He forced himself to slow, to breathe, damning the driver of the other vehicle as it slid into the same curve, recovered, and then sped on, closing the gap between them even further as he glanced back again. He pushed at the accelerator, then slowed as he came into another curve. The heavy load beneath the tarp shifted again, worsening the sway of the vehicle and throwing him against the inside of the door with the force of the turn. He pushed the accelerator down again, the truck recovering, coming into a straight—and then slammed his foot down on the brake as the headlamps picked out a car across the road ahead. The truck skidded for a moment, then finally came to a halt, the tires throwing up a thick cloud of red dust that choked the air around him.
Janson sat, staring at the car just yards ahead that blocked the roadway, its headlamps dark. He fought down the urge to jump from the truck and take his chances in the nearby woods—sheriff’s deputies, revenue agents, bootleggers; whoever it was, they might be more likely to shoot a man if he ran. And then it was too late. The car following him ground to a halt on the rear of the truck, and two men emerged from the car ahead, one of them training a flashlight in Janson’s direction—he was caught. He could still take his chances in the woods—but he could not make himself move. He could only grip the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles turned white, watching as the two men ahead slowly approached the truck. There was a sound from the vehicle to the rear, a door opening, its lights now out as well—but Janson’s eyes stayed on the men before him, settling on one as he came even with the truck and peered in the window.
William Whitley stared at him with a half-amused, half-pleased expression on his face—the goddamn son-of-a-bitch, this was a test, Janson thought, realizing suddenly that he was shaking. The goddamn—
“You’re white as a sheet, boy—did Bill put a scare into you, running you like that?”
Janson took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to force a control over the anger that raged up inside of him. He turned loose of the steering wheel with hands that ached from released tension—the goddamn son-of-a-bitch, this was a—
“You stupid half-breed—” Whitley was quickly shoved aside and the truck door yanked open. Bill Whitley reached in to grab Janson by the shirt collar and pull him from the vehicle, then turned to shove him hard back against its side. “You about lost that whole load back there, and almost got me killed just trying to follow you—you goddamn—”
Janson shoved him away, clenching his hands into fists, ready to fight the man. “What the hell were you doing on my butt like that anyway!”
“Did you really think we’d trust you with a truck and that much money? I was betting you’d head straight for the state line; everybody knows you can’t trust an Indian, not even half-breed trash like—”
Something snapped within Janson. He went after Bill Whitley with a fury he had not known since the day he had almost killed Buddy Eason in that carriage house back in Eason County almost two years before. He grabbed Bill by the shirt front, turning and slamming him hard back against the side of the truck. “You goddamn son-of-a—”
But he was suddenly grabbed from behind and thrown backwards into the red dirt of the roadbed, William Whitley standing over him, staring down. “You watch your mouth boy—” he said, his eyes never leaving Janson’s face in the darkness.
Janson stared up at him for a moment, and then slowly got to his feet, dusting off the legs of his faded dungarees. He saw Whitley motion away the third man, who had stepped up to intercede, turning to stare as Franklin Bates moved a step away, his hand still resting on the gun tucked into his belt, and Janson realized suddenly how close he had come to death in those moments.
After a moment, William Whitley spoke back over his shoulder to his son. “Bill, take the truck on to the house and get somebody to unload it.”
Bill Whitley stood staring, unmoving, his eyes never leaving Janson.
Whitley’s voice rose. “I said go!”
For a moment Bill Whitley did not move; then he slowly turned and got into the truck, slamming the door behind himself. His eyes met Janson’s again for a moment just before the truck started away—there would be another time.
As the truck slowly maneuvered around the car blocking the road ahead, Whitley turned toward Bates. “Franklin—”
There was a sound of acknowledgment from the big man, a slight lift of the head, but no words. He continued to stare at Janson, his hand never leaving the gun in his belt—Janson had wondered for months what a man like Franklin Bates might do for Whitley. Now he knew.
