“Take yourself a small pull this time,” he ordered.
His daughter did, then wheezed and coughed as the liquid bumped down her pipe. Flannery wiped at the sudden heat lighting her brow, fanned her neck.
Honey Bee handed Flannery a wooden cup filled with water and told her to take a gulp. After she did, he said, “Dip your fingers into the water and let the droplets stream down into your whiskey glass, soften the spirits a bit. Now take a bigger pull of the witch water, but don’t swallow. Let it work its way to you.”
Flannery filled her mouth, choking back an urge to cough.
“Not yet . . . Chew it,” he said. “Let it nip at your tongue and cheeks. Now swallow it, and see how just a few drops of water can straighten it right and tight.”
Flannery did as she was told, swishing, fighting the bark rumbling her throat. Soon the liquid poked and gently picked up a sweet fire as it passed down and slid into her belly with a satisfying, spreading heat. She gasped, coughed once, and a moment passed before she grinned, leaned back into the chair, and held up her glass for more.
Smiling, Honey Bee lifted his still-full glass and said, “Flannery girl, when the whiskey’s just right, the hand will beg for more. That’s how you’ll know.” And then he passed his drink to her.
* * *
The smell of dark river, mud, and strange growing things crowded into the memories of that moment. Flannery gripped the guardrail with both hands, dropped her head, and looked down the cliff toward the water. A trembling took hold of her shoulders.
That first-tasting memory had come back so strongly and so sweetly, but she knew it couldn’t be held for long, the bitter piling, a grief pulling her in. It wasn’t but a few weeks later when, just as she got home from school, Honey Bee’d said, “Flannery girl, walk down to the barn with me. I need you to help with something that takes two pairs of hands.”
Patsy had barely acknowledged her daddy, brushing quickly past him and up the stairs, calling over her shoulder, “I hope I don’t have to go, Honey Bee. It’s muddy out there, and I can’t be getting myself all dirty and—”
“No, Queenie,” her daddy said quietly, looking at Flannery. “Takes a worker bee for this.”
Flannery set her schoolbooks down on the kitchen table and followed him out the door.
When Honey Bee took her hand in his on the porch and walked her toward the river to the barn, something inside told Flannery that her daddy needed more than help with a chore.
A blue heron glided past them, its neck tucked tight into an S, long, arrowed legs trailing behind its bluish-gray tail feathers. It landed on top of a nearby sycamore, squawking its landing call. On a branch below, young chicks poked their heads out of a bulky stick-saucered nest, ticking furiously for food. The big crane settled statue-like on the high perch, watching.
Flannery looked away, remembering the boy in her history class with the glass eye. He’d shot one of the birds out of its tree, and when he went over to pick it up, the feisty bird had lit into him with its long, daggered beak, poking Calvin’s eyeball clean out.
Flannery and Honey Bee walked silently into the old pole barn, the coolness washing down oak boards and onto the dirt floor, an earthy dampness rising into the stretching quiet between them. Honey Bee stood there not saying a word and Flannery daring not to ask.
At long last, Honey Bee said, “Your mother is going to talk to you, tell you something very important. But I wanted to tell you first, Flannery girl.... I’ve been mighty sick for a while now. And I’m going to get a lot sicker.”
Flannery gasped. “Honey Bee, what’s wrong? Is it your sugar, the diabetes sickness? Oh, Mama said you’ve been sneaking bites of her pies and—”
Honey Bee took hold of her shoulders. “Promise me something, daughter.” A kind sadness filled his tired eyes as he held her tearful gaze.
Flannery mewed a protest.
“Listen to me, Flannery girl. Ol’ Kentucky River is calling me home. Do you understand?”
Flannery managed a weak nod.
“Your mother . . . When she tells you, promise me you’ll pretend she told you first, that I didn’t tell you what’s really wrong with me.”
* * *
Over the years Flannery had heard her mama’s protests about her daddy’s drinking: “a killing-type-drinking and will kill you quicker than your diabetes,” Mama’d cried; “the same-old, same-old harping,” he’d denied.
One night had been different, strange in a scary way. Their voices, Mama’s and Honey Bee’s, had startled Flannery in the middle of the night. Unable to fall back asleep, she had wandered downstairs and from the hallway saw her parents sitting at the kitchen table with only a candle lighting the room. Something in their voices made her step back and eavesdrop, poke her head out from around the corner and sneak glances.
“But you never drank until that night,” Mama’d said. “Only sampled for the business. Even made Uncle Mary do most of that.”
