As she opened her door and stepped out onto the wet ground, the men lowered their guns and walked toward her. They recognized Mama. “Well, well, Misses Meeks! Whatta we got here?” A big man with thinning gray hair and his belly hanging over a wide black belt with a shiny badge on it said, “Don’t be afraid, kids, but we need you to get out and stand away from the car.”

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We got out of the car, and Dink took us into the edge of the woods where he pointed. I thought they were going to leave us in the woods, but they just started taking the jugs out of our car and loading them into theirs. The big man looked at Dink and said, “Let me talk to your mama for a minute, and you can get back in the car.” He stepped up close to Mama and said in a quiet but stern voice, “Misses Meeks, I’m gonna pretend I didn’t catch you with all your young’uns in the car and a load of moonshine. If we catch you hauling again, we’ll take your young’uns away from you and send you up to visit their daddy in Atlanta Prison.” He turned to the tall, skinny, redheaded man wearing a badge on his dirty T-shirt and said, “Elmer, we got those jugs from that deserted still back in the woods we just left—and not from a car loaded with young’uns, now, didn’t we?”