The first gray of daylight began in the sky. And the work was done- the kegs of pork ready, the chicken coop ready to go on top. Ma opened the oven and took out the pile of roasted bones, crisp and brown, with plenty of gnawing meat left. Ruthie half awakened, and slipped down from the box, and slept again. But the adults stood around the door, shivering a little and gnawing at the crisp pork.
“Guess we oughta wake up Granma an’ Grampa,” Tom said. “Gettin’ along on toward day.”
Ma said, “Kinda hate to, till the las’ minute. They need the sleep. Ruthie an’ Winfield ain’t hardly got no real rest neither.”
“Well, they kin all sleep on top a the load,” said Pa. “It’ll be nice an’ comf’table there.”
Suddenly the dogs started up from the dust and listened. And then, with a roar, went barking off into the darkness. “Now what in hell is that?” Pa demanded. In a moment they heard a voice speaking reassuringly to the barking dogs and the barking lost its fierceness. Then footsteps, and a man approached. It was Muley Graves, his hat pulled low.
He came near timidly. “Morning, folks,” he said.
“Why, Muley.” Pa waved the ham bone he held. “Step in an’ get some pork for yourself, Muley.”
“Well, no,” said Muley. “I ain’t hungry, exactly.”
“Oh, get it, Muley, get it. Here!” And Pa stepped into the house and brought out a hand of spareribs.
“I wasn’t aiming to eat none a your stuff,” he said. “I was jus’ walkin’ aroun’, an’ I thought how you’d be goin’, an’ I’d maybe say good-by.”
“Goin’ in a little while now,” said Pa. “You’d a missed us if you’d come an hour later. All packed up- see?”
“All packed up.” Muley looked at the loaded truck. “Sometimes I wisht I’d go an’ fin’ my folks.”
Ma asked, “Did you hear from ’em out in California?”
“No,” said Muley, “I ain’t heard. But I ain’t been to look in the post office. I oughta go in sometimes.”
Pa said, “Al, go down, wake up Granma, Grampa. Tell ’em to come an’ eat. We’re goin’ before long.” And as Al sauntered toward the barn, “Muley, ya wanta squeeze in with us an’ go? We’d try to make room for ya.”
Muley took a bite of meat from the edge of a rib bone and chewed it. “Sometimes I think I might. But I know I won’t,” he said. “I know perfectly well the las’ minute I’d run an’ hide like a damn ol’ graveyard ghos’.”
Noah said, “You gonna die out in the fiel’ some day, Muley.”
“I know. I thought about that. Sometimes it seems pretty lonely, an’ sometimes it seems all right, an’ sometimes it seems good. It don’t make no difference. But if ya come acrost my folks- that’s really what I come to say- if ya come on any my folks in California, tell ’em I’m well. Tell ’em I’m doin’ all right. Don’t let on I’m livin’ this way. Tell ’em I’ll come to ’em soon’s I git the money.”
Ma asked, “An’ will ya?”
“No,” Muley said softly. “No, I won’t. I can’t go away. I got to stay now. Time back I might of went. But not now. Fella gits to thinkin’, an’ he gits to knowin’. I ain’t never goin’.”
The light of the dawn was a little sharper now. It paled the lanterns a little. Al came back with Grampa struggling and limping by his side. “He wasn’t sleepin’,” Al said. “He was settin’ out back of the barn. They’s somepin wrong with ‘im.”
Grampa’s eyes had dulled, and there was none of the old meanness in them. “Ain’t nothin’ the matter with me,” he said. “I jus’ ain’t a-goin’.”
“Not goin’?” Pa demanded. “What you mean you ain’t a-goin’? Why, here we’re all packed up, ready. We got to go. We got no place to stay.”
“I ain’t sayin’ for you to stay,” said Grampa. “You go right on along. Me- I’m stayin’. I give her a goin’-over all night mos’ly. This here’s my country. I b’long here. An’ I don’t give a goddamn if they’s oranges an’ grapes crowdin’ a fella outa bed even. I ain’t a-goin’. This country ain’t no good, but it’s my country. No, you all go ahead. I’ll jus’ stay right here where I b’long.”
They crowded near to him. Pa said, “You can’t, Grampa. This here lan’ is goin’ under the tractors. Who’d cook for you? How’d you live? You can’t stay here. Why, with nobody to take care of you, you’d starve.”
