The Drifter's Wheel

by Phillip DePoy

  Four or five sections of the forest floor, each several feet square, were alive with the sick color. Small wonder that some people in the mountains would walk a mile out of their way to avoid it.

  “What’s over there?” Andrews pointed around the hill in nearly the opposite direction, toward the boulders.

  “Not much.” I put my hands in my pockets. “Some shallow caves, a few really big rocks. If you keep going around and up, you’ll eventually get to the Devil’s Hearth.”

  “Caves?” He looked as if he might move. “Doesn’t that seem like the most likely place for someone to hide?”

  “About this time of year,” I answered, “you’re more likely to find a tired bear than anything else in those caves. You don’t want to fool with a bear.”

  “I don’t want to go down there.” He pointed in the direction of the blue-green light.

  And there it was: the human aversion to anything unfamiliar. Andrews, like most people, would rather face a real bear than imaginary fire. He understood what a bear was; he had no idea what made the fungus glow—even though I had offered him a perfectly good scientific explanation. He’d seen bears a hundred times. He’d seen foxfire twice. And even though the bear was certain danger and the luminescent fungus would never attack him, rake him with claws, or bite him with teeth, Andrews preferred the bear.

  Something about that observation set off a chain of other thoughts. I must have seemed paralyzed to Andrews, standing there and staring into space.

  “Fever?” He took a step my way. “What is it? Do you see something?”

  “Not exactly,” I told him slowly, “but I’m developing a theory about the man who called himself Truck Jackson.”

  “Now?” He seemed inexplicably impatient with me.

  “I think he was acting strangely on purpose,” I said, “to put us off. Lucinda and me, at least.”

  “You said that. Are you talking about something new?”

  “Not certain yet.”

  “Then can we please get moving?” he whined. “This raincoat isn’t very warm.”

  “And you’d rather go poke a bear than walk down in the woods.”

  “Let’s go.” He started upward in the direction of one of the largest boulders.

  The moon began to offer its guidance; here and there in the sky, a star blinked on. The wind kicked up dead leaves and dampened other, more subtle noises.

  The boulder seemed to lean toward the forest, as if it had a longing for the shelter of the trees. Too much rain, too many windstorms; long cold years had sculpted its lonesome posture.

  We rounded it and came to the top of a shelf, only a drop of several feet but a bit difficult to navigate. We scrambled down, loosening stones and clay and in general making a terrible clatter. At the bottom of the shelf and to our left we saw a series of caves. I couldn’t remember how many there were. I could have kicked myself for not bringing a flashlight. I had one in the truck, and thought about running back for it.

  Before I could even suggest such a thing, we heard a scrambling noise from inside the second-closest cave.

  “There!” Andrews pointed.

  I nodded.

  “If that’s our man, remember that he’s a small man,” I whispered, “but he’s got a gun.”

  “Who better than I would know that,” Andrews snarled.

  “I mean we should … ” I trailed off, finishing the sentence in sign language, trying to say that one of us should stand on one side of the cave entrance and the other on the opposite.

  He seemed to understand. He took off toward the cave, head down, fists balled. I could see the look on his face: game face, a mixture of rage and delight. Never shoot a rugby player like Andrews—it wouldn’t stop him, it would only make him angry. He won’t die and he’ll find you. And eat your liver. While you watch. All that was on Andrews’s face.

  I followed—my own face, surely, displaying a mixture more of fear and adrenaline than anything else, but I was ready nonetheless.

  Andrews achieved his place on the far side of the cave’s mouth; I stood at the other. The scrambling came again, as if the resident were trying to climb out through another hole in the mountain.

  He’s heard us, I thought. He’s trying to escape.

  “Now!” I shouted to Andrews.

  We both growled and plunged into the cave. I tried to make myself as big as possible, waving my arms and shouting incoherently. Andrews ran at a crouch ready to tackle. I could barely see, and Andrews was feeling his way along the ground.

  The scratching became even more frantic, and I thought I could make out movement at the back of the cave, only three yards away.

