“Rosemary is setting up the land in some kind of a trust, or at least that’s the deal Leroy Page said he was signing.” Documents his daughter said he hadn’t bothered to sign, even as Leroy was saying they didn’t have much time. For what, Leroy? “But I’m fairly certain the thing is a ruse, that she’s going to turn around and sell or give that land to Sandler Gaines.” In exchange for getting her son out of prison maybe. “What I don’t understand is why Leroy would do that, why a man who’s lived most of his life shut off from white folks would make a deal with Rosemary King. What’s the connection there?”

“Well, you were holding it in your hand,” Marcus said.

Darren actually looked down at his empty hands, which had held nothing since he walked in but the coffee cups. And this made Marcus laugh, a short little bark followed by a wide grin; he was enjoying the tale he was about to tell.

“Penelope Deschamps,” he said, “is Rosemary’s great-great-grandmother. She bought the Cardinal Hotel just after the war and spent years building it up, helped along when her daughter married a timber magnate named William Thaddeus King. Once her daughter was set up with a proper marriage and home, ol’ Penny Deckard ate the business end of a pistol.”

Darren sat stock-still for what felt like minutes, heat beading into actual sweat across his brow. He remembered Marcus’s story of what brought Penelope to Texas from Louisiana, the tragedy that struck on the water, the deaths of most of the Magnolia’s crew and passengers, including her mother and son, and the loss of property. Six of her favored slaves presumed perished along with the others. And he remembered Marcus’s talk of rumors that the slaves ran. Swam. For there was land dotted all through Caddo Lake if you could just get to it. Margaret Goodfellow’s words about hiding in plain sight found him again, as did Leroy Page’s profession that he owed Margaret and her people everything.

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Darren said.

Marcus’s smile widened. “History is a funny thing, ain’t it? So much more interesting in the flesh than what passes for truth in this state’s history books. This is the thing your uncle Clayton either doesn’t get or isn’t capable of understanding. He lives his life’s work in a college lecture hall, inside a world of brilliant, purposeful ideas not tested in the heat of the real world.”