But there wasn't any answer. She trudged across the clearing to where the still was hidden in a cluster of pines. Nobody was there but Lem.
She let the bundle down and glowered at him. "Lem, you no-account, why didn't you answer me when I hollered?"
He grinned at her vacuously, not bothering to get up from where he sat whittling, his back to an old oak. "Huh?" he said. A thin trickle of brown ran down from the side of his mouth and through the stubble on his chin.
"I said, how come you didn't answer when I hollered?"
He said, "You called Paw and Hank and Zeke, you didn't holler for me. What you got there, Maw, huh?" His watery eyes were fixed on the bundle.
Maw Coy sighed deeply and sat down on a tree stump. "Now what you think I got there, Lem? I been a bringing your vittles to you every day since Paw and you boys started up this new still. Where's Paw and Zeke and Hank?"
Lem scratched himself with the stick he'd been whittling on. "They went off scoutin' around for the revenooers or maybe the Martins." He let his mouth fall open and peered wistfully into the woods. He added, "I wish I could shoot me a Martin, Maw. I wish I could. I sure wish I could shoot me a Martin."
The idea excited him. He brought his hulking body to its feet and went over to pick up an ancient shotgun from where it leaned against a mash barrel.
Maw Coy was taking corn pone, some cold fried salt pork, and a quart of black-strap molasses from her bundle and arranging it on the top of an empty keg. "You mind yourself with that gun now, Lem. Mind how you shot up your foot that time."