Nobody really knows how Uncle Kinxy made his way to the clan.
When he showed up at the edge of the holler with a busted cart filled with makeshift distillery equipment, a jug of shine strong enough to strip paint, and an accent no one could quite place, Pa didn’t ask many questions. Just looked him over, nodded once, and said, “You kin now.”
Behind closed doors and around bonfires, especially after Ma's gone to bed, the rumors fly freer than Uncle Kinxy’s still.
Some say Uncle Kinxy is Pa’s nephew, born of a sister who ran off chasin’ an eclipse and never came back. Others claim he’s an orphan from one of the goblin caravans that pass through once every Appalachian flower moon. But the wildest tale, the one the goblin cousins like best, goes deeper.
It’s said that long ago, Pa got himself stuck on a human merchant ship bound for the edge of the world. Hid in crates, slept in barrels, survived on stolen potatoes. Washed up in a place called Oz. Not the one with wizards, tornados, and flying houses. No, this Oz was hotter, harsher. Full of bush goblins sharp as glass, burnin’ with sun and spells made of red dirt and beetle wings. Pa stayed longer than he meant to. Might’ve been the magic. Might've been the heat. Might’ve been the goblin girl who wore snake bones in her ears and cast a spell upon him. Rumors in the holler were that out of this mix came a goblin baby, but no one was ever able to confirm it.
Pa came back eventually, quieter, sunburnt, and carryin’ a map inked in symbols the rain couldn’t wash away. He didn't speak much of his time in that strange land.
Uncle Kinxy and Pa clicked like they'd known each other forever. No one asked. No one explained. Pa just said, “This is Uncle Kinxy, and he’ll be joinin’ us now,” and that was that.
But Uncle Kinxy’s more than mystery and moonshine. He’s a butcher by trade, a farmer by sun, and a distiller by blood. His still has been blown up more times than a war base. The goblin cousins testing out homemade flame flingers, log rollers, and even unlucky drop spells have, at one time or another, turned half his stash into a bonfire. Sometimes the cousins come running with the marshmallows they often steal from humans on raid weekends or clan games, if that’s one of the challenges.
“Y’all do know fire spreads, right?” Uncle Kinxy has barked more than once, dragging a scorched barrel out of a crater in an attempt to salvage what he could. “This stuff don’t grow on trees! Get over here and help me, you little monsters!”
He’s moved it twelve times and counting. Somehow, they always find it.
Cletus is his shadow. Cletus is always nearby, half helper, half thief. Learning the distillery trade by day, sneaking sips by night. Turning insufferable with every drop.
And Uncle Kinxy? He just hums, whistles, or sings “Little Brown Jug” and keeps workin’. His war style ain’t like Pa’s. Where Pa’s methodical, Uncle Kinxy’s full charge, shock and awe, strike fast and clean. He leads when Pa ain’t around, and war ends before some cousins even lace their boots. Sometimes that means goblins like Ma find their carefully studied targets already scorched, replaced with bases no one’s been able to crack.
He’s got a way of sayin’, “Clean it up,” like it’s a gift.
There’s no war council, no time to prep. If you’re around where he can grab you, you’re goin’ in. That’s left more than a few cousins scrambling, and especially Ma.
One war, she showed up to find her studied target already in ashes.
“No use studyin’ a base that ain’t there no more,” she muttered, not happy.
“Well,” Kinxy replied, tossing her the scroll with two targets that had already bloodied better attackers, requiring them to be cleaned up by someone, “guess you’ll just have to clean these up. Should be fun.”
She glared. “Those are harder.”
“You don’t need your heroes,” he grinned. “They’re sissies anyway.”
“That so?” She raised a hand. And one finger with a very clear message.
He smirked. “Wasn’t sure I saw that right, do it again. Just to make sure I got it.”
She raised another.
He laughed, real low. “Bring back six stars, and you’ll go down in holler history.”
Then four more. “There’s your six stars.”
She didn’t bring in six stars. Not that night. Too angry. She’d admit it later, she half assed her attack. Not purposely, she’d never. Out of distraction.
He asked later anyway, voice low, not teasing: “You alright?”
“I’m fine,” she replied. “Just pissy.”