  “Stay where you are!” I barked. “You can’t get out.”

  I moved immediately after I spoke, in case he was thinking of firing his pistol again.

  But nothing happened. The cave fell silent.

  “Come on,” Andrews growled slowly in the direction of the rocks.

  The rising moon lit the entrance of the cave, but did little to reveal our target inside. Still, I thought once again that I could see a bit of movement, and began to inch toward it. Andrews nodded and moved, too, nearly on all fours.

  Without warning, the cave’s inhabitant flew past us, right between Andrews and me, and scrambled noisily out into the field—and he was much smaller than I remembered.

  “What the hell?” Andrews stood.

  We both strode to the mouth of the cave and looked down the weedy hill. A terrified raccoon, a very large one, was plummeting away from us, toward the eerie glow in the forest.

  Eighteen

  Andrews and I stood, two shadows in rising moonlight, watching other shadows move in the glowing woods until the raccoon disappeared.

  “Nice work, Sherlock,” Andrews sneered. “There goes my Daniel Boone hat.”

  “That’s not a hat. That’s a coat.” My heart was thumping and I was short of breath; I realized then how much the thing had frightened me.

  “I told you the guy wasn’t here,” Andrews muttered. He didn’t seem remotely fazed by the event. “We’re on a fool’s errand. And do you know what errand that is? Chasing wild geese. And—”

  “There are about twenty more caves,” I told him, working to calm my breathing. “The night is young.”

  “God.” He actually looked upward into the dark sky. “Please smite this man; he maketh a blight upon the land.”

  I only took a second to remember why that sounded familiar.

  “Isn’t that—”

  “It’s from The Producers. The original movie. Not an exact quote. And I haven’t seen the Broadway show or the new movie, so I don’t know—”

  “You’re Zero Mostel?”

  “No one,” he intoned, “is Zero Mostel.”

  “Agreed.” My panic was abating. “To the next cave?” In spite of his heavy sigh, Andrews pulled the oversized raincoat tightly around his neck and lumbered forward. “Lead on, McDuff. Not an exact quote.”

  “Misquoting Mel Brooks and Shakespeare—you’re in a rare mood.” I headed for the next cave.

  “I have a bullet wound,” he explained very carefully, as if he were teaching a class. “I am allowed a bit of mood.”

  The first cave in the cliff, the one we’d passed by, was barely large enough for a rabbit. The cave past the raccoon’s home was larger—bear sized. It was about twenty feet away.

  “Let’s toss something into this one,” I suggested, “and see if a raving bear comes charging out.”

  “You toss something in.” He stopped walking. “I’ll wait here. That way I’ll have a head start in case I have to outrun the bear.”

  “You know the joke, don’t you?” I headed for the cave. “You don’t have to run faster than the bear. You just have to run faster than your friends.”

  “Nice.” He still didn’t move.

  It was clear to me that Andrews and I were doing what some human beings have always done when they’re alone in the dark: deliberately making light o
f the situation in order to keep the terror at bay. Underneath every syllable was an implication of danger, the possibility of death.

  I slowed my pace and turned to Andrews. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “I’m not.”

  A soot-black cloud shot past the moon and plunged the landscape into complete darkness, reminding me how much light a moon was prepared to offer under the right circumstances.

  I couldn’t see where I was walking very well, so I waited a moment. The moon reappeared; so did the ground. I instantly found a softball-sized rock perfect for chucking into a cave to disturb a bear. I scooped it up and moved quickly.

  About five feet from the entrance, I turned to see where Andrews was. He hadn’t moved, but he waved, a bit halfheartedly. I nodded and turned my attention back to the yawning cavern. I got my footing, looked around to see where I could safely run if anything shot out of the cave, chose a path, and tossed the rock.

  It clapped and cracked for a second or two, almost echoing, but nothing else happened.

  “Go on in and look,” Andrews offered from his place well behind me. “Maybe you hit the bear on his head.”

  “I tossed the rock,” I told him. “You go in the cave.”

  “How about if I toss you in—” he began.

