Malachi moon, p.1
Malachi Moon, page 1
Malachi Moon:
Coming of Age
Book I
by
Robert Crudup
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
MALACHI MOON: COMING OF AGE BOOK I
First edition. November 17, 2021.
Copyright © 2021 robert crudup.
ISBN: 979-8201013288
Written by robert crudup.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
No Niggers Allowed!
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ella May Barres | Born: Unknown Died: May 23, 1953 | Rest In Peace
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Further Reading: Black Tears
About the Author
About the Publisher
This book is dedicated to my parents who were patient enough with me to encourage me to read. Not just comic books, but all books. Thank you!
Chapter One
The intensity of the sun’s heat made Malachi’s light skin feel as though it was burning into the depth of his soul. He moaned with a strenuous effort as he continued to plow the harden ground that always refused to give to his brutal strength. Malachi stopped. He licked his parched full lips while he removed the yellow, dingy, straw hat. He wiped his forehead with the back of his dirty hand. The sweat burnt his eyes as he squinted up at the hot intense sun as it released its brutal heat down on him. He grunted as he shook his head and replaced his hat. His right hand grabbed the handle of the plow while he pulled out a small pebble from his left pocket. He threw the pebble at the mule in front of him that was connected to the other end of the plow.
“Let’s keep it moving, Stella! If Pa were to see you fooling around, he’d be whipping us both,” Malachi said. He watched the pebble bounced off the mule’s head. “Let’s go girl.”
Stella, a mule who’d seen better days, heehawed. She was stubborn. She whined a course of dislike when the pebble hit her. She put her head between her shoulders and began to pull the plow as she lazily walked forward.
“I don’t know, Stella. I get tired of working this field every morning. I can’t see any progress at the end of the week. Maybe it’s the sun burning out my brains that make me think the way I’m thinking, but life has got to be easier somewhere else besides Mullebur, South Carolina. What do you think, Stella?”
Stella stopped. She turned her head around to look at Malachi. She took a hoof and kicked up some dirt in front of her, and then she made a loud whine.
“I know how you feel, girl. Come on. Pa will want us to have this here side done by the time he returns from town. Let’s go, Stella,” Malachi said.
Stella nodded her massive head as she turned back around. She kicked her hoof into the dirt, and then she flopped down on the ground all in one swift motion.
“Oh, damn it, Stella! Don’t go acting hardheaded on me!” Malachi shouted. “You can take some hard licks to that thick backside of yours, but my skin ain’t as thick as yours when it comes to the switch. Get up, girl!”
Stella’s hindquarters quivered as she sat her full weight onto the ground to get more comfortable while wiggling her large hindquarters into the ground.
“Stella! Sweet shit! Stella don’t act this way. I’ll give you an apple if you get off the ground,” Malachi pleaded.
Stella turned toward him. She pulled back her lips to display her large teeth, and then bayed.
“Well, I’m not going to give it to you if you’re sitting on the ground. I’ll give it to you when we get to the other side of this here trench,” Malachi said, as he hiked up his worn, faded gray pants as he gave Stella a defiant stare.
Stella continued to look at Malachi.
“I promise, Stella. I got a few apples in the barn. Now come on, get up,” he pleaded.
Stella didn’t move.
“Sweet shit! Girl, come on!” Malachi shouted as he yanked on the reins.
Stella bayed but didn’t move.
Malachi let go of the plow and the reins and turned around. When he turned back around seconds later, he was holding a red, small apple that he’d taken out of his pants.
“This is yours if you start moving, Stella,” Malachi said. He held the apple out in Stella’s direction.
Stella didn’t budge.
“Go ahead. Eat it,” Malachi said. He pushed the apple closer to Stella’s face as he neared her.
“All right,” Malachi said. “Go ahead. I trust you, and I hope you trust me.”
Stella looked at the apple, and then Malachi as she watched Malachi’s hand draw closer to her mouth with the red shiny apple.
“Eat it,” Malachi said again as he drew nearer.
Stella slowly moved her head toward the apple. She was hesitating. She sniffed at the apple. She looked at Malachi, and then she sniffed at it again. She opened her wide mouth, and was about to bite into the apple when Malachi pulled it back.
“Are you going to act right?” Malachi asked, as he held the apple behind his back. “No more tricks if I give it to you.”
Stella tilted her head sideways while making her eyes become cross-eyed as she displayed a bemused quizzical stare.
Malachi held up his index finger. “If you eat it, you work for me,” he said.
Stella continued her nonchalant stare.
“Okay. Here’s your apple.”
Malachi slowly moved his hand toward Stella’s mouth. He snatched his hand back at the same time Stella bit into the apple while yanking it out of Malachi’s hand.
“Damn, you’re fast. Chew it quick, and let’s get back to work,” Malachi said.
Malachi watched Stella chew on the apple slowly. He thought she was chewing on it a little too slow as he walked back to the plow and picked up the reins.
“Are you finished?” Malachi asked.
Stella bayed.
“We had a deal, Stella. Come on, girl. We have work to do!” Malachi snapped.
