Malachi moon, p.4
Malachi Moon, page 4
Malachi glanced around to see where his sister was. He saw her standing a few feet to the left of him. She frightened. He could tell by the way Rose Ann was clutching tightly the collar of her dress. Her eyes were bulging out of her head, and her legs were trembling.
“Mister, I don’t mean you any harm. My sister and me got tired of walking. We saw this barn and thought we could rest here for a few hours. I swear to you, we were going to leave as soon as we got some sleep,” Malachi began. He attempted to stand, but the man in the overalls pushed the double-barrel shotgun closer toward his face. Forcing him to stay in the same spot. “We didn’t do anything wrong, and we meant no harm to your property...sir.”
“You trespassing, boy, that’s wrong.”
“Mister, we ain’t got much money, but we can give you a dollar for letting us use your barn,” Rose Ann said. Her trembling voice made Malachi look at her. She gave Malachi a quick glance and a weak smile. She turned her attention back to the man with the gun. “We don’t mean you any harm Honest.”
“Uh-huh. Sure you don’t, girl. I bet when you two awoke, you probably would’ve been hungry, and took one or two of my chickens on your way out, huh?” The man asked. “What?” Malachi asked. His eyes grew wide. “No, sir. We weren’t going to steal any of your chickens. We just needed some sleep. That’s all!”
“You a liar, boy!” The man in the overalls snapped. He pushed the double-barrel shotgun closer toward Malachi’s face as he took a step forward. The double-barrel shotgun was two inches from Malachi’s nose. “You probably were going to go to my house and rob and rape my woman. Every time someone stops by here, they are staring at my beautiful woman. I can see their intentions in their eyes. They want her. You want to take away my woman, don’t you, boy?”
Malachi, his hands beginning to shake, looked at the man as if he’d lost his mind. What would he want to rape a woman for? What did the word rape mean anyway? What did he get Rose Ann into? Maybe he should’ve waited to find somewhere else for them to sleep. The man in front of him was going to kill him. Malachi could feel it in his bones. He had to make sure nothing happened to Rose Ann. Even if it meant forfeiting his own life.
“Mister, I swear to God as my witness. My sister—“
“Sister! That girl over yonder is your sister? Boy, you must take me for a darn fool. She’s probably your wife. Ain’t no girl as pretty as her going to be related to an ugly thing like you! I ain’t stupid! You calling me stupid, boy?” The man asked. “Go ahead and call me stupid one more time, and I’m going to let one of these barrels loose on ya.”
“Huh? No, sir! Rose Ann is my sister. We was just traveling trying to get—“
“Get where, boy? Huh? Trying to get to my chickens? You and your wife wanted to fry some chicken and make corn bread with the grease? Then after you two had your stomachs filled, you were going to go into my house while was sleeping, crack my head open with one of my cast iron skillets, then have your way with my beautiful wife. I raised them chickens. Don’t nobody take my chickens!”
Malachi mouth became dry from fear. At that moment. Right then and there. He had to pee. He felt a tinkle of pee run down his right leg. He willed himself to hold onto his bladder. The man was obviously crazy. He didn’t want to embarrass himself by peeing in his pants when he got shot. If he was going to die, he wanted to die with dry pants on. God, if only he’d found some other place for them to spend the night. This wouldn’t be happening.
Maybe he could grab the double-barrel shotgun, and get the advantage, and then he could talk to the man. No. The way he had the weapon so near to his face, Malachi knew if he reached for the double-barrel shotgun, he would be shot in the face immediately by the angle in which it was being pointed at him.
“I can see it in your eyes, boy. You was going to steal my chickens and rape my wife,” he said. “I might’ve let you rape my wife, but nobody steals my chickens. I’m going to put a hole in you,” the man snapped. He moved the double-barrel shotgun an inch closer to Malachi’s nose. “This is the last thing you going to see, boy.”
“George Lewis! If you don’t put that empty shotgun down and stop scaring them children, I’m going to split your head open with a log!”
They all turn in the direction of the voice standing in the barn doorway. The woman’s cherubim caramel face, and two salt and pepper pigtails in her hair, was a blessing to Malachi. To him, she was his miraculous savior that rode in on a cloud.
