The Land (18 page)

“So, Paul, what that ole Jessup want?”

I opened my eyes. Mitchell was walking toward me. “Said I have to work tomorrow.”

“On Sunday?”

“On Sunday.”

Mitchell cursed. “He done had it in for you since we first stepped foot in this camp, and we both know why.”

“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.

“'Scuse me . . . b-but can I talk t' ya?”

I looked up from my writing. A young woman stood before me. I had seen Mitchell talking to her earlier and knew he'd spent time with her. I also knew she wasn't the only woman he'd spent time with.

“My name's Maylene. I knows ya Mitchell's friend.”

I stood and pulled out a box crate for Maylene, and she sat down rather shyly. I didn't know what to say to her. We'd never spoken before. “My name's Paul Logan,” I said, sitting again.

“I—I know. Mitchell, he done told me.”

I nodded, waiting for her to go on. She took her time.

“He done said y'all been knowin' each other since y'all was younguns.”

“That's a fact.”

“Then . . . I 'spect ya knows him better'n anybody.”

“I suppose better than anybody around here.”

“Th-then I 'spect ya knows what he likes in a woman.”

I readjusted myself on the crate. I didn't like the turn of this conversation. One thing I wasn't about to do was get into Mitchell's love life. He had too much of it for me to keep it straight. “Well, you want to know that, you need to talk to him.”

“Can't. I mean, ya knows Mitchell. I asks him a question, and he be tellin' me what I wants t' hear. He be tellin' me the truth, I s'pose, but what I wants from him is more'n jus' pretty words. I wants him t' be my man. I wants him t' settle with me.”

I cleared my throat and looked out across the room where Mitchell was talking with two other men beside the bar. “Well, did you tell him that?”

“He knows it, but he jus' laughs.”

Maylene looked down at her hands, and her face seemed so pitiful, I felt sorry for her. Now, most women who followed the lumber camps knew not to take the men too seriously, for those men who weren't already married were mostly drifters, ready to move on as soon as the camp moved. “You know,” I said, “Mitchell, like most of the fellas, likely isn't ready to settle yet.”

“But I needs him.”

Just what I was supposed to say to that I don't know. I was saved from having to figure that out by a big fellow from the camp who came over and took Maylene by the arm. The man was called by the name of Johnny B. “Girl, whatcha doin' talkin' t' this white nigger?” Johnny B. demanded, but then didn't give Maylene a chance to answer before he snatched her up. “There's plenty of other fellas needin' yo' company.”

At that Maylene got her backbone up. “But maybe I wantin' his.”

“You wantin' a white man, girl, you best be gettin' yo'self the real thing.”

Maylene jerked from Johnny B.'s hold. “One thing I do know is I ain't wantin' you!”

Johnny B. took hold of her again, rougher this time. The last thing I wanted to do was get in a fight with this fellow, but I figured I had to take up for Maylene; after all, she had been sitting with me. I stood. “The lady made it clear she's not interested in your company right now, so I think it's best you let go of her arm.”

The big fellow laughed. “Come on from behind that table, boy, and you jus' make me do that little thing!”

Johnny B.'s challenge was so loud that the music stopped. I came from behind the barrel to stand in front of Johnny B. The room grew quiet, and Mitchell took notice. “ 'Ey, Paul!” he called. “What's goin' on over there?”

“This here man been grabbin' on me!” hollered Maylene.

Mitchell pushed away from the bar. “That a fact?”

“And he won't let go!”

“Oh, I think he will,” said Mitchell.

“Now, you stay outa this, Mitchell!” warned Johnny B. “This here's between me and this white nigger!”

“And that there young lady,” Mitchell added, making his way over. “Seem like t' me, ya got a mighty tight hold on her arm there.”

“Seem like t' me,” said Johnny B., “ya buttin' into somethin' ya got no business.” He motioned slightly toward me with his head. “How comes ya wanna take his part anyways?”

“Well, ya see,” said Mitchell, when he stood directly in front of Johnny B., “we're brothers. Yeah, that's right. Not that it's any of yo' business, but his daddy and mine was different, anybody can see that. But we're brothers just the same. He come out white; I come out black. So what ya got t' say t' that?”

