same hatred that sat in his eyes even now. It took a great deal of character, or stupidity, for the boy to be able to come to him today in acceptance of that same offer, and Walter wondered as he stared at him what it had taken in the past year to bring the boy to this.
“As I recall, you told me to get the hell off your land,” Walter said, watching Janson closely.
“I’ve got a wife now, an’ a baby on th’ way. I’ve got t’ have steady work, an’ a decent place for her t’ live.” His gaze never wavered.
“A baby, eh?” All the county needed now was another generation of these peculiar men. He considered Janson for a long moment, remarking to himself again how like the father this son was. There had been something within Henry Sanders that Walter had grudgingly respected, just as there had also been something within the man that Walter had feared, as he had feared few things in his life. Henry Sanders had not been content to be who and what he was, just as this boy before Walter now was not content. They both held a desire to have something that was all their own, not to be beholden to anyone or anything for their livelihoods or their dreams—and Henry Sanders’s dreams had at last cost him his life, as well as his land. Walter knew this boy held him responsible for his father’s death, as well as for the foreclosure that had taken his farm; the boy had made no secret of his feelings before he left the county a year before.
And now he was back, with a wife, and a child on the way, having reached a moment in his life that the boy would never have thought to see himself reach, and, as Walter stared at him, he could almost feel responsible—
“Go see the overseer of the card room,” Walter told him, never once letting his gaze leave the green eyes. “Tell him you’re on the night shift, and go see the house boss for your house assignment; the rent will be held from your wages.”
Janson Sanders stared at him without speaking, and Walter returned the stare, not moving his eyes toward his son even as he heard Walt mutter angrily just beneath the level of his hearing. After a time, Janson nodded his head just once and left. Walter watched him go, not surprised in the least when the boy did not say thank you.
Less than an hour later, Janson left the white-painted office building that sat before the mill and made his way, following directions from a nervous little man in a tiny office, toward the place that would be home to him, and to Elise, for what could be many years to come. Row upon row of neat, white-painted frame houses sat on either side of the red dirt streets that led away from the mill. The houses all looked the same, with their small, neat yards and tiny, cleared garden patches, their stacks of cordwood against side walls, their chimneys with smoke drifting out, their tin roofs and gray porches—all the same. Most he passed were of six rooms, divided down the middle, he knew, for two families, an outside water faucet in the yard between every other structure. Occasionally he passed a four-room structure, one designed for the fixers on each shift, or a three-room shotgun house where no larger home would fit.
He stared at the houses, the structured sameness of the place seeming odd to his eyes more accustomed to the never-ending change of the countryside. God might not have made any two things alike, but Walter Eason had tried to, with these identical houses along these identical rows throughout the village. But, even here, touches of individuality did show through. Chairs and rockers sat on porches; flower beds and garden patches, neatly cleared for winter, were marked off in various yards; trees and plants grew and were tended. A dog was tied before one house, and a cat slept on the porch of another. Milk cows stared back at him from beneath houses that sat supported high off the hilly ground on one side by stone pillars; gaudy flowered curtains hung in one window, sedate lace ones in another.
Janson nodded to the few people he passed on the street, not recognizing a single face. He felt out of place in this village, and he found himself wondering how Elise would be able to survive here—but this was the best he could do. At least it would be a roof of their own, a home that he could provide. Something he could do. Part of him still resisted the knowledge that he would be working for the Easons, that he would be bringing Elise and their child under the Easons’ control—but he had no choice. The events of the past year had left him with little choice in anything.
He could hear a train passing along the edge of the village on tracks that ran beside the mill, tracks that effectively cut the town in half. On the other side of those tracks lay the business district, the big churches and nice homes, the town schools and Main Street. On this side lay the mill and the mill village, the row upon row of mill houses the Easons owned, the small stores the Easons rented to proprietors, and the small Methodist and Baptist churches the mill villagers attended. On this side was the cotton warehouse that sat just behind the mill and alongside the railroad tracks, the village school for the children of the mill workers, the small power plant that supplied electricity to the mill and mill office, and the water plant and tower that supplied the faucets throughout the village—all owned by the Easons. The Eason family owned much of the businesses and property on the other side of those tracks as well, owned, or at least controlled, much of the county, but on this side, in the village, they owned all, down to the last thought, the last feeling, the last impulse they could lay hands on.
The noise of the mill followed him through the streets of the village, as did the lint that floated in the air. This was an existence so far from any he had ever thought to have, and so different from the one he had hoped to bring Elise to, that he was surprised at his own feelings as he finally reached his destination and stared up at the house that was his assignment. It was a house like any other on this street, divided down the middle to be shared by two families. It sat on a rise, sandwiched between two houses that looked very much the same, high off the ground on stone pillars in the front, flush with the level of the yard in the back. Its gray porch, smoke-blackened chimneys, tin roof, and twin front doors much the same as the others, its yard just as neatly tended—but, as he stared up at it, he felt a degree of satisfaction that he had not felt since before the money he had worked for and had saved to buy back his land was stolen. This half of a house would be something he could do, a home that he could give to Elise, could give to his child, and to other children who would one day come to them.
He looked at the place, memorizing every detail, wanting to take it in memory back to his grandparents’ home so that he could tell Elise about it—he was going to give her a home; he was doing his job, the job of a man, of a husband and father. He knelt at the side of the road and took his shoes off, smiling at a little boy of about five who played, bundled in a coat much too big for him, in a yard nearby. In a few years his son or daughter would be playing here. Elise would make friends, and he would work hard—life would not be so bad, he told himself. He had the woman he wanted. He would be a father in a few months time. He had a dream to work for. The rest he would take care of himself with his own sweat and work, just as his own father had. Sweat and work were two things he did not fear.
He knotted his shoestrings together and stood, slinging his shoes over one shoulder as he looked up at the house once again. It might be a long walk before someone offered him a ride back toward his grandparents’ place, and it would be even more difficult to get back into town late that afternoon in time for the night shift in the mill, but perhaps he could borrow his Gran’pa’s wagon. He was hungry, and he wanted to see Elise, to touch and love her and tell her about the house, and maybe have her lie in his arms while he tried to get some rest before returning for his first shift in the mill. He would have to get at least a few hours sleep this afternoon, or he would be dead on his feet by the morning when his shift ended—but he would not worry about that just now.
He stared at the house—two weeks, he told himself. Two weeks, and he and Elise would move here. Two weeks, and this would be their home. The man who lived in half of this house now, the half that would be their home, had held the job that Janson would begin on learner’s wages tonight. In two weeks he would be leaving this home he had held for ten years, just as he had left the job he had held for even longer. He had been fired—not for dishonesty or unsatisfactory work, the mill’s nervous house
