“Then I’d better turn back.”
“You look like you could use a drink of water,” Tom said when he saw how red and sweaty Amy was.
She hesitated. “Is your father going to be home?”
“What’s the matter, you scared he’ll say somethin’ about you messin’ with his still?” Tom challenged.
“Of course not! And I am a little thirsty. Will it be all right with your mother if I come?”
Tom was surprised by the pang of sadness he felt at Amy’s question. “Ma’s been gone more ’n six years now,” he said.
“Oh, Tom! I’m so sorry.”
The warm sympathy in her voice seemed to loosen his tongue. “I wish I knew where she was, an’ if I’ll ever see her again,” he said wistfully.
“She’s in heaven, Tom, I just know she is,” Amy said. “And you’ll see her again in the sweet by-and-by.” She began to hum the tune of the old hymn as she walked.
Tom couldn’t bring himself to tell Amy the truth. Why hadn’t he kept his mouth shut? He should have let her start back instead of giving her the chance to tum up her nose at their small, mud-chinked cabin with its sagging shake roof.
Tom opened the gate, and Amy headed straight for the rocking chair on the porch. As she sank into it, her eye fell on the open sack of com Tom and Pa had shelled the night before. Her expression darkened and she said, “You’re going to use that for com liquor, aren’t you?”
Before Tom could reply, a voice behind them said, “Moonshiners eat com bread, same as anybody else, you know. Tom’s takin’ that there corn to Nathan’s Mill this afternoon.”
Amy was out of the chair and facing Pa in an instant, and Tom thought she looked a little frightened. “I—I just stopped to get a drink, Mr. Higgins,” she said.
Pa looked down at her disapprovingly. “Drinkin’s unseemly in a woman. An’ you’ll break your pa’s heart, besides. Take my advice an’ stay away from the eee-vils of likker.” He looked at her sternly for a moment. Then he drank deeply from the water gourd and headed back to the com patch.
Amy’s face was pale, but her eyes glowed with anger. “He was making fun of me!”
“That’s small punishment for all the trouble you caused,” Tom said. “How’d you know salt would stop that mash from workin’, anyhow?”
Amy looked puzzled. “I just wanted to make it taste bad so people wouldn’t drink it,” she said.
“You better not do nothin’ like that again.” If she ever stumbled onto Eddie Jarvis’s still, she could be in real danger.
Defiantly, Amy said, “You can’t tell me what to do, Tom Higgins.”
“I ain’t tellin’ you nothin’ different than your pa would if he knew what you’d been up to,” Tom said, watching her carefully. Some of the color drained from her face, and Tom wasn’t sure whether she was angry or afraid. “I bet he’d be a lot more upset to hear about what you done the other day than he was about losin’ his lumber pile,” he added.
“I’ll make you a bargain,” Amy said. “I’ll stay away from your father’s still, and you won’t tell my father anything. Okay?”
Tom tried not to show his surprise that Amy took his veiled threat seriously. “You stay away from all stills,” he said. “Find yourself some other way to work against the eee-vils of likker.”
For a moment, Tom thought he had gone too far, but Amy grinned and said, “You sounded exactly like him!” Then, serious again, she said, “So let’s get this straight. I’ll stay away from everybody’s stills and you won’t say a word to my father—or even hint to him—about what I did. All right?” When Tom nodded, wondering why she’d given in so easily. Amy stuck her hand out and looked at him expectantly. “We have to shake hands if it’s going to be a binding agreement,” she said impatiently. She grabbed his hand and shook it. Then, looking smug, she said, “I wouldn’t have gone looking for stills, anyway, because this morning my father made me promise never to go off the trails.”
“I wouldn’t of told, either.”
“I didn’t really think you would,” Amy said, her eyes meeting Tom’s.
Flustered, he bent over tb pick up the nearly empty bucket. “I—I’ll get some more water so you can have your drink before you start home,” he said. Amy was different from the mountain girls, and Tom wasn’t quite sure what to make of her.
5
That noon, Tom sliced himself a hunk of leftover com bread and spread a thick layer of butter on it. Pa might say drinking was unseemly in a woman, he thought, but that didn’t stop him from supplying the Widow Brown with whiskey in return for butter and other vittles.
