The Right Side of Wrong by Reavis Wortham Page A

and started back toward the house.
    â€œHold it!” The woman shouted and the kids braked to a stop. She frowned and rested her free fist on a hip covered by a shapeless house dress. “We cain’t pay for no ice cream, ner other groceries, neither.”
    â€œIt’s already been bought.”
    â€œWe ain’t takin’ no charity, not from nobody…not even a nigger in a uniform. What you want?”
    John waited in the middle of the yard, both hands full. The raggedly-dressed children stood around him in a protective circle, as though to defy their mother’s wrath against a uniformed Santa Claus. There wasn’t one shoe among them.
    â€œIt ain’t charity. It’s from Mr. Ned Parker to pay you for some work you’re about to do, and for some questions I have to ask.”
    â€œI ain’t turning in no kinfolk to y’all.”
    â€œAin’t asking for that.”
    â€œI don’t work for no Parker.”
    â€œYou do now.”
    â€œWhat’s he want?” She frowned again. “Uh uh, I don’t do that, not even when we’re hungry.”
    John felt his face flush. “We ain’t asking for nothin’ ain’t right. Let me get up there in the shade out of this hot sun and we’ll talk. I ain’t a-kiddin’. This ice cream’s done rode from Chisum, and I imagine it’s pretty soft already. Let the little’uns eat while we visit a minute.”
    â€œMy man’ll be here any time.”
    John understood. “I’ll stay right out here.”
    She finally came to a decision and sat primly in a straight-back wooden chair. The cane bottom was almost rotted out, but it held her slight weight. She bounced the baby on her knees. “All right.”
    The kids squealed again and charged up on the porch. In seconds, the paper bags were ripped to shreds as they pawed through the canned and dried groceries. In the bottom of one bag, two sweating and soft square cartons of chocolate Mellorine brought even more shrieks.
    â€œY’all go get something to eat out of,” the woman said. Two of her oldest girls ran inside.
    John grinned down at the smaller kids, and picked a piece of grass from a girl’s thick black hair. “I figgered they’d like chocolate.” He sat on the lip of the porch, just in the edge of the shade, with his back against a gray post.
    â€œThey like anything sweet.”
    Two shirtless little ones climbed up in John’s lap. He figured they were around three or four, and knew one was a girl by the braids in her short hair. When a toddler saw them, he wanted up too. He soon lost count of how many there were, because they were as busy as a bag full of kittens.
    The oldest girl appeared to be about seventeen. She dipped melting ice cream in to a variety of utensils, ranging from cups to bowls. Small hands reached out eagerly, but she followed a system that worked downward by age. The boy and girl quickly abandoned John’s lap and joined their siblings, leaving him with the toddler. The oldest girl finally handed John a cracked bowl with little blue cornflowers around the outside edge. He glanced around.
    â€œThey all eatin’, ’cept the baby there in your lap. I’ll feed him some after I’ve had mine.”
    His bowl contained one small scoop. The teenager handed her mama a brown bowl. The woman picked up the fork that rattled on the edge. “I know you.”
    He met her tired eyes.
    â€œYou the one saved them two little white kids down on the creek a while back.”
    â€œYep.”
    â€œYou took up with that old constable.”
    â€œI work with him.”
    She took a bite, scraping the ice cream off the fork with her teeth. “That why you here?”
    â€œYep. Did you hear about them two was killed down the road a piece?”
    â€œDon’t surprise me. They was cars going in and out—and my first thought they’s up to no