Rusty followed Blessing into the cabin. Shanty came behind him. Rusty’s eyes adjusted slowly to the gloom indoors. Isaac York lay on a cot, his face drawn, his eyes hollow and showing but little life. He extended a trembling hand to the sheriff. “Tom. I was afraid you wouldn’t get here in time.”

“I’m here now, Isaac. What can I do for you?”

York’s gaze lighted on Rusty. He was momentarily surprised. “Shannon? Rusty Shannon?”

“It’s me, Isaac.”

York’s voice was hoarse. “I never killed your daddy. Me and Mike didn’t get along, but it wasn’t me that killed him.”

“I know that. I’m sorry I ever thought otherwise. I wish I could take back every bad word I ever spoke about you.”

“I’m glad you come. You can be a second witness.”

Blessing asked, “Witness to what?”

“I want you to write me a will. I’d do it myself, only my hands shake too much. There’s some paper over on that table, and a pencil.”

Blessing found a sheet of paper and used the bottom of a tin plate to give it a firm backing. “What do you want me to write?”

York looked toward Shanty, who leaned his bent frame against the log wall. “I want you to say that I am of sound mind and body. Well, maybe the body ain’t sound, but my mind is clear. I want you to write down that I am givin’ Shanty his freedom. No ifs, no maybes. I want it known that he don’t belong to me or to nobody else.”

Rusty saw that gesture as unnecessary. Abraham Lincoln had declared the slaves free, and if they weren’t already they would be when the first Yankee soldiers showed up.

“Another thing,” York said, “everything I own, this farm, this cabin, the little bit of money I’ve got. . . it all goes to Shanty.”

Blessing’s eyebrows raised a little. “There’s liable to be talk.”

“In my shape, what do I care about talk? Shanty ain’t a slave, not anymore. He’s worked hard on this land. By all rights, it’s his.”

“You mentioned money.”

“There’s a can with Yankee silver in it. A little over a hundred dollars, buried out by the corner post of my cow pen.”

“You don’t have any blood kin that you’d want to leave somethin’ to?”

“Used to have a brother over the Sabine in Louisiana. We ain’t seen one another in years. He never even answered my letter when I buried my family. So to hell with him.”

Blessing wrote slowly and laboriously, then handed the paper over to Rusty. “That look to you like what he said?”

Rusty glanced quickly over the scribbling. “You got it just fine.”