“Take my car on to the house. I’ll take Bill’s Packard; the boy’ll ride with me. We’ve got some talking to do.”
Bates nodded without a word, then dropped his hand from the gun at his waist. He turned and started toward the car that blocked the road, never once looking back. Soon Janson was left standing alone in the middle of the rutted clay road with William Whitley.
“You did good, boy,” Whitley said, staring at him with eyes that Janson could not read in the darkness. The man reached into his pocket and pulled out a roll of bills, counted off several, then shoved the remainder back into his pocket. “You’ve earned this money right and proper tonight, boy—and there’s more where it came from, if you can keep your mouth shut and do what you’re told to do without asking too many questions.” He held the bills out toward Janson. “There could be some extra work for you pretty regular. You can be earning yourself some good money, boy, if you’re interested—”
Janson stared at the bills in Whitley’s hand, the reason he had taken on the haul of sugar in the first place. His suspicions that he had walked into a bootleg operation were only stronger—why else the need for such secrecy; why else the need to test him as they had done tonight. William Whitley was a bootlegger, and Janson was—
He took the money held out to him, crumpled it into one hand, and shoved it into his pocket—if anything, he was no fool. Whitley was offering him money, more money than he could make in years of working as a farmhand. If he wanted his land back, it would take money, and a lot of it. Whitley was offering him a chance for that money, and Janson knew that he would be a fool to turn that chance down—no matter what it was he might be called on to haul.
“Yeah, I’m interested,” he answered, meeting Whitley’s gaze levelly. “I’m interested.”
The following day crawled by with a nervousness growing in the pit of Janson’s stomach. He was to meet Whitley behind the big house at dusk—there would be work for him to do tonight.
As the afternoon hours came and the sun began to lower toward the tops of the pine trees in the west, throwing the yard and the fields into long, slanting shadows, Janson could little think of anything else but the meeting to come, and the possibilities of what he might be called on to do that night. He knew what Whitley was—common sense told him that—and, as dusk began to settle in over the fields, he had to fight the urge to grab his things and head straight for the County line. It was only the thought of the money that kept him walking toward the Whitleys’ big house, and not toward his room off the barn and then the road out of town.
Whitley and Bill were both waiting for him behind the separate kitchen, near a truck that Janson had never seen before. Franklin Bates was at a distance from them, hunkered down by a tree in the yard, his eyes on Janson as he approached. Janson looked at him for a moment, then toward Whitley and Bill, his eyes finally settling on the truck—there seemed something not quite right about the truckbed, even in the failing light. But he had little time to pay attention as Whitley spoke.
“You’re late, boy.”
“I was plowin’. I had t’ take th’ mule back t’ th’ barn an’ see to it she was fed,” Janson said.
Whitley stared at him, but it was Bill who spoke first. “I figured you’d be headed for the County line by now. I always did hear that Indians were cowards, as well as thieves, drunkards, and liars
—”
Janson took a step forward, ready to wipe the smug look from the man’s face, but Whitley stepped between them. “That’s enough of it between you two. There’s no time for that now. You’ve got a job to do, boy, if you’re interested.”
Janson stared past him to Bill for a moment—the time would come. He knew that. But right now there was work to do, money that he could earn. “I’m interested,” he said, bringing his eyes back to Whitley. “What kind’a job?”
Whitley stared at him, shifting the cigar to the other side of his mouth. “There’s something I want you to take into Buntain for me.”
“What’s that?”
Whitley looked at him for a moment, then turned to hook his hands beneath what appeared to be the truckbed, and lifted—but Janson already knew. The false bed came up, revealing a space beneath, the fading light glinting off the surface of the glass jars of bootleg liquor concealed there. Whitley reached to lift one from its nest, then held it out toward Janson.
“You know what this is, boy?” he asked.
Janson had known, but still he had not been prepared—corn liquor, bootleg whiskey, moonshine. He had the sudden impulse to tell Whitley that he had made a mistake, that he wanted out—then he saw the look on Bill Whitley’s face. The man thought he would run, even now.
