Long Upon the Land Read Online Free PDF

“Here in Dobbs?”
    “Over near Cotton Grove,” he say brusquely and walks away toward the bar.
    “Don’t mind him,” says the drummer. “He’s had it pretty hard.”
    The bass nods. “First time I’ve seen him play since Annie Ruth died.”
    “His wife?” Sue asks.
    “Yeah,” says the bass. “Childbirth fever. Weird when you think about it. To die like that after kicking out such a bunch of babies.” He shakes his head at the irony. “They let him out of prison six months early so he could come home and take care of them.”
    “Prison?”
    “Surprised you don’t know,” says the bass. “I believe your daddy was the one got him that early release.”
    “Really? What was he in for?”
    A sly grin appears on the drummer’s lips. “Income tax evasion, won’t it?”
    That means a federal prison , thinks Sue.
    Puzzling.
    This Knott man doesn’t look as if he has enough income to make evading taxes an issue.
    They finish their cigarettes and start to return to their instruments when her sister Zell hurries up. “C’mon, Sue. Brix Junior wants to dance with you.”
    Sue rather doubts that. Brix Junior is their father’s much younger half brother who’s due to join Stephenson and Lee when he finishes law school. As usual, he is surrounded by a mix of college girls and Junior Leaguers and seems slightly surprised when Zell pulls on his arm.
    “Here she is, Brix. I told her you wanted the next dance.”
    “Thank you, darlin’,” he drawls and hands one of the girls his glass as the fiddler launches into “Easy to Love.”
    “Why did Zell say you wanted to dance with me?” she asks as he sweeps her expertly across the floor.
    “I always want to dance with you,” he says. “You know how to keep your feet out from under mine.”
    “Be serious, Brix.”
    “I guess we didn’t think you ought to be up there playing with those guys.”
    Sue frowns. Brix might be a bit of a snob, but Zell isn’t. She hadn’t said a word against her playing when it was just the drummer and the bass. Which must mean—?
    “Who’s Kezzie Knott, Brix? Why was he sent to prison? And don’t say income tax evasion.”
    “But that’s what it was. What the government said it was anyhow. Said he was selling something he didn’t pay taxes on.”
    “White lightning? He’s a bootlegger?”
    “And a pretty successful one on the whole. Prison was a bit of a setback, but they say he’s back supplying shine to distributors all up and down the East Coast. Father says he sends a lot of business to the firm. Anybody that works for him, if they get caught, he pays their legal fees and takes care of their families if they get jail time, which isn’t as often as you might think. Any money left over, he puts it in land. He’s getting quite a spread out from Cotton Grove. Wanted to buy that farm your grandmother left you and Zell. His land touches it now.”
    “Really? I never heard about that.”
    “Catherine was sure y’all wouldn’t be interested.”
    For once her mother is right, thinks Sue, but she and Zell should have heard the offer and made that decision themselves. The tenant house that once sheltered sharecroppers back when her mother was a girl has long since fallen to ruin. A hurricane took half the roof before she and Zell were born and no one thought it worth replacing. For years now, the land has been rented out to a neighboring farmer and the rent money put into a savings account for the girls. It suddenly occurs to Sue that they might have a tidy little nest egg. Maybe even enough to travel. To see the world now that the war is over. To find the life she is meant to have, the life she promised Mac she would have.
    “Have to say I was surprised to see him here tonight. It’s not like he needs the money. But I’ve heard he loves to play the fiddle and he’s pretty good, isn’t he?”
    “Hmm?”
    “Knott,” says Brix, bringing her back from sudden dreams of New York. Paris. Rome.
    She matches her steps