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one another. Up ahead the road veered off to the left in a
sharp curve.
Panicked, I repeated Merritt’s question. “What’re you do-
ing?”
Daddy didn’t answer me neither. There was no way we
could make it at this speed, I sensed it, even though I’d never ridden in a car going this fast before. The other car was beside us again.
Daddy cussed under his breath. “Hellfire and damnation,
they must’ve been working on that heap.”
I leaned forward, trying to see if I could make out who it
was. “Who?”
The car swerved into us, tapping our front bumper, fol-
lowed by a slight scraping of metal on metal. Sally Sue shuddered.
Daddy let off the gas a little and said, “Them damn Murrys.
Sit back, Jessie!”
Merritt’s fingers were clamped to the back of the seat and
he said, “Whoa! They’re crazy!”
Daddy said, “Hang on.”
I pushed back against the seat, and thought about my room.
Thought about how I wished I was there right now, sitting
at my desk, doing homework. I didn’t want to be here. The
thought of an up close encounter with a Murry made my
mouth go dry as dirt. I’d heard enough talk between Daddy
and Uncle Virgil to know they weren’t the sort to mess with.
Willie Murry’s daddy, Leland Murry, was someone I’d seen in
town a few times, a big lug of a man who limped bad, was al-
ways scowling. People moved out of his way as he came down
the sidewalk, elbows jackhammering up and down to accom-
modate his bad leg. Everyone at school did the same for Willie Murry, him acting as if they had no right to take up his space.
Uncle Virgil couldn’t stand the sight of any one of them,
cussed about them all along while Daddy went mute if they
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came up in conversation, about like he did about Mama. The
Murrys used the very first run off their stills, those singlings, which everyone knew was poisonous. Daddy said they mixed
their product with ethanol. We’d heard the rumor, drink
what a Murry sells, drink at your own risk. They tried to steal business from others, and between their bad liquor and stealing, Daddy couldn’t hardly abide a one of them.
We hurtled down another hill, tires whining on the pave-
ment, a fiendish roar coming from under the hood, the vi-
bration of the car strong under my feet. The other vehicle
dropped back a bit, then hit us again, hard enough to make
our back end swerve. Daddy compensated, while our head-
lights illuminated the trees, creating a green blur as we tore down the road. I thought Daddy would lose control, yet I
couldn’t scream; I was too stunned to make a sound. My arms
and legs were rigid, like they had steel rods through them.
Merritt whispered from the back seat, “Please, please,
please.”
I found my voice and squeaked out, “Slow down!”
They hit our car again, harder than before. Daddy fought to
keep it straight, but the tires went onto the soft shoulder, and the right side, my side, tilted downhill at an awkward slant.
I instinctively leaned the opposite way and Daddy slammed
on the brakes. There came a sensation like the trunk would
meet the engine, like we’d be squashed in the middle of an
accordion of metal. My hands gripped the dash as we came
to a grinding halt. I couldn’t look anywhere but at my lap,
the slant of the car telling me the hill was really steep. I sat stunned, my chest heaving.
Daddy said, “Damn.”
The other driver sat in the road, and pumped his foot on
the gas, revving the engine. He did this over and over, then edged closer until their front bumper was against the side of our car, pushing us farther down the slope the way a bull-Ever_9781496717023_2p_all_r1.indd 44
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dozer does a mound of dirt. The back door made a crunching
noise and Merritt scooted over behind me and we began this
slow slide down the embankment. The underside of the ve-
hicle scraped over small brush and plants. Glass jars rattled and clanked under the back seat. The car caught on something,
rolled completely over, and we were carried along with it,
going all topsy-turvy.
Merritt made an odd sound, a deep grunt. I could hear jars
breaking and the popping of glass from the windows. I hit my head right before we ended up against a tree. The car was on its roof and the only sound was dripping, and the screech of tires as the other car took off. Our headlights were out, but I could make out that Daddy and I had landed against the front windshield. My head throbbed. I put my hand up, touched
the lump on my forehead.
Daddy said, “Jessie, you all right?”
“I think so.”
He said, “Merritt?”
I could see his shape only a couple feet from me, looking
like a rag doll. He was near the back windshield.
Daddy repeated his name: “Merritt.”
The odor of gas combined with the reek of liquor was so
pungent, I almost gagged. I was soaking wet where the shine
had splashed all over us. It was as if I’d been baptized in it.
Pieces of glass stuck to my hair, skin, and clothes. Daddy maneuvered himself around until he was on his knees, bent low.
He said, “We got to get out of here.”
He crawled out of a broken side window. He reached
through to help me and I grabbed his hand and crawled out.
