Moonshiner's Son

by Carolyn Reeder

  “What do they buy with all that money, Andy?” Tom asked.

  “Jewels and furs for their women. Fancy clothes. Faster automobiles so they can make more trips and get more money to buy things they don’t need.” Andy sounded sad and weary.

  Tom couldn’t imagine why anyone would risk going to jail to make money to buy things they didn’t need. Soon as Pa sold Ol’ Man Barnes enough moonshine to pay his due bills at the store and get cash money for his land tax, he’d do one more run to last him and Mrs. Brown the winter. Then he’d be through stilling for the year. He might have been almost through by now, Tom thought, if it hadn’t been for Amy and the revenuers.

  The three of them sat silently, each lost in his own thoughts, until Andy roused himself and said, “Mrs. Brown was wondering if you had any ‘buttermilk’ left, June. Her rheumatism’s acting up again, and she needs some to make the remedy that eases it.”

  “This here’s my last jar, but I’ll fill up your flask to last her till we run that peach brandy,” Pa said. “With folks’ peaches comin’ in now an’ one kind of apple or another ripenin’ after that, we’re gonna be right busy.”

  Tom hoped they wouldn’t be so busy that Pa would change his mind about letting him go to the mission school.

  18

  Sunlight poured through the windows of the schoolhouse-chapel and fell on the floor in distorted golden rectangles. It was so bright and airy that Tom could almost imagine he was outdoors. And even with nearly everyone from Bad Camp Hollow and Nathan’s Mill and Ox Gore Hollow there, it didn’t seem crowded. Tom’s eyes roved around the building, marveling at the pale color of the walls and floor. What a contrast to his low-ceilinged cabin with its logs stained dark by time and smoke.

  Tom suddenly realized that everyone was standing. He scrambled to his feet and joined in the opening hymn, as Mrs. Taylor led the singing. Amy must be right proud of her ma, he thought, watching the trim, dark-haired little woman’s hands mark the beat.

  Sitting on the bench again, Tom waited expectantly, hoping this morning’s Bible story would be as good as the ones Preacher Taylor had told at the brash tabernacle. But to Tom’s disappointment, all the preacher did was talk about how much it meant to him to have the schoolhouse-chapel finished. He even talked about how Pa and the other men had built it, something everyone already knew. Tom stopped listening and began to watch a spider crawl along the floor.

  It seemed as though hours had dragged by when he sensed a change in the mood of the congregation. Paying attention now, Tom heard the preacher say, “… so I ask God to forgive the misguided sinners who work at their stills. And I ask those men to follow the example of June Higgins, who has stopped degrading our community by making moonshine liquor.”

  An undercurrent of tension swept through the room, and Tom’s heart pounded so hard that he was surprised the front of his shirt wasn’t bouncing up and down for everyone to see. He stared straight ahead, not daring to look at either the preacher or Pa. Then, as Tom had known he would, Pa rose slowly to his feet. The preacher’s words died away, and he asked hesitantly, “Do you, uh, have something to say, Brother Higgins?”

  “I want to set somethin’ straight,” Pa said. “I ain’t stopped degradin’ this community, ’cause I never was degradin’ it in the first place. An’ I didn’t see to it you got this here schoolhouse-chapel built to have you stand up there an’ insult me in front of all my neighbors. Don’t you forgit that again. Preacher.”

  There was a murmur of agreement and a nodding of heads in the congregation as Pa sat down again. The preacher’s face grew pale, and he opened his mouth and closed it again, swallowing hard. Watching him, Tom scarcely breathed. Then something blue caught his eye, and he saw Mrs. Taylor standing in front of the congregation.

  “We’re expecting all the children and young people here for school tomorrow morning,” she said. “Meanwhile, we’ll close the service with ‘Amazing Grace.’”

  She gave the pitch, and the people joined in the song. Pa’s voice was deep and steady, but Tom was sure his would waver, so he just stood and listened. The preacher wasn’t singing, either—his jaws were tightly clenched.

  Outside a few minutes later, the women and older girls gathered around Mrs. Taylor, and the men talked in groups of three or four. The smaller children ran and shouted, releasing pent-up energy after sitting quietly through the long service.

  “Ma says for you an’ Tom to come on home and take dinner with us,” Lonny Rigsby said, addressing Pa.

