The Wettest County in the World

by Matt Bondurant

  Forrest, Barbour began, we was hopin’ you’d be in, seeing as your station is a central depot for moving north and into Roanoke.

  You gonna report him? a man shouted from the back.

  Hold on, fellas, Barbour said. It ain’t like that. We just trying to explain how it works. People that don’t want in will have to fend for themselves, like always. Now they ain’t gonna have the protection, and so when the ATU comes round, they the ones gonna get their stills cut and liquor taken. If the feds want a still, then Hodges will give them one. But not one of ours. Nobody is reporting anybody. That much hasn’t changed.

  Everyone turned again to Forrest and the barn grew quiet. He shifted his jaw and the ragged scar across his neck rippled. Jack knew that many of these men would rather go along with Forrest and whatever he decided. The granny fee alone would limit the profit of the small-time makers to a minimum, barely covering costs. And what about a man’s private stock? If he wanted to make a batch for himself and his friends, he’d still have to cough up the fee, and then what was the difference between that and the government taking a tax? Forrest stared at Turner and Barbour like he was trying to figure what sort of species they were.

  So Hodges and his boys will come after me if I don’t pay?

  Now, Turner stammered, I ain’t saying that. I’m just saying there won’t be any protection. Now I know that some deputies roughed up Jack there. That’s the kind of thing that won’t happen in the new system.

  The men in the barn inspected his face for injury and Jack set a fresh array of curses on the head of Charley Rakes for this new humiliation.

  And of course, Turner said, we don’t want the deputies or ATU coming round your station, nosing round there. That would affect everyone.

  Nobody bothers me now, Forrest said. No federal man ever come round my station.

  That ’cause they know better, someone shouted, and there was a smattering of nervous laughter.

  Forrest turned and addressed the room.

  Any of you, he said, want to move liquor through me instead of the government, then come on. We’ll accommodate you. We will continue to operate free and clear, like always.

  A few men whistled and cheered, but for most there was an indecisive mutter and shuffle, silence.

  Times are changing, Forrest, Barbour said. You can’t do it the old way anymore.

  I guess we’ll see about that, Forrest said.

  He started up and Howard led the way through the crowd to the door, the men parting to create a neat avenue for Howard’s bulk. As Jack followed his brothers he felt the intense gazes of these men upon his face. He knew that at that moment these men respected their defiance; they wished they had the gonads for such a move. He only wished they would stay and take charge of the thing, push Turner and Barbour aside and do some talking. If Forrest wanted to he could have the whole crew of them on his side and they could overturn the thing. Jack felt that he could do it; if Forrest would let him talk he would give these men some sense and show that they only needed to band together and push Carter Lee and his cronies out. Who could stop them? Turner was right that there was a lot more money to be made in organization, but why should Carter Lee be the top boss? Why not he and his brothers? But he also knew that Forrest wanted none of it. His organization stopped at himself, so Jack kept his shoulders straight as he ducked out the door and followed his brothers into the glare of the sun.

  Chapter 15

  1934

  SHERIFF HODGES had an office in the courthouse next to the commonwealth’s attorney’s office, but he was never there. Whenever Anderson came by a revolving series of men—deputies they appeared to be—sat in the office reading the newspaper or smoking cigarettes and they all said the same thing: that Anderson would have to talk to Sheriff Hodges and that they didn’t know anything about the pending trial. One of the deputies, a pink-faced boy who couldn’t have been more than a teenager, introduced himself as Deputy Hodges, apparently the sheriff’s son. None of these men wore any kind of uniform.

  Hodges was in street clothes as well, but it was easy enough to pick him out as he was the only one wearing a .38 on his hip at the Little Hub Restaurant. The place brimming with the usual lunch crowd but Anderson worked himself onto a stool next to the sheriff, ordered coffee. Hodges wolfed down fried chicken and potatoes at the counter and barely even looked at him. Anderson began by asking about the wounded men in the Rocky Mount Hospital.

  They’s two boys from Shootin’ Creek over in Floyd, Hodges said. ’Bout all we know.

  No suspects?

