prompt: Write a story where a character has to take on heavy responsibilities (perhaps beyond their age).
available at Reedsy
Papa and Bru-bru got called up for the big war. They said they’d come back heroes and Bru-bru could bring home a new wife or two. Papa was still half crippled from the last big war, and Bru-bru weren’t but fourteen summers. He was decent with a bow, though. He did the hunting and fishing while Papa ran the still and traded what he didn’t drink for vegetables and such.
The soldier-men gave Bru-bru a crossbow, and Papa a pistol and a shiny metal bar for his collar. Bru-bru’s hunting bow was still hung up in his room. Mama and me had already made a whole mess of arrows for him to hunt with, so that was settled.
Of course, it didn’t help us none if we couldn’t use the bow. Last time I tried, Papa laughed at me but Bru-bru said when I was strong enough to string it, I could try again.
It was still as tall as me, and all my weight weren’t enough to bend it to the string. “Mama, you think we might find a smaller bow somewhere?”
“I don’t know, Petal. We should probably just stick to the hare traps for our meat and try to trade the pelts for what we need.”
“What about the still?”
“What about it?”
“I watched Papa all the time when he was there. I know how to work it.”
Mama sighed. “Just don’t burn yourself.” She looked older than Papa. Not from wrinkles or nothing, she just seemed…beat. Like an old dog kicked out of the pack.
That thought made me nervous. “Mama, what are we gonna do if the dogs come around?”
“The house is strong. We can just stay inside until they get tired of waiting and leave.”
There was a sharp rap on the door. Mama opened it, while I stood behind her. A soldier-man was there with a paper in his hand. He pointed at me. “Boy! Can you read?”
Mama looked back and forth between us; the soldier-man calling me a boy and asking if I could read, and the girl dressed in her Bru-bru’s hand-downs.
“Are ya deaf, boy?”
I shook my head no.
“Can you read?”
I nodded.
He handed me the paper. “Make sure you read this to your mama, now, understand?”
“Y—yes, boss.”
“How many summers are you?”
“Nine, boss.”
“You’re a mite small for nine, but you exercise and hunt, and you’ll be ready to fight by your thirteenth summer, for sure.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Course, the war might be over afore then.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Okay, boy. You take care of your mama. You’re the man of the house until your Sir comes home.”
“Yes, boss.”
He left with a polite tip of his hat to me, and not a glance in Mama’s direction. Once he was out of sight, Mama closed the door and let out a heavy sigh.
“I’m so sorry, Petal. I froze up. Now they think you’re a boy. If they knew you was dressed in your brother’s clothes, they’d lock me up and send you off to the girl’s home.”
“Don’t worry none, Mama. We both was ascared.”
“But they think I have a boy here who can read. What can we do? If that paper’s important, we’ll never know.”
“Mama, I can read.”
Her look went from worried to shocked back to worried. “What?”
“I, uh…just can,” I said. “I figured it out when I looked at Bru-bru’s letters and words.”
I learned myself how to read and write from sneaking when Papa was learning my Bru-bru. Mama didn’t know, and it ain’t something girls is supposed to do. I wasn’t about to tell her that, ’cause she might swat my butt.
To keep Mama from digging any deeper, I laid the paper on the table and began sounding out the words. “The Shine house will pay one boar or one deer or two goats or equal worth each new moon as a war tax. If not paid, the Shine land and buildings and belongings, to include the still and all womenfolk, will become property of the Army of Mizoo.”
“If the soldier-men take me, you run, Petal; hear me?”
“Mama, they ain’t gonna take you.”
“They might. This moon it’s a boar or two goats, next moon it doubles, then doubles again until we can’t pay. Skies above, we can’t pay now, and new moon’s in five days.”
“If we can’t figure it out afore then, we can both run,” I said. “I already miss my Bru-bru and Papa…I can’t be missing you too.”
“If your brother was here, we’d have no problems. He was always hunting enough to for us and others as well.”
“Mama, if Bru-bru was here, we wouldn’t be having war taxes. We got the still,” I said, “and I can finish the batch Papa started. The mash is ready to strain and ’still.”
