Moonshine

by Justin Benton

  After getting the fire going, I poured Pa a generous drink and took it over to him. He stared down into the glass, then walked over and poured the shine right back into the barrel.

  “Can’t waste it on me. Going to have to find another big buyer now.”

  That night I did a week’s worth of bottling, cleaning, and water hauling, but Pa didn’t even seem to notice me rushing back and forth trying to help him. We finally stopped at what I guessed to be around three in the morning. Pa slumped down against the log and stared into the fire. I joined him.

  “Salvatore had said he was going to come back,” Pa said, not looking at me. “You heard him, right?”

  “I don’t remember exactly.”

  The dishonesty was just flowing out of me now.

  “Why would he say that if he hadn’t meant it? What kind of man tells a lie like that?”

  I swallowed hard and thought, Don’t talk about lies. Please.

  We were silent for a while, my mind replaying my encounter with Mr. Salvatore in the ice cream parlor. He hadn’t gotten mad. He’d stayed calm and cold like he always was. What had he said? That Pa would have a “change of heart.” He’d said it so certain, like he knew something we didn’t. Maybe something related to the police.

  My breath hitched and I put a hand to my forehead.

  “Pa, do you think the sheriff is going to come back now?”

  Pa rubbed a sooty hand over his face and sighed. “Probably.”

  I had not anticipated that. Had not even thought about Sheriff Bardo for a second.

  To cover for myself, I quickly added, “I think it’ll be okay. We’ll figure a way out of this.”

  It was getting hard not to lie now.

  My cheeks were getting warm and I twisted away from the flames. Pa sat there like a stone.

  Desperate to talk about something else, I said, “Can we take a trip tomorrow?”

  “Where do you want to go?”

  “To see that old house you and Ma used to live at.”

  He turned to me and frowned. “What for?”

  “Just to see it, I don’t know.”

  Pa faltered for a second, then said, “Fine, I don’t care.”

  He rose to add more wood to the fire and asked me, “You want to take the lantern back? I can walk later without it.”

  “I’ll just sleep here,” I said, patting the worn spot in front of the log.

  “I’ll try and finish up early, then you can sleep some in your bed too before school.”

  Pa unbuttoned our red flannel and handed it to me, leaving himself in just a yellowed work shirt.

  “No, Pa. It’s cold out,” I said.

  He shook his head.

  “That new one I was going to get you from Grayson’s is going to have to wait a while. Use mine. I’m warm enough.”

  “Thanks. Night.”

  “Night.”

  I lay down against the log with that big red flannel shirt stretched out over me and the fire warming my face. In spite of everything, I actually still felt a speck of pride about having taken charge with Salvatore. I watched Pa as he worked and thought that maybe, just maybe, we would be all right after all. I was tired and soon dreaming, only to be awakened hours later by a loud, violent rush of air and a blast of light.

  BEFORE I KNEW WHAT WAS HAPPENING, I threw my hands up to protect myself from the brightness. I squeezed my eyes shut tight, not sure if I was asleep or awake. Stumbling to my feet, I shook off Pa’s flannel. There were patches of light around me—a big one under the copper pot, and several smaller ones thrown about, flickering. I could make out Pa’s form against the light. He was staggering toward me, then wrapped me up in his arms.

  “To the creek,” he mumbled.

  “What happened?”

  “To the creek.”

  Pa was half-pushing me from behind, guarding me from the fires burning throughout the clearing. I felt his hands guiding me as we crashed through the woods. As soon as I could hear the stream gurgling ahead, Pa shoved me hard and I plunged into the water. He splashed down right next to me.

  The night water was bitter cold, and I began scrambling to get out. I coughed and thrashed in the swirling water, finally pulling myself up onto the bank.

  “Pa, what happened?” I yelled. “Is he here?” My voice was shaking.

  “Are you burned?” he asked.

  The moonlight was broken up by the pine needles above, but through the reflection off the water I could see my hands and arms, and they were all right. I ran my fingertips across my face and felt some raised scratches from the branches, but no burns.

