Moonshine & Magic: A Beauregard the Monster Hunter Collection

by John G. Hartness

  “I need for you to come inside and have lunch with Preacher Mason and myself. It would be unseemly for a lady of my approachable years to be seen dining alone with an unmarried gentleman, no matter his occupation or his motives. Which I assure you are of the purest nature.”

  “Whatever. I only understood about three words of that mouthful, but I think you said lunch is ready and Preacher Mason is coming. That about cover it?”

  “Yes, Bubba, I suppose that about covers it.” Octavia sighed and went back into the house. Bubba clomped up the steps and into the cabin, looking around to see what Tavvy had done with the place since his last visit. The place looked good. Tavvy kept a clean house, even back when Pap was alive, and now that it was her own property, the floor fairly gleamed. She’d even polished the brass spittoon the old man had always kept in the front room, but Bubba knew damn well Tavvy’d shoot any fool who dared spit in her house. Bubba ducked by habit as he came into the dining room, and nodded to Preacher Mason, who was already seated at the head of the table. A trim man in his twenties, Charles Mason was the Baptist preacher for the whole of the area, all the way from Rome down to Atlanta. He travelled a fair bit, preaching at a different church every Sunday, but he always found time to visit with Bubba and Tavvy whenever he was in that part of the Georgia hills. He told Bubba that it was a fervent desire to rescue him from the evils of drink, but Bubba had his own thoughts about who needed rescuin’ from what, and he figured the young holy man was in more danger from his sister than Bubba was from anything that came out of his still.

  ‘Course, that was ignoring the tender state of his skull that morning. He settled his bulk into one of the cane-bottom chairs and poured himself a glass of Tavvy’s tea. “How you feelin’ this morning, Preacher?”

  “I will admit that I feel rather the worse for wear, Beauregard. What was that we were drinking last night?”

  “I call it Apple Pie, Preacher. I think it’s got a right smooth taste without puttin’ too much fire in your bowels the next day. You ain’t had no fiery shits, have you?”

  “Beauregard!” Tavvy’s voice came from right behind him, and both men winced at the volume. Bubba winced again as Tavvy smacked him upside the head with a ringing open-handed slap. “I will not have such crude talk at my table. Now behave as though you have even once been in the presence of a lady or I swear to Jesus himself that I will beat you senseless!”

  “Baby sister, I ain’t far from senseless now, but I am hung over as a dog and I swear by that frying pan right over yonder that if you smack me in the head again I’m gonna turn you over my knee and spank you ’til you don’t sit down for a week. Now you invited me, no, ordered me down here for lunch, so let’s eat so I can get back to the important work I had planned for today.”

  “And what important work would that be, Bubba? Sleeping? Or drinking?” Tavvy looked down on his with a raised eyebrow.

  “Both.” Bubba said without a hint of shame or remorse. “Not in that order. I plan to drink ’til my head quits hurting, then it’ll probably be about time to sleep again.”

  “I’m afraid I may have some news that might adversely affect those plans, Bubba. And Octavia, I believe this might be of some import to you as well.” Preacher Mason said. Bubba took a good look at him, and it was obvious the holy man had something on his mind other than the better part of a quart of last night white lightnin’.

  “What is it, Preacher? What’s the matter?” Bubba asked. “We ain’t gotta kill no more zombies, do we? I ain’t ashamed to tell you, I had bad dreams about that little girl for a couple weeks.” The minister and the siblings had put a halt to an unholy experiment in raising the dead some months ago, and Bubba had only recently been able to sleep through the night. He looked at Tavvy and the expression on her face told him that he wasn’t alone in having night terrors at the memory.

  “The First Bank of Georgia in Atlanta was robbed several days ago. All of the depositors’ money was cleaned out, including the life savings of several of your neighbors here on the mountain.” Mason said.

  “Well, that’s just awful, Preacher!” Tavvy said, sitting in the chair next to the minister. “What can we do to help? We don’t have much money, but it’s never seen the inside of a bank.”

  “No sir, we keep our money safe, buried in jars out back of the house. But that ain’t what’s really botherin’ you, is it?” Bubba asked.

  “No, Bubba, it’s not.” Mason admitted. “The money deposited in the bank is insured, and while insurance companies are despicable creatures, they will replace your neighbors’ funds. The Second Baptist Church keeps a safe deposit box at that bank, and several important relics were stolen. Relics that should under no circumstances fall into the wrong hands.” Tavvy went pale at the preacher’s words, but Bubba still hadn’t quite caught up.