“You really want me to take that com we shelled down to the mill this afternoon?” he asked. “The sack ain’t full yet.”
“That’s what I told that li’l gal, an’ lyin’ ain’t one of my eee-vils,” Pa said. “Besides, goin’ to the mill will give you a excuse to check on things down at the settlement. I heard the signal again while you was gone.”
“I almost forgot,” Tom said. And then he told his father about the bootprint by Jenkins Branch.
“That ain’t the kind of thing you forgit!” Pa said heatedly. “See that it don’t happen again—ever, you hear?”
“I hear.”
Pa sank back into his chair and mused, “Must of been that stranger ÏÃMan Barnes told you about. But if he’s a revenuer, he must be a beginner.”
Pushing his chair back from the table, Tom said, “I’ll see what I can find out down at the mill.” He lugged the sack of shelled corn to the gate and went to whistle for ÏÃ Sal, the swaybacked mare grazing in the rocky pasture. A few minutes later, he was headed toward the settlement, riding atop the sack of corn.
At the mill, Tom tied Ol’ Sal to the hitching rail between Cat Johnson’s horse and Doc Mowbray’s. He shouldered the sack of corn, trying not to stagger under its weight, and went into the mill. Sunlight shining through the window reflected from the dust floating in the air and made a wide golden beam. And at the end of the beam sat a man Tom had never seen before, a large man with reddish brown hair and a drooping mustache.
“Hey, Tom!” the miller called, interrupting his conversation with Cat Johnson and Doc Mowbray. And then he turned to the stranger. “This here’s June Higgins’s boy—you know, the one 1 was tellin’ you about.” The miller had to shout to make himself heard over the ramble of machinery.
The stranger stood up and walked over to Tom. “Pleased to meet you,” he said, extending his hand. “My name’s Paul Anderson. You can call me Andy.”
Awkwardly, Tom shook the man’s hand, wondering why anybody would be pleased to meet him.
“I’d like to talk to you, son,” Andy said. “Let’s go outside, away from all this noise.”
Tom followed the man to the shade of a huge chestnut tree, his mind awhirl. Revenuers often hung around mills, hoping to catch moonshiners who took their sprouted grain to be ground, but the miller would never have given a revenuer Pa’s name. He wouldn’t have given Pa’s name to a stranger looking for whiskey, either, because that was how some tricky revenuers operated. So why was this man interested in Pa?
Andy leaned against the tree trunk and opened his tobacco pouch, while Tom sat on the grass and watched him go through the ritual of filling and lighting his pipe. At last the sweet tobacco aroma drifted across the still air, and Andy spoke. “I understand you live a couple miles up the trail from here,” he said.
Tom nodded. “The thing is, there’s mad dogs loose on the mountain up there,” he said, watching Andy closely. If the man was looking to buy moonshine, he’d reply, “Mad dogs don’t scare me. It’s mad men I worry about.”
But Andy frowned and asked, “Are you sure? I hadn’t heard about any rabies around here.”
Shrugging, Tom said, “Could of been a pack of hounds bayin’, I guess.”
“Rabid dogs don’t run in packs,” Andy said, sounding relieved. Then he said, “So June Higgins is your mother.”
Tom could hardly believe his ears. “He’s my fath
er!” he said indignantly.
Andy looked confused and embarrassed. “Sorry. Where I come from June’s a woman’s name.”
“Well, ‘round here it’s short for Junior,” Tom said.
Andy puffed on his pipe for a moment before he asked, “What’s your father’s full name, then?”
“Junior Higgins.” What else could it be?
Andy’s gray eyes were thoughtful, and after a moment he asked, “The younger man in the mill, is his full name Doctor Mowbray?”
“It’s just Doc. His ma named him after ol’ Doc Ennis, the doctor from town that cured her when she had typhoid.”
Andy stared off into the distance, as though he were storing that piece of information away until he needed it. Then he looked directly at Tom. “I hear June Higgins is quite a storyteller.”
Tom grinned. Pa was just about as well known for his stories as for his moonshine.
“I’d like to hear some of his stories,” Andy continued. He leaned forward a little and said, “You see, I listen to people’s stories and write them down. I’m going to put them in a book, and after each one, I’ll say who told it and where they live.”
