“George!” Ted proclaimed. “I believe you have some explaining to do.”
He looked at Prentiss and Landry, then back at George.
“What is this about?” George said.
“You ain’t earned the right to play dumb, George.”
There was another stroke of silence and this was to be the last indignity Ted could weather.
“You quit it now. We both know these boys are my property!”
The proclamation was loud enough to cause a scurrying in the woods at the edge of the field.
“Deceiving me right under my nose. Not more than a few miles from my own home, from where I raised these boys from the cradle. We might not get along but you’re better than this. My God, do you know these two stole from me? Not just these two, all of them. The kettles and linens and every other damn thing I provided them. Whole stock rooms gone overnight.”
The brothers averted their eyes and George stepped forward.
“Settle down, Ted.”
“I won’t!”
He was red from his outburst and huffing as though he’d been struck and was trying to hold back tears.
“Your charity ain’t no different from mine. I treated them best I knew how. You could talk your way up the Mississippi with that tongue of yours but that don’t make you better than the rest of us. What little I have I made on my own, and you swoop in and take what’s mine just like your pa swooped in and took whatever he liked around this whole damn town. This is my livelihood we’re talking about. I might not be up to your standard, but I’m good people. So’s Gail.”
George, leaning his belly against the handle of his hoe, looked worn under the gaze of the sun, but still tranquil.
“These are men, not boys. And they are their own men. If you were to ask them to come back, I would not stand in their way.”
Ted wiped the spittle from his mouth. He appeared pained to face Prentiss and Landry, and at first could only point a finger in their direction. Finally he turned and met their eyes with his own.
“I put a roof over y’all heads. Fed you, clothed you. It’s just shameful, how you done carried on.”
Landry, shoulders above the others, yawned, unmoved.
The field was silent.
“Bones,” Prentiss said. “You fed us bones. And the roof leaked every rain. We might as well have slept outside. And ain’t a soul on that land raised in a cradle, except your kin. My mama raised me in her hands. Same as Landry.”
Ted looked at George, then Caleb, as if expecting them to punish Prentiss for this outburst, this insolence. There was something unbound in him, Isabelle thought, the anguish of someone spurned.
“Why don’t we save it for another day?” Gail said. “They ain’t going nowhere.”
“Yes, listen to Mr. Cooley,” Isabelle said with a careful tenderness, thinking, perhaps, that a woman’s softness, however false, could stamp out his anger. “This is nothing that can’t be dealt with in the future. No one needs to be hurt today. You wouldn’t want me to witness something like that, would you?”
Ted’s nostrils flared like a spent animal’s might. He whirled and mounted his horse. Gail did likewise.
“Since we’re being honest,” Ted said to George, “you should know this is all wrong. I ain’t a peanut farmer but even I know you want to plant in a bed raised at least double what you got here, not down near the furrow. If I was to take a guess, your seed won’t make a thing.”
George poked at the ground with his foot.
“Well, that’s appreciated. But Ted, and don’t take this the wrong way, I’d appreciate it even more if you did not return unannounced like this. It’s not neighborly.”
There was a thundering taking place in Ted, and Isabelle was surprised he did not break into pieces right before their eyes. He managed to steady himself.
“Y’all be well,” he said.
They shot off at a gallop and left great clods of soil upturned in their wake. A dust cloud gathered and slowly settled back to the ground.
When they were gone, George turned to Prentiss, his tone light.
“Is that true? I never would’ve thought of such a thing. To raise the beds.”
Prentiss was still watching the men off. He could not muster a response.
“They’ll come back,” Caleb said.
“We cannot mind Ted,” George said dismissively. “I’ve long speculated he suffers from some aberration of the brain and this only proves the point. Waving his arms about like he’s leading an orchestra. It really does not suit him to get so riled up.”