But Papaw sucked loudly on his teeth when he heard what Clabe and Vernie had done. Wouldnt no good come of it, he said. He’d already wrangled with the railroad men. When he told them about the deed he held at the courthouse, they laughed at him. Junior patent, they kept saying. Senior patent is what we own. That takes precedence. Ask any judge.

The judges we was supposed to ask was a way far off, so most folks signed. The railroad men vowed they’d not bother us no more. We’ll see, Dillon said. He sat on the mountain on the night of Rondal’s birth and said it again. We’ll see.

The railroad men spoke true—they didnt bother us no more. Instead they give the minerals over to the coal companies and the coal companies took our land two year later. Omar Kane, sheriff of Justice County, come around and said everyone had to move, that he had an order. American coal took a lease from the Richmond and Western railroad. Railroad owns the mineral. Mineral owner has precedence over the surface owner. He tacked a notice on Clabe’s cabin door, on Dillon’s, and most everyone’s on the holler. When he passed us by, my papaw was pleased with himself.

“I told them other durned fools, but they wouldnt listen. Hit’s what comes of bein greedy, Cincinnatus. You remember that.”

Papaw Henry always called me Cincinnatus, only person that did, Cincinnatus Jefferson Marcum, after the two greatest men that ever lived.

“Farmers and freemen,” he called them. “You be just like em, boy.”

Papaw had the naming of me because my daddy died of the pneumonia before I was borned, and the childbirth took my mother away right after. I was sent to school at Justice in the winters. Papaw had it in mind that I would read for the law someday.

“Cincinnatus, fetch some honey jars up the hill.”

That was the last thing Papaw ever said to me. The jars was dusty and I went to the well to wash them while he climbed the hill. Mamaw and me heard a shot. We run and found him toppled over into one of the hives. We was both stung all over when we pulled him out of there by the legs. He was shot once through the head.

Sheriff come round in three days and nailed the notice to vacate on our cabin door.

“What gives you the right, Omar?” Mamaw said.

Sheriff wouldnt look at her. “Henry set his mark to a paper, didnt he?”

“His mark?” I said scornfully. “He didnt have no call to make no mark. My papaw could read and write.”

“I dont know about that,” Sheriff muttered.