“Juniper berries,” he says, grabbing an identical box from his truck. He balances it on the side while he pushes the tailgate up, then lifts it onto his shoulder.
“From where?” I ask.
“From Juniperus virginiana,” he says with the same flourish he always uses when he gives the Latin name for something.
He gives the Latin name surprisingly often.
I don’t respond, I just wait. Levi is accustomed to telling you what he wants you to know in his own sweet time.
“Commonly known as Eastern Red Cedar,” he goes on. “Daniel and Seth asked if I could find some juniper berries. They’re making an IPA.”
With his other arm, he gestures toward the door that Rusty disappeared through, the movement surprisingly graceful and courteous, especially for someone who looks like birds could nest in his beard if he isn’t careful.
Levi and I probably look alike. We’re brothers, after all. He’s the oldest and I’m two years younger, but unless he shaves his beard and cuts his hair or I cease my personal upkeep for a few months and start wearing a top knot, we aren’t going to find out how much alike.
Half the time he’s wearing the exact same thing he has on right now: dark green Forest Service coveralls, the sleeves rolled up to the elbow, and thick work boots. He lives way up in the Cumberland National Forest, in a cabin he built himself, and works as the forest’s Chief Arborist.
I hoist the box of juniper berries onto my shoulder, and we head through the front door of the brewery. Inside it smells sweet and bready, the scent of half-finished beer flooding my senses. Levi leads us wordlessly to the walk-in cold storage, takes my box, and carefully stacks it atop his.
“Hope that’s enough,” he says, eyeing them. “If they need more they can pick the things themselves.”
“Anything else in the truck?” I ask, brushing my hands off, though I’m sure they’ll smell like cedar for the next few days regardless.
“That’s all for —”
“ — strongly advise that you take this offer now because there won’t be another,” a voice says suddenly, echoing from somewhere outside the cold storage room where we’re standing.
The voice is too loud to be polite, and sounds as if it belonged to a man unaccustomed to being told no.
It’s also very, very familiar.
Levi gives me a glance and walks past, heading for the door and seeing what all the commotion was about. I follow on his heels.
“We’ll take our chances,” comes Daniel’s voice, calm and laconic as ever. “Thanks for stopping by.”
“You’re going to regret this,” the other voice goes on. “Do you know —”
“Get out.”
That’s Seth, his voice flat and hard, an edge to it that instantly makes me nervous. Levi and I exchange glances as we walk quickly out of the cold storage, between two huge steel tanks, and skirt a puddle of something on the concrete floor.
“ — I could crush you like —"
“Out!” Seth shouts.
Levi and I break into a jog, tanks and nozzles and hoses all hissing away above us in the vast brewery. He rounds a corner and I’m one second behind.
Then I nearly run into his back, skidding to a stop.
Seth is nose-to-nose with Walter Eighton, the biggest landowner in Burnley County. Rather, he’s nose-to-forehead, given that Seth towers over almost anyone who isn’t related to him.
“I suggest you do as he says,” Levi tells him, walking forward slowly, his arms crossed over his chest.
Walter just snorts, still looking up at Seth. He’s wearing a suit that looks expensive but poorly tailored, nice fabric that doesn’t fit him quite right, like he doesn’t even have the patience to get something fitted.
“You don’t scare me,” he says. “None of you inbred rednecks are gonna—”
“You pompous shit sack—"
Daniel steps neatly between them before Seth can get any further with his insult, holding his hands out. Behind him Seth’s jaw flexes, his eyes flashing. Levi unfurls his arms and eases to his younger brother’s side, ready to catch him before he can do any real damage.
“You can go on your own or you can be escorted,” Daniel says flatly. “Your pick, Walter, though I think you might not enjoy your escort.”
Walter finally takes a step back. He adjusts his suit jacket, an ugly tie underneath it, and he looks at all four of us with flat eyes.
“I get what I want,” he says, voice brimming with as much menace as he can muster. “Even if it means going through the lot of you.”
He stalks off toward the exit. Levi and I exchange a glance, and Levi follows him, a few paces back, just to make sure the man doesn’t get lost on his way out. Seth, Daniel, and I watch them disappear.
“Fucker,” Seth mutters.
“What was that?” I ask.
“That was a rich, entitled asshole who thinks that the world should fall at his feet just because his daddy owns a chain of grocery stores,” Seth says.