Daddy called out again, “Merritt? Hey, Merritt!”
Merritt didn’t reply. Daddy inched his way back in. He
backed out, pulling Merritt along with him by his shirt collar.
Finally, he was outside of the car. As I looked at my brother, I couldn’t be sure, but one of his arms didn’t look exactly right.
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It was bent off at some strange angle, and even in the dark, I could tell something was wrong. I pointed at it.
“He’s hurt!”
Daddy said, “We’ll get him fixed up, but first I got to see—”
We heard the sound of a car approaching and slowing down
above us.
“Shh,” he said, a finger up to his mouth, motioning with
his hand for me to get down.
I crouched on the ground, and Daddy ducked too, shield-
ing Merritt. We heard the sound of a door opening, footsteps, then silence. I inhaled the pungent odor of uprooted plants
and freshly turned dirt. I needed to cough and instead swal-
lowed over and over, knowing whoever was trying to see
where we’d ended up might hear me. I buried my face in
the bend of my arm, disregarding the painful lump to my
forehead. I shut my eyes so tight, rainbow colors swirled and shifted against the backs of my eyelids. I strained to hear any noise that would give some idea of what was happening. After a few seconds, there was laughing, and then doors slammed
shut. The car engine roared, a distinct sound I’ll never forget.
As they left, I lifted my head. My v
ision adjusted enough to make out the shape of Daddy, and I found he was staring at
me. I wondered if he could sense my fury.
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Chapter 5
Merritt was in a lot of pain.
He said over and over, “My arm’s hurting something fierce.”
Daddy had gone to check and see if the ones who’d run us
off the road had left, and when he came back down the hill,
he said, “It ain’t a lot of folks on this stretch, but I know a feller ’bout a mile back or so. Maybe I can get him to give us a ride to where we can get this arm looked at.”
I knelt beside Merritt, my arms crossed tight, shivering in
the night air. His face was pale and he turned his head one
way, then the other, clearly in a bad way. Daddy ought to do something, and quick, quit standing around jawing about this and that.
Merritt spoke through gritted teeth and said what I was
thinking. “Just hurry. I can’t hardly stand this.”
Daddy said, “Y’all gonna be all right here till I get back?”
I said, “We ain’t got no choice, do we?”
“Jessie.”
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recover from the fright over the wreck, staggered by Merritt’s situation.
Daddy motioned at the creaking upside-down car. “Listen
to me. If it catches, you got to help him get out of the way.
Fire tends to burn uphill faster, so go left or right, not uphill.”
I pictured Mama running, burning, collapsing. I said noth-
ing. Kept my expression free of the crazy shit going on in my head. I averted my face, his conciliatory cautioning as worthless as the liquor he made. After he left, the woods held a
gloomy look, the trees like huge stiff-legged giants. I sat close to Merritt and began to hum a tuneless song while glancing
now and again at Sally Sue or looking up at the half-moon
rising through the tree branches.
After a while Merritt said, “Geez, quit that racket.”
My offbeat humming fizzled into silence.
He lifted his head and tried to look up the hill and said, “I hope it ain’t gonna take long.” He leaned on his good elbow
with some effort, and grimaced at his mangled arm, hand fac-
ing the wrong direction.
He said, “I can’t bear to look at it.”
“You probably shouldn’t.”
He collapsed back onto the ground.
“It ain’t fitting,” I said.
“What?”
“This. We could’ve died. It ain’t fitting, and it ain’t right, what he has us do.”
Merritt said, “Will you quit? I don’t want to hear your same old crap.”
We waited on the ruined hillside, the silence between us
thick as greenbrier. I tried to block his misery out. He sounded the way a wounded animal might. My stomach rolled as he
suffered, and I kept wishing he’d pass out again while my
outrage grew at our predicament. His hurting was about to
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make me start talking again, start reasoning my position de-
spite him telling me to be quiet.
He broke the silence first. “Can’t you look see if there’s a jar ain’t busted? I got to have me something for this pain.”
“Hell no. You ain’t supposed to be drinking that mess.”
“Come on, Jessie. It’s hurting bad, worse by the minute.
Daddy gives it to old man Thompson and his wife for the
arthritis. And Mrs. McAllister, she drinks some of it every
morning, for her constitution he said.”
I ignored him and looked toward Sally Sue. “Easton said it
might could catch fire.”
He flopped onto his back again, and made a whistling
sound as he fought the pain.
I couldn’t bring myself to study on his arm too long, and
after a minute of listening to him gasping, I gave in, and said,
“All right.”
Soon as I stood, I had to drop back down. A vehicle ap-
proached and I rolled over onto my belly, peering through the flattened underbrush. I grabbed a hold of Merritt’s good arm.