“Aw shucks, Maybelle, I was just playing with the children,” George Lewis said. He lowered the empty shotgun, and took two steps back. “Woman, you should’ve seen the fright on that boy’s face. He darn near dropped a load of mess in his pants.” George Lewis laughed. His wrinkled, dark face displayed a mouth full of crooked, dark teeth. “Another minute, the boy would’ve been begging me to let him live.” George Lewis slapped his leg with mirth. “The boy was ready to beg me to spare his life, I tell you!”
“You’re an evil, old cuss of a man, George Lewis,” Maybelle said. Her long, flowered yellow dress bellowed with the early morning wind. “Bring those kids in the house.”
Malachi looked from Maybelle to George Lewis. His eyes were blinking fast as he tried to sort out what had happen. He watched George Lewis offer his hand to him. Malachi stared at it.
“Come on, son. It ain’t that bad. I ain’t going to bite you...no more, anyway,” George Lewis said with a smile.
Malachi reached up and took George Lewis’ hand. George Lewis yanked Malachi up.
“Don’t look so serious, boy. I don’t get too many laughs out here. Maybelle is a strict woman. So, when I find something that can take the boredom out of my day, I reach for it,” George Lewis said.
“I don’t think that scaring people with a double-barrel shotgun is funny,” Rose Ann said. She’d walked over to stand beside Malachi.
“When you’ve lived as long as I’ve lived, you try to get as many jokes as you can to keep on living. Anyway, you try to find anything that will keep you laughing to keep away the pain of arthritis and her,” George Lewis said as he tossed a thumb over his finger in the direction Maybelle. “Let’s go. Now I’m going to have to hear Maybelle’s mouth for the rest of the day and night. But, it was worth it.”
George Lewis took the lead. Malachi looked at Rose Ann. He shrugged, and then followed George Lewis out of the barn with Rose Ann behind him.
Maybelle was placing plates on the small kitchen table when they walked in.
“Son, in the back of the house is a washbasin with fresh water. You go clean up. Little girl, there’s another one in my room. I just poured some fresh, warm water for you, too. You go on in there and clean yourself,” she said. She never looked up from what she was doing. “George Lewis, you old coot. Put that shotgun back under our bed, and the next time you touch it, it better be to go coon hunting.”
George Lewis looked at the woman he’d been married to for twenty-four years. He stuck out his tongue at the exact moment that Maybelle glance up at him.
“If you stick it out again, I’ll cut it out for you,” Maybelle said. She looked at the three of them. She clapped her hands loudly and repeatedly. “Let’s get!”
The three of them were startled as they headed off in the directions Maybelle had told them to go.
Twenty minutes later, they were all sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast.
“What are you children doing out so late in the early morning? Where do you live?” Maybelle asked. She looked from Malachi to Rose Ann.
“A couple of miles not far from here,” Malachi said.
“A couple of miles? Where? Dandridge?” George Lewis asked.
Malachi stared at him.
“Waverly?” Maybelle asked.
“Clarksville?” George Lewis said. He slammed his hand down on the table, as if he’d found the answer.
Neither Malachi nor Rose Ann said a word.
Maybelle placed her large, dry elbows on the table. She stared at Malachi and Rose Ann. “Are you children running away from someone or something?” she asked.
Both Malachi and Rose Ann shook their heads in denial. Neither of them looked at Maybelle.
“You want me to get the shotgun and put some shells in it and then we can ask them some real questions, Maybelle?” George Lewis asked. A grin broke on his wrinkle, old face.
Malachi and Rose Ann quickly glanced up at Maybelle.
Maybelle looked at George Lewis. The right side of her lips turned up, then her eyes rolled upward. “No, fool,” she said. She turned her attention back to the children. “Are you two in any trouble?”
“No!” Malachi and Rose Ann said in unison as they both looked up from their plates of food.
“Hah! That’s a doggone lie!” George Lewis shouted. “They said it too quick. What ya’ll steal. Who ya’ll steal it from? And how much is it?”
“George, stop agitating the children. You children in some trouble? Don’t worry I won’t judge you,” Maybelle said. “You can talk to us.”
