Page from a Tennessee Journal (AmazonEncore Edition)

with him as long as Alexander McNaughton got dead first. But Annalaura couldn’t be part of the killing.
    “Hettie ain’t dead, and she’s laid up with Ben Roy fo’ most six years.”
    “If a black man kill Ben Roy, white men will kill Hettie, all them children, and the nigger who done the first killin’, all in one night.” Rebecca confused him with her Cherokee reasoning.
    “And it won’t jest be you and Annalaura. It’ll be Cleveland. They’ll call him a ’complice. He’s twelve, big enough for white mens to hang. My Johnny wasn’t but seventeen when they hung him high.”
    The barrel of the gun suddenly pointed to the floor, and the old woman’s arm dropped to her side like soft butter. So this was why Becky was talking crazy. It was all about her Johnny. A wave of relief swept over John.
    “Aunt Becky.” Annalaura jerked up in the bed, her voice full of alarm. As she sat up, the covering blanket fell away from her breast and the suckling baby.
    John turned to look at that face, the color of cream from a fresh-milked cow. A blue eye flitted open and then closed. Ignoring Becky and her dragging shotgun, John walked over to the chair and plopped down in it. His legs turned weaker than water corn bread. It was true. Alexander McNaughton had fathered Annalaura’s baby. To see the living proof with his own eyes left him searching for the cabin window to let in more air. He turned to the old woman.
    “Rebecca,” he kept his voice steady. “I ain’t seventeen, and I ain’t yo’ Johnny.”
    She turned a rheumy eye toward him. “Seventeen. Weren’t but seventeen.” She stared at John as though she thought he should have been there on that long-ago night. That he should have been the one to pull Johnny out of harm’s way all by himself.
    “They killed yo’ boy over nothin’. They’ll kill me over somethin’.” John kept his eyes on the Cherokee.
    “Old Ben Thornton said he could have that hoss.” Rebecca lifted her head toward Annalaura. “Old Ben was my Johnny’s daddy, you know.”
    “Becky, I’ve known that story since before I married Annalaura…yo’ niece.”
    “Like that one.” Rebecca ignored him as she pointed to the baby in his wife’s arms. “My boy had the light skin like that one, and that ain’t never set well with Ben Roy.”
    “Aunt Becky, fetch me a quilt, I’m cold.” Fear leaped out of Annalaura’s voice.
    “Old Ben said he wanted our Johnny to have that hoss.” Rebecca looked at an empty space between herself and the front door. “Was the only decent thing he ever did fo’ me. I think he done it to spite Charity. He had her first, you know. He took my momma, and when he got tired of her, he lay on top of me even when he knew I was his own flesh and blood. That’s a God’s sin, you know.” Becky nodded to the vacant space.
    “Auntie,” Annalaura called out.
    “It was a big roan and the best thing on this here farm.” The woman ignored the girl she had raised. “I was there when Old Ben said Johnny could have it, but his oldest boy, Ben Roy, took a jealous streak.”
    John struggled to his feet. Becky, lost in her world, ignored him.
    “Ben Roy always hated Johnny ’cause Old Ben took a shine to the boy. To vex Ben Roy, he would give Johnny little things like a toy that Ben Roy wanted first. A pair of shiny high-button boots fo’ Johnny, even if they wasn’t new, whilst Ben Roy got new, but they was only work shoes. Then, he sold my boy the best, that big, pretty roan—worth ’most five hundred dollars. He give it to him fo’ one silver dollar. And he give him the God’s truth legal sale papers.” There was pride in Rebecca’s voice. She took a step toward John, the barrel of the blunderbuss bumping along as she crossed the cabin floor.
    “Aunt Becky, my quilt, please. The baby’s gettin’ cold,” Annalaura pleaded.
    “When Old Ben took sick and died, Ben Roy told everybody that Johnny had come by the hoss illegal. Ben Roy riled up them night riders, and they came fo’ my boy. Johnny tried to tell ’em he had the papers, but Ben Roy tole them riders not to listen, that my Johnny was a liar.” The old neck swiveled from the empty space to her kitchen safe, slow like a gate on a rusty hinge. She looked at the floor beneath the bottom drawer.
    “I had them papers hid all along. Right there in the false bottom of that drawer.” The eyes blinked. “But I ain’t had no time to get them papers to the night riders. They killed