Page 54 of Moonshine Lullabies

“I don’t care,” he said. “If it’s true… well, fuck, when we prove it’s true… shit!” He pounded his fist on the bar and let out a frustrated snort. “I don’t want Jessie-Lou to have to carry this shit by herself anymore and I damn sure want retribution when it comes out that it’s true.”

“Your daddy ain’t gonna believe shit if their ain’t irrefutable proof,” I said and Cy looked at me.

“Yeah,” he said, and he nodded his head.

“But in order to fix this and fix it once an’ for all, an’ the right way…” La Croix declared, and we all sat with that a minute.

“Our people are the most stubborn people I know,” La Croix said.

Hex and I exchanged a look, and I said, “We Appalachian folk and you Cajun folk are pretty cut from the same cloth where that shit’s concerned.”

La Croix and Cy both nodded.

“Priorities,” Hex reminded us all gently.

“As much as I hate to say it, this is important – but it ain’t what shot up your house last night.”

“Nah, but this call is comin’ frominsidethe house,” La Croix said. “They’re both equally important, just in different ways.”

We all sort of just stared at our president and I asked, “Did you just commit to a pop culture reference?” I asked.

“A movie reference, innit?” Hex asked.

“What?” La Croix scowled.

“I didn’t think you watched movies,” Cypress said and La Croix’s scowl deepened.

“I watch movies,” he said, and he sounded almost defensive.

The rest of us broke into wide grins and even chuckled a little bit.

“We consider this quashed, for now?” La Croix demanded.

Cy and I traded a cautious look and both sort of just started nodding.

“Alright, then. I feel like we just got took to church, but, gentlemen, let’s divest of your phones and let’s go to church,” Hex declared.

* * *

“You fellaswanna fill us in on what the fuck that was all about out there?” Chainsaw asked, spinning a quarter on the top of the table in front of himself.

“No,” Cy declared.

“Figured it was pretty obvious,” Axe declared, grinning, and La Croix growled without saying a word. Axe, who didn’t always know when to quit, leaned back in his seat and just grinned from ear to ear. I think it was just because he thrived on chaos. It energized him the way it wore a regular man the fuck out.

“Suffice to say we all need to tread careful from here on out before any of us catch a charge,” Hex declared.

“Look,” I said. “I been outta the loop – just what the fuck is going on?” I asked. “Why did they show up at Jessie’s door in the first place and why would they risk a power play like they did last night?”

Hex sighed and said, “Near as I can figure, this beef all started back durin’ gator season, yeah?”

“The TL;DR is that some of these Bayou Brothel sons were poachin’ Cy’s gator lines. Cy an’ his daddy ended up beefin’ with ‘em about it, and it didn’t have shit to do with the club. Then these fuckin’ twats decided to start encroaching on Bastard’s territory and so we thought we’d kill two birds with one stone some weeks back, and use it as an opportunity to give them a clear signal to fuck the fuck off, and get ourselves a get-into-jail-free card for the weekend to take care of the little problem that was sparing Hex’s woman a shitload of drama – am I right?”

Hex inclined his head to Chainsaw who was the one speaking.

“Somehow, someway, even though none of ‘em ended up spending the weekend in jail, the Bayou Brothel sons got their fuckin’ thongs jammed so far up their ass, they decided that Cy was the problem and that they needed to escalate things. They landed on Cy’s doorstep, and the honorless bastards that they are, got Cy’s sister involved.”

“Unfortunately,” La Croix piped up. “That’s where things sorta went off the rails. Jess stabbed one of these fuckwits in self-defense in her own fuckin’ home and while he and his shitty ass brothers got away, he didn’t end up making it. Now they’re real pissed because one of their bodies dropped and it really is an all-out war.”

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