Lucille and her father turned and limped across the street. They went right for the courthouse and ducked inside.

  I turned back to the pub. Shortie was just leaving with his mailbag. He had licked the stolen letter shut, and would be placing it on Larssen’s desk within the hour. I considered begging him not to post the letter. But he would say he did not have a choice. A letter was a letter. It had to be delivered.

  Soon all avenues of help would have to shut their doors to Jake and Me. The story was an old one. A man rounds up enough guns and ill will to chase the Negro of his (her) land. What rights did I have? Squat and none.

  They would say Jake had left Lucille Beck for me. Any judge would order Jake to stand by Lucille or face punishment. With Jake out of the way, what threat did I pose to Henley and his land-grabbing friends? None and lesser.

  Had Jake seen the truth of it so quickly?

  If I stayed there fussing I would go mad. The sudden injustice of it all rose like bile in my throat. Pushed around by weaklings and fools. Folks who had smiled in my father’s face and plotted behind his back. Minnie Sampson- Minnie Miller, Minnie McCoy, whoever the hell I was, was the last thing standing between Cal and Ada’s life’s work and the thirsty mob of thieves and liars.

  And damn it, I was going to defend it.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I felt that returning to the house would be putting a seal on the day. In a sense, giving up. The longer I stayed out haunting the town, the greater chance some opportunity would present itself. I would see some angle that could be worked. Some palm that could be greased.

  I sat outside the grocer’s for hours. Nothing came to me except nasty looks and stares.

  At last I turned and made off for home. I was surprised to see an old black woman coming up the path. The only place the path led was to our house. I did not recognize the woman.

  “Good evenin’ to you,” she said pleasantly.

  “Good evening.”

  She had a heavy basket on her hip. The tops of golden squash peeped out under the cloth that covered it. I introduced myself.

  “Minnie Sampson,” she said, turning my name over in her mouth like a sweet. “Yeah, I know who you are.”

  “And you?”

  “You can call me Gloria.”

  “You from around here?”

  “I live in the negro town.”

  “Where are you bringing those?”

  “To Shug. He said he had a taste for squashes.”

  “You know Shug?”

  “Everybody knows that old drunk,” said Gloria. “And everybody knows my squashes.”

  “I never heard of you,” I said.

  “Ain’t surprisin’,” said Mrs. Gloria. “I hear you a real fancy one.”

  “Folks say a lot of things.”

  “They say you about to be homeless.”

  I regarded Gloria differently. “Who says that?”

  “Folks.”

  We walked in silence. Then Gloria said: “I did your Mama a good turn once.”

  “What was that?”

  “Them whites were after her. Some months ago. She run off to the negro town and asked for shelter.”

  “You helped her?”

  “Of course I did. We all family, you know.”

  “What happened to Mama?”

  “Don’t know,” said Mrs. Gloria. “She left the next mornin’ with the horse.”

  Mrs. Gloria shifted the basket to her other hip, wincing. I offered to carry it.

  “No, thank you,” she said. “It’s worth the trouble. We all got to bear our own burdens.”

  “But if we didn’t help each other,” I said, thinking of Mama, “We’d get nowhere.”

  She laughed. “Well said. Then you can carry my basket, Minnie Sampson.”

  I took it from her. It was heavy. For a while we walked in silence. Me, thinking of the basket and Mama and Jake McCoy and growing up and the fact that I was about to get kicked off my own land and made homeless or killed. Mrs. Gloria, thinking of whatever she had been doing and whatever she would do by the end of the day that had nothing to do with me.

  We reached the border of the property. Mrs. Gloria walked ahead like she had known the place her whole life.

  “Shug!” she bawled. “Shug!”

  I set the basket down. After a while of no response, puttering from the barn and the shed, she returned, shrugging. “He ain’t here. The lazy dog.”

  “Probably getting drunk.”

  “Probably,” she agreed. She wiped a hand across her brow. “Thanks for your help.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Ask me to stay to dinner,” she said.

  “I would, but we’d be interrupted.”

  “By who?”

  “White folks comin’ to kick me out of here.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Most likely. I got a feelin’.”

  Mrs. Gloria sucked her teeth. “Well, why didn’t you say so? I wouldn’t have walked all this way.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Now I got to use the back road,” she said. “Adds an extra mile. Oh well. Life’s trials.”

  She turned to walk away.

  “Wait,” I said.

  “Hm?”

  “Can anyone help me?”

  “If they run you off, you can stay with me,” she said. “That’s the best I can do.”

  She looked sympathetic. “Sorry, Miss Minnie.”

