Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
DEBORAH KNOTT’S FAMILY TREE
LATE AUGUST
Afternoon shadows shaded the dip in the deserted dirt road where a battered Chevy pickup sat with the motor idling. On the driver’s side, a puff of pale blue smoke drifted through the open window as the old man inside lit a cigarette and waited. The two dogs in back tasted the sultry air and one of them stuck its head through the sliding rear window. The man reached up and rubbed the silky ears.
A few minutes later, a green Ford pickup approached from the opposite direction and pulled even with the Chevy. The old man acknowledged them with a nod, then stubbed out his cigarette and dropped it on the sandy roadbed.
“Evening, Mr. Kezzie,” said the stocky, heavyset driver who appeared to be in his early fifties. His hair was thinning across the crown and his face was lined from squinting through a windshield at too many sunrises.
The other, younger man was probably early thirties. He wore a neat blue shirt that had wet sweat circles under the arms.
Kezzie Knott peered past the driver. “This your cousin’s boy?”
The older man nodded. “Norwood Love, Ben Joe’s youngest.”
“I knowed your daddy when he was a boy,” Kezzie said, tapping another cigarette from the crumpled pack in his shirt pocket. “Good man till they shipped him off to Vietnam.”
“That’s what I hear.” Norwood Love’s jaw tightened. “I only knowed him after he come back.”
And won’t asking for no pity, thought Kezzie as he took a deep drag on his cigarette. Well, that part won’t none of his business. Exhaling smoke, he said, “He the one taught you how to make whiskey?”
“Him and Sherrill here.”
“I done told him, Mr. Kezzie, how you won’t have no truck with a man that makes bad whiskey,” his cousin said earnestly. “Told him ain’t nobody never gone blind drinking stuff you had aught to do with.”
“And that’s the way I aim to keep it,” Kezzie said mildly as he examined the cigarette in his gnarled fingers. There was no threat in his voice, but the young man nodded as if taking an oath.
“All I use is hog feed, grain, sugar and good clean water. No lye or wood alcohol and I ain’t never run none through no radiator neither.”
Kezzie Knott heard the sturdy pride in his voice. “Ever been caught?”
“No, sir.”
“Sherrill says you got a safe place to set up.”
“Yessir. It’s—”
Kezzie held up his hand. “Don’t tell me. Sherrill’s word’s good enough. And your’n.” His clear blue eyes met the younger man’s. “Sherrill says you was thinking eight thousand?”
“I know that’s a lot, but—”
“No, it ain’t. Not if you’re going to do a clean operation, stainless steel vats and cookers.”
He leaned over and took a thick envelope from the glove compartment and passed it across to Norwood Love. “Count it.”
When the younger man had finished counting, he looked up at the other two. “Don’t you want me to sign a paper or something?”
“What for?” asked Kezzie Knott, with the first hint of a smile on his lips. “Sherrill’s told you my terms and you aim to deal square, don’t you?”
“Yessir.”
“Well, then? Ain’t no piece of paper gonna let me take you to court if you don’t.”
“I reckon not.”
“Besides”—a sardonic tone slipped into his voice—“there don’t need to be nothing connecting me to you if your place ain’t as safe as you think it is.”
As Norwood Love started to thank him, Kezzie Knott touched the brim of his straw hat to them, then put the truck in gear and pulled away through August heat and August humidity that had laid a haze across the
