in our clan’s memory, the floods had come in late spring, and no one had been able to plant in time for a summer crop. The seed money was wasted. But most folks stayed on because they didn’t have anyplace else to go. It seemed better to be around your own folks—to scratch out a living in the tired earth—than to move to some strange place where folks called you mister and missus and didn’t know your nickname, or your granddaddy’s name, or how your uncle Jeb had lost one finger in the smithy on Mastuh Sanders’s homestead, or even who to call for a county fair game of baseball. New folks wouldn’t know nothin’ at all about you. That was no way to live, so folks stayed on, hard as it was.
To my great-grandmama, this is what seemed important and what made her call this place home. She was also tired. Laura Mae Sanders Pinman had raised thirteen children of her own and found herself surrounded by grandchildren and great-grandchildren, including my older brother Willie Jr., me, and my twin sisters Betty and Barbara. She raised the children when their mamas couldn’t do it. And the children just kept coming. She would cook. She would clean. She would wash and pray. She worked and didn’t slow down for old memories to catch her.
The Old Homestead on Mastuh Sanders’s land had been falling apart for as long as she could remember. Every shutter was hanging down or gone. The paint she helped apply when she was a young girl had never been refreshed; it was barely visible. If she could ever get the front door of the sagging porch to close, it might help to keep the marsh rats from invading the kitchen on hot summer nights. She was always mindful not to leave food out where they could get it; and she felt constant dread that those rats might crawl into the bedrooms of one of her grandchildren—her grans—and bite one of her darlings. When it rained, every bucket and pot in the house was used to catch water from the leaky roof.
There were many causes for sadness in her life, but the way people tell it, the greatest sadness of all was when her last husband was killed. Noah Leon Pinman could work hard and was good with his hands. He had a quick smile with pretty teeth. He had been her third husband and had stayed around The Homestead the longest.
My own mama, Inez Delois, would sometimes tell me and my brother the story, later on after we had moved up north, to give us an idea of how it was down south in the old days.
The way she told it, everybody knew that Great-Grandmama Laura Mae was Ol’ Mastuh Sanders’s woman. He came by to see her every week. Noah Leon Pinman knew it too. Even though he had agreed to work the farm for Ol’ Mastuh Sanders, he hadn’t agreed to anything else. Still, Noah Leon went on about his business farming and, with the help of the kids, year after year, got the planting and harvesting done. There was always some fence that needed mending, or some field that needed watering. He kept the children busy, and they all worked together from sunup to sundown.
Most of the time, Noah Leon just ignored Ol’ Mastuh Sanders and his late afternoon visits. Great-Grandmama Laura Mae used to wonder how it was that Noah Leon always seemed to know when Ol’ Mastuh Sanders was coming and just disappeared into the fields. She tried to ignore it too. She had been going with Ol’ Mastuh Sanders for so long that it just seemed natural to her. She didn’t know any other way. Mama Inez said that her grandmama, Lily Mae, had told Laura Mae to go with Ol’ Mastuh Sanders when she was a young girl, and it had been that way ever since.
Laura Mae’s mama, Lily Mae, had been a slave on the Sanders plantation all her life and had always been “worried” by the white men who came by the place. That’s just the way it was, and she was no different from any of the other colored girls around there, even if she had wanted to say something.
One day, Noah Leon asked her to come to town with him and not go with Ol’ Mastuh Sanders when he came by. She just looked at him and kept on with her cooking and cleaning.
When Ol’ Mastuh Sanders came by the old house that night, Noah Leon stuck around. Laura Mae pulled off her apron and headscarf, wiped her face with her hands, and straightened her simple dress as she had always done when Mastuh Sanders came. She walked slowly out of the house, down the path, and past the barn.
She didn’t like leaving and going with Mastuh Sanders, but if she didn’t go, she knew they couldn’t stay in the Old Homestead any longer. She didn’t know where they would go. This place was home. This was the only home she had ever known.
Just past the barn, Mastuh Sanders walked closer and spoke to her as he always did. He asked her how she was feeling and if she was glad to see him. She tried to smile and said yes, as she always did. He told her he had wanted to stop by and see her earlier that week, but his work and family had kept him away. He had been saying that for more than twenty years, and Laura Mae had stopped listening. That night, she was troubled by the pounding of her heart and the sharp voice calling to her from the house. It was Noah Leon, telling her to come back to him and leave Ol’ Mastuh Sanders.
Ol’ Mastuh Sanders was still talking to her as she tried to block the hurt and anguish of Noah Leon’s voice out of her ears. His voice grew louder, and she realized, suddenly, that he was standing close by. She wheeled around and stared at him. Noah Leon had a big chopping cleaver raised over his head, and he was coming toward Ol’ Mastuh Sanders.
She screamed as she heard the shots ring out. Noah stood motionless and stunned. Ol’ Mastuh Sanders had reached into his overalls pocket, pulled out his pistol, and shot Noah Leon point-blank, three times without stopping.
Everybody knew that he carried that pistol. He sometimes used it on sick livestock and stray rabbits. Didn’t Noah Leon know it? Laura Mae never had time to speak, it happened so fast.
Noah Leon was on the ground at her feet, bleeding from his chest and stomach. A crowd quickly gathered around them.
“Stand back!” Ol’ Mastuh Sanders barked. “Let him lay there! Nobody touch him. Let the slimy bastard lay there where he belongs: in the dirt. I never liked him anyway.”
They all stood there; nobody moved, not even the babies. They were all afraid of Ol’ Mastuh Sanders and knew that he would shoot any one of them just as quick as he had shot Noah Leon. He looked around, and his eyes stopped on Great-Grandmama Laura Mae. She started crying, fell to her knees, and crawled over to Noah Leon’s body. Blessedly, he’d died before he hit the ground.
Laura Mae gathered what was left of him and rocked him gently in her arms as she cried and wailed. She rocked him as though he were her baby and he was only asleep. Ol’ Mastuh Sanders told everyone to leave him be and to not bury him. Silently, everyone backed away while Ol’ Mastuh Sanders stood there over Laura Mae, who was crying and rocking Noah Leon’s body. She looked pitiful and helpless, there on her knees, while Noah Leon’s blood slowly soaked the front of her dress.
After mumbling something to Laura Mae and getting no response, Ol’ Mastuh Sanders just shook his head, turned, and walked away, putting his gun back in his pocket. He walked away without looking back, past the barn and up the path to the Old Homestead. He moved silently around the side, got on his horse, and rode away.
My mother remembered Great-Grandmama Laura Mae sobbing and wailing in the yard for the rest of that evening. She was still there hours later when Aunt Coradelle and Cousin Dina Mae walked over to her, called to her softly, and carried her to the house.
After dark, some of the men went back for Noah Leon’s body and carried it into the house. They laid him out and cleaned off the blood. Great-Grandmama Laura Mae insisted on being in charge of everything. She gave him his last bath with love and great patience as she talked to herself and anyone there listening. She kissed his body and rubbed him with Vaseline and the lanolin oil she used for her hair. When they had finished cleaning him and dressed him in overalls, she sat with him all night and continued to talk and sing and pray.
She sat for the rest
