The Land (36 page)

“I did,” I said.

“'Spect you must be thinkin' all I do is go round hittin' on folks.”

I shrugged. “Not my business.” I started to walk on.

“She done said things . . . things 'bout Mitchell.” I stopped and gave her my attention. “I don't 'low nobody t' be sayin' things 'gainst folks I care 'bout, they be true or not.”

“You figure what she said was true?”

Caroline's jaw hardened. “Woman was talkin' 'bout Mitchell's wild ways 'fore we got married. Said she heard it from Mister Tom Bee.” I nodded, and Caroline softened. “I know Mitchell been with women 'fore me, but he ain't with nobody but me now, and that's the truth.”

Again I nodded.

“That Minnie, she talked one time too many outa turn when she said he was out tommin' round on me, 'cause I know different, and even if I ain't, I ain't gonna have her runnin' up here t' me with her tongue.”

“Well, I guess you won't have to worry about that again.”

Caroline smiled. “I always done had me a temper. Took after my mama, and she always gettin' after me 'bout it. I gotta ask the Lord t' help me 'bout that.” She looked a bit contrite.

I smiled as well. “That might be a good idea. I just hope you don't ever get mad at me.”

“Jus' stay on my good side,” she warned with a grin, “and you got nothin' t' worry 'bout.”

I laughed and Caroline went back to her hoeing.

 

Despite having a temper when crossed, Caroline was good for Mitchell. I could see that. She kept him in check, and with her will for work she sometimes seemed to press him to do a little more than he was willing. More than once I heard her after him about one thing or another concerning the forty, and the thing she most worried him about was planting a crop. “What I wanna know,” she said one dawn as we finished our breakfast, “is when we gonna get this land plowed and planted. Good day for it today.”

“Well, right now,” said Mitchell, “you ain't noticed, we kinda busy choppin' trees.”

“I know that!” said Caroline. “But I thought you and Paul-Edward said you was goin' t' do some plantin' on them acres you done already cleared. We could pull up some of them stumps and have ourselves a nice little field.”

“We're figurin' on that,” said Mitchell. “But we talkin' 'bout next spring. Right now I'm figurin' we got more tree clearin' t' do 'fore we can get to the plantin'.”

“Wait too long,” said the all-knowing, farm-wise Caroline, “we gonna be too late to plant anything.”

“Well, woman, what you gonna plant? It's here late summer already.”

Caroline was ready with an answer. “Can get us in some collards and spinach and cabbage. Maybe some sugar peas too. I got seed from home. Can get them harvested 'fore real cold weather set in and I can take 'em t' the market in Strawberry t' sell.”

“Won't have time for plantin' or harvestin',” objected Mitchell. “We got trees to cut.”

“Could be, Mitchell,” I interjected, “maybe we can do both.”

Mitchell turned to me. “How you mean?”

“Maybe we can split the work. You and I, we can still be cutting the trees, and Caroline can work the fields and Nathan can help her out sometimes. Maybe we can even get Tom Bee back to work with us a couple of days a week.”

Mitchell questioned me on that. “You ready to let go more hard money for another hand?”

“Did it once before,” I said. “Maybe it's time I did again.”

“Ready to let go for a plow too?”

I nodded. “I've already set aside for that. Could be we'll make a little money from the vegetables. In any case, it won't hurt to break the ground early. It'll make it easier for spring planting.”

“Good then,” said Caroline. “We can get started.”

Mitchell gazed quizzically at her. “Can you handle a plow?”

Caroline laughed. “Sugar, seem like I been plowin' and hoein' since I could walk, so I ain't hardly 'fraid of no plow.”

Mitchell too laughed as he looked at her. “Baby, you ain't hardly 'fraid of nothin'!”

Caroline got her fields. I've got to admit, though, she and Nathan didn't do all the plowing. They didn't do all the stump-pulling either. Mitchell and I took turns helping with that. But she and Nathan did all the planting, and when the vegetables began to grow, they took care of the weeding too. Yet with all that and the household chores Caroline had taken upon herself, she still found time to help in hacking off branches and burning the brush.

