The Moonshine War

by Elmore Leonard

  Son waited. He knew how long it would take to walk through the barn to the stock pen and pour a bucket of water into the trough. As the minutes passed he told himself Aaron had decided to stay there awhile and keep watch from the barn. They could sneak up from that direction, using the barn for cover. Or they could have already done it and were inside the barn when Aaron walked in. After about ten minutes more, Son had to know for sure. He opened the door about a foot, letting the foxhounds run through the opening and down the steps. He watched them sniff around the yard. As they worked closer to the barn, they would sniff, then raise their heads and stand still. The hounds were about ten feet from the deep shadows, when they started growling, then barking and howling, raising a racket to frighten off whatever the unknown thing was inside.

  Son didn't see the half door in the barn open or make out the figure there until the repeating shotgun went off four times, louder than the howls that came from the dogs as they were cut down by the charges. By the time Son got his Winchester on the door it was closed and the deep shadow lay in silence.

  Dual held out the shotgun. "Here, take it." "I can't see where you're at."

  "Then light the goddamn lantern. He knows we're here now, it don't matter."

  "I guess you got them, I don't hear anything." "Course I got them--what'd you think I was going to do?"

  Aaron said, "They wasn't hurting you any." "Jesus," Dual said, "who asked you anything?"

  A gloved hand held a lighted match inside the lantern until the wick caught and the yellow glow showed Dual holding the shotgun and the heavy-set man with the glove and Aaron standing with a rope that was noosed tightly around his neck, reached up over a horse-stall beam and hung slack behind him falling to a tangled coil on the floor.

  The man who took the shotgun from Dual reloaded the magazine, then trained the barrel on Aaron.

  The heavy-set man, with the glove on his right hand, went into the stall behind Aaron. He took a good grip on the slack end of the rope, coiling it around his hands. "Ask him again," he said.

  Dual moved in close to Aaron. "You going to tell us?"

  "I can't tell you if I don't know, can I?" Aaron gasped and reached up as the rope tightened, pulling him up off the floor. The heavy-set man strained, leaning away from the rope, turning to get it over his shoulder and raise Aaron's feet another few inches from the floor.

  "You should tie his hands behind him," the man with the shotgun said. "He's trying to pull himself up."

  "Trying," Dual said. "You try raising yourself. In a minute your arms start waving crazy. Okay, Carl."

  The heavy-set man turned, letting go of the rope and Aaron dropped to his knees.

  "Hey, nig," Dual said, "you going to tell us or not?"

  "I work for him; I don't know about no whiskey."

  "We hear you helped make it."

  "No, sir."

  "Pull him up again."

  "What if he doesn't know?" the one with the shotgun said.

  "He knows."

  "But what if he doesn't? Then he can't tell us. But the one inside the house can." "Jesus Christ," Dual said.

  "Listen, I mean we tell the one inside. He gives us the stuff or we string up his boy." "Yeah?" Dual said, "then what?"

  "Then he gives us the stuff."

  "He gives us the stuff?" Dual was frowning, because maybe he didn't understand it right. "Why would he give us the stuff? All he's got to do is get himself another nigger."

  The linoleum came up easier this time when Son rolled it back; the floor boards were already loose; all he had to do was lift them out. He took the Winchester and the 12-gauge Remington with him, dropped them to the floor of the cellar and lowered himself down through the hole. With the weapons he went up the steps to the slanting outside door, opened it as quietly as he could, and stepped outside. To his left was the corner of the house. Beyond it, several yards, was the pump, and beyond the pump the dark shape of his pickup truck, sitting in the open about thirty yards from the barn. Son stayed close to the house, listening. When he was ready he cradled the weapons in his arms and crawled on his elbows and knees out to the pickup.

  "Take him up to the loft," Dual said. "There's a beam sticks out over the door; loop the rope around it and hold him there and we'll be right up."

  The heavy-set one went up the ladder first. He said, "Come on," and Aaron followed, the rope trailing from his neck.

  Dual said to the one with the shotgun, "We'll ask again. If he don't tell us, we run him out the door."

