“Why yes, officer. He is here. He got banged up by an old bear and was brought to me and I’ve been doctorin him. He was pretty bad off with a high fever, infections and ….” Lucy was rudely interrupted by Officer Wintergreen.

  “Never mind that. Can you take me to him?” The officer requested.

  Lucy took him to Steve, who was sprawled out on his bed, barely covered with a sheet, his hair all disheveled, snoring like a walrus in heat. There was the empty mason jar on the floor. Steve’s idea to drink it so he could sleep was working. Officer Wintergreen picked up the jar and smelled it. He almost fell over backwards.

  “You drugged him with moonshine!” Bert accused Lucy. “How could you?”

  “No sir, he done that to himself so he could sleep, but he didn’t have to drink all of it! That’s what I use to clean out his wounds!” Lucy exclaimed.

  “Steve, Steve, Cordoba! Wake up! We’ve got work to do!” Bert yelled.

  No response.

  “Can you make some strong coffee, ma’am?” he asked Lucy.

  “Of course.” Lucy asked while she started the coffee, “Are you finished with Carl? I imagine he’s gettin mighty tired of layin in the dirt.”

  “Oh yes, I will let him up,” Bert said.

  Lucy put the strong coffee on the bedside table so Steve could smell it and she started dressing his wounds, knowin it would wake him up. As she unbound the places on his thigh, the officer walked in, took a gander at the bear bites and whistled! “That’s a mighty bad bite!”

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  All of a sudden, Steve woke up and said, “Woman, leave me alone! I’m finally gettin a good sleep and you wake me up!”

  Bert said, “Steve, we asked her to help us wake you up.”

  Steve said, “Why’d you do that? I need my sleep. Who is that? Is that Earl Higgins? You need to stop spinnin and you are under arrest! No. No it’s not. Bert Wintergreen, is that you? What’re you doin here? Ow, my head!! Somebody just shoot me. I done slept through the leg pain just to wake up to a pain in my head!” He drank some coffee and calmed down a little. “No really, Burt, what are you doin here?”

  “You disappeared and we thought maybe a moonshiner got you, so we come lookin fur you,” Burt explained.

  “No moonshiner got me, but a bear did. The moonshiners found me and saved my life.” He drank some more coffee and asked Lucy for some breakfast. “I’ll take 2 over easy eggs, some oatmeal “with brown sugar and 3 slices of bacon if you don’t mind.” Steve didn’t wait fur Lucy to answer, but turned to Bert and asked, “What’ll you have, Bert?”

  “I’m not hungry, thank-you,” Bert answered. He wondered how these folks were taking being ordered around by Steve, with all they had to do just to live. Steve was being pretty demanding, especially considering he was intending to put this woman’s man in prison.

  He quizzed Steve about how he knew the rescuers were moonshiners. Steve filled him in on the still he saw and how he was on his way to break it up when he fell into the bear attack. Bert helped Steve get up and dressed and helped him hobble out to the car. The sun hadn’t come up yet and they could still get to the still and break it up early and catch the moonshiners in the act!!

  Lucy walked in with Steve’s special ordered breakfast, emphasis on ordered. Steve said, “No time to eat. I got a moonshiner to catch,” and then walked out with Bert and got into the car.

  Lucy was beside herself, first because they were after her man and there was nothing she could do to stop them. Secondly, because Steve ordered her around and then wasn’t going to eat the food she had made!

  Earl woke the boys up and said, “I’ve got a feelin. We need to leave now!” They took off and half way down the creek, turned to travel through the woods to a back road to the coal mine