Something Close to Grace

After the mule died, Mose scrounged an old pickup off Ruddy Jickson's lot no more'n a mile down the interstate. Once it might of been a sweet oyster blue, but now the junker's well-chewed by time. Its rounded panels and fenders is doilied with rust, the paintwork's red-brown from lid to belly, much like them jugs of sour mash Mose is been known to swig on a homeward drive. Hopeless as sin, that truck of theirs, but Perch were glad enough to see it.

Ain't half so good as swimming, she'd thought back then, watching Mose pull up on the gravel out front. Still. .. Reckon it'll go further than the donkey ever done. That poor waste of flesh weren't hardly able to shoulder groceries from Bisbee's market, much less a woman grown, nor the four kids Mose' d got on her. But a truck! A truck. Well, now. That there's a four­ wheeled promise of freedom.