  "Hang him," the one with the shotgun said.

  Dual shook his head. "That ain't any fun. See we don't tie the end of the rope. But he don't know it. We run him out and get a wing shot at him while he's in the air. Buddy, like shooting crow."

  "What if you miss him?"

  "Miss him? Listen, you stay down here. When I give you the word, I'll say now. You pour it into the house and keep Son off us."

  "Then if you miss the nig I can bust him, huh?"

  "Miss him?" Dual said again. "Buddy, you got something to see."

  Dual climbed the ladder, up into the darkness above the lantern. A crack of moonlight showed the edge of the loft door, not closed tightly. Dual positioned Aaron about ten feet from the door, facing it. He moved back to where the heavy-set one had tied the end of the rope to a support post, whispered to the man to untie it and hold it loose in his hands, ready to let go when he gave the word.

  "Your last chance," Dual said to Aaron. "Or you go through the door with rope around your neck. You'll fall sways and then snap, the rope jerks tight and breaks your neck. You want that, it's yours."

  "No, sir," Aaron said, "but I can't tell something I don't know."

  "Well, it's up to you." Dual glanced back at the man holding the rope. "You don't want to tell us, then get ready to run, nig."

  Dual drew his .38. He got a step behind Aaron, waited a moment, and yelled, "Now!" pushing Aaron, running him toward the closed loft door. The timing was dead on, the automatic shotgun opened up on the house as Dual stopped short and Aaron banged through the door, his arms reaching for moonlight. Dual fired twice and instinctively ducked back as the solid reports of a rifle filled the yard below.

  Aaron had his hands in front of him as he hit the door and was through it falling and grabbing frantically for the rope above as the gunfire erupted like it was all around him, like he was falling into it, and he hit the ground so hard the jolt went through his body, buckling his legs and throwing him forward. He got up to run and fell and started crawling and heard somebody say, "Aaron!" as the shotgun skidded across the ground and the stock bounced and hit him in the face. He knew the voice and knew the shotgun and knew what to do with it, grabbing it and finding the triggers as he rolled to his back and saw the figure in the loft door and let go one 12-gauge charge and the second on top of it and saw the figure pitch forward and hit the ground like a sack of meal. Aaron could make out the pickup; he was crawling toward it, hearing the rifle going off close to him, then Son had him by the arm, raising and running him around behind the pickup to the cellar entrance. He fell down the steps and lay breathing in the darkness with an awful pain shooting up his legs through his knees, but he still had hold of the shotgun. Son almost had to pry it out of his hands.

  During the night Dr. Taulbee left Son Martin's still and moved in closer, to a position in the rocks and brush above old man Martin's grave.

  All the goddamn shooting and then silence. Nobody had come back from the barn, so he didn't know what happened outside of a lot of guns going off. Maybe Dual had him pinned down and was moving in for the kill, the little fellow squirming up close to the house and inside before they knew he was there. Maybe. Dr. Taulbee wanted to know what the hell was going on; so he sent five men down with two Thompson machine guns and moved to a closer position to see what he could see. He watched them go down the hill, circling to get behind the barn. In a couple of minutes they were down among the dark shapes and shadows and Dr. Taulbee had to wait agai
n. Though not long this time.

  The gunfire came as suddenly as it had before, the Thompsons going off now, tearing apart the stillness, sweet music that was good to hear and set a grin on Dr. Taulbee's face as he stared expectantly into the darkness. There were rifle shots and again a Thompson rattling the night. Then silence.

  The first of the five to return had trouble locating Dr. Taulbee in the rocks. Dr. Taulbee had to call to him. The man came stumbling up the gravel slope out of breath.

  Taulbee couldn't wait any longer. "You get them?"

  No, the man didn't think so. There wasn't any way of telling.