Stella whined and then bayed again. She shook her head, and laid her hindquarters deeper into the ground.
“Sweet shit, Stella!” Malachi shouted. “You no good for nothing, stubborn ass mule! You eat my apple, and then you get even lazier.” He started kicking dirt on Stella with the side of his worn, brown shoe. “This wasn’t part of our deal!”
“Do you know you’re talking to a mule?”
Malachi turned around.
“An ass does not have no feeling after it’s eaten, Malachi.”
Malachi looked at the small, dark-skinned girl as if she’d come up behind him and kicked him in his butt. He shook his head. There were times when his twelve-year-old sister had a knack to drive him crazy with her snide remarks.
“Thank you, Rose Ann for your good words of encouragement in this here situation.” Malachi’s words were so southern that Rose Ann, at times had to strain to understand what he said. “But I can handle it without you,” Malachi said.
Rose Ann, her long, gray flowered dress dragging on the ground, smiled. Malachi watched her raise her dress displaying her bare feet, as she walked toward him.
“What are you going to do that I couldn’t?” Malachi asked.
“The difference between you and me is that Stella knows what she’s doing when it comes to me pulling the plow and when it comes to you,” Rose Ann said as she bent down and picked up a palm size rock. She went behind Stella. “The difference being that we’re both girls.”
Malachi watched Rose Ann raise the rock above her head and throw it at Stella’s hindquarters with all her strength. When the rock hit Stella, she leaped up as she bayed with pain.
“Get your lazy ass plowing, Stella!” Rose Ann shouted.
Stella began moving the plow.
“You better get behind her, Malachi,” Rose Ann said.
Malachi looked at his sister. He grabbed the plow while wrapping the reins around his hand.
“I got to go finish milking the cows,” Rose Ann said as she began walking away.
“Yeah, you do that, so a real man can do his job,” Malachi said.
Rose Ann looked at Malachi. “What real man? You couldn’t even make an ass move,” she said.
By late afternoon every muscle in Malachi’s body was hurting. He was sitting at the kitchen table watching his sister make biscuits. He looked down at his hands. They were red, swollen, and blistered.
“You better go put that suave Pa uses on your hands,” Rose Ann said. She’d been watching Malachi.
Malachi looked up. His sister’s back was toward him.
“And wash that stink off you. You smell like Stella!” Rose Ann snapped.
“You’d smell like Stella, too, if you’d been walking behind her for most of the day while she shits, burp, farted, and whined most of the day!” Malachi snapped, as he stood up.
“Malachi, you smell like that even when you don’t plow,” Rose Ann said. She laughed.
“I do not,” Malachi said. His forehead wrinkle as a quizzical look appeared on his dirty, handsome face.
“Go by the well and wash that dirt off you if you want to eat lunch,” Rose Ann said. “And you might think of changing those dirty, wretched smelling clothing. Throw them in the washtub so I can wash them.”
“For someone who is only twelve, you sure is bossy, Rose,” Malachi said as he glanced down at his worn, ragged pants and smelly body. He could remember when they were slightly new after his father had given them to him. “They’re not that bad.”
Rose Ann turned around. She crossed her thin arms across her large bosom chest. “I’m bossy because I know that if I don’t stay on top of you, you’re going to slack off, and Pa will come in here and start acting like a fool,” she said.
“Hmmf. Pa acts like a fool regardless of what I do,” Malachi said.
Rose Ann turned back around. “Maybe that’s because you two are the same,” she said.
Malachi walked to the door. He opened it. “Could be,” he said.
As he stepped outside, Malachi stood on the boarded porch and looked around at the scene he’d been looking at since he could remember. The greenish mountain to the right of him always looked as if the grass never changed no matter what season was in effect. His mind raced with memories of the past. He thought about the time he first raced out of the door and into the full, dark grass thirty paces away in the middle of spring when he was eight years old. When he turned his attention to the large oak tree to the right of him, he smiled. He remembered falling out of the tree four or five times while growing up. He lifted his left arm, and looked at the scar running along his forearm. He could barely see it now. He had been five years old when he first fell out of the tree. He began to walk around toward the back of the house. As he did, he began removing the shoulder straps on his ragged, blue overalls. He let them fall to his waist.
He glanced down at his callous hands. They were dirty and they were big. He rubbed them together. He continued looking down at his body, and was amazed at the sight of his hard abdominals. They looked like little rocks in rows of three. He could feel the tightness in his biceps and chest as he flexed his muscles repeatedly. He realized that the past winter had him working long hours, and hard days. At fifteen, he was bigger than most kids his age.
He saw the large, wooden barrel in front of him. He stripped off his overalls. He didn’t wear underwear, so his nakedness from the waist down was apparent. He removed the dirty tee shirt and dropped it beside his overalls. He stood there naked as he looked around for the lye soap that always made him itch for a day or two after using it. Locating it on the windowsill that was behind the barrel, he stepped on the small stool that was beside the barrel, and climbed into the very cold, murky water.
“Ahh!” Malachi shouted as he settled down into the cold water. “Sweet shit, this is cold!”
