Page 55 of Moonshine Lullabies

I swore and Cy looked like a proud pappa, but he still said, “Don’t tell Jess. I know she’s tough as nails and shit, but I don’t know how she’d feel if she knew she killed a man.”

I snorted. “He came into her home and threatened her and her kid. She’d be as proud as you are now,” I said and I knew in so much as I knew that the sky was fuckin’ blue and water was fuckin’ wet.

Now if she’d killed someone innocent, by accident? Shit, she’d rip herself apart.

“Now at first, we think they had some kind of a deal with the cops, a promise that if they gave the po-po enough reason or an excuse to get us all off to prison, then they’d be able to move in on our territory and that’d be that, an easy way to expand their operation,” Hex said.

Axe snorted. “They couldn’t hold our spot if they wanted to. They ain’t have the guts.”

A rowdy cheer went up around the table and the boys knocked and pounded fists on the top, but I had a sinking feeling in my gut.

“If he didn’t make it, what kind of trouble is Jess in with the law? And how come they didn’t bring it up last night?” I asked. Cy was trading a worried look with me.

“Far as we know, dude died at the hospital but he wouldn’t say how he got stabbed,” Hex said.

“I mean, what’s he gonna say?” Bennie asked. “Oh yeah, I forced my way into this house and the woman who lived there defended herself?” He shook his head. “Citizen cops have no fucking idea what happened, and it behooves the Bayou Bitch Boys to keep their fuckin’ mouths shut. They were squarely in the wrong from a legal standpoint and ain’t shit happen to Jessie if the LEOs did get wind of it.”

“I mean, it’d be a headache for sure, but no – we think Jess is in the clear for now and we don’t wanna borrow any more trouble than we’ve already got in our hands at this point,” Hex declared and I nodded.

It was a good point, even if the whole thing still left me uneasy.

“So, what do we do from here?” Cypress asked.

“I say they wanna go low, we go lower,” Axe declared.

“That’s the old way, under Ruthless,” Hex declared and we all sat with that for a minute.

“I ain’t goin’ after their women or children,” La Croix declared. “We’re better ‘n they are and we’re better than that… but not by much. You wanna go absolutely feral, Axe, we can do that, just not on anybody’s woman or kid. Even under Ruth, that wasn’t our way. It ain’t ever gonna be our way, either.”

La Croix’s voice was firm, and all heads were nodding along in agreement.

“We need to prioritize and mobilize boys, but we need to be smart about it,” Hex said. “We got a lot at stake out there with the stills an’ tryin’ to go legit.”

“Start pickin’ ‘em off one by one?” Louie asked.

“Or all at once.” Axe grinned.

“How do you figure on the all at once?” I asked.

“Man, ain’t none of you talk to the cotton ball out with them Florida boys?” he asked.

I vaguely remembered who he was talking about. One of their guys had basically a platinum-blond fro.

“Wasn’t his name fuckin’ Pyro?” I asked.

“Yep,” Axe declared.

“I imagine he got the name playing with fire,” Chainsaw said.

“Right again,” Axe said. “Except he was less a firebug and more a, likes to blow-shit-up kind of a fella.”

“I’ve seen the kind of damage an improvised explosive device can do,” I said. “But I couldn’t really tell you how they’re made. Still, I know one or two guys that do, and they still talk to me. They know how bogus my discharge was. They were there.”

“Might be worth makin’ a few discreet calls,” Hex mused.

I shook my head. “Nah, I would ride on out there,” I said.

“Not alone you won’t,” LaCroix declared. “In fact, none of us rides alone with colors and if youdoneed to ride alone, you do it incognito for right now.”

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