We’re the same age, but not for long, because I’ll be twenty soon. We favor each other, but my hair’s white as goose feathers and fine as corn silk. Morris’s is a warm, burnished gold. Still, our sameness shows in the high tilt of our cheekbones, our blue eyes and long legs, and the deep dimples in our chins. Hallmarks of the Doherty side. The drunken, good-for-nothing side, according to Aunt Val, who once thought well enough of a Doherty to marry one and have two young ’uns by him. My mama must have once thought the same, though my daddy was a far sight meaner than his little brother and worthless as tits on a boar hog.
Granny comes in, wiping her feet on the stoop. She squints in the gloom. “Morris Clyde, you sure are up early this morning. Hosea won’t be expecting you at the farm until seven.”
A furtive, shamefaced look passes over Morris’s face. “Figured I’d go up and check on the still first.”
Granny sighs and shakes her head. “I sure wish you’d close up that still and leave that hooch alone.”
He scoffs. “It makes the ends meet, don’t it?”
“It’s your drinking of it that worries me more, Morris Clyde, and don’t you dare take a tone with me,” Granny scolds, wagging a finger. “Remember who you’re talking to.”
“The best damn granny woman in Arkansas,” I say with a smirk.
“And the fiercest. Don’t you forget it. I need to go lay back down for a minute to try an’ get ahead of this megrim. Bring my cup, would you, Gracelynn?”
“Yes’m.”
Morris pulls on his boots and snugs his hat over his curls. “I’m headed out.”
“Don’t you want some breakfast before you go? I just need to fetch more water to make grits. Won’t take two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”
“Nah, I ain’t hungry. I’ll walk you to the spring, though.”
I grab the water bucket and go out barefoot, not bothering with my boots. We make our way down to the springhouse, my calloused feet sure on the rocky ground. Morris has gone all quiet, like he’s chewing on a thought. I know the real reason he’s heading out early, and it don’t have a thing to do with checking on his still. “Y’all need to be careful.”
He gives a sharp laugh. “I know, Gracie. Believe me, I do. Seth knows it, too.”
“If Harlan and his gang ...”
“Don’t start in preaching. You let me worry about Harlan. Long as he gets his cut, he stays off my back. Seth’s, too.”
“Y’all need to mind yourselves. That’s all. Nobody’s ever found your daddy’s bones for a reason.”
Morris frowns. “I know, Gracie. I know.” Through the honeysuckle bushes on the other side of the spring, a flicker of white flashes against the green. “I’ll see you tonight, kid.” Morris lopes away and I watch him until he disappears into the undergrowth. I can’t help it that I worry. Harlan and his daddy are in thick with the Klan. They been trying to run Seth’s family out of Tin Mountain since before Seth was born and have made it their life’s work to cause trouble for anybody who don’t kowtow to them. And seeing as Al Northrup runs timber in Tin Mountain and keeps most of the families here fed, it don’t take no genius to figure out how he rose to the top like a turd in a privy.
But since Morris is my cousin—my best friend—I’ll keep his secrets, even though he’s cost me more than one sleepless night.
I prop open the door to the springhouse, the loamy scent of moist earth greeting me. A water moccasin slides out, slow and sinuous, and I step aside to let her pass, then kneel on the ground to put the bucket under the tap. Air gurgles through the line as I pump the handle, then a rush of ice-cold water sputters into my bucket. I fill it near to the top and grab the last log of butter from the shelves.
When I get back, Aunt Val is sitting at the kitchen table, her hair frazzled and her face set in the sour scowl she always wears of a morning. Caro’s there, too, impatient for breakfast.
“Mornin’,” I mutter under my breath.
“Yup. It sure is.” Val lights a cigarette, huffing smoke into the stolid air of the tiny kitchen. Doc Gallagher says smoke’s bad for Caro’s lungs, but Val don’t listen. Some women ain’t fit to be mothers, and she’s sure enough one of them.
I do my best to fill in the gaps for Caro, but it’s hard to know if I’m doin’ things right, since I never knew my own mama apart from a name stretched across a gravestone.
“I’m hungry.” Caro makes a pouty face, her plump lower lip dipping toward her chin.
“Ain’t you always, child? You’ll eat soon enough.” I slide a pan onto the burner next to the kettle. “Granny says we’re in for lean times. You need to learn to do with the feel of an emptier belly.”
Lord knows I had to at her age. When your mama dies bringing you into this world and your daddy’s so mean you can only find peace once he’s gotten to the bottom of his moonshine jar, you’ll do whatever it takes to survive. The only thing that’d kept me from starving back then was the Friday train from Springfield to St.Louis and the fine people who rode it. They didn’t notice me brushing past them, my hand dipping into their coat pockets and handbags as I went by. I was good at what I did. I had to be.
“Mama got one of her headaches again?” Val asks, pulling me out of my thoughts. Smoke slides out the corner of her mouth, and hovers in a blue-gray cloud over the table.
“Yep. She saw something in the woods. Said it was a portent. A sign of hard times. Came on after that.”
“Mama and hersigns.” Val barks a laugh. “We’re already in hard times as it is. I ain’t worried too much.”
