Velva Jean Learns to Drive by Jennifer Niven Read Free Book Online Page A

even bother to look at Johnny Clay as my brother marched past him and up to the old man.
    “Hoyt Justice sent me for some whiskey,” Johnny Clay said.
    “What he need it for, boy?” The fat woman leaned forward in her chair and fixed her eyes on him, her gaze moving up and down over his face and clothes and his bare, dirty feet.
    “My mama’s dying.” He said it matter-of-fact and straight and looked her in the eye without blinking.
    The old man got up, joints cracking. “Come on.”
    The woman stared after them narrowly. “Mountain trash,” I heard her say. She sat back in her chair again and kept on fanning herself. Then she turned to the dark-headed boy and called out, “Baby boy. Baby boy, get you over here.”
    The boy was facing the woods where I hid. I saw him square his shoulders and say something under his breath before emptying the rest of the feed onto the ground. The chickens fell on it in a noisy pile. The boy watched them for a moment and then looked up and out at the woods like he knew I was there. He pulled a pistol from his back pocket and aimed it at a tree not far from me. I thought I was going to faint right there, and then he surely would kill me.
    “Baby boy!” his mama said. She leaned forward and smacked her hands together and the sound was like a crack. “Baby boy!”
    He shoved the pistol into his belt and turned toward the house. “Yes’m.” He hitched his fingers in his belt loops and shambled over to her, looking like he wasn’t in any hurry to get there.
    “You fetch your poor old mama somethin’ to drink and then wash up for supper.”
    The boy’s eyes flickered over to where I was standing, pressed up behind the trunk of a tree. He stared in my direction for a moment, as if he could see me. Then he turned his eyes back to the woman. “Yes’m.” He wiped his hands on his pants and walked into the house, dragging his feet. I thought he moved more like a young-old man than a boy and that he was probably the wickedest, most miserable boy I had ever seen.
    “And change out of them filthy clothes,” the woman called. Her gaze slid over to the right of her and lingered. She seemed to be looking directly at me, even though I was hidden behind the tree. I shivered. The fat woman spooked me. She seemed to see right through that tree, past my face, and straight into my brain. This might be the devil himself, disguised as a woman—a devil woman—or Spearfinger the witch, who could take any form, so, just in case, I made myself think nice, clean thoughts about Jesus.
    When I saw Johnny Clay come back with the old man, I thanked God. The fat woman was still staring in my direction. Johnny Clay shook the old man’s hand and came to get me, not caring if the woman saw us or not. He was holding a jar painted white so that it looked like buttermilk.
    “Daddy Hoyt wasn’t lying,” said Johnny Clay as we headed back home. He stopped and shook the jar. “Look at this. Look in the top, just here under the lid, right above the paint. See how the whiskey climbs up the glass a little? This is the purest corn I ever seen.”
    I wondered when my brother got to be such an expert on corn liquor.
    “He said he sells it as far away as New York City.”
    “No wonder he’s so rich,” I said.
    Johnny Clay started walking so fast that I had to do a kind of run-hop to catch up.
    “Did you see the still?” I said.
    “At first he made me wait in the woods and close my eyes,” Johnny Clay said. “I think he had to make sure I wasn’t a branch walker.” Branch walkers are snoopers who get ten dollars for each still they report. Just such a one had moved over to Sleepy Gap from Wrongful Mountain back in March, and one after another he got six or seven stills shut down. Two months later, Elderly Jones, the old Negro who lived in Alluvial, was fishing down at Three Gum River and found the snooper floating face down near the shoreline, shot through the head.
    “Oh.” I was