The Land(12)

“Not real happy with you.”

“Well . . . I’m sorry about riding Ghost Wind that way. I . . . I won’t do it again.”

“Yes, I know you won’t.”

“You going to whip me?”

My daddy stopped and looked at me. “No,” he said. “I’m not going to whip you, Paul. No, your punishment is that you’ll never get to ride Ghost Wind again. I figure you’ll remember that a whole lot longer than a whipping. You won’t ride any of the other horses either, including the Appaloosa, until I say so.”

“But, Mister Edward—”

“You were responsible for that stallion, and you let this happen.”

“But—”

“It’s finished, boy. Don’t you think I know it was Mitchell rode that horse? Now you’ve got to pay the price for it.”





It wasn’t until the next day I saw Mitchell again. “You get a whippin’ for ridin’ that stallion?” he asked as I made my way through the woods toward the creek.

I shook my head. “No. Just can’t ride Ghost Wind anymore.”

Mitchell glanced sideways at me, almost as if he felt bad about my predicament. “That bad as a whippin’?”

“Worse.”

He shrugged. “Maybe so. Whippin’, I s’pose, you get it over and done wit’.”

“That’s how I see it,” I said, and started away.

“’Ey, Paul!” Mitchell called after me. “Anyways, you still get t’ ride your own horse, that Appaloosa. So not ridin’ Ghost Wind, that ain’t so bad.”

I turned and looked back at him. “No . . . don’t get to ride him either, or any other horse . . . not ’til my daddy says I can. He was plenty mad.”

“Had a right t’ be,” Mitchell conceded, “way that stallion was all scratched up and bruised. You know, my daddy was ’fraid he was gonna lose his job ’cause-a what I done.”

“I know.”

“Wouldn’t’ve had t’ be,” he said, eyeing me in his old belligerent way, “he ain’t been so scairt of your white daddy.”

I looked him straight. “I know.”

Mitchell seemed to relent.

I nodded and turned again to go.

“Paul,” Mitchell called after me one final time. “You know my daddy would’ve near t’ killed me, he’d’ve known for sure I’d been ridin’ that stallion. I’d’ve taken the whippin’, mind ya, but he would’ve near t’ killed me.”

“Then good thing you weren’t riding Ghost Wind, isn’t it?” I said.

Mitchell nodded, and that was as close as Mitchell Thomas came to thanking me and as close as I came to accepting his thanks. But after that, things began to change between Mitchell and me. Now, we still weren’t the best of friends, but there was a new respect building. I believe that both of us were realizing that our judgments of each other were not truly founded. Each of us had something to him the other hadn’t seen before, and out of this realization came a real respect, not just a truce.





Family

I loved my daddy’s land. In the beginning I always thought of it as my land too. I knew every bit of the place. I knew every bit of lowland, every rise and knoll, every cave and watering place, every kind of plant and tree. My favorite spots were the pond nestled in the woods and a hillside that overlooked the pasture and my daddy’s house. The pond was surrounded by big old pines that allowed splinters of light to peek through, and its waters were filled with fish. The hillside boasted only a few trees, so it was sunny and open, and the pasture below was dotted with cows and horses grazing. On many days I would sit for hours alone at either place just gazing out over the land. Whenever my family was needing me and I couldn’t be found near my daddy’s or my mama’s house, they knew where to look for me.

Now, one of my favorite things to do was read, and I was always reading anything I could get my hands on. I especially liked reading by that pond, and when I wasn’t fishing there with Robert, I usually took a book with me. People began to expect that of me. Once, though, my reading got me into more trouble with some of the colored boys on the place, and it was Mitchell who got me out of it. Those boys came along and started picking on me. There were four of them, and since my brothers weren’t around and, at the moment, neither was Mitchell, I suppose they figured they could get away with it.

“Jus’ look at that little nigger white boy sittin’ there on the bank got nothin’ t’ do,” said a boy I recognized as R. T. Roberts. “Got nothin’ t’ do but sit there lookin’ at some fool book.”