Merritt said, “We ain’t got time to get all this to Big Warrior tonight.”
The sun was setting, and Mrs. Brewer said, “Let’s go on to the house and that’ll be the part we do tomorrow.”
I said, “I wanted to at least get it dropped off there today.”
Merritt said, “Boy, look who’s gung ho all of a sudden.”
Mrs. Brewer said, “It ain’t going nowhere.”
It was two against one, so I gave in. As I was sitting behind the steering wheel, tiredness took over, and my back ached. We made it home, and even though Merritt had painted the areas white where those words had been written, I could still see them in my head as we pulled into the drive. I parked the truck at the back of the house and we slid out, emitting a few moans and groans. Mrs. Brewer was moving pretty slow, and I worried about her as she walked carefully down the hill, having developed a slight limp. We followed her, discussing what to have for supper.
Mrs. Brewer, in that motherly way I loved about her, said, “I’ll fix us some more of that ham. If’n y’all got some rice, we can have that along with some red-eye gravy, and maybe some biscuits?”
I nodded while at the same time digging my key out of my pocket to open the back door. and noticed it was already ajar. I froze, knew it had been closed when we left. I signaled them, my finger to my lips while motioning at the open door. I gave it a push, and it creaked. I didn’t move for a few seconds, waiting to see if anything happened. The final rays of sun stretched across the kitchen floor, and there was the scent of cigarette smoke in the air, a disturbing fact that turned the quiet of the house into something sinister. Mrs. Brewer and Merritt followed me as I crept down the hall. On edge, I approached the door to my room first. When I nudged it open, I immediately noticed the black painted words right above my bed. The shock that someone had been in here and had done this made me stumble backward into both Mrs. Brewer and Merritt.
“What is it?” she said.
I pointed at the wall where it said: “Your next.” There was another sentence that made me shake with anger. It said: “You get what you diserve.” I pushed my way by Mrs. Brewer and Merritt and went out into the yard. My heart flapped wildly and I thought about what we might have to do—again. I didn’t want to leave here and I didn’t want them thinking they could make us. Mrs. Brewer came outside, and stood by me.
She said, “Chile, don’t you let them get into your head. Don’t you let them get you so stirred up your thinking goes askew. Remember, you can outsmart them. Don’t forget it.”
It was that word. “Outsmart.”
I said, “Oh no.”
As I ran back inside, Mrs. Brewer called after me, “Jessie?”
Merritt was in the kitchen about to say something, but I shook my head, and went by him, tears already coming, certain of what I would find. In Daddy’s room I could tell somebody had been lying on top of the bed. It had been made neatly when I left earlier and now the covers were all messy, muddy prints left at the foot of it and an indentation on the pillow. This was where they’d been, whichever one of them it had been. Merritt and Mrs. Brewer came up behind me, peering over my shoulders.
Daddy’s window was open, the curtain dragged to the outside. They’d climbed out when they heard us. I went to the dresser, already knowing the journal was gone. My head started to pound. Somehow, what had been in my family for all these years, this one thing I’d finally found an attachment to, a connection with, was gone, lost forever. They’d managed to get their hands on not only family history, and record keeping, but all the secret paths, trails, and back roads. The customer lists with notes beside them. Mama’s very own recipes.
Merritt said, “What is it?”
I couldn’t answer. He came into the room and I couldn’t look at him.
He said, “They done got our journal?”
I nodded once, staring at the floor, at the scuff marks, and scratches. He was so mad he groaned like he was in pain, but it was anger coming out of him.
He said, “Shit, Jessie!”
Mrs. Brewer shuffled closer and said, “That book had important family history and whatnot, but listen now, Jessie. It ain’t your fault they come busting in here and stole it.”
I was beside myself. “They’ll know how we did things. It’ll only get worse. That’s how they are.”
Merritt said, “We might as well forget it. They done got the best of us.”
Mrs. Brewer said, “Have mercy! Listen to the two of you. Ain’t never suspected y’all for quitters.”
I didn’t say anything, but Merritt did.
