minute, until the sound grew fainter and blended with the warbling of Carolina wrens and the chattering of squirrels.
Don Oscar checked the pressure gauge on the still and added some hickory kindling to the fire. The batch would hold for the evening. His hand itched like crazy now, and a headache was coming on like a thunderstorm riding fast clouds. Maybe he'd better get to the house and lay down, let Genevieve make him a hot bowl of soup and maybe take a Goody’s powder.
He closed and locked the springhouse door and headed down the trail to the house. By the time he was halfway home, his head felt as if it had been crushed between two boulders and his mind was playing tricks on him. The trees seemed way too green, and the new March growth shivered without a wind. Maybe that last batch had been a bit too powerful.
Genevieve Moody looked up from her quilting and out the window to see if her husband had finished his business deal. She didn’t trust Ralph Bumgarner a bit. But Donnie could take care of things. He always had, and he’d sold to rougher folks than Ralph.
It was the tail end of winter, the trees deader than four o'clock and hardly any blooms to speak of, but still the fresh smell of jack pine rosin came through the screen door. The woods were going to bust with green any day now, with scrappy black clouds pushing another storm. It was God dipping His waterspout to tend His garden, priming it for another spring.
That last stitch is a mite loose, but after all it's a quilt. It’s the wrinkles and loose threads and whatnot that gives them character. And the handmade look sells so good down at the antique shop.
Maybe she’d give this quilt away instead of selling it. To Eula Mae or one of the Mull kids, Lord only knew they needed all the help they could get. And it's not like she needed the money, what with Donnie doing so good.
Okay, now, Mister Needle, don't jump at my old fingers like that. A body'd think you lived off my blood the way you act.
She didn’t see Donnie yet. Ralph might have been trying to pull a fast one, make a horse trade, though Ralph was plumb out of horses. Ralph had big ears, and mountain lore held that was a sign of a long and enduring lover, but she didn’t see how any woman could ever stand to put him to the test. This was one of those times she didn’t like Donnie’s being a moonshiner. Because of the company it drew.
But, she had to admit, she liked store-bought groceries and the new Wagoneer and not having to keep up pole beans and yellow squash like her sisters. Donnie had promised a satellite dish come summer. And he was right proud of his work.
“Family tradition,” he called it, and his cheeks got all puffy and cute when he smiled.
Well, family is family, after all, and I'll stand by my man come heck or high water.
Maybe the apple didn't fall far from the tree, and maybe one bad apple spoiled the whole bunch, and maybe the worm turned, but Donnie had never lifted a hand against her. She knew for a fact none of her sisters could say the same about their good-for-nothing husbands.
And Donnie got respect. His customers came from all walks, not just the down-and-outers like Ralph and his kind. Chief Crosley was kept greased up and shut up with a monthly case and Chester Mull was regular as prunes and oatmeal. Half the Moose Lodge were customers. Even some of them snooty Lion's Clubbers weren't above a little illegal pleasure. And that old preacher, not Blevins, but the one before him, Hardwick, paid a call every Monday come rain or shine.
She had time for her hobbies and when she wanted a weaving loom, Donnie ran right out and bought one without batting an eye, two thousand dollars just like that. It sat over there in the corner with dusty strings hanging from it like cobwebs but Donnie hadn’t ever said an unkind word about her not using it anymore. She took another glance out the window, at the sky going thick as flies on molasses.
No Donnie.
She let her attention wander from the quilt in her lap to the kitchen. It was cluttered with cookbooks, recipes, and enamelware, bought by Donnie so she could finally win the chow-chow contest at the festival. He’d even bought her a Cuisinart.
“It's science,” he’d told her. “Not luck or old mountain secrets, else Elvira Oswig wouldn't be getting the blue ribbon year after year. She got the system down, is all.”
Blossomfest was coming up this weekend and that last batch of chow-chow was going to win for her. Donnie had said wasn't no judge on Earth going to be able to pass up this year's Moody entry.
And here he came now, wobbling down the trail like he'd taken too many samples and holding his head like it was a broken bucket leaking water.
Lordy, girl, get your old bones up and help him into his chair, ‘cause you know he works hard for you and never once asks for thanks, only a little hanky-panky once in a while, but they ALL do that. And anyway, that don't take much time at all, and if it keeps Donnie home, then I'm glad to oblige.
She put aside her needle and scraps. Her husband stumbled up the steps, feet dragging as if his boots were filled with creek mud.
'Hey, honey, are you feeling okay?' she asked, standing and brushing the threads from her lap.
To tell the truth, he looked like heck warmed over and he was nodding, but that didn't mean nothing because he hated to complain. He put his arms around her, but his eyes were only partly open, the whites showing like sick moons.
'Here, maybe I better put you to bed, Donnie.'
He leaned on her, heavy, like he wanted some hanky-panky, but it was the afternoon and they hadn’t done it in the daylight since she was barely off her Daddy's knee and, besides, his breath smelled like a crock of sauerkraut that had turned.
'You got the fever?” she asked. “Looks like you're having some kind of spell, took ill with something.'
Why wouldn’t he look at her?
'Honey?'
She tried to back away, but his arms were strong and his face pressed closer. The rims of his eyes were swollen and tinged with green, the color of rotted watermelons.
“Say something,” she said. “And you may as well stop trying to kiss me until you get that dead skunk out of your mouth and-”
She finally figured out what was bothering her, besides the smell and his strange eyes. His mouth on hers caused no stir of wind.
Lordy, that ain't right, and you got to get away because he ain't breathing and why don't your legs work and he still wants that kiss and his tongue feels like cold slimy snakeskin and why don't your legs work and what's he putting in your mouth that's slithery and Oh my Lord now you can't breathe and this ain’t real but you can't breathe that sure is real and something's wrong in your bones and guts and God let my lungs work, girl, this must be what it's like to die only why does it hurt so much and now you'll never get that blue ribbon and we’re all sauerkraut and what is this shhhhh oh Lordy Jesus I can’t feel my heartbeat and the whole world’s gone green and white and green and white cause this must be what they call your life flashing before your eyes flashing before your flashing
CHAPTER TWO
A black cloud crawled across the sky, scrubbing the top of Bear Claw as it headed east. Little gray dots of cumulus followed in its trail like deformed cows bound for pasture. At sunrise, the clouds had been spread as thin as apple butter. In the few hours since, they had clumped up like they meant business. And this time of year, raining was the sky’s main piece of business.
Chester Mull rubbed the knots of his hands together, hoping the friction would melt the arthritis away. March in the High Country was always miserable. The cold and damp weather alternated with brief bursts of sunshine to keep his joints in constant agony, one moment shrunk tighter than fiddle strings and the next looser than Eula Mae Pritcher's morals. Now his aching bones told him that the daily thunderstorm was right on schedule.
Static electricity prickled the wiry gray hairs on the back of his hands. He looked out across the yard at the blue banty hens scratching in the dirt. They wouldn't have sense enough to get out of the rain, and Chester was