  “Did the still blow up?” I asked.

  Pa was looking down at his palms and opening and closing his hands.

  “Help me out of this shirt,” was all he said.

  “Pa!” I screamed.

  His hands and arms were pale pink, the skin all bubbled. His charred shirtsleeves were falling off of him into the water.

  “Just pull it over my head,” he said.

  I gently tried to lift the shirttail over his head, but it was wet and stuck against his back.

  “Just pull. I’m all right.”

  I tugged and Pa grimaced, but we finally peeled the shirt off him. He fell backwards into the pool and sunk down with the water up to his chin. He closed his eyes and winced.

  “You’ve got to put the fire out,” he said, his eyes still shut. “I…I can’t move.”

  I looked up to the clearing and saw flames crawling along the ground. I looked back at Pa, perfectly still in the water, breathing slow. I didn’t budge.

  “Go,” he said. “Put the fire out.” His eyes shot open and he added, “Don’t touch the bucket.”

  I backed away slowly, then turned and dashed up to the clearing, guided by the scattered flames. I stomped on some big burning clumps of dried leaves and spotted the bucket in the distance, flames rising off it six feet tall. The side had caved in, but it was too big to step on.

  “Pa!” I yelled. “The bucket’s burning!”

  I could hear his voice in the distance, but the words were lost. The copper pot on the still was scorched. The topper was in place and the condenser barrel was still connected. It had not exploded, but the metal was all black. The copper coil was still dripping shine into a big bottle, and I grabbed it using my shirtsleeves. I dumped the liquor out of it as I ran back to the creek.

  Pa had not moved. I held the bottle under water until no more air bubbles came up.

  “You all right, Pa?”

  “I’m fine.”

  I ran back up to the clearing, careful not to spill the water, and emptied the bottle over the bucket. The flames disappeared with a hiss, smoke burning my eyes. With all the fires out, I ran back to Pa sitting alone in the dark.

  “Fire’s out?” he asked.

  “It’s out. What happened?” I asked, panting. I still had no idea what had caused the fire.

  “The bucket blew up.”

  “What?” I cried.

  “I think it was full of gasoline.”

  This sent a shock through me that buckled my shoulders. It had not been an accident. Someone was trying to hurt Pa on purpose. I stood there paralyzed, hands clamped over my mouth.

  “Cub,” Pa said.

  I jumped and looked down at him.

  He spoke calmly. “Listen to me. Go get Yunsen. Tell him to bring his medicines.”

  I heard him, but did not move. I couldn’t.

  “Go on. Take the lantern and bring him to the house. I’ll be there.”

  “I’m staying with you,” I said. The wind blew against my wet shirt and I started trembling.

  “Go get him and meet me at the house. Please. Go.”

  The cold wind and Pa’s words pulled me out of my shock and I broke for the house. I ran past the edges of the cornfields, past Ma’s grave and around the back of town toward Rebecca’s house. I ran as hard as I could, cold, scared, and not once slowing from a dead sprint. I tried to hold the lantern in f
ront of me, but the glass kept clanging against my wrists and the flame sputtered out. I dropped it and ran harder, coming up on Rebecca’s house so fast I nearly crashed through the front door.

  I pounded on it and Yunsen came out in a nightshirt. I tried to explain what happened, but I was gulping air so bad I couldn’t talk. Soon enough though, the two of us were in that big Buick cutting through the darkness back to the house.

  Pa was sitting calmly at the kitchen table. He had managed to get back home and light the kerosene lamp. He sat bare-chested, breathing slowly, waiting. Mr. Yunsen pulled him out of his seat and led him into the bedroom, where he set his black leather bag of materials at the foot of the bed and went to work.

  “Bring a blanket for his shoulders,” he said.

  I rushed off to my room and brought back my red blanket.

  “You bring remedies?” Pa asked.

  Mr. Yunsen fiddled around in his bag, then shook his head. “I only work on the deceased. I have sutures and scalpels, but I’m afraid I’m ill-equipped for treating a burn.”

  “You don’t have anything that can cure him?” I asked.

