“Oh, I can see where this is going, and it reminds me of my Aunt Tressa.” Liz giggled. “But go on, Gemma. Tell me the rest of it.”

“Ellen said that he was a stupid sumbitch to trust her like that, and he deserved to be taught a lesson. She also admitted that she’d already had more than her share of a fifth of Jack Daniel’s whiskey. She got about half a mile down the road when she lost control on a patch of gravel. She said she went ass over teakettle for a while, and when everything stopped moving, she was sitting in the edge of a farm pond where cows watered, and there was manure and dirty water up to her waist.” Gemma was laughing so hard the last words came out one at a time during guffaws. Liz and Raylen got as tickled at her laughter as they did at the story, and soon they all three were wiping their eyes with paper napkins.

Liz hiccupped. “Was she hurt?”

Gemma shook her head. “That’s the first thing I asked, but Nellie picked up the story there and said that she didn’t even get a broken bone. But the front of that Corvette had kissed a pecan tree, and if Ellen hadn’t been drunk as a skunk and limber as a wet rag, she would have been killed. Ellen said that Jack Daniel’s saved her life and she’d keep a bottle in the house the rest of her life. She said that she came up sputtering and spitting filthy water and cussin’ a bloody blue streak about getting mud and cow manure on her new boots. The owner of the car had called the police and reported his vehicle stolen and his girlfriend kidnapped. When they arrived a few minutes later, she was sitting beside the car with what was left of the bottle of Jack in her hands. Neither the bottle nor Ellen had a scratch. She offered the cops a drink for coming to her aid, but according to her, they didn’t have much of a sense of humor, and they hauled her ass off to jail for stealing an automobile, driving while intoxicated, and a few more trumped-up charges. She said she was surprised they didn’t throw in stealing cow patties along with all the other charges, since she took a fair share of them to jail with her in her boots.”

Liz laughed but kept Raylen in her peripheral vision. Seemingly oblivious to anything around her, Gemma went on: “Nellie declared that it wasn’t all that funny because she was the one who had to get up at two o’clock in the morning and go to Chico to get her. Ellen said that she wasn’t about to use that public toilet in the corner of the jail cell, and all that whiskey hit her bladder at one time, so she was dancing in her boots by the time Nellie arrived. And all Nellie wanted to do was cuss and rant at her. Nellie paid the fines, for the car damage and the whole shebang. And you know what Ellen is still griping about after umpteen years?”