Denton called, and said Mr. Lewis wanted more and so did
he. Before we knew it, Daddy’s customers were leaving notes
and messages at various watering holes along 10th Street, and then the phone started ringing. I tried to keep up with who
wanted what, while Mrs. Brewer said she could help with the
supply. She went home for a few days, fired up her own still, increased the amount she usually made, and came back to the
house, her old car creaking up the drive, so loaded down with shine the back end scraped the gravel at one point. She used corn like we did, and added her fruit so we had all kinds of bitters.
We’d been doing as Daddy had done, hiding the money,
but not in the backyard. That made me nervous, and although
we’d not seen or heard from Uncle Virgil and Aunt Juanita, I wouldn’t have put it past them to sneak over here, from wherever they’d disappeared, just to dig some more. Instead, we’d found places in the house. The freezer, for instance, where
we’d wrapped some in newspaper, and marked it as “Steak,”
something we rarely ate. We’d shoved some in the back of a
drawer in the kitchen that held dish towels. Stuffed some into the back side of the TV set, rolled up with rubber bands.
I said to Merritt, “I sure hope we don’t forget where all
we’ve put it.”
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He said, “Me neither.”
We got word Daddy was to be sent to Atlanta, and Merritt
was beside himself about getting to the penitentiary to see
him.
He said, “I ain’t been since that first time, and I been wanting to tell him how good things is going along. We ought to
let him know, ease his mind so it won’t be so hard on him
being away for a year. Ain’t you wanting to tell him?”
I said, “Sure.”
I didn’t see how it would make any difference to Daddy
what I did or didn’t do. I was sure he’d made up his mind
I was no better than a Murry; he’d made it pretty clear, I
thought. Mrs. Brewer stayed at the house the Sunday after-
noon we went.
She said, “I’ll cook us a chicken for supper and it’ll be ready when y’all get back.”
I was nervous about this visit, but Merritt didn’t notice
my silence. He talked with excitement, holding on to a little notepad he’d taken to writing in, not quite like the journal, but a way to keep up with what we’d made, what we’d sold,
who was buying, where, and how much. We couldn’t learn
the secret trails, so those customers were doing without. I
wondered if the Murrys had tried to use them, or did the
customers remain loyal to Daddy? It might spark trouble for
them, but there was no way to know if it had or hadn’t.
I parked the truck and we got out, the afternoon sun warm
and pleasant, a façade compared to the emotional tornado ripping around inside me. I let Merritt take the lead and followed behind him, fighting the internal chaos and a bad case of the nerves.
After we’d signed in and were shown to the visitors’ room
by the same guard I’d seen the last time, I said, “I think I might go wait in the truck.”
Merritt sounded incredulous. “What?”
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A door clanked and footsteps came down the hall.
I said, “Yeah. I’m gonna go sit in the truck.”
I got up as he said, “But why?” while the guard said,
“What’s going on here?”
“Nothing. I’m just gonna wait outside.”
Merritt said, “But Jessie, don’t you want to see him
before—”
The guard said, “You have to sign out. You can’t come
back in. Can’t have but one visit per week.”
I turned to Merritt, and said, “It’ll sound better coming
from you. He wouldn’t believe me anyway.”
The guard called up to the front, and another one came
to lead me back down the hall to check out. I heard Daddy
coming, the shuffling and clanking of his chains, but I didn’t stop. I kept going, staring at the set of doors that led me away.
I figured I’d made the right decision when he didn’t call out.
He was probably glad to see me leaving. It would be a year.
Maybe he’d be ready then. Maybe I would be too.
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Chapter 29
After the visit, Merritt didn’t tell me what was said between them, and I didn’t ask. Every now and then I’d catch him
looking at me like he had a question, but it never came out.
I could picture the conversation for myself, could imagine
Daddy’s skepticism over my newfound willingness and loy-
alty. Maybe he needed evidence I wasn’t playing a game, and
the only thing I could offer as proof was persistence. Keep
doing it, and maybe once he was out, he’d come to realize
I was dedicated and as invested as any Sasser before me, and certainly as much as Mama had been. If I had to admit it, I
was actually dumbfounded by my change of heart, and I’d
had many a conversation with myself already.
