Together is All We Need (10 page)

‘‘It's no use,'' she sighed. ‘‘Why would it be a birthday . . . how could I possibly know what numbers they used?''

‘‘Can they pick any numbers they want?'' I asked.

‘‘I don't know,'' said Katie. ‘‘I figured they could . . . but maybe not.''

‘‘What about yours?'' I suggested.

‘‘Why mine?''

‘‘I don't know—you just had your birthday—maybe they thought of it just like I did. Maybe they got the safe after you were born. I don't know. Try it, Katie.''

Again Katie reached out toward the dial. ‘‘Okay, then, May fourteenth, eighteen-fifty, so that's five . . . fourteen . . . fifty.''

As she reached the last number we both heard a
click
inside the door of the safe. ‘‘Oh!'' exclaimed Katie, drawing in a breath of surprise. ‘‘What was that?''

‘‘Maybe that's it,'' I said. ‘‘Try the door!''

Katie tried to turn the handle, and this time it gave way. The door of the safe swung open toward her.

‘‘Mayme!'' she said in astonishment. ‘‘We did it!''

Then she paused and tears came to her eyes. ‘‘They used my birthday, Mayme,'' she said. ‘‘They used
my
birthday to hide their most important things.''

‘‘They must have loved you a lot, Katie . . . I know they did.''

It was quiet a minute, and I knew she was missing her mama and papa all over again. But then finally she took a deep breath, straightened her shoulders, and stepped closer to the safe, swung the heavy door all the way open, and began to look inside the dim metal chamber.

Within a minute she was pulling out papers and envelopes and spreading them out on the desk.

‘‘Help me look, Mayme. See if you see anything with the word
deed
on it.''

Together we dug through the pile. Katie found birth certificates for each of her brothers and herself. She opened a small leather box and there was a beautiful ring inside with a red stone.

‘‘Oh, Mayme! This ruby ring was my grandmother Daniels'. I forgot all about it. Mama showed it to me once and told me it would be mine when I came of age.'' Katie pulled the ring from the box and tried it on her finger. It was too big for her, so she pushed it onto her thumb for safekeeping. ‘‘Well, this surely doesn't belong to Uncle Burchard,'' she said.

We looked for another few minutes but found no trace of the deed. Then Katie's hurried search stopped. Suddenly her hand went to her heart as she picked up a large yellowed envelope. Written on the outside in old-fashioned script were the words,
Last Will and Testament
. Slowly she opened it. As she did, a single sheet of paper fell out. Two other folded documents remained inside. She picked up the paper and looked at it.

‘‘This is my daddy's handwriting,'' she said, then began to read it aloud in a soft voice:

‘‘To whom it may concern:

‘‘With this letter, you will find the Last Will and Testament
of my father, Adam Clairborne. In it, my father
bequeathed the home and plantation known as Rosewood,
County of Shenandoah, North Carolina, to me, Richard
Clairborne, rather than to my elder brother and his eldest
son, Burchard Clairborne. His reasons for doing so, I will in
this letter attempt to explain.

‘‘However, this present will, written in my father's own
hand, though signed by him, was not witnessed by legal
counsel prior to his death. In this same envelope you will also
find his original will, drawn up some forty years ago, which
names Burchard as my father's heir. Because of these irregularities,
a new deed for the property was drawn up and put
into effect. However this deed for Rosewood is not in my
name. It has been—''

Suddenly Katie's voice stopped. We glanced at each other with wide eyes. Heavy footsteps had just sounded on the stairs.

‘‘Oh, Katie!'' I whispered in alarm. ‘‘I'm sorry . . . I forgot to watch the window like you told me!''

Already Katie was scooping all the papers into her hands and stuffing them back into the safe. I ran to the hallway, thinking that maybe I could delay Mr. Clairborne. But he walked right past me without even looking at me. Katie had just closed the door of the safe when he walked in but hadn't had a chance to spin the dial to lock it again. When she heard his boots, she pulled her hand away and whirled around.

‘‘Kathleen . . .'' he said, ‘‘what are you doing in here?''

Katie stared back at him, and from where I stood in the doorway, I could see the guilt written all over her face.

