“Stop that, Virgil,” a woman said. She walked to the door and stared at Jon. “Your wife, you say?”
Jon nodded. “I left her a few miles down the road,” he said. “We haven’t gotten work for a few days now. We haven’t eaten since Wednesday.”
“Still say it’d be easier to shoot him, Katie,” Virgil said. “Feed him to the hogs.”
“Hush up,” Katie said. “Don’t mind him, boy. He’s got no company manners. Didn’t before, and nothing the past few years improved him any. I must say, you look way too young to be married.”
“What day is it?” Jon asked. “What date?”
“August eighth, I think,” Katie replied. “We got a perpetual calendar, and I think that’s what it said.”
“I’m seventeen,” Jon said. “I’ll be eighteen in ten days. My wife’s younger. Please, I’m begging you. Just a little food for her.”
“Come on, Virgil,” the woman said. “We can spare some of that potato bread I baked yesterday. Remember, you said it wasn’t fit for the hogs? We can let the boy have that.”
“I’m not giving no stranger my food,” Virgil declared. “Tell me your name, boy, and where you’re from, and why I shouldn’t shoot you on the spot and feed you to the hogs.”
“You shouldn’t shoot me because it would make your wife mad,” Jon said. “And you’d have to butcher me before you feed me to the hogs, and there’s not a lot of meat on me.”
“He’s got a point, Virgil,” Katie said. “It’d put me in a terrible bad mood if you kill this nice young man.”
Virgil lowered his rifle and pulled Jon to him, yanking his hair until Jon thought his neck might break. “I’m still waiting to hear your name, boy, and where you’re from.”
“Jon Evans,” Jon gasped. “Sexton.”
Virgil pushed him away. “Sexton,” he said. “Ain’t that one of them enclaves?”
Jon nodded.
“Clavers,” Virgil said to his wife. “That’s what they call them. Fancy boys with cars and money.”
“No cars,” Jon said. “No money, not anymore. Just a wife who’s starving to death three miles down the road.”
“Even clavers got to eat,” his wife said. “And their little wives. You treat this boy nice, Virgil, while I go to the kitchen and get him some food. You hear me? You hurt a hair on his head, and I’ll be madder than two hornets’ nests.”
“All right,” Virgil said. “Give them that bread. It’d poison the hogs anyway.”
“That bread and more,” his wife said. “How far are you going, boy?”
“Thirty miles maybe,” Jon said. “I’ve got family there.”
“That’ll be till Monday,” she said. “Well, I can’t give you enough for then. But you go back to the highway, and there’s an exit about ten miles east. Braxton. They got a real nice church there. You get there tomorrow, they’ll find a way to feed you and that little wife of yours.”
“Thank you,” Jon said. “I can’t tell you how much this means to me.”
“Well, Virgil here don’t like to admit it, but we was young once, and poor as church mice,” she said. “We had our share of helping hands. Now, you stand still, both of you, and I’ll be right back.”
“She’s a good woman,” Jon said. “You’re a lucky man.”
“She has her good days,” Virgil said. “But she can’t bake potato bread worth a lick.”
Jon smiled. “We won’t care,” he said. “Right now we’d be honored to eat as good as your hogs.”
When Katie returned, she’d packed all the bread, two potatoes, and a bunch of carrots. “Take it all,” she said. “And Godspeed to you.”
“Thank you,” Jon said. “Ruby, my wife, she thanks you, too.”
“Just get out,” Virgil said. “And don’t show your face here again.”
“Never,” Jon said. “I promise.”
It was hard walking back to Ruby without eating any of the food, but he wanted to show her how much they had, to let her have the first bites before he allowed himself any.
He thought about how brave she was, how much her strength had helped him. It was funny. He was with her day and night, but he’d lost any interest he had in her as a woman, if he’d ever had any. Someday, maybe, he’d be over Sarah, but by then Ruby would have found that hard-working man she’d make a life with.
“Ruby!” he called as he saw her resting against a tree trunk. “I got us some food!”
“Real food?” she cried. “Really, Mr. Jon?”
“Well, the hogs won’t eat it,” Jon said. “But it’s good enough for us.”
Chapter 16
“Do you know their address?” Ruby asked. “Or are we gonna wander around Coolidge the rest of our lives looking for that brother of yours?”
“Forty-four fifty-two Route Thirty-seven East,” Jon said.
“I don’t suppose you know where that is,” Ruby said.
“No, I don’t,” Jon said. “But the streets are full of people. Let’s ask one and see if we can find out.”
“Full of grubs,” Ruby said. “You know that’s what you want to call them. ‘People.’ You don’t think of them as people. They’re just dirty grubs like me.”
The closer they’d gotten to Coolidge, the crabbier Ruby had become. Jon figured she was nervous about meeting his family. Nervous and hungry and exhausted.
“People or grubs,” Jon said. “Let’s ask one.”
Coolidge looked like a rural version of White Birch. The people who lived there had the same worn-out look to them. But it was close to 7 p.m., and they were getting home from their jobs.
At that, the grubs looked better than he and Ruby did. They’d found a stream a few miles back and had washed themselves, but they’d been wearing the same clothes now for ten days and had only rinsed them out a couple of times during their journey.
“You ask,” Ruby grumbled. “Use that claver charm of yours.”
Jon found a man who looked a little less dead than the others. “Excuse me,” he said. “I’m looking for Route Thirty-seven East.”
The man spat in the vicinity of Jon’s feet. “What for?” he asked.
“I’ve got family there,” Jon said. “Can you tell me where it is?”
“Yeah,” the man said. “But I don’t reckon I want to.” He walked away.
“Okay,” Jon said to Ruby. “You go next.”
Ruby scowled, but she walked over to a woman. “Thirty-seven East?” she said.
“Walk to the corner and make a left,” the woman replied. “Go about a mile. You’ll see the sign for it there.”
“Well, thank you, ma’am, very much,” Ruby said.
“Any time,” the woman said, cracking what seemed to be a smile in Ruby’s direction.
“How did you do that?” Jon asked as they began walking down the street.
“Like knows like,” Ruby replied. “You still smell of claver.”
Jon was pretty sure claver wasn’t what the grubs were smelling, but he kept his thoughts to himself.
“How far down you think it’ll be?” Ruby asked. “That big number.”
“We’ve made it this far, we can make it a little farther,” Jon said. “Come on, Ruby. Think how excited Gabe will be when he sees you.”
“I don’t know, Mr. Jon,” Ruby said. “Maybe it’s not that good an idea, him seeing me.”
“Ruby, please,” Jon said. “We’ve got to get there, and it’s going to be dark pretty soon. Matt will feed us, and we can clean up and get some sleep. All right?”
“Don’t matter what I think,” she grumbled, but she began walking again.
She’s shy, Jon thought. She’s scared of meeting people she thinks of as clavers. She lost everything—her home, her family—and now she’s meeting her new family; naturally she’s reluctant.