The Fourth of July celebrations coming up had only increased the demand for corn liquor throughout the area, and William Whitley was determined to meet that demand, claiming more and more of Janson’s hours for the stilling and distribution—and putting a distance between Janson and Elise that not even their differences had been able to. Elise wanted to spend time with him, wanted to go for picnics and walks and drives in the country, wanted to sit with him in the back parlor and listen to programs on the radio, or just spend hours talking about the thousands of things they could find to talk about, claiming his hours sometimes almost as if she were his girl and they were courting—but he knew they were not courting. Never again had she flirted with him as she had done that day; his temper had ruined that, his temper and his pride. He knew she had flirted only because he was a man, and only because it was in her nature to want every man to be a little in love with her—but he could often not help but to wonder what might not have happened that day if he had not lost his temper, if he might not have gotten a kiss on the cheek, maybe even on the lips, before she had come to her senses.
But it did not do to wonder about such things. It had not happened, and it never would. She was going to marry J.C. Cooper; Janson knew that, though she herself had never spoken of it. J.C. had taken again to calling at the Whitley house, being invited to dinner after church on Sundays, or to big family suppers at mid-week; and Janson had even overheard Whitley telling someone that the wedding would take place within a matter of months—but Elise never mentioned it, and Janson could somehow not bring himself to, not wanting to think of her married to someone else, to anyone other than himself. And he knew that would never be.
All she wanted was his friendship, time they could spend together; but time was the one thing he could often not give her, and it was the one thing he could never explain—how could he tell her there were things he had to do, places he had to go, that he could never tell her about. Instead, he gave her excuses, lies, reasons why they could not be together, even as he saw the disbelief in her eyes. She could never know that he was involved in a bootlegging operation, that her father was running a bootlegging operation, even though he knew the lies were only forcing a growing distance between them. She knew that he was lying, knew that he was involved in something more than he would tell her, for he could see the knowledge in her eyes—but it was a truth she would be better off never to know. He knew what he did could not matter in the slightest to her, but still he could not be the one to shatter the image she held of the father she had loved all her life. She could never know that it had been bootleg whiskey to buy her father the big house and the fancy cars and all her pretty clothes—little girls were entitled to their dreams after all, entitled to their dreams, even after they had become women.
He sat staring out across the back yard, hearing the sound of J.C. Cooper’s car start up in the drive before the house, and, after a moment, drive away. He wondered if Elise had kissed him goodbye, wondered if she had been in his arms for a moment, but forced the thought away, knowing it was better that he never know. He tried to think of what he would tell her, what excuse he would give to explain why he could not spend the afternoon with her as he had promised he would. It had been only a matter of hours before when William Whitley had stopped by his room on his way to church that morning, had stopped by to tell him that there was a truck load of corn liquor to be delivered to Buntain that afternoon—a daylight run of bootleg whiskey across the County line was a dangerous thing to take on, but Whitley had left him with little choice. Janson would either have to make the delivery, or get the hell off Whitley land—and that was something he could not do, not so long as Elise Whitley was here, not even if she were going to marry someone else.
Through the open windows of the great house behind him, he could hear Elise’s voice calling to her mother somewhere within the rooms, and a pang of guilt went through him that he would have to disappoint her again, lie to her again, as he had lied to her so many times in the past weeks. He stayed where he was on the steps of the rear veranda, knowing she would find him here when she was ready, for this was where he always waited when they were to meet.
The rear door of the house creaked open behind him, and he stood to meet her, feeling another stab of guilt at the sight of her, and at the disappointment that came to her face at the first sight of his expression. “You’ve got to go somewhere,” she said, not even waiting for him to speak. “We’re not going to spend the afternoon together.”
For a moment he could think of nothing to say, no excuses to give her, as he stared at the set and disappointed look on her face. Finally he managed, “I’m sorry,” but could say nothing more.
“What is it this time?”
“Work, your pa—”
“Work, what kind of work?” she demanded. “Today’s Sunday, Janson, and it’s laying by. What kind of work could you have to do today?”
“Jus’ work,” he said, turning away, his voice short as he fought to control his temper—it was for her own good anyway. Damn her, why could she never leave anything alone? Why could—
There was a peculiar note in her voice as she spoke again: anger, irritation, and something more. “If there’s someone else you’d rather be with, you can tell me outright, you know. I’m not a child—”
He turned back to look at her. Her chin was set as she met his eyes. “Somebody else I’d rather be with?”
“Yes—don’t you think I know you’ve got a girl in town? If it wasn’t something like that, you’d tell me. If it wasn’t—” Then she suddenly seemed to note the amusement that came to his face, which seemed to irritate her all the more. “Don’t you laugh at me, Janson Sanders! I am not a naive child who has to be protected from the world, no matter what it is you seem to think! I know you’ve got a girl in town—why else would you go off at all hours of the day and night, and never be able to tell me or anyone where it is you’re going! Well, you don’t have to tell me fairy stories to cover it up any more. I know that there are things that you—that a man—that—” Suddenly she seemed at a loss for words. She stared at him for a moment longer, her mouth still open, then her face flushed and she looked away.
