The Land(118)
I slept the night through for the first time since Mitchell had been shot. I was so tired, my sleep was a deep one and undisturbed. I slept way past the dawn until midmorning. When I woke, it was to the sound of a baby crying. The sun peeping between the logs was harsh against my eyes, and I got up. I opened the shed door and saw Sam Perry with Nathan and Hugh leading the mules who were dragging logs to the creek. I shielded my eyes from the sun with my hand as I gazed out.
“So you up!” called Sam Perry before I could speak. He laughed and gave a wave. Hugh and Nathan waved too.
“What’re you doing?” I said.
“What it look like?” returned Nathan with a grin. “We gettin’ these trees down t’ the creek.”
Sam Perry nodded agreement. “My girl Caroline said you was gonna sleep all day, we best get t’ it!” He let out another hefty laugh. “You best get on in that cabin. Womenfolks been done had breakfast for ya.”
“I see,” I said. “Well, I’ll join you soon as I can.”
“No hurry on that,” said Sam Perry, moving on. “Jus’ make sure you get your food first. You don’t, those womenfolks gonna be mighty mad!”
I nodded absently as I looked toward the cabin. “I thought I heard a baby crying.”
“Most likely did,” Sam Perry affirmed. “My grandbaby’s in there!”
“Yeah, Callie, she done brung her baby with her!” said Nathan.
“Ain’t got time for jawin’ now!” Sam Perry called good-naturedly. “That Tom Bee, he waitin’ t’ send more logs down t’ the creek, so we best get movin’! But you, son, you take your time. No rush on you!” The three of them waved once more, then moved on toward the Rosa Lee. I turned back into the shed to find my boots. Before I could get the boots on, Caroline came again to the shed.
“Heard you was up,” she said, standing in the doorway as she had the night before, but this time with her hands clasped before her. “Ya wantin’ breakfast?”
I adjusted my eyes to her silhouetted there. “Heard you were keeping it for me.”
“Won’t be hot.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Then ya come on in and get it.”
I nodded and she turned to go. “Caroline,” I called.
She stopped and looked back.
“I’m glad your folks are here.”
“Well, I’m glad too,” she said.
“Hope you’re going back with them.”
Now those clasped hands of hers loosened and settled once again on her hips. “What give you that idea? Thought I done told you my mind ’bout stayin’ here.”
“You told me. But seeing that they came for you—”
“They come to give me comfort.”
“And to take you back.”
“Well, like I done told ya, I ain’t goin’.”
I hesitated, figuring already how Caroline would take my next words. “I want you to know, Caroline, I don’t think it’s right for you to be here, even with Nathan. I’m here a single man and you’re a widow, and it doesn’t look right—”
“You see me worried ’bout that?”
“Well, I promised Mitchell I’d take care of you.”
“And so how you figurin’ on doin’ that if I ain’t here?”
“Well . . . my plan is first of all to secure this land—”
“And jus’ what I’m s’pose t’ do while you doin’ that? Stay sharecroppin’ on my daddy’s place when I got twenty acres of my own right here? Now, that don’t make no kind of sense to me. Mitchell might’ve made you promise to take care of me, but I figure the best way for you to keep that promise is for you to help me take care of myself.”
I took a moment to accept her reasoning and to gather my words for what had to come next. I fumbled with my boots and finally got them on. Then I straightened and looked directly at Caroline. “That be the case,” I said, “and you set on staying, then what I think we need to be thinking on after your mourning period is our getting married.”
“Mitchell told you t’ do that too, huh?”
“He said . . . to take care of you. That’s what he wanted.”
She grunted. “I know what he wanted. Told me same as you. Well, I loved Mitchell and I’m carryin’ his child, but he can’t tell me what t’ do from the grave. Ain’t nobody gotta take care of me, Paul-Edward Logan, and Mitchell can’t make me marry you or nobody else.”
I heaved a sigh at her stubbornness, and I suppose at my own relief. “So you’re just going to stay on here?”