The Book of Lost Friends(72)

I pass over that last part. Just reminds me how good she’s had it all these years. “And whatever you do, don’t take off that bonnet.”

We go up to the front steps, and I check her over one more time, and in she walks. I find a place to sit in the shade with Missy. She’s rubbing her stomach and moaning a little. I try to give her hardtack to quieten her, but she won’t take it.

“Hush, then,” I say. “Ought to be too scared to think about your belly, anyhow. Last time I stood outside a building while somebody went in, you and Juneau Jane wound up in a box, and I almost got shot dead.”

I won’t be falling asleep in some hogshead barrel this time, that’s for definite.

I keep a narrow eye on that building while we wait.

Juneau Jane ain’t gone very long, and I’m afraid that can’t be good news, and it’s not. The lawyer ain’t even there; only a woman that keeps his office, and she’s packing the place up, floor to rafters. Old Mister was by here sometime back, but he left the property settlement for the lawyer to argue out, then he went on to Fort Worth town, hunting for Lyle. Then, two weeks after Old Mister was through here, Federal men come to the office looking to get some files. The woman didn’t know what, but Mr. Washburn went out the back door when he saw them Federals. Next day, he gathered up some things and left for Fort Worth hisself. Said he meant to see about opening up a office there, didn’t know when he’d be back.

“She had nothing in the remaining files bearing Papa’s name,” Juneau Jane tells me. “She opened the box, that I might see for myself. There was only this. And it is just a book in which Mr. Washburn recorded the accountings of Papa’s land here—the land that was fraudulently sold by Lyle. After the turn of the year, the notations ended, and so we must—”

“Ssshhh.” I grab her with one hand and Missy with the other.

I’m looking right across the street at three men walking toward that building—two white, one tall, lean, and pecan-shell brown, his hand resting on the butt of a hip pistol. I’d know the long, steady stride of that man anyplace.

Moses looks my way while I’m pulling Missy and Juneau Jane back into the shadows. Can’t see his eyes under the hat brim, but I feel them on me. His chin draws in a little, then his head cocks to study us.

He falls a step farther back from the other men, and I figure a bullet comes next.

A question bolts through my mind.

Which one of us does he shoot first?





CHAPTER 18


BENNY SILVA—AUGUSTINE, LOUISIANA, 1987

I wake and look across the room, surprised to find myself curled in the worn recliner affectionately nicknamed Old Snoozy. My favorite fuzzy blanket, Christopher’s gift to me last year on my birthday, lies askew over me. I snuggle it under my chin as I’m opening my eyes to the gentle sunlight on the old cypress-plank floors.

Loosening one arm, I wrist-rub my forehead, blink the farmhouse into view, look across the room at the stocking-clad man feet propped crisscross on the antique wooden box I rescued from a dumpster near campus a few years back. I don’t recognize the socks on those feet, or the well-worn hunting boots kicked off on the floor nearby.

And then, suddenly, I do. And I realize the night has passed, and morning is here, and I’m not alone. In an instant of befuddled panic, I touch my arm, my shoulder, my folded-up legs. I am fully dressed, and nothing is amiss in the room. That’s a relief.

The previous evening comes back slowly at first, and then faster, faster, faster. I remember gathering things from Goswood Grove House and even a few treasures from the city library collection, to be fully prepared for my meeting with Nathan. I remember that he was late getting to my place. I was afraid he’d decided not to show.

He stepped onto my porch with an apology and a boxed cake he’d picked up as a gift. “Doberge cake. It’s sort of a Louisiana thing,” he explained. “I feel like I should apologize for the intrusion. I’m sure you could’ve made more interesting plans on a Friday night.”

“This looks like a pretty incredible apology.” I took ownership of what felt like three pounds of dessert, while shifting back a step to allow him in the door. “But I’ll admit, it’s tough to compete with gate duty at the football stadium and preventing teenagers from making out under the bleachers.”

We laughed the nervous laugh of two people uncertain where the conversation should go from there.

“Let me show you a little of why I asked you to come,” I said. “We’ll grab some barbecue and iced tea in a minute.” I purposely didn’t offer wine or beer, for fear of making our meeting seem too much like a date.

It was hours before we even remembered the takeout food and the cake. As I’d been hoping, Nathan wasn’t as disinterested in family history as he thought. The tangled past of Goswood Grove swept us up as we sifted through old first-edition books, ledgers listing years of the plantation’s business transactions and harvest tallies, journals detailing day-to-day activities, and several letters that were tucked between the books on one of the shelves. They were just the chatter of a ten-year-old girl writing to her father about her daily activities at a school run by nuns, mundane in their day but fascinating now.

I saved the family Bible and brought out the more innocuous and pleasant things first. I wondered how he’d feel about the bits of heritage that were raw and difficult. Of course, in the clinical sense, he most certainly knew his family’s history, understood what a place like Goswood Grove would have been in the era of slavery. But how would he feel about coming face-to-face with the human realities, even through the faraway lens of yellowed paper and faded ink?