Filmore Granger ignored my words, looked back at me, and went on. “Heard you planning to sell these forty acres of mine to help pay for that land Hollenbeck’s selling. That right?”
Now, I didn’t figure that was any of Filmore Granger’s business, what I was doing with land that was now rightfully mine, but I couldn’t say that to him outright. I knew I had to watch my words. “Well, you know, Mister Granger, our agreement was that after I’d cut all the trees for you, the land became mine. That means I can sell it, if I choose.”
“Ah, naw! Not as you choose!” he thundered, the soft words now gone. “This here is not your land yet! Now, I told you the first day you come riding up here that I wasn’t going to stand for any pilfering of my trees, but I see you been helping yourself to them anyway! You’ve been helping yourself to plenty of my good trees not on this forty acres!”
I stared at Filmore Granger, then I glanced over at Caroline, watching, and I tried to hold on to my temper, to do what was best for her. I didn’t want to let my words spew out like I felt like doing. I thought on my daddy. “Mister Granger,” I said, meeting his eyes, “I was very careful about the tree line we marked. All the cutting was done on the forty. We never stepped a foot off it.”
Filmore Granger’s temper grew even more fiery. “You calling me a liar?”
“I’m not calling you anything,” I said, knowing my words were too loose in talking to a white man, but my temper was up too. “I’m just telling you we never cut off the forty. I know just where Mitchell and I chopped and where that boy Nathan and I chopped, know where the other men chopped too. We never chopped outside the forty.”
Filmore Granger stared at me. I stared him back. “Maybe it was all a mistake,” he said in a voice that mocked at me. “Maybe y’all done some cutting by mistake.”
“We never set foot off the forty.”
He glared angrily at me, then turned and walked back to his horse. He didn’t mount but faced me again. “I’ve decided to keep this land here.”
“What—”
“You want land so bad from J. T. Hollenbeck, you go chopping trees don’t belong to you to pay for it! Well, you don’t go chopping down my trees trying to sell them—”
“I never did—”
“Now, you can stay on and sharecrop, if you want. I’m being as fair as I can be with you, considering what you gone and done. You don’t want to sharecrop, then I want you and yours gone from here before the month’s out.”
“That’s not what we agreed! Mitchell and I, we cut those trees for you, every one you said, and had them ready on time—”
“Cut yourselves some trees too—”
“Only what you told us—”
“You disputing with me?”
Those were dangerous words, mighty dangerous words, and I knew it. I let the silence settle and tried to catch hold of my temper again. Finally, in a steady voice, I said, “We have a paper.”
Filmore Granger stepped back to me and faced me close. “You think I care about a paper signed with a nigger? Well, let me tell you something, boy. There was a time I owned hundreds of you people. I clothed you, fed you, tended you when you were sick, and I buried you. Then everything got changed all round, and here niggers got to thinking they’re as good as white people, can talk the same as white people, live the same as white people, have the same kind of land. Ones like you think they as smart as white people too. Well, I’m here to tell you there hasn’t been a nigger born can outsmart Filmore Granger. Not a one, no matter how white he looks.” He pointed his finger in my face for emphasis, then turned and started for his horse. Once he was mounted, he looked down at me. “That crop in the ground, it’s mine too. You try and harvest any of it without staying on, I’ll have the sheriff after you. Same goes for any you already picked. I know you’ve sold one bale, but you try selling any more, you’ll find yourself in jail.” Then Filmore Granger spurred his horse and rode away, down the road I had cleared.
I walked over to Caroline at the side of the cabin. Her basket was filled with tomatoes, butter beans, cucumbers, and corn for dinner. She looked at me in silence.
“You hear?” I said.
“Heard enough.” She slowly shook her head. “He can’t do this thing.”
“He’s white,” I said. “He can do what he wants.”
“But you gots a paper—”
I repeated, “He can do what he wants.”
She was silent a moment before she asked, “Well, what you gonna do?”