Just what was it that had changed within me? It had been
seeing Daddy in that place, seeing his hopelessness, and knowing if anybody belonged in a cell, it ought to be a Murry,
not him. It had been finding out about Mama, her talent for
hauling, the respect she’d had, her pride in what she did, her resilience. Those things motivated me, made me want to fix
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what I’d had a hand in causing. I’d realized I’d acted like I’d been born to some other name, some other family, with no
allegiance. I didn’t want to admit Willie Murry might have
been right about what he’d called me. It had started to sink in I was acting like a traitor, going against what my own mama believed in, participated in. I had a strong feeling if she’d been around, I’d have had a different opinion from the start.
On a Saturday morning, in early October, I was preparing
to go to Big Warrior where Merritt had been tending the still overnight, watching a boiler that was at capacity, our biggest run yet. He’d been excited by the idea of spending the night out in the woods like Daddy and Uncle Virgil had done many
times before, watching over our commodity, shotgun by his
side just in case.
We’d thought about whether it was smart or not, thought
about a Murry showing up, and Merritt said, “Anyone comes
along, Murry or whoever, I’m shooting, no questions asked.
Besides, for this to work, we’re gonna have to do stuff separate sometimes.”
It was true, so he took the truck and had been gone since
last evening while I’d already been to Wilkesboro this morn-
ing to scrounge up enough Ideal Ball jars without causing suspicion. Who would have ever thought buying sugar in bulk
or purchasing too many jars at once would alert revenuers?
They kept track of purchases from stores, and store owners
were uneasy about selling too many to one person, scared
they’d come under scrutiny. That meant I’d had to buy a case or two at one store, then go to another and purchase a case
bought the jars.
“Got you lots of ’maters and beans to put up, I reckon.”
“Sure do.”
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hair go up on the back of my neck. I turned and saw the rev-
enuer, Smith, through the early morning fog standing by the
road like he’d come up out of the holler. It brought to mind the image of Mama, little gray tendrils of smoke curling and disappearing in the air around her, and the silence after she’d collapsed. A memory I didn’t want to have, and I shut my
eyes. When I opened them, he was gone. Shivering, I studied
the spot where he’d been, questioned if I’d actually seen him.
He and Nash Reardon could easily track what we were doing
if they had a mind to. Maybe they already knew and maybe
they were getting ready to shut us down, send us off Shine
Mountain. Merritt would be sent to some reform school, and
I’d be forced into a girls’ home. I set the crate down, rushed inside, the door slamming behind me. Mrs. Brewer was at the
sink wiping the insides of the jars she’d brought. Popeye slept on one of the kitchen chairs and my hand shook as I reached
out to pet him. He’d had a calming effect on me usually, but not today.
She said, “Child, what is it? You look like something done
walked over your grave.”
I straightened up, and Popeye gave a low growl in protest
that I’d stopped.
I said, “I saw . . . someone.”
“Who?”
“I thought I saw one of them men who arrested Daddy.
The one with a patch on his eye.”
Mrs. Brewer wiped her hands and said, “What? Where?”
“Out by the road.”
We went outside and down the drive. I walked over and
stared at an area where the early morning dew was disturbed, revealed by the long, darker green stripes through the grass as if someone had walked through it.
I said, “I wonder if that’s the first time he’s been here.”
“Ain’t no telling. Could be they’ve decided to circle back
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around to check on family doings. I’ll ride with you. Ain’t no better deterrent than a crotchety old woman.”
We loaded up the rest of the jars she’d been washing, tuck-
ing them safely away under the special back seat. As we went down the drive, the spot where I’d seen him no longer fogged in, the mist rising, and the sun coming out, it seemed more
like a dream now than something real. The idea this revenuer might be watching the house, watching our comings and goings, was troubling. I remembered something after we got
going down the mountain.
I said, “He knew Daddy.”
“Did he?”
I nodded. “The day Daddy got caught, he said to him,
‘Remember this?’ and pulled his eye patch off. The other
revenuer, Mr. Reardon, had asked, ‘Easton Sasser?’, and that other revenuer had said, ‘I recognize him. It’s him.’”
“Your daddy must’ve had some sort of run-in with him
before. Sounds like he’s got a grudge.”
I hadn’t thought about it in the horror of seeing him get
caught, but she was right. What Smith said was curious now,
like he blamed Daddy for his injury.
We made it to Big Warrior without any incidents. I carried
one case of jars and Mrs. Brewer carried another one. Mer-
ritt was pacing back and forth, agitated, and he’d put an old bucket under the spout to catch what was already coming out.
“What took so long? It’s been ready to go!”
I set the jars down, and said, “There was a revenuer close
to the house.”
Merritt grabbed a jar, moved the bucket out of the way, and
positioned it under the spout.
“Who was it?”
