmore Granger had reneged on our deal.

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.

She turned, somewhat dazed, then gave me a look that questioned my sanity.

The second visit Cassie had come alone and I’d relished every moment with her.

The land was tilled, but no one stayed in the house now.

I had thought often of my daddy and my mama and what was between them. I can’t speculate on what all their feelings were for each other outside of creating Cassie and me.

Now, some folks had looked down on them for being together, but I didn’t live my daddy’s and my mama's lives, and I’ve got no right to judge. I’ve reconciled myself to that.