The Moonshine War by Elmore Leonard

  He saw Kay Lyons first, who had probably not been out here since she was a little girl. She was helping her aunt, Mrs. Worthman, put cups and spoons and more sugar on the table where Mr. Worthman and Virgil and Mr. Stamper and Mr. Blackwell sat with Mr. Baylor. These men looked up, but it was Bud Blackwell, over against the wall in a rocking chair, his high-top shoes stretched out in front of him, who said hello to Son.

  He said, "Well, Son, your old buddy was here last night." Bud was relaxed and seemed pleased with himself.

  Son wasn't going to bother with Bud Blackwell right now. He kept his eyes on Mr. Worthman, in his overalls and old suitcoat and top button of his shirt buttoned, who had lived here half a century and had made whiskey a quarter of a century and never in his' life had realized trouble because of it. Mr. Worthman, staring at his cup as he stirred it, looked as if someone in his family had just passed away. Virgil Worthman had a cold mean look on his face, clenching and unclenching his jaw, that may have been the way he felt or may have been for the benefit of his friend Bud Blackwell, Son wasn't sure which.

  "I seen him in the light," Virgil said. "There was no doubt as to who it was. They were carrying these high-powered flashlights. One of them said something to Frank Long; said, Trank--' and put a light on and that's when I seen his face, right there in the yard after Uncle Jim Bob had been shot. They didn't bother coming over to look at him. Well, I'll tell you, I'm going to look at Mr. Frank Long after I shoot him 'cause I'm going to make sure the son of a bitch is dead."

  "Virgil," Mr. Baylor said, "kindly shut up and let your dad tell it. I want Son to hear this, and then I'll tell you what you're going to do and what you're not going to do."

  Kay Lyons handed Son a cup of coffee. She came back with milk and poured it in herself, looking at Son's face as she lifted the pitcher away, but not saying a word or telling him anything with the look.

  "We never did see their cars," Mr. Worth-man said. "They left them down the road. We heard the cars when they drove away, after, but not when they come. Some of them walked up to the house and the others went over across the crik to the still, knowing where to find it. It was a little washtub outfit we had setting deep in the trees but these people went right to it."

  "So somebody knowing where the still was led them to it," Mr. Baylor stated, and there was silence in the room.

  "They'd never found it in the dark," Mr. Worthman said, "without knowing where it was at."

  Mr. Baylor was hunched over the table, his gleaming steel frame glasses holding on Mr. Worthman. "You heard them over there, did you?"

  "We heard them. We heard some shots and we run outside. We don't know these other people are in the yard till Uncle Jim Bob come out with the shotgun. As he appeared somebody fired from the darkness, and Uncle Jim Bob made a sound like he was gargling and fell to the porch. After they was gone, we went over to the still and seen how they'd put bullet holes in the cooker, then taken axes and chopped up everything, the mash barrels, everything."

  Mr. Baylor said, "They took some stuff you'd run?"

  "Most of it. They broke some jars too. Didn't pour it out so we could use the jars again, broke them."

  "Before they left, what was it the one said to you?"

  "We were on the porch tending to Uncle Jim Bob, this one calls out, `Worthman, you listening?' I said, 'I hear you.' "

  "Was it Frank Long's voice?"

  "I don't know. I don't remember his voice any."

  "What'd this voice say?"

  "It said if I was to rebuild my still, they'd bust it again. They said they'd bust every still in this county if Son Martin didn't hand over his hunnert and fifty barrels."

  Mr. Baylor waited, giving the silence time to settle. His steel frames gleamed as he looked from Mr. Worthman to Son and back again. "What'd you say to that?"

  "I don't remember I said anything."

  Stretched out in the rocking chair, Bud Blackwell said, "I'd a told the son of a bitch something."

  Mr. Baylor turned on him, a skinny bird with its neck feathers ruffled. "Like you told Frank Long the other day on the street corner? I know all about how you told him," Mr. Baylor said. "If you're through telling then I'll tell you a few things."

  Bud's dad, at the table across from Mr. Baylor, said, "Now wait a minute before you say too much." Mr. Blackwell had once been as smart-mouthed and sure of himself as Bud; he was an older, smaller version, now balding and wearing a Teddy Roosevelt mustache to make up for his bare expanse of forehead. "Long had a gun on Bud when he hit him."

