“Has!” Rooster interrupted. “That’s what I’m telling you—has! It’s been done. Signed and paid yesterday. They’re loading their wagon now and figure to set out tomorrow morning, Thanksgiving Day or no. Roads are hard as iron with the cold and no rain, so they hope to travel fast. Mr. Hooper at the bank told me he figured I knew all about it, Orin and me being brothers-in-law, and hadn’t wanted to bail Orin out myself on account of the bad year I’ve had.”

“The new Elk Place,” Sarah said, pronouncing the name with controlled anger, “will be big.”

“Not big like Oaks and Beulah,” Rooster said.

“Sixty acres was the Andersons’. The Cokers’ was bigger, say eighty-five or so. Near to a hundred and fifty.”

“That nigger!” Rooster exploded.

Sarah looked at him sharply, but her voice was dry when she spoke. “Half Indian, they say— original owners of the country.”

“By hell,” Leon said, turning to her, glad to have a target for his frustration, “I never thought to hear you take up for Roscoe Elk!”

“I’m not taking up for him,” Sarah said.

“Next year,” Leon said to Rooster. “Wait till next year when we’ve had a good crop and prices go back to a decent level and we sell off this year’s cotton too—then one of us or both together will offer him so much for the Anderson-Coker farms he’ll have to take it. Somehow we’ll get rid of him, make him pack up and move on.”

Rooster blinked at Leon, looked at Sarah sorrowfully, then fixed his gaze on the floor.

“More to tell you,” he mumbled in such a way they quieted themselves instantly to listen. “Ten days ago Elk came to see me on business. Haven’t told you because haven’t seen you.” He turned his eyes to Sarah. “Except at the church, and it didn’t seem to signify anyhow as regarded you. In fact, was—I thought, and Mama did too—like a godsend, this year being what it was. Roscoe Elk came to see me and talked about the no-good hands he took over on the Anderson Farm—and we all know what they are—and how he’d got that new place the other side of the county he was thinking of grazing cows on. Nothing big, nothing important, to hear him tell it; made it all seem little and spread thin. He said he’d already talked to you, and you understood his problem and wished him well. Said I’d know how you felt and why you’d refused him; and so I did. It all made such sense, you see, and I don’t share your notions about not buying and selling.”

“How many did you sell him?” Leon asked.

“Eight,” Rooster said. “Six men, two women.”

18