He said, “What good’s it gonna do when the most important thing we had is gone?”
She said, “What about all that work today? Shoot, no. We ain’t wastin’ all that time doing all that we did by coming to pieces, and moping and gripin’. It ain’t allowed. Now, come on, let’s go on into the kitchen, and the both of you sit while I fix us something to eat. We’ll talk about it.”
She left the room while Merritt paced, twisting his hook, around and around. I was sure he’d blame me, point back to how it was all my fault.
He said, “I can’t believe they took it.”
My voice glum, I said, “I can.”
I fought the urge to cry. In my mind I pictured Mama’s handwriting, the slant of the words, the softer bend of her letters with her delicate loops, the absolute beauty of it. I’d lost that extra little piece of her I’d only just got.
He said, “I remember how to make it.”
“I do too. It ain’t the point. It’s the record keeping Daddy and Granddaddy did. Mama too. It near about makes me want to throw up.”
“It ain’t ever helped you before. It ain’t gonna help now.”
I stared at him in surprise. I didn’t think he knew.
He said, “Yeah. I been hearing you do that for years now.”
It was embarrassing. I saw myself through his eyes, and didn’t much like how it might appear to someone who didn’t understand. I imagined he thought of me as pathetic. I couldn’t even begin to explain it, and I didn’t try.
He said, “I’m going to the kitchen.”
I followed after him, drained and limp. Mrs. Brewer was busy at the stove, frying, and she already had some rice and peas boiling too. I set the table and poured tea. After that, I propped myself at the counter and watched her slide the ham around, and stir what was in the pots. It was like she’d been here, doing this, forever. I was glad to have her. Merritt waited at the table, fiddling with his hook, putting the fork in it. He brought it up to his mouth, practicing how to eat right-handed again. I acted like I wasn’t paying him no mind because he might stop trying. Soon it was ready, and we sat down. My mind wasn’t on food. It was on what Daddy would think if he was here and what would the Murrys do now they had that information? It was like going inside their house, sitting with them, and spilling all our secrets.
I rolled the peas around on my plate and said, “I ought to go see Daddy, tell him what’s going on.”
Mrs. Brewer put her fork down and said, “It’s not a bad idea.”
Merritt was working on balancing rice on his fork held by the hook, and said, “I want to go too.”
I said, “I might ought to go alone.”
The rice fell off his fork, and he frowned in aggravation. It might have been because of what I’d said, or because he was hungry and struggling to eat. Probably both. Mrs. Brewer, who hardly ever smiled, gave me her version of one.
She said, “It couldn’t hurt.”
I remembered how he’d acted last time.
I said, “He might not want to talk to me.”
Nobody denied that. Merritt repositioned the fork and ate a mouthful successfully while Mrs. Brewer cut a bite of ham. There wasn’t much talk afterward.
The next morning all of us were up early. We had the leftover ham with a pan of biscuits. We drank strong coffee, but where I’d been feeling good before, the old ways were wanting to creep back in. I hadn’t had
much sleep and was unsettled, thrown off balance. I tried to make the prospect of making and running shine a goal, a new focus. I got the twelve dollars from the tin, knowing despite everything, we had to somehow move forward.
I said, “We’ll get the still going, and I’ll go see Daddy after we do that.”
Silently, we went out to the truck and crammed into the front seat. It took the morning to transfer what we’d piled into the back and out to the Big Warrior site where we began the process of reassembling it. One of the first things we did was to get the flake stand up and water going through it, to be sure there were no leaks. By using Mrs. Brewer’s marks on the wood for certain pieces, and being familiar with the rest of it, by noon we had the boiler put back together and attached to the flake stand by the arm. We set the cap on, and all of us studied it. It was exactly the same as how it had been set up at Blood Creek, best as we could tell.
The corn I’d brought in with Daddy and had left behind the day he got caught hadn’t survived the critters. The bags were chewed through, and most of it was scattered around, eaten, or in the process of trying to grow.
I said, “I’ll have to go get more.”
Merritt said, “We’ll start to fill it with water and get it heating.”