  "Is that right?" Mr. Baylor said. "Well, if you were there, then you saw your little sonny boy pull a bone-handle knife before he got his ears beat off."

  "Who told you that?"

  "Your other boy, Raymond. Now, if you're through I'm going to tell you how things are."

  "They aren't going to sneak up on us," Bud Blackwell said. "You wait and see when they try it on us."

  Every once in a while Mr. Baylor remembered his blood pressure and his seventy-three-year-old heart and would make himself breathe slowly with his mouth closed. To fall dead while beating Bud Blackwell with a pick handle wouldn't be too bad; but to go out screaming at him and slobbering and popping all the veins in his face would leave the memory of a mess they had to clean up before they put him in a box.

  Mr. Baylor said to Bud, "What happens if you shoot a federal Prohibition officer?"

  "They bury the son of a bitch," Bud grinned. "If'n they find him."

  Mr. Baylor had breathed slowly in and out enough that he was still in control, a kindly and wise old man. He said, "Bud, honey, that's true. But you know what else happens? Whether they find him or not, you got the whole United States Government after you, because they know where that boy was going and who he was to see."

  "A man comes at you with a gun," Mr. Blackwell said, "You by God better meet him with a gun."

  "Is that a fact?" Mr. Baylor asked pleasantly.

  "Man to man. He shoots at you, you shoot at him."

  "If the man wants to keep his still," Mr. Blackwell said, "and isn't ascared to defend it."

  "Fighting for hearth and home." Mr. Baylor nodded thoughtfully "That's a noble idea, but let me remind you of one thing. Stilling is against the law of this land, and if you're caught at it and resist, they got every right to shoot you full of holes. We have never had any federal people here before but, boys, we got them now. Aggravate them and they will stay till this county is wiped clean of stills."

  "If I can't sell moonshine," Mr. Worthman said, "how'm I supposed to provide for my family and feed them babies playing in the yard?"

  "Howie you going to provide if you're dead?" Mr. Baylor asked him. "Or if they send you to Atlanta for five years? Listen, do you realize, as a county law officer I'm obliged to help these people?"

  "Jesus," Bud Blackwell said, "with all the whiskey you drink?"

  "I'm telling you what I'm supposed to do. I'm saying you got to quit stilling till they get tired of hunting and go home."

  "They wasn't hunting when they come here," Mr. Worthman said. "They walked right to the still like they'd been to it before."

  "That's another point," Mr. Baylor said. "If there's some person among us who's telling where the stills are, then it's all over, boys. You don't have a chance."

  With his solemn expression Mr. Worthman said, "I can't believe a person would do that. Somebody around here who's bought whiskey from me. It would have to be somebody around here."

  "That's the first thing we do," Virgil Worthman said, "find the one's helping them."

  Mr. Baylor turned on him. "Do that, Virgil. Find him out of the hundred people you know by name who come here and the hundred you don't know. You never had any trouble before so you'd sell to anybody's got four dollars. Well, there's trouble now, boys, and you got no choice but to leave off stilling till they go home."

  "Or move your stills."

  Everybody in the room including the women by the stove, looked at Son Martin.

&n
bsp; Arley Stamper, who had not spoken a word through this meeting, sitting next to Mr. Baylor, said, "Move them where?"

  "Hide them," Son answered. "Your still's been sitting in the same place for ten years, with ruts and beaten paths leading to it. Now it's time to move the whole outfit and keep moving it every week if you feel the need."

  Arley Stamper nodded, but Mr. Blackwell wasn't taking on any heavy work today. He said, "Move it where? How far you talking about?"

  "Move it anywhere you want and cover your tracks," Son answered, "and don't tell anybody where it is. I mean don't even tell anybody here. Arrange some other place for delivery that isn't anywhere near the still."

  "That sounds like pure nigger work, don't it?" Bud Blackwell said. "All that lifting and carrying and moving. Is that what you're going to do, Son?"

  "If I decide to keep running."

  Bud Blackwell shook his head like he was tired already. He said, "Hey, Son, 'stead of us doing all this moving and hiding, why don't you give them the hunnert and fifty barrels? That's all they want, ain't it?"