  “What kind of relics are you talking about, Preacher? Like pieces of the One True Cross, or saints’ fingerbones or something? I thought all that stuff was Catholic, anyway. What’s it doing in a Baptist church?”

  The minister took a long drink of his sweet tea before answering. “It is a matter of some shame to the church hierarchy, but before the last of Creek Indians were evicted from Georgia some forty years ago, several holy items were taken from the tribes and confiscated. These items do have a certain mystical energy about them that the church leaders at the time felt would better off in the hands of holy men than savages.”

  “You mean white men.” Bubba said flatly.

  “Yes.” Preacher Mason didn’t look up from his plate.

  “You know our Granny was Cherokee, don’t you?” Bubba asked the minister.

  “Yes.”

  “And you know the white men tried to run her off this land right here and send her west, even though she was married in a white church?”

  “I know that.”

  “Then you know that I ain’t gonna be too inclined to return these Creek holy items to a bunch of white men who ain’t done nothing but steal ‘em and lock ‘em away in a bank vault.”

  “I understand that sentiment, Bubba. And part of me agrees with you. But the larger part does not want these relics in the hands of a band of criminals, no matter who they ultimately belong to.That’s why I’ve come. Bubba, Octavia, I need your help. Bubba, you’re the staunchest man I know in a fight, and I think it’s very likely we will end up in a fight before this is over. And Octavia … well, you’re one of the brightest people I know, and your innovative creations have proven helpful more than once.”

  “Wait a minute, Preacher, let’s don’t go talking crazy now. Her ‘innovative creations’ as you put it have proven helpful exactly once. And all the other times they’ve come real close to killing somebody, usually me. Now I hate to be the one to say it, but I don’t know of anything Tavvy’s got cooked up that would help us find your relics, so unless you know where the asses are I need to be kickin’, I’m afraid you’re out of luck.”

  “I have just the thing!” Tavvy announced. She ducked back into the house and returned moments later wearing a bizarre helmet fitted with a chinstrap and a series of round lenses on arms that could be dropped down in front of the wearer’s eye by use of a flipper lever on the side of the helmet. A quart jar set atop the helmet with a thin tube running through a square box on the front of the helmet and down to what looked like a perfume spritzer. “This portable chemical analyzer will allow me to trace unique chemical signatures used in the robbery back to their source, and thusly, to the church’s money.”

  “What the hell does that thing do, Tavvy?” Bubba asked.

  “Using the purest grain alcohol, I burn it to a temperature that will atomize its particles and allow the alcohol vapors to directly coat surfaces at the crime scene using the applicator.” She gestured to the jar, then the box, then the spritzer. “Using the lenses I can filter out the alcohol vapors and see any other vapors permeating the crime scene, like machine oil, gun grease or diesel fuel. Once I pick up a trail of those vapors, I can trace it
to the source.”

  “So you’re burning moonshine in a jar on top of your head, then spraying it around a crime scene onto machine oil or gun grease?”

  “Or diesel fuel, or anything else that may have left a vapor trail.” Tavvy smiled, apparently pleased that Bubba understood the concept.

  Bubba stood looking at his sister for a long moment, then sighed and said “Well, can we at least eat before we get on the road to Atlanta? No offense, Preacher, but that old truck of yours is a rough ride and I’m feeling a little delicate this morning.”

  The minister smiled and let out a deep breath, looking at the siblings in turn. “Thank you both. I am in your debt. The church is in your debt.”

  “Aw hell, Preacher. I could use another check mark in old Saint Peter’s book anyhow.”

  *****

  After breakfast the trio loaded up into the minister’s Reliance truck and headed down to Atlanta. Bubba rode in the bed along with the luggage, Tavvy’s oddball helmet, and his Dervish. The Dervish was Tavvy’s first successful creation, a moonshine-powered steam-driven automatic shotgun that converted to a flamethrower by burning the moonshine after it ran through its regular ammunition. Bubba had almost decided that the Dervish wouldn’t blow him up, but he still packed the thing on the other side of the truck and kept all the suitcases between him and it. It took the rest of the day to travel the hundred miles from Bubba’s home in Rock Spring to Atlanta, and the sun had long since set by the time Preacher Mason pulled the truck up to the sidewalk in front of a Baptist church in the middle of the city.

