“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.