  Pretty hard to figure suspects, Hodges said, when you don’t have any witnesses and the two victims won’t talk. I should say can’t, as that one castrated feller is due to die anytime now. No one’s coming forward to claim them or claim relation.

  Actually, they’re gone.

  You don’t say?

  They were discharged last week.

  Gotta say I’m surprised. Didn’t think they’d make it.

  What about connections, Anderson said, to this trial coming up?

  Hodges forked a fried potato into his mouth, his chin shining with grease.

  Is Willie Carter Sharpe in custody? Anderson asked.

  Wouldn’t know.

  You don’t have her, then?

  Nope. That’s a federal issue. She ain’t in Franklin County that we know of.

  What about the murder of Jeff Richards?

  What about it? Can’t talk about pending ’vestigation, you know that.

  Hodges shrugged. The grill sizzled with frying onions and the doorbell rang constantly as patrons crowded in and out. Anderson put a hand on the counter near Hodges’s plate. The bastard isn’t even giving me the time, he thought.

  I saw a run, Anderson said, come right through here, just a few nights ago. There was an accident. I saw you there.

  Yeah? Hodges said.

  A woman was seriously hurt.

  She wudn’t hurt, Hodges said, she was dead.

  Seemed like there was some confusion there, with the ATU men? Richards was there. I’m just trying to understand something here.

  Nothin’ to understand, Hodges said.

  Business as usual?

  Hodges snapped his head around. That got to him, Anderson thought.

  Just seems like nobody, Anderson said, really cares. Like this is all normal. Like nothing unusual is happening.

  Yep.

  Well, it don’t seem usual.

  Hodges wiped his mouth and tossed his napkin on his plate. He signaled the counterman for more coffee.

  Where you from?

  Marion, Anderson said.

  I mean originally. Where was you born and raised?

  Anderson felt himself flush. Was it possible he knew of him? Was he going to be caught in such a ridiculous lie?

  How do you know I wasn’t raised in Marion?

  If you have to ask me that, Hodges said, then clearly you ain’t.

  Well, Anderson said, where I come from we don’t have cars full of liquor blasting through the town square every night with women at the wheel, men getting castrated and their testicles delivered to them in the hospital, and nobody seems to care or say anything about it.

  Welcome to Franklin County, Hodges said, and got up from his stool, pulling out his wallet.

  Let me get it, Anderson said, and slapped down a dollar.

  Oh, no sir, Hodges said. That would be unethical.

  Anderson followed him outside to his car.

  Look, can I come in and talk to Carter Lee?

  You have to ask him. I’m not his secretary.

  Every time I go over there I’m turned away by a deputy. Your deputies. Your son even. I’ve been over there three times.

  Hodges sat in his car and rolled down the window.

  Look, those boys in the hospital, Hodges said, they would be dead now if someone hadn’t called it in. There ain’t no conspiracy going on around here. Now why don’t you go on back to Ohio or Kansas or wherever you�
�re from, and let us handle it.

  SINCE THE DEATH of Jeff Richards the town began to quiet, a distinct hush, and the normally reticent stopped talking altogether. Anderson had sat in a dozen country stores for whole afternoons, warming by the stove, cooling under a fan, drinking coffee and eating fresh pecans with local men who sat slouched in their leaning chairs, battered boots on the stove, saying nothing. Whole families came in to purchase goods, the children wandering about languidly, cooing to themselves in their secret language. Perhaps that old mountain-family rumor was true, Anderson thought with a smile, perhaps they really do wean them on milk and moonshine. Almost nothing was exchanged among the adults except the business transaction at hand.

  What everyone in the county did talk about was tobacco. It hung on the lips of men like salvation, it was as if they believed if they repeated the word enough, ’bacca, the chanting, the incantation, the sound of it would bring a strong crop and suddenly Franklin County would flower into prosperity. That summer Anderson watched as men, young boys and girls walked the rows of tobacco for hours in the devastating heat, seemingly endless rows that stretched over the hills, stooping to pull tobacco worms off the stalks and leaves, fat white grubs several inches long that writhed in your palm when plucked, their tiny black heads waving, beaklike mouths seeking purchase. They pitched the worms into tin pails they carried, which they dumped together later and burned—a scene Anderson did not wish to witness. The boys had a habit of skipping that final process and just pulled the worms and bit the heads off as they walked along, stooping and spitting along the hours of the day. The worms could wipe out a crop and they had to be sure they were dead. The certainty of this was the most important thing.

