“Paul Logan?”
I opened my eyes and jumped up. The moon was fixed directly overhead. I couldn’t have drifted off for more than a few minutes, yet that had been long enough for me to lose sense of myself and for someone to come up on me.
“So there ya is! We done been lookin’ all over the place for ya!” Tom Bee stepped forward, and with him was Sam Perry. I stared at them without words. “If I ain’t know’d ’bout this place, we never woulda done found ya!”
“Tom Bee?” I said, still somewhat in a stupor. “How’d you think to come here?”
“That boy John Wallace. He done tole me he ’spected he seen you and Mitchell up on this here ridge one night some time back. He done said everybody done thought ya was a white man.” Tom Bee eyed me knowingly. “I figured maybe ya thought Digger hung ’bout these parts, so that’s how come we headed over this way.”
Sam Perry placed his massive hand on my shoulder. “How’s you holdin’ up?”
I just nodded.
“Miz Caroline, she done sent us t’ look for ya,” explained Tom Bee. “Mister Perry here and his wife, and some of his family come back t’ the place wit’ me, and Miz Caroline, she said ya done took off and ain’t even said word one t’ her ’bout it.”
“I sent word.”
“Uh-huh, she done told us ’bout that. Long wit’ that so-called word come folks tellin’ her ya been out lookin’ for Digger.”
“Ya find him?” Sam Perry asked me.
“No.”
“Then that’s good. I was ’fraid maybe ya had.”
I sat down wearily. “Everybody says he’s most likely gone back to Alabama.”
“Course he done that!” exclaimed Tom Bee. “Ole low-down nothin’ of a coward! I coulda done told ya that ’fore I done gone t’ Vicksburg!”
Sam Perry sat down beside me. “Best this way, Paul.”
“He killed Mitchell.”
“An’ you go kill him, you gon’ die too.”
I said nothing.
“So what ya gon’ do now, Paul Logan?” asked Tom Bee. I looked up at him and Tom Bee exclaimed, “Ya ain’t thinkin’ ’bout a fool thing like goin’ off t’ Alabama after that no-good scound’?”
I took a moment, then said, “If that’s where he is.”
“Naw,” said Sam Perry, “naw. Ya go get yo’self killed, then what’s gonna come of that land ya worked so hard for? Y’all boys done put near t’ a year and a half in that place. Ya gonna end up throwin’ it all away for a no ’count like this Digger Wallace?”
“Listen t’ him, Paul Logan!” ordered Tom Bee. “Ya knows good and well ya can’t go killin’ a white man if ya don’t figure on hangin’ yo’ own self! Onliest way ya don’t get lynched is for ya t’ run, but I knows no matter how fast ya runs, they most likely catch ya!”
“It’s yo’ land and it’s yo’ life,” said Sam Perry. “But I’m gonna tell ya, son, ain’t nothin’ ya can do for Mitchell now, ’ceptin’ t’ see good on that land. My girl, she dependin’ on that.”
I looked at him and my mind turned to Caroline. “She going back with you?”
“She said she ain’t.”
“I told her she couldn’t stay, not the way things are.”
“Well, that gonna be up t’ her.”
“I promised Mitchell I’d take care of Caroline.”
“Then ya ’spect t’ keep that promise, ya best be forgettin’ ’bout this Digger. Ya can’t go keepin’ promises from the grave.”
Sam Perry and Tom Bee talked to me through the rest of that night, and I began to focus on Caroline, on Caroline and her baby, and on my promise to Mitchell, instead of my own grief. They talked until there was nothing more to say. That next morning at daybreak we left the ridge and headed back to the forty.
It was nightfall by the time we reached the cabin. I didn’t go in to greet Caroline or Nathan or the rest of the Perrys, but went straight to the shed, took off my boots, and lay down. Within minutes the shed door opened and Caroline stood looking down at me.
“So ya back, huh?” she said. Her hands went to her hips. “Well, next time you take off, I’d ’preciate you tellin’ me face-to-face. I done lost my husband, now I gotta go worryin’ ’bout you too? Don’t ya do this t’ me again, Paul-Edward Logan. Ya hear me? Not again.” The order given, Caroline turned and left the shed, closing the door behind her. I smiled for the first time in almost a week, and then I fell asleep.