“They know what he looks like?” Tom asked.
“Well—not exactly—but the way I heard it, they think he got hit. They think—he’ll have—”
Tom put his hand up slowly and touched his bruised cheek.
Ma cried, “It ain’t so, what they say!”
“Easy, Ma,” Tom said. “They got it cold. Anything them drum-corpse fellas say is right if it’s against us.” Ma peered through the ill light, and she watched Tom’s face, and particularly his lips. “You promised,” she said.
“Ma, I—maybe this fella oughta go away. If—this fella done somepin wrong, maybe he’d think, ’O.K. Le’s get the hangin’ over. I done wrong an’ I got to take it.’ But this fella didn’ do nothin’ wrong. He don’ feel no worse’n if he killed a skunk.”
Ruthie broke in, “Ma, me an’ Winfiel’ knows. He don’ have to go this-fella’in’ for us.”
Tom chuckled. “Well, this fella don’ want no hangin’, ’cause he’d do it again. An’ same time, he don’t aim to bring trouble down on his folks. Ma—I got to go.”
Ma covered her mouth with her fingers and coughed to clear her throat. “You can’t,” she said. “They wouldn’ be no way to hide out. You couldn’ trus’ nobody. But you can trus’ us. We can hide you, an’ we can see you get to eat while your face gets well.”
“But, Ma—”