“This time it’s different,” continued Pike. “This time we have a chance to stop the virus at the source. Each of you will remember today as the day you were asked to make a decision that could save all of humanity. I only hope that you are brave enough to do so.”
Less than an hour later, everyone except for General Carr signed on to the president’s plan. Many were ashen and quiet as they left the room, unsure of exactly what they had done and whether or not it would even be enough. General Carr remained behind.
As soon as the room was clear, Pike turned to him.
“Say what’s on your mind, General.”
“Sir, I implore you to reconsider this decision.”
“To what end? To allow time for the virus to spread? If you have a better plan, General, I’d like to hear it. Otherwise, we go forward with what I’ve proposed.”
“There are a thousand other things we could try.”
Yumi stepped up behind Carr, grinning as she went through the motion of cutting his throat. Pike did his best to ignore her.
“Try being the operative word. I’m not going to risk all of mankind because you didn’t have the courage to travel the difficult road.”
“Is that what you think this is? Cowardice?”
“That’s your word, not mine.”
General Carr shook his head. “I’ll tell you what this is, Mr. President. It’s pure madness.”
“It’s madness to save mankind?”
“In the manner you prescribe, yes.”
Yumi turned her imaginary knife into a hammer and pretended to smash Carr’s head.
President Pike stood. “Your concerns are duly noted, General. Now, if that’s all, I have another meeting.”
Carr also stood up. “Consider this my resignation, Mr. President.”
Pike shrugged. “If that’s what you want. There are others who can do your job.”
“Like General Hood, I suppose.”
“General Hood is a good man.”
Carr stared at him for a moment as if trying to see behind the veil.
“I suspected as much, but now I see that I was right.”
“Right about what?”
“About you and Hood being responsible for the attack on Glynco.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
As the president turned to leave, the general offered a final warning.
“A day will come when you’ll be held accountable, not only for the atrocity you are about to commit, but for what happened at Glynco as well.”
Pike turned to him, making no attempt to hide the intense hatred in his eyes.
“There will be a day, General, when we all pay for what we’ve done. Count on it.”
President Pike used his foot to push the chair away from his desk. Yumi rode sidesaddle on his lap with her arms wrapped around his neck.
“General Carr’s going to be trouble,” he said.
Yumi leaned down to kiss his eyebrows.
“So, kill him.”
“It’s not that easy. He’s powerful. The military respects him.”
“He killed me.”
“I know that.”
“So, I want my revenge.” She traced his eyelid with her tongue.
“And I’ll get it for you. I promise.”
“You’d better.”
“His resignation should make it easier. I’ll have General Hood take care of him. They’ve had bad blood for years.”
She giggled. “I so wish I could be there to see him choking on his own blood.”
“No,” he said, reaching up and grabbing her arms, “you have to stay with me. You promised, remember?”
She smiled. “I’m not leaving you, lover. But don’t make me wait too long.”
“I won’t,” he promised. “General Carr will die very soon.”
“Okay, I believe you.” She leaned forward and brushed her lips against his ear, smiling slightly as he closed his eyes. “I want a souvenir.”
He flinched.
“Have them bring me his ear? Better yet, make it his tongue.”
“I… I don’t know. I’ll try.”
She stood up and leaned back against his desk, propping one of her legs on his chair so that he could see up her skirt.
“Carr knew you were up to something in Lexington. He could tell it was all a big fat lie.”
“He couldn’t know for sure. No one could. We burned the bodies.”
“No one except for General Hood.”
“Right, except for him.”
“You’ll have to get rid of him too eventually. You know that.”
President Pike said nothing as he stared up her skirt.
She parted her legs slightly.
“You can’t trust anyone but me. Not even your favorite general.”
He swallowed. “Okay. But not yet. I still need him.”
“No, lover, not yet. I’ll let you know when it’s time.”
CHAPTER
19
Mason sang along with Bon Jovi as Wanted Dead or Alive filled the cab of his pickup. With the confrontations of Ashland behind him, he felt free and back on point to complete his own mission. Even Bowie seemed to be enjoying the raucous tune. Since leaving Prestonsburg two hours earlier, they had made pretty good time, traveling nearly sixty miles on Kentucky Route 402. The Daniel Boone National Forest was ten miles directly ahead, and beyond that came Winchester and then Lexington.
The sun was already getting low in the sky, and Mason had been keeping an eye out for a good place to stop for the evening. A small dirt driveway exited off to the right, and a cabin peeked out from behind the trees a little ways up the mountain. Figuring that it was better to be away from the main road, he turned off and slowly maneuvered around potholes to traverse the long, narrow drive.