  Then the pulling of the tobacco leaves, done several times in the season. When the bottom leaves grew wide and broad from the summer sun, their tips beginning to curl, they had to be pulled off individually and put into a sack, more endless wandering through the rows in the heat and earth. Anderson sat on the hood of his car and watched the boys and men stepping and then stooping, pulling a few leaves that they carried together in stacked bundles called “hands.” When the wind came up the large fronds of tobacco waved together like fields of people, rippling like marching crowds, and Anderson thought of his time in the Spanish war, the long lines of blue, tramping feet, wind-burned skin, thirst.

  Then the putting up of the hands in the tobacco barns, hanging the thick clumps from rafters at varying lengths in tall log barns mud-plastered with cracks in the mortar for ventilation. The heat playing lightly over the leaves, drying them to a golden calfskin then mottled brown. Putting up and taking down the hands was an arduous process. The air in the barns was incredibly hot, dust choked and stifling, and the boys worked quickly.

  A writer friend who briefly raised a crop in North Carolina told Anderson how he prepared the field by burning litter over it, covering the soil with netting, then caring for the tender shoots. He said he shuffled on his knees in the dirt for weeks, pruning the plants diligently and picking the leaves throughout the season with care, always vigilant for the worms and grubs. This man didn’t have a vehicle at the time so he rented a truck to take his tobacco to auction. Hundreds of men had their tobacco laid out in bundled sheafs in the warehouse in Winston-Salem, and in the morning the buyers from the tobacco companies walked through with paper and pen and discussed the quality and made bids. The first group of buyers strolled up to his tobacco and said: “Well, look at this mess!” In the end he only made enough money to cover the truck rental. The whole season of labor was for nothing. Anderson decided that despite the tender waving of the fragrant leaves, pulling tobacco—the total process of caring for and harvesting—was the most awful, thankless, and debilitating agricultural work he ever witnessed.

  AT THE END of October 1934, Anderson returned to Marion for the winter to survey the work on his house. While Ripshin was being built Anderson mostly stood in the freshly cleared yard smoking and watching the men work, nailing posts, planing beams, cutting local stone. It was a stone house, and nothing of its kind had been built in the area around Marion before. But the man he hired to supervise the building, the robust old mountain man named Ball, assured him they could do it and it appeared they could as the house was nearly finished. He spent a quiet holiday at Ripshin with Eleanor and her family.

  In the early spring he found himself back in Franklin County, at the boardinghouse. The notice of indictment was due to be posted shortly, and word was that Willie Carter Sharpe was in custody and would testify.

  The editors at Liberty sent telegrams asking about his progress. He left them unanswered, folded into a pocket of his coat. Let them deal with what they get, Anderson thought. I won’t be hostage to this thing. I will go down there and see this damn woman and write this thing up and be done with it.

  Willie Carter Sharpe, the only man or woman alive who could hold a Ford wide open down Grassy Hill—the famous mountain pass north of Rocky Mount into the Burnt Chimney section of Franklin County and on into Roanoke. The Bootleg Highway, some called it, though only up north; in all his time in Franklin County nobody ever called it that. Anderson was beginning to wonder if it was all a fabrication of the urbanites, a new dream of a Wild West here in the mountainous south, the fantasy of a frontier culture.

  WHEN HE RETURNED to the boardinghouse Anderson learned that another deputy had died that past fall. Charley Rakes died in his own bed from pneumonia on October 14, 1934, two days after Jefferson Richards. He was dead the day that Anderson talked to Hodges at the Little Hub. Both deputies were due to testify before the grand jury just two weeks after they died. One after the other; efficient, thought Anderson. Charley Rakes apparently died quietly at home, and there was no pending investigation or evidence of foul play.

  Business as usual. He booked his room at the boardinghouse for the next two months.

