“If only I’d gotten there sooner.” Honey Bee fattened a fist.
“Oh, Honey Bee. I don’t want to lose you like this. We have our girls. Our girls need you. I do too. You’ve got to let go of this anger. You can’t be smart and angry—”
Honey Bee grunted something Flannery couldn’t pick up.
“You know our babies are safe now. With God,” Mama whispered, reaching for his hand. “God’s been looking over them.... Nobody can hurt them anymore. It happened so long ago. You’ve got to stop this, and accept our Heavenly Father’s—”
Honey Bee growled and took another drink.
Mama cupped her hand over his. “Come to church with me Sunday.”
Honey Bee sighed tiredly.
“You don’t pray anymore. Seek His truth and listen to God’s Word—”
“God is a long-tongued liar.” Honey Bee pushed himself from the table and escaped out the back door with his bottle.
The next morning, Flannery tried to ask Mama about her brothers, snooping for more, though her parents had said the summer diarrhea took a lot of babies that year. “Did they look like me and Patsy? What was the color of their hair, their eyes? Who hurt them, Mama? Did someone—?” Flannery dug until Mama held up a hushing hand.
“Your brothers were only with us a short time before the Good Lord took them. And be mindful. A young lady doesn’t talk about private matters, shouldn’t go begging for impolite conversation. It’s ill-mannered, Flannery Bee Butler, and I won’t have it,” she said in a faltering voice. “Now go and get the wash off the line; there’s a storm coming,” Mama shamed.
Flannery had never thought it was anything more than just missing the babies, that adult fussing, the fretting most kids see in grown-ups from time to time.
And she’d never worried about Honey Bee’s long sugar tooth for the whiskey. Didn’t think she needed to until that day down at the barn with her daddy proved different.
*
In 1950, Honey Bee had looked at his daughter and said, “Listen to me now.”
“No. Don’t say it.” Flannery pounded his chest, collapsed in his arms. “No. Don’t leave me, Honey Bee, don’t leave me, Daddy. Please . . . no.”
Holding her, he found a strength in his dying arms and diseased body to gather his younger daughter closer. “You take care of your mother and sister, Flannery girl. I need you to be a strong worker bee for the queenies, a strong guard bee for our whiskey recipe.”
“I can’t—” Flannery cried.
“You already have,” Honey Bee said, and then whispered,
“Now remember this: The sheriff gets the first barrel—always. He gets a fussy croup that acts up a’might if he doesn’t get his medicine. And he gets a might fussier if his granny fee ain’t in on time. You hear me?”
“Yes-yessir.”
“Let Mother River and her witch water give you, Mama, and your sister a good life. Just know you’ll have a longer one if you leave the partaking to your customers. Do you understand what I’m saying, child?”
“I . . . I don’t . . .”
Honey Bee grasped her tighter. “Understand.”
“I th-think so.”
“Daughter, know these words I’ve given you.” Her daddy pressed his forehead to hers and in a low gravelly voice passed on the sins of his soul and their family business to thirteen-year-old Flannery.
CHAPTER 8
Patsy
June, 1952
Patsy worked her hands free, bumping Hollis away from her, calling out for Danny.
Hollis laughed low and clutched her back.
“Get off me, Hollis,” she hissed, jerking away. “Get your filthy hands off me. You’ll get my prom dress dirty.”
He grabbed her around the waist and pulled himself close again. “C’mon, Patsy.”
“Stop right now.”
“Hitch them skirts up for me again.”
“No!” she screamed above the mounting cry of crickets, cicadas, and other bugs, drunk from their own nightly forage to find mates.
“We got time.” He rubbed his hip against her dress, pressing her tulle-covered thighs. “You can’t tell me you haven’t thought of me and you. Haven’t had the hurt for more of my good loving.”
“I can tell you this, Hollis Henry: I hate you. I hate the way you’re reckless and cruel. Hate that I’m gonna be stuck . . . stuck with your . . . your bastard!”
“No.” Hollis knitted his brows, looked down at her belly, and took a step back. “No way.”
“It’s true,” she cried.
He grabbed her hand. “If it’s so, I will make it right and marry—”
“Never.” She jerked free.
Cut, Hollis looked away. “You’re not going to pin that on me.”
“You took me against my will.” Patsy swung her hand to the tree. “Violated—”
“You wanted it. Don’t you lie.”
“You made me take your rotgut whiskey and—”
“You’re a gawdamn moonshiner’s daughter. You can’t tell me your ma didn’t nurse you with her titties full of the stuff—”
“I can tell you this: It’s yours. And you took what isn’t. But you’ll never have me—”
“Ain’t my brat, and you’re not gonna get my good name for it.”
“Then know that we’ll both hate your heathen bastard inside me,” she said coldly.
He backhanded her hard across the face and pushed her away.
Patsy yelped and touched her mouth and then pulled back her hand, peered at the blood from her split lip. She looked over Hollis’s shoulder and hollered, “Danny, help!”
Moaning, Danny awakened and pulled himself up in the backseat. He swung his legs out of the door. Rubbing his head, he grumbled, “What’s going on here? Hollis, w-what the Sam hell—”
Patsy backed farther away from Hollis and pointed at her lip then back to the older brother. “Your brother,” she said, breathless, “he did this to me. Tried to have his way with me, and . . . and when I wouldn’t, he clobbered me. Look at me, Danny. Look at what he did.” Patsy’s eyes filled.
Danny startled and jumped out of the Mercury. “Wh-What the hell did you do to her? Patsy, you okay?” Danny looked at her bloody lip. “What the Sam hell, Hollis—”
Hollis held up his hand and took a step back. “Now hold on there, Danny boy. She wanted me, lil’ brother. Teased and threw herself at me, a shameless mess.”
“You’re drunk, Hollis Henry,” Patsy said.
“A shameless mess, I tell you,” Hollis went on. “Teased same as that day I gave her a lift when you were all cozy with Miss Violet. I gave her what she wanted real bad, Danny boy. Calm down. Think some. There’s plenty for both of us—”
“You dirtbag.” Danny raised a fist. “She’s mine, you lying bastard. Get your dirty hands off of her. I’m sorry, Patsy—”
“Come on, brother, we can keep this in the family. We’ll flip to see who takes care of what’s she’s got cooking in there.” Hollis laughed, pushed out his belly, and patted.
“You shut your rotten trap, Hollis,” Danny said, reddening. He looked at Patsy. “That true, Patsy?”
Patsy tearfully shook her head and instinctively raised a lying hand over her stomach. “Oh, Danny, let’s leave.” They could finally run off, and it would solve everything for her. “I’ll go anywhere with you, Danny. I love you. And only you.” Patsy held out her trembling hands to him. “Let’s go, please—”
Hollis paled and turned to Patsy. “You love my brother? Only him?” He cast a doubting eye to Danny.
Patsy nodded at Danny.
Hollis tightened a fist. “Now why do you suppose she dropped them panties for me then, brother?”
Danny spit at the ground and rushed Hollis, pummeled his face.
Hollis staggered backward and fell against the tree. He shook his head, and in an instant lunged forward and tackled Danny, sending them both to the ground.
Danny got in a solid blow to Hollis’s jaw.
Hollis threw him off and scrambled to pin Danny down. Danny cursed.
Using an arm, Hollis forced his elbow into his brother’s throat.
Patsy grabbed Hollis’s hair, tugging. “Stop it . . . stop it, you drunken fools! Get off him, Hollis!”
Hollis threw out an arm and knocked Patsy in the head, sending her back and stumbling.
Danny righted a fist and plowed it into Hollis’s cheek.