As he got to the top of the dirt road, an old cabin came into full view. The roof was covered in a thick layer of pine straw, and the porch was sagging in on one side from decades of wood rot. A rusty Chevrolet pickup was parked out front with the tailgate down and a bed full of junk—spare tires, boxes of clothes, and even a toilet. A large group of children were outside, the older ones relaxing in rocking chairs on the porch and the younger ones playing tag in the knee-high weeds.
Finding a house in which people still lived was rather uncommon, not to mention dangerous, and Mason debated on whether he should turn back or stop in to say hello. The decision was made for him when an old man stepped out onto the porch with a double-barreled shotgun in hand. Turning around would put a gun at his back, and that was not something Mason was accustomed to doing. Instead, he pulled his truck into the small gravel drive and stepped out to stand behind the engine compartment. He raised one hand high into the air and offered a friendly wave.
The old man lowered the shotgun and nodded.
Bowie hopped down and studied the children, his tail wagging with excitement.
“First,” said Mason, “we see if we’re welcome.”
They approached the cabin, and the old man stepped down off the porch to meet them. He wore denim coveralls and a sweat-stained straw hat. His face was weathered with deep creases, and he had a thick beard that was more gray than black.
“Good evening,” offered Mason.
“Evenin’,” he said, showing off crooked yellow front teeth.
Mason slid his jacket open to reveal his badge.
“I’m Deputy Marshal Mason Raines. I don’t mean you or yours any harm.”
The old man nodded and seemed to relax a little.
“I’m Mose. Sorry about ole Betsy,” he said, patting the barrel of the shotgun. “Can’t be too careful these days.”
“Understood.” Mason looked over at the children, many of whom were now watching him and Bowie. “Are all these kids yours?”
“Them’s my grandkids. Eleven of ‘em, all told. Their pa’s inside… restin’.�
��
There was something about the way he said “resting” that seemed to suggest there was more to it than that, but Mason let it go. It wasn’t his business.
Bowie whined and danced around, looking at the children running and playing in the yard. The old man leaned down and scratched his neck affectionately.
“Well, go on then.”
Bowie looked up at Mason for his approval.
He nodded and the dog took off to join in the festivities. The children shrieked and laughed, marveling at his size. They didn’t, however, seem the slightest bit afraid of Bowie. Undoubtedly, they had been around animals their entire life.
“You thirsty?”
“I could use a little water if you have some.”
“Course we got water,” he laughed. “But I think we can do a little better than that. Follow me.”
Mose led Mason around the cabin and down to a small creek. Three huge metal canisters, all plumbed together with copper piping, sat at the water’s edge. An old chair, cut firewood, and a diesel generator sat next to them. The entire setup was shaded by a large tarp hung from branches overhead.
“You built a moonshine still,” Mason said, not at all surprised.
Mose gave him a crooked smile.
“You gonna arrest me, Marshal?”
“Not hardly. But I might take a sip, if you’d be so obliged.”
Mose leaned over and put his nose under a cloth covering what looked like a giant metal milk jug. A blackened fire pit sat beneath it.
“Whoo-hoo, that’s about ripe, all right,” he said. “Go on, give it a whiff.”
Mason moved up and took a quick sniff. The odor was sour and fermented.
“Wow,” he said, wrinkling his nose.
“Good, right?”
He straightened up and stepped back, wiping at his eyes.
“Oh yeah.”
“Good shine takes a lot a work and a li’l bit a love. This particular mix is called Kentucky Rodent, on account of the occasional squirrel or rat fallin’ in. But don’t worry, I always pull ’em back out.”
Mason shook his head, smiling. Mose was like every other Kentucky moonshiner he had ever met, an artist who loved to show off his handiwork.
“You ever made any shine, Marshal?”
“Can’t say that I have.”
“You interested in learnin’ how?”
“Sure.” In a world where everything had to be handmade, understanding how to mix up a little hard liquor seemed like knowledge worth having.
“Come on then, let ole Mose ’splain how it’s done.” He pointed to the container they had sniffed. “You start by addin’ twenty gallons of boilin’ water to five pounds of cornmeal. Nothin’ special about either one of ’em. Let that cool enough that you can stick your pecker in without burnin’ it off. That there gives you your basic mash. Next, you add twenty pounds of sugar and an ounce of yeast. That’ll get to foamin’ up for a few days as the yeast does its business. Once it stops bubblin’, you got your sour mash.”