They began taking the buckets we’d brought with us to the creek, while I made my way back to the truck. The entire morning had been strange, the sky gone gray, and sullen. I drove with the windows down, noticing the mountains had the appearance of a season passing, the leaves no longer that fresh brilliant green of spring and early summer. They were turning dull, as if they were exhausted, too tired to show their color. It wouldn’t be long before we’d see yellows, oranges, and red coming into them at the higher peaks. I kept going over possible ways to begin my conversation with Daddy, but what it came down to is I didn’t know what I’d say to him about the journal being gone. I dreaded the trip, and wanted it over with.
Just before Highway 18, I made a turn onto an old dirt road called Summit Pass. I was going to where he’d always bought corn and barley from a local farmer who had a small grain mill set up in an old barn. There were several trucks there, the repetition of driving in and out creating a barren circular area in front of the building. I parked and went inside a small side door beside the big sliding front ones. Inside it smelled exactly like you’d expect, the rich scent of grains, sawdust, and something like wet burlap. I spoke to a man missing a few teeth about needing some bags of corn and barley, and he took off to get what I needed and loaded it into the back of the truck.
As I handed him some money, he said, “Got to feed them cows and hogs good, ain’t it right.”
I said, “That’s right.”
Daddy had said it was what he’d always told them he used the corn for, though they might’ve known better. Still, it was easier than buying several hundred pounds of sugar from a store. That would definitely draw suspicion.
The transaction went so easy, by the time I got back to Big Warrior, my disposition had improved. Mrs. Brewer watched and nodded her head as we got the mash ready, testing the water temperature. Merritt turned off the heat when it was ready, and then we added in the corn. This was the part where I used to get bored when I’d been at a still on my own. We had to stir the mixture, until the temperature dropped; then we’d add in the barley. Then we had to keep stirring now and then until we could add in the yeast. It wasn’t boring with Mrs. Brewer. She kept us entertained with stories and told us one about how she’d been a young girl and saw her uncle get caught by a revenuer while hiding under his house.
Merritt asked, “How’d they know where to find him?”
“He run into the yard, and crawled underneath the house, and was layin’ there in the dirt beside his old hound dog. I had watched him do all of that, and thought it was a mite curious. Mama and Aunt Cornelia, Mama’s sister, they was inside cooking. Well, you know, I was a young’un, and curious. Right when I got down on my hands and knees to study on him underneath there, the revenuers showed up. They was strangers, so I didn’t talk to them.
“I hollered, ‘Hey, Uncle Hobart, ain’t you gonna come out here and talk to these men?’
“He tried to wave me off, but one of’em stooped down too, saw him, and that was that. Uncle Hobart always said when he got out he was going to tan my hide. I remember telling Mama I hoped they’d keep him a long time, which earned me a whipping anyway. ’Course, he got out, and did nothing of the sort, and by then I was making shine, and doing what he’d been put in the penitentiary for.”
In the late afternoon, we were done and we put the cap on.
As we left, I said, “If the weather goes on like it is, shouldn’t take long to get the first run.”
Mrs. Brewer nodded. “It ought to be ready afore Labor Day.”
I said, “That means I can deliver some before school starts.”
Merritt was bringing up the rear and he said, “Never in my entire life did I ever think I’d hear that.”
I thought about it, then said, “Me neither.”
The next day Merritt took the truck and went back to Big Warrior to check on it. Once he was gone, I tried to tamp my nerves down about going to see Daddy. Mrs. Brewer had offered to go too, but I wanted to do it alone.
She said, “Well then, I’ll go on to my house, see about Popeye, and my mail. Call me when you get back; let me know how it went.”
After she was gone, I went to my room and stared at the words we’d not painted over
Mrs. Brewer had said we should, and I’d said, “No. Leave it like it is.”
Merritt shook his head like he thought that was just plain crazy.
I said, “It’s a good reminder, don’t you think?”
In my opinion, there was nothing more motivating than the messages those Murrys left.