“That man with the eye patch who was there when Daddy
got caught. Smith, I think, is his first name.”
“What’d he say?”
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“He didn’t say nothing. I saw him; then he was gone.”
“You didn’t say nothing? You didn’t ask him what he
wanted?”
“I didn’t have time, Merritt.”
Merritt huffed like I couldn’t do anything right. If I’d said he’d made me think of Mama, the way the fog was wrapped
around him, he’d think I was, again, being peculiar.
Mrs. Brewer said, “Land sakes, you two got to quit that
bickering. It ain’t serving no purpose, atall.”
“Jar’s full,” I said.
We began the process, working like a silent machine. Mer-
ritt put the jars under the spout, filled them, and handed
them off to me. I placed the lids on, and handed them to
Mrs. Brewer, who wiped them down and set them in the
crate. We’d figured out we could make liquor faster by add-
ing a couple more burners, allowing us to distill 700 gallons of mash into around 115 gallons in about six hours. At one
point when we took a break, Merritt went over, selected a jar, sipped some from it, and handed it to Mrs. Brewer.
She took a little drink, smacked her lips, and said, “Shoot.
It just gets better’n better.”
She held it out to me, but I shook my head. Merritt grinned, and motioned at her he’d take it. He took another sip, then
set it by his foot, and while Mrs. Brewer didn’t seem to think anything about it, I did. I remembered how him and Oral
thought it high times and fun to get drunk. He went back
to moving jars under the spout, taking a sip now and then.
I don’t know why it aggravated me, but it likely had to do
with how Uncle Virgil acted when he got drunk, and Oral
too. It didn’t take long before he got to singing, the jar now half-gone. I couldn’t make out the words, but the song had
something to do with mountain girls and love. It was highly
entertaining, and irritating at the same time. As the flow of shine slowed down, I carried the crates to the car.
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When I came back and picked up the final one, Mrs. Brewer
said, “Appears I’ll be driving us home.”
I said, “If you take the truck and him, I can go on and make them two deliveries nearby. Tomorrow, when Merritt’s got
his head on right, I’ll go down to Gastonia and Kings Moun-
tain to them other customers we picked up a week or so ago.”
Merritt stopped singing and said, “Hey, hey, I’m goooood,
doing fiiiiine.”
He sounded like he was talking around a mouthful of
mashed potatoes.
I said, “Yeah, we can see how you are.”
Mrs. Brewer said, “Give me that jar.”
He went to grab it with his right hand, forgetting the hook, and knocked it over. What he’d not drank drained out and
onto the ground. Merritt glared at the hook and a fury took
over him, unexpected and sudden. He began beating the
prosthesis on the ground, hammering it up and down, and
clods of dirt and debris flew. We watched in shock as he lost control. He grunted, sounding like a wild animal, while his
movements were harsh and volatile. He was going to ruin
it, or at the least, it would be damaged in some way. He quit banging it on the ground, and went to beating on it with his left hand, snorting with an unspent rage, saying something I couldn’t make out.
I started toward him, and Mrs. Brewer grabbed my arm, and
shook her head. “He’s fine. He’ll remember how he acted. He’s done got soused, but he ain’t so far gone he won’t remember.”
Merritt finally gave out, and collapsed on the ground and
didn’t move. His chest rose up and down, heaving with the
energy he’d spent. After a minute or so, he sat up, legs straight out, his forehead almost to his knees. He made a pitiful sound, like a wounded animal. I went over to him and knelt by his
side. I put my hand on his back, and he didn’t do what I
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broken, and I got a lump in my throat when I thought about
how much he’d loved playing baseball, and how he’d prob-
ably felt at school, and how he’d not been acknowledged by
his two best friends.
I said, “Merritt?”
His breath deepened, and he did move away then, as if to
escape my hand. I let it drop.
Although he was still mumbling, and slurring his words, I
was able to make out the same thing he’d said before, “It ain’t ever gonna be the same.”
Mrs. Brewer leaned on a large, knobby stick she’d been
using to help steady herself around the still site, and she said,
“Ain’t no harm in him letting go of them bad feelings, best as he can. Come on, son, get up.”
Merritt said, “Leave me here.”
I said, “Don’t be dumb.”
He said, “I wanna sleep. Tired.”
I said, “You can sleep in the truck. Get up.”
He rolled over onto his belly, and pushed himself up on his
knees. He looked up at me, and Mrs. Brewer, as he wobbled
to and fro. He frowned at the realization he’d only made it
halfway.
He looked behind himself and said, “Oops. My feet are
back there.”
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