  “Tell her that would be mighty nice,” Pa replied.

  Lonny left to deliver Pa’s message, and Tom said, “One of the best things about these Sunday services is bein’ invited home for dinner with somebody every week.”

  “Molly Rigsby’s cookin’ oughta help us forgit that poor excuse for a sermon,” Pa agreed as he left to join a group of men.

  When Lonny came back, Tom asked, “How come you ain’t plannin’ on bein’ here for school t’morrer?”

  The other boy shrugged. “Ma wanted me to come, but I don’t see no reason to learn to read. I ain’t got no books.”

  “Pa’s Bible ought to be enough readin’ to last me awhile,” Tom said, thinking of the thick, black book gathering dust on the mantel. He hadn’t seen Pa touch it since the day he’d slipped Ma’s note between its pages.

  “After what happened a few minutes ago, it’s hard to believe your father has a Bible,” Amy said as she joined them. “He ruined the service, getting up like that,” she said accusingly. “Father wasn’t anywhere near finished with his sermon.”

  Before Tom could answer, Lonny said, “He’d talked long ’nough for me—them benches is hard.”

  Amy looked at him scornfully. “Some of us are more concerned about our souls than our seats,” she said.

  “My soles are tough from goin’ barefoot, but I’d sure hate to have to stand on ’em through one of them long sermons,” Lonny said, winking at Tom.

  Amy opened her mouth to reply but apparently thought better of it. Tom’s eyes followed her as she stalked away. He was glad Lonny had drawn Amy’s attention away from him and hoped she’d have forgotten her displeasure by the next time he stopped at the mission to play with Princess.

  “C’mon, Tom, let’s go,” Lonny said, nudging him.

  The boys headed for the Rigsbys’ wagon and piled into the back with Lonny’s older brothers and sisters. Mrs. Rigsby joined them, boosted in by her husband and Pa before they climbed onto the wagon seat. Molly Rigsby, a fat, jolly woman, embarrassed Tom by circling her fingers around his wrist and saying, “You better come home with us more often so’s I can put some meat on your bones, child!”

  As they rolled toward the settlement, Tom had to admit there were advantages to living where it wasn’t steep and rocky, where there was a wagon road instead of just footpaths. But he knew Pa would never trade the privacy and freedom of living high on the mountain for the convenience of level fields and a road—and neither would he.

  At the Rigsbys’ place, the boys set a tin can on the pasture fence and took turns trying to knock it off with Lonny’s slingshot. Tom was three hits ahead when the dinner bell rang, and he was sure he’d have done even better with his own slingshot instead of one he wasn’t used to.

  The two boys raced to the table, and Tom heaped his plate with cabbage slaw and mashed potatoes and green beans cooked with salt pork. Then he spread butter on bread still warm from the oven while he waited for Lonny to pass him the fried chicken. Lance Rigsby and his other sons were already bent over their plates, as though a meal like this was the most ordinary thing in the world, and Tom realized that for them, it was. He helped himself to a chicken leg and began to eat.

  After dinner, Tom would have been content to sit in the shade with Lonny’s older brothers and the men, but Lonny started down the lane toward the settlement, motioning for Tom to follow. “Where we goin’?” he asked as they walked. It was too hot to move so fast after a big meal.

  “Down t
o the mill to do some spyin’. Hurry up, or we’ll be too late.”

  Spying? What was there to spy on down at the mill, especially on a Sunday? Tom was even more mystified when Lonny ducked under the plank steps and lay flat on his stomach so he could peer out between them and not be seen. But Tom did the same, and it wasn’t long before he heard the sound of a motor.

  “There he is,” Lonny whispered as an automobile drove up and lurched to a stop in front of the store. After the dust had settled, a slim, well-dressed young man got out and carefully wiped the hood with his handkerchief before he leaned against it. “That’s the bootlegger,” Lonny whispered.

  In broad daylight? Tom was speechless.

  Lonny poked him and hissed, “An’ look, here she comes, right on time.”

  Tom turned his head and saw the storekeeper’s pretty granddaughter, Mary Barnes, hurry around the corner of the building. To his amazement, the bootlegger started toward her, his arms outstretched, and he held her close and kissed her when they met.