Pa might be famous! “Cat Johnson there in the mill an’ the Widow Brown tell ‘em ‘most as good as Pa, an’ Jonah Simpson can tell a passable tale, too.” Tom wanted to make sure Andy filled his book.
“I’ll be boarding at Mrs. Brown’s cabin, so maybe I can persuade her to tell me some of her stories.”
“A drink of whiskey might loosen her tongue,” Tom said, watching Andy closely.
Andy’s eyes met Tom’s. “Do you know where I can buy some whiskey?”
“I—I might be able to find out,” Tom said, looking away. He was confused. Was Andy telling the truth, or was he a clever revenuer who won people’s trust by listening to their stories?
“Let me know if you do,” Andy said. After a pause he asked, “When would be a good time for me to meet your father?”
“How about two nights from now?” Tom suggested, not wanting to sound too eager.
“Two nights from now it is, then,” Andy said as he got to his feet. “I’ll holler when I come near.”
Now Tom was more puzzled than ever. Hollering was the custom in the mountains, but outsiders didn’t know that. Preacher Taylor sure didn’t. Pa would have to figure it out, Tom thought as he watched Andy walk back to the mill.
Tom looked around when someone called his name, and he saw a sturdy dark-haired boy coming toward him, followed by a narrow-shouldered fellow whose arms looked too long for his body. It was Lonny Rigsby and his cousin, Harry Perkins.
“Wanna hunt crawdads with us?” Lonny asked.
“Sure,” Tom said, standing up. He liked splashing through the creek and trying to catch the funny-looking little water creatures before they scurried under a rock—or pinched his fingers with their claws. “But I ain’t got no pail.”
“That don’t matter,” Lonny said cheerfully, “’cause you probably won’t find no crawdads.”
Tom grinned as he fell into step with the other boys. “Probably not. An’ if I do, I’ll just give ‘em to Harry.”
“You hear about the fire Eddie Jarvis set last night?” Harry asked, ignoring the other boys’ bantering.
So it was Eddie Jarvis. “You mean down at the mission?” Tom asked.
Harry nodded. “That preacher met up with him on the road an’ commenced talkin’ against whiskey. Quoted at him from the Bible.”
“Made Eddie so mad he couldn’t sleep,” Lonny added, “so he got up an’ went over there an’ set fire to the preacher’s lumber pile. Sort of as a wamin’, like. Wish I could of seen it.”
“Might make that preacher think twice before he starts tryin’ to rid the holler of stills an’ turn everybody away from drink,” Harry added.
“It might,” Tom said, but he didn’t think for a minute that it would.
6
“I want you to take the Widow Brown some buttermilk,” Pa said after breakfast the next day.
Buttermilk? Tom stared at him.
Pa grinned wickedly and said, “Go on ‘round to the spring box an’ git it.”
Mystified, Tom went around the cabin to the small rectangular concrete cistern below the spring, where they cooled their perishables. Six two-quart jars of white liquid stood in the water that flowed through the spring box and nearly filled it. A smile spread across Tom’s face as he unscrewed a lid and peered into one of the jars. Pa sure was clever. How had he ever thought of painting the insides of his jars white?
Tom put one in a sack, slung it over his shoulder, and started on his way, whistling. As he turned off the trail to the settlement and headed toward Jenkins Branch, he thought of Amy wearing herself out on the climb to the cabin the day before. She was one stubborn girl.
Tom had just crossed the footlog when he saw Amy riding toward him. “What’s in that sack?” she demanded by way of greeting.
“Buttermilk for the Widow Brown,” Tom lied, lifting out the jar for her to see.
Amy made a face. “We only drink sweet milk at our house.” Swinging down from the saddle she said, “I’ll walk along with you.”
“But I’m goin’ the other way.”
She shrugged. “I wasn’t going anywhere in particular.”
As they started off together Tom said, “The first path that goes off this road between here an’ the mission leads to Miz Brown’s place.”
“I know—I’ve been to visit her. Father doesn’t see how such an old woman manages all by herself way out here. He thinks having the mission nearby will be a real blessing to her.”
