Delta 'Shine

By Joe Werner

When Hoyt Jackson returns to Memphis after World War II, he carries with him a Luger and a load of guilt over the deaths of the men he sent into battle. As he sits in his room above his favorite bar, ready to use the gun on himself, he is saved by a vision of those men. Modernized out of his job as a tinsmith, Hoyt takes his savings and a bottomless mason jar of whiskey and moves to the outskirts of Holly Grove, Mississippi, in his Airstream, intending to live out his life drinking and watching his fields change with each season. Hoyts temporary bliss is interrupted by the arrival of a beautiful teenager, Jenny, and her down-and-out family, who Hoyt befriends out of pity and loneliness. As their friendship grows, the two become involved with Sissy, a high-stepper from Hoyts past, and Randy, a local high schooler, who rescues Jenny from the town bullies. When these four come face to face with Ethan, an evil moonshiner who is tormented by demons and booze, they have to face the dark side in themselves and the Delta. Their experience echoes into the hearts of the characters and the countryside in which this novel is set.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Mar 30, 2015
• ISBN: 9781496974341

Joe Werner

Joe Werner is a retired contractor and the author of two books, The Tinsmith’s Son and Skid Row. As a survivor of the Great Depression, most of his books are set during that time of great economic and personal strife. Delta ‘Shine is his third book and is set in the late 1940s, when moonshine still dotted the back roads between Memphis and rural Mississippi. When not writing, Joe enjoys traveling all over the United States, hitting every golf course in sight with his wife, Amelia.

Book preview

Delta ’Shine

A Novel

by

Joe Werner

40450.png

AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

© 2015 Joe Werner. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 03/25/2015

ISBN: 978-1-4969-7435-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-7436-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-7434-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015903687

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

About The Author

When Hoyt Jackson returns to Memphis after World War II, he carries with him a Luger and a load of guilt over the deaths of the men he sent into battle. As he sits in his room above his favorite bar, ready to use the gun on himself, he is saved by a vision of those men. Modernized out of his job as a tinsmith, Hoyt takes his savings and a bottomless Mason jar of whiskey and moves to the outskirts of Holly Grove, Mississippi in his Airstream, intending to live out his life drinking and watching his fields change with each season. Hoyt’s temporary bliss is interrupted by the arrival of a beautiful teenager, Jenny, and her down-and-out family, who Hoyt befriends out of pity and loneliness.

As their friendship grows, the two become involved with Sissy, a highstepper from Hoyt’s past and Randy, a local high schooler, who rescues Jenny from the town bullies. When these four come face to face with Ethan, an evil moonshiner who is tormented by demons and booze, they have to face the dark side in themselves and the Delta. Their experience echoes into the hearts of the characters and the countryside in which this novel is set.

Delta ’Shine

To Dr. Karen B. Golightly

Without her help, I wouldn’t still be writing.

To

My daughter, Ruth

My son, Steve

My brother, Louis

Three people I could always count on.

There’s folks you just don’t need. You’re better off without ’em. Your life is just a little better because they ain’t in it.

William Gay

Hoyt made a beeline for the Red Rose, feeling ready for a real drink. As he pulled into the curb, there was the same sign, The Red Rose, with the two R’s hanging at a bias, just as they had before he left for the war. And when he stepped in, the same smell of stale beer, rotgut whiskey, and cigarettes almost brought tears to his eyes. He looked up and there was Delmar, leaning back in his dirty apron and Junior in his overalls, head down, sound asleep. When Hoyt’s eyes cleared, he saw a woman in a bright red dress with a pair of legs that seemed to stretch forever, legs he could never forget. She turned on her stool as Delmar hollered a greeting and Hoyt knew that it was the highstepper that he had known so well from years before.

