I didn’t go back to the forty. Not right away. Instead, I went to the land. Now, I should’ve gone straight to J. T. Hollenbeck and told him that our deal was off, that I couldn’t pay him his money. But I couldn’t do that. I had two more days to think of this land as mine, and I wasn’t ready to give it up, even if there was no hope in keeping it. I had thought of going to J. T. Hollenbeck, telling him my circumstances, and asking him for more time. But J. T. Hollenbeck had made it clear he wanted his money when it was due or the deal was off. All the money I’d already paid him would be forfeited. I had agreed to that with my signature. There was no changing it now.
I walked the land. I walked the meadow and the forest and finally rested by the coolness of the pond. I stayed there a long while, then went back to the slope and up to the rock where I’d first laid my head. I knelt down by that rock and I prayed. I prayed long and hard. Then I just sat looking out across the meadow and the forest until the sun set and the day darkened.
When I got back to the forty, Caroline was standing by the bridge that crossed the creek. “There’s a man waitin’ for ya,” she said. Her face was anxious. “A white man. He . . . he says he’s your brother.”
At first I just looked at Caroline, then I looked up the road. A buggy was stopped in front of the cabin, and a man stood beside it. Nathan sat on a stump nearby watching the man. I got down from the mule to walk with Caroline. “How long has he been here?” I asked.
“While,” she answered, and we walked to the cabin without another word.
As we neared, I saw the man clear. It was Robert. I hadn’t seen him in more than ten years, but I knew who he was. I would’ve known him anywhere.
“Paul,” he said to me.
“Robert.”
“Cassie sent me,” he said, and shook my hand.
There was a fire burning in the outside pit. I motioned Robert toward the stumps, and he and I sat down. Caroline went into the cabin and she called Nathan in behind her.
Robert looked around as the door closed. “I heard about Mitchell. I’m sorry.”
I nodded but said nothing.
“Cassie told me too about Mitchell’s wife and the baby on the way . . . must be hard for her.”
“She’s managing,” I said. I wanted to know why Robert had come. I didn’t ask about our daddy or George or Hammond or anyone else; I wasn’t interested in catch-up talk. “You said Cassie sent you?”
“Yes,” said Robert, his voice changing as it took on a tone of business. He pulled out an envelope and handed it to me. Cassie’s writing was upon it. I didn’t open it. I looked at Robert with questions in my eyes. “Cassie came out to the house from Atlanta about a week ago,” Robert said in answer. “She said she was getting ready to sell that plot of land belonged to your mama—”
“Land?” I questioned. “What land?”
“That ten acres your mama’s house is on.”
I was caught by surprise. “But . . . I thought that land was our daddy’s—”
“So did I,” said Robert. “For a long while. After you were gone, though—” Robert’s eyes met mine at the mention of my running off, before he went on. “After you were gone, our daddy told us your mama had bought it from him. He said he’d told her he would just give her the land, but she said she didn’t want that. She said she didn’t want him to give her anything. She wanted to buy the land herself at the market price. But one thing she asked him to do. She asked him not to tell you, not sure why.”
I looked at Robert, but I had no words to say.
“Anyway,” Robert continued, “when Cassie came home, she said she wanted to sell that plot of land right away. Seeing that it was right at our doorstep, she wanted to know if our daddy was interested in buying it back. Our daddy asked her what she wanted for it, and she said she figured five hundred dollars was fair, seeing that it was right in the middle of our place. Our daddy didn’t fight her on it, even though five hundred dollars is way more than that ten acres is worth. He bought it from her.”
I turned the envelope over in my hands. “She say why she wanted to sell?”
“Just that the time was right.”
“Then she asked you to bring this to me?”
Robert nodded.
“And our daddy didn’t ask more?”
Robert shrugged. “It was hers to sell—and yours.”
I looked at the envelope, then held it out to Robert. “I don’t want money from my daddy.”
Robert didn’t move to take it. “It’s not from him, Paul. It’s from Cassie. She never told him a word about you.” He studied me. “Look, like I said, it was yours and Cassie’s to sell.”