Moonshine

by Justin Benton

  “What if we’re not ready?”

  With his hands on his knees, he leaned down so we were eye to eye. He spoke in a soft, simple voice.

  “Then one of you will be burying the other in this mud hole you call home,” he said. “Now we’re gonna go wait for your pop to get back.”

  Every muscle in my body was burning to tear into him, to grab the shovel and knock his head clean off. He rocked back on his heels and hitched up his pants, and I knew he could crush me like a pill bug. I had to think. Pa could be back at any moment. I needed to warn him somehow before he got back to the house.

  I said, “But if I don’t get this mash going tonight we won’t have your shine by Tuesday.”

  Mr. Salvatore didn’t say anything and I scrambled to start a fire under the big pot, blackening up all that metal I’d just cleaned. When the flame had caught well, I turned and said, “If you want to help, I’d sure appreciate it. Shouldn’t take us more than an hour and a half or so.”

  Mr. Salvatore grimaced. “I got things to do,” he said. “Two days, I’ll be back.”

  I didn’t look up from the fire, just listened as Salvatore crunched his way back toward the house. I prayed Pa was still gone and that I could find him before Mr. Salvatore did. I poured the rest of the water over the fire, and as it sizzled itself out, I took off running.

  AN OLD GAME TRAIL RAN from the clearing to the backside of town, but I didn’t have the daylight or the time to find it. I ran what I thought was the straightest course south, jumping over logs as sycamore branches whipped me in the face. With one hand out in front of me and the other to the side for balance, I slipped and slid my way through the mud. Going down a hill, my boots lost their grip and I fell face-first into a pine, crunching my shoulder into the trunk. My hand went into some rocks and I felt the skin on my palm flap open. I jumped up and kept running.

  My boots and legs were caked with mud, dragging me down. I kept thumping on across Main Street without seeing a soul and ran down Rebecca’s turnoff. A voice called out next to me.

  “Cub?”

  I recognized the voice, but my feet wouldn’t stop in time. I half-turned and said, “Pa?” right as my legs flew out from under me and I skidded across the wet dirt road.

  Pa ran over and lifted me up, but as soon as I was upright a cramp from running so hard doubled me back over. With the cuff of his coat, Pa tried to wipe the grime off my face.

  “Mr. Salvatore,” I said. “Did you see him?”

  “Salvatore? No.”

  I exhaled hard and forced myself to stand straight. It was dark and there was little moonlight, but Pa led me off the road regardless. We didn’t need to be seen.

  “You saw Salvatore?” he asked.

  I nodded. He pulled me close with his good arm and asked, “What did he do?”

  “I’m fine, Pa. It was just words.”

  He waited.

  “But he said if we weren’t ready he was gonna kill us.”

  Pa’s eyes flashed fire and he said, “I’m going to kill him myself, you watch me.”

  “He’s coming back in two days.”

  “Two days?” Pa grabbed me with trembling hands and started leading me toward Rebecca’s.

  Pa pounded on the front door and Mr. Yunsen jumped when he got a look at me. When I saw my face in the bathroom mirror I understood why—I was all dirt, blood, and mud.

  Pa led me to their old claw-foot bathtub and I stripped off my heavy flannel and overalls and got in wearing just my underwear. I was mighty glad they had running water here until I felt how cold it was. I shivered and shook as twigs and mud seeped out of my hair and into the tub.

  When I could finally talk, I told Pa what had happened with the still.

  “You did good, boy, tricking Mr. Salvatore. I can’t say that I would have been so clever.”

  Mr. Yunsen came in with a towel and Pa told him the story.

  “Rebecca,” Mr. Yunsen called through the open door.

  “No!” I yelled.

  “She’s not coming in. Don’t worry.”

  When the water finally started to run clear off my head, I had another look at my face in the mirror. I was scratched from branches in every way possible, and it looked like I’d been beat with a broom. There were drops of blood on the white tile floor. My blood. I held my right hand out and it was slit right across the palm. I clenched my hand tight so I didn’t have to look at it.

  Pa turned to Mr. Yunsen. “Look at this cut here.”

