PSL: Moonshine and honey ((For beeboy))

[alittlehinky]

Spring has just begun its work in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains. The trees are dotted with bright little green leaves, paler and more golden than they will be in a few weeks, but unfurling bravely in still-chilly air to soak up the sun. The last real frost was only ten days ago, and the mornings are still so cold a person can easily see his breath. Honestly, this is Cricket's favorite time of year, even if his legs ache when he first gets up. It makes starting the fires under the stills a real pleasure, and tending them in the little hollow where the Bondurants have set up is warm and peaceful.

He's got his lunch in a tin bucket with him as he makes his way down the path into the hollow, leg braces clinking softly with every step. Here the forest is dense with brush, and the first wildflowers are starting to bloom; mostly wood sorrel, dandelions and violets. There's a natural rock cleft where the stills are placed, and the Bondurants have built a roof overtop of that, and covered it with moss and sod to create a little shack for their illicit activity. Vines hang down over the entrance to obscure that some, too. The chances of revenue agents finding it are pretty slim. They don't have the time to comb every square inch of mountain in search of these things.

But a person lost in these woods and looking for shelter overnight could certainly stumble across the shack, and it's a much better alternative to sleeping on the forest floor.

Comments

[beeboy]

It was the first sleep he'd really gotten in how many days -- the boy has lost track. Upon happening across the little shack, exhaustion took hold him for hours and hours, and when he wakes it's with stiff bones and muscles, shivering from the morning chill. ...But he's alive.

Though he looks rather worse for wear, clothing and face dirty, hair tangled in places with mud and bits of twigs from hours of roaming through the woods. He looks the part of a runaway, a brown knapsack the only thing he has with him.

He slips from the shelter but sticks close by, looking around for any sign of water. Ordinarily he'd send out one of his best bees to scout -- but it's too chilly for them right now. They're sleeping inside the boy where it's warm and safe, and for the moment he's on his own. And that's when he hears something not far away -- footsteps, and an odder sound, slight clinks accompanying them. The boy freezes, blue-grey eyes widening like saucers. He should try to be more stealthy, but it's panic that grips him -- his running no doubt makes a sound through the trees as he quickly darts back to the shelter.

Perhaps it was only an animal out there. But perhaps it wasn't. He hardly dares to breathe as he tucks himself into a corner of the space, legs drawn up to his chest, arms wound around them.

Chapter 2

[alittlehinky]

Howard Bondurant is a visually intimidating kind of man. He's tall, relatively thin but not scrawny; looks like he could throw a punch and really hurt someone if he did. And Cricket's watching him closely when he does show up, making sure he doesn't react badly to the strange child amidst the stills, or the bees hovering about. To the man's credit, he's immediately disinclined to scare a kid so young, and he doesn't seem to give a damn about the bees. Howard has lived through a war and is completely indifferent to the buzzing of any kind of insects.

Cricket explains Hugh as his cousin from up North, making no mention of the bees or that he found him here, but promising Howard he can take care of him and he won't be any trouble. Testing out the story he plans to use in town. Whether Howard actually falls for the cousin part is hard to tell. Sometimes in the bootlegging business, you get told a simple untruth to cover for something that could bring the law down on you, and you accept it politely. Howard seems a little bewildered, but accepts.

After all, his family has known Cricket since the boy was approximately the size of his namesake insect. Cricket wouldn't bring them trouble on purpose, so whatever he's doing with this child, it's probably no big deal, and not Howard's business.

"Reckon you best introduce him to Forrest," he says, "when you leave for the day."

Cricket allows as how that makes sense.

And so, that becomes the plan. He and Hugh split his lunch, sitting outside in the sun since it's warmed up by then, and if there are bees all over him as he eats, Cricket doesn't mind a bit. Then there's another couple hours of work before Howard shoos them off gently.

"You ain't too tired to walk a ways?" Cricket asks Hugh. "'The waystation isn't too far, and Jack or Maggie will drive us home from there, after we talk to Forrest."