  I watched her switch off. For a long time I sat on the porch. Looking out at Papa’s property. I supposed we still had a chance. If the Indian Joseph was right, then Mama and Papa were on their way back home anyhow. But what if they never made it?

  Tears choked me suddenly. I imagined Jake’s scowl, and pushed them away.

  The door to the house opened. It was Jake. He held Papa’s rifle, but the expression was purely his own. A look as savage as a meat-axe. He had a big pack slung across his shoulder.

  “Minnie,” he said, “Let’s be goin’.”

  “What?”

  “Get up. We’re leavin’.”

  I rose. Jake pulled his own pistol from its holster. He handed this to me. Then he set his own hat squarely on my head. He picked up the rifle again.

  “Where- what-”

  At Mrs. Gloria’s departure the sky had changed. The swollen clouds lurched forward from the West, the mass of them looking like a stampeding herd of horses. Shot through with colors, these horses; mixtures of purple and blue and gray they had picked up from their sea-journey.

  “I got a relative a night’s ride from here,” said Jake. “We’ll go stay with ‘em.”

  A relative? I frowned. As far as I knew, Jake had no relatives, no relations, within a hundred miles of Meadows.

  “You ain’t- aren’t- gonna stay?”

  “No,” said Jake. “Wait here. I’ll get the horse.”

  “What about the rain?”

  He eyed the sky. “We can outrun it.”

  I didn’t think so, but I waited. Jake prepared the saddle and slung the pack across it. He helped me up then vaulted up behind me.

  We made for the road. The cloud-horses grew excited now. The sky mottled like a bruise. Jake’s arm around my waist tightened protectively, holding me against his chest as if I would disappear. His heart beat steadily against my back. He was not afraid.

  We made it a mile.

  “Minnie, is that who I think it is?”

  I looked. Hurrying up the path, wobbling like a drunk duck, was Lucille Beck.

  “Jesus Christ.”

  We cantered towards her. Lucille had a hand clamped against her bonnet, the other clamped against her swollen belly, as if holding them both in place. The wind lashed her hair out of its braid and whipped her skirts behind her.

  She saw us. She plowed forward, determined.

  “Jake McCoy!” she shouted. “I come to see you.”

  Jake dismounted without a look at me.

  “What the hell are you doin’?” he howled, because the wind was howling now too.

  “I come to see you!”

  I sensed the approaching thunder and took the reins. I could hardly hear their conversation.

  “Papa’s suin’ you,” Lucille shouted.

  “I never touched you,” Jake raged. “You tell him that. You tell him it’s a stinkin’ lie and go on back home and leave me be.”

  “I can’t,” sobbed Lucille. “They’re comin’ here to make you pay.”

  Now, the rain. A drizzle, but determined as a knock on a door. The sky had come to collect. Jake threw a desperate glance at me. His face, lean and pale in the dying light, seemed haunted.

  Lucille’s tears bled down her face. She shivered, wrapperless, in her dress. Jake took off his coat and threw it around her. He would have given her his hat, but I was wearing it.

  “Who’s comin’?” he demanded.

  “Papa and Henley. Jake don’t let them kill you! Say you’ll be with me and they’ll go!”

  “I’m married,” said Jake. “I can’t help you, Lucille. Even if I wanted to.”

  “Papa’s coming. He’ll throw you both out.”

  I said: “So this is all about my land. They’re using Jake as an excuse.”

  Lucille’s tears spewed violently from her eyes. She really did look desperate. Jake, never the best with other people crying, showed his own struggle on his face.

  “I never touched you,” he repeated. “All we did was kiss. I know how it works. I didn’t put a child on you. I never would.”

  “Please,” sobbed Lucille. “He’ll kill me. He’ll kill me.”

  “I didn’t,” said Jake. “I’ll swear on God I didn’t touch you.”

  “It don’t matter,” said Lucille. “I got nowhere else to turn to.”

  “Go home and tell your Pa who the real father is.”

  “I can’t?”

  “Why?”

  “I just can’t!”

  She mopped her streaming eyes. “I can’t say. If Pa knew he’d kill the man.”

  I jumped at the truth before Jake did. It had to be a black man. No wonder Lucille was so desperate to get protection. Some kind of legal arrangement. No wonder she couldn’t come forward with the real father’s name. It would all come out soon enough, but until then...why not trap Jake McCoy into spinning a web of decency around the whole affair?

  My fingers turned numb around the reins. I could only look at Jake now. It was the first time I’d seen him scraped open and laid bare. For the first time his honest nature warred with his compassion. But only one could triumph.

  If he went with Lucille and claimed her child, he would be lying on himself. He would be breaking his promise to me. A promise he’d made before God.