CHAPTER ONE

Hoyt sat under the canvas awning in a chair bought from Sears, one of them extruded aluminum kind painted lime green, now mostly flaked-on rusted metal. The horseshoe-shaped tubing leaned to one side as Hoyt’s two hundred pounds rocked back and forth in the noonday sun. He was shirtless, wearing jeans, hanging below a belly that was beginning to bulge and a gimmie cap that covered his thinning blond hair. He sipped his third or fourth drink and had just taken a large swallow, set the Mason jar at his feet, and was drifting off to the sound of quietness when he heard the rattle of a much-used motor. There across the road stood a sorry-looking pickup with no paint whatsoever, just patches of rust and loaded to the gills with an old mattress, a cracked table, and a few chairs. When the engine died and the truck stopped, the body seesawed back and forth, as if trying to make up its mind whether to fall over or stand upright, until it finally shuddered to still.

A little guy, not much more than five and a half feet tall and skinny as a fence post, jumped to the ground from the driver’s seat. He didn’t look like much, had a kind of heel-dragging walk, a head shaped like a summer gourd, and he wore a set of denims that had seen the wash tub once too often. He opened the driver’s door with a creak of its hinges, stretched and yawned, showing a number of missing teeth, then faced the ramshackle house with a wry smile.

The passenger door opened to show a large woman, little of it fat, weighing twice as much as the little guy, who slid off the tattered seat to the ground. She wore a pair of beat-up, size twelve tennis shoes, holes cut out for the little toe on each to make room for comfort, and she planted both feet firmly in the dust. She wore a sack dress, which hung from her sloping shoulders with the name Pillsbury Flour barely visible across the hem, had a strong face, sure as hell not the type to take any nonsense. Her black hair hung in tight curls down her back, covering some of the printing circling the collar.

Following the woman was a young girl of eighteen, at least six feet tall, with the body of a model, blond headed, and so pretty she took Hoyt’s breath away, making him wonder how she could possibly be the daughter of such woebegone parents. Not a word was spoken as the three stood looked at the squatty house until the young girl began making some awful noise, yelling at her daddy while the momma was quiet, only shaking her head as the daddy ignored both and began unloading the pickup.

Hoyt was beside himself, thinking that for the first time he owned a place where he could live in peace, away from people, shit, get as drunk as he wanted, by God, go naked and swim in his pond like he did when he was a kid.

He hollered, Hey, you bunch, what the hell you doing on my land? Then he added while he rushed at them, swaying a little and arms waving, You don’t even think about unloading that crap; just turn around and get out of here before I call the sheriff.

Looking at Hoyt scared the hell out of the family, that half naked monster of a man with hair standing on end, clodhopper boots covered in mud and maybe more than a little drunk. But the little guy had gumption or maybe just desperation, and he stood his ground, saying, Mister, I don’t know who you are, but I got me a piece of paper right here showing that I bought this here house from a man in Memphis, a man by the name of Biggun.

And sure enough, when the little man shakily handed over the piece of paper, there it was in black and white, just legible enough to read, and sure enough that son-of-a-bitch Biggun had put one over on Hoyt.

That’s when Hoyt lost it, saying, How do I know this piece of crap is legal?

He reached for the paper, when he suddenly felt a blow, blacked out, then woke, finding himself laying in the dust, his head bleeding like a stuck pig. The pretty young girl was standing over him, a rock as big as a baseball still in her hand, saying, Mister, you even try to get up and I’m gonna use this rock again and bust the other side of your head. Then she pointed at her daddy and said, Can’t you see, you damned old drunk, that my dad is sick? Besides, I was with him when we bought this shack and it looks like we got the worse end of it.

By the time the girl had said a mouthful, her momma was kneeling over Hoyt holding his gushing head with a piece of cloth from her old dress that she had torn off at the hem, then soaked with water from a jug. She sobbed, Jenny, you done hurt this man bad. He’s bleeding something awful. Throw that stone down and help me before he bleeds to death.

For the first time, Jenny seemed a little scared. The big ape didn’t look none too good with the way that blood was coming down his face, but Hoyt, as he lay in the dust, was awake and knew that he had been in enough rock fights as a kid to know that his head was just a bleeder, that he was getting a terrible headache, and that he had a knot the size of an egg on his forehead. When Hoyt opened his eyes, that pretty little girl was leaning into his face with a worried expression.

Hoyt said, By God missy, that’s some arm you got. Damn girl you coulda killed me.

