With the words she banged the door and he heard the click of the lock, then their scurrying steps, bangs of other doors and their receding voices. In a twinkling he grabbed the paper, thrust it into his coat pocket, and slouched round to the kitchen door.
"Stay out there," called the mother from within. "I'll give you food, but
I don't want no tramp tracking up my kitchen."
He could see them cutting bread and chunks of meat, flurried and he knew frightened. Leaning against a chair was a rifle, placed where he could see it. He could have smiled at it had he not been so bound and cramped with fear. As they cut they interchanged low-toned remarks, and once the elder looked at him frowningly over her shoulder.
"Why ain't you workin'? A big, husky man like you?" she asked.
"I'm calcalatin' to find work at Sonora, but I have to have the strength to git there. I've had a bad spell of ague."
The girl raised her eyes to him and compassion softened them. As she went back to her bread-cutting he heard her murmur,
"I guess that's straight. He sure has an awful peaked look."
It was she who gave him the food, rolled in a piece of newspaper.
Standing in the doorway, she held it out to him and said, smiling,
"There, it's a good lunch. I hope it'll brace you up so you can get to Sonora all right. I believe you're tellin' the truth and I wish you luck."
He grunted his thanks and made off, shambling across the yard and out into the sun-flooded fields. He had to cross them to get out of range behind a hill spur before he turned into the woods. As he walked, feeling their eyes boring into his back, conscious of himself as hugely conspicuous in the untenanted landscape, he opened the paper and ate ravenously, tearing at the bread and meat.