Janson laughed outright at the look on her face, unable to stop himself, and her eyes came back to him angrily.
“I ain’t got no girl in town,” he said, trying to keep from smiling. “It ain’t nothin’ like that.”
“Then, what is it? Where are you going?”
“I cain’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“I jus’ cain’t, an’ it don’t really matter. There’re jus’ things sometimes that a man’s got t’ do that he cain’t tell nobody about—” he said, and she looked away again. When she looked back there was accusation in her eyes. “I done told you, it ain’t nothin’ like that—”
“Then what is it?” For a moment they only stared at each other, neither speaking. “Sometimes I feel like following you just to see—”
“Don’t you ever do that!” His voice, in his surprise and agitation, was harsher than he had intended it to be—Elise, stumbling onto the bootlegging operation. Elise, finding out that he and her father were involved in selling bootleg liquor. Elise, finding out—
He watched her chin raise defiantly, her eyes determined. “You can’t tell me what to do.”
He crossed the short distance between them, going to where she stood near the closed rear door of the great house, then stopped to put his hands on her arms and stare down at her. “I shouldn’t ’a yelled at you. I’m sorry—” Why was one or the other of them forever saying ‘I’m sorry’—“An’ I’m not tellin’ you, I’m askin’—you cain’t never follow me. You’ve got t’ promise me that.”
For a moment she only stared up at him. “Why? What is it you’re involved in?”
How could he tell her? How could he explain—“You’ve just got t’ promise me.”
She searched his eyes, standing so close for a moment that he could have bent to kiss her—then she moved so that his hands fell from her arms and walked a few steps away, to stand with her back to him, staring out across the wide back yard. He could read a stubborn determination in the set of her shoulders—she would know what it was that he was hiding, no matter the cost to herself. No matter—
“Promise me, Elise—” he said, moving to stand just behind her, unable to touch her again. “You got t’ promise me—”
When she turned to look a him, there was distrust in her eyes.
“Promise me—”
She was silent a moment longer, and then her voice came, quiet, reluctant, carrying with it a note of that same distrust. “Okay, I promise.”
He smiled, relief flooding him. The words had been pulled from her against her will, perhaps even against her better judgement, but she had given them, and she would not go back on them now. She was safe from finding out about him, about her father, about—
“I suppose you’ll have to ‘work’ all day tomorrow as well, Fourth of July or not?” she asked, stressing the word as if it were a curse.
“No, I ain’t got t’ work.”
“Then, can we spend part of the day together tomorrow at least?”
“I thought you were goin’ t’ th’ big picnic outside ’a town with your folks—” Somehow he could not mention J.C. Cooper, though he knew J.C. had been invited to share the day, and the picnic, with the Whitleys during the big Independence Day celebrations in the meadow clearing just south of town the next day.
“Yes, but afterwards, as soon as I can make my excuses?”
“Sure, we can spend some time t’gether.”
“The entire day, just as soon as I can get away from my father and J.C.?”
Janson found himself smiling—she wanted to spend the day with him, with him and not with J.C. Cooper, or with anyone else. “Sure, th’ whole rest of th’ day, if you want t’—”
He left her shortly there on the back veranda, not wanting to end the time with her, but knowing that he had to. He cut around the corner of the house and across the wide front yard toward the clay road, then across the fields toward the barn where the loaded truck waited for him. The false bed of the truck seemed all too apparent in the daylight, the cases of corn liquor hidden beneath it all too easily discovered by some sheriff or revenue agent if he were to be stopped and questioned. How would he ever be able to explain that to Elise—I couldn’t spend the Fourth of July with you as I promised I would because—
That was one explanation he hoped he would never have to make.
As he made the long trip into Buntain over the rutted clay roads that afternoon, one thought kept coming to him, one question—had that really been jealousy he had heard in Elise’s voice when she had accused him of having a girl in town? Had it really been jealousy, and not just her irritation at believing he was treating her as if she were a child—how embarrassed she had been when she had managed to tangle herself up in her own words, how flustered, when he knew that she could not even understand what it was she was accusing him of, for an unmarried girl her age should not even know of such things. Could Elise really be jealous? She had wanted to spend the day with him tomorrow, with him and not with J.C. Cooper or even with her own family. Could Elise really be—
His mind was so filled with possibilities that he could give little thought to the increased risks he was taking on by making the daylight run, the risks of being found out, arrested, and jailed in violation of the Prohibition laws. He made the delivery, then started for home—could Elise really have been jealous? To be jealous of some other girl she thought he was carrying on with, she would have to care about him, and care about him as more than a friend. Was it really possible that Elise—
As he sat over his solitary breakfast in his room that next morning, he could not stop thinking about Elise, about the things she had said to him the day before, the way she had behaved—and about the dreams he had lived in through the night. He had dreamed they were married, that he was taking her back home to that white house on those red acres in Alabama, that he had held her and loved her for hours on a creaking rope bed in one of those long-familiar rooms—how beautiful she had been, part of him then even as she was not now, sharing with him, touching him, telling him that she loved him. Somehow those dreams did not seem an impossibility now as they had just the day before. Somehow he could let himself think, let himself wonder, if she might not really—
There was a knock on the rickety door to his room and he got up to answer it, smiling to himself, somehow happier in that moment than he had been since that day years before when a fire in a cotton field had begun the destruction of all that he had loved. He swung the door inward, telling himself that it might be Elise—but William Whitley stood glaring at him from just outside the open doorway, a look of anger, of impatience, on his jowled face. And Janson knew this day would be nothing as he had imagined it might be.
