Long Upon the Land (21 page)

I
was puzzled. “If Leslie wasn’t black, then what was the big deal? Was she a Lumbee Indian? Jewish?” I tried to think what other prejudices were rampant in those days.

Daddy shook his head. “Leslie won’t a black woman, honey. Leslie was a white man. And he killed hisself because Mac won’t man enough to speak up for him when the word got out about him in New Bern. Nobody knowed Mac was like that, but when they found out Leslie was, they beat him up and tied him naked to a fencepost in the middle of town with a sign around his neck. Thought it was a big joke. Somebody brought him a blanket and cut him loose—not Mac—and that night he shot hisself.”

I was stunned.

“Mac told your mama that Leslie was dead ’cause he was a coward. They couldn’t live together in New Bern and they couldn’t go to Paris but they could’ve gone to New York or California or some big city. Found a place where people would let ’em live like they wanted to.”

He slid the engraved case back into place, closed the lighter, and handed it to me. “It happened a few weeks after he give Mac this lighter and Mac never quit grieving. He liked your mama and before he went overseas, he made her promise that she’d be braver than he was. That she’d break the rules and not care what people thought was right or wrong for her. ‘Follow your heart,’ he told her. When I tried to tell her we couldn’t get married, that we was too different, that people would say she was throwing herself away on me, she wouldn’t listen. She said we was right for each other and we was, won’t we?”

“Oh yes!” I said. “
Yes!
”

“Real funny, ain’t it, how things work? People finally getting used to the idea that we are how we are and we can’t change the way we was made.” He smiled. “You might not even be here if it won’t for Walter Raynesford McIntyre. Nor Will and the little twins neither.”

“Don’t count on it,” I said. “Aunt Zell says Mother was always pretty headstrong. The promise might’ve made it easier, but promise or no promise, I bet she would’ve married you anyhow.”

He stretched his long legs straight out and there was something downright prideful about the smile on his face. “Yeah, I reckon she would’ve.”

The rusty old green glider barely squeaked with the gentle push of his foot. “Just wish she could’ve knowed what’s about to happen with the grandchildren.”

“The grandchildren?”

“Ain’t they told you yet?”

“Told me what?”

“That’s right. They wanted to keep it a secret. You gotta pretend you’re real surprised when they tell you.”

“Tell me
what
?” I said again.

“You know how your mama never did like me messing with whiskey?”

I nodded.

“Just about the only thing I ever lied to her about.”

“So?”

“Them young’uns been plaguing me to death this summer, making me tell ’em how to make it, wanting my best recipes.”

“What?”

“Ain’t you wondered how come they planted so much corn this year? They’re gonna have me making corn liquor again, honey, only this time, it’s gonna be legal. They already started the paperwork. Full circle, Deb’rah. Full circle.”

Once more I give my heartfelt thanks to the three who have been with me almost from Deborah Knott’s beginning: District Court Judges Shelly S. Holt and Rebecca W. Blackmore and the Honorable John W. Smith, director of the Administrative Office of the Courts. I truly could not have done this without your patient and generous help.

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