  The rest of his suggestion was interrupted by the distinctive clap of a gun being fired.

  Andrews dove to the ground. I, foolishly, stood looking around, trying to decide whence the shot had come. It took a second notification, a bullet fairly close, to shake me from my stupor and send me rolling behind a small crag.

  “Where’s it coming from?” Andrews demanded in a stage whisper.

  “Can’t tell,” I answered.

  “But he’s not in that big cave.”

  “Right.”

  I tried to keep as flat to the ground as possible and still see along the upper ridge.

  “Fever?” Andrews had somehow managed to get closer. “Did that sound like the same gun that shot me?”

  I blinked. It hadn’t sounded remotely like a pistol, upon reflection.

  I held my breath a moment, thinking, and by the time I exhaled I realized what an idiot I’d been.

  I sat up. “Red? Is that you shooting your gun at me? It’s Fever Devilin. And my friend from Atlanta. He’s on vacation.”

  For a moment the scattering of the wind and the pounding of blood in my temples were the only sounds.

  Then there was a grumbling at the top of the ridge above the caves. “I wasted two good bullets on that?”

  “It’s Red Jackson,” I told Andrews. “He makes a cheaper version of the apple brandy you like so much. He thought we were here to bother him. He does his work around here, and he doesn’t like to be disturbed.”

  “He’s a moonshiner?” Andrews whispered, fascinated, heading my way.

  “Not exactly,” I answered, “not in the way you mean it. But he is making an alcoholic substance, and he is producing more than the legal household limit. He works here at night because he works in a seed-and-feed store in the daytime.”

  Andrews arrived at my side. “How much is he making? I mean how much of the apple stuff—”

  “I think the household limit is around a hundred gallons a year, for personal consumption. Red makes that much a week. And sells it.”

  “Ah.”

  “It’s not as good as what you drink at my house.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that.” Andrews headed upward.

  “Red?” I called out. “Is it all right if my friend Dr. Andrews visits with you for a moment? He’s interested in purchasing.”

  There was a short silence, then another gunshot. This one came from below us, from the forest.

  “Jesus.” Andrews fell to the ground again.

  “Who’s that shooting now?” I called out.

  “Toby!” Red hollered. “What the hell are you doing? It’s Fever Devilin.”

  From down in the pines we heard the faint response. “You got to see this, Red. I shot me a raccoon the size of a bear down here.”

  “Hey.” Andrews scrambled to his feet. “My hat!”

  “Come on up,” Red sighed.

  Andrews and I wrestled with gravity, struggling up the ridge and over the caves. In a little clearing near the top of the mountain, Red sat tending a trio of witch-cauldrons, three hulking iron bellies filled with apples. They boiled over a low flame, and Red’s face was only half-human in the hellish crimson glow. His hair had mostly gone to gray, but a strand here and there still evidenced the nickname by which everyone knew him. A shotgun lay in his lap so comfortably it looked as if it might have been his arm.

  “You’uns make more noise than a cat down a well,” Red grumbled. “And toppled a portion of the graveyard fence. You’uns got to fix that back.”

  “How could you have heard that from here?” Andrews asked, astonished.

  “Family trait,” Red answered tersely. “All Jacksons has ears like rats, and I been watching you’uns since you crossed into the open fields.”

  “Family trait.” I walked slowly and hoped that Andrews would take a cue. Red wouldn’t have minded shooting us if he thought we were there for any reason other than to buy his wares.

  Andrews, alas, was too fascinated for caution. “This is fantastic!” His eyes flashed, trying to take in everything.

  Red glared at me.

  “Dr. Andrews,” I said slowly. “Could you just stand where you are for a moment?”

  “But look,” he said. “Is this what you do? You boil the apples?”

  “You have to make the cider first,” I told Andrews impatiently. “Then you distill it. You’re seeing the first part of the process here.”

