The Land(122)

I counted my money. What with paying the monthly note to J. T. Hollenbeck and already paying Tom Bee, I knew I’d be out of cash before I took over ownership of the forty and could sell it. When I’d made my deal with J. T. Hollenbeck for the monthly payments, I’d figured on Mitchell, and I’d also figured on being able to finish several pieces of furniture for cash money. I finished two lamp tables I had taken on order from Luke Sawyer and took them to him. Out of the money he paid me, I paid him for the oak I’d used for Mitchell’s coffin and let him know it would be a while before I could make his cabinet or anything else. I told him I regretted I couldn’t keep my bargain with him about the cabinet, but I no longer had the time for furniture making. It was the first time since I had left my daddy’s house that I had broken my word, and it pained me that I was breaking it to Luke Sawyer. I asked him to send his orders to another furniture maker, and he wasn’t happy about that. I also asked him about possible buyers for the forty acres. He said he’d ask around.

Now there was no more money coming in. I let both Nathan and Caroline know that, but I didn’t tell them about how low my cash was. I figured that was my problem and somehow I’d solve it. But in the meantime, in order to keep up with the logging, I had no choice but to hire on another worker. The man I hired was a young friend of Tom Bee’s by the name of Horace Avery. Right after I hired him, I went all the way up to Jackson and I sold my daddy’s ring. That next month, I went to Jackson again and I sold my mama’s watch. Both were hard things for me to do. The watch and the ring had more meaning to me now, and I thought long before selling them, and I looked for a way not to have to do it. But in the end, I knew that my mama, and my daddy too, would have done the same as me. I had no choice. I had to stretch my money. I had to save the land. When the note came due again on J. T. Hollenbeck’s land, I went to Vicksburg to sell my furniture tools to Luke Sawyer.

“So what’s going on down there?” Luke Sawyer asked as he looked over his spectacles at me, much the same as he had done the first day I’d met him. “You don’t look good.”

“It’s difficult without Mitchell.”

“’Magine so. But things so bad now you got to go sell your tools?”

“I’ve got to make ends meet until I’ve paid off my debt on the Hollenbeck land. I’ll get more tools after that.”

Luke Sawyer gave me a long look, then shook his head at my predicament. “It’s a shame,” he said, “’bout that palomino.”

I nodded in agreement.

Luke Sawyer pressed his lips firmly together and he seemed angry when he spoke once more. “You could’ve gotten a good price for him. That was one fine horse!”

Again I nodded.

Luke Sawyer cleared his throat, as if to relieve his anger. “You told me once, Paul, you’d sell that horse when the time was right. To my figuring, you might have thought the time was right when you signed for that Hollenbeck land. Am I right?”

I met Luke Sawyer’s eyes. “Selling him was in my plans.”

“Makes sense to me. How much were you counting on him bringing?”

Now, Luke Sawyer was a good judge of horse prices, and I knew his questioning me was not just out of curiosity. “He could race and he could win, and he looked to be only about five or six years old. I figure he could have brought me just about as much as that forty acres I’m chopping.”

“That much, huh?” Luke Sawyer rubbed his chin. “That’d be about four hundred dollars, then. That’s a lot of money.”

“I know.”

“Well, I’ve got one good bit of news for you. Found a man who’s interested in that forty acres of yours. His name’s John Lawes, and he’ll come down and take a look at it. If he says he’ll buy it, you can count on it.”

“Good,” I said.

Luke Sawyer looked at me closely. “I suppose. But what about the rest of the money you need? I understand the banks turned you down.”

I took a moment. I hadn’t told Luke Sawyer that. “I’ll figure something. Right now, though, all I’m trying to do is keep up my payments on the land note and get title to the forty so I can sell it.”

“You’ve taken on a lot, Paul.”

I half smiled.

“And like I said, you don’t look good.”

I shrugged.

Luke Sawyer suddenly grinned. “You could come back to work with me. Full time.”

“That wouldn’t get me the money I need.”

“S’pose not,” Luke Sawyer agreed, “not ’less I get in another herd of horses fine as that batch brought in three years ago, and that ain’t likely.”