Chapter 3
Isum rode home in the twilight. He'd checked the fence after James left and found his son's work done as well as he could have done it. The dun knew the road as well as he did, and the horse set his own pace and Isum let him. He had things to think through.
He had been married to Alberta for twenty-six years.
They had buried two children and raised Henry, James and Faith and now had five grandchildren between Kerrville and New Braunfels, three belonging to Henry and two to Faith, who both lived within twenty-five miles.
Isum had been gone from home for long stretches before, on army business in the sixties and early seventies, and on Will's business in the seventies and eighties.
They were poor as field mice before linking up with Will, but since then, they'd had a good life, and they tried to help their children even though it was hard for black folk after the war.
Isum rode up to the house and put the dun in the small corral next to the barn. He removed the saddle and bridle and forked down fresh hay before patting the dun's hip and walking up to the house.
Alberta was at the stove. She did not turn around. "You're going with Will to Mexico, I hear."
"I am. Where's James?"
"In his room, reading his books like usual," she said.
Alberta stirred what was in the pot, which was greens and ham hock, which was what Tuesday night was at the Wood house and had been for twenty-six years.
At least it was when the greens were in season.
She stirred a long slow turn and then she lifted the spoon out and set it on the plate beside the stove and she turned around.
"Word gets around," she said.
"Sounds like you been talkin' to Virginia," he said.
"Uh huh, so I washed your extra shirts and denims this morning."
"Thank you."
Isum sat down at the kitchen table. Alberta brought him a cup of coffee without being asked and set it down in front of him and went back to the stove. She did not say anything until he'd finished his coffee.
After a while she asked, without turning around, "How long?"
"Three weeks or so. Might be back sooner. I'm sure Virginia told you. "Will's worried about Del and his family. Haven't heard from them since they left, and Will wants to find out what's going on."
Alberta was quiet for a minute. "Just Will and you?"
"Will and me, like it's been from the first," Isum said.
"Best decision I ever made was going to work for Will Fain, but it really wasn't my decision.
You're the one that decided, and you were right.
He's been fair and generous all these years.
We have a better life than almost any other black family in Texas. "
"You don't have to tell me," Alberta said. "Nobody else goin' this trip?"
"We can't bring an army. That would bring on a border incident. Two Texans traveling quietly is different. We'll be hiding our badges and using assumed names."
"And if there is a fuss?"
Isum chuckled, "Then we'll do what we gotta do, but we won't come back without Del and his family. That's what Will says, and I agree with him. Anybody gets in our way, we'll try hard to talk our way out of it."
"And if that doesn't work?"
"Like I said, we do what we gotta do."
Alberta turned from the stove. She came to the table and sat down across from him and she folded her hands in front of her, the way she folded her hands in church, the way she folded them when she was about to say something she had worked out in her head before she said it.
"Isum Wood. I want you to listen to me now."
"I'm listenin'," he said with a little smile on his face.
"You are not as young as you were the last time you rode into Mexico. You are forty five years old. Your knee is not what it was. Your eyes are not what they were in the army."
"My eyes are fine."
"Your eyes were better. I am not saying they're bad. I am saying you're not twenty-nine anymore, and a man who goes into that kind of country and that kind of situation needs to know what he is and what he is not."
"I know what I am, and Will and I can take care of each other. We always have."
"Do not come back without that family. I want you at this table when this is over. I want Del at his own table. I want Elena cooking in her kitchen. I want that boy playing in his own home. You bring me all of that, and I will bake you any pie you name."
"I do like your pies."
"I've got some blackberries I canned."
"Now that does sound tasty with a sugar crust."
"I'll fix that pie just for you when you get back."
Alberta made a small sound that was almost a laugh, and she reached across the table and put her hand on Isum's.
He turned his hand over and took hers and they sat that way a while at the kitchen table with the greens simmering on the stove behind her and the light going red and gold outside the window over the sink.
"You packed?" she asked.
"No."
"I'll pack for you."
"I can pack."
"I will pack. You will sit there and drink that coffee and you tell me what else you want me to know before you go to bed tonight."
"All right."
Isum thought about it.
"You know where all the money is," he said. "You got little hidey-holes all over this house, and the taxes are due in September if I'm not back."
"Don't you worry about taxes. We got money for everything, thanks to your work. I know where the Army papers are. I know where the deed is. I know where the rifle is. I know where the will is, and I know what's in it.
"All right."
"You just take care of yourself and bring Del and his family back."
"That's exactly what we'll do."
"That's what I want to hear."
She stood up and she went back to the stove and she put supper on the table, greens and ham hock and cornbread and a dish of beans that had been on the back of the stove since noon.
Alberta called James from his room. They all sat down and Alberta offered a prayer, and they started eating.
Isum ate more than he wanted to, because Alberta had cooked more than he wanted because the day after tomorrow he was leaving, and tonight she was going to feed him like a man who worked hard oughta be fed.
James ate more'n Isum. Still growin', Isum thought.
"Pa, when you gon' be back?" James asked.
"Don't know, but you'll have the place," Isum said. "I'm countin' on you."
"I know," James said. "I'll take care of things."
After supper James went to his room, and Isum and Alberta sat on the porch in the twilight.
Alberta had her shawl around her shoulders and her hands in her lap and she looked out at the yard, at the pecan tree Isum had planted, at the chicken coop and the barn and the little corral where the dun and four other horses stood, at the shadow coming down across the pasture from the hills to the west.
He put his arm around her shoulders. She leaned her head against his shoulder the way she had leaned her head against him on this same porch on a thousand nights over the years, and they did not speak for a long time, and the night came down around the house, and the moon came up over the live oak at the south corner of the yard.
"Time for bed," Alberta finally said.
"Yeah, I've gotta get some sleep."
"I have to wash the dishes."
"I can wash the dishes."
"You will not. You need your sleep. I am washing the dishes. You go to bed."