“Nothing I can do about that.”
“What ya mean nothin’? We can leave here right now.”
“I don’t think so. Not unless you want to see me in jail, or worse.”
“For what? Goin’ against that pecker’s orders?”
“You know there doesn’t have to be a reason.” Mitchell’s eyes met mine and I knew he was thinking of the turpentine camps, the same as I. “Said I’m to work the full day,” I went on, “and if I don’t, he’ll have the sheriff after me. Said too I’m to work the day without pay.”
Mitchell cursed again. I felt like cursing myself.
“So what you gonna do?”
“I’m thinking on it,” I said.
Mitchell was silent, then looked down the trail toward the camp. “Tell ya what, then. Do your thinkin’ in town. That’s where I’m headed, and you need t’ come with me. We’ll go over to Miz Mary’s place.”
Now, town was no more than a few shacks sitting about three miles down the road. Mainly it was a place where the men from the camp could hear some music, eat some home cooking, see a few ladies, and mostly spend their money. On Saturday nights when the other men went to Miz Mary’s place, I went off to some space away from everybody where I could have some time to myself to write my letters and to read. That way I kept my money. “You know that’s not how I like to spend my time,” I said.
“So what ya gonna do, then? Sit there in that cold shanty, readin’ or writin’ or workin’ on some piece of wood?”
“Only time I have to do it. Besides, I don’t go to Miz Mary’s, I’m sure I won’t much be missed.”
“Well, that’s a fact.” Mitchell was blunt as always. “But you know part of that, that’s your own fault, Paul. You keeps yourself separate from the rest, and they thinks it’s ’cause you thinkin’ you better’n them.”
I smiled, thinking of childhood memories. “We’ve been through that before.”
“Like I been tellin’ ya, you try socializin’ a bit, then folks might see you different.”
I thought on that. “I don’t know if I could fit in.”
“Can’t hurt nothin’ t’ try. Get yo’ mind off Jessup.”
I considered a moment longer. “Maybe you’re right.”
“Then let’s get cleaned up and get ourselves down t’ Miz Mary’s!”
I don’t know why I let Mitchell talk me into going with him to Miz Mary’s. The place was small and dark, lit only with a few table lanterns, and it was rowdy. There was a fellow playing a banjo and a woman was singing, but mostly it was just noise, with men and women talking too loud, laughing hard, trying to shake off the hardships of a week’s work. Mitchell was in the midst of it all, but it was not my kind of place. I preferred the quiet. I sat removed from the others in a corner, where a barrel substituted as a table and a box crate as a stool, writing my thoughts to my sister, Cassie.
From the time I had left the train coming out of East Texas, I had been writing to Cassie. I knew after Mitchell’s and my disappearance from East Texas, my daddy, Cassie, my brothers too, would be worried, and I needed to let them hear from me. At first, though, I had written letters and not mailed them, for I was fearful my daddy might find out where I was. Then, after a while, I began to take letters, addressed only to Cassie, to the train stops near wherever I was staying at the time and give them to somebody boarding to mail from their destination. I even wrote a letter to my daddy so he’d know I was alive and well, but I mailed the letter in the same fashion as I had mailed letters to Cassie, except I went all the way to Louisiana to do it. I did this not only to keep my daddy from knowing where I was and coming to look for me, but to keep trouble away too. I didn’t know how far Ray Sutcliffe might have gone to track Mitchell and me down.
In those early days I didn’t put a return address on my letters, so I had no news from home. Later I arranged for a storekeeper in Meridian to collect my mail for me, and though I made a point of not staying near Meridian, I checked on my mail several times a year. Now that I was a man grown, I wrote more openly to Cassie, mailing the letters myself, but I still asked her to keep my confidence and not let our daddy or our brothers know where I was. I also asked her to send word to Miz Edna about Mitchell, for as far as I knew, Mitchell never wrote to his folks. In my letters to Cassie I told her all my thoughts, or most of them. I let her know that I was dissatisfied with the lumber camps; they were fine for some men and that would be all they’d ever know, but I figured for more. I felt I was drifting and I was ready to settle now. I told Cassie that.