“He’s well.” Roman found it easier to talk about someone else. “He got the seeds you sent. It was already summer when they came and he planted them, so they were late growing, and he’s left them in the ground, saying you’d be here in time to see them.”

Floyd nodded, as if this only confirmed what he had known. “Mama’s all right.” It was more statement than question, but a statement that contained query.

Roman smiled for the first time. “Still telling everybody and God how to do right.”

“That’s my mama,” Floyd said. “Sit down. I’m all-sudden tired. Ever since I left, I’ve been coming back; now that I’m here, I need to stop and catch my breath.” He found a dry place on the bank and sat. Roman sat near him, and they looked at the creek until Floyd said, “I’ve thought about this very place many-a-many time.” He studied the boy’s face. “You’ve changed a lot in two years, nearly come to a man. You favor him now.” Roman did not answer but looked steadily back at Floyd. “I want you to tell me everything that’s happened on Beulah Land since I’ve been gone. Don’t leave out a baby’s birth or one old folk’s dying.” They had never until now had occasion to look at each other closely enough to learn anything. “You’re Leon’s son, all right,” Floyd said. “But did you know you might have been mine instead?”

The question surprised Roman, but somehow lifted the yoke from his back and mind. He began to talk. The more he talked, the more there seemed to be to tell. He told Floyd about Sarah and Rachel, about Ezra’s getting feeble, about Roscoe Elk and his owning the Anderson Farm now and moving there. He talked about his school. He talked about the Davis family. And he began to talk about himself. He even told Floyd about the girl Roxy, but not about Sallou and her coming to his room that time. He came up to telling, but then could not, about Leon. It was dusk when, without having said they would, they got up and walked together out of the woods and across the fields toward the plantation buildings. Supper fires had been lighted, and their smoke drifted thinly on the evening air, like spirits of the past fading into the forgotten.

14