The momma insisted that Hoyt lay still until the bleeding slowed, then the whole family helped him to his feet and Hoyt took stock of them, thinking what a sorry bunch they were. The skinny little guy did most of the talking, saying his name was Homer and the wife was Maggie, and, of course, Hoyt had sure as hell met Jenny. Meanwhile Maggie just kept looking at Hoyt, and seeing that he was still wobbly, made him sit on a stump while she fumbled around in the truck. She came back with a wide-mouthed jar of some sort of ointment smelling of linseed oil and lard that stanched the bleeding. Then all four stood and gaped at the rundown mess that they had bought.

Hoyt, still leaning on the two women, asked Homer, How in the living hell did you get talked into buying this place? Hell, it ain’t fit for pigs.

Homer, with a sheepish grin said, Well I been knowing Biggun all my life, and when I lost my job at the steel mill down on the island, he overheard me talking and said he had a place to buy real cheap. Then he added, Biggun done lied once too often, mister. Him and me been friends since we were young’ns and he showed me pictures and said it was a good place to raise Jenny away from the city. He didn’t tell me it was just a shack way out in the woods. He paused and looked down the gravel road. Hell, I ain’t sure we can find our way back to Memphis. With that the little guy sat down on the running board, elbows on his knees, his head down between his legs, and looked as if he might cry.

Hoyt, thinking he needed a drink, told the family that he was going back to his trailer and freshen up, in spite of Maggie’s objections. She was worried about the knot on his head, which by then resembled a large, overripe pear. After sitting in his favorite lawn chair, sipping a jar filled with Jim Beam, crushed ice, and elderberry leaves, Hoyt began to think about Homer. After all, everybody gets jigged once in a while and Biggin had a line of bullshit that fooled a lot of people. If Biggin took off for the west as he had said he was going to do, then that family was in a fix, and Hoyt was finding himself attached to them. That young’n had spunk, and one look told him that the little guy had some kind of problem. Hell, Hoyt thought, I might get lonesome once in a while. I reckon they might be all right after all. And after another sip or two, he decided that was that.

Jenny stood with hands on rounded hips, looking at what was to be her home for some while. She had lost a brother in the war, her dad had had a terrible accident at the mill, and was on disability, just enough for the family to live on. She knew her daddy had been a fool to spend his disability settlement on a dump like this, but had to admit that when she listened to Biggun describe the place, it sounded like a godsend. Maybe being away from the city, she and her parents could quit grieving for her brother and get on with their lives.

Biggun had promised the water and electricity had been paid and, sure enough, the son of a bitch hadn’t lied about that, so by nightfall, enough rooms were set up with beds and even the stove worked well enough for Ma to heat up some canned food. The yard was a mess of grown-up weeds, already as high as a man’s hips, but as they sat on the sagging divan, Maggie was already telling Homer how she could start a garden. After all, she said, it’s almost spring and I can put out some pole beans and tomatoes.

All the while, Jenny was rolling her eyes as she stared at the wallpaper falling down and the leaks in the roof. Homer sat through it all, listening to Maggie and Jenny, still slumped down, spent in body and mind, the same way he had been since his son had been killed in the war.

Jenny stared at her family and figured that they had just about hit rock bottom and if anyone was going to do something about it, she would be the one. Maggie had bugged her all day, worried about the knot on Hoyt’s head. Jenny ignored her mother’s hints, but as the evening was coming on, Jenny jumped up, saying, That old man is probably drunk the way he smelled this morning, but he mentioned something about helping, so I’ll go see. Besides, I want to see the inside of that fancy trailer.

In the cool spring evening, the quiet noises surrounded her, the breeze barely moved the strands of her blond hair, a pond in the distance smelled like mud, and Jenny felt a smile cross her face. She had been raised a city girl, used to the noises of people, the hum of autos, the thick moist Memphis air. Now as she stood in the afterglow, a shiver passed over her and Jenny’s body felt something akin to desire and yet a sense of serenity.

While they lived in Memphis and her dad had a decent job, Jenny attended a public school, had been a good student, and a first-rate runner, but when her older brother