  "Then what the hell was all the shooting about?" Well, the big guy, Carl, was in the barn and the boy with him was shot dead. They didn't see Dual right away. They said to Carl come on, show us where them two are. Carl pointed out the pickup truck and both the boys with Thom let go at it until their magazines were empty. That should do it, one of them said. The five spread out in a line and went over to the pickup truck that was shot through like a sieve. When they looked in and didn't see anybody, my God, it was a terrible feeling being out in the open and knowing the two were in the house. It was either go back to the barn or rush the house--there wasn't room for all of them behind the pickup truck. Since nobody had fired at them so far, they decided to rush the house. The two boys with the tommy guns commenced to shoot at the windows, one of them going ahead, running right toward the porch up the steps. But he never got up. It was like the steps collapsed under him and as he fell these two rifles opened up from both windows and everybody dove for the pickup truck. The boy by the porch was so close under them he was able to crawl out; all they had done was shot his hat off and grazed his skull. Nobody else was hit; they laid down cover fire with a Thompson and got back to the barn.

  There, the others were coming now: the big guy, Carl, and the other four carrying two people and having a struggle getting up the slope. Dr. Taulbee called out, "You find Dual?"

  Nobody answered until they were up in the rocks. Then one of them said, "We got him here," laying him down in front of Dr. Taulbee, "but I don't think he's moved."

  Or ever would. Dr. Taulbee could tell by Dual's eyes he was dead: the fixed, wide-open stare, like somebody had given him the surprise of his life. It made Dr. Taulbee tired to look at him . He gazed down at the dark shape of the house for a while and then at the men waiting for him to say something. Then made them wait a little longer.

  "Well," he said finally, "what I want to know, are you all going to bring that boy out of there or do I have to get somebody else to do it?"

  The big guy, Carl, said, "Tomorrow, we're going to bring the nigger out dead and the other one with his hands in the air."

  "I want to see that," Dr. Taulbee said. "Because to now it doesn't look to me like you've scared him one bit."

  Chapter Thirteen.

  Upstairs, in the bedroom directly over the kitchen, Son used a big auger to drill through the floor plank and the board and batten ceiling below it. With his eye close to the hole, he could look down into the kitchen and see one of Aaron's swollen ankles extended out from where he lay against the grain sacks.

  It was Thursday morning, June 25. As soon as Taulbee's men opened up on the house with rifles, snapping the shots in from the dense tree cover of the slope, Son went upstairs with a pair of field glasses. Crouched low, his glasses on the window sill, he studied the ridges and rock strains, making out movement here and there, but not seeing anything worth aiming three hundred yards to try and hit. They had better keep their bullets for the close-in business that would come as soon as Taulbee realized the snap shooting wasn't doing any good, not telling him anything. The bedroom, his own, was a good place to watch from. Son drilled the hole so he could call to Aaron in a hurry if they came across the pasture. Aaron had stayed awake most of the night and was trying to sleep now, with his knees turning blue and his feet and ankles swollen up like he had eight pairs of socks on.

  Son kept his gaze on the slope because he wanted to see the first sign of a move from them.

  Taulbee was probably in the stillhouse, giving orders. And Frank Long, where would he be? He hadn't been in the barn last night, though he might have been with the bunch that came later. They'd got one of them; Son had heard the man yell, as he went through the steps. The sight to see again was Aaron blowing Dual out of the loft with the 12-gauge. That was one of them would never have to be shot again. Son was sure of it, though at first light they saw he wasn't lying in the yard.

  A bullet went through the window, shattering the glass above him. Son continued to study the slope through the field glasses. It was hard to tell where the shots came from. The snap shooters were spread out in the trees. He would hear the far-away reports and the bullets hitting fragments of window glass and thudding into the timbered walls. They were telling him he wasn't getting out of here unless he gave up. Well, as far as Son was concerned, the first part could be true. He might not get out. But there was no chance giving up. He was sure of that.

  Until he saw the cars appear on the ridge.

  Inching his glasses across the hills and gulleys, he stopped on an open, grassy part of the slope. A car was parked there in the sun. It was a good hundred yards to the left of where Taulbee's men were hidden in the trees. Still, Son decided, it was probably one of their cars. Maybe a few more shooters had been called in.

