Clayton looked as if he was mulling it over. Jack braced himself for the barrage of questions that was sure to follow. What did he think Jeffers was doing out in the woods? Why did he want to go after him? Even if they did find him, what were they going to do next?
Instead, Clayton nodded his head slowly up and down, a big grin showing through his beard. “You know,” he said, “I ain’t never liked Jeffers nohow.”
“You’ll do it?” Jack asked hopefully.
Instantly the other man brightened, the sleep falling away from his face as he clapped his hands together, excitement coursing through his scrawny body. “Sure as rain, I’ll go! Buckle up, old buddy! We’re goin’ on an adventure!”
Half an hour from Clayton’s home, Jack wondered if he hadn’t made a mistake.
“Are you sure this thing will get us there?” he asked.
“Don’t you worry none,” Clayton answered. “It’s been up and down all these hills ’nough times to know the way on its own!”
Jack held on to the beat-up, worn-down truck’s rickety door frame for dear life as they sputtered and clanked their way down the road. When Clayton had first led him to it, he’d had to stifle a laugh. To say that it had seen better days would be an understatement: rust had eaten through so much of the truck’s body that there was a hole in the floor of the cab; the seat upholstery was so badly ripped that springs had worked through, digging into Jack’s back; and there was a dent in the hood so deep that rainwater had pooled in it. The steering wheel looked as if it was about to come off in Clayton’s hands. Even the windshield wiper was in a state of disrepair, occasionally swinging back and forth as if it had a mind of its own, making a screeching grate against the glass.
“It just likes wavin’ to folks now and ’gain,” Clayton explained.
The only thing worse than the truck’s condition was the way it handled on the road. Going around even the gentlest of curves made the vehicle’s frame shudder so violently that Jack worried it was about to slide off the undercarriage, leaving the wheels to go on without them. Every tree on the side of the road suddenly became a threat, something they were about to smash into, the truck racing out of control.
“I rode on a donkey once that was a smoother ride than this,” Jack said.
“Now don’t you go makin’ fun of ole Roger here,” Clayton replied, his voice a bit wounded as he patted the seat beside him as if the truck were a horse, a companion, even a friend. “You’ll hurt his feelin’s.”
“Roger?” Jack asked. “Your truck has a name?”
“Course he does! That way it don’t seem so awkward when I’m talkin’ to him while we’re drivin’. Ain’t you ever named somethin’ ain’t ’live?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“I hate to tell you,” Clayton chuckled, “but y’er missin’ out! Makes things a hell of a lot easier when you need to cuss it out!”
Clayton drove the truck down into a recess of the valley perpendicular to the river before turning it up toward the hills. Stands of elms and oaks, interspersed with evergreens and cinquefoil bushes, lined both sides of the road so deeply that they choked out most of the sunlight. Jack had a faint memory of traveling this road as a boy, but he couldn’t even have said what direction they were heading. After a series of winding bends, Clayton slowed before picking his way through some overgrown brush onto a road so faint Jack hadn’t even noticed it until they were on it.
“I had no idea this was here,” he marveled.
“Ain’t many folks do,” Clayton replied. “My pa was the one who cut it through the brush as a shortcut to the better trappin’ spots. Every other year or so I gotta bring the axe up here to keep the woods from takin’ it back.”
Jack imagined that that was a heck of a chore; even now, branches and leaves scraped against the truck’s door and reached through the open window to claw against his arm. For several minutes they crawled along the wilderness path before Clayton slowed, a patch of huge thistles blocking the way.
“Looks like I ain’t been as good ’bout my weedin’ as I thought.” He chuckled. “We gotta get past, so Roger’ll have to push ’em flat.”
Revving the engine, Clayton eased the battered truck forward and slowly forced their way through. Once on the other side, Jack was amazed to find a wide road snaking through the woods.
Clayton took the still-rumbling truck out of gear.
“Gonna have to take a closer look,” he said before jumping out of the cab as Jack followed. Clayton ambled over to the road they’d met and knelt down, inspecting the ground at his feet.
