The Tilted World by Tom Franklin, Beth Ann Fennelly

tobacco. Jesse didn’t smoke. He didn’t like the smell trapped in his mustache. Dear God, not more revenuers. She reached over her shoulder to grasp the Winchester. She felt weary. Scared, but also weary.
    Above the blood-drumming of her heart, she heard something strange—not men yelling, or dogs barking, or guns firing, but singing:
    Gee, but it’s hard to love someone
    When that someone don’t love you.
    Dixie Clay began to creep forward, staying low. The smell of smoke got stronger as she snuck around the side of the house. When she pulled even with the front gallery, she could see an unfamiliar roan horse tied to her postbox. She leaned her head from behind a clump of holly bushes, but the gallery was shrouded by pines and all she could see was a muddy cowboy boot propped on the rail. It was wagging with the music, which was coming from her mandolin. The tune changed, the voice deep and unafraid:
    Trouble, trouble, I’ve had it all my days.
    Trouble, trouble, I’ve had it all my days.
    It seems that trouble’s gonna follow me to my grave.
    If this was a lawman, it was the damnedest damn lawman she’d ever seen. But it wasn’t a customer either—a customer would know better. The boot wagged on until the last note died.
    “Well,” asked the voice, “how’d you like that?”
    Dixie Clay started. He’s spotted me, she thought. But then there was another sound: a high sliding three-note wail. She knew it for what it was. A baby. What kind of drunk brings a baby to a bootlegger’s? And why was it crying? She sprang from the bushes and aimed her rifle at the boot.
    “Hands up!” she yelled. “I got my gun and I’ll shoot you dead.” She couldn’t see much as she half ran, half slid down the gulley, just knees and then a torso, arms held in the air, the mandolin between them. She scrambled up the steps, sighting down the rifle the whole time. When she reached the top, she saw the rest of him: a big man, his long right leg bent, boot on the rail, his left angled open, ankle on knee, and, in the opening, a bundle. A bundle with a spastic arm: a bundle of baby. The man’s chair was balanced on its hind legs, and as he appraised Dixie Clay he let the front legs bump down. He started to lower the instrument so she yelled, “I said, hands up.”
    He straightened his arms again, a corner of his mouth curving with a quick siphoning dimple, which disappeared as she trained the gun on his heart.
    “What are you doing here?”
    He tilted his head beneath his brown hat as if sizing her up. “I came to bring you a baby.”
    “A baby?”
    “Yeah.”
    “You came here to bring me a baby?”
    “Yeah. I came here to bring you a baby. This here baby. A real American-style baby. Bona fide A-one cowboy, too. Likes the open road, Nehi soda. Loves the blues.” The baby gave another cry and the man shrugged. “Well, usually he does. That was Bessie Smith. Your husband play?”
    She said nothing, trying to gauge what type of crazy she was up against. She glanced around to make sure he was alone. To the side of the gallery, where she’d stuck a few measly rosebushes that had since drowned, was a collage of broken glass. She’d left a Dr. Pepper bottle on the wooden crate, saving it for the refund. Why would he smash her bottle?
    “You want a baby?”
    She couldn’t figure out his angle. He didn’t appear to have a weapon. He had a strange way of saying his r’ s. He wasn’t from around here. She glanced behind her: no one. “You’re . . . fixing to give your baby away?”
    “Not my baby,” he said. “His mama’s dead. Daddy dead. Baby shoulda been dead, too, but I found him and for some fool reason decided to carry him around till I could nab him another mama. Can I lower my mandolin now?”
    “You mean my mandolin,” said Dixie Clay.
    He grinned and lowered his arms and set the instrument gently beside his boot.
    She kept the gun trained. He slid a ring from his left hand and set it down beside the