Belle looked down in the hole at Elgin, arms crossed and the kerchief over his face. She turned to Bristol and said, I think you ought to say some words.
—You knew him since he was a baby, Bristol said. You should say something in his favor.
—Not my place.
Bristol turned to Burton, and Burton lifted his shoulders a fraction. V looked Bristol in the eye and gripped his wrist a second and nodded yes.
Bristol stepped up to the hole and said, I didn’t have one thing against you, Elgin. All we wanted was to get out of the rain. We didn’t know this place was anything but a burnt plantation. We shared our food. I’d made it through my part of the war without killing or getting killed. And then you shot Ry for no reason but ignorant pride. I’ll never forgive you, and I’ll try every day to forget you. But I probably won’t be able to. You don’t deserve to be remembered one minute past right now. I’m done talking, and if anybody here wants to argue, this is the time.
Belle’s people looked at each other, and then Belle said, I wish you’d finish by saying those words you said last night.
—New world coming? Burton said.
—Yes, Belle said. That’ll do.
The freed slaves turned and walked back toward the burned plantation house.
Delrey left the horses and walked over to the graves and removed his hat. Ryland rested chalky in the bottom of his hole. Bristol climbed down and X-ed Ryland’s forearms over his chest and heaped clean-smelling pine boughs to cover him.
When Bristol finished all the tasks except the shoveling, V said, Do you want to say something?
Bristol said, Ry’s gone. And what he’d want would be for me to tell a joke. But I don’t know anything funny enough right now.
Bristol patted palm to chest three times and started shoveling. When he had a mound of red Georgia clay he pitched the shovel away and walked to the horses and wagons. V walked with him. She said, Did you mean that? About worrying you’ll remember that boy forever?
Bristol said, I won’t even know whether I meant it for a long time. But right now I’m more afraid your children will dream all their lives about the killings. Pictures of me with a gun in my hand triggering the last shot.
V touched his shoulder and said, They’re so young. I’ll shape their memories so last night won’t be anything but thunder and lightning and a warm place in a nest of quilts by the fire.
The fugitives headed on down the road toward Terra Florida, escaping to its wildness and freedom. Ryland’s mule trailed on a hemp line from the back of the wagon, trotting easy without a burden.
* * *
James watches the landscape flow across the railcar window, left to right. A sprinkle of rain beads on the glass and deepens the greens of grass and leaves.
He looks over his notes from the day, and at the end he writes,
I don’t even know whether past feelings and memories deserve any respect at all. Maybe they’re no more important than a pinch of pain from an injury decades old. Feelings and memories rise and pass every day, like the weather. Only important at the moment. Why not just notice them and let them go?
Fifth Sunday
Saratoga Springs
—I HAVE QUESTIONS TOO, V SAYS. SUCH AS, WHERE DID YOU go after Miss Botume? You were with her . . . what? A year? Two years? What happens after this?
She turns to the end of the chapter called “Jimmie” in the blue book and reads, Finally the little boy drifted into Auntie Gwynne’s Home. This noble woman placed him where he was well trained in all ways, having the advantage of school, as well as a good practical education, until he was old enough to support himself.
—Drifted? V says. Like a tiny hobo carrying his bindle on a stick over his shoulder?
—I doubt it.
—So how was it? She dropped you off at an orphanage and said, So long? Or just found someone already going that direction to give you a ride? I don’t imagine she was under arrest by the Federal government at the time she let you go. Or had a gun to her head.
James waits a moment for her to settle. He draws a couple of breaths and then tells V he hardly remembers Auntie Gwynne’s orphanage, having been there only briefly. Before he found Miss Botume’s book, he couldn’t even recall the name of the place. For two years previous to arriving there, his world had changed radically month by month. Places and people blur. That orphanage rests in his mind as one picture—a room filled with lots of white children. That’s all.
But he does remember that soon he went to Thompson Island Farm School, a mile out in Boston Harbor. Wealthy people—particularly Universalists and Unitarians—paid for it as a way of making the world a little better. Not all the boys were orphans, so some went home for holidays. The school aimed to help those who needed help, but the boys had to be smart and promising and willing. The main building, a big white house, sat on an open hill looking over the water. They could see the city from the third-floor windows, but it felt like looking at the moon through a telescope—interesting to observe, but not your world. His world was the island, and most of his memories begin there.
He took classes in literature, mathematics, geography, history, logic, and science. And along with studying, all the boys worked for the good of their little community. The younger boys had jobs around the big house, so James started out helping in the kitchen and in the garden. Even now, he
