Forever Never Ends Read Free Page A

credit, you better rein in your horses and bite your tongue and nod at all the right times. I'm calling all the shots here. Hey, that's pretty damn funny, all the SHOTS here, ha-ha.
    Ralph pointed to something, a pale powdery thread that branched out like a tree root down the side of the barrel into the wort. "What the hell’s that?"
    Don Oscar bent down and looked, pressing his soft belly against the rim of the barrel. "Some kind of fungus or dry rot, I reckon. Won't hurt nothing. It all comes out in the wash."
    "Dry rot when it's so wet in here?"
    Don Oscar reached into the barrel and touched the tendril. It squirmed spongily and crumbled. Don Oscar rubbed his fingers together, spilling motes of green and white dust onto the surface of the wort.
    "Smells funny," Don Oscar said, whiffing like a maitre d' checking a vintage.
    "Whatever you say, buddy. Can I have my jar now? You know how I get the shakes."
    Don Oscar knew perfectly well how Ralph got the shakes. That was why he was making Ralph wait. There wasn't a lot of entertainment out in the sticks, especially here on the back side of Bear Claw twenty miles from nowhere in either direction. "When can you pay?"
    Ralph’s eyes were dark as salamanders. "Got my disability coming at the first of the month, same as usual."
    "And what's my guarantee you won't blow it all on that factory beer at the Moose Lodge before I get mine?" Don Oscar rubbed his fingers against his flannel shirt. That mold or whatever it was had made his hand itch.
    "I promise, Don Oscar."
    Don Oscar smiled in secret pleasure. He didn't care much if Ralph paid or not. He ran a healthy small business, with low overhead and tax-free profit. He allowed himself a helping of mountain generosity. “Here you go, Ralphie.”
    Ralph grabbed at Don Oscar's hand, pried the bootlegger's fingers away, and held the jar to his chest as he ran for the door, slipping on the dark, damp floor.
    Took it like a chipmunk grabbing an acorn . Don Oscar watched from the springhouse as Ralph struggled with the lid and tipped the jar bottom to the sky. Ralph's Red Man cap nearly slid off, but the adjustable strip stuck to his collar. The bill of the ball cap jutted cockeyed toward the treetops. Some of the liquor streaked down Ralph’s stubbled chin and wet his shirt as he gulped.
    Ralph wiped his mouth with his jacket sleeve and headed into the woods. Ralph disappeared among the pale saplings and gray-mottled trunks of the oaks. Don Oscar listened to Ralph's feet kicking up dead leaves for another 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