There was again, for a moment, silence at Miz Mary's.

Johnny B. broke it. “Well, he still ain't like he one of us!”

“That's sho' right!” one of the other loggers spoke up. “Set-tin' over there in that corner, too good t' socialize!”

I challenged the man. “Why'd you come here from the camp?” I asked.

The man seemed taken aback for a moment. “What's that?”

“I came here to get away from the camp after a week's work. Figure maybe you did the same.”

“Yeah,” said Johnny B. “But all you doin' is sittin' up there in that corner, all to yo'self!”

“No,” I said quietly. “I wasn't all to myself. Miss Maylene there was sitting with me, keeping me company.”

Maylene laughed at that, angering Johnny B. further, and he suddenly hauled off and slapped her so hard, she fell back against the barrel upon which I'd been writing. Mitchell grabbed Johnny B. and knocked him down. I helped Maylene up, then looked around just in time to see a man coming behind Mitchell with a broken bottle. I jumped the man and knocked the bottle from his grip. Mitchell turned at the commotion, but then had his hands full again as Johnny B. got up and lunged at him. The two of them then went at it. Another fellow came at me, but I held my own. Two more of the men from the camp jumped into the fray; the rest stayed out of it. Miz Mary herself broke it up. She fired off a shotgun. She ordered Mitchell and me out. Maylene went with us. The rest, Miz Mary said, had better stay put and not follow us if they wanted to set foot in her place again.

Once we were down the road, Mitchell went off with Maylene. I returned to the camp, but I didn't go directly to the sleeping quarters. Instead, I walked the wooded slopes. Even though I figured the shanty to be empty most of the night, I didn't want to be cooped up inside. I hurt from the fight and I moved slowly, but I needed to be in the open, where the chill of the night and the cleanliness of it could clear my head. After a while I sat upon a stump, breathed deep of the night air, and stared out at the clouds drifting across a full moon. I felt the cold beginning to shroud me, but I stayed where I was. I figured to stay there all night in the cold, if I had to. I had a lot of thinking to do.

 

Back when Mitchell and I had first left out of East Texas on that train, I had it in my mind that one day I'd go west. Mitchell didn't much care where he went, and when Miz Hattie Crenshaw, the woman who with her daughters had hidden us with their skirts on the train, offered us work and a place to stay, we took it. I figured we could save a little money while with them, then move on. But as it turned out, we ended up staying on at Miz Crenshaw's place near Laurel for almost two years. I trained Miz Crenshaw's horses, took care of them, and sometimes raced them, while Mitchell mainly did whatever needed doing around the place.

Now, I've got to admit that Miz Crenshaw was always fair by me, even though she had plenty of questions to ask. Mitchell and I, however, never told Miz Crenshaw or anybody else much about ourselves. We'd decided from the beginning to keep what was past to ourselves; we didn't want folks, including our daddies, coming after us. When we first started staying with the Crenshaws, they all seemed a bit curious about us, as they had a right to be, and Miz Creshaw was one of the most curious. Once, in fact, she said to me, “That gentleman you were working for, Paul, the one you came with to East Texas, were you with him long?”

I remember looking at Miz Crenshaw and wondering why she was asking me that. I replied to her, “I was born on his place.”

“He's the one responsible for having educated you?”

I answered her brusquely. “He saw to it.”

“That was mighty generous of him,” Miz Crenshaw observed. “Almost like a daddy.” She then studied me without speaking further, but I knew she sensed the connection between my daddy and me. After all, she'd seen us together, and except for the differences in our height, I greatly favored my daddy.

“Miz Crenshaw,” I said, deciding on a sudden to confide one thing to her, “you ever see him again, I mean like at a horse fair or anything, he can't know where I am. Mitchell either.”

Miz Crenshaw kept her eyes on me, then slowly nodded. “If that's what you want, Paul, you needn't worry. My girls and I won't say a thing.” That's all she said and she didn't ask me anything more about my daddy, not then or later.