  Right now if he had that pick handle, Mr. Baylor decided--in this quiet room with everybody staring at Son Martin--he would swing it at Bud Blackwell until he died of a stroke and went straight to heaven and would never hear what Son answered or stay around to see the end of this dirty business. But he didn't have that pick handle.

  And he heard Son Martin say, "Bud, you tend to your whiskey business and I'll tend to mine."

  Mrs. Lyons had hardly said a word since she got back from the Worthman place about one o'clock in the afternoon. She stayed in the office going through some figures--what looked like the same page of the ledger for quite a while--and it was like pulling teeth for Lowell Holbrook to get any information out of her.

  "Well, what do you think's going to happen?"

  "I don't know, Lowell."

  "You think they'll hide their stills?" "I haven't any idea."

  "I mean didn't they say if they were going to or not?"

  Then she would be concentrating on the figures and he would have to ask her again. He had to ask her three times was Son Martin there and what did he think of the situation? Finally she said yes he was there, but she didn't mention anything he said. Mrs. Lyons was acting funny. It was natural she would be worried; the Worthmans were kin and Uncle Jim Bob was her great-uncle or some such relation. But besides being worried she seemed to be acting funny, like something else was on her mind that had nothing to do with the Worthmans, or at least had not been mentioned.

  A little before two o'clock Frank Long and Dr. Taulbee and his wife came down the stairs and went into the dining room. Lowell noticed the time. A pretty late dinner today.

  He hadn't noticed Frank Long leaving the hotel the night before. Which didn't mean anything: he could have been on a room-service call or Frank Long could have been out all day. One thing Lowell was certain of, Dr. Taulbee and his wife hadn't gone anywhere. He'd taken some Coca-Colas and ice up to 210 just before going off duty and they had looked pretty settled: the doctor sitting up in bed smoking a cigar, reading the newspaper and his young wife standing by the window with a green silk-looking robe on brushing her hair.

  The thing Lowell wondered about now: if Frank Long had been on that raid like they said, had he taken that BAR rifle with him? Was it up there in 205 now? If it was, could a person look at it and tell if it had been fired?

  Lowell watched the three of them come out of the dining room at twenty-five past two. It gave a funny feeling, thinking about the BAR rifle and seeing Frank Long. He expected them to go back upstairs, but they stood there a minute talking. Then Dr. Taulbee's wife turned to walk away, and Dr. Taulbee gave her a little pat on the butt. Lowell and Dr. Taulbee and Frank Long all watched her walk up the stairs with her fanny moving from side to side. Then the two men turned and walked out the front door.

  If you think about it, Lowell said to himself, you won't do it.

  He wasn't sure why he wanted to, except it was a scary thing to do and it would, somehow, put him in the middle of the excitement that was going on. Lowell tried not to think any more about it than that. He got the passkey on the brass ring from behind the desk and went up to 205, right to the door and opened it and, Jesus, there was the big suitcase laying on the bed.

  You're here now and another minute won't make any difference, Lowell said to himself. Will it?

  He didn't answer that yes or no; he went over to the suitcase and unbuckled it and opened it and there it was, the big heavy beauty of a gun, broken down and strapped in snug. Lowell lifted a two-ring binder out of the suitcase so he could get a better look at the weapon, then leaned in close and sniffed it, getting a strong smell of oil in his nostrils. The gun certainly didn't look like it had been taken out and fired. Lowell wished it was put together so he could lift it in his bare hands and feel the weight of it. He looked at the binder in his hand--nothing written on the blue cover--and dropped it in the suitcase; then picked it up again and opened it. There were a few typewritten pages he didn't bother to read but, when he got to the pictures, his interest picked up and he started reading the men's names and descriptions and records of arrests and convictions. He was starting to skip through, just glancing at the pictures now, when he saw Dr. Taulbee's face looking up at him, grinning at him with those big white teeth.

  Lord in heaven, Lowell said to himself, and started to read about Dr. Taulbee.

  Frank Long turned at the Baptist Church and shifted into second gear as they started up the grade. Ahead, on the left side, he could see the stand of cedars and part of the small farmhouse showing. Frank waited until the car was almost to the front yard.

  "That's where the woman from the hotel lives. Mrs. Lyons."

