Part One
Prologue
The months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor were filled with fear and uncertainty. America was at war. The news from the front was not good. Rumors abounded of a possible invasion of the West Coast. Then Colonel Doolittle's raid on Tokyo in April and the recent news of the victory at the Battle of Midway Island invigorated the war effort. America was fighting back.
At the start of World War II, Delta County, Mississippi was small county on the Mississippi River delta. In the county seat, Delta City, small businesses lined the single paved road that was the main street. The first observation would be of bucolic gentility. It hid a post-Civil War culture of segregation and anti-miscegenation.
The second observation would be the female/male imbalance in the populace. All able-bodied men 18-45 were conscripted for the armed forces. Women, White and Black, clerked at the stores, picked the cotton and ran the cotton gin. Others worked in the defense plant in the next town over.
Of the county's prewar population of roughly 2000, six hundred men and boys were away fighting the war. The remaining approximately 400 men were either too young, too old or had a deferment from service. Black men were a disproportionate share of the eligible undrafted men. Though not formally announced, drafting of Black men was restricted. The local authorities feared a labor shortage. Despite the end of slavery 80 years prior, a strong Black back was still the primary labor force on the plantations.
Even in a war time economy, the laws of supply and demand worked. The short supply of able, virile men meant an increased demand for their services. Though never formally announced, like rationing or other results of the war effort, the male shortage meant the southern conventions against segregation, miscegeny and even incest was set aside for the duration in the interest of defeating the Axis powers.
The residents, male and female, Black and White, sucked it up and did their part to assure total victory. Morality was not gone. Like other things during the war, it was in short supply.
Chapter 01
Aaron Collins, 50, passed the jug of moonshine to his new son in law, twenty-year-old Clay Thomason. He ran the back of his hand over his forehead mopping the sweat before it ran into his eyes. It was a normal hot humid night in Delta County Mississippi. The family sat on the rickety porch in wooden chairs, on the steps or leaned against the wooden wall of the clapboard shack trying to catch a breath of air.
Just inside their house a kerosene lantern, hung from a hook in the ceiling, provided the only light, other than the brilliant canopy of stars on this moonless night. The coal oil lamp wick was turned down, barely emitting a glow. The rural areas of the county were not yet wired for electricity.
The old barn sat across the dirt yard beyond the large cottonwood tree that dominated the yard and provided shade on sultry days. Beyond that was the 40-acre field where they raised hemp for the war effort. The unusually strong fibers were used for rope, parachutes and other applications.
Hidden amidst the hemp was an acre of carefully cultivated high grade marijuana. Cautiously nurtured by two generations of Collins', it was the source of the best weed in the county. Further on was the slough which was part of the part of the river system that connected the dry lands to the surrounding towns.
They were celebrating Clay reporting for induction in the Army Monday. Clay took a long gulp of the potent liquor with his hand resting comfortably on his wife's bare thigh. Calista's eyes moved from her husband to her younger brother, 21, sitting at the bottom of the steps. Devilishly, she slightly spread her legs teasing him. His response was a clandestine wink.
Clay passed the jug to Allie Carruthers, 38, Deandre's aunt and his mother Thomasina's, 44, sister. She was barely able to sit upright, having partook liberally from the jug and the readily available reefer. Her head lolled as she fought the effects of the liquor and cannabis. Her dress, moist from perspiration, clung to her curvy body.
Her husband and son were early inductees. She missed them both. However, what she missed most was her husband's cock. Like most women on the distaff side of the Collins family, she had a prodigious sex drive. Her need gnawed at her. Drinking and smoking dulled that ache. Allie received sporadic censored letters. Her husband was in Europe; her son in the South Pacific.
She turned the jug up and took a long swallow. Her below the knee moist cotton dress clung to her plump body. It emphasized the roundness of her hips and pendulousness of her large breasts. Periodically she would flap the hem of the dress, creating a brief cooling breeze.
"Don't drink it all, Aunt Allie," Calista, 22, laughed, in her lilting voice.
"May as well!" Allie's voice was heavily slurred. She sat in a chair with her legs spread at the knees, her well-worn cotton print dress draped between them. She was dimly aware that her nephew, Dre, could probably see up her dress. However, she was too drunk to care. "Ya 'all done slowed down. And you got to be sober enough to give your husband a good send off tonight."
"Hush up, Allie! You ain't got no business talking like that!" Thomasina was as drunk as her sister and just as horny. Her husband Aaron at 50 was too old for the draft. Her head rested on his shoulder, slipping to his chest as he drank or otherwise moved. Her hand rested on his inner thigh. Periodically she surreptiously squeezed his thick tool. Neither woman wore underwear. That was partially due to the heat and humidity and partially to the shortage of cloth. Her husband sat stolidly, sweat streaming off him.
"We have to go anyway," Clay laughed, "I have to catch the bus in town to the induction center in the morning." He stood and stretched, his bib overalls pulling tight across his shirtless lightly muscled chest.
Callie stood and smoothed her dress down over her lush hips. Like her mother and aunt, she was a big boned woman, with full hips and full breasts. She also stretched, her dress tightening across her large bosom. She smiled at her brother, sitting on the steps.
Aaron stood and swayed, feeling the effects of the 'shine. "I needs to get to bed anyway. I got to be in the fields early in the morning." Tommie stood next to her husband.
"Dre, walk your auntie home. She too drunk to make it alone."
"Gurl, I don't know what you talking about. I can take care of myself."
Clay shook Aaron and Deandre's hand. He embraced his mother in law and aunt. "Dre, you be sure to look in on your sister." He took his wife's hand and walked to their old truck for the mile drive to their house down the road.
"Callie! When you drop your husband off, stop in the Goldstein's store. Tell her I got her message. I'll at the jetty in three nights on the new moon."
"Okay daddy!"
The Goldstein's, Jacob and Ellen, were the sole buyers of Aaron's high grade weed. They traded flour, salt pork and, recently, ratio books for the pot. They then sold it throughout the county at a significant profit. Local law enforcement knew of the illicit drug trade. However, liberal donations to the sheriff's reelection campaign and tithing the local Baptist church caused the sheriff to look the other way. He adopted a similar live and let live attitude to the moonshine produced out in the bayous.
Deandre's head bobbed, acknowledging his brother in law's dictum to look in on his sister. There was no doubt he would. They were long time lovers. "Coming on, Auntie! I don't want you to fall in the slough and get ate by a 'gator!"