“Just like I figured,” he crowed, pointing at the unmistakable sign of tire tracks that had cut through the dirt and dust, crushed leaves and grass flat, and smashed a couple of fallen sticks. “A truck’s just been through here,” he explained. “Big one, too. The way I reckon it, it’s gotta be the one Jeffers is drivin’.”
“What’s up ahead?” Jack asked, pointing up the secluded road.
“A lake that collects snow runoff, a couple a clearin’s, and if you keep goin’ far ’nough, you’d wind up in Canada.”
With that, Jack knew that his hunch had led him to the right place. Undoubtedly, he’d been lucky to be standing on the street corner when Jeffers and Sumner drove past. He’d also done the right thing by going to get Clayton. Somewhere up ahead, Jeffers was picking up illegal liquor from Canada, just as the Bureau had suspected. To go ahead now would be dangerous, but Jack had to be certain. He had to see it for himself.
“Let’s go find that truck.”
Chapter Nineteen
CLAYTON DROVE THE TRUCK up the rough road Jeffers and Sumner had taken for another ten minutes before pulling off to the side and into a narrow gully notched between two trees. It was a tight fit; Jack could barely squeeze out of the passenger’s side door. Clayton rustled up broken tree branches and uprooted small bushes, placing them around the rear of the truck and the side that faced the road.
“If they was comin’ up the same way we just did, then only a blind man could miss seein’ it sittin’ there,” he explained. “But since they’ll be drivin’ the opposite way, odds are they ain’t gonna notice it when they go past.”
“How much farther is it to where you think they stopped?”
“It’s a bit of a walk, but the border’s just over that ridge,” Clayton said, pointing farther up the road. “Since this is the only place big ’nough to hide Roger, it’s as far as he goes. The rest is on us.”
As they made their way up toward the crest of the hill, Jack gazed up through the thick canopy of trees, the leaves shifting in the slight breeze. The sun had begun its descent, but there were still hours of daylight left. If Jeffers was doing what Jack suspected he was, it was odd that he’d be brazen enough to act in the middle of the day; most booze runners did their business under the cover of darkness. Still, it was hard to imagine that Jack had misunderstood what he’d seen. Why else would they be driving such a large truck up into the hills? There had to be a reason.
At the top of the hill, the road went down a bit before turning sharply to the left and out of sight.
“We best pick our way through the trees from here on out,” Clayton suggested. “It ain’t but a ways farther.”
Pushing into the trees and bushes, nearing the end of their search, Jack began to feel the familiar pangs in his gut, the unmistakable feeling of danger lurking somewhere ahead. Not for the first time since he’d set off after the truck, Jack wished that he had his Bureau-issued pistol, but it was still in his dresser drawer in the Belvedere; there’d been no reason to take it with him to meet Maddy and he hadn’t yet gone back to his room before seeing Jeffers and Sumner drive past. But now, faced with the possibility that he might need to use it, Jack felt vulnerable. If they could just stay out of sight…
“What is it you suspect Jeffers is doin’ up here?” Clayton asked, pushing through an overgrown bush and holding it until both of them had passed.
Jack took a deep br
eath before deciding on the truth. “I think he’s picking up a load of liquor from Canada.”
“For the speakeasy?”
Jack nodded.
Clayton looked to be mulling the matter over, chewing on the inside of his lip. “So what’s that matter to you?”
This was the question Jack had been waiting for Clayton to ask. There were a couple of lies Jack could try to pass off, he could always try to stall, to put it off like he’d done with Maddy, or he could tell the man the truth. After everything Clayton was risking in leading them to Jeffers, the least he deserved was an honest answer, but giving him one would destroy the cover Jack had been instructed to use.