“Quiet, woman,” he snarled, and poured himself a bourbon from his River Witch bottle, taking a long swallow. “I never had the need till then.”
“It’s not your fault,” Mama said softly. “And drinking like this won’t bring them back.”
“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. Yo
u 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.
But Hollis landed a punch back to Danny’s head and then another. And a third, hard on Danny’s nose.
Patsy thought she heard a sickening crunch. She ran over to the tumbling brothers and tried to pull Hollis off Danny. “Stop. Hollis, stop. You’re going to hurt him, you brute!”
“Get back, Patsy.” Hollis whipped out an arm, hitting her hard in the chest, knocking the wind out of her.
Danny stuck up his fist and jabbed Hollis square on the jaw, then once again, cutting his cheekbone.
Hollis blinked and grunted, then clamped his hands around Danny’s throat.
Patsy looked around for help, for a rock, for anything that could stop crazy Hollis. Her eyes lit upon the automobile’s open window. She rushed to the Mercury and leaned inside the passenger side, looking for anything to hit Hollis.
Hollis’s flask lay on the seat, and then she remembered, remembered spilling her drink, remembered the oily rag in the glove and what it covered.
With the bottom of her fist, Patsy pounded open the glove box, dug under the dirty rags, and pulled out the pistol. She turned back to the brothers, and cried out, “Let him go, Hollis!” She pointed the gun his way. “So help me God, I’ll shoot.”
Hollis snarled. Pulling himself off Danny, he held out an arm, stood, and took a step toward her. “You hand that right over,” he ordered, slicing a hand in the air. “Right here.”
She wagged her head.
Danny rolled in the dirt, rubbed at his neck, trying to pull off his bow tie.
“Give it here, or I’ll take my belt to you again,” Hollis growled, and in one step was upon her, snatching it away.
Danny got his footing and charged Hollis, grabbing for the weapon.
Hollis held on, the brothers’ arms locked high, gripping the gun and each other. Danny kneed him, and Hollis yelled and loosened his hold long enough to hit Danny on the side of the head. Raging, Danny only jerked a little, fought hard to keep his hold.
The weapon discharged, sending the bullet into the air.
Hollis fumbled. Danny’s grip loosened, and the snub nose dropped to the ground.
Patsy crouched and closed her hands over her ears while the boys scrambled and grabbed for the gun.
Hollis was quicker.
Still Danny latched his arms around his brother’s chest.
Hollis
easily broke Danny’s grip, twisted his arms, dug in with his fingers, and the gun went off again.
Patsy tried to scream, but nothing came out, just empty rushes of frantic air. She glanced around for something, anything, to bring Hollis down.
Danny staggered over to the elm, leaning on it for support.
Anger washed over Hollis as he closed in on his younger brother. “I should kick your scrawny ass.” Hollis breathed heavily, inspecting his gun. “I warned ya never to touch my pistol.” Hollis stuffed the gun into his trousers and pulled up his britches, adjusting, covering the gun with his long-tailed shirt. Lifting a fist, he shook it at Danny. “I should break your arm just for that.”
Frantic, Patsy searched again for something to help, and gasped when she spotted it, something she hadn’t seen before: a hefty, hand-sized rock over by the cemetery gate. She scurried to the fence, picked up the broken piece of headstone, and ran up behind Hollis.
Danny cried out and slowly moved his right hand up to his left arm, cradling the injury, unable to stop the growing stain of blood darkening in the early evening light.
Unconcerned, oblivious, Hollis nursed his own self, swiping at his cut face and swollen eyes, spitting blood into the dirt. “Ought to clobber you another good one, Danny boy. You don’t deserve her. Sissy.” Hollis brushed the dirt off his sleeves.
Horrified, Patsy watched Danny wobble, before sliding down the tree trunk, plopping onto the trunk’s bark-legged skirt.
She let out a startling scream and threw back her arm.
Hollis blinked, then snapped his neck at Danny’s wound, gaping before doing a half spin into Patsy’s war cry.
With all her might, Patsy tightened her grip and smashed Hollis in the head with the rock.
CHAPTER 9
Flannery
1972
Flannery stared down the steep cliffs, past the litter of broken bottles and other bits of trash. A breeze of angels’ share and murky waters drifted from the Kentucky, skittered up mountain rock, rippling across the sun-stretching arms of trees. She took a breath, dreading going down there to see what they had pulled up from the river today, the bite of the old land coating her tongue, an aftertaste of stale whiskey caught in her throat.
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