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After hiking more than a mile, they neared a clearing and hunkered down to watch. There was a group of women, sitting around a fire, stirring various bowls of something. The little bowls were situated close to the fire, as if they were melting something. They’d walk from bowl to bowl and stir. When it appeared a bowl had melted enough, they picked it up with hot pads or material and slowly carried it to a larger kettle across the clearing. It was slowly poured into that kettle, one person stirring the large kettle with a long paddle.
A man walked out of a shelter near the large kettle. “How much longer?”
“Not long. About five more minutes and it’ll be ready to distill.”
The first man turned toward a line of shelters and yelled. “Get ready to haul. Five minutes.”
People began scrambling around, picking up tin pots and old coffee pots. It all looked like camping gear. Their clothing was a myriad of hand-me-down looking clothes. Some men wore jeans, likely stolen from the townies. He’d heard the stories of residents missing their laundry from the clotheslines. Most of them had stopped drying their clothes outside because of this.
Others wore long cloaks or long dress-like clothes that reached the ground. On their feet, some wore sandals, others wore old tennis shoes or boots. Again, all looked well-worn. Their hair was fashioned in intricate braids and twists and from what it seemed, those tending their elixir were dressed slightly better than those on the perimeter carrying whatever was in the bowls, and those who were now lined up to carry the concoction in the large kettle to the distillery.
A small, delicate looking woman, who seemed to be in her late twenties or early thirties, studied the concoction in the kettle and stirred it with the paddle. She lifted the paddle and watched as the brew dripped from it, then shook her head and pointed to the containers the other people carried.
Several more of them lined up, slowly pouring the contents of their containers into the kettle as the little woman stirred. Her dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail at her nape and trailed down her back. Aidyn whispered, “That’s the woman we saw the other night.”
Tate focused on her and nodded. “Yep.”
She stirred a bit more. Repeating her motions, she lifted the paddle and then nodded to the man standing close by.
“It’s ready,” the man yelled.
A younger man ran toward the kettle with an old, dented trumpet and blew the horn in a series of long and short notes.
Everett walked toward the kettle. His long white hair was twisted and braided in intricate patterns. He wore long white pants that hid any shape or size. He had on a matching shapeless shirt. It reminded Tate of the uniform worn by doctors and nurses—scrubs. Over the top of his scrubs, he wore the pelt made of what looked like a wolf. They attached the tail at the back, and it hung down close to the ground.
As the man neared the kettle, the people bowed to him.
He held his hands out over the kettle and said a few quiet words.
A group of men, dressed similarly, though not in white, stood alongside him, but they didn’t bow. The second man behind Everett also had long intricate braids and items woven into his hair. “I’d bet the man in the black scrubs is Craig Howard. Next in line.”
“Yep.”
Aidyn whispered. “Everett Howard is treated like a king. That must be his posse standing with him.”
“I believe you’re right.”
He looked around for Kent and didn’t see him. He whispered in his comm unit, “We don’t see Kent, though they are preparing for a ceremony. Eyes up.”
Everett Howard stood back and nodded. The hill folks then proceeded one by one to fill their containers and walk them to the shelter where he could see a still inside. They poured their liquid into the still and walked back for more.
It was a good time for exploration, while they were involved in their ritual.
Chapter45
Lara watched as the older woman prepared a dress made of cotton material and adorned with stitching in intricate patterns on the bodice. It was shapeless and white, and it made her stomach tighten.
The old woman hummed as she worked. She laid a sheet on the table, then moved the dress to lay on top of the sheet. She had an old metal iron that looked like something used in the early part of the nineteen hundreds. She heated it on the wood stove, then turned to press wrinkles from the dress.
“What’s your name?”
The woman’s old eyes looked into hers and her lips pressed together. “I’m Faye.”
“Faye, please help me leave here. I don’t want to marry Everett. I don’t even know him. Anything my father has done is his burden to bear, not mine.”
Faye stared for a long time then continued pressing the wrinkles from the dress. “Do you even know what your father’s sins are, Lara?”
“No. Not completely.”
