Page from a Tennessee Journal (AmazonEncore Edition)

wants you to tell him.”
    Cleveland dug the pitchfork into the dirt next to the pile of clothes, chairs, toys, and even books. He kept both hands on the handle and leaned over it.
    “Tell him that yo’ papa, John Welles, is home. Tell him that John has a pistol with him.” She stopped to make sure Cleveland understood the words.
    “I can tell him that, Momma.” Cleveland put a foot on the fork and pushed it deeper into the ground.
    “Tell him the gun is fo’ the hired hand, Isaiah Harris.” Pain in her ribs rocked Annalaura. “Say to Mr. Alex, John is lookin’ fo’ the father. Isaiah.” She waited for that glimpse of agreement in her son’s eyes. “Tell it back to me, son.”
    “Papa’s home, and he got a gun and he’s goin’ after Mr. Harris. I knows what to say, Momma.” He looked down at the fork and the little piles of dirt it had scuffed up.
    “That’s good, son, but there is mo’. Make sure Mr. Alex knows that it ain’t in yo’ papa’s head to do no harm to nobody else. He just wants to talk to Isaiah Harris. You understand that, Cleveland?”
    “No, Momma. I don’t understand. Papa said he might kill him two men. Ain’t one of ’em Mr. Alex?” Cleveland stared straight at her.
    She cupped her boy’s face in her hands and pressed hard into his cheeks.
    “Cleveland, you is twelve, and you is old enough to understand that no colored man can never, ever even think harm comin’ to a white man. If the words come out of a black man’s mouth, even if he don’t really mean them, terrible, terrible things could happen. Things worse than cuttin’ off the head of John the Baptist.”
    “Almost as bad as Jesus dyin’ on the cross?” Cleveland’s eyes grew large.
    “Just ’bout as bad. What you think you heard yo’ papa say ain’t what he really means. No need to tell that to Mr. Alex, now is there?”
    “No’m.” Cleveland grimaced, and Annalaura loosened her grip.
    “Make sure Mr. Alex knows that yo’ papa only wants to speak to the hired man. Just the hired man. And, Cleveland, one mo’ thing. Tell Mr. Alex it would be a kindness to me if he wouldn’t tell nobody else that John is back with a pistol. Tell him I’d be pleased to have him visit us in the fields next week after my husband has come back to himself but not a day befo’.” She tightened her grip on his cheeks again. “Cleveland, can you ’member all that? Mr. Alex ain’t to come here fo’ breakfast never no mo’.”
    Her son’s hand reached for her wrist and broke her hold.
    “Momma, I remembers every word.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
     
    The walk up the lane had taken the better part of an hour because of Annalaura. Her good sense told her that she had to get to Aunt Becky before John came back with the truth. She didn’t need to lift her bruised face toward the sky to tell her that the sun was about to set on this day in no more than three hours. But the faster she walked on the wagon-rutted dirt road, the more air she had to take in, and with each breath, the more her ribs hurt. Doug had done a good job of keeping the young ones from overly fretting each time she stopped to steady herself at road edge. When they reached Thornton land, and Aunt Becky’s cabin, Doug called out to the old woman, but all three children knocked and kicked at the door. Becky, with her all-seeing eyes, took one look at her niece and buried the scowl that crossed her brow.
    “I knows it’s too early fo’ supper. Not but six o’clock, but I bets you chil’ren would like some peach preserves on some of Aunt Becky’s biscuits, now wouldn’t you?” Rebecca’s voice did not match her face. “You all come set a spell.”
    Auntie slathered preserves on bread, grabbed two shawls to warm the children, and shoved all three outside. Annalaura eased herself onto the wrought-iron bed, grateful to Rebecca.
    “Gal, let me take a look at them cuts.” Becky rushed over to Annalaura, her arms full of jars and a tin box. She set them all down next to the pitcher of cool water. “What he hit you with?” Rebecca turned up the wick of the kerosene lamp set on a crate by the bed.
    “Umm.” Annalaura grimaced.
    Becky stood over her niece. The woman’s hands lifted Annalaura’s chin. Rebecca took a quick look at the battered face, then ran her hands from neck to waist. “Don’t look like mo’ than his fists, but he done punched you in the belly.”
    “Aahh.” Annalaura grimaced as another pain went through her middle.
    With