  “Now he’s gonna take her drivin’,” Lonny whispered as the couple walked to the car, arms around each other. “An’ he took her to the ice-cream parlor in Buckton two nights last week.”

  Probably loaded up with jars of whiskey after he brought her home, Tom thought. He sat up as they drove off, leaving a cloud of dust hanging in the air. “Does Ol’ Man Barnes know about this?” he asked.

  “Miz Barnes told Ma he can’t do nothin’ about it,” Lonny said, brushing off his clothes. “Mary says she’ll run off with that feller if they try to stop her from seein’ him.”

  Pa would never have let a girl of his go riding with a bootlegger, Tom thought as he and Lonny walked back to the Rigsby place.

  For the rest of the visit, Tom mulled over what he had seen from his spot beneath the mill steps. And on the way home that evening, he told Pa that Mary Barnes was keeping company with a bootlegger against her grandparents’ wishes.

  Pa muttered a curse. “That man’s usin’ her as cover so the sheriff an’ Petey Hudson won’t suspect the real reason he comes drivin’ in an’ out of the holler so often,” he said.

  Any revenuer ought to be smart enough to see through that, Tom thought, but he wasn’t about to say so. And then Pa burst out, “I wonder how them dadburn dogooders that got us that Pro’bition law would like it if bootleggers was ruinin’ their daughters?”

  The bootlegger wouldn’t be coming here if nobody was selling him whiskey, and nobody was forcing Mary Barnes to go riding with him, Tom thought. But still, if it weren’t for Prohibition, a man like that wouldn’t have had a reason to drive his fancy automobile all the way to Nathan’s Mill.

  That night Tom slept fitfully, and as soon as faint gray light showed through the loft windows, he got up and dressed in the new shirt and pants Pa had bought him at the clothing bureau. Then he worked on his jaybird carving until he heard Pa stirring downstairs.

  Trying not to splash water on his pants legs or dirty his new plaid shirt, Tom did his morning chores. It seemed to take longer than usual for the corn bread to bake, and when it was ready, he was almost too nervous to eat. Finally it was time to leave for school, and he set off, carrying a large wedge of corn bread and an apple in his lunch bucket.

  As he approached the footlog at Jenkins Branch, Tom saw Cat Johnson’s three little boys hurrying along the wagon road toward the mission. Worried that he was late, Tom walked faster, but when he arrived at the mission, everyone was still outside. His eyes moved from a group of girls who sat demurely on the steps of the schoolhouse-chapel to their little sisters, who were chasing Cat’s sons. Then, to his relief, he saw a couple of boys from Ox Gore Hollow who were about his age. They were playing mumblety-peg at the edge of the clearing while some younger boys watched. Everyone was barefoot, but neatly dressed in outfits from the clothing bureau.

  Suddenly all activity stopped and everyone fell quiet as Mrs. Taylor came toward them. She smiled warmly and greeted each child by name, and silently they followed her inside, the little ones clinging to their older brothers and sisters. Tom felt strange, walking alone.

  In a few minutes Mrs. Taylor had them arranged in order of size, and Tom found himself sitting on a bench in the back, near two boys from Ox Gore Hollow. The morning passed in a blur. When Mrs. Taylor found out Tom already knew his letters, she put him to work helping the younger children. Later, she gave him some cards, each with a letter and a picture, and showed him how to use them to learn the sounds the letters made.

  Tom’s head began to swim. This was going to be harder than he’d thought. But he bent over his work, and when Mrs. Taylor came to check on his progress in the afternoon, he was able to tell her the sounds of nearly all the letters. Mrs. Taylor beamed, and Tom quickly looked down. No one had ever smiled on him like that before—not even his own ma. When he raised his eyes again, he saw the boys on the next bench scowling at him.

  At the end of the day, Mrs. Taylor praised the students for their hard work and sent them home. But as Tom started out the door, she called him to the front of the room. “I couldn’t help but notice the looks the other boys gave you when you did such a good job with the letter sounds,” she said.

  “They think I’m gittin’ a big head,” Tom muttered, studying the floor.

  “Look at me, Tom,” Mrs. Taylor said, waiting until he reluctantly met her eyes. “You mustn’t let those boys hold you back from learning as much as you can. And you mustn’t let anybody hold you back from living the very best life you can. Do you know what I mean?”

