The Land(14)

R.T. glanced at the other boys, then back at Mitchell, and shook his head. “Naw, ain’t got no problem.”

Mitchell nodded at the understanding and dismissed any grievance he had with R.T. “Look, I got me a wagon stuck in the mud down a ways. Y’all wanna come help get me out?”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” the boys said, seemingly happy to do whatever Mitchell asked.

“’Fore ya do, though,” added Mitchell, “y’all best pick up all them pages outa Paul’s book there. And next time don’t let him rile ya so.”

R.T. and the others did what Mitchell said; then all of them went with Mitchell to help him with his wagon. I suppose I could have gone to help too, seeing how Mitchell had helped me out, but Mitchell hadn’t asked me to come and I figured the others wouldn’t have wanted me along anyway. I had no need to go where I wasn’t wanted.

After they were gone, I sat on the bank alone and tried to put my book together. Although some of the pages were crumpled and muddy, they were still readable. I wiped them off as best I could, then put them in order and laid them in the binding. Afterward I just sat there thinking on those boys jumping me, then a while later, I went back to my reading, even though my right eye was swollen. I wasn’t about to let R.T. and those other boys and their ignorance chase me from what I wanted to do.

I was still sitting there reading with my one good eye when Mitchell came back. “Some reason thought you’d still be here,” he said. “Don’t you ever get tired of readin’?”

I looked up at him. “Not really.”

Mitchell shook his head as if finding it hard to understand that and sat down. “Got the wagon unstuck.”

“Good.”

“You know R.T. and them others, they had plenty t’ say ’bout ya.”

“S’pose they did.”

“They said you gone and threatened them.”

“Threatened them?”

“Yeah. Said they was on your daddy’s land and maybe they mess wit’ you, they’d be off it.”

I took a moment. “I suppose it did come out that way.”

“Paul, you wanna get along with these boys, how come you bringin’ up your white daddy all the time?”

“I didn’t bring him up. They did.”

“Don’t matter,” said Mitchell. “Your daddy’s the boss man—the white boss man—and you got no right t’ throw that in their face.”

“And they’ve got no right to judge me ’cause of who my daddy is. I’m not ashamed of who I am, and I’m not ashamed of my daddy!”

Mitchell was silent.

I closed my book and stared at him. “You figuring maybe I need to be?”

Mitchell looked at me. “Not figurin’ anythin’. Jus’ can’t understand how it feels t’ have a white daddy, that’s all. Can’t figure out how you could love a white daddy who owned your mama and you. Can’t figure how you can be so crazy ’bout them white brothers of yours neither, when once y’all all grown, they’ll be the boss and you’ll be jus’ another nigger.”

I got up from the bank. “They never use that word to me, and that’s not how it’s going to be.”

“What make you think so?”

“Because they’re my family.”

Mitchell nodded and faced the pond. “Still can’t figure it.”

“I’ve got to go. I’m going hunting.”

“Who wit’?”

“With my daddy.”

Mitchell looked around at me. “Good huntin’, then” was all he said.





“Mitchell been beating up on you again?” asked my daddy as we set up camp that evening.

“No, sir. Some other boys.”

“How do they look?”

I grinned up at my daddy. “’Bout the same. Mitchell helped me out.”

My daddy nodded, and the two of us went about building a fire. We were planning to hunt coon later in the night, and in the morning hunt some wild turkeys. My daddy often took me hunting. Sometimes we all went, my daddy and my brothers and me, though Hammond and George often went hunting on their own. There were times too when my daddy took just Robert and me. But the times that were most special were when it was only my daddy and me on a hunt. At those times I had my daddy all to myself, and I cherished that. I learned many things from my daddy, and when I was a small boy, there seemed no one like him to me. I’m not ashamed to admit it. In those early days I adored my daddy.

Now, when my daddy would take me on a hunt, he often talked about when he was a boy, and it made me proud when he said I reminded him of himself. “You’re much like me,” he told me once. “When I was a boy, I loved to read and I loved horses. I loved this land too. My granddaddy had gotten it before I was born, back before the turn of the century, when there were plenty of Indians settled around here. There still were some here when I was a boy, and I got to know a few and they taught me a lot.”