Nobody knew. Nobody ever knew. And Breeze was too coward-hearted to watch for his grandfather’s spirit. No matter how Granny scolded him, he couldn’t do it.
Days afterward, April, the foreman on Blue Brook Plantation, came to Sandy Island, bringing a pair of blue overalls holding pieces of a man. He had fished them up out of the Blue Brook itself where they had drifted instead of going on down to the river’s mouth.
Old Breeze had worn blue overalls that Monday morning. Maybe it was he. More than likely it was he. Granny was certain of it.
The stepfather had disappeared with the money buried at the foot of the old dead pine, but April stayed to help dig a grave and bury the poor thing he had found. The mother shrieked and wailed, but Granny grunted and shook her head. She said Old Breeze’s body floated to Blue Brook on purpose so April could find it, for April was Old Breeze’s son, and, more than that, April was li’l’ Breeze’s daddy!
III
COUSIN BIG SUE
Breeze had heard about Blue Brook Plantation all his life, but he had never heard about his mother’s Cousin Big Sue until one hot October afternoon when he was minding the cow by the spring branch and helping his mother break in the precious nubbins of corn and put them in the log barn. Sis called them to come on home in a hurry! The stepfather had gone to town hunting work. Maybe he had come home. Sis’s voice was high and shrill and scared, and Breeze knew something had happened. These hot days the mother always worked in the field until first dark because that was the coolest part of the day, and Sis, who stayed at home and sewed and patched and cooked, never called anybody until after the sun went down.
Breeze forgot that the cow was in reach of the low-ground corn and hurried across the stubby furrows as fast as his skinny legs could carry him, but he stopped short when he saw a big fat black woman with a good-natured smile on her face, standing beside Sis in the cabin’s back door. Who was she? Why had she come? Why did Sis look so grieved?
The other children were in the yard, giggling, trying to hide behind one another, but the woman’s eyes stayed on Breeze.
“I kin see de likeness!” she laughed. “Lawd, yes! Dat boy is de pure spit o’ April! De same tar-black skin. De same owl eyes. A mouth blue as blackberry stain.”
Breeze had run so fast he was out of breath and his heart beat against his ribs as he watched his mother kiss the stranger and go inside the cabin with her. Presently Sis called him to come in too.