“Just be careful. Don’t want to blind nobody.”
“I know how to skip out the foreshots and heads, get the hearts, and leave the tails. I watched Papa enough times.”
“It’s too late to start tonight,” Mama said, “so how about you tend to it in the morning?” She set out the last of our bread and butter for dinner.
“Yes’m. I can set some hare traps, too.”
“I’ll deal with those, Petal. If we can’t find someone to do our trading for us, we’ll have to hope the soldier-men will take hooch and hare-hides.”
“Why can’t we trade for ourselves?”
“It’s not a woman’s place to do business,” she said from rote.
“Widow Baker does business,” I told her.
“Widow Baker is past bearing age, she ain’t gotta worry about women’s rules no more.”
We ate our dinner quiet-like, and I busied my mind over the trading. “Mama,” I asked, “what if I do our trading?”
Mama just sighed and looked at me all sad-eyed.
“They already think I’m a boy. It’s just ’til the war’s done and Papa and Bru-bru is home.”
Mama didn’t say nothing else, so I figured it was settled up. We was about to go to sleep in the women’s room until she started what-iffin’ about soldier-men coming in the night.
If they did, a boy…or pretend boy…sleeping in the women’s room would be trouble. Almost as much trouble as finding out I was a girl wearing boy-clothes that knowed my letters.
The soldier-man said I was the man of the house now, but I didn’t feel right sleeping in the mister’s room in Papa’s bed. I slept in Bru-bru’s bed in the boy’s room. The smell of his blanket made me feel safe. It also made me miss him even more.
The soldier-men didn’t come that night, despite Mama’s worrying. The next day, I strained the mash and started up the still. It took me longer than Papa, but I finished it by sundown. I had nine jugs of hooch, just the hearts. Papa usually got ten, but I was scared of gettin’ any of the heads in.
If your hooch makes folks sick, they won’t buy it no more, ’less they’re stuck to it and get the shakies without it. The Shines was known for the best hooch, and I didn’t want to let Papa down being sloppy or greedy.
The next day, I took the little wagon into town with all the hooch. Since Papa always kept back a few jugs for hisself, I figured I should be okay to trade with nine.
I’d never been to town, so it was all new to me. I knowed how folks traded when they came out to the house, so I tried to do like that. All the able-bodied menfolk were gone, except for the soldier-men that guarded the town and collected the taxes.
I wanted to get as much as possible for the hooch. Enough for the taxes, plus some grain to set more mash, plus some vegetables for me and Mama. It’s hard, though, when the only folks left in town to trade with were boys too young or men too old to fight…and Widow Baker.
I was about to turn tail to home when a boy a little older, and a lot bigger than me stepped in front of me. “What’s slippin’ little man? You look a mite lost.”
“I’m trying to trade this hooch for war taxes, some grain, and some vegetables for the table.”
“What’s your name?”
“Pet—Petro.” I’d almost spilt my name. Petal ain’t no name for no boy.
“Weird name, Petro. I’m Carlson…Carlson Weaver.”
“Petro Shine.”
“Oh! This is old man Shine’s hooch?”
“Well, I ’stilled it from his mash. Papa got called to war with my brother.”
“How old are you?”
“Nine.”
“And you the only boy at home?”
I nodded.
“Listen, little man. Don’t never call your Sir ‘Papa’ anywhere but home. You should be growed out of that by now.”
I nodded again. The rules for women were strict, but it seemed the rules for the menfolk might be every bit as strict.
“Papa is for girls and boys too young to work. You working, so you call him Sir from now on, hear?”
“Th—thanks, Carlson.”
“How much for the hooch?”
I shrugged. That part of the negotiation always took place out of sight and sound of womenfolk.
Carlson picked up one of the jugs. “Feels a mite heavy.” He pulled the cork and looked inside.
“Look here,” he said, pointing at a stripe on the side of the jug, “you only got to fill it to there. If’n this gets hot, it’ll spill out the top. Are they all this full?”
“Yes, boss.”
“Don’t call me boss, I ain’t old enough for that, at least till next summer. Just think of me as an older brother.”
“Right.”