“It was sour, all right.”
“At that point, it’s ready for some heat and pressure. The magic temperature is one-seventy-three. Any hotter’n that, and it’ll turn to poison. Make you go blind and grow hair on your palms,” he said, chuckling.
“A hundred and seventy-three degrees. Got it.”
“The steam’ll flow out the copper worm and travel over to the cooling pot. I use water from the crick for that. Once it condenses, the shine’ll drip right out the other end of the tube.” He motioned toward the end of the copper tubing, which was positioned directly over a wooden bucket. “It’s damn near like magic.”
“That doesn’t sound so hard.”
“Oh, it’s hard all right. About a hundred and ninety proof hard!” he cackled.
Mason chuckled. The old man seemed harmless enough and quite a card to boot.
Mose looked up at the sky, which was growing darker by the minute.
“We’d best be gettin’ back now. I’ll work this batch tomorrow, but don’t you worry none. I got plenty of shine up at the house.”
The sound of crickets, frogs, and owls filled the night like a symphony reaching its crescendo. Mason, Mose, and Carolyn, the oldest of the eleven children, sat on the porch, rocking in rickety old chairs. Mose sucked on a pipe, and Carolyn was busy sewing up a shirt for one of her brothers. Bowie lay at Carolyn’s feet, exhausted from an evening of playing chase with the kids.
Mason took another small sip from a glass jar. The moonshine burned his throat, but he offered nothing but a polite nod to Mose.
“You folks lived here a long time?”
“Since way back when. My great granpappy settled this land back when Indians were still runnin’ around.”
Despite having known Mose and his extended family for only a couple of hours, Mason felt relaxed and at peace. He had always identified with people who lived in the country, whether they were farmers, miners, or ranchers. There was something wholesome about people who were willing to get their hands dirty.
He slid an antique silver harmonica out of his pocket. It had been a gift from a family in need of water several weeks back.
“Do you mind?”
“A man doesn’t need permission to give everyone around him a gift,” Mose said with a smile. “I’m assumin’, of course, that you know how to work that thing.”
Mason brought it to his lips and played Red Wing, a catchy little Kentucky tune that before long had everyone tapping their feet. He messed up a couple of times, but neither Mose nor Carolyn seemed to notice. When he was finished, both of them clapped enthusiastically.
“Mighty nice,” said Mose. “Yes, sir, mighty nice.”
“Play another one, Marshal, please, oh please,” begged Carolyn.
Before he could answer, the screen door creaked open, and a man stepped out onto the porch. He had a blanket wrapped around his shoulders even though the temperature was a pleasant sixty degrees.
“Who are you?” he asked, staring hard at Mason.
“That there’s Marshal Raines,” said Mose. “He and his dog are stayin’ with us for the night. You just missed a real nice song.”
The man said something under his breath and flopped down onto a chair next to Mose.
“Marshal,” said Mose, “this here’s my son, Zeb. The youngins are his.”
“Our mother died on account of the virus,” said Carolyn.
Despite being covered in dirt from a long day’s work, Carolyn was a beautiful young lady with bright eyes and a smile that could melt frost off a cold windshield.
“I’m sorry about that,” he said with a heartfelt smile.
She nodded and went back to her sewing.
“We hated to lose ole’ Milly,” said Mose. “Beautiful woman, she was. But at least the children are all okay. Not a single one came down with the pox, which was God’s work if you ask me.”
“God’s work, my ass,” Zeb mumbled, shaking his head.
Mose kept on rocking and puffing on his pipe like he hadn’t even heard him.
“What about you, Zeb?” asked Mason. “You look a bit flushed. Are you coming down with something?”
Zeb only shook his head. When he didn’t say more, Mose chimed in.
“My boy worked over at the coal mine for twenty years. One day, he got caught in a slide when they blasted away part of the mountain. Broke his back in four places. It still gives him trouble from time to time, so kindly overlook his poor manners.”
“My manners are none of your business, old man.”
Again, Mose ignored him, staring off into the peaceful night.
Carolyn, however, cut her eyes at her father and seemed ready to come to her grandfather’s defense, should another cross word be said.
Zeb reached across Mose and grabbed up a jar of the moonshine. He took a long swig and closed his eyes.
“Bowie and I appreciate the hospitality,” offered Ma
son.
At the mention of his name, Bowie raised his head a little. Carolyn reached down and patted him softly, and the dog’s back leg started bouncing up and down.
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