  Chapter 16

  1929

  IT WAS NEAR two in the morning and Jack sat in his father’s Model A, watching Howard’s bulky form trudging up the pass with the wheelbarrow into the darkness. They were on a hidden feeder road deep in the base of Turkeycock Mountain. Jack was dressed in his father’s dark serge suit that he had taken that night, along with his father’s car. On the seat next to him he had a few maps of Franklin, Bedford, and Roanoke counties and an old cardboard suitcase with a few changes of clothes. The trunk of the car was packed full with forty gallons of Howard’s doubled and twisted crazy apple in five-gallon cans and another four cans under a blanket in the backseat. Jack eased the choke out of the Model A and the engine settled from a shuddering chug to a smooth purr. Behind him Cricket Pate ground his ramshackle Pierce-Arrow into gear, loaded with another thirty gallons of mostly popskull, sugar-liquor he made with the remnants of a chopped still he reconstructed in a moldy ditch. A blackened .38 hung in Jack’s coat pocket, borrowed from his oldest brother.

  Howard disappeared into the dark woods. He didn’t say a word and Jack knew it was because the arrangement didn’t suit him; making and selling was fine but he didn’t like Jack doing the driving. Jack didn’t care as Howard blew his wages in a card game at the Blackwater station and Jack was owed. He just took it back in booze and a bit of labor. Cricket Pate knew a guy across the line in Burning Bag, an associate of John Carter’s, the man who ran the Roanoke liquor trade, who would pay five dollars a gallon for the quality crazy apple and three for the sugar-liquor. The suit, briefcase, and sample bag were intended as a last-ditch option, the faint hope he might pass himself off as a salesman on a deadline. Cricket said he’d dress likewise but his moth-eaten suit and car weren’t going to fool anyone and Jack knew it. As they hit Route 33 and headed north Jack began to feel like a damn fool and wished they hadn’t bothered with the disguises and just did it straight like other blockaders. They would move fast but they wouldn’t look much like runners, and they would be through and back before daylight and if they were lucky they may not be noticed at all.

  The Model A smelled like h
is old man: whiskers and pipe tobacco, linty socks and licorice candy. Jack rolled the car down the drive soon after Granville went to sleep and started it on the fly. If he timed it right he would be back in Snow Creek before six with the fuel topped off and his father wouldn’t be the wiser. Howard would take a quarter share, Cricket would take fifty dollars, and the rest was Jack’s. He’d make near $250, more money than he’d ever had in his life. He wrestled the Model A around a corner, the tires whining with effort as he hammered along the hard road. A new suit of his own, the soft calfskin boots, brass buttons halfway to the knee, an ivory Dunlap felt cap, a new car: He’d have plenty to put down on his own car and after a half-dozen more runs he’d have it paid off. A roadster, something with some flash and muscle.

  They looped around Cook’s Knob on State Road 219, hard-packed clay and gravel, low mist coming off the fallow tobacco fields that lay humped in the dark like dry whales, stretches of pine and gum deepening as they wound westward toward Floyd County. They crossed the county line just after three, making good time, and they hadn’t yet seen a soul on the road other than lolling raccoons in the ditch, the scent of skunk wafting out of the dark. No real moon out and the watery headlight lamps probed the blackness. Jack found himself almost disappointed; an uneventful trip and his shirt began to dry from the cool air.

  A few miles over the county line Cricket flashed his lights and Jack pulled in at a filling station. Burning Bag, or alternately Running Bag, no one knew which for sure, was well known, like Shootin’ Creek or Blackwater Creek, as a sort of frontier outpost, a linking point between the worlds of those who walked out of the trees on the mountain and those with cars and money. Burning Bag did a cracking business in the whiskey trade and had its share of knifings and indifferent shootings, bonfire beatings, station-yard thrashings by men without names who existed on no register. The station that Jack and Cricket pulled into had no name, the fuel pumps rusted heaps that glowered in the dark, a one-story shamble with evident fire damage along one wall. There were already three cars in the lot, flickering gaslights burning in the station window where shadows moved with purpose and Jack felt the fear in the pit of his stomach again. This was John Carter’s territory, run mostly by his son, Floyd, the man who married and divorced Willie Carter Sharpe. They lined up behind the other cars and killed the engines.