Sometimes, the only thing to do is take a leap of faith…
“There’s a reason I needed you to get me here,” he began. “It’s why I came back to Colton. I need to know what Jeffers is doing because I work for—”
But before Jack could say another word the unmistakable sound of men laughing loudly sounded ahead. Instinctively, he and Clayton crouched low to the ground and began to work their way through the underbrush, toward the sound. Jack followed as Clayton dropped beneath the boughs of an evergreen, crawling among fallen pinecones and across a carpet of dried needles. Clayton signaled to slow, easing toward a rocky outcropping; it wasn’t until Jack was beside him that he realized the tree clung precariously close to the edge of a short but sheer hillside. Slowly, he leaned up and peeked over the edge.
Jack looked down into a valley that had been carved between two rocky outcroppings, their sides worn smooth over countless years of rain, wind, and ice. The ground between them was littered with fallen stones. The road he and Clayton had been following snaked down out of the trees and into the depression. There, at the widest spot of the valley floor, stood two large trucks, their engines rumbling as they idled. As Jack watched, Sumner slammed the back hatch of one of the trucks shut, closing the door on dozens of oak barrels and crates. Several other men dawdled between the two vehicles, smoking and talking. There, in the thick of it all, was Jeffers.
“Looks like yer hunch was right,” Clayton whispered.
“It was your good thinking that led us here.”
“You reckon that’s booze in the back end a that truck?”
“As sure as we’re lying here.”
“Makes me thirsty just lookin’ at it,” Clayton observed with a wink. “So what do we do now?”
Truthfully, Jack didn’t have an answer. He had what he needed: visual proof that Jeffers was bringing liquor illegally across the border. All it would take was a message to Lieutenant Pluggett and the Bureau of Prohibition would come raining down on the whole operation.
But that included Maddy…
There was another burst of laughter and it looked like things were breaking up. The Canadians walked back toward their own truck; as they went, Jack caught a glimpse of machine guns slung over shoulders. Moments later, the truck began moving with a grinding of gears. There was just enough room in the valley for the driver to turn it around. The man in the passenger’s seat gave a wave before driving out of sight, leaving Jeffers and Sumner alone in the woods.
Almost alone.
Jack couldn’t help but watch Sumner. The young man stood at the rear of the truck, looking like a petulant child who’d just been told off by his father. Angrily he kicked at rocks at his feet, his hands sunk in his pockets, his face creased by a deep scowl that looked an awful lot like the one he’d directed at Jack when they’d first driven past. Something had happened, but Jack had no idea what.
“Get your ass in the truck,” Jeffers growled. “We gotta get back so we can stash this away.”
“Okay, okay,” Sumner mumbled in answer.
But then, just as he was about to do as he was told, rounding the end of the truck, he looked up and came to a sudden stop. It took Jack a moment too long to realize that the thug was staring right at him. Sumner’s eyes grew wide with surprise, then narrowed in fury. What he did next was even more shocking.
Instead of shouting out a warning to Jeffers or cursing Jack’s name, Sumner pulled out a pistol and started firing.
Jeffers was just pulling open the door to the truck’s cab, his mind turning over how he’d have to hide the alcohol somewhere, maybe even out at his place, until they could unload it at the mercantile after nightfall, when the sudden, shocking sound of gunfire began to echo off the rock walls around him. His first thought was that someone was trying to take what was rightfully his, to put a bullet in him and steal the liquor he’d just loaded, cutting in on the business arrangement he’d built with one of Al Capone’s top lieutenants. Jeffers’s hand flew to his waistline and yanked his gun free, and he quickly pointed it in one direction, then another, and then yet another in the hope that he’d see someone to shoot before he was cut down. But then, even as the sound of the last gun blast ricocheted all around him, he heard Sumner shouting.
“I seen ya, you son of a bitch! I seen ya!”
Goddamn it! What in the hell’s he doin’ now?
As if Jeffers hadn’t already had his fill of problems with the boy, Sumner had not taken kindly to being told to stay in the truck while Jeffers dealt with the Canadians. Instead of just doing as he’d been told, he’d whined and moaned until Jeffers finally relented, snapping at him to help load the booze into the truck. Even then, the few times Jeffers had glanced Sumner’s way, it was clear the boy was out of sorts. And now, to make matters even worse, he was firing the gun Jeffers had reluctantly given him, shooting into the woods.
