The car

Mrs. Honeywalker swept the barn floors when she heard an engine buzzing a whirl of complaints outside. She stopped in mid-sweep and headed out the door. Chickens made a train behind her.

An old Ford sat in the muddy driveway, rear wheels spinning out, man and woman inside – and then they stopped, hobbled into place. Gracie stared at the car, her hair blowing in the wind, and gave them the most belligerent face she could muster, protruding her lower lip, sticking her jaw out, creasing her brows. Colored folks had such an advantage, she thought, making hard faces, especially eighty-year old ladies like her.

Grace marched right over to the car as the man made a final attempt to get it out of the ditch. The man stopped and leaned out the window. Before he could open his mouth to speak –

“Don’t you be kicking up mud in my driveway, young man. You be stopping that car right now,” she ordered and wagged her index finger at them. “What in the devil’s name you doing here anyway? Who’re you all?”

"I’m Balmoral,” the man said. “Woman, we’re lost.”

Gracie squinted. “No one’s ever lost out this far. You done come here for a reason.”

He leaned out even further. “We’re simply driving about. You’ve no place to question us, ma’am.”

“You think I was a fool born yesterday? You done come to steal from me, I know it. I can smell it from here.”

Gracie looked inside the car – couldn’t see the woman too well, but the man, something about his stubborn chin told her, they weren’t leaving any too fast. She’d set them straight, before they got any ideas about her.

“Well, you ain’t getting nothing. I got me a rifle inside the house and I’ll use it if I need to. Your car’s stuck in the mud. You might as well come on out from that contraption. We’ll get old man Lacey’s truck over here --”

“Old man Lacey,” the man echoed as they got out of the car. An updraft blew his loose shirt tails up and the woman’s carrot-top red hair in her face. “He’s the one who sent us.”

Gracie smiled at the mention of Lacey and turned to look at the woman. Her smile widened. “Well, you having a baby for me to deliver. That’s why you done come. Why didn’t you say nothing?”