He didn’t pull away.
He whispered, “Shit. Hope it ain’t them damn Murrys.”
He stopped panting in an effort to not make any noise. The
trees and surrounding brush were lit up from the headlights
off to our right. I hoped it was Daddy and whoever he’d gone to get. The vehicle stopped and I went stiff with fear. Doors opened and closed, and then came the scrape of footsteps on
asphalt. A soft beam from a flashlight swept back and forth, then landed near to where we hid in the scrub. I didn’t move, paralyzed, uncertain who was above us.
Above us, came Daddy’s voice, “Jessie, it’s me.”
I pushed up onto my knees, then my feet. The shape of an-
other man was behind him, his silvery hair catching the light of the moon. Daddy hurried down the hill, and the older man
followed with a flashlight held high so they could see.
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When they got beside us, Daddy said, “This here’s Marty
Naylor, customer of mine.”
Mr. Naylor spoke around the chaw in his cheek.
His “how do” was soft.
I lifted my hand and let it drop, a halfhearted greeting at
best.
Daddy knelt beside Merritt. “You doing all right?”
Merritt only grunted, his face chalky white.
Daddy said, “We got to get you back up this hill. Probably
going to hurt.”
Merritt said, “Can’t get no worse if’n you ask me.”
Mr. Naylor said, “We got something in the car for it; you
just hang on.”
Daddy helped Merritt stand and had him put his good arm
around his neck. Merritt closed his eyes for a brief moment
and they started up the hill. Merritt cried out only once when they stumbled, his voice hoarse with pain, the bad arm flopping like it belonged on a puppet. Daddy traversed the in-
cline, trying to make it a bit easier. Mr. Naylor trailed him, and appeared to handle the steep slant better than me despite his age. On unsteady legs, I followed them, and before too
long, we were at the top. I gasped and tried to recover while Daddy guided Merritt into the back seat. Mr. Naylor was kind enough to have brought a blanket and a pillow. After Merritt was situated, Daddy brought out a jar from under the front
seat.
He handed it to Merritt and said, “Here, it’ll take the edge off.”
Merritt looked directly at me as he tipped the jar. He took a big swallow, and gave the jar back to Daddy. To my surprise, Daddy took a swig too, then held it out to me, but I crossed my arms, and scowled.
Daddy handed it back to Merritt and said, “Take some
more.”
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Merritt readily obliged, and then Daddy held his hand out
for the jar. He motioned for me to get in the front between
him and Mr. Naylor. I slid onto the seat, glad to be out of the woods, out of the night air. Daddy and Mr. Naylor got in, and Daddy stuck the jar under the seat. I looked ove
r at Merritt.
He wore a tiny smile as he rested, his pain already seeming
less severe. I turned back around, ashamed at how I could be so harsh and inconsiderate at times.
Mr. Naylor said, “Where to?”
Daddy hesitated, and said, “That arm’s bad.”
Mr. Naylor said, “Want to get him over to Wilkes Gen-
eral?”
Daddy rubbed at his chin. “I got to come up with some
reason. They’ll ask what happened, how he hurt it.”
Mr. Naylor said, “What was it again?”
Daddy went into the account of how we’d been run off the
road. He didn’t say by who.
Mr. Naylor said, “Hm. Guess that would only set off more
questions. Get some others involved that don’t need to be.
Could say it was a farming accident.”
Daddy nodded. “Working on the tractor, fell off.”
Mr. Naylor said, “Yup.”
Daddy said, “That’ll work.”
Mr. Naylor drove like it was Sunday morning, not any
faster than twenty-five miles per hour. It took a long time
coming down the mountain.
Merritt moaned from the back, and asked, “How much
longer?”
“Won’t be long,” said Mr. Naylor, as we poked along.
Daddy handed Merritt the jar again. I commended my-
self on keeping my mouth shut. Merritt slurped away while
Mr. Naylor drove even slower as we made it into the more
populated area of Wilkesboro. In town, some paid no mind
to what Daddy did, while others relayed a different message: Ever_9781496717023_2p_all_r1.indd 51
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We know what y’all are doing. For shame. For that reason alone, I had never liked coming down off Shine Mountain and into
town every Saturday to get groceries. For the past year or
so, I’d begged not to be made to go, my humiliation like
the weight I carried, easy for anyone to see. Daddy generally sold on 10th Street, where a strange mixture of preaching
and prostitution existed. The ones listening to the preach-
ing would sometimes duck into questionable establishments
where Daddy’s jars were kept hidden until someone came in
asking for “that special drink y’all got.” If I was forced to go into town, I walked behind Daddy and Merritt, stared at the
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