Jeffers raced around the rear of the truck just as Sumner fired yet again, the gun bucking in his hand, the sound deafeningly loud. Furious, Jeffers yanked the weapon from the boy’s hand, the barrel hot against his skin, and then grabbed a fistful of Sumner’s shirt and spun him around.
“What in the hell’re you doin’?” Jeffers shouted.
Sumner looked crazed: his eyes were wide and wild; spittle wet his lips, his fury barely restrained. He tugged relentlessly against Jeffers’s grip, trying to get loose, as if he were a dog on a leash, tired of being tied up on a hot summer day.
“I seen him!” Sumner shouted. “I seen him up that hill!” he pleaded, pointing up at the tree line to the south. Jeffers’s gaze followed, but he couldn’t see anything but evergreens and rocks.
“There ain’t nothin’ up there,” he growled.
“He was there, Jeffers!” the boy insisted. “He was!”
“Who was it?”
“That bastard Rucker! He was pokin’ his head over the edge and watchin’ us! He musta followed us from town and now he—”
Jeffers slapped Sumner in the mouth with the back of his hand as hard as he could; it sent another crack echoing around the small valley. The boy’s head snapped to the side and blood immediately began to trickle down his chin from a cut on his lip. Jeffers had hit Sumner because he wanted to knock some sense into his thick head, to make him see how crazily he was behaving, but when he looked back at Jeffers he seemed as unhinged as before, maybe worse.
“It was him!” Sumner refused to back down. “I swear it!”
When Jeffers raised his hand to hit him again, the boy shied away in fear, still trying to get free from the larger man’s grasp, but he didn’t stop pleading.
“I saw him!”
“You’re imaginin’ things,” Jeffers snarled.
“I’m not!”
“Think ’bout how crazy you’re talkin’! How in the hell would he a known what we were doin’? How could he follow us? You think he ran all the way out here?”
Sumner’s head kept looking back over his shoulder, back up to the hilltop he’d been pointing at. “I don’t know how he done it,” he said. “All I know is what I saw! He was there, Jeffers, honest!”
Jeffers couldn’t have said exactly what it was that made him wonder if there wasn’t some truth to Sumner’s claims. Maybe it was the fact that the boy had stuck to his story even after getting popped in the mouth and threatened with ano
ther. Maybe it was because there was something about Jack Rucker that still didn’t sit quite right with Jeffers. Or maybe it was because he was cautious by nature and especially now, so close to the reward he’d worked so hard for, he wasn’t in the mood to take any chances. Besides, it would hurt nothing to check things out…
“You saw him up there?” Jeffers nodded toward the hilltop.
“I did!” Sumner persisted.
“Then let’s go take us a look.”
Jack pressed himself flat on the ground beneath the evergreen tree as the first bullets whizzed overhead, ripping through the branches and careening off the rocky hillside. It wasn’t the first time he’d been shot at, but it was something he’d never gotten used to. Even though he knew he was out of Sumner’s line of sight, he still held his breath, fearful that the next shot would tear through him. Somewhere over the ringing echo of the gun blasts, he could hear shouting.
“We gotta get outta here!” Clayton hissed beside him.
“Let’s go,” he agreed.
Without another word, Jack burst out from under the tree and began running as quickly as he could. Dodging boulders, ducking low-hanging branches, and pushing through bushes in his path, he ran through the woods as fast as he could, straining to get away from Jeffers and Sumner as if his life depended on it, which it did. Without his revolver, there was no chance that he and Clayton could overcome the two criminals. If they caught up to them, they wouldn’t survive; they’d be shot down like dogs, without mercy.
On and on, Jack ran, his heart thundering in his chest. He expected to hear Jeffers shouting his name behind him or the crack of another gunshot just before the bullet slammed into his back, but there was another part of him thinking about Maddy, about how much he wanted to see her again, to hold her in his arms, to kiss her lips and tell her the honest truth about his life. It was that desperation that fueled him forward, that made him run faster, until his legs and lungs burned from the effort.
By Starlight Page 19
