his feet and take a few tottering steps before falling again. She had tried to protect him, to keep him from hurting himself, even as he had learned, but again and again he had pushed her hands away, falling time and again, bruising his chin, hurting his elbow, fighting even as he cried—she had not seen him cry in years now, not since he had been a little boy, beaten bloody by bigger fellows because he would not perform a war dance when they demanded he do so. She had tried to protect him then as well, had tried to get him to tell her the names of the other boys so she could talk to their parents, but he had refused, coming home bloody and beaten day after day until they had at last found more interesting game—even then there had been no shame in him for a fight well fought, no defeat after a hard battle. Those were traits she could see in him now, the same pride, stubbornness and determination, and she knew she could expect nothing less of him, for he was a part of her, and he was a part of Henry.
The door opened quietly and Henry’s mother entered the room—her mother, she thought, for she and Henry were long since the same. Deborah Sanders was dressed in a long cotton nightgown buttoned to the throat and wrists, her brown and gray hair hanging over one shoulder in a thick plait that reached to well past her waist, her round face kind and gentle as she looked at them, knowing they had not slept at all, and knowing it was only what they had to do. She walked to the side of the bed and reached to touch Janson’s forehead lightly, his cheek, and then to check beneath the bandages to the wound that had bled so freely earlier, as Nell and Henry rose to their feet at the side of the bed. Henry reached out and brushed Nell’s hand almost unconsciously, as he often did, and they waited.
Henry’s mother came around the bed to them, placing a gentle hand first on Nell’s cheek, then on Henry’s, as she smiled at them. “He’s gonna be fine, jus’ like I tol’ you,” she whispered. “He’s jus’ got some healin’ t’ do, an’ restin’ t’ get his strength back. It ain’t gonna do him no good, you two gettin’ yourselfs sick. You need t’ get some sleep—”
“We will,” Nell said, looking back to the bed, and to the young man who shifted slightly in his sleep as he lay there. “We will—” But she sat back down in the rocker, and Henry moved to sit again at her feet, lowering himself slowly as he leaned heavily on the arm of the chair, as he had not had to do in years past. He took her hand in his again and held it, intertwining their fingers securely. After a moment, Deborah Sanders shook her head and sighed, knowing there was no use in talking to them further. She turned and crossed the bare wood floor without another word, going out the door and closing it again quietly behind herself, leaving them alone again with their son.
Nell watched as Janson slept, thinking of the baby she and Henry had made, the child she had carried within her, thinking that time had passed too fast, and that the years had been all too quickly gone. She looked down at Henry, remembering the tall and handsome young man who had so tenderly told her about love, and who had even more gently taught her; the same man who sat beside her now, his brownish-red hair streaked with white, the wide shoulders bent from age and work, the once-smooth skin near his eyes lined from years of smiles—but the green eyes just as alive, just as caring, just as full of love now near fifty-seven, as they had been at twenty-five. Life was too short for love, she thought, too brief for commitment; the years all too soon gone, but the love grown only stronger still—surely death could not end that, and life could not begin it. It had to be there, forever, for always. That was what they had taught Janson, and she had to believe it herself now—suddenly, she had to believe it so very strongly herself.
She watched Henry, thinking of how he often spoke now of having grandchildren in the house, of Janson finding the right girl, bringing a bride to the land, giving them grandsons and granddaughters for the years ahead—but, as hard as she tried, Nell could not see that, could not see Henry with babies on his knee, babies with his green eyes and his caring, and that frightened her. There was an ache growing inside of her that would not go away, an ache even though she knew Janson would be all right and that his wound would heal—life seemed too short. So very short. And the sadness would not leave, no matter how hard she tried. She wanted to cry but would not let herself, for there was no reason. No—
Henry’s hand tightened over hers and he looked up at her, and she realized with a start that he had been thinking the same things, feeling the same things, she had been feeling. She tightened her hand on his and smiled, nodding her head to tell him she was all right, and, after a moment, he looked away, back toward the bed, and to their son sleeping quietly there.
Nell turned her eyes toward Janson as well, the tears finally coming, spilling from her eyes and down her cheeks. She knew that, as long as she lived, she would never forget the look she had seen on her husband’s face in that moment. Henry Sanders had been crying.
Janson’s shoulder was fully healed by the time fall came and the cotton bolls burst open, paining him only on occasion now, when the weather was bad, or on days when he worked it too hard in the fields. He had not once seen Lecia Mae or Buddy Eason, or their father or grandfather, since the day of the stabbing, and he found that he was glad—not because he was afraid, for he held no real fear of any man, but simply because there were more important things on his mind, more important things that had to do with holding onto the land, and with selling their crop again where it could bring them the most money.
There was a surplus in the cotton market in that fall of 1925, more cotton coming in than buyers had a need for, and the going price per pound of lint had already dropped lower than it had been in either of the past two years—and the Easons were paying even less than that. There would be no more choice this year than there had been the last; they would have to sell out of the County if they were to hold onto the land, have to sell, and quickly, before there could be any further drop in price, a drop that could so very easily cost them the few cents per pound difference between being able to hold onto the land, and losing it.
Janson found that he was glad to be out in the fields again in that first week of picking the cotton, glad to be doing something, and not just sitting and waiting for his shoulder to heal, as he had been doing for so long—but it was tiring work, long days of dragging a pick sack behind him, picking until his hands bled from the dry hulls and his back ached from bending among the cotton plants, until his shoulder hurt and his feet were tired and he wanted only to go home and rest. There was trouble coming and he knew it, could sense it as he worked in the cotton fields, could see it in his father’s eyes—Walter Eason could not let them sell their cotton out of Eason County this year.
But there was no choice. There was so little choice left for any of them now.
There were long hours in the fields that first week of picking the cotton, days that went from before sunup in the mornings until long after sunset at night, each of them dragging a long pick sack behind them down the never ending rows, Janson, his father, and his mother as well, for there was no money to hire pickers, and, even if there had been the money, there would also have been better uses for it as well. It seemed to Janson that those first days went on forever, days of emptying pick sacks into the cotton baskets he and his father had woven years before, tamping the cotton down, only to return to the rows again—after a few hours backs would be aching from the constant bending and stooping, fingers would be bleeding from contact with the dry hulls, and any neck not protected by hat or bonnet would already be painfully burned from exposure to the sun.
By the end of that first week, Janson was sore and exhausted. He was glad now that he had turned down an offer to supper that night at the home of one of the girls from church; she was a nice girl, very pretty, with long blond hair down her back to her waist—but at the end of that first week of picking cotton, Janson was too tired to even really care. His shoulders ached from the weight of the cotton sack he had dragged behind him all day, its wide strap slung across his chest and oftentimes pressing the healed wound in his right shoulder. His fingers were sore, a deep