“Lordy, Lordy, my heart is filled with pain. Lordy, Lordy, ain’t nothing like some sweet rain on a hot day to take away this Devil’s heat. Rain down on me... Rain down on me. I want to drown in my Lord’s tears and cleanse my body with that sweet water from Heaven. Cause my head is on fire and my soul’s beginning to sweat. But that Devil ain’t gonna get my soul just yet,” Malachi began to sang.
Rose Ann could hear her brother singing. A small smile formed. Enhancing her cute dimples. Her brother could sing the draws off a virgin if he wanted to. Every time he sang, she felt goosebumps.
By the time the sun went down four hours later, and the night had cooled, Rose Ann and Malachi were finishing up the last of their dinner, which, consisted of dumplings stew with chucks of beef from a cow their father had recently slaughtered a few days ago. Malachi was putting the last portion of his food into his mouth when the front door exploded opened. His father walked in as big as life with his chest sticking out.
“Hi, Pa! How was the market?” Malachi asked, as he watched his father drag in his tired two hundred and ten pound frame. “We got supper ready for you.”
“We?” Buford Moon said to his eldest son gruffly. “You cook today, boy?”
Malachi watched his father hang his hat on the hat rack beside the door. Malachi didn’t know why he still wore the ragged hat. Most of the brim was missing in the front and back of the hat. It looked more like a cap than a hat.
Buford had the half hindquarters of a buck slung over his shoulder. He walked over toward a leather canvas lying on the floor and dropped it next to the small cast iron cooking stove. Without missing a step, he walked to the kitchen table and sat down. He ignored the bloodstains that were on his shoulder from the dead buck and the fact that his fingernails were caked with dried blood.
“You children take care of your chores today?” Buford asked. His eyes fell on Malachi, and then Rose Ann. They lingered on her for a full minute as he looked at her face, and then let his eyes rest for three seconds on her ample chest before looking away. “You two know I don’t like no slacking when it comes to your work around here.”
“Yep,” Malachi said, as he licked the greasy remains from his dinner off his fingers. “Everything is done, Pa.”
Buford stared at Malachi. The gray hairs on his short-cropped head reflected from the dim light emanating from the cabin lamps. He placed his large hands on his tired eyes and rubbed them.
Rose Ann, sitting at the table, slid over her plate of food that was barely eaten toward her father.
Buford removed his hands as he watched his daughter push him her food.
“I’ll get some more later, Pa,” Rose Ann said. “I’m not that hungry.” She lowered her eyes when her father gave her a long stare.
“Thank you, honey,” Buford said. He reached for the long wooden spoon that was on the table beside an empty plate, and began eating fastidiously. “Your brother’s been taking care of you and the place?”
“Of course, Pa. I—“
“Boy, don’t go into the long of the situation damn it. If your sister wasn’t keeping you right, I know you wouldn’t be doing what I asked you to do. Ain’t that right, Rose Ann?”
Rose Ann looked up at her father. “Uh...No, Pa. Sometimes Malachi reminds me what chores you told him he had to do,” she said. “I don’t always have to tell him.”
Buford stared at his daughter. “You putting on some weight, girl. You’re filling out just fine. Soon, I’m gonna have to find you a husband to keep you right.”
“Oh, Pa,” Rose Ann said. She lowered her eyes. “I’m too young for that kind of talk.”
“You’re twelve years old, girl. Back in my day, girls your age were getting hitched at thirteen. Regardless if they knew how to cook,” Buford said. He put a spoonful of food in his mouth. “Hell, my problem is when you do go, who am I going to have around here to look after your brother to make sure he’s doing his chores?”
“Aw, Pa,” Malachi said.
“Aw, Pa, hell. Boy!” Buford snapped, as he scratched his rough beard. “You can get lazy if I don’t keep my foot in your butt.”
“Pa, Malachi ain’t lazy. You should see how he worked that field today,” Rose Ann said. She always defended her big brother. “His hands were cut holding them reins with Stella, but he didn’t complain.”
“Um-hmm. “How many times did you tell him to keep at it?” Buford asked Rose Ann.
Malachi shook his head as he stared at his father. “Pa, I do what you ask me to do. Sure, I protest a little, but I don’t see the logic in us working this here field to make money that the bank gets half of our profit.” Malachi ran his fingers through his curly black hair as he stared at his father. “When the bank is finished with us, then Mr. Miller at the local store gets another third from the credit he leads you to get us through the rough times during the winter. With his interest rates, what are we left with? A simple third of our sweat and blood that we put into this land of dirt. That’s all! We’ve been working this land for ten years now. I remember Ma complaining that we’re working our skin to the bone to pay other peoples bills but we never have enough to pay our own. I might get a little fed up, but you know you can depend on me to do my chores.”
Buford stared at Malachi. He put his spoon in the unfinished dumpling stew. He stared at his son with the one good eye he had. The black patch covering his right eye always gave him a menacing appearance. “You’re raising your voice in my house like you paying rent. You know I don’t cotton to that kind of talk under my roof. You are not big enough for me to take a switch to your backside. Anyway, you know you don’t mention that woman’s name in my house. How many times I done told you that, boy?” he said.
