Not the Easons, not these folks, not anybody. Not when all he wanted was those red acres back in Eason County, the old house, things to be like they used to be. Not when he was hungry and cold and tired and only God knew where.
After a time that seemed to him to stretch into forever, the big house grew still and quiet, and the electric lights downstairs shut out. He continued to watch until the light went out in the kitchen as well, waiting until the dark form of a woman emerged, and then blended into the greater darkness leading away from the house. Then he cautiously crept closer to the kitchen, listening, wary. He knelt for a moment near the back veranda, his eyes moving through the darkness, then he quickly moved up the few steps to the covered walkway and hurried toward the door to the kitchen. He paused for a moment, his hand on the doorknob—then he was suddenly inside with the door closed behind him, safe and alone.
He stood there for a moment, looking around the room in the darkness, thinking again of what it was he was doing—but the smell of food that still hung in the air spurred him to action. He made his way across the bare wood floor, past the kitchen table and some kind of fancy stove, his eyes on an open doorway at the rear of the room—he could see shelves of glass canning jars gleaming in the bare light that filtered through the single window beyond. There were barrels nearby, the smell of apples coming from them, bins of flour and meal, sacks of onions, and strings of dried pepper hanging from the ceiling. He closed the second door behind himself and made his way toward the shelves, kneeling in the darkness and taking up first one of the glass jars, and then another, trying to discern the contents: tomatoes, corn, jelly, what looked to be preserves, sweet pickles, relish, pepper sauce, peaches. His empty stomach aching, he tested the lid on one of the jars, straining against it, and finally feeling it loosen and unscrew in his hands. He stuck his fingers in the jar, smelling the scent of the peaches inside, taking out one of the halves with his fingers and shoving it greedily into his mouth—I’m a thief, he told himself, so hungry that he did not care as he licked the syrup from his fingers. I’ll be damned if it’s right for any man to go hungry, he thought, and stuck his fingers back into the jar for another peach half. I’ll be damned if—
There was a sound from the kitchen, a creaking of the floorboards, and then the door flew inward, rebounding off the wall nearby, and then caught and held in a firm grip. Janson turned quickly, almost dropping the jar in his hands, almost choking on the food in his mouth. There was no way out—he knew he was caught.
“You put that jar down an’ come on out ’a there where I can see you!” the woman demanded, her broad body effectively blocking the doorway into the kitchen, a large, black cast-iron skillet held raised in one hand as if she were intent on using it as a weapon. “Come on out ’a there, I tell you!”
Janson stood slowly, setting the jar of peaches down on the shelf nearby, his eyes moving to the room beyond her—he’d never make it. Even if he could shove her aside and get past her, she would yell and bring help from the big house. He would be caught, treated as a thief, when his only crime had been to—
She cautiously backed away as he moved forward, then again, moving toward the center of the room as they entered the kitchen. One of her hands moved upward, feeling in the air for something and finally hitting it, then pulling on a drawstring to flood the room with electric light from the bare lamp that hung suspended there at the end of a long cord from the ceiling. Janson raised a hand to shield his eyes from the glaring light, and blinked painfully, trying to adjust his sight to the sudden brightness in the room. When he could see again, he looked at the woman—she was tall and sturdily built, with a mass of iron-gray hair drawn into a heavy bun at the back of her neck. Her dress was loose and dark, pinned at the throat by a simple brooch; her coat plain and shapeless, hanging to within inches of the ugly black shoes on her feet. She stared at him as he lowered his hand, something in her eyes clearly saying that she did not trust him any more than the thief she thought him to be.
“I knowed I saw somebody movin’ aroun’ outside in th’ dark,” she said, lowering the skillet only slightly. “What you got t’ say for yourself, boy? What’s your name?—I don’t know your face; you ain’ from aroun’ here.”
When Janson did not answer, she raised the skillet again. “Speak up, boy, what’s your name?”
“My name’s Janson Sanders,” he said, raising his chin slightly.
“‘Janson Sanders’, sayin’ it all kind ’a prideful like—ain’ nothin’ prideful ’bout bein’ a thief.”
“I ain’t no thief.”
“Ain’ no thief!—when I caught you in th’ storeroom myself! It’s a good thing I forgot my pocketbook an’ had t’ come back for it, or you’d ’a likely stole us out ’a house an’ home! What you got t’ say for yourself, boy, stealin’ from good, hones’ folks like—”
“Somebody like you’d ’a never missed what it took for me t’ eat.”
“Somebody like me! It don’t matter who you’re stealin’ from, stealin’s still stealin’—an’ this place ain’ mine; it b’longs t’ Mist’ Whitley, like most everythin’ else aroun’ here does. An’ you better be glad it was me that caught you, an’ not him; he’d ’a been likely as not t’ shot you first—why didn’t you just knock at th’ door an’ ask t’ be fed if you was hongry?”
“I don’t take no charity!”
“Don’t take charity!—stealin’s better ’n charity t’ you, boy? That don’t make too much sense!” she said, but Janson did not answer her, angry—he did not know whether more at her, or at himself. “Looks t’ me like a strong young man like you’d be workin’ for his way, ’stead ’a stealin’ what other folks—”
“I tried all day t’ find work I could do for food an’ a place t’ sleep, an’ all I got around here was dogs set on me an’ guns pulled on me an’ I got run off folks land—” The words came out in an angry rush, and he immediately regretted them, seeing the look of pity that came to her face. She lowered the skillet and stared at him, but Janson only returned the look, lifting his chin defiantly.
“Where’re you from, boy?” she asked. When he did not answer she raised her voice. “Don’t do no good havin’ a chip on your shoulder so big that folks can see it a mile away—now, where’re you from?”
“Alabama,” he answered her shortly.
“Folks ain’ always like they ought t’ be, are they boy?” she asked him, not seeming to expect a response. After a moment, she sat the skillet down on a nearby table and moved toward the fancy electric icebox that sat in one corner of the kitchen. “Miz’ Whitley ain’ never turned nobody away from her door hongry yet. You set down an’ I’ll see what I can fin’ t’—”
“I done told you I don’t take no charity!”
She turned an angry gaze back on him. “You better jus’ decide real quick which is more important t’ you, boy, your pride or your empty belly—”
For a moment he almost walked out of the kitchen, for he knew now that she would let him go. Then he heard her words, spoken back over her shoulder as if they were nothing: “Seems t’ me like a man’d be a fool t’ choose against a full belly, though.”
Janson thought for a moment, and then moved to sit down at the kitchen table. When he looked back up at the woman again she smiled and nodded, then turned back toward the electric icebox without another word.
Her name was Mattie Ruth Coates, and she had been on the Whitley place for