  “How did you learn this?” he asked Red. “How do you know what to … I’d like to know how—”

  “My family has been making apple brandy for nearly three hundred years in America.” Red’s face was sterner than a preacher’s. “You don’t learn how to do it. No learning to it at all. You grow up watching it, and by and by you do it yourself. You people from Atlanta and places like that, you don’t know spit. Moonshine. I heard you say it. Moonshine is dung in a bucket—”

  “‘Moonshine’ is generally the word used for spirits that have undergone only one distillation,” I said to Andrews hastily. “It’s a quicker process that doesn’t get rid of potential poisons.”

  “That’s right,” Red growled. “We run twice. Always twice.”

  “Red and his family, I believe, collect the juice of milled apples in large barrels and ferment them with brewer’s yeast. That apple juice averages around thirteen percent sugar, which translates to roughly six percent alcohol by volume. But if you distill it, you get something around eighty proof.”

  “I don’t know about all that.” Red shifted on his stool, holding his gun tightly. “We ferment in one of them caves down there. Takes two months. Then you take and use a pot still with the cider. Got to heat it enough to boil alcohol, not quite so hot as you boil water. Get you a vapor, collect it, send it through again, and there you go. Got something fine to sip.”

  “And your family has been doing this—”

  “Three hundred years.” Red was impatient. “How much you want?”

  Andrews stared into one of the boiling pots. “When will it be ready?”

  “This?” Red cracked a smile. It was more frightening than his stern look. “This won’t be ready but for New Year’s. I got some I done put together. You take ten gallons. That’s worth my time.”

  “Ten gallons?” Andrews seemed stunned at his good fortune. “How long will it keep?”

  “I expect it’ll keep till you die,” Red drawled, standing, “or till Judgment, which-one-ever come first.”

  “We can’t carry ten gallons,” I interrupted just as Red was getting ready to haggle about the price—which surely would have been triple what any local would pay. “I’ll have to go get the truck and bring Dr. Andrews around to … well, where, exactly?”

&nbs
p; Red squinted suspiciously at me for a moment. “If that truck of yours can make it up the Hearth, where Hovis and Barbrie used to live, you meet me up yonder. But I won’t be done here for another three, four hours. And then I got—”

  “Midnight?” I asked Red. “I think that would give us time for our work, and it would just about complete Dr. Andrews’s experience.”

  “Absolutely,” Andrews enthused. “Midnight at the Devil’s Hearth for apple brandy. Damn.”

  “Language, boy!” Red exploded. “Don’t take to that kind of talk!”

  “What?” Andrews was so surprised by Red’s vehemence that he stumbled backward.

  I held up my hand. “Red—he lives in Atlanta. And, really, he’s from England.”

  Red sighed, accepting that people from other worlds had strange ways.

  “So.” Andrews waved happily. “See you then.”

  “Let’s go fix the fence,” I said to Andrews, my tones a bit louder than they needed to be, “and get my truck.”

  “Um,” Andrews began, “all right, but I thought—”

  “We have to fix the fence. Red is right about that.”

  Andrews seemed momentarily confused by my sudden change of heart concerning seeking out the murderer, but when he caught my eye, he understood, at least, that we had to leave Red’s encampment.

  “Okay.” Andrews turned his back on the man with the gun and started down the hill toward the cemetery. He seemed only too happy to be returning to the truck.

  I nodded to Red. “Sorry to bother you at work, Red.”

  “Heard you, too,” he answered, his eyes narrow slits. “You think somebody else’s drink is better than mine. So why you to bring that’un up here to me?”

  I cursed my loud voice—and his good hearing—before I realized that I might disarm him with, of all things, the truth.

  “I’m certain you’ve heard about the dead body they found behind Edna Jackson’s home.” I stood my ground and folded my arms. “That’s the real reason for my visit up here. Although Dr. Andrews would, in fact, be interested in a purchase from you.”

  “Sheriff arrested Hovis.” Red shook his head and cradled his gun as if it were a baby.

  “You and I know Hovis didn’t do it. That’s why I’m poking around up here after dark when I’d rather be at home in front of the fire. I believe that Hovis Daniels could stand to have somebody on his side, for once in his life.”