I hired back Tom Bee for a few days each week during that late summer and early fall as we settled into what would become our life on the forty. Things looked good for us, and I gave no worry to getting the rest of the trees felled. We worked hard as always, chopping the trees and now even pulling up more of the stumps, but with more than twenty acres cleared and part of it ready for plowing, I knew that by the next fall, the acreage would be ours. We took time for a bit more leisure.

Caroline, who believed in keeping the Sabbath, refused to work on that day, outside of making sure the animals were fed and we were too. There was no colored church building close by, but folks met down by the Creek Rosa Lee for church services about twice a month, and Caroline always went to join in. Sometimes she even got Mitchell to go with her and saw to it that Nathan did as well. But I never did. On those days I took the time to do my woodworking or write to Cassie. My not going to church, however, didn't keep a little bit of church from coming to me. Caroline brought it to the forty when several of her new acquaintances, young women about her age, came to join Caroline in Bible reading on the Sundays when there was no service at the Rosa Lee. One of the young women was a Miss Etta Greene. She was pretty, kind of quiet, and seemed to take a liking to me, and with Caroline's urgings, I saw her home several times from those meetings, and even upon occasion went to call on her. Mitchell teased me that it looked like it wouldn't be long before I too would be hitched. “Yeah,” he said, “Miss Etta got wedding plans for you, boy!”

Nathan laughed and I smiled as we sat around the night fire at the end of the day when the brush had been burned. Caroline, sitting close to Mitchell, pushed him gently in reproach. “Now, you stop that, Mitchell! What's between Etta and Paul-Edward is they business.”

Mitchell turned and stared at her. “They business? Who been puttin' 'em t'gether?”

“All I done was introduce 'em t' one 'nother. They becomin' friends was they idea.”

“Um-hum,” murmured Mitchell with a grin. “Paul, ya might's well start plannin' on it now. Caroline ain't gonna be satisfied 'til she got another woman on this place.”

Caroline cut her eyes at Mitchell, and I said, “Well, I'm afraid that's going to be a while yet. I've got some more things I want to get done before I go commit to marrying somebody.”

“So you saying Miss Etta ain't the one, huh?” questioned Mitchell.

“Well, she's nice enough,” I hedged.

“But she ain't the one! 'Cause if she was the one, you couldn't hardly wait t' get hitched, plans or no plans. Jus' look at me. Here I was thinkin' I'd go t' my grave single and free, and here comes Miz Caroline into my life and changes all that right quick.” Mitchell turned to her. “Gone and changed that forever.”

Caroline smiled at Mitchell and slipped her arm around his.

“Thing that gets me, though, Paul,” Mitchell said, turning back to me, “is you was the one talkin' marriage long 'fore me. I was the one declarin' I wasn't never gonna marry, but you was sayin' it was time you got yo'self a family. Now, here I am married for life and here ya puttin' it off.”

“You leave him be,” ordered Caroline. “He ain't ready t' get married, then don't be pushin' him 'bout it.”

“But he the one—”

“Leave him be!”

“Thank you, Caroline,” I said.

“You welcome,” she said.

“Well, ain't this somethin'!” cried Mitchell. “You two done joined up against me! My wife and my friend!”

Caroline, Nathan, and I laughed. So did Mitchell.

“What I'd like t' know,” said Caroline, nudging closer to Mitchell, “is how the two of y'all come t' be such good friends in the first place.”

“Didn't he tell you?” I asked.

Caroline made a guttural sound feigning exasperation with her new husband. “This man, he don't tell me nothin'!”

“Now, woman, you know that ain't true,” denied Mitchell. “Thing is, this here wife of mine just after me all the time t' tell her everythin' from the moment I was born, and I keep tellin' her I ain't keepin' track of things like her.”

“Gotta keep track, I keep tellin' you,” said Caroline in a business kind of way before she smiled her love at Mitchell. “How we gonna pass things on t' our children, we don't keep track? I wanna know everything.”

“That's sure the truth,” grumbled Mitchell.

Caroline playfully slapped at his shoulder, then looked back at me. “So, how'd it come 'bout? You and Mitchell 'comin' friends?”

