The coffee tasted like horse shit.  Ham took another sip and grimaced.  There it was, the unmistakable taste of digested grass.  He swirled the brackish liquid around in his favorite enameled cup and grunted.  It was colder than a witch's tit and he was too uncomfortable to justify dumping the disgusting concoction, so with a flex of his nostrils he shut off his sense of smell and gulped the brew.  "GAH!"  he let out a cross between a burp and exclamation, keeping his nose shut for a few extra moments.  Either he was getting sick with a head cold, or the water in the well wasn't as clean as he had hoped.  He cursed his little brother Honey under his breath and set the tin mug down, careful not to chip the enamel an further.  Honey of course was inside drawing up plans for their barn, and Ham was, of course, outside in the barn mucking it out.  

"ROBERT!" he bellowed at the top of his lungs.  He hoped the golden haired lad would pop out of the house in a moment but it took several minutes while Ham got off of his backside and got back to ordering the musty boxes that were stacked in the corner of the dusty barn.  Ever since he and Honey had come to America it seemed as though their two main talents were running from the law and reimagining derelict buildings into proper business or homesteads or both.  They had sold their father's farm and owned several small shops from Detroit to LA.  Their crowning achievement was a much larger business they called The Smokehouse and they had just finally felt settled in when there was a devastating warehouse fire that had sent them packing.  

After recovering from another brush with death, the two brothers had taken refuge in the Great North and for a short time seriously considered not returning to their current lives.  But just a few years in to their snowbound adventures and Honey itched for the city life.  Ham could have gone either way, but he prefered to keep his only family close.  After all, the snow did grate on his nerves after awhile, and he had hunted to his heart's content, the wild Scotsmen in him sated to a point.

Robert finally emerged from the house with an oversized thermos and two mugs, apparently forgetting Ham already had one.  Ham waved his brother over and pointed to one of the boxes he'd been going through. 

"Now," he said as he took a mug from his brother "Most o these boxes are full of trash but this one here," he gave it a kick and a plume of dust and spores fluffed into the air. "I thought it was just left over quilt squares, but when I picked them up something seemed off."  He put his mug down and pulled out an unfinished square. "Give it a little squeeze right there." Honey did as he was told and looked surprised.  

"It's crunchy!" 

"Tha's right it's crunchy!  And you know what with?"  He took the square back and finessed a seam open.  Then he pulled out a hundred dollar bill. "Money!"  There's three more boxes like this!"   Help me get them inta the house before the weather gets bad again."  

After Honey and Ham had moved the boxes inside Ham finally poured himself a cup of coffee from the thermos and hoped for the best.  The rich, aromatic scent of fresh coffee filled his nose and mouth and he look at Honey with a pained expression. 

"Hell's bells Honey, this coffee is a hundred times better than the last stuff!"  

"Wait, the stuff in the white enameled mug?" Honey asked.

"Aye, that's MY mug and the coffee in it tasted like horse shit."  Honey shook his head and grabbed the mug which had been taken in from the barn.  He flipped it over, where in childish scrawl the word "honey" had been scratched into the enamel. 

"That's MY mug and it wasn't filled with horse shit you ninny.  That was green tea." 

Honey had busied himself with brewing a new pot of coffee and tea since the other one he'd made earlier had disappeared under mysterious circumstances the night before. He pushed the door open with hip just in time to hear his cantankerous brother holler his name from the barn. He arrived a moment later and handed the thermos and mug to Hamish. His own mug was full of piping hot black tea, the steam curling in gentle tendrils as he stood in the frigid barn. 

The money was certainly a surprise as Ham rummaged through the crates of mouldy paper and fabric scraps that uncovered the stacks of cash hidden underneath. He turned his attention to Ham who was commenting that today's coffee was better than the crap he'd been drinking and laughed out loud when he saw his name on the mug. 

"That's MY mug and it wasn't filled with horse shit you ninny. That was green tea."

He swiped defensively for the mug and plopped it down on a dusty haystack behind him, still amused at his brother's blunder. He could swear that man needed glasses more and more every day. 

"So what's with the cash? I thought the old lady who lived here missed her payments and the place went into bank default. Nobody wanted a derelict barn and ranch house out in the Fresno foothills and that's how we got it right? So how is it there's crates full of cash if she couldn't keep up with the payments?"

The sound of a double barreled shotgun clicking just outside the door and the figure of a withered but fierce looking old woman caused both boys to raise their hands and turn to face her and the young boy that stood next to her. 

"Oh fer Christ's sake" Ham exclaimed.  He was used to being held up at gunpoint but he felt like at this point in his life it was getting a bit cliched.  The shotgun the old lady was holding however was as far from a cliche as possible and Ham felt the need to do whatever the woman demanded. He slowly turned his head towards his brother and gave him a look that he hoped conveyed "do what they say."  He held his hands aloft and finally licked his lips as the silence seemed to stretch on into the night. He cleared his throat. 

