“That’s my grandpa,” Kya said. She thumbed through the thin pages of the Bible, and there, in the records of births and deaths, was one Napier Murphy Clark. Such a grand name. The same as her brother’s. She told the clerk her pa was dead, which he probably was.
“It’s ne’er been sold. So, yessiree bobtail, I reckon it b’longs to you. But I’m afred to tell ya, there’re some back taxes, Miz Clark, and to keep the land you gotta pay ’em. In fact, ma’am, the way the law reads, whoever comes along and pays off them back taxes owns the land even if they don’t got no deed.”
“How much?” Kya had not opened a bank account, and all the cash she owned after the improvements to her house, some three thousand dollars, was right in her knapsack. But they must be talking forty years of back taxes—thousands and thousands of dollars.
“Well, let’s lookee here. It’s listed as ‘waste-land cateegory,’ so the taxes fer most of them years was about five dollars. Let’s see here, I gotta calc’late it.” He stepped over to a fat and clunky adding machine, punched in numbers, and, after every entry, pulled back the crank handle, which made a churning sound as if it were actually summing up.
“Looks like it’ll be ’bout eight hundr’d dollars total—put the land free and clear.”
Kya walked out of the courthouse with a full deed in her name for three hundred ten acres of lush lagoons, sparkling marsh, oak forests, and a long private beach on the North Carolina coastline. “Wasteland
Pulling back into her lagoon at dusk, she had a talk with the heron. “It’s all right. That spot’s your’n!”
• • •
THE NEXT NOON there was a note from Tate in her mailbox, which seemed strange and somehow formal since he’d only ever left messages for her on the feather stump. He thanked her for the invitation to stop by her place for a copy of her book and added that he’d be there that very afternoon.
Carrying one of the six copies of her new book the publishers had given her, she waited on the old reading-log. In about twenty minutes she heard the sound of Tate’s old boat chugging up the channel and stood. As he eased into view from the undergrowth, they waved and smiled softly. Both guarded. The last time he’d pulled in here, she’d hurled rocks in his face.
After tying up, Tate stepped up to her. “Kya, your book is a wonder.” He leaned slightly forward, as if to hug her, but the hardened rinds of her heart held her back.
Instead she handed him the book. “Here, Tate. This is for you.”
“Thank you, Kya,” he said as he opened it and paged through. He didn’t mention that, of course, he’d already bought one at the Sea Oaks Bookshelf and marveled at every page. “Nothing like this has ever been published. I’m sure this is just a beginning for you.”
She simply bowed her head and smiled slightly.
Then, turning to the title page, he said, “Oh, you haven’t signed it. You have to inscribe it for me. Please.”
She jerked her head up at him. Had not thought of that. What words could she possibly write to Tate?
He took a pen from his jeans pocket and handed it to her.
She took it and, after a few seconds, wrote:
Tate read the words, then turned away, staring far across the marsh because he couldn’t hold her. Finally, he lifted her hand and squeezed it.
“Thank you, Kya.”
“It was you, Tate,” she said, and then thought,
He stood for a minute, and when she didn’t say more, he turned to go. But as he got into his boat, he said, “Kya, when you see me out in the marsh, please don’t hide in the grass like a spotted fawn. Just call out to me and we can do some exploring together. Okay?”
“All right.”
“Thanks again for the book.”
“Good-bye, Tate.” She watched until he disappeared in the thicket and then said, “I could have at least invited him in for tea. That wouldn’t hurt anything. I could be his friend.” Then with rare pride she thought of her book. “I could be his colleague.”
• • •
AN HOUR AFTER TATE LEFT, Kya motored to Jumpin’s wharf, another copy of her book tucked in her knapsack. As she approached, she saw him leaning against the wall of his weathered shop. He stood and waved to her, but she did not wave back. Knowing something was different, he waited silently as she tied up. She stepped up to him, lifted his hand, and put the book in his palm. At first he didn’t understand, but she pointed to her name and said, “I’m okay now, Jumpin’. Thank you, and thank Mabel for all you did for me.”