“Do you have an empty jug with you?”
I shook my head.
“Come with me,” he said, dragging me and the wagon behind him.
He led me to his home, where he went in and came back out with four empty jugs. He then took his time pouring out the tops of the nine jugs into one of the empties. Sure enough, it filled that jug and then some.
“What do you want for your help?” I asked.
“That depends,” he said. “Is this hooch as good as your Sir’s?”
I shrugged. It smelled the same to me, but the few sips I’d managed to steal in the past didn’t do much but burn my mouth, same as this.
Carlson took the tenth jug and pulled a sip from it. He held it in his mouth and swished it around before swallowing. “It tastes just like your Sir’s. I’ll take this jug for my grand-Sir who ain’t at war on account of bein’ too old. That’s my payment.” He set the jug inside his house and drug me back to the center of town.
We walked the town, Carlson introducing me to the old men and soldier-men still there. By the end of the afternoon, he’d negotiated taxes for our house and his own for four jugs of hooch. I didn’t get mad that he paid his house tax with my hooch until I figured it out later. I was too far over my own head to figure out the goes-ons while they was happening.
While we traded, we collected another seven empties. He also got me enough grain to start two more mashes, a bushel basket of vegetables, four loaves of bread, two blocks of butter, and half a boar that he’d hunted. He was younger than Bru-bru was when he shot his first boar, so I figured he might teach me the bow.
“When I come to town next time,” I said, “will you teach me how to use the bow?”
Carlson laughed. “Little man, you’re too small.”
“You ain’t that big yourself,” I said, “but you got a boar.”
“My Sir got me a crossbow for my tenth summer. It’s easier for hunting and makes me ready for the war.”
“Your Sir knowed there would be a war?”
“’Course he knowed. My Sir said the same war’s been goin’ on over a hundred summers. It just moves around some. It always comes back here to Mizoo, though, and we gotta protect ourselves.”
“Who are we at war with?”
Carlson shrugged. “Them? My Sir said I’d know when I went myself.” He eyed me like a snake. “Didn’t your Sir fight in the war?”
“He did.”
“What did he say?”
“He stayed shtum about it. Stopped hunting after, too. He was all sorts of busted up when he come home, though, and Bru—my brother…was already hunting by then. My Sir just been making hooch, like he did afore, only all the time now.”
“Well, I’ll find out next summer, and if’n you ain’t turned thirteen when I get back, I’ll tell you.” Carlson made to go.
My head grabbed on his tax deal, the angries grabbed on my mood, and I grabbed on his arm. “Wait! You owe me half a boar or a goat.”
“What d’ya mean?”
“You paid your taxes with my hooch, and only gave me half a boar for it. Taxes is one boar or two goats. I want a goat.”
“Petro, you’s already good at business. I’ll drop a goat at your house as soon as I get one.”
“Before new moon,” I said, “or the price doubles.”
“Hold on, now. Is that any way to treat your big brother?”
My fists curled up tight. “I dunno. Is tryin’ to slick me out a jug of hooch any way to treat your little brother?”
Carlson looked at me and started laughing. “Skies above, you look so serious. Don’t worry, little brother. You’ll have a goat tomorrow or the day after, latest. Wouldn’t want you tellin’ tales about the Weaver boy not payin’ his debts.”
“And not a kid!”
“Not a kid, a full-on goat.” Carlson ruffed my hair. “Now head on home to your mama, you got to tend to her. Keep her outta trouble, little man.”
“I’ll see you when the next batch is ready.”
“I’ll be waitin’, but not as hard as my grand-Sir.”
I pulled the wagon home, knowing that next time I’d have to make the same deals myself…minus the taxes. Now that Carlson had introduced me around, though, it should be easier.
It wasn’t until I got home and unloaded everything that what I’d done set into my bones. I was a girl, doing business, in boy clothes, with a fake name, and reading and writing in public.
Mama grabbed me as the panics made me shake and cry. She held me til I fell asleep, then laid me in Bru-bru’s bed.
I woke in the middle of the night and cried all quiet-like for missing Bru-bru. I wished the war would move away from Mizoo and never come back.