"What can we do for you ma'am?"  The rotten apple faced old woman stepped further into the barn, the young man next to her taking a defensive stance.  

"We're here for the money."  It was the boy who spoke, edging towards the corner where the boxes had been stacked.  He peered into the dark and looked back at Ham who was beginning to sweat regardless of the chill in the air. 

"It's not here." Ham said with a quiet tone.  He noticed the old woman turn her head.  "She can't hear us can she?"

"SHUT UP!" the boy shouted.  The pruned old woman jerked her head back towards the boy.  It was at this moment Honey took the opportunity to run towards the back door of the barn.  Ham was blinded by the explosion from the shotgun and stumbled backwards, screaming his brother's proper name, hoping against hope his athletic little brother was out of range. 

Honey ducked, the pellets flying right past his ear and landing with a crack that splintered the post just over his shoulder. He struggled to catch his breath as he hit the dirt hard, his shoulder crunching into the dirt. Ham was still yelling and the old woman had started in as well, her voice shrill as she stared at the damage her gun has left. 

"AW DAMMIT I DIDN'T MEAN TO SHOOT 'IM!" She crowed, waving the gun around wildly as the kid tried to reach for it. Honey poked his head up gingerly, his shoulder still throbbing as he tried to make heads or tails of what was going on. Ham sighed when he saw that his brother wasn't a corpse and then turned his attention back to the ruckus that the old woman was making. She settled down with a few gestures from the boy and the pair of them turned back to Ham. 

"Where's the money? Gran said it was here. Supposed to be her retirement and now that the old man is gone, she can retire to Florida like she wanted." The boy crossed his arms in front of his chest, rocking back on his heels. 

"Didn't you hear my brother? It's not here ya twerp an I'll thank you not to try to shoot my head off again."

Ham had a crisis of conscience.  Of course they had the money, just a few hours ago they'd moved it into the house.  He sighed and looked at Honey.  His brother would hate what he was about to say. 

"You only get half.  There's more than enough to give both of you a comfortable life wherever you want to settle and our half will be enough to make up for the fact that you nearly put my brother face first into a coffin."  He hoped that was a good enough deal to appease the rootin shootin granny and his brother, who he had to admit loved the green a bit too much. 

"Honey, are you ok?"   

Honey choked back a dissatisfied grunt over Ham's more than generous offer. Half was ridiculous! This lady was close to kicking the bucket and there was no way the tyke was going to need that much but Ham was Ham and he was, ultimately, a people pleaser. I mean for crissake he nearly got himself wed to a chick because she was with child...someone else's child at that. He crossed his arms and tugged at his hat, frowning slightly. 

"Yeah I'm alright no thanks to trigger happy nan and her klutzy kid." 

The kid scowled, sticking his tongue out at Honey who mimicked the little brat right back. The old woman rolled her eyes and whispered harshly at which point the boy straightened up and put his hands down at his sides. 

"Show us where the money is. There's more than just cash and to me it's worth a whole lot more." 

She sounded wistful and resigned as they all trudged towards the house. Once inside, Ham pried the lid off of one of the boxes and carefully unloaded the crumbling fabric packets. Once all the money had been stacked, he helped the old lady with the rest of the items which included a dusty album, several paper wrapped bundles of clothing and pictures, and some assorted knick knacks. Honey noticed that in the pictures, which were relatively recent, there were none that depicted the boy. Before he could ask, the woman crowed over another piece of useless trash, clutching it to her chest. She turned to the boy and thrust it into his hands, wrapping his red chapped fingers around the package. She looked sad and the boy shared her expression. 

"When I took you in, I never imagined you'd grow on me the way you did. Your ma and pa trusted you to me and I wanted you to have this before I died. You know we shouldn't have even made the trip but I couldn't let it go, I always meant to come back for it but then I got sick. I can't bear to think what would have happened if these two idiots had cleared it out before we came back for it. Now don't open it now, you can save that for later but this is for you. The money, all these things, you can do with them what you want. I won't be there to see you come of age so today's all we got." 

She patted the boys hands with her gnarled fingers before turning back to Ham and Honey. She wore a serious expression and pulled a weathered old picture out of her pocket, handing it over to them. She looked unsure as she spoke, the picture was of them as teens, the last time they'd seen their pa.  

"As for you two, keep the money you'e gonna need it. This child here gonna need a lot of help from you two. See that picture there? That's the only piece of that kids history they have left. Your father moved here to America and left you two behind. He died before he could see you again, leaving not just you two but this one here. I took the kid in past 5 years but I'm sick, I'm dying. After this I thought they were gonna have to go to the home. I was going to use the money to hire an investigator, try one more time to find you but it seems the universe had other plans. Now I can go to the grave knowing I did my job to reunite you two and your sister."