Uncle John pushed his rusty nail deep into the ground with his broad thumb. “I got to tell,” he said.
Pa said, “Well, tell then, goddamn it! Who’d ya kill?”
Uncle John dug with his thumbs into the watch pocket of his blue jeans and scooped out a folded dirty bill. He spread it out and showed it. “Fi’ dollars,” he said.
“Steal her?” Pa asked.
“No, I had her. Kept her out.”
“She was yourn, wasn’t she?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t have no right to keep her out.”
“I don’t see much sin in that,” Ma said. “It’s yourn.”
Uncle John said slowly, “It ain’t only the keepin’ her out. I kep’ her out to get drunk. I knowed they was gonna come a time when I got to get drunk, when I’d get to hurtin’ inside so I got to get drunk. Figgered time wasn’ yet, an’ then—the preacher went an’ give ’imself up to save Tom.”
Pa nodded his head up and down and cocked his head to hear. Ruthie moved closer, like a puppy, crawling up on her elbows, and Winfield followed her. Rose of Sharon dug at a deep eye in a potato with the point of her knife. The evening light deepened and became more blue.