Percy was two generations out of slavery. If I closed my eyes and listened to his voice, I could imagine that I had been hired by some soft-spoken Harvard graduate. He was articulate, even for a newspaper man. And we had learned, over the course of this lengthy expedition, to make allowances for our differences. We had some common ground. We were both the offspring of radical parents, for example. The “madness of the fifties” had touched us both, in different ways.

“You suppose we’ll find anything substantial at the end of this road?” Percy asked.

“The landlady mentioned some old sheds.”

“Sheds would be acceptable,” Percy said, his weariness showing. “It’s been a long haul for you, Tom. And not much substantial work. Maybe this time?”

“Maybe.”

“Documents, oral accounts, that’s all useful, but a photograph—just one, just to show that something remains—well, that would be important.”

“I’ll photograph any old shed you like, Percy, if it pleases you.” Though on this trip I had seen more open fields—long since burned over and regrown—than anything worthy of being immortalized. Places edited from history. Absences constructed as carefully as architecture. I had no reason to think Pilgassi Acres would be different.

Percy seldom spoke out loud about the deeper purpose of his quest or the book he was currently writing. Fair enough, I thought; it was a sensitive subject. Like the way I don’t talk much about Cuba, though I had served a year and a half there under Lee. The spot is too tender to touch.

These hills were low and covered with stunted pines and other rude vegetation. The road soon grew even more rough, but we began to encounter evidence of a prior human presence. A few fenceposts. Scraps of rusted barbwire. The traces of an old narrow-gauge railbed. Then we passed under a wooden sign suspended between two lodgepoles on which the words PILGASSI ACRES in an ornate script were still legible, though the seasons had bleached the letters to ghosts.