  Two more cars appeared. Son watched the men get out and he almost jumped up and yelled to Aaron because they weren't Taulbee people at all, they were boys in overalls and farm hats and goddamn if they weren't looking this way and figuring it out and deciding what to do. Son swung his glasses back to the trees and said to Taulbee, "Look over there, mister, and see what you're going to have on your hands."

  As another car and a pickup truck drove across the open slope, Son got down by the hole in the floor and called, "Hey, Aaron, look out over to that open piece, see who's coming!"

  Son put his glasses on the ridge again. God Almighty, there were a dozen men up there now. And a couple of women.

  He couldn't understand why the women would be here. Less they wanted to see Taulbee run so bad they couldn't be kept home.

  Now there was a wagon coming off the ridge trail, holding up a car behind it, and a stake truck from Marlett Feed & Seed that looked like it was loaded with men.

  Son kept his glasses on the stake track. He watched men jump off the back end and saw young boys climbing the sides to get down. He counted several more women and young girls in the group. He inched his glasses over the slope and noticed a few other women he had missed. He saw the men standing in groups talking. He saw a couple of others spreading a blanket on the ground. He saw a man handing some folding chairs down from the stake truck. He saw friends, neighbors, acquaintances, and people he didn't know sitting and standing around on the open ridge in the June sun and he didn't see a rifle or a shotgun among the bunch of them.

  They had come out to watch.

  They had lost their stills because he had not given up his whiskey. Now they had come to see it taken from him.

  Son turned from the window. He sat on the floor with his back to the wall, in this room where he was born and where he had slept almost every night for the past four years. He felt tired and his head ached. He hadn't slept more than an hour. He hadn't eaten since yesterday supper, though he wasn't hungry. He sat in the bedroom with his back against the wall and began wondering what in hell he was doing here, getting shot at, putting on a show for his neighbors.

  That's the fact of it, Son thought. Whether they are up there watching or not anywhere in sight, what you're doing is putting on a show. Showing off. It's your whiskey and nobody can take it. So they tell how you never gave up and somebody says well, where is he now? And they say, he's buried, where do you think? Buried? You mean they killed him? Of course they killed him. Then he was awful dumb not to give up, wasn't he?

  Well, he was brave.

  Well, some call it brave, some call it stupid.<
br />
  The only thing Son was sure of, he was tired. Sitting in the upstairs room looking at the bed--he'd like to get in it and pull the covers up over his head and stay there. But he had to decide something, what was brave and what was stupid. How he wanted people to talk about him. Or whether he cared or not.

  Bud Blackwell and his dad and Virgil Worthman and a few other men were in one group. They squatted and sat in the grass at the slope of the ridge, where the hill fell away in a sweep of weeds and brush toward the pasture. They squinted in the noon glare and gazed around at the other groups, and occasionally one of them would get fidgety and rise up to stretch and spit tobacco. It seemed like it would be something to watch but, Jesus, there wasn't much happening.

  The other groups felt about the same. One boy said if they didn't start something soon he was going home and pick bugs off his tobacco. Some others were getting hungry. They should have packed lunches, they said. A couple of the men had moonshine jars they were passing around, but nobody, it looked like, had thought to bring water. Somebody said, well, there's Son's pump right down there, and the ones near him got a kick out of the remark. Bob Cronin, from Marlett Feed & Seed, said he had a tarp in the truck; maybe they could rig up a tent as a couple of old ladies--fanning themselves with pieces of cardboard--looked they were about to pass out. Finally they sent a boy over to the Worthman place to bring some water back.

  A man would look out over the pasture toward the Martin place and give his opinion of the situation. Son was treed and there wasn't anything he could do about it.

  Virgil Worthman said, he couldn't get out by the road down the holler, they'd laid trees across it to box him in.

  Bud Blackwell said, down the holler? Shit fire, look at his truck. He couldn't drive it over to the privy.

  What the federals ought to do was get up on the slope back of the house, light a hay bale, and drop it on the roof. Burn out.