Unraveled by Reavis Z Wortham Page B

their sharp-boned Guernsey cow that kept the least ones alive. The older kids had already grown tired of getting up first thing in the morning, rain or shine, cold or hot, to milk. It had to be done again in the evening. Even though he couldn’t stand the taste, Grover went into a rage and beat anyone who spilled the milk on the way back to the house for straining, so they gladly gave the chore to Mark.
    It was the only time he had to himself and the boy grew to enjoy it. That confounded cow and those younger kids became his life. He’d lost count of how many times there wasn’t any food in the house and it became a source of pride that at least they had milk.
    Through necessity, he gained experience at sneaking into other folks’ corn cribs, smokehouses, or barns, and filling a ’toe sack with whatever food he could steal. Sometimes it was only potatoes and onions from cribs. On a chilly night after a nearby family killed hogs, he got away with a few hocks and the cheeks, because those parts tended to be overlooked and their disappearance blamed on dogs or rats.
    One winter he was able to steal a few ears of feed corn from a barn on a weekly basis without getting caught. The yellow dent was so hard it had to be soaked for a day before they could cook it. They lived on mostly boiled corn and hand-ground cornbread for months.
    The Oklahoma law came by the house a time or two, sniffing around to see what they could find out about petty theft reports, but Grover always convinced them he knew nothing of the pilfering. The gaunt looks of the Choctaw family usually told the sheriff or constable that the folks were barely alive as it was, and even if someone did bring home a few ears of corn intended as chicken feed, it wasn’t much of a crime.
    He went to school, though. That was the one thing he insisted on, and it was there he excelled. The small rural schoolhouse built by the WPA housed both Indian and white kids from their part of rural southeast Oklahoma. Mark stood out, making good grades and showing he had an aptitude for numbers.
    Then one morning three-and-a-half years after his Aunt Tillie and Grover showed up out of nowhere, she called him off the porch. “Mark, you need to get in the truck.”
    â€œWhere are we going?”
    Grover came out of the house with a rat-chewed cardboard suitcase. He pitched it into the truck bed amid a collection of hoes, bailing wire, loose hay, and empty feed sacks. “Get in, like she said.”
    â€œI’ve told you you ain’t my daddy. You’re not the boss of me.”
    Grover shrugged. “Don’t make no difference nohow. You’re going and good riddance.”
    â€œWhere?”
    â€œWhere Tillie told me.”
    Mark watched the kids scramble into the bed over the sides and tailgate, excited to go somewhere. Martha and Brock, two other kinfolk who weren’t blood but insisted on being called aunt and uncle climbed in the cab, setting the smallest kids on their laps.
    Mark shrugged and joined them, hoping they were heading to Hugo and he could loaf around town for a while. At least it was something to do besides work.
    He was shocked when they passed over the bridge and into Texas. He hadn’t been across the Red River since Tillie and Grover came to get him. He knew for sure where they were going when Grover steered right and onto westbound 197.
    They weren’t going to the fields, because it was too early to work. There were no crops yet.
    Mark watched the woods flash by as they cruised down the two-lane highway with excitement growing in his chest. One of the boys, Carl, rode with his arm over the edge of the truck bed. The wind blew his shaggy hair into his face. “Where we going, Mark?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œWe don’t never work this side of the river. They don’t much like Indians over here.”
    â€œSome folks do.”
    â€œI want to pick next to