“Why not, Maybelle? You judge me,” George Lewis said. He put his face in his plate, and began scooping up the pork and beans rapidly with his spoon and stuffing them into his mouth. “These damn beans are burnt, Maybelle!”
“George, hush! What are you children running from?”
“Well, yesterday our parents die—“
“Boy, tell the whole story,” George Lewis said. “How did they die? And it better be the truth. We don’t cotton to no lies around here.”
Malachi looked at George Lewis. The man was beginning to get on his nerves. He sighed. “Our parents were killed in a car crash...yesterday at two-thirty in the morning. We didn’t have any other family, so they were talking about placing us in an orphanage with the state. They said we might be separated, and I didn’t want that. I don’t think my parents would’ve wanted that, so we took what we could carry and we left,” he said.
George Lewis, his head partially in his plate, looked from Maybelle to Malachi. His black eyes darting back and forth as he continued to place one spoonful of food after another into his mouth.
“You children are too old to be in an orphanage,” Maybelle said. “Hmm. I don’t know. Well, I tell you what. You two will stay on here for a couple of days. Just to rest. How about it?”
Malachi looked at Rose Ann sitting beside him. She was piercing her lips together. A telltale sign that she was thinking. She glanced at Malachi and nodded.
“Okay, ma’am we’d like that,” Malachi said.
“All right,” Maybelle said. She leaned back in her chair. “You two know our names. What are yours?”
“I’m Malachi Moon and this is my sister, Rose Ann.”
“We have a small room in the back for Rose Ann. I guess you can sleep in the overhead area in the barn, Malachi,” Maybelle said.
“Yes, ma’am,” Malachi said.
Maybelle waved her chubby hand in the air. “Boy, you ain’t got to be calling me no ma’am. I’m Maybelle and that’s George Lewis. I’ll get you some blankets for the barn,” she said.
Maybelle stood up and walked out of the room.
“I think you two are on the run. That’s what I think,” George Lewis said. He didn’t look at either of them. “Uh-huh, that’s what I think. And if I think that way, I’m gonna find out who ya’ll running from.”
Malachi looked at Rose Ann. Rose Ann shrugged and began eating her food. Malachi glanced at George Lewis. His attention was on his food as well, as he picked up his spoon and surreptitiously glanced at him.
Maybelle and Malachi were walking to the barn twenty minutes later. George Lewis was a few paces behind them whistling.
“Malachi, you sure Rose Ann ain’t your girlfriend that you done got pregnant and you two are running away from your parents?” Maybelle asked. “That child and you don’t look nothing like kinfolk. It’s all right. You ain’t got to lie to me. If she’s your girlfriend, it’s okay.”
“Maybelle, Rose Ann is my sister. I’m telling you the truth.”
“Hah!” George Lewis shouted.
Malachi lowered his voice. “What’s wrong with him?” he asked.
Maybelle being two feet shorter than Malachi, smiled. “He’s a good man. Ain’t never run from his duties, as a husband, and he ain’t never once put a hand on me. When you find a man like that, you keep him. If one day you find you a woman who will take care of you when you’re sick, and feed you when you’re hungry, then shows you love when you are in time of some emotional need, that’s a good woman. Anyway, I love that crazy man,” Maybelle said.
“I love you, too,” George Lewis said.
“The man has ears like a hawk,” Maybelle said as she leaned in toward Malachi and whispered. “Be careful what you say around him, though. He’s a sensitive man.”
Malachi nodded.
As Malachi headed toward the barn, he stopped at George Lewis’ voice.
“We’ll be doing chores in the morning, boy.”
Malachi winced.
Every bone in Malachi’s body was aching when George Lewis awoke him several hours later that morning. His chores weren’t simple. He had to give seeds to the chickens. Feed the pigs their slop. Milk the three skinny cows that were in the stable in the barn. Toss the straw, and fix a broken fence. After he washed up, he sat on the ground and let his head fall to his chest. He was exhausted.
“Malachi! Boy, I know you’re not tired!” George Lewis asked, as he walked around the corner of the house and saw Malachi sitting on the ground. “Hell, boy, it’s only eight o’clock in the morning. After breakfast, we got us a few more things to do around here.”
