So did Boo Boudreaux.
The hair on my arms prickled up. I was scared Boo had seen us back at the Galway place, and here I was standing in front of him sweating and out of breath and covered up to my waist in beggar-lice. Oh, I had guilty written all over me. And Sissy just stood there saying nothing, like her face didn’t even have a mouth on it.
“My Uncle Vertis asked me to give you this,” I handed Boo the sack without answering about the beggar-lice.
Boo pulled a switchblade out of his pants and snapped it open. Around the hilt was a dark rusty color that could have been dried-up squirrel or rabbit blood or even rust for all I knew. On the other hand, it could have been from whatever fight caused that slope of scar on his face. He ran a callused finger along the edge of the knife. Judging it sharp enough, he slashed the shoestring the bag was tied with, shaking a couple bills and some change into his hand.
Picking out a quarter, he handed it to me. “You girls look like you could use a pop. It’s hotter than a hound in heat today.”
Of course I knew the right thing to do.
Instead, I took the money.
With his black hair, bandana, and that knife glinting in the sun, Boo looked like a pirate. His wife started singing “Power in the Blood,” the baby still nursing at her breast. “There is power, wonder working power, in the blood of the Lamb,” her voice softly keening. “Power, power, wonder working power, in the precious blood of the lamb,” she sang, never once looking up or saying a word to any of us. The child unlatched from her breast and yawned, showing a full set of baby teeth. Milk dribbled down its chin.
“You tell your uncle it’s a pleasure doing business with him,” Boo said. “And tell him I’ll be returning that hammer of his next time I come down. Everything’s working slick as snot.”
Sissy and I had got ourselves into a situation. Practically getting yourself shot by a moonshiner wasn’t near as much fun if you couldn’t tell about it, fancying it up with each telling.
But we couldn’t tell a solitary soul.
Not about going on the Galway property. Or seeing the moonshine still. Or taking the quarter from Uncle Vertis or Boo either. We couldn’t even say we’d talked to Boo. Since either bragging or confessing was likely to get us in trouble with one or the other of them, I thought the best way to deal with our sins was to keep our mouths shut and put the money in the offering at church on Sunday. Before I could fully plead my case, Sissy took the quarters and threw them as far as she could into the weeds.
“What the heck did you do that for?” I asked.
“St. Mary’s doesn’t want moonshine money,” Sissy said, just like she had asked the Methodists about it the last time she was there.
I hoped she wouldn’t blab to anybody at church about us taking moonshine money from Boo. We’d disgraced ourselves enough that folks were likely still talking about it. A few weeks back the two of us had sung “Fairest Lord Jesus” for morning service, but the music was so loud I couldn’t hear Sissy and I doubted she could hear me. I know we sounded awful because Patty Greer told me so. She was one of my best friends, and that is something she would not lie about.
I was still fuming about Sissy throwing the money away. If she didn’t want to give it to the Lord, the least she could have done was give it back to me. I didn’t talk to her all the way home. She kept trying to get me to slow down, but I’d got it in my head that Boo had seen us snooping around at the Galway place. I kept looking back to make sure he wasn’t chasing us, waving a ball-peen hammer in one hand and a bloody knife in the other, lunging closer with every step he took.
When we got back to the house, Aunt Nalda and Uncle Vertis had been in a fuss over him buying moonshine from Boo right there in broad daylight with Grandma not much more than spitting distance away. Besides, the egg money Aunt Nalda kept hidden in her sewing basket was short two dollars and fifty-three cents. Uncle Vertis was a little drunk, but not drunk enough to admit he’d been into Aunt Nalda’s egg money and spent it on moonshine.
“Nobody but a sorry-no-good-for-nuthin’ would steal a good Christian woman’s egg money,” he said.
“That same no-good-for-nuthin’ better see it gets put back in there.” Aunt Nalda gave him a steely look. “Just to make sure, I’m keeping that saw you borrowed from Boo until it does.”
I’d heard Grandma tell Mother if Aunt Nalda wanted Uncle Vertis to quit drinking, she needed to stop nagging about it. “Nagging would drive anybody to drink,” she said. “And a man with a weakness for alcohol didn’t stand a chance.” Grandma took the boy’s side in most everything. “You get yourself right with the Lord and He’ll convict you of drinking that poison,” Grandma told Uncle Vertis. He hated to be preached at, so she snuck it in a little at a time like doses of medicine.
Uncle Vertis said maybe one day he’d up and quit cold turkey, but he didn’t feel the need just yet. Sprawled on a salvaged car seat that was part of a matched set being used for porch furniture, he put his head back, pulled his hat down, and closed his eyes against the sun.
We finished up the molasses making, the last a boiling of blackstrap, before we drove the few miles home, our plans
