“Will it be fair? You tell me now, ’cause if it ain’t, I’d rather cut this boy at the knees and force him off your land than work a day for so little we won’t ever make it gone from here.”
“Within reason. The same I’d pay any other man for the same job.”
“A white man?”
“I’ve never cheated a man,” George bristled, “color be damned.”
There was no shake, or any further acknowledgment of the conversation. Prentiss collected both plates, stood, and handed them to George.
“I’ll take the cost of the eggs out of your first installment,” George said. “Only right, I imagine.” When Prentiss cocked his head, as if these were the words of a different tongue, George reassured him that it was a joke, a little one, something to conclude their bargain.
Prentiss said nothing and his features did not soften.
“I didn’t mean anything by it,” George tried again.
“Good night, then,” Prentiss finally said.
“Boys,” he said.
He watched them off, Landry’s size shrouding Prentiss as they disappeared into the dark.
“Now you’re following me, after all that nonsense,” he heard Prentiss say. “Waddling on like an overstuffed hen.”
It was late for George. The upstairs was unlit, the drapes closed, the house silent. He decided to sleep on the armchair again, knowing that the activity of the night, of the last few days, would keep him wide-awake, and that he’d rise early, ready to act on everything that now occupied his thinking. It seemed only wise to leave Isabelle undisturbed, and with the freedom to roam her portion of the house however she saw fit.
CHAPTER 7
George wasn’t the first in the house to rise the following morning—it was Isabelle’s voice that startled him awake. The fire had died. The room was awash in sunshine.
“George. You have visitors.”
He followed Isabelle out to the porch. Prentiss and Landry stood before the house, each holding a bundle of their belongings. Until now he had seen them only in the shadows of the trees or the darkness of the night. In the early light there was a magnification of all they’d endured, the hollow of their cheeks, the splintered cracks of their lips, the shirts so thin they might crumble like burnt toast if given a rub.
“That is the one,” Isabelle said to him, as if they might not hear. “The one I spoke of at the clothesline.”
“My apologies for my brother,” Prentiss said. “He ain’t never been much of a wanderer but he’s taken an interest in your property. I know he wasn’t meaning to scare you or steal a thing, just got a little curious.”
Isabelle turned to George. There was a luster still about her from her morning rituals, her hair combed to a full sheen, her cheeks plumped and colored by the application of a hot rag. Still, George recognized her irritation in the prim pursing of her lips, perhaps an impression on her part that on the heels of his withholding the news of Caleb, there was yet another secret he was only now getting around to sharing with her.
“I can explain this,” he said. “It’s not at all bad. I have a project in mind.”
“George,” she said flatly.
She went inside and George motioned for the brothers to wait a moment, then chased after her.
Coffee was already brewing. He poured himself a cup and joined her at the dining room table.
“I want to have something, Isabelle. I’ve been made to feel so helpless, at such a loss. I don’t want to lose this land, too. What we’ve been through has changed me. Not all of me, but a part. Just as it’s changed you. And those boys, well, they’re fresh off Mr. Morton’s land, and eager for a change, too. To make a respectable wage doing what they know in the manner of any other men.”
She sipped her coffee and appeared to be deep in thought as she gazed out the window.
“I want to use this land for what it’s intended for,” he said. “I want to plant, and toil. Do something tangible, something…real. I want this land to be my legacy, just like it was for my father. Tell me that is okay. If you could say that little bit, it would mean everything.”
Only at that moment did she deign to look in his direction.
“How is this different from anything else? You’ll do as you will, and I will do as I will, and we will tolerate whatever comes of it.”
He had, a moment ago, felt himself grow tall as he’d shared his feelings, but a part of him was punctured under the weight of her coldness, and he immediately resumed his usual mode of being—one of slouched withdrawal.