He walked toward the desk and quickly surveyed its surface, then glanced over at Katie where she still stood beside the safe.

‘‘I asked you a question,'' he said.

‘‘Uh . . . just reminiscing, Uncle Burchard,'' Katie replied.

Her hesitant manner must have aroused his suspicion. He turned from the desk and walked toward her, then stopped right in front of her. He looked down at her with a mean look on his face. From where he was standing, he could have reached out and turned the safe handle right then and pulled the door open. Then his eyes drifted toward it.

‘‘What have you been up to?'' he asked slowly. ‘‘Are you getting curious about that safe there?''

I saw Katie force a smile on her face. ‘‘Uh, yes, Uncle Burchard,'' she said, like she was admitting something mighty foolish. ‘‘I was just thinking of giving it a try myself.''

Oh no, Katie,
I winced.
What did you go and tell him that
for!

But Mr. Clairborne seemed kind of amused, then began to chuckle. ‘‘You think you can open it when I couldn't!''

‘‘I suppose it was a pretty silly idea,'' said Katie. ‘‘But suppose I did want to,'' she added, turning her back toward him and facing the safe. ‘‘What do you do—would I just turn the dial . . . like this?'' She reached up and spun the dial a few times.

‘‘That's right, missy—that's all you do!'' laughed her uncle. ‘‘But just remember, anything you find in there is mine.''

Katie kept spinning the dial. Then I saw her try the handle. I could tell she was nervous, and that she breathed a quiet sigh of relief when it didn't open.

‘‘You don't even know how a combination lock works, do you, girl?'' laughed her uncle.

‘‘I guess not, Uncle Burchard. It was silly of me.''

‘‘Sometimes I don't know how you kept this place running, Kathleen,'' said Mr. Clairborne. ‘‘Didn't your mama and daddy teach you anything?''

Not to trust you,
I thought to myself.

But Katie only shrugged and said, ‘‘Not enough, I guess.'' Then she turned and left the room and we walked downstairs together.

Downstairs, we talked quietly in the kitchen, all the while listening for Mr. Clairborne to come back down.

‘‘At least you found out that Rosewood was supposed to belong to your papa and not to your uncle Burchard,'' I whispered.

‘‘But I don't think it helps us, Mayme. If my uncle finds those papers, all he'd have to do is burn the new will and show the original one to Mr. Sneed. Daddy even said the deed wasn't in his name. I wonder why.''

‘‘Does that mean your uncle Burchard's name is on it?''

‘‘I don't know, Mayme. I didn't even see anything in there called a deed. Wherever it is, let's just hope he doesn't get his hands on it.''

F
ROM
O
UT OF THE
P
AST
15

W
E DIDN'T KNOW IT AT THE TIME, OF COURSE
, but about the same time all this was going on, a man was walking down the boardwalk of a busy street.

He paused at a store window to look at a pair of boots. However, it was the stack of newspapers in a stand next to the window that caught his eye a minute or two later. He had merely looked toward it, absently glancing at the headlines. Then suddenly a brief article at the bottom of the page arrested his attention. The single word ‘‘Rosewood'' jumped off the page and jolted him between the eyes. He grabbed the top paper and read the article even as he walked inside the store to pay for it.

By the time he emerged back out onto the street two or three minutes later, a sober expression had come to the man's face—sadness tinged with a shadow of guilt.

He knew what he had to do. And apparently he had better waste no time doing it.

F
INAL
N
OTICE
16

A
DAY FINALLY CAME WHEN
K
ATIE'S UNCLE BURCHARD
arrived, and he wasn't alone. There were several wagons and three or four other men following him.

We watched as they rumbled toward the back of the house and stopped by the barn. They all got down and Mr. Clairborne began pointing and giving orders to his men. One of them went and opened the barn doors, and for the rest of the day they were moving equipment around, taking some things out of the barn and putting in the new equipment they'd brought with them. More wagons arrived the next day, and for the rest of the week, full of machines and contraptions the likes of which I'd never seen in my life. By the end of that week, Rosewood was starting to look mighty different. Yet we didn't really have much choice but to go on with our work every day like always. We had to eat, and the cows had to be milked, and the pigs and chickens had to be fed. So we ignored the men, and the men ignored us. But it was almighty strange and sure didn't seem like it could go on forever.

