“You know, Paul,” said Robert as he settled on his stump again, “I was out around this area about a year and a half ago.”
“I know. Mitchell brought back word from Vicksburg that you’d been there.”
Robert’s face showed his surprise. “Well, if I’d have only known you were here, I’d’ve looked you up then. Cassie never told us where you were, until now.”
“I asked her not to,” I said. “I thought that was best.”
Robert nodded and looked at the fire. “Something you ought to know, Paul, something I’ve been wanting to tell you all these years. That day I told our daddy about you riding that horse, I wasn’t trying to get you in trouble. I just didn’t want to see you get hurt.”
I stared at Robert, but left my thoughts unsaid. All these years he had worried about that, but he still had said nothing about turning his back on me. He went on, talking of other things and I listened to his words and no longer dwelled on his betrayal. We had long ago gone our separate ways.
Caroline came from the cabin and offered us supper. Robert accepted, and the two of us ate alone by the fire. After we ate, Robert gave me my mama’s broach. I opened it and gazed upon my mama’s and Cassie’s pictures. Robert watched me and was silent as I closed the broach again and slipped it into my shirt pocket, over my heart. Later I saw Caroline glance out the window, but as it drew late and Robert stayed on, I saw the light dim inside. Nathan came out and bedded down in the shed. Robert and I sat on by the fire and talked late into the night. Robert didn’t ask about my business or why I needed the money Cassie had sent, and I didn’t tell him. I told him nothing about the land or my dreams. Robert told me of our daddy and of George, who was still out west somewhere, and of Hammond and his family. He said that our daddy spoke of me often. He said too our daddy wanted to see me again, but that he wouldn’t come looking for me. My daddy said I was the one who ran off, and I needed to be the one to come home and I had to do that on my own. Robert asked me about my running off, and I told him the truth of that. We spoke of the years since then. But neither of us spoke about what was really between us.
The night passed with our talk as when we were boys, but not as easily as then, and when the dawn came, Robert readied himself to go. He had had no sleep, but then neither had I. I gave him coffee, but he would take no breakfast except some corn bread from the night before. He got into his hired buggy and I said good-bye, not knowing if I would ever see him again. Then after he was gone, I mounted one of the mules and, without going in to see Caroline, rode off with my mama’s and Cassie’s letters and all they contained in my pocket to meet with J. T. Hollenbeck and take title to my land.
I put aside my pride about asking a white man for help. Before I made the turn up the Hollenbeck road, I went over to see Charles Jamison. I had decided that the world was as it was and I needed to put my trust in somebody. I wasn’t going to play the fool again. “You once offered me your help,” I said to Charles Jamison when I’d been ushered into his study. “I’d like to ask it of you now.”
“And what’s that?”
“I need a legal paper that’ll hold up, no matter what color the parties happen to be.”
Charles Jamison pulled on his ear. “This about that Hollenbeck land?” Underlying his question was the reason I needed such a paper. But he didn’t ask it and I knew without asking him that he too had heard about Filmore Granger and the loss of the forty.
“Yes, sir, it is,” I said. “I need to sign on it today, but I’ve got to know it’ll hold.”
Charles Jamison nodded and asked no questions as to how I’d come up with the money to conclude the deal with J. T. Hollenbeck. “Oh, it’ll hold, all right. I’ll go with you and we’ll just make sure it’ll hold.”
He took some papers from his desk drawer, got his hat, and went right then with me to J. T. Hollenbeck’s place. As it turned out, I made a good choice with Charles Jamison. He read all the legal papers, made changes in them, and before the transaction was done, pulled out his own agreements concerning the buying of Hollenbeck land and had me read them. In the end, the wording on his purchase and mine were the same, except for the acreage bought and the money owed. Then Charles Jamison himself signed as a witness to the transaction. In all, it took several hours before the deal was settled and I rode away with the ownership papers to my two hundred acres.
Finally, I had the land.
The sun was at midday by the time I returned to the forty. Caroline had dinner waiting, but I wasn’t hungry. I wanted just to finish packing and leave. “You said we’d leave come dawn tomorrow,” Caroline protested. “We leave now, no way we get t’ Vicksburg ’fore dark. We be on the road at night.”