Susan Pfeffer: Shade of the Moon

“Take your hands off me!” Ruby said. “You touch me again like that, and the whole world is gonna know where you are.”

Jon let go of her. “All right,” he said. “Fine. I’m going to my brother’s. You go wherever you want.” He began walking away.

“You can’t do that!” Ruby shouted. “You’re my husband. You come right back here, Jon Evans. You know what could happen to me walking on this highway all by myself? You want my dead body on your conscience, too?”

Jon stared at Ruby. But all he saw was Julie.

“No,” he said. “No, I don’t want that. Look, Ruby, my life is in danger. My family’s lives are, too. Sarah, her father, we’re all in jeopardy. But you’re right. You didn’t ask for it, and it’s not fair what’s happened to you. If you want, we’ll turn around and go back to White Birch. I’ll leave you, I don’t know, five miles from there. A safe distance. Then I’ll start back. If I do that for you, would you promise not to turn me in? Is it a deal? If that’s what you want, we’ll turn around right now.”

Ruby rolled her eyes. “My momma warned us about clavers,” she said. “All they do is take. They see a little grubber girl, they take what they want from her, no please, no thank you.”

“Your mother was right,” Jon said. “That’s just what I did.”

“But you ain’t no claver anymore,” Ruby said. “You ain’t no decent, hard-working grub, neither. But you’re getting there, and I don’t see much point to hurting you. We’ll go to that brother of yours, that fancy domestic Sylly. I wasn’t counting on seeing little Gaby, but I guess I can handle that if I have to. What’s the name of that town they’re in?”

“Coolidge,” Jon said.

“Maybe I’ll find myself a nice man in Coolidge,” Ruby said. “Settle down. Raise my own family. Live a decent, hard-working life, like my folks. You can go off, do whatever you want. Find that girlfriend of yours before she settles down with some decent, hard-working claver. Assuming there is any, which, according to my momma, there ain’t.”

“Thank you,” Jon said. “You’re better to me than I deserve.”

Ruby snorted. “You just figure that out?” she said. “You clavers ain’t just mean. You’re dumb and mean. Come on. Let’s get to that precious brother of yours while you still got the strength to walk.”

But it was Ruby who lost the strength, Ruby who collapsed, crying she couldn’t walk one step farther.

There had been no work for them Thursday or Friday, no food in almost three days.

“I’ll walk to the next town,” Jon said. “I think there’s one in a couple of miles. I’ll get you some food. But we need to get you off the side of the highway, back where the truckers can’t see you. I don’t think I can carry you, Ruby. Can you stand up? I’ll help you walk if you can.”

“I’m sorry I’m such a baby,” she said, trying to stand. “Mr. Jon, I am so sorry. My knees won’t lift me.”

“You’re not going to die out here,” Jon said, bending to help her. “Put your arms around me. Right, like that. On the count of three I’m going to help you up. Use whatever strength you have, Ruby. Okay? One. Two. Three.”

It took more strength than Jon knew he had in him, but he managed, with Ruby’s help, to get her upright.

“Keep holding on,” he said. “We don’t have to walk far. Let’s get you behind those trees. That should give you enough cover.”

Even the twenty feet was a struggle, but Jon managed to drag Ruby over and position her where no one could see her.

“I don’t know how long this is going to take,” Jon said. “But I’ll come back with food. I promise you, Ruby. Sit tight and don’t give up hope. All right?”

“All right, Mr. Jon,” Ruby said.

Jon bent over and kissed her on the forehead. “See you soon, Mrs. Ruby,” he said, and went back to the highway to look for the nearest town.

He walked for almost an hour before seeing the exit sign. There was no guarantee there’d be a town there, and even less that someone would give him food, but he had no choice. He walked along the exit ramp, then kept going. A mile or so later he saw an old farmhouse with the glow of kerosene lamps in the windows.

He walked over and knocked on the door. “Please help me,” he cried. “My wife is starving. Please give me some food for her.”

The door opened. A man, wiry with muscles, pointed his rifle at Jon. “It won’t hurt me none to kill you, boy,” he said. “You might want to do your begging someplace else.”

“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.”