  Next to Long, Dr. Taulbee turned enough to get a brief look at the house through the rear side window. "Mrs. Lyons, uh?"

  "She's not married any more."

  "Well, now, maybe I should be nicer to her."

  Long glanced over at him. "What would you do with two women?"

  "The same thing I do with one."

  "I mean you got Miley along. Isn't she enough for you?"

  "If you mean by enough, all you want," Dr. Taulbee said, "little Miley can dish it up. But she is one woman and Mrs. Lyons is another and, mister, they are all different. Each one has her own little pleasures and secret tender places. Each one is potentially the best one you ever had."

  "There's the Caswell place up on the right."

  Dr. Taulbee was looking at Frank Long. "You wouldn't mind a little bit of Miley, would you?"

  "She's a good-looking girl."

  "Well, Frank, maybe when I'm through with her. How'd that be?"

  Long had a tight grip on the curved top of the steering wheel. Past the ridge of his knuckles he was looking at the farmhouse: at the vines climbing its walls, at the yard grown over with weeds and brush, and the sagging barn that was missing boards and part of its roof.

  "I was saying--there's Caswell's."

  Dr. Taulbee studied the place. "They ain't much for farming, are they?"

  "Not a blind man and anybody drinks as much as Boyd does."

  "You tell me," Dr. Taulbee said, "because little Dual could be wrong about Boyd Caswell. Dual thinks anybody was at Eddyville is a first-class citizen."

  "Boyd took us to Worthman's still last night," Long said. "I guess he's been there enough times he can find it drunk or sober."

  Dr. Taulbee propped one hand against the dashboard as they turned into the yard. "Well he's in it now, isn't he?"

  "The cars are in the barn if you're wondering." Long drove past the side of the house and pulled up in back as Dual Meaders came out the screen door in his shirt sleeves and shoulder holster, his hands deep in his pants' pockets.

  "Bless his heart." Dr. Taulbee grinned and yelled out, "Hey, boy!"

  Dual came over to the car and pulled a hand out of his pocket to open Dr. Taulbee's door, giving him his slight, closemouthed smile. "We're all in there waitin
' on you," he said.

  The old man at the kitchen table looked up with sightless eyes, with milk and wet crumbs in the thin stubble of his beard. He held a piece of corn bread soaking in a bowl of Pet Milk, the tips of his fingers in the milk covering the bread, as if hiding it from whoever was coming in the screen door.

  Across the table Boyd Caswell's head raised with closed eyes that opened halfway, bleary, before his chin dropped to his chest again, as if he were staring down the front of his overalls. A quart jar of moonshine, almost empty, was on the table in front of him.

  Dual's eyes shifted to Dr. Taulbee. "You recognize Boyd now you see him?"

  "I sure do," Dr. Taulbee answered. "Though I'd forgot what a beauty he is."

  "Boyd's resting after a hard night," Dual said. "This here is his daddy." Dual stared at the old man for a moment. "Daddy, you're losing all your pone in your milk. You ought to have Boyd fetch you a spoon."

  The twelve men Dual had sent for were in the front room, sitting and standing around, some of them smoking cigarettes, patient and solemn, waiting expectantly, until Dr. Taulbee stepped in flashing his friendly smile, raising a hand in greeting and saying, "Well looky at all the good old boys are here. Boys, I heard you done it last night like genuine federal Prohibition revenue agents, yes, sir," Dr. Taulbee knew most of them and went around shaking hands and slapping shoulders and saying goddamn, you all are going to enjoy your trip, I guarantee, with fun and prizes for everybody. Dr. Taulbee loosened them up and told them to make themselves at home, while Frank Long unrolled his map of Broke-Leg County and thumb-tacked it to the wall.

  Long stood by the map, waiting for everybody to settle down and look his way. He recognized half the men in the room; he had pictures of them in his binder. They were stick-up and strong-arm men and ex-convicts, now in the bootleg whiskey business. Every man here was armed; two of them had brought Thompson machine guns. Frank Long was not afraid of any of them individually. But the dozen of them and Dual Meaders and Dr. Taulbee, all staring at him now, made him aware of himself standing in front of them, not part of them but with them, and he wanted to get this over with and get out as quick as he could.