Chapter 27
At the jail, I was led to the same room and told to wait. I’d never been inside any place I could remember where sound echoed so much. The shouts, whistles, doors slamming, keys rattling, chairs scraping, hands smacking walls, loud voices talking, reached a level where I only wanted to leave, get back to Shine Mountain where the loudest thing might be a creek, leaves rustling, and birds calling. I didn’t know how Daddy managed in here, but I figured I was about to find out. I waited, and as the minutes went by I went from sitting to standing, to peeking out the small window on the door. After about twenty minutes, the guard who’d led me into this room came in.
He said, “You’re the only one who came?”
I nodded.
He said, “Well, you best be on your way then.”
I said, “What? Why?”
“He asked who came, and when I said, ‘Looks like your daughter,’ he said he wasn’t up to seeing anybody.”
Stunned, I said, “He won’t see me?”
He said, “It happens. Adjustments and all.”
I gripped the keys in my clammy hand. Even while I had the bad news about the journal, I’d planned to tell him what we’d done at Big Warrior. What I’d decided I ought to do. I’d come to tell him I was learning, and that I was wanting to be different, not salt in a wound, not contentious, a solid part of the family, doing what Sassers had done for decades. There was a little guilt mixed in it, but now it seemed I was too late.
I said, “Can I pass along a message to him?”
He said, “Sure, but I can’t guarantee he’ll read it.”
He gave me a small piece of paper, and I jotted down: “Please call. I need to talk to you before you leave.” I hesitated at my signature. Should I put: “Your daughter”? Should I put: “Love”? I ended up simply signing it: “Jessie.”
He barely gave it a glance before he said, “Okay. Sorry ’bout that, kid.”
Kid. How old did I look?
Once outside, I stared at my reflection in the windows of the building as I walked by, and caught a glimpse of a girl with flyaway hair, and bad-fitting clothes. I looked like I was about twelve, but mostly like I didn’t belong anywh
ere, a misfit in my own right, no different maybe than nutty Darlene Wilson. I drove home, the turns here and there mechanical, and when I pulled behind the house, I didn’t know how I got here. I sat in the front seat for a minute, deciding what I needed to do next. Merritt was still gone, and Mrs. Brewer had said she would come back later on tonight.
I had the house to myself, an unexpected moment of opportunity. Inside, I opened the refrigerator. I went back to all the times I’d done this and what it had gained me. Nothing. I’d never felt good during, and I surely hadn’t felt good after. I shut the door, and went outside, tried not to think about my stomach, the internal upheaval, my gut as disturbed as what was taking place around me. I wanted reconciliation with Daddy and Merritt, and I wanted to be free of the Murrys. To not have their name never mentioned in relation to us in any way. I walked up the hill to Sally Sue. I got in and stared at Mama’s picture long and hard. I wanted her kind of happiness worse than anything.
* * *
I didn’t say a word to Merritt about Daddy declining to see me. We were at Big Warrior when Merritt asked how he was doing, I was vague, lied a little, and said he was mostly worried about being sent out of state. I stewed over the idea the news might make Merritt go back to being how he’d been when he’d discovered the hook wasn’t up to his idea of a new arm.
He said, “All the more reason to keep going. For him. I want to see him before he has to leave, though.”
All I could do was nod.
We were hunkered down by the spout Daddy always called the “money piece” and watched liquor dripping into a jar. Every now and then I could tell Merritt watched me, but I only paid attention to what came out. These first drippings seemed pure as water, but were toxic. This was called the foreshots, and couldn’t be used. It was poisonous. It made me think of the Murrys and how no one, not anyone’s family member, had ever come back on them when it was known their liquor was bad and had most likely dispatched a loved one off to heaven before their time. I figured it was because everyone knew how they were, how it wouldn’t be good to tangle with them, which made me all the more uneasy about what I was about to do. It was as if I was deliberately stepping into their path, my fists raised, ready to throw the first punch. We could quit, let the Murrys have it all, but I couldn’t see myself letting that happen any more than I could’ve seen myself running liquor down this mountain a few months ago.
The Moonshiner's Daughter Page 25
