“Didn’t Luella tell you she’ll take care of the sheriff?”

“I don’t know what that means and I don’t think that guarantees you won’t go to jail.”

“It’s only a few months, woman. When Prohibition is done, we’re done runnin that still. Now just look the other way and don’t worry so damned much. I never seen such a woman for worry. If you didn’t have nothin to worry about, you wouldn’t know what to do with yourself.”

“Well, mister, I’m beginning to think that any wife of yours has plenty to worry about. You got lost on our wedding day. Then I woke up one morning to find you jumping a motorcycle over the house. Now your sister is running a still on our land. If I had known you were going to do all that to worry me, I would have told you to stick to boxing. At least when you were fighting, I knew where you were.”

It wasn’t long before Emaline learned how it was that Luella could get away with running her still. At two o’clock one afternoon, Sheriff Orie Bassett pulled into the driveway in a big black Buick and honked his horn. Emaline was about to go out to see what he wanted when Luella came out of the barn. She went around to the passenger side and opened the door and slid onto the seat next to the sheriff. They talked for a bit, then Luella’s head disappeared from view. She came up two or three minutes later, shook hands with Orie, gave him a peck on the cheek, sauntered back to the barn. As he pulled out of the driveway, the sheriff tipped his hat to Emaline.

The next day it was Dexter McGuinty at the door, shuffling his boots and looking sheepish.

Emaline peered at him through the screen. “Well, hello, Dexter. What brings you way out here?”

“How do, Em. I was just lookin for Luella.”

“I think you’ll find her out in the barn.”

Dexter disappeared into the barn and came out twenty minutes later, whistling and zipping up his pants. Emaline waited until he was out of sight, then stormed out to the barn and got her fist right up in Luella’s face.

“Listen, woman. I put up part of the money for this place. It’s mine as much as it is Jake’s. Maybe I can’t stop you from running a still out here, but if you have to have visits from the law, can you confine it to the basement house and not be fooling around in cars or rutting in the barn like a filly in heat?”

Luella drew herself up to her full height. “You got no call to talk to me that way, little girl.”