He said: “Yeah, I reckon’ I know what that is.”
Whitley nodded, seeming satisfied. He replaced the jar of corn liquor back into its nest before lowering the false bed back into place. “That’s your load, boy. The wood covering makes it look like an empty truckbed at night, unless someone gets real curious.” He considered Janson for a moment, the cigar clamped between his teeth. “Well, boy, you want the haul or not? There’s good money to be made delivering corn liquor for me. I could be giving you extra work a couple of times a week, taking corn liquor into Buntain and other towns outside the County, bringing back sugar and other supplies.” He stared at Janson for a moment. “Well, boy, are you interested?”
Hauling bootleg liquor. Running against the law and the revenuers and other bootleggers. Maybe ending up in jail, maybe shot. Hauling black market sugar had been bad enough; did he really want to—
“How much?” he asked, forcing all other thoughts away. “How much’ll you pay?”
He had plenty of time later to wonder if he had made the right decision, as he jolted over rutted, back-country roads with a truck load of bootleg liquor.
8
The scenery that sped past the train early that April afternoon in 1927 was a montage of everything that home was to Elise Whitley—the tall, straight pines; the newly plowed fields red to the Georgia sun; the neat, white houses bordered by spring flower beds; the automobiles hurrying along busy country roads; the handsome young men in wide-legged trousers, the girls on their arms in pale, low-waisted spring dresses and new cloche hats. Elise stared out the window at the passing landscape, not wanting now to recognize the landmarks that would mean she was nearing home—but they came anyway: Dunn’s Grist Mill, the Pinckney settlement, the old colored church at the edge of town. For once in her life Elise Whitley did not want to go home, though homesickness had followed her through much of the past months as she had been away at school, with only the single trip home at Christmas, and the rare trips to Atlanta by her family—but now she did not want to go home. She did not want to see her family and the friends she had not seen in months, did not want to go home to the place she had spent most all her life—her father would be meeting the train at the station. That was a meeting Elise Whitley could well do without.
She stared out the train window, wondering at the reception she would find waiting for her, and knowing that it would not be a pleasant one. There had been only a single telephone conversation in the days since she had been expelled, a single telephone conversation terminated abruptly when her father had hung up on her mid-sentence. Since then, there had been only silence from Endicott County; her father would have forbidden her mother, Stan, and Alfred to call, and Elise had not dared to place a call herself. He would never have accepted a telephone call from her, and would have become angry with anyone else who had done so. For the first time in her life, Elise felt alone in the world, felt as if she had been divorced from the family that had loved and sheltered her all her life—which was exactly what her father had intended that she feel.
In the moments before he had hung up on her on the phone, he had called her a fool. Elise was beginning to wonder now if he were not right.
Phyllis Ann sat beside her as the train neared Goodwin, the girl’s eyes staring into space at something Elise could not see. A slight crease wrinkled her usually smooth and thoughtless forehead, her brown eyes set on a point near the front of the car, her fingers toying with the long strand of beads she wore—she was unusually silent now, compared with the spiteful and acid-tongued creature Elise had left the school with that morning. Phyllis Ann had criticized the school, criticized the instructors and the other girls, even called Miss Perry something to her face that Elise would not even dare to repeat—now she sat staring into space, her words silent, her eyes showing a concern that Elise told herself she could understand. She knew that, no matter the reception she herself might receive at home, Phyllis Ann could expect something so much worse—Ethan Bennett would see to that. Ethan Bennett would amply see to that.
In the days since the expulsion, an uneasy truce had existed between the two girls. They were cordial to each other, often even formally so, and it had seemed on occasion almost as if nothing had ever happened—but that fist that had been raised between them stayed there still: silent, ghost-like, ever present. Elise continued to see it in her mind, and felt she would see it through the remainder of her days—perhaps her father had been right. Perhaps she truly was a fool.
