Page 76 of Moonshine Lullabies

“Man, I wish I could have been there,” I said wistfully as I worked on my bike. It was in the official phase of rebuild and I was listening to Axeman who was grinning ear to ear like the psycho he was.

“What ‘cha talking about?” La Croix called over when he came back into the garage area from the bathroom.

“Swamp Daddy’s Grill fell down after going boom,” Axe called. “It’s all over the news. Got a whole five alarm blaze going on over there.”

“Preliminary guesses are a gas line explosion,” Bennie said scrolling along his phone screen scanning some kind of an article.

“Man, that’s too bad,” Hex said grinning like a fool where he changed out the socket on his wrench.

Yeah, it was a little silly of us talking like we had no idea what’d happened but then again, we were a bunch of paranoid fucks and the phones were always fuckin’ listening.

We all had a good laugh about it. We’d come back here and crashed the night before. I’d used Alina’s place since I was pretty much already staying there with Jessie. La Croix had crashed at Hex’s last night and we’d met up here to finish her truck and get some work done on my bike. Man, my shit was in for a long haul when it came to this rebuild. Some shit had to go for resurfacing and powder coating. My heads were getting resurfaced at the machine shop and shit but the rest? Well, the frame was solid, there were some ricochet marks, and the paint had shattered in places, so I’d stripped it and repainted it using the paint booth we had in the back corner.

I kind of dug the dents to it, though. Saw ‘em as a badge of honor, so I’d kept those. Now it was just running electrical and starting to build her back better, so that’s what I was working on.

The weekend was mostly just fixing truck and bike and running out to the stills to tend ‘em, much like the post-day-job work week had been.

I did miss Jesse something fierce, and I hoped she was having a good time.

“Hey Col,” Hex called at one point.

“Hey, what?” I asked.

“What sort of trouble you think our women are getting up to?”

I snorted, “Knowing Jesse-Lou, she’s grinding away on her bones an’ happy to do it,” Cypress said before I could answer.

“Unless she’s out there makin’ some bones,” I said.

He grinned and said, “You know my sister. She’s a grade-A trapper an’ hunter.”

“All she can talk about is me gettin’ my huntin’ license to go with her,” I said.

Cy barked a laugh.

“I hate huntin’ with my sister, so better you, than me.”

“That’s only ’cause she’s prolly a better shot,” La Croix remarked.

Cy laughed, “You’ve met, I can tell,” he said sarcastically. “Aside from that, when it comes to deer, she’s obnoxious as hell. All bossy an’ shit. Do you know she washed my huntin’ gear in those damn scent beads one year ‘cause she was pissed off at me?”

“Oo! That’s cold,” Chainsaw declared, and we laughed.

“I was pissed,” Cy said and took a swig off his beer.

“Ah, yeah – my question is what’d you do to piss her off?”

“Fuck if I know,everythingpisses her off,” he muttered, and I had to tell myself that I needed to remember to ask her.

“You need somethin’?” I asked when Cy lingered around me a little too long.

“Yeah, man. Actually, I do.”

I stopped what I was doing and gave him my full attention.

“I need you to come out to my folk’s place, have a talk with me and my daddy. Make some huntin’ plans if you know what I mean.”

I nodded slowly, mulling it over, and said, “When and where, brother?”

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