He gripped Rusty’s hand, then mounted and spurred off after the wagon. He looked back once. Rusty could not tell whether Tanner was looking at him or at the girls.

When Rusty looked at them, he saw Geneva.

He attended Isaac York’s funeral more out of guilt than out of liking for the man—that and respect for the aging Shanty. It weighed on his conscience that he had so long blamed the innocent York for Daddy Mike’s death. But York had been easy to dislike for his disagreeable manner, his violent temper.

Fewer than two dozen neighbors and people from the settlement came to see York laid to rest. To find good words to say about the deceased, Preacher Webb skirted gingerly along the boundary between fact and fiction. Funerals were one place where a minister had license to stretch the truth a little.

Ropes lowered the plain wooden coffin into the grave. Rusty gazed at Shanty’s solemn face and considered the infinite patience the black man must have had to live with and serve someone who had so many negative traits. Of course, as a slave Shanty had had no real choice. But even a slave’s tolerance must have its limits. Now he was legally free. But Rusty wondered if at heart he could ever be free from slavery’s legacy of dependence and self-doubt.

No one claiming to be a relative showed up for the service. That was to be expected, for York had never said much about his kin. He had mentioned a brother in Louisiana, but no one around the settlement knew just where the brother lived, if indeed he was still alive. The only known survivor, then, was Shanty. Only a few people filed by after the service and extended their sympathies to him. As a former slave, his feelings were not widely regarded as being of much importance.

Tom Blessing was among the exceptions. He said, “Shanty, you’ll need to come to the courthouse the first chance you get. There’ll be some papers need signin’ before this land can be deeded over to you. Since Isaac made me executor of his will, I’ll see that they’re ready and waitin’ for you.”

“I’m obliged, Mr. Blessing.”

“I’ll need your last name. I don’t believe I ever heard it.”

“I don’t recollect as I ever had one. They just called me Shanty. That was all.”

“You can take Isaac’s name then. I’ll make out the papers in the name of Shanty York.”

“Shanty York suits me fine, sir.”

Fowler Gaskin pushed forward, scowling. “You’d give a nigger a white man’s name?”

Blessing was taken aback. “It’s an old custom for slaves to take the name of their masters.”

“Not where I come from it ain’t.”