The Bourbon Thief(69)
“They God’s trees and you’re a damn fool to think He’s doing anything but letting us borrow them.”
“God loves bourbon, does he?”
“Who doesn’t?” Bowen asked.
They might be making bourbon barrels, but nobody drank on the job. Even if they wanted to, Bowen wouldn’t let them. He ran a tight ship. One wrong move and a thousand-dollar barrel would be nothing but firewood. Levi had screwed one up himself his first week by forgetting to steam the wood. When he went to put the hoop on the top, he’d cracked the staves instead of bending them. Bowen had put an ax in Levi’s hand and set him out back to chop it up. While he did it, Levi felt like a dog whose owner had rubbed his nose in his own shit to punish him. July in South Carolina. Who the hell needed firewood?
Since then Levi had been careful to make no terminal errors. Nearly any hole could be plugged, any flaw could be fixed, if a man knew what he was doing, and Bowen certainly did. The ten men at the cooperage made ten barrels a day and the cooperage operated six days a week. Over three thousand barrels a year, which wasn’t much in the grand scheme of things, but it supplied every single barrel to make Red Thread’s top-shelf bourbon and sold the rest for a pretty profit to a winemaker in France. Red Thread got their barrels for their mass-market stuff from Missouri. But these barrels were special and Levi did his best not to ruin them. After watching the magic Bowen did putting the barrels together, Levi never wanted to have to ax another one of them again. He’d piss on a Picasso first.
Levi was halfway through sanding a barrel when he felt a tap on his shoulder.
“Special delivery,” Bowen said. He pointed out the window, where a truck was parked.
“Finally,” Levi said, smiling.
“What you got out there?”
“Present for Tamara.”
“A big damn present by the looks of it. You buy her a truck?”
“Different mode of transportation.”
Levi pulled off his gloves and tossed them on the workbench. Bowen followed him out of the shop and to the truck. Behind the truck was a horse trailer. Inside the horse trailer was a horse.
“Aww...that’s real sweet,” Bowen said. “You got the missus a pony.”
“That is not a pony. That is a horse. A Tennessee Walker, and he was not cheap.”
“Handsome fellow. What’s his name?” Bowen asked, peering through the slats at the black-and-white pinto gelding.
“Rex. Unless Tamara wants to change it.”
“When you going to give him to her?”
“Right now.” Levi tipped the driver and opened the trailer. The driver handed him the saddle he’d bought along with the horse, an English saddle, used, well-worn and comfortable. Perfect for Tamara’s sweet ass, which hadn’t sat astride a horse in weeks. Levi couldn’t wait to turn up on horseback and surprise her. It was quitting time so Levi saddled Rex and rode off over the bridge toward home.
Home. He loved that word. Home had been a touch-and-go proposition growing up. Sometimes he and his mother had lived in boardinghouse rooms or in an apartment of their own. More often they lived with his grandfather or with Andre and Gloria. They never once owned a house of their own, only rented, only borrowed. Not even during Mom’s miserable two-year marriage to the man who’d made him a Shelby. These days nothing made Levi happier than saying he was “heading home” and knowing there was a home with a wife waiting for him.
Rex took direction well. He had a smooth rocking gait that even the most inexperienced horse rider could handle. Levi had picked him out because he was a pretty horse with a gentle temperament but big enough and strong enough Tamara wouldn’t be insulted. It wouldn’t take much more than a week to build a pen and put down some straw for Rex. Levi could take a couple days off work for that or do it in the evenings. Building a little shed for a stable might take longer, but the horse would do fine outside. The area by the house was shady and cool and Levi already had enough oats and hay to last Rex two weeks. Tamara would give him all the exercise he needed.
Levi led Rex down the narrow dirt road toward the house. He heard something he hadn’t expected to hear. A car or a truck. Some sort of engine starting. Rex shied at the sudden sound and Levi had to gentle him fast. The sound approached and Levi rode Rex into the woods and stopped under the heavy hanging branches of a tall oak. The truck rumbled past, a big diesel monster, and Levi read the words painted on the side—Athens Timber and Lumber, Athens, Georgia.
“What the hell?” Levi said, and Rex’s long black ears twitched in response. Levi tapped Rex’s sides and the Walker moseyed as fast as a Walker could mosey toward the house. They arrived in time to see Tamara disappear into the woods.
As dense as the trees were on this part of the island, Levi knew he had to follow her quick or he’d lose her. He tied up Rex to a tree branch and went running after her. He heard rustling sounds and tried to follow them, but the woods were a labyrinth and around every corner he feared the minotaur—another copperhead, a cougar, a hole he’d break his leg in. How many times had he told Tamara not to go out in the woods by herself?
Levi heard a twig crack and he turned toward the sound. He saw a glimpse of white and followed it all the way to the scrub grass and to the white sand of the beach. There she was, standing at the edge of the water in her white sundress and bare feet.