  “Find me some honey,” he said.

  I ran to the kitchen and came back with the coffee can full of honey and honeycomb bits.

  Mr. Yunsen smoothed the honey over the burns with his fingers, then pulled a clump of some yellow herb from his bag and gently pressed it into Pa’s blistered skin.

  “I do have a bit of dried elderflower,” Mr. Yunsen said to me. “You’re going to have to keep up the applications.”

  Except for Pa’s arms, it looked like all the color had been drained right out of him.

  He took a deep breath and said, “I had finished and fetched the bucket to put the fire out. As soon as I started pouring I saw a flame run up like a lit fuse. The bucket blew up in my hands.”

  Mr. Yunsen’s face turned severe. “You believe it to have been sabotage?”

  Pa nodded. “Somebody put something flammable in the bucket.”

  “It does sound like gasoline,” Mr. Yunsen said. “You couldn’t smell it?”

  “I didn’t smell a thing. Just smoke from the fire,” he said. “Could have been shine too, I reckon. You touch a flame to either one of ’em and they’ll go up like gunpowder.”

  Pa turned to face me now and said, “Those flames were everywhere—covered both of us completely.”

  I only remembered the light.

  “I can’t believe you weren’t hurt,” Pa said, shaking his head.

  “It was a blessing,” Mr. Yunsen said.

  I turned to Pa and said, “It was your flannel shirt.”

  One of Pa’s arms was much worse than the other. Whereas pink patches and burned hair dotted his left arm, the meat of his right arm was a web of shiny red lines and murky yellow bubbles. Mr. Yunsen finished treating them both and wrapped his left one in cotton gauze, leaving the other to breathe. He showed me how to use the honey, cotton, and elderflower, then before leaving asked Pa one last time, “You’re sure it wasn’t an accident?”

  “I’m sure,” Pa said. He didn’t look angry, only tired.

  Pa and I were left sitting in the flickering lamplight in his room. His eyelids kept drooping, but I could tell he was fighting to work out what had happened. He had an uncommonly powerful mind when he could focus it. At that moment, he was bent on figuring out who the coward was who’d pulled the sneak attack and burned him. I had already solved the mystery. It was me.

  AS THE SPARROWS STARTED CHIRPING at dawn, I lugged my old mattress into Pa’s room so I could keep watch over him. He had gone to sleep and the only sound in the house was his slow breathing. I lay down on my mattress, watching a grass spider twist its web in the rafters and stewing in my own regret. Even as the guilt gnawed at my insides, I knew I had to clear my thinking and figure out what to do.

  I was certain Mr. Salvatore had done this. Whether he was trying to kill Pa or just scare us I didn’t know. Maybe he was trying to kill me too. Maybe he didn’t care either way. We couldn’t go to the police. The sheriff wasn’t on our side. Nobody was.

  The question was if Mr. Salvatore would come back. Consolidating or eliminating. Was he just trying to scare us into working for him? Or had he intended to murder us?

  Late morning, I rose and made toast and coffee for Pa. The thought of eating made my stomach turn, but Pa had to keep his energies up. I was standing there in the kitchen when I finally realized I was supposed to be in school.

  For a second, I wanted nothing more than to be sitting there at my desk like the other kids. The thought surprised me given how torturous I usually found the place, but I could not deny it. I took the plate and mug into Pa’s room and woke him gently.

  “Somebody here?” Pa asked, jerking straight up in bed.

  “No, Pa. Take some food.”

  He ate slowly and peeled the wet bandage off to have a look at his left arm.

  “I don’t think I’ll lose this one,” he said through a mouthful of toast.

  He pulled his other arm up and we studied the gleaming red burns circling it. He straightened it slowly, wincing as he tried not to crack the drying blisters.

  “This one’s…this one’s a little worse,” he said.

  It should have been me, I thought, staring at his wounds. I wanted to look away but couldn’t, like I had to pay a penance by looking at the red crocodile flesh.

  When I finally broke my gaze, I found Pa staring at me. His eyes were almost as red as his arms.