Malachi shook his head as he stared at George Lewis. The man’s southern drawl was so thick, that he could barely understand what he was saying at times. The morning had been very hard for him. He felt like he was back home. The only difference being he didn’t have to hear his father’s irritating voice or the frustration that came with trying to get Stella to plow.
Two hours later Malachi was fixing the fence that held the pigs. When he’d finished that, George Lewis had told him to toss new straw in the barn. Malachi threw himself into his work. And why not? He was used to working when it came to the farm.
1936 rolled in that morning with Malachi realizing that he’d been working George Lewis and Maybelle’s farm for over a year, and had begun to notice that his muscles were growing. He didn’t have a body like his father’s, which was strange. He looked entirely different.
By the time his sister came out and told him to come eat lunch, Malachi was tossing the last of the pig’s slop into the pen. He was famished to the point of starvation. He dropped the pail he was holding, and ran toward the house ten minutes later.
“I hope you boy’s clean up before sitting at my table,” Maybelle remarked, as she sat a bowl of collar greens on the kitchen table. “I don’t like dirty, stinking men eating at my table.”
Malachi glanced at George Lewis. George Lewis raised his arms to show his clean hands. Malachi did the same thing.
Rose Ann followed Maybelle carrying a plate full of fried chicken. She sat it on the table, and smiled at her brother.
The kitchen was a drab gray color with an assortment of small pictures on several walls. To the left of Malachi, he saw a picture of a white Jesus Christ staring upward. He never understood why most southern homes had a picture of Jesus Christ on their walls.
Maybelle brought over a plate of hot biscuits with a mason jar of strawberry jam. The white apron she was wearing looked new to Malachi. Maybelle and Rose Ann sat at the table after setting the table.
“Say our blessings, George Lewis,” Maybelle said. She placed her elbows on the table and folded her hands in front of her. She closed her eyes, and lowered her head.
George Lewis glanced at the food on the table, and then his wife. He licked his lips, and squinted his eyes. He cleared his throat, and then looked at his wife again.
“George,” Maybelle said as she stared at him expectantly. “The blessing.”
“Damnit, Maybelle! How come we always saying a prayer to the food?” George Lewis asked as he stared at his wife. “It’s already dead! Hell, I didn’t bless it when I killed it!”
Maybelle continued to stare at George Lewis. She slightly cocked her head to the right side. Her hair was pulled back into a tight bun. The streaks of gray was apparent. “George, we giving thanks to the Lord for giving us this here food that’s on the table,” she said.
George Lewis, his eyes fixated on the food, licked his lips again. “I do all the chores around here and the Lord gets all the credit,” he said. “When there’s things to be done around here, I don’t see no phantom spirit helping me take down a door, tending to that field out there or painting.”
“George Lewis. How dare you talk like that about the Lord. Especially in front of company. “You stopped going to church last year, and lately you been questioning the Lord’s work. You keep on acting like this and you going to feel the wrath of the Lord,” Maybelle said.
George Lewis turned up the left corner of his mouth. It was a devilish smirk. “Maybelle, the Lord moved on when it comes to us, woman. Now if I’m going to pray to the man, I’ll pray when I think he’s done something good for me,” he said.
Maybelle shook her head. “You’re a bad man, George Lewis. Do you think it was the Lord that made that mule kick you in the head a few years ago?”
George looked up at his wife. “That damn mule was just too ornery. If he hadn’t kicked me, he would’ve kicked someone else. That mule kicked some sense into my head, though.”
“That mule kicked the good sense out of your head, George Lewis!” Maybelle snapped. “Say a prayer before I take this food back off this table.”
George Lewis placed his cupped hands in front of his face, and closed his eyes. “Lord,” he began, “We here today to give thanks to this food that I worked the fields everyday to make possible.” He opened his right eye, and winked at Malachi, who’d been watching him with one eye. Malachi closed his eye and smiled. “And to give thanks to us for having these two children around here to help. Unless, of course I get sick, and then we starve, because I know you only give those who can give for themselves. Amen!”
