Earl was pretty confident Pete would find the still site on his walk. There was a path worn from the cabin to the site. He was not planning on making anymore moonshine until the spring and it would keep Pete busy and out of their hair, letting him do what he was going to do anyway.

  Earl chuckled to himself, “I sure hope that ain’t bein cruel. That ain’t my intention. And I don’t think Donna will miss his help too much, if he does encounter Steve. As far as I kin tell, he ain’t helped her none. She probably is happy to have some company, though. We will have to make sure we visit her often.”

  Carl interrupted his thoughts, saying, “Lunch is ready, Pa.”

  There was no sign of Pete, so Earl and Carl grabbed their bowls and dug in after a prayer for the food. “You’ve outdone yourself, Carl,” Earl said, “Yore ma better watch out or you will take over her job!”

  Carl snorted, “Yeah, like that’s goin to happen!”

  Carl and Earl had finished up cleaning up from lunch and were preparing fur a late afternoon hunt when Pete showed up.

  “There’s a bowl of lunch fur you,” Carl said.

  Pete grabbed his bowl and ate quietly and thoughtfully.

  Earl said, “Well, how was yore walk?”

  Pete looked like he was trying to decide whether to tell Earl what he had found, or not. “Earl, I found a still in the woods. Part of it has seen an axe, but I think I can fix it up.”

  “And just how are you goin to do that?” Earl asked.

  “Well, I got some work with copper under my belt and figure I can fix up them holes and make her as good as new. With you and Carl helping me with the solderin and then you can use yore car to go pick up supplies fur me, I think we can make a purty good team!” Pete explained.

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  “I don’t think so,” Earl said firmly. “The revenooers are lookin in earnest to make some arrests. I ain’t gittin involved in no hootch makin right now!, Besides, a still is likely to blow up when you do repairs on it and I got a family to think of.

  “But Earl, you owe it to me. You took all that shine out of our root cellar and I don’t have none left. We could get the repairs done today and git the hootch started tomorrow. What do you say?” Pete just wouldn’t leave it alone!

  “Petey, you got cotton in yore ears? I said we ain’t doin it!” Earl said forcefully.

  “What are you sayin, Earl? Are you sayin you ain’t goin to help me? Ain’t you bein a little bit selfish?” Pete asked.

  Earl was gittin mad about now. “I ain’t helpin you. I ain't goin to jail and I ain’t goin shoppin in town! Now if you want to risk yore freedom, you can go right ahead, but I ain’t helpin you! This is a huntin trip. We are headed out huntin. You can come if you want to.” And he .

  stormed out the door.

  Carl followed him and they headed to the pond. Pete stayed behind. While they was out huntin, Pete snooped around the cabin and let out a war whoop when he found a huge bag of sugar and some corn under one of the beds and, believe it or not, some mason jars still in their box!! He dragged the sugar and corn, with a mighty effort and a lot of groanin and complainin up to the still site and hid them under a bunch of leaves and logs. “There that’ll fix ol non-helpful, selfish, Earl!” He proceeded to washin out a huge barrel that he would soak the mash in, with a lot of complainin and remarkin about how if Earl and Carl had only listened to him and were helpin him, they could be doin this preparin, instead of him!

  Meanwhile, Earl had already bagged two more real purty wild cats and Carl had happened up on a huge brown bear feastin on the entrails they had left behind and given him what fur! They were mighty happy with their kills and deentrailed them and drug them back to the cabin. The rest of the day was spent skinnin the critters and stretchin them on the frames they had left behind from the last trip. They had several pots boilin over the fire with brains in them so they could tan the hides. While the brains were boilin, the guys got the meat all cut up and hung up in the tree.

  Pete came ambling down the path and walked right over to one of the pots on the fire, grabbed a spoon and took a big bite. “Aarg, are you tryin to kill a body? What is that Carl? You ain’t got no business cookin horrible stuff like that!!”

  Carl and Earl burst out laughing! “I done heard of tannin someone’s hide, but I ain’t never heard tale of tannin someone’s insides! Thems brains we use to tan the animals’ hides! I ain’t never seen someone eat it!” And they burst out laughin again!