  “During the fire you said, ‘Is he here?’ Who were you talking about?”

  I shook my head and looked away. “I don’t recall saying that.”

  “No?” he asked, his voice a whisper.

  “No, but…but I’ve been thinking about it. And I know what happened. It was an accident. We’ve been so busy these days working, and…shine and water must have somehow got mixed up.”

  His eyes were so big and red, and he wasn’t blinking for some reason. It felt like he was looking right through me. Or right into my traitorous little mind.

  “Except you didn’t even touch the bucket last night. And for weeks it’s been just me working. So that would mean I did it to myself.”

  “I…I think it was an accident,” I stammered.

  “I don’t. And I know how to find out who did it too.”

  There was a sudden pressure in the room that was liable to collapse my lungs. I turned to face him, but he was leaning back in bed to rest. Sitting on my mattress I hung my head so low it felt like my neck was going to snap.

  All morning Pa dozed, and I kept watch out the window, just waiting for the end of the world to come rolling down the drive. I started to fall asleep only to catch Pa staring at the Winchester propped up in the corner, which made me wonder for a second if he thought he could shoot his way out of this. Next thing I knew, Pa was kicking at the mattress to wake me up.

  “Car,” he whispered.

  I was up and at the window almost before my eyes opened. An automobile had turned up the drive, barreling toward us in the late afternoon sun.

  “Is it Salvatore?” Pa asked. He was trying to tuck his knee-length nightshirt into his trousers. He stepped into his boots with no socks and started toward the window.

  “No,” I said. “It’s the sheriff.”

  “I knew it,” he growled.

  I couldn’t figure why the sheriff had come. Pa looked to understand things perfectly well because he went straight to the Winchester and racked a shell into the chamber.

  “What are you doing?” I cried.

  “Out the back door. Run.”

  “Pa, no!”

  I grabbed for the gun barrel, but he twisted away.

  He said, “The sheriff is the one who tried to kill me. I knew whoever showed up here first would be coming to make sure he’d finished the job. He’s not getting another chance without a fight. You get out of here.”

  He pushed past me and I flailed for the gun again, my fingers raking acr
oss his bandages. It must have hurt him, but he didn’t falter and walked toward the door. Outside, I heard the police car door slam shut.

  “It wasn’t him!” I yelled. “It was Mr. Salvatore. I know it was.”

  Pa spun and was in my face before the last word was out. The gun was crossed over his chest, and I got one hand on the stock and one hand on the barrel. We stood there holding it between us.

  “What?”

  “I told him no,” I stammered. “In town I saw him. I told him you said no. That’s why he didn’t come. And why he—”

  “You knew?” he yelled, ripping the shotgun out of my hands.

  “No! I didn’t know he was going to do that.”

  He stared at the floor, mouth slack, head shaking slightly.

  A pounding on the front door made me jump. Pa looked like he hadn’t even heard it.

  “Jennings, you in there?” called Sheriff Bardo.

  Slowly, Pa took his eyes off the floor and looked at me. His face didn’t look like his own. And in turn, he looked at me like I was some stranger in his house, like we weren’t blood anymore. My body chilled from the outside in and I thought, He hates me.

  The door rattled again as the sheriff banged on it.

  “Jennings!”

  Pa walked into his room, then returned without the gun and without looking at me. He opened the front door.

  The sheriff had come alone and was standing nearly in the doorframe. His eyes went straight to Pa’s bandages and he asked, “What happened to you?”

  I reckon he caught sight of the pink flesh on the other arm because then he yelled out, “Good Lord!”

  Pa ignored him and walked onto the porch. I followed, watching the sheriff’s face. It almost looked like he was worried about Pa.

  “You need a doctor,” the sheriff said, pointing at Pa’s arm.

  “Did you do it?” Pa asked.

  “Did I do what?”

  “Did you do it?” he repeated through gritted teeth. He stuck both arms out and lifted his chin so the sheriff could see the rosy blister on his neck.

  The sheriff’s eyebrows squished together in disgust and confusion.