  He forced open my fingers, and I watched my hand pool up with dark blood.

  “Have you got any iodine?” Pa asked.

  “I’m afraid I’ll have to fetch my needle and catgut as well,” Mr. Yunsen said and left the room.

  I spun toward Pa, nearly slipping on the wet floor. I asked, “What’s the needle for?”

  Pa smiled and held up his bandaged arm and said, “The two of us are just a mess.”

  I put on the clothes Mr. Yunsen had brought for me. He said he was sorry he didn’t have anything my size, but if it was between wearing his clothes and wearing Rebecca’s, I’d take his funeral clothes every time. Dressed in long black slacks and a dress shirt that was about five sizes too big, I walked out of the tub room and found Rebecca waiting for me with a lamp.

  “A little grandpa!” she said.

  I felt my ears burn, but I smiled as best I could and shuffled into the main room. Rebecca had made a fire and set a large plush chair in front of the wood-burning stove. Still shaking slightly, I sank into the chair. Rebecca began toweling my hair as I warmed my sore face.

  Pa and Mr. Yunsen returned, Pa holding a gold kerosene lamp and Mr. Yunsen clutching his dark leather bag. He reached in for his instruments.

  All his tools for dead folks were in there, and I wondered if I might faint before we even got started.

  Rebecca went to fetch more lamps. Pa leaned in and whispered, “Now you get to show her how brave you are.”

  I didn’t say anything, just watched Mr. Yunsen set items on the little metal tray. One brown bottle that read IODINE. One small ivory semicircle, like a fishhook. One roll of thin cord. And in Mr. Yunsen’s bony fingers was a pair of metal tweezers.

  Rebecca walked behind my chair and patted the top of my head. I jumped a little and was happy she couldn’t see my face. Every heartbeat brought a fresh pulse of pain just as sure as Mr. Salvatore was there stabbing my palm with a jackknife. The worst of it, however, was yet to come.

  Under the light of the fire and five lamps, Mr. Yunsen stripped off a hair-thin piece of fiber and threaded it through a tiny eye in the ivory hook, which he held pinched in the tweezers. He began to tell a story, speaking in a slow, almost hypnotizing voice.

  “I once met a man who had traveled the world many times over. He told me of a most interesting practice they use in India.”

  Mr. Yunsen dabbed the dark blood from my palm with a towel and repositioned the kerosene lamp. I could feel sweat forming on my temples. Just do it already, I thought.

  “To treat an open wound such as this, local medicine men would harvest a large species of ant, an insect roughly the size of our hummingbirds.”

  Mr. Yunsen balanced the pointy end of the white hook over my palm and kept talking in a low, soothing rhythm.

  “This was a fierce creature. And throughout India it was known for its powerful jaws, which would lock down like the bite of a snapping turtle.”

  I felt the skin tighten as the curled hook pressed hard against the flesh of my palm, then sunk in. It was like he was shoving broken glass inside and I had to fight to steady my hand. Before I could look away, the hook and thread popped back out on the other side of the cut, bursting through the skin from the inside. Rebecca gasped as little spurts of blood pumped out of me and mixed with the sweat. Mr. Yunsen kept talking like nothing had happened.

  “They would hold this colossal ant above the injury and it would bite down, clamping the wound shut. With a sharp twist they’d snatch the ant’s torso
off, leaving the head to hang there for days, sealing the wound with its jaws.”

  At this point I heard Pa lean in and say all excited, “Please tell me you have these ants, Herbert.”

  “No, I’m afraid I only have this catgut and whalebone.”

  Black spots before me made it impossible to watch, but I felt the point of the hook dip into my skin again, turn, then explode back through the skin. I was close to passing out and I peeked over just in time to see a tiny knot slide down the cord and rest on my palm.

  Mr. Yunsen dabbed at my hand with his towel. “Congratulations, Cub, you are the second living patient on whom I’ve performed this procedure.”

  I sank back and gave Rebecca a weak smile. Sweat was still dripping off my face onto my fancy shirt, but I had survived.

  When I had steadied myself, I said, “Thank you, Mr. Yunsen. Who was the first?”