Grampa cried, “Goddamn it, I’m a ol’ man, but I can still take care a myself. How’s Muley here get along? I can get along as good as him. I tell ya I ain’t goin’, an’ ya can lump it. Take Granma with ya if ya want, but ya ain’t takin’ me, an’ that’s the end of it.”
Pa said helplessly, “Now listen to me, Grampa. Jus’ listen to me, jus’ a minute.”
“Ain’t a-gonna listen. I tol’ ya what I’m a-gonna do.”
Tom touched his father on the shoulder. “Pa, come in the house. I wanta tell ya somepin.” And as they moved toward the house, he called, “Ma- come here a minute, will ya?”
In the kitchen one lantern burned and the plate of pork bones was still piled high. Tom said, “Listen, I know Grampa got the right to say he ain’t goin’, but he can’t stay. We know that.”
“Sure he can’t stay,” said Pa.
“Well, look. If we got to catch him an’ tie him down, we li’ble to hurt him, an’ he’ll git so mad he’ll hurt himself. Now we can’t argue with him. If we could get him drunk it’d be all right. You got any whisky?”
“No,” said Pa. “There ain’t a drop a’ whisky in the house. An’ John got no whisky. He never has none when he ain’t drinkin’.”
Ma said, “Tom, I got a half bottle soothin’ sirup I got for Winfiel’ when he had them earaches. Think that might work? Use ta put Winfiel’ ta sleep when his earache was bad.”
“Might,” said Tom. “Get it, Ma. We’ll give her a try anyways.
“I throwed it out on the trash pile,” said Ma. She took the lantern and went out, and in a moment she came back with a bottle half full of black medicine.
Tom took it from her and tasted it. “Don’t taste bad,” he said. “Make up a cup a black coffee, good an’ strong. Le’s see- says one teaspoon. Better put in a lot, coupla tablespoons.”
Ma opened the stove and put a kettle inside, down next to the coals, and she measured water and coffee into it. “Have to give it to ‘im in a can,” she said. “We got the cups all packed.”
Tom and his father went back outside. “Fella got a right to say what he’s gonna do. Say, who’s eatin’ spareribs?” said Grampa.
“We’ve et,” said Tom. “Ma’s fixin’ you a cup a coffee an’ some pork.”
He went into the house, and he drank his coffee and ate his pork. The group outside in the growing dawn watched him quietly, through the door. They saw him yawn and sway, and they saw him put his arms on the table and rest his head on his arms and go to sleep.
“He was tar’d anyways,” said Tom. “Leave him be.”
Now they were ready. Granma, giddy and vague, saying, “What’s all this? What you doin’ now, so early?” But she was dressed and agreeable. And Ruthie and Winfield were awake, but quiet with the pressure of tiredness and still half dreaming. The light was sifting rapidly over the land. And the movement of the family stopped. They stood about, reluctant to make the first active move to go. They were afraid, now that the time had come- afraid in the same way Grampa was afraid. They saw the shed take shape against the light, and they saw the lanterns pale until they no longer cast their circles of yellow light. The stars went out, few by few, toward the west. And still the family stood about like dream walkers, their eyes focused panoramically, seeing no detail, but the whole dawn, the whole land, the whole texture of the country at once.
Only Muley Graves prowled about restlessly, looking through the bars into the truck, thumping the spare tires hung on the back of the truck. And at last Muley approached Tom. “You goin’ over the State line?” he asked. “You gonna break your parole?”
And Tom shook himself free of the numbness. “Jesus Christ, it’s near sunrise,” he said loudly. “We got to get goin’.” And the others came out of their numbness and moved toward the truck.
“Come on,” Tom said. “Le’s get Grampa on.” Pa and Uncle John and Tom and Al went into the kitchen where Grampa slept, his forehead down on his arms, and a line of drying coffee on the table. They took him under the elbows and lifted him to his feet, and he grumbled and cursed thickly, like a drunken man. Out the door they boosted him, and when they came to the truck Tom and Al climbed up, and leaning over, hooked their hands under his arms and lifted him gently up, and laid him on top of the load. Al untied the tarpaulin, and they rolled him under and put a box under the tarp beside him, so that the weight of the heavy canvas would not be upon him.