I waved any response off to Mitchell. “So, what did you tell her?”

Mitchell shrugged. “Told her I was born on yo' daddy's land.”

“That's all? You tell her about who my daddy was?”

“What else I need to tell? Caroline's a smart woman. One look at you and she done figured out who your daddy was.”

“Well, Paul-Edward, he already done told me that,” interjected Caroline. “But what I'm wantin' t' know is how y'all came t' be so close. Mitchell ain't said, so, Paul-Edward, you tell me.”

Caroline's eyes pierced mine across the fire. I glanced at Mitchell, and he shrugged as if resigned to his bride's demands. I smiled. “He beat me into a friendship with him.”

“What!” exclaimed Caroline.

I grinned. “Well, see the way it was, when we were boys, Mitchell there was always beating up on me—”

“How come?”

“Jus' ain't liked him, that's all,” said Mitchell.

“Told me,” I said, “'cause he wanted to.”

Caroline cast a disapproving eye on Mitchell, and Mitchell threw the look over to me. “Watch it, Paul.”

I laughed. “It's the truth!” I vowed. “Mitchell was always picking on me, and he knows that's the truth! One time he just up and hit me on the head, and when I asked him why he did it, he said right out without cracking a smile, ‘Felt like it.' ”

Caroline turned abruptly to Mitchell with a hand on her hip, as if to chastise him. “You mean t' tell me you done that? You was that kinda youngun?”

“Paul doin' the talkin',” said Mitchell, straight-faced. “Let him tell it.”

“Not talkin' t' Paul-Edward now. I'm talkin' t' you.”

“Then I guess I done that,” he admitted with a laugh. “I s'pose I was kinda mean.”

“Kind of?” I retorted. “You had me scared to death of you! I had to even go to my daddy and my brothers about you!”

“Yeah . . . but I whipped ya still.”

“Yeah, you sure did.”

“Them brothers of yours, though, I had t' think on them 'fore I done it.”

“Did?”

“Yeah. That Hammond, I liked him pretty well, and Robert, I could take him or leave him. He ain't done nothin' t' me. But that George, I was kinda scairt of him.”

“You were?” I asked, somewhat surprised.

“Yeah. Respected him too. Kinda would've liked t' gone head t' head with him.”

I smiled, thinking of the match.

“So how y'all get t' be friends?” Caroline asked again.

“We made ourselves a deal,” I replied.

“And jus' what was that?”

“I said I'd teach Mitchell to read and write, and Mitchell agreed to teach me how to fight.”

Caroline nodded. “Good deal for both of ya, then, huh?” “Course now, I got the better of it,” said Mitchell. “I learned how to read and write, but Paul there, he still can't fight.” We all laughed, and then Mitchell added, “Ah, he do all right sometimes, I s'pose. I gotta admit he done helped me outa more'n one scrape, startin' back from that time he saved my hide when I gone and rode Ghost Wind.”

“Ghost Wind?” questioned Nathan, taking an interest.

“Yeah. That was a stallion Paul's daddy had. Done bought him special jus' for racin', and that man, he was sure proud of that horse!”

“That's the truth,” I agreed.

“My daddy, he was the one s'posed t' take care of that stallion, brush him down, take care of his ailments, stuff like that, but nobody was 'lowed t' ride that horse 'ceptin' Paul's daddy and Paul. Well, I was 'bout thirteen at the time, and that didn't sit well wit' me. Fact t' business, I kinda resented the fact Paul got t' ride that horse and I let my feelings be known t' him too. So Paul, one day when his daddy wasn't round, he up and let me ride Ghost Wind. Now, up to this time I ain't rode nothin' but a mule, let 'lone no creature had the speed in him like that Ghost Wind. I got on that horse's back, and that horse knowed I ain't had no business whatsoever sittin' up on him! That horse looked back at me one time, then took off—WHAM!” Mitchell shot his hands together, then extended one arm straight ahead. “I'm tellin' y'all, I thought I was gonna die!”

We were all laughing now.

“Well, that sure made two of us,” I said.