The familiar landmarks moved past the train, bringing them only closer to home. Elise glanced over at Phyllis Ann—the girl looked worried, almost frightened. Elise suddenly found herself very glad that she was going home to William Whitley, no matter how bad his temper might be, or how angry he was with her at the moment, instead of going home to a man like Ethan Bennett. Phyllis Ann had told her so many things—but it was more than that. Elise herself had seen the bruises, the blackened eyes, the remnants of a badly bloodied nose. Ethan Bennett often beat his wife, only slightly less often beat his daughter, and Elise lived in horror of the man—not for herself, for she knew she had little to fear from him, but instead for the girl who had been her best friend all her life. She knew one day Ethan Bennett was going to kill someone; she could only hope that someone would not be Phyllis Ann.
She reached over and patted her friend’s hand reassuringly—for they were still that, friends, even after all that had happened between them. They had known each other for too long, shared too many secrets, too many fights, too many heartbreaks, done too much growing up together, for the friendship to end so simply. Phyllis Ann did not look at her, or even acknowledge the touch, and Elise understood, or at least told herself that she should—she knew she could never really understand the things that went on inside her friend’s mind, especially not in matters concerning Phyllis Ann’s father. And perhaps there was no one who could understand that.
Elise placed her hand back into her own lap and turned to stare out the window again —almost home, the countryside now as familiar to her as a long-known family face. Her father would be waiting for her at the depot—how she wished she could delay that meeting. But there would be no delay, no matter how much she might want it.
The train began to slow, coming into the station, and, after a moment, she saw her father waiting on the platform, J.C. Cooper beside him. She gathered together her things and waited for Phyllis Ann to move from her seat so she could get out into the aisle—she was not ready to face her father yet. But there was no choice. There was little choice left for any of them now.
As they reached the rear door of the car, Elise glanced
back for a moment to see a look of fear cross Phyllis Ann’s face, and she understood—she too had seen Ethan Bennett waiting on the platform, standing alone at a distance from her father. Pity filled Elise, and she reached back to squeeze her friend’s arm reassuringly. “It’ll be all right; you’ll see,” she said softly.
As she stepped down onto the platform, an eerie feeling came over her—those had been the same words Phyllis Ann had used to reassure her they would never be expelled. The very same words.
Martha Whitley moved about the front parlor of her home a short while later, tidying the placement of the velvet-upholstered chairs about the centertable in the midst of the room, adjusting the heavy, yellow curtains held back from the windows by tasseled cords, running her hand over the cool marble of the mantelpiece for the hundredth time. There was little to do to occupy her hands or her mind this day, little to keep her from thinking, or from worrying.
She moved to one of the tall front windows that faced out onto the broad expanse of yard, the drive, and the red dirt road beyond, knowing that it was not yet time for William to return from the train station with Elise. She had not seen her daughter now in months, had not even spoken to her in days, not since William had forbidden anyone in the household from calling Atlanta following the one conversation he had with Elise the day she had been expelled.
Martha stared out the window for a moment, then moved to the heavily brocaded sofa to sit down, and to wait. Her hands grew restless and she got up to get her needlepoint from across the room, then returned to the sofa to try to occupy her mind with the long-familiar work of her hands—but it was hopeless. Her usually small, delicate stitching became large and uneven. She angrily threw the needlework down beside herself on the sofa, then sat and stared at it for a moment, surprised at her own actions. After a time she took it back up, carefully picked out the bad stitching, and began again—damn you, William, she thought, then felt immediately guilty with the silent words. It was so like him to think he could plan other people’s lives to suit his own purposes. He had been doing it for years with their sons, and he had been doing it to Elise all her life. He would marry his daughter off to Hiram Cooper’s son, without regard to Elise’s feelings in the matter. He had even forbidden Martha from going with him to meet the train this morning, because he was taking J.C. Cooper with him instead.
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