We hardly ever talked anymore. Even Katie and I didn't talk. All we could do was look at each other and sigh, or look away to keep from crying. We didn't know what was going to happen. We had to do something . . . but what? In my own mind, I was trying to get up the gumption to talk to Emma and Josepha because I knew we would have to leave. But I just didn't have the courage to break Katie's heart again.

Then for a couple of days none of the men were around at all. I reckon it was their days off and maybe they'd gone back home. The place suddenly seemed so quiet!

Then Monday came and about the middle of the morning Katie's uncle rode in. He was alone this time. He went straight toward the house to talk to Katie. I wandered toward them. He glanced in my direction but didn't say anything. I guess he figured it didn't matter what I heard or didn't hear.

‘‘I been patient with you, Kathleen,'' he said. ‘‘But it's just about over now.''

‘‘What do you mean, Uncle Burchard?'' asked Katie.

‘‘I mean that this is the end of things like they are. I filed all the papers and I've waited the sixty days. We both know your ma or nobody else is going to contest it because they can't. So this Friday the court order will take effect and Rosewood will become mine.''

‘‘This . . .
Friday
?'' said Katie in a trembling voice.

‘‘This Friday,'' said her uncle again. ‘‘I've tried to be fair, Kathleen, but Rosewood should have been mine a long time ago, and so on Friday it will be.''

‘‘What will happen then, Uncle Burchard?''

‘‘Mr. Sneed will come out, with witnesses, of course, and will formally deliver the papers and enforce the court order. No contesting claims being made at that time, he will sign and issue a new deed to the property in my name—he is having it drawn up this week—and then Rosewood will be mine.''

I stood there stock-still. It was deathly quiet. Finally Katie seemed to realize that there was nothing she could do to stop what was going to happen. I knew she was struggling, but could also see that she was determined not to cry in front of her uncle.

‘‘What . . . what about everybody else?'' said Katie after a minute. Her voice was so soft I could barely make out the words.

‘‘Look, Kathleen,'' said her uncle. ‘‘I've been as patient as I can be. I gave you fair warning. I told you weeks ago to get rid of them. I don't want no darkies or kids around here. And come ten o'clock Friday morning, there won't be any, even if I have to pack them up and haul them off the property myself. Do you understand—if they ain't gone, then I'll pack them up myself.''

‘‘What . . . what about me, Uncle Burchard?''

‘‘Why are you asking me these same questions all over again?'' he said in exasperation. ‘‘I told you before, you can stay. You can do whatever you want, but I won't throw you out. You're kin and I reckon that counts for something. It's no nevermind to me what you do just as long as the rest of them are out of here by Friday.''

‘‘But, Uncle Burchard,'' said Katie, ‘‘Mayme's . . .Mayme's kin too.''

‘‘Who's Mayme?'' he asked with a puzzled expression.

Katie glanced toward me.

He turned his head and his eyes came to rest on me where I was standing about thirty feet away. This time I did not so much feel hatred in his expression as disgust.

‘‘Her?''
he said after a few seconds, then turned back to Katie.

Katie nodded.

‘‘What do you mean, she's kin?''

‘‘My other uncle, my mama's brother . . . he's Mayme's daddy.''

‘‘The fellow that went to California?''

‘‘No, my other uncle.''

‘‘The dandy?''

‘‘I reckon,'' answered Katie.

‘‘Yeah, I heard of him. Richard told me. A no-good drifter, the way I heard it. What you're telling me is that he knocked up some slave of your pa's?''

Katie's eyes stung with tears and she couldn't answer.

‘‘Can't imagine why your pa didn't horsewhip him, the trash. Well, none of that matters nothing to me. No bastard half-black girl's kin of mine, whatever your mama's side of the family wants to call such trash. You get rid of her with the others, you hear, Kathleen? You got till Friday. Then this place is mine, and they'll be gone one way or another.''