Chicken sausage?
I didn’t grimace, and that was a miracle.
Chicken sausage was akin to turkey bacon, an abomination.
Chapter Four
“When you love you wish to do things for. You wish to sacrifice for. You wish to serve.”
― Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
*Cletus*
The chickens had been left where they died, scattered all over the inside of the henhouse, several still on their nests, a few out in the yard. As such, the first thing we did was round them up and put them in a pile on a tarp, set to one side of the big, fancy chicken coop.
Meanwhile, since neither Mr. Badcock nor any of us Winstons owned a scalder, Shelly and Ashley built a wood fire in Mr. Badcock’s bonfire pit, set an iron grill plate about three inches above the highest flame, and heated several gallons of water in our two big lobster pots. This took forever.
We used the time to set up chairs and tables around the fire and created an assembly line. Drew Runous was the only one I trusted to keep the water at the ideal constant temperature of 149 degrees. Consequently, he got the job of tying up the legs and dipping the chickens in the hot water. He passed them to either Ashley, Roscoe, Beau, or Billy—our four pluckers.
Since I was well acquainted with the butchering process and didn’t get queasy at the sight of innards and such, the birds were then handed to me. I cut off the heads and feet, cleared out the cavities, and saved the livers for frying and the remaining organs for gravy or stock. I then passed the carcasses and essential bits to Jethro and Shelly for final cleaning and wrapping.
“I can’t believe Mr. Badcock doesn’t have a motorized plucker.” Roscoe frowned at the chicken he was almost finished defeathering.
“He only raises them for eggs. I got the impression he never killed one before. He has a gravesite for the ones that have died,” Officer Boone said, flipping through his notepad.
“A gravesite?” I lifted an eyebrow, certain I’d misheard.
“Yep. In the past, if one of his hens died, he’d bury them. They all have little crosses. Hand carved.” Boone and I shared a look, and I suspected we were sharing the same thought. Who has time to hand carve crosses for chicken graves?
“The man really loved those chickens,” Boone added, like he was answering my unspoken question.
I knew Boone from around town, good fella, fair, smart, best investigator on the force. He was quiet unless he had something of value to say, and I appreciated this about him. He stood outside of the working circle next to Jackson James, but Officer Dale had left, offering to escort the Dragon Lady—er, I mean Jenn’s momma, Ms. Donner—back to her house and Jennifer to the bakery.
“They’re pretty birds,” Ashley said with a sad sigh, studying the feathers she was plucking. “I should give him some of my hens.”
“Y’all only have six hens.” This protest came from Roscoe. “And if you give him yours, where are we going to get our eggs for Sunday breakfast?” Of course Roscoe was concerned with Sunday eggs, not Monday eggs, or Wednesday eggs. We only saw him on the weekends as he was still in veterinary school.
“Roscoe, did you know they sell eggs at the store?” Beau grinned at Roscoe, his infernal blue eyes sparkling even in the middle of the night. My redheaded brother had too much charm and charisma, and I suspected he’d been born with the innate ability to catch starlight and radiate it outward, or some such nonsense. “You just give the grocer your money and they let you take the eggs. A whole dozen at a time if you’re real nice.”
Roscoe chuckled at Beau’s teasing, which I noted. Roscoe didn’t chuckle, laugh, or otherwise seem amused by my teasing. I felt confident everyone would agree, my teasing was superior to Beau’s in both comedic timing and poignancy.
Masking my irritation, I glanced around the circle, my attention settling on Billy and his . . . What the heck was he doing?
“Have you seen those power plucker attachments for a drill?” Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jethro, my oldest brother, hold a lung scraper in his grip as though it were a drill. “It’s supposed to pluck a chicken real fast, save you from those nasty pin feathers.”
I shook my head absentmindedly, distracted by Billy’s slow plucking progress. He was older than me by a year, and the hardest working person I knew—aside from Jennifer—but he’d plucked just one chicken in the last half hour, and not for lack of trying.
Obviously sensing my attention, Billy asked, “Can I help you, Cletus?” He wore a small smile, but his baritone was as flat as a bookmark.
“What are you doing?” I continued surveying him from beneath lowered eyebrows and behind narrowed eyes, not disguising my dissatisfaction at his inefficient feather elimination technique.
He adjusted his grip on the bird and wiped a gloved hand on a towel hanging over his thigh. “Plucking this chicken.”
“That ain’t chicken plucking,” Roscoe muttered under his breath.
Loathe as I was to agree with Roscoe, I agreed with Roscoe.
“Leave him alone,” our sister Ashley called over. “Let Billy figure things out on his own. Besides, his fingers are too big for this kind of work. We’ll get these done, no problem.” She sat between Roscoe and where Drew dipped the chickens. Drew Runous was Ashley’s not-yet-fiancé, and their lack of formal engagement was a source of great turmoil for me, but that’s not pertinent at present. It was warmer over there, but that wasn’t the reason we’d insisted she and Roscoe sit closest to the pots.
It was a little-known fact that my sister was the fastest chicken plucker in Green Valley, maybe even all of Tennessee, and Roscoe was a close second. This was likely because they used to do it together when we were growing up. Giving them prime spots closest to the pots made the most sense.
“First of all, you’re supposed to start with the legs, move to the breast, leaving the wings for last,” I instructed Billy.
“Cletus. Leave Billy alone,” Ashley said again, making an irritated face.
“He needs to do it right, otherwise he’s just wasting his time and ours.” I held my sister’s stare, which grew increasingly peeved.
“Stop your meddling.”
“But if he would do it right—”
She made a frustrated sound, turning her attention back to the bird in her own hands. “You think you always know what’s best, and sometimes you don’t. Let him alone and quit meddling.”
Now I frowned at my sister, getting the sense she wasn’t talking about plucking chickens. Quit meddling? Not likely. She might as well ask me to make a batch of substandard sausage.
“Let me show you,” Roscoe offered gently, demonstrating on the chicken still in his hands, which was already good and thoroughly plucked. “A hen ain’t going to cooperate if you spend ten minutes plucking the wings. Get your fingers between the legs first.”
My brother Beau, sitting on Billy’s right, nodded at Roscoe’s advice.
I lifted my chin toward Roscoe. “Or between the legs and the breasts at the same time, if you got the skill, like Roscoe.”