I decided I couldn’t leave Pa there until he’d cooled down, so I went out to the barn, which they hadn’t burned, got a rope, and lassoed Pa’s body and dragged it out of the ruins of our shack. I hauled him to a place beneath an old oak, got a shovel out of the barn, and buried him, his body still smoking. I didn’t make a cross or heap up stones, cause I didn’t want to let on where he was buried, in case the vengeful bastards might take it out on his remains. I scraped the ground good and dragged some leaves over it with the shovel, so unless someone was looking for the grave it wouldn’t be easy to find.

Finishing up, I was considering if I could get away with sleeping in the barn when I seen outlined in the moonlight four men on horseback coming out of the pines along the draw at the back of the property. They was heading in the direction of the cabin.

Carrying the shovel and my bag with the pistol in it, the rope coiled and looped over my shoulder, I eased into the woods, hunkered down, and watched. I seen right off from the way he sat in the saddle that one of them was Ruggert. He wasn’t dead. It was then that I wished the pistol hadn’t gotten wet, because I didn’t want to chance shooting it and it misfiring. I pulled it out of the bag anyway, poured water out of the barrel, checked the chambers, and discovered three loads. I couldn’t have put up much of a fight with that if it was working, especially if I was saving one of the shells for myself. Still, I clung to it in case I had to give it a try.

So there I sat, back in the shadow of the woods, squatted down on my haunches, watching that string of horses ride toward the shack, starting to be able to hear them talking. The night air carried every sound as clean and sharp as if they was standing right beside me. I listened to them until they rode up to the burned-down house. They looked around for a while but never bothered to get off horseback.

“Looks like he’s all burned up, Sam,” said one of the men mounted next to Ruggert. “I don’t even see no bones.” He was a man I had seen around town but didn’t know well, other than he was kind of a drunk and his name was Hubert something or another. The others I didn’t know at all.

“It’s that damn uppity shine I want,” Ruggert said. “Want to cut him and rope him and burn him and whatever I can think of.”

That uppity shine would be me, of course.

“We ought to burn down the goddamn barn while we’re here,” Ruggert said. “I think they got chickens we can kill.”

“Ah, the hell with it,” said the man mounted next to him. “Let’s head on back in. I’ve had enough. We got us one tonight, and I’m satisfied enough.”

“Wasn’t your wife’s butt he was looking at,” Ruggert said.

“Hell, I think your wife’s butt is about all she’s got going for her,” said another of the men. “I’ve taken a look now and then.”

“But it was a darky took the look,” Ruggert said. “I can understand a white man, but a darky? That’s wrong, and you know it.”

“We’ve done what we can, and I’m through with it,” Hubert said. “I ain’t gonna spend the rest of my night chasing some nigger through the swamp.”

“I wasn’t planning on starting out until tomorrow again,” said Ruggert.

“You’ll start without me,” said a man.

“I got to get home to dinner,” said another.

“I ain’t never gonna give up till I get him,” Ruggert said. “I have to get me a tracker to run him down, that’s what I’ll do.”

That’s when I heard a sound behind me, like something creeping up. I turned with the big pistol, hoping it would fire, and seen our old plow horse, who we called Jesse. He was wandering out of the woods, walking right at me. I stood up behind the tree, and the horse come over and looked down at me, probably wanting the grain it hadn’t had. It made a nickering sound.

I heard Ruggert say, “There’s that old nigger’s horse.” A shot was fired, and Jesse reared up slightly and turned and bolted away in pain.

Another shot was fired off into the pines where Jesse had departed, then there was silence. I laid down on the ground behind the tree and wormed my head around the side of it and took a gander. They was riding off then, having burned down our house, killed my pa and a hog, threatened the chickens, and shot at Jesse. Not to mention they had tried to kill me. They had had a busy day.

It was my thoughts to follow them into town and kill the four man jack of them. But even in the state I was in, I knew that wasn’t a good plan. There I was, a kid compared to them, and them with guns that was fully loaded, and there I was with an old pistol that might work and might not, and if it did, I had three shots and there was four of them.

Much as it galled me to do it, I lay there and let them ride out of sight. When I was sure they was good and gone, I put the pistol in the bag and went into the woods searching for Jesse. I found him easy enough. He wasn’t much of a runner, old as he was. I petted him up, saw that the bullet had grazed him under the belly. Ruggert seemed to have a knack for coming close but not quite getting there.

I walked out of the pines, and, as I expected, Jesse followed me to the barn. Opening the double doors, I let him in and fed him grain, went out to the well pump and got a bucket of water, and sloshed it into his trough. I looked around for something for me to eat, but there wasn’t nothing. We had a few chickens in coops behind the barn, so I went out there and let the chickens out, since there wouldn’t be no one to feed them anymore. I gathered about a half dozen eggs that hadn’t been collected that day, put them in a feed bucket, and went back inside the barn. I took all the eggs out of the bucket and laid them out on a pile of hay.

There was some matches in the barn, and I used hay for a fire starter, brought in some sticks from outside, and made me a little blaze. I sat the bucket on some logs I dragged in. I cracked all those eggs and fried them in the bottom of the bucket. They stuck a little, but I scooped them out with my hands when the bucket and the eggs was cool enough for me to stand it. I licked the eggs off my fingers.

When I finished eating, I decided to lay down for a couple hours’ sleep. When I woke up I was crying. I was crying for Mama being dead, Pa murdered. I was mad I had been chased and near killed for looking at a white woman’s butt. On top of that I was angry about them taking a shot at poor old Jesse, who was about as dangerous to them as a windblown leaf.

Getting off the horse blanket I had laid out, I got the saddle and the bridle and such that was needed and dressed Jesse up. I led him outside. It was a still night, and the air was sharp. The moon was laying gold light over everything, smooth as butter being spread with a knife. It was odd the world could look so pretty and the air taste so clean and my pa was lying buried under a tree.

I walked Jesse out to the oak, where I said my good-byes to Pa. Mama was buried in a colored cemetery. I thought about visiting her grave but come to the thought that she and Pa was dead and that didn’t matter none. Mama told me once she wanted a better life for me and thought being free would give me a shot. She said, “You get the chance, you got to take it.”

I also remembered her lying sick, dying, touching her hand to my cheek, saying, “Willie, you’re our hope. You got to go on and make something of yourself. You got greatness in you.”

Well, I didn’t know if that was true, but I know Mama believed it, and I wanted to. It was better to follow the dream she wished for me than to try and visit her grave. One had a future, the other just might not.

I started thinking on those stories I had heard about the colored army and made up my mind their outposts would be my destination, which was no short hop and a jump but way out in West Texas. I led Jesse to the draw, then guided him down into it. Once we was there I mounted, and Jesse splashed through the water, on to where that marshland was. We eventually come out on the draw and took the road alongside the marsh for a stretch. We passed where me and Ruggert had our tangle. Even with Jesse plodding like he was dragging a plow, we made a good many miles. The marsh was covered with a mist thick enough it looked like a cloud had fallen out of the sky. We rode through that cloud, the dampness of the mist clamping to us like a wet cloth.