“Why?” he asked. “What’s going on?”
Ma didn’t answer.
“Have a drink,” he said, handing her a jug. “Or three.”
At least once a week, when she’s still up too late, trying to clear her mind or working on another spell, Uncle Kinxy will pop in like some overgrown hall monitor.
“Go to bed, Ma.” He orders with authority.
She doesn’t look up. “You don’t get to boss me outside of war, young man.”
He always backs off, muttering, “Just sayin’. We don’t need ya all grumpy.”
And then there’s the emu.
Uncle Kinxy swears there’s one in the hills. Red-eyed. Mean. Built like a nightmare.
“No, listen,” he insisted, shine in one hand and a half-carved ham hock in the other. “It looked right at me. Eyes red, glowed like the devil. I think it talked.”
“Did it have an Australian accent?” Pa asked, amused.
“Kinxy,” Ma said, “that was either a skinwalker or the shine. Either way, maybe you need to go to bed.”
“I know what y’all think,” he said, glancing at all the cousins gathered in the kitchen listening to his tale with eyes wide. “That ol’ Kinxy’s been hittin’ his own shine a bit too hard. But lemme tell you somethin’. I know what an emu looks like. And I know it weren’t no hallucination I saw last week behind Ma’s corn patch.”
He took a slow swig from his moonshine jug, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and leaned in.
“See, years ago, back when I was still runnin’ wild through the red-dirt flats of Oz, I got myself caught in a wrong paddock after dark. Didn’t know the land yet, didn’t know the beasts, didn’t even know which way was north. All I had was a busted compass, a bent spear, and the smell of roasted beetle meat in my beard.”
“You ain’t got no beard,” observed Cletus.
"Gross, you ate beetles?" chimed in Ellie Mae.
“No beard now,” Uncle Kinxy said. “Was a different time, you see.”
A few cousins nodded in approval.
“That’s when I heard it, this low rumble, like thunder through feathers. I turned ‘round, and there they was. Three of ‘em. Eight feet tall, legs like tree stumps, eyes like demon rubies. Feathers black as smoke, and tempers worse’n a hog in a heatwave. Emus.”
He let the word hang there.
“A pack of discount ostriches,” Ma muttered in amusement.
“Now, I ain’t no coward, but I ain’t stupid neither. So I did what any sensible goblin would do. I charged ‘em. Thought maybe I could wrangle one, make it a battle steed or maybe roast it for supper. But lemme tell you… those birds don’t run from you.”
He paused for effect, then grinned.
“They run at you.”
One cousin gasped.
Studious Ellie Mae said, “Shoulda known that from the emu wars, Uncle Kinxy. Them emus ain’t scared of nothin’. Not even bullets.”
Uncle Kinxy was fixated on his tale. “I spent the next two hours gettin’ chased through gum trees and gopher holes, screamin’ like a banshee, clutchin’ my jug like it was a sacred relic. They don’t flap. They thump. Every step shook the ground like it owed ‘em money. By the time I made it back to camp, I had twigs in places twigs don’t belong.”
“So yeah,” Uncle Kinxy said, pointing toward the dark hills, “I know an emu when I see one. And that weren’t no possum last week. That was him. Red eyes and all. Still mad I stole his brother’s pride.”
He took another long drink, wiped his mouth, and settled back with a smug look. Pa was trying hard to contain his laughter.
“And if I ever catch him, I ain’t roastin’ him. I’m puttin’ a saddle on that bastard and ridin’ him straight into war.”
"Emu troops," Pa said thoughtfully, stroking his dark beard. "Might not be a bad addition to the arsenal, actually."
The potion Ma had brewing on the stove bubbled and her attention turned to it.
No one said a word.
Then Cletus whispered, “Reckon that emu could carry the flame flinger, too?”
“How much loot ya reckon it can haul?” asked Mo.
“Y’all wait,” Uncle Kinxy muttered. “One day I’ll catch it. You’ll see.”
No one’s seen this mysterious red eyed emu yet. Except Uncle Kinxy.
But if anyone would chase a red eyed demon bird through the woods at twilight and call it “strategic reconnaissance,” it’s Uncle Kinxy.
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