  Tom shook his head, genuinely puzzled.

  “Never mind,” Mrs. Taylor said, smiling. “Now don’t forget to stop by the mission house and see your dog before you start home each day.”

  Tom bolted out the door. Not only was he learning to read, he’d be able to see Princess every day after school! As he walked toward the mission house. Princess ran to meet him, then turned and tore back to Amy. “Here, girl,” Tom called, and the little dog raced back to him, bounding away again when Amy whistled.

  “Play with her on the wagon road,” Mrs. Taylor said, pausing on her way back from the schoolhouse-chapel. “Remember, Amy, if you want to keep Tom’s dog for him, you can’t let her make all this commotion near the house.”

  Their game was even more fun on the grassy road, and Princess dashed back and forth between them until she dropped to the ground, panting and exhausted. Amy scooped her up. “I haven’t had that much fun since I came here,” she declared. Her braid had come undone, and her hair hung about her flushed face in long, ripply waves. “Come and have a glass of lemonade before you start home,” she said.

  Tom stole a sideways glance at Amy as he walked beside her. It was hard to believe she was the same girl who had fussed at him and Lonny after church yesterday.

  19

  “About time you got yourself down here,” Pa growled when Tom joined him at the still Saturday morning. Pa’s eyes were red from lack of sleep, and his face was stubbled.

  “What you want me to do now I’m here?” Tom asked. He was used to Pa being short-tempered when he was running moonshine.

  Pa gestured to the jars of peach brandy lined up by the mash barrels and said, “Take one of them over to the Widow Brown. An’ come straight back, you hear?”

  “I hear,” Tom said, slipping a jar into a sack. As soon as he was out of sight, he began to run. He’d save a little time for a visit with Mrs. Brown, and Pa would never know.

  When he came out of the woods onto the path, Tom turned downhill, heading toward the footlog. But before he’d gone far, he heard someone riding toward him. The laurel grew so thickly along both sides of the path that his only escape was to backtrack, and he didn’t want to lose the time. Instead, he shoved his sack into a laurel thicket and sat down on the opposite side of the path, cradling his foot in his hands.

  “Tom! What’s the matter?” Amy cried as she came around a bend and saw him.

  He screwed his face into what he hoped was a
n expression of pain and said “I just stubbed my toe on a big ol’ rock.”

  Amy brought Agamemnon even with him and dismounted. “Get on. You can ride the rest of the way home.”

  Tom shook his head. “I’ll be all right in a minute.”

  “Then I’ll wait and walk along with you.”

  He should have dashed up the path and slipped into the woods until Amy rode past, Tom thought miserably. Now he’d have to leave Mrs. Brown’s brandy and walk all the way—

  “Listen,” Amy said, “I hear somebody coming.”

  Tom’s heart began to pound when he saw P. D. Hudson approaching on his fine black horse. Stopping in front of them, Hudson looked from Tom to Amy and back to Tom. “This here’s Amy, Preacher Taylor’s girl,” Tom said, trying to keep his voice steady. He turned to Amy and said, “Mr. Hudson’s the revenuer your pa sent up to our cabin a while back.”

  Amy’s face reddened, but all she said was, “I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Hudson.”

  Hudson’s eyes were searching the sides of the trail, and suddenly he made a triumphant sound. Dismounting, he headed for the thicket where Tom had hidden the peach brandy, and reaching into the laurel, he pulled out the sack. “I don’t suppose you’d know anything about this, would you?” he asked sarcastically, lifting out the jar.

  But Tom had an answer ready. “It’s for my pa,” he said. “He never promised he wouldn’t drink moonshine.” Tom thanked his lucky stars that Amy didn’t know he’d been headed away from home.

  Hudson unscrewed the lid and emptied the jar. “Peach brandy,” he commented, sniffing.

  “When I was riding over in Ox Gore Hollow yesterday, I saw a really big peach orchard, Mr. Hudson,” Amy said eagerly.

  The revenuer gave her an appraising look as he hauled himself into the saddle, and then he rode off without a word.

  “Well!” Amy said. “He could use a lesson in manners.” Then she turned to Tom and said accusingly, “You didn’t hurt your foot at all, did you?”