For My Family

FICTION For My Family Laura Weddle SOGGY FLAKES OF SNOW DRIFTED lazily out of a low flat sky. They danced and twisted, gray at first in the thin winter light, then white, as they neared the hard dark earth. The man on the road looked up as the first flakes fell, shroud-like, on his thin wooljacket. He pulled thejacket closer around his shoulders and tightened the earflaps of his cap. He raised a hand to rub snow from his dark face, lined like stone from years in the sun. He clenched his fingers, making fists to stimulate warmth. For the tenth time since he'd left the tobacco warehouse in Lancaster, he reached around to his back pocket to feel the reassuring bulge of his billfold. Beside it he also felt the hard curved outline of his leather-holstered skinning knife, the only thing his father had left him when he died. He always carried it and kept it sharp to skin and clean the squirrels and rabbits he hunted on Sundays. The tobacco hadn'tbrought as much as he'd hoped, but it would pay offlastyear's grocerybill and leave enough to lay in a supply offlour and lard and sugar. With luck, there'd alsobe a little left over for a toy for each of his two boys, a length of cotton for Annie a dress, and maybe even enough for a bag of Christmas candy. If I hurry, he thought, I can make it to Wilson's store before dark. Ithad taken the better part of the day to get this far, and his feet in the heavy work shoes were cold and tired. He looked up again into the sky, which now seemed darker. The flakes were smaller thanbefore, but falling faster, obscuring the sun with a thick white curtain of snow. He quickened his pace and looked around for a stick to steady him over the slick, loose gravel. He picked up a stout, straightbranch that had fallen from a hickory tree beside the road. The man slogged on through the falling snow, the thick silence broken only by the rhythm of his footsteps and the tapping of the stick. Small puffs of gray marked the cadence of his breathing in the icy air. His hands were numb in the cotton gloves, and he jammed them down into the shallow pockets of his jacket. He thought of the black potbellied stove at Wilson's store, where he would rest and warm up before walking the two miles on home. Annie and the boys would be waiting, and his supper of thick warm soup beans and cornbread would be sitting on the back of the stove. 70 These thoughts warmed him, and he was unaware of any sound until the crunch of tires startled him back to reality. A car pulled up and stopped beside him. It appeared to be a fairly new one, a black Ford coupe, with shiny steel trim around the windshield and headlights. The driver rolled down his window and peered out. He looked young and a stranger to the man. Still, there was something familiar about him. Maybe one of the onlookers at the morning's tobacco sales. "Hey, Mister," the driver said. "Looks like you could use a ride." The man stood silently, blinking his eyes and leaning on the broken limb. His cap and coat had taken on the heavy gray sogginess of the snow, and his face was the color of fresh-killed hog liver. His words came out in a hoarse whisper. "I'd be much obliged to you." He leaned in closer and looked at the driver. "But I wouldn't want to ride for nothing. I'd pay you to take me as far as Wilson's store." The young man laughed. "Oh, I wouldn't charge you nothing, being's we're both headed the same way. But you'll have to show me where it is. I'm just passing through." He leaned over and opened the door on the passenger side. "Why don't you shake some of that snow off, and get on in?" The man stamped his feet on...