The Land(15)

“Mister Edward,” I said when he told me that, thinking of my own Indian blood, “you ever meet my mama’s daddy?” Now, I always called my daddy “Mister Edward,” just as Cassie and my mama did, though I had come on my mama and daddy in their quiet times and had heard her say his name out straight Edward and that was all. It seemed peculiar to me at first that I called my daddy by a formal name while Robert and Hammond and George called him “Daddy.” But my mama had broken both Cassie and me when we were still little from ever calling Edward Logan “Daddy.” She had broken that misspeaking with bottom-warming spankings whenever we did. When I asked my mama why Cassie and I couldn’t call our daddy the same as Robert and George and Hammond, she said simply, “They’re white and you’re not, and their mama was his legal wife.” I didn’t ask her again about it after that, and I settled into addressing my daddy as if he were not, and after a while calling him “Mister Edward” was the same as calling him Daddy, or at least that was what was in my mind.

As for what my daddy called me, sometimes when we were alone, he called me Paul-Edward. That’s because my mama had wanted to name me Edward after him, but my daddy had said it wouldn’t be fitting, seeing that none of his boys with his white wife had his name. Out of respect for her, he said, he couldn’t give it to me official-like, but he would think of me that way. So there were times when my daddy called me Paul-Edward, and my mama and sometimes Cassie did the same, but it was only between them and me.

“No, can’t say that I did,” my daddy said in answer to my question. “I heard of him, though. My own daddy told me about him. His name was Kanati; means the lucky hunter. My daddy said he left with some of his people headed west into Alabama or Mississippi before the soldiers made them go. From what my daddy told me, Kanati knew they’d be made to go because folks like my daddy and others wanted the Nation’s land, and there was nothing to be done about that. The Army was set to drive Kanati’s people out, and your granddaddy didn’t want any part of any soldiers.”

“Wish I could’ve known him.”

“Well, I know your mama wishes that too. She always wanted to know him herself.”

“You expect we’ll ever meet up with him? I mean, you expect he’ll ever come back?”

My daddy looked at me then and answered me truthfully, as he always did. “I don’t expect that’s likely, Paul.”

“This land,” I said, “it belonged to his people first.”

“That’s a fact,” my daddy agreed. “Maybe that’s where you get part of your love for the land. Now, of all my boys, you and Robert seem to have the most feel for the land. I know Hammond loves it as home, and so does George, but I figure Hammond will end up in business somewhere, and George has always been cut out to be a soldier. So when I pass on, there’ll be you and Robert to take care of the place. Robert loves the land and has a good head, but I don’t know if he’s up to the hardships of farming. Besides that, he doesn’t have a feel for the animals, especially the horses. I don’t mean he doesn’t care about them, I mean he just doesn’t have a kinship with them, and you do. Why, the way you can calm a horse and ride him is an amazement, even to me.” My pride swelled up when my daddy said that. “I was a good rider as a boy, but you’re much better. You tend to know animals. Robert doesn’t, but he does love this land.”

“Then we can take care of it together.” I dreamed on that.

“Perhaps so,” said my daddy thoughtfully. “Thing is, though, when you get grown, you maybe’ll want to leave this place and go out on your own.”

“Leave it?” I questioned. “Why would I ever want to leave it?”

“Maybe one day,” he said, “you’ll know the answer to that question.”

In the many times we had hunted together since he had said that, I had not yet figured out the answer. There was, as I saw it then, no reason to leave. But on that night after the boys had torn my book and beaten me, my daddy said to me, “I’ve decided to send you away to school.”

I stared at him across our campfire. “Sir?”

“I want you to have an education and a trade. I want you to have a means of supporting yourself.”

“B-but,” I stuttered, “I know plenty already. I’ve been studying here, and you and Hammond and George, you all taught me—”

“What we taught you is only a beginning. Now, there are some colored schools opening up in Georgia and elsewhere where colored boys and girls are going for higher education, and there’s a school in Macon you can go to, part-time, and later on, you want to take more schooling, you can do it. But what I want you to concentrate on learning now is a skill you can always use, something you can always depend on to earn some money.”