The Land(134)

“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “I just want to be away from here.” I told her nothing else and she accepted my wanting to leave earlier than I’d said, I supposed, because she understood the pain I felt and the anger too at being on a land I had thought would be mine and was not. She didn’t ask me anything about where I’d gone in the morning or about my visit with Robert. Maybe she thought it wasn’t her right to ask. I don’t know, but she didn’t. She simply began to pack all those things that had been left unpacked, while Nathan and I went to the oak where Mitchell was buried and began to dig up his grave.

We brought the coffin and gently set it in the wagon. Then I took the window I had made, with the glass Mitchell had bought, and replaced it with wood. After that, Nathan and I broke down the beds and loaded them on the wagon, as well as the table and the chairs. We packed all the preserved goods, also the bushels of corn and peas and other vegetables, and placed them on the wagon trailer. The rooster and hens we put in crates, loaded them too, and tied the cow to the back of the trailer. We gathered everything that could be gathered, and loaded two years of living on the forty onto that wagon and trailer. Then I helped Caroline up to the seat of the wagon, and Nathan climbed on the back. I looked around once more at the cabin and the shed I’d built, at the road I’d cleared, at all the land open now because of Mitchell and me. I looked at the cotton crop blanketing the field, and I climbed onto the wagon and left it all. I didn’t look back.





I took Caroline to the land. I hadn’t yet told her I had the deed to it, and as we rolled along, I’m sure she and Nathan too thought we were headed for Vicksburg. In the months since Caroline had come to the forty, she had not been again to Vicksburg and didn’t know the roads that would have led us there. As for Nathan, soon after we were off the forty, he fell asleep for a while, and when he woke, he started whittling on a recorder he was making, and was paying no attention to the roads. We were in the woods, and one set of woods pretty much looked liked another to folks not knowing, so I didn’t dispel the notion that we were on the road to Vicksburg. I just held my words, afraid of letting my happiness slip before we reached the land. Still, I smiled within myself and maybe that was why more than once I found Caroline watching me. We rode for some while, and when we came onto the land, Caroline looked around and smiled, not at me, but at what she saw. “This sure is pretty country,” she said.

I smiled too and stopped the wagon. “It is pretty, isn’t it?” I said.

Caroline took a deep breath of the fresh meadow air. “It’s got a good smell.”

I laughed. “You like it, then?”

“Course. Who wouldn’t? Just look at all that green. Look at all them fine little hills yonder and that fine growth of trees round the place.” She sighed. “It’s a good place to rest.”

“Glad you think so,” I said, and got down. “We’ll just stop here.”

“You think that’ll be all right?”

“I’m sure it will,” I said, helping her down.

Nathan jumped from the back, and the three of us stood gazing out over the land. “Maybe we can spend the night here, huh?” suggested Nathan.

“I think that’s a fine idea,” I agreed. “There’s only a couple hours of daylight left, and like Caroline said, it’s a good place to rest.”

Caroline frowned. “You don’t think the folks own this place’ll mind none?”

“I’m sure they won’t.” I smiled and took her hand. “Come on. I want to show you something. You too, Nathan.” With Caroline’s hand in mine, I led her up the slope. When we reached the top of it, I walked over to my praying rock. “I figure this here’s a good place to bury Mitchell.”

Caroline pulled away from me. “Here?” She turned, somewhat dazed, then gave me a look that questioned my sanity. “Why here?”

“Don’t you like it?” I asked. “You don’t like this spot, we can choose another. I just thought Mitchell would’ve liked it here. He could rest well.”

Caroline hesitated. I’m sure she was uncertain as to what had taken hold of me. “I’d figured on burying Mitchell at Mount Elam.”

“Well, you could do that,” I said. “I just figured, though, maybe you’d like to bury Mitchell here, on our land.”

“Our land?” Caroline stared out across the meadow with disbelief. “Our land?”

Nathan just stood silent, his mouth agape.

I smiled.

Caroline slowly shook her head, but she too was silent as her eyes took in the land.