  If he did not go with her, he would be leaving a bastard to be born into the world. To face ridicule. Prejudice. As he had.

  He must not go with her. He could not. He wouldn’t leave me like that.

  “Who is the man?” said Jake.

  Lucille only sobbed.

  “Who is he?”

  “Nobody!”

  I dismounted. A clap of thunder startled Jake’s horse. I held the reins firm, soothing it. But another clap came louder and closer, and the beast made a break for it, shieing up the road.

  Jake looked up at the sky. The rain was driving now in hard, slanting sheets. It shimmered down his face.

  “Alright,” he said. “Alright.”

  Lucille looked up through her lashes, hopeful. Jake turned to me. I read it in his eyes.

  “No,” I said. “No. No. Don’t you dare.”

  He ignored me. “Lu,” he said. “For the last time. Who’s the man? Tell me his name and I’ll make him speak up. I’ll make sure he does right by you.”

  “You can’t.”

  “I can. I promise I will.”

  Lucille drew a shuddering breath. She was summoning her nerve. Her eyes danced through the rain, greened into mine.

  “Cal Sampson,” she pronounced.

  Thunder. The darkness had swept over us, and in a few hours would be total. From skin to skirt the rain had soaked me, and its chill pierced my heart like a tooth of ice.

  “No,” said Jake. “You lying snake.”

  “That’s what I’ll say,” she said wildly. “I’ll say it was him, if you don’t marry me.”

  I took a step towards her. They say the inside of a shell sounds like the ocean. It is closer to the sound of hatred. A roaring, rushing, gushing sound. The sound of blood. My fists curled.

  “No one will believe you,” said Jake. “And I’m already married.”

  “I’ll say it was Cal Sampson,” she said. “Or I’ll say it was Shug.”

  “They’ll kill him,” snarled Jake.

  “I don’t care!” shouted Lucille. “I won’t raise a bastard! I won’t.”

  Jake wanted to strike her. I caught his arm, digging my nails into his shirt.

  “The baby’ll be cast out,” said Lucille. “No one will treat him right. Pa will disown me. I’ll have to go whore in town. I’ll have to leave.”

  “Come away,” I said. “She’s raving, Jake.”

  “I won’t,” she said, quietly this time, almost to herself. “I won’t do it. I’ll hang myself first.”

  The muscles in Jake’s arms relaxed. He twisted away from me.

  “If I go with you,” he said, “You tell your Pa to call the men off Minnie’s farm. You tell them it was all a misunderstanding.”

  “It’s too late,” said Lucille, her spiteful eyes flicking back to me.

  “Do it,” said Jake. “Or to hell with you and your bastard.”

  I stepped back from Jake, my heart falling to my knees. He looked at me quickly, then away.

  “You all leave Minnie and her land alone,” said Jake. “And then I’ll do what you say.”

  So it had come at last. His chance to desert me. And here he was, taking it by the hilt. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it.

  “Fine,” said Lucille quickly. “I’ll do it. You come with me now, and I’ll do it.”

  “It’s a trick,” I said. But no one cared.

  “I swear on God,” said Lucille, mopping her eyes. “And on my dead sister. I swear. If you say you’ll be the Pa...”

  Jake nodded. Slicked his soaking hair away from his forehead. He turned to me. His hand sought mine. I snatched it away. He would never touch me again.

  “Minnie,” he said.

  “No.”

  “Minnie, you know this ain’t my-”

  “Choice?” I said, a brittle laugh escaping.

  His eyes were very bright. But not brighter than Lucille’s.

  “You always say I can never make up my mind,” I said calmly. “You say I can’t stand up for myself. But I’ll decide this right now, Jake McCoy.”

  “Minnie, don’t,” he said. The words seemed to strangle him.

  I sounded incoherent to my own ears. What did it matter? As long as he heard the words. As long as he knew I meant them.

  “You’ll never set foot on my land again,” I said. “You’ll never touch me again. I don’t want to see you around here as long as I live.”

  “For you!” he shouted, stepping towards me, flinging the answer to some question I had not asked. “What else is it for?”

  I turned and fled back up the path. Away from Jake’s rage, from the triumphant Lucille, from the storm that chased me. Perhaps I could keep running and reach some kind of ocean. I already knew what it felt like to drown.

  The rain filled the gulches and gullies of the road. It spilled brown water over the ditches and sent new rivers, leaping on themselves, over the hill. Insects fled their holes. Worms writhed and drowned in the pulpy earth. Trees groaned from the pressure of the wind, their spines stretched taut to breaking, sweeping the ground with their barren branches. Lightning cracked open the sky and let out thunder. Like a cup, the valley of Meadows ranneth over.