The man looked around the house and barn, the washhouse and pens, saw the brush cleared along the creek. He raised his hand. “Thank you for the feed.”“I have a little coffee and some buffalo that’s still good,” said Britt. “If you want to stay to eat.”“I better get on.” The man fooled with the reins. “My name is Vance Hamby. I knew Thornton had come home wounded. Other than that we got no word.”“No. Never hear anything out here.” “And you’re going by yourself.”“Yes.”Vance Hamby sat silently for a moment and then he touched his hat brim. “Well, take care, Britt.”“Yes sir. I will.”in t h e mid d l e of March Britt was visited by Paint Crawford and Dennis Cureton and Vesey Smith. The three were also free men. Paint was free because old man Crawford had died but before he died he had written the paper that set him loose, and Dennis Cu- reton was free because he had been free back in St. Louis before he ever came out here with the Cureton family, and Vesey Smith was free because he had the manumission papers from somebody named Smith that had been killed in the Plum Creek raid back in the for- ties.
