proceeds would be transferred to me, so as to assure my provision. The solicitor was to dispense with the legal matter immediately and if possible cause Lyle to return to Jefferson, that our papa might take him in hand. In his letter, Papa spoke with great concern of Lyle’s rash behavior and the company he had been keeping of late.”
I get a shiver, a bad feel. “Did your money come? Or word from Old Gossett that he’d got a hand on his son?”
“No further word arrived from Papa’s solicitor, a Mr. Washburn, or from Papa. Papa’s agent in New Orleans now puts forth that the letter in my mother’s possession is invalid and perhaps fraudulent, and until corroborating documents or Papa might be found, nothing more will be proceeded with.”
“It was that Mr. Washburn Missy was taking you to see in the building at the river landing, ain’t that so?” I try to line it all up in my mind, but with Lyle’s name in it, there’s no good way. “You remembering any more about that, yet?” Every time I ask her that, she just shakes her head.
She does that same thing again, but a little quake goes ’cross her shoulders, and her eyes skitter away. She’s remembering more than she wants to say. “I believe Lavinia knows no more of Mr. Washburn than I, and that the man has remained the entire time in Texas, even as she claimed he would be present to speak with us at the river landing.” Her eyes go cold and turn Missy’s way. “She bandied his name so as to lure me to the place and to have me waylaid there, but her arrangements went awry, and she was betrayed, as well.”
My stomach turns over. Would Missy do such a thing to her own half sister? Her blood kin?
Juneau Jane goes back to chopping hair. Scraps of afternoon sunshine flick off the knife blade and skim the tree roots and the moss and the palmetto leaves. “I will ask in Jefferson Port of Papa and pay a call to the office of Mr. Washburn and then discern what I must do next. I pray that Mr. Washburn be found an honest man, unaware that Lavinia had bandied his name. I pray also that I find Papa, and he is well.”
That girl hadn’t got the first idea what she’s saying, I tell myself and stand up. Best to quit talking, now. Need to move along. Still a few hours left before dark.
Don’t know why I stop or why I turn round. “So, how you plan on getting to Texas?” Don’t know why I say that, either. “You got money? Because I learned my lesson about stealing away on them boats. They’ll drown you for that.”
“I have the gray horse.”
“You’d sell your horse?” She loves that horse and it loves her.
“If I must. For Papa.” She chokes on the last words, then swallows hard and stiffens up her mouth.
Comes to me then that, of the three children, this is the only one that maybe loves Old Gossett, instead of just looking to gain from the man.
We go quiet awhile. I feel my blood rushing through the muscles and flesh, hear it beat in my ears, wanting to be heard. Calling out.
“I think I might just take myself to Texas.” The words come in my own voice, but I don’t know who spoke them. One more sharecrop season, Hannie. One. And that patch of ground at Goswood is yours. Yours and Tati’s and Jason’s and John’s. You can’t leave them like this, shorthanded with a crop to make. Nobody to help with the sewing and the knitting for extra money. How they gonna pay the note?
But I think of the squares on the paper. Mama. My people.
Juneau Jane stops cutting and runs the blade along her palm, not hard enough to draw blood, but it marks her. “Perhaps…we might make the journey together.”
I nod and she nods. We sit that way, tangled in the idea.
Missy Lavinia lets out a big ol’ snort. I glance her way, and she’s slumped over in the soft, wet