  “Myself,” he said with a smile. “Now, let’s discuss what we’re going to do about this Salvatore.”

  PA PULLED OVER TWO MORE chairs and the four of us sat there in the flickering firelight asking each other questions none of us knew the answers to.

  Mr. Yunsen asked, “Could Mr. Salvatore be waiting at your house?”

  “What if he comes to check again tomorrow?” Rebecca added.

  I didn’t figure Mr. Salvatore would wait us out there at the house, but maybe my acting hadn’t fooled him as well as I’d thought. Staring at that little black knot sewn into my hand made me wonder if my whole plan was going to unravel before it got started.

  “Two days,” Pa muttered.

  I could hear the seconds ticking away in my head.

  Mr. Yunsen said, “Gentlemen, I have the final sale arranged, but not until next week. Not to mention the fact that you have not spoken with the federal agents in Knoxville.”

  “What if you talked to them tomorrow?” I asked.

  “We could, I suppose. It would leave the agents little time to prepare, but we don’t have much choice.”

  “Could we sell the rest of the shine there too?” Pa asked.

  Hearing him ask that made me feel glad even in my weakened state. He hadn’t given up on me or my plan yet.

  Mr. Yunsen hesitated, then said, “I do know a man there. It would not be a typical sale, but it could work.”

  Rebecca jumped to her feet looking all excited and turned to Pa.

  “Make sure to tell the Feds that Mr. Salvatore is a big-time gangster. That he’s in it with Nicky Merlino. That it’s a matter of national security. Then they’ll put their best men on the case.”

  Pa nodded awkwardly, and Mr. Yunsen stepped in.

  “I’m sure Salvatore is just a petty criminal,” Mr. Yunsen said. “And the Feds will do their job, there’s no need to worry about that.”

  I could see plain in his face that Mr. Yunsen was trying to keep me and Pa from overworrying. Rebecca was going in a different direction though.

  “Of course, if he is a gangster,” she said, staring into the fire as she thought it all out, “that means he’s in a gang. And the rest of the gang probably wouldn’t like it if you got one of them locked up.”

  “Now, Rebecca,” Mr. Yunsen said, “let’s not get carried away.”

  Mr. Salvatore certainly acted like some kind of big-shot crook. He had a big car, probably had lots of guns. He looked like the men in the papers, either the mug shots where they were holding up numbers or the crime scene pictures where everybody was laid out in the street with their suits full of bullet holes.

  Pa turned to me and said, “We’re going to have to keep watch for Salvatore all night.”

  It was true. I wondered if Pa would let me sleep with the shotgun.

  Mr. Yunsen said, “Rebecca and I would be delighted if you would be our guests for the evening.”

  Staying in this giant house sounded a whole lot safer than sleeping in our little shack. And me and Rebecca could stay up late and talk and plan.

  “Can we, Pa?” I asked.

  Pa turned to Mr. Yunsen and asked, “You sure? We don’t want to be a bother.”

  “It would be our pleasure. We’ll have supper and you can sleep in our spare room. Tomorrow we’ll pick up the shine and drive up to Knoxville.”

  “We’ll take you up on it then. Thank you very much,” Pa said, then turned to Rebecca. “Both of you.”

  I thought I’d give it a shot and see if I could ride along, even though I had school. “And can I go to Knoxville too?”

  To my surprise, Pa said, “I was thinking the same thing.”

  “And me too?” Rebecca asked.

  Mr. Yunsen shook his head. “I’m afraid not. But you can help me prepare supper.”

  She groaned, but was still smiling.

  “Say hi to Miss Pounder for me tomorrow,” I told her.

  “Don’t forget your note this time, dum-dum,” she said, then got up and went to the kitchen.

  As she and her grandpa made supper, me and Pa huddled close to the fire and talked about what to say to the government men. Pa told me flat out that he was nervous.

  “Big towns are different. And those big-time agents might take a notion to ask me how I happen to know so much about moonshining.”

  I tried to settle him as best I could and said, “Just tell ’em that Mr. Salvatore will be at the house tomorrow night and that he’ll have loads of liquor. And that they should put him in jail.”

  “They might want to put me in jail too. We’ve been shining for over ten years.”

