Sudie May said, “Ain’t nobody around here doing it much no more. Ain’t hardly any of them trees left except what we got, far’s I know. You’d not have any problem selling the gum, I wouldn’t think.”
Del said, “I’d like to try. It’s true. Them trees are near about gone everywhere. I’m glad we got what we got. I thought I’d check on what Granddaddy and Pap planted.”
Rae Lynn was pouring hot coffee in her saucer, and he had a thought that she could come along. He could ask her about herself, maybe find out what it was about North Carolina that put her in such a mood. Sudie May perched on the edge of her chair, birdlike, eyeballing him, and giving him the same look she used to give him when she knew something. Her attention flitted between him and Rae Lynn, and she wisely tilted her chin up. He could hear her in his head, Ah. I see how it is. There was time. No need to seem too eager. He sipped from his cup and burned his mouth. Ignoring his sister, he poured some in his own saucer to let it cool.
Amos said, “If you think them trees is ready, I know somebody who makes barrels. He’s got plenty and can make more. Plus, there’s the steamboat that comes upriver, and it could take your gum to Wilmington.”
Del said, “Where’s the closest landing?”
Amos said, “There’s one down to Rockfish.”
He said, “It’d not be too bad getting it there. I could haul it in a day. I’d like to do some burning first, clear out the underbrush. I reckon I could go back and use the old box method, but I’d rather do like what they done down in the camp we was working at.”
Amos said, “I seen it. Them newfangled clay cups and tin gutters. Ingenious idea.”
Del said, “Sure was. This feller, a troublemaker really, he suggested it at the camp we was at down in Georgia. I swear he loved them trees more’n himself maybe.”
Amos said, “I knew a feller like’at. Hey, use my truck today if you want.”
Del said, “Thankee kindly, but I think I’ll walk, see how it all looks from on foot.”
He rose from his chair, and hugged his sister like they used to do their mother each morning.
Sudie May squeezed him in return and said, “I ain’t gonna cry, but I am gonna tell you every chance I get how happy I am you come home.”
He tugged her hair, and with a nod to the rest of them, he went out the backdoor and stared at the land of his boyhood for a good long minute. God, how he’d missed being here, and hadn’t even known how bad till now. It set his heart on fire, and made him want to run across the yard like he used to when he was a kid, ready to explore the countryside. He went to the wild roses growing along the fence, picked a few, and noticed how the woods beyond appeared more dense and overgrown than he remembered. There was the old barn, and off in the distance, the tobacco barns. Eager to see how the land had changed since he’d last been here, he set off, entering the woods by way of a familiar, yet overgrown trail, almost hidden from his view. Nostalgic, he got to thinking about the times he’d gone with his granddaddy and his pap to check on the longleaf, how they’d dreamed their dreams of what might be one day.
Their long-ago voices accompanied him as he came to familiar bends and turns, and he recalled how they’d said these trees would outlast them all. He stared up, and up, until he got a crick in his neck. They’d done well. They stood tall and graceful, with a beautiful evergreen plume at their tops. They bent and swayed in the wind, and as the breeze brushed over the needles, they produced a murmuring sound as if whispering a welcome home. Next, he came to the creek where he and Sudie May used to plunge their bare feet into the cool water on a hot summer day. Finally, after some time, and when he’d seen all he wanted, he retraced his steps and made his way toward the family graveyard. Through the trees, he could see the roof of the house. His parents had been buried side by side, no different from how they’d lived their lives together. He laid the blooms across the top of the gravestone, took off his hat, and bowed his head. He expressed his sorrow for not having been there for them at the end, told them he loved them and hoped they’d known that.
When he was done, he thought back on how they’d been with each other. Pap hadn’t been the easiest man to love because Mother said he was hardheaded. Funny, ’cause Pap said the same of her. He reckoned he’d come by some of it himself. What they’d had was what he wanted. Someone by his side, who loved him despite himself. He wanted stability, to know how each day would end, and to share it with one person. He hadn’t been sure of this until Rae Lynn Cobb. The biggest question about his future rested on her, and she didn’t even know it.
Back at the house, he spotted the women in the garden, along with Norma and Joey, doing their share of picking. The area of the garden they worked had tomatoes, squash, and okra. The chickens strutted along the edge, following where they went, waiting on someone to toss them a scrap. Here and there, the ground was littered with the vegetables unfit to eat, and when someone would lob a tomato or squash, they’d flap their wings enthusiastically, making a run for it.
Sudie May waved and called out to him. “We’re about to finish up.”
Cornelia waved too, and bent back down to her work. Rae Lynn was a row apart from everyone. She hadn’t bothered looking up, even when Sudie May spoke. His sister approached, wiping off her face with the back of her hand, and it struck him how much she resembled their mother, having matured and changed since the last time he’d seen her. Her face, arms, and lower legs were tanned brown. She had the same light-colored blue eyes he did, a trait of Pap’s, but she had their mother’s hair, dark brown with red highlights. She still had a sprinkling of freckles across her nose same as when she’d been a girl.
Some part of his earlier daydreams about the future went a little haywire when she said, “Who is this Rae Lynn Cobb?”
His attention turned back to the two women working in the garden, and he admitted, “I ain’t real sure.”
“You can’t hardly get two to three words outta her. I asked her about her family; she said she was raised in an orphanage. I asked her how she’d come to work at the camp, and she got this real peculiar look on her face. Then Cornelia cut in and asked me some silly question, and it was obvious she was trying to change the subject. Rae Lynn’s been working off by herself ever since.”
Del said, “She’s got a hell of a story, least the parts I know. She come to Swallow Hill pretending to be a man.”
Sudie May said, “She did?”
“Yep, that’s why her hair is short, though it was a lot shorter’n at when I first met her. She wore men’s clothes. Said her name was Ray Cobb. Everyone there could tell something won’t right, and for a while, we thought she was some runaway boy.”
“Well, I’ll be.”
“Yep, she worked alongside the men, stayed in the single men’s quarters. It won’t until this hateful son of a bitch, feller by the name of Crow, put her in the sweat box when she couldn’t make count that we found out she was a woman. She was in the thing for three days. Liked to have died. Cornelia nursed her back to health. They’s close. I suspect Cornelia probably knows her story. Anyway, we left the camp after the bastard, Crow, tried to dump tar on her. He missed and got Cornelia instead. That’s why her hair’s cut off like it is.”
“What on earth for?”
“Cornelia’s husband, Otis, said Rae Lynn kissed her. Said he caught’em.”
Sudie May shot a surprised look at Rae Lynn, then her eyes came back to him. “Do you believe him?”
“I believe he saw kissing, but as to who instigated it?” He shrugged.
Sudie May said, “I reckon she’s got her reasons for doing what she done, the disguise and all. A woman doing such sounds desperate.”
Rae Lynn and Cornelia were now working side by side, each in a separate row still, but close enough to talk, and he could tell they were.