Free Those Who Went Remain There Still by Cherie Priest Page B

and that’s all it is. If you can’t get your act together and behave like grown men, then you deserve to bicker like babies until the day you die. Now go on out, the six of you. Go find my daddy’s will, and whatever it says, you’re all going to abide by it ‘cause you ain’t got no choice.”
    ***
    She stomped back inside and slammed the door.
    ***
    Nobody went after her. Those of us on our horses just sat there, because not one of us wanted to go out to the Witch’s Pit even a little bit, but we didn’t have a choice in the matter, not anymore.
    The crowd of relations around us thinned, or the folks milling around down by our horses backed off even farther. It was a lot of pressure, all of a sudden, and it was making us all tense. The horses even got wind of it, and they started fussing in their reins.
    I couldn’t stand it, all the standing around. So I led my horse over to Titus’s mount, closing the gap between the two sides. And I said, “Cousin, it’s been a whole lot of years since I went out to that Pit. I ain’t been there since Winnter went missing, and everybody here knows how long ago that was. Does any one of you want to take the lead?”
    “What are you doing?” Carlson asked, cross with me already, but I didn’t care. We might’ve been closer kin, and that was a fact; but I wouldn’t have known the man on sight and I knew enough of Titus to like him all right.
    Titus wasn’t dumb, though. He said, “Hey there, Carlson. It’s fine, if you want to lead us on out.”
    “Who says it’s fine?” And now Jacob was in on it—this crazy little stand-off of who gets to be in charge.
    “ I said it’s fine,” Titus said. Everyone got all quiet, because of how he said it loud and with an order lying inside it somewhere. He was only about as old as Nicodemus. Jacob had seniority over him, but Jacob didn’t answer back.
    I looked over my shoulder at Carlson, who was glaring at the whole bunch of us with a look on his face like he was sucking a lemon. I told him, “Carlson, someone’s got to get started. And it don’t have to be us. If we can’t ride our horses in a line together, we sure as hell can’t get ourselves into the cave. So stop it now, I’m
asking you.”
    “You been gone too long, both of you,” he said, but he didn’t mean me and John. He meant me and Titus.
    “Then maybe this’ll work after all,” Titus answered before I could. “Meshack, me and you can work together all right, can’t we?”
    “I believe we can. And my uncle here, John. He’s willing to get along with the rest of you too, ain’t he?”
    John nodded and said, “I am.”
    I pointed my finger back at Carlson, and then swung it around at Jacob and Nicodemus, just so everyone would be real clear on who I was talking to. “That’s three of us who ain’t about to kill each other. The other three of you get on board, and we’ll get started.”
    The remaining three grumbled, but everyone was watching—even Granny Gail. Or she was listening anyway, we could be sure of that. I don’t think any of us would’ve been ashamed to admit we were a touch afraid of her. And if that was all it took for us to behave there, in front of the house, then that was all right by me.
    But the other three men were still shuffling in their saddles, searching the faces of their nearest relations and looking for answers, or permission for something.
    It was John who spoke up next. “Don’t you see what’s happening here? This is a golden opportunity. This is a gift, from Heaster—even if he meant for it to be an inconvenience, it’s a gift . If it works out, there doesn’t have to be any more fighting, and no one has to lose any face. You can all step back away from it, and be even. Isn’t that better than the old give-and-take you’ve been carrying out for the last forty years?”
    His questions did not do what he wanted, I don’t think. It was because he used big words, and because he’d lost a lot of the