  Pa made a fair point. But by the time he went in there to talk to the law, we’d have sold all the liquor and the still. We’d be out of the business. Of course, they could probably charge us with all sorts of stuff if they knew the details, but we were going straight now. We were getting on the right side of the law. A fella’s got to have a chance to do that, right?

  He went on, “I’m hoping I can work something out with ’em. They just got to understand how hard times were when I started. A man and a baby can’t share a potato for their supper.”

  Rebecca called us from the far side of the room and I walked over to that big long table and saw that it was heaped with every kind of food in the world—pork and gravy, macaroni, collards, pumpkin, corn bread, and some other things I wasn’t familiar with.

  It was the fanciest meal I’d ever eaten and I was glad I had on Mr. Yunsen’s church clothes for it, no matter how big they were on me. Mr. Yunsen had me howling telling stories about running liquor with Pa back in the old days, and when I’d finally calmed myself from laughing, I prayed the Feds hadn’t heard those same stories.

  After supper Rebecca showed me all around her big, empty house and showed me her room as well. Fine pillows and flowery smells were what I imagined walking upstairs, but there was none of that. There was none of anything, in fact, save for a plain bed and a sewing machine built into a table. Rebecca led me to the machine and then fished out a bright red spool of thread from a basket beneath.

  “This one’s from Chicago,” she said, holding up the ruby-colored thread.

  “Wow, you use it much?”

  “Not yet. I’m scared to start because once I do it’ll run out real fast. My folks sent it to me.”

  We sat on the bed and I kept looking at the sewing machine. There wasn’t anything else in the room so I wasn’t sure what else to look at.

  I held up a dangling sleeve and asked her, “You think you could fix this?”

  “You mean shorten your clothes? Or sew on your hand some more?”

  “The clothes, dum-dum.”

  She got a real proud look on her face and said, “If I had time I could make it perfect. My ma showed me how and we used to make clothes for everybody, some even to sell.”

  “You always got nice clothes,” I told her. “And a nice house too.”

  She smiled and asked, “How come you never invited me to your house?”

  “Ain’t much to see,” I said.

  We sat quiet on the edge of the bed, Rebecca swingi
ng her legs in front of her, me sitting up straight with my hands sweating on the thighs of her grandpa’s dress pants. I wondered if I was supposed to do or say something then. We sat silently and the room started feeling real warm and I realized I’d forgotten to breathe.

  Pa’s voice rang out behind us and I jumped, bouncing up off her bed and nearly crashing into the sewing machine.

  “Hey, boy, it’s almost midnight.”

  I mumbled good night to Rebecca and walked into the hall with Pa. We were sharing a room with two beds, a normal bed and a giant one with four wooden posts. Strung over the top, there was a big white canopy that floated over the mattress like a ship’s sail.

  Pa approached the bigger bed slowly and ran his fingers over the carved wooden posts.

  “You want this one?” he asked.

  I laughed and shook my head. “I’ll take the little one.”

  “Dang,” he said. “If this bed roof falls in the night, come help me.”

  I was glad me and Pa weren’t in our shack, noses pressed to the window, praying we didn’t see headlights. It struck me kind of funny how I felt more relaxed in this old haunted house, sleeping under the same roof as the old man I had pegged as a killer and the girl who’d thought I was slow. As I drifted off to sleep I decided that I would invite Rebecca to my new house.

  BEFORE I’D EVEN CRACKED MY EYES open that next morning, my head was racing with thoughts of everything that had to go right for us that day. It was like we were playing poker and if we drew just one bad hand we’d lose everything.

  Not only did we have to get all that liquor into town, somebody had to buy it. Not to mention the fact that Pa was putting his faith in the same folks we’d been dodging since I was born. There was a lot at stake—everything really. Today we’d see just what kind of odds we were up against.

  The tent ceiling over Pa’s bed had not crashed on him in the night, which I took as a good sign for the day. It wasn’t even light out yet, but Pa was gone. He’d left me some clothes folded on top of a chest of drawers. Nobody even lived in this room and they still had a full set of drawers, not half for each like me and Pa back home.