Tom looked at Amy in amazement. “Didn’t you see her garden an’ all them chickens? That ïÃwoman manages just fine.” When Amy looked at him doubtfully, he added, “She puts food by for winter an’ trades eggs an’ vegetables to ÏÃMan Barnes for ‘most anything else she needs. An’ she’s a granny woman, too.”
“A granny woman?”
Tom nodded. “Ain’t hardly a soul ‘round here she didn’t bring into the world.”
“Oh, you mean she’s a midwife,” Amy said.
Tom seethed inwardly, wondering why she thought her word was better than the one everybody else used. They walked in silence for a few minutes, with Agamemnon plodding along behind them, before Amy said, “I don’t see why you’re taking Mrs. Brown buttermilk when she has her own cow. When I was there, I saw cow pies all around her fence.”
“Cow pies?” Could she mean what he thought she did?
Amy looked embarrassed. “You know. You see them all over the ground where cattle have been.”
That was what she meant. Tom practically doubled over with laughter.
By now Amy’s face was scarlet. “You still haven’t answered my question,” she said, glaring at Tom. “I want to know how come you’re taking buttermilk to Mrs. Brown.”
Thinking fast, Tom said, “Her cow’s gone dry, that’s how come.”
Then he hollered, “Hoo-hoo!” He paused for a moment and repeated, “Hoo-hoo!”
Amy stared at him. “What was that all about?”
“You’re supposed to holler before you git to somebody’s place.”
“You are? Why?”
“It’s just the decent thing to do. It keeps you from surprisin’ ‘em.”
The old woman met them at the gate, a smile lighting up her wizened face. “Pa sent you some buttermilk, since your cow’s dry,” Tom said, confidently lifting the jar from the sack. He knew she wouldn’t give him away.
“You two can put it in the springhouse while I tie ‘Memnon to the fence,” Mrs. Brown said as she took the reins from Amy.
Inside the springhouse, Tom placed the jar in the icy water that flowed through a trough in the middle of the small, cool building. Amy looked at the basket of eggs on the shelf and then began lifting the lids and peering into the crocks cooling in the trough. Tom watched disapprovingly, surprised at how nosy she was.
Then they walked to the cab
in, scattering the hens that were scratching in the yard. Inside, Mrs. Brown motioned them to the table, saying, “I never yet saw young’ns that couldn’t eat a extry ham biscuit or two. These were left over from my boarder’s breakfast.”
“You have a boarder?” Amy asked, her eyes traveling around the tidy one-room cabin. “Where does he sleep?”
“Up in the loft where I dry my herbs. But he don’t complain. Says he likes the smell of sage an’ mint, an’ that the board more ‘n makes up for the room.”
Tom finished his ham biscuit and thought enviously of Andy enjoying food like that two or three times a day.
As if reading his mind, the Widow Brown began bustling around. “I’ll make up a packet of biscuits an’ butter an’ some fried chicken for you an’ your pa. An’ I’ll put in a jar of them cucumber pickles you like so well, too.”
“I have to go now,” Amy said suddenly. “Thank you very much for the biscuit, Mrs. Brown.” And without a word to Tom, she left.
From the cabin door, the Widow Brown watched Amy untie Agamemnon, mount, and ride off. The old woman tumed and looked thoughtfully at Tom, and then she came over to the table. Cupping his chin in her gnarled hand, she tipped his head so that she could look into his eyes.
“You listen to me, Tom,” she said earnestly. “I know you’re too young to be thinkin’ about things like this just yet, but I might not be ‘round to tell you, when the time comes. Don’t you lose your heart to that li’l gal. Or to any flatlander, for that matter. Mark my words, nothin’ but heartache would come of it. You hear me, boy?”
The Widow Brown released his chin, but she still held him with her eyes. “I hear you, Miz Brown,” he whispered.
“There’s a good lad,” the old woman said, giving his shoulder a squeeze. “Now help yourself to another biscuit while I git them vittles from the springhouse.”
Obediently, Tom took a biscuit, but he slipped it into his overalls pocket for later. Why had Mrs. Brown looked so serious when she warned him not to fall for Amy? (As if he would.) And what could he have done to make Amy go off without saying good-bye? And why did Mrs. Brown have to spoil his day by talking about when she might not be around?
Moonshiner's Son Page 3