Less than an hour later, William Whitley stood behind the old barn on his property, not far from where the lean-to room sat attached to the structure. He shifted the cigar in his mouth and folded his arms across his chest, staring at the man held before him. “Didn’t I tell you never to show your face around here again, boy?”
Gilbert Baskin was struggling against the two men who held him between them. There was a trickle of drying blood showing already at one corner of his mouth, evidence to his reluctance at being asked to accompany the men who had been sent into town to bring him to this meeting. “You don’t own me, you goddamn son-of-a-bitch! I go anywhere I want t’ go!”
William’s teeth clamped down on his cigar. He took a step forward, clenching his hands into fists at his sides. “You smart-ass son-of-a-bitch, I own you or anything else I say I own around here. I ran you out of this County—did you think I’d let you get by with coming back here now?” He had thought himself rid of this problem, had never thought the man brave enough, or stupid enough, to ever come back to Endicott County—until Bill had seen him in town earlier in the day. This man had jeopardized the entire bootlegging operation those months ago, had jeopardized everything William had worked so long for—and now here he was back again, an even greater threat than he had been before. Before he had only been a stupid man. Now he was a stupid man with a grudge.
William forced a control over his temper, his eyes moving from Baskin, to the two men who held him between them, touching for a moment on his son Bill, and then finally settling on Janson Sanders. Sanders had been an improvement over Baskin almost from the first moment William had brought him in to take the man’s place in the stilling operation. He did his work without comment, kept to himself for the most part, and didn’t flash his money around, though William paid him quite well. The only real problem with the boy was his friendship with Elise. William had never been pleased with the idea of his daughter making friends with the half-breed farmhand in the first place, especially not since he was using the boy in the bootlegging operation. He had even briefly allowed himself a worry that some sort of romantic interest might develop between the two—but the idea of his daughter and the half-Cherokee dirt farmer had been so laughable that the worry had been short lived. Elise was grateful to the boy for his having fought Ethan Bennett to protect her, and grateful for all he had done to try to stop Alfred the night he had died; she felt safe with him, knowing the boy would not let Bennett or anyone else harm her, for he was one of William’s people, owing his livelihood and his life to the Whitley family—it was nothing more than that.
But it had gone on long enough. In the past several weeks William had done everything possible to discourage the relationship, keeping the boy busy, and keeping Elise occupied elsewhere as much as he could—she spent altogether too much time with the farmhand, and not enough with J.C. Cooper. She had J.C. to think about, after all. J.C., and William’s future.
There w
as only one thing about Janson Sanders that worried William now. There was still something within the boy that he knew he did not control, something he might never control—there had been a moment’s hesitation that morning, a moment’s reluctance, when William had sent him into town with Bill and Franklin to bring Baskin back to the place. That hesitation worried William—the boy was too proud, too independent. He had to learn once and for all that William was not a man to cross, not a man to anger—and he had to learn what could happen to any man who did anger him.
Just as Gilbert Baskin had.
He brought his eyes back to Baskin, chewing down on the cigar in his mouth for a moment before speaking. “Maybe I should have had you taught a lesson those months ago, boy, instead of just having you run out of the County. Nobody crosses me without having to answer for it—” His eyes moved back to Janson Sanders for a moment. “Nobody.” He nodded his head toward Franklin Bates where he stood nearby waiting. “Teach him a lesson—” he said, stepping out of the way as Bates moved forward. His eyes settled back on Janson Sanders. “Teach him a lesson he won’t ever forget—”
Elise ran down the stairs and into the wide hallway that ran the depth of the main floor of the house, stopping for a moment to admire her reflection in the heavy mirror that hung there between the doorway to the company parlor and that of the first-floor bedroom. She turned first this way then that, smiling to herself, finally giving approval to the picture she made. She had spent all morning getting ready, choosing her dress, crimping her hair, doing her makeup—today was the Fourth of July, Independence Day, the day she was certain her life would change forever. There was to be a picnic in the large meadow just south of town this morning, and a dance in the basement of Town Hall tonight. At least half the County would be turning out for the festivities—but half the County did not matter. What mattered was that Janson Sanders would be there; that he would be there, and that he had promised the day to her.
Behold, This Dreamer Page 29