  “Why we stoppin’ here, Preacher? Let’s get on to the inn and get us some grub.” Bubba said, leaning out of the bed to look in the driver’s window.

  “We are staying here, Bubba. The church provides lodging in the dormitory for traveling clergy, and as the two of you are working for the church, you are counted as missionaries for the purposes of your stay here.” The preacher opened the door and stretched his back. Bubba hopped down out of the bed, looked around the sleepy neighborhood and let out a sigh.

  “What’s wrong, Bubba?” Tavvy said, taking the preacher’s hand to get out of the truck.

  “I don’t get down the mountain too much. I was kinda lookin’ forward to some big-city mischief tonight, but it don’t look like that’s gonna happen around here.”

  “Well I would be lying if I said I was upset about that. We may need you to be at your best tomorrow. Heaven only knows what we shall face when we get to the scene of this dastardly crime.” Tavvy said, then turned and walked into the dormitory, leaving a dejected Bubba to carry in her luggage.

  *****

  What they found at the scene of the robbery was a studiously unhelpful policeman who refused to allow Mason and Tavvy access to the vault.

  “You don’t understand, sir. I must examine the crime scene.” Mason demanded.

  “I understand, sir. I just don’t care. No one is allowed in the bank until my sergeant tells me so. Where do you think you’re going?” The policeman asked Bubba, who was walking toward the bank with Tavvy right behind him. Tavvy had her Hat of Detection on her head, with the moonshine already bubbling. Steam was starting to leak from her head, giving her a strange and otherworldly appearance.

  “I’m going to look at the vault.” Bubba replied, looking down on the significantly smaller policeman.

  The little man’s moustache fairly writhed across his upper lip as the man became more agitated. “Now see here, my good man! I have just told this other fellow that no one is to be allowed into the bank by orders of my sergeant, and here you go trying to barge in there! What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Doin’ what the bossman told me. You don’t like it, you can call the bossman.” Bubba said, a blank look on his face.

  “Are you mentally defective? Have you not heard what I’ve been saying?”

  “I heard you. Still gonna do what the bossman told me.”

  “And who is this bossman of yours?”

  “I serve my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Do you know his word and salvation?” Bubba replied. His voice was mechanical, as though he had a script to follow and couldn’t deviate from it if he wanted to. He reached into his back pocket and held out several crumpled scraps of paper. “Could I interest you in some literature on our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the peace that he can bring into your life? You look like a man who needs some peace.”

  “I need some peace for damn sure! Now get the hell out of here or I will be forced to arrest you.” He drew his pistol, and Bubba just stared at him.

  Bubba looked back at the tracts in his hand, then at the gun, then at the tracts. He finally folded the tracts, stuffed them in the policeman’s shirt pocket, and turned to walk away. Bubba grabbed Mason by the elbow and took him with him as he left. “See you at the Pearly Gates, my brother.” He walked down the block and turned the corner, collapsing in laughter at the stunned look on Preacher Mason’s face.

  “Bubba, what in the world was that? Are you absolutely out of your mind?”

  “Crazy like a fox, Preacher. You get what you need, Tavvy?” He asked as his sister rounded the corner and joined them.

  “Yep, got a vapor trail I could follow in the pitch dark. That idiot flatfoot got so caught up with you and your tracts that he never noticed me sneak into the bank and take my readings. Good job, Bubba.”

  “All I had to do was act like a big ol’ country bumpkin. Wasn’t hard.”

  “I can’t imagine it was, big brother.”

  “Don’t push it, Tavvy.” Bubba grumbled. “Can you track this thing?”

  “Oh yeah, I’ve got a lock on the vapor trail. It’s still strong. Go get the Dervish, let’s go bring those artifacts home!” She was off like a shot, flipping her odd little lenses down in front of her eyes and spraying superheated moonshine on the sidewalk in front of her.

  “Let’s go, Preacher. We’ll figure out what home those holy things go to when we get them out of this robber’s hands.” Bubba and Preacher Mason followed Tavvy through the streets of Atlanta for almost an hour before they came to a halt in front of a low, nondescript warehouse near the railroad station.

  “This is it. The trail ends here.” Tavvy said. She took off her helmet and carefully hid it behind a bush my the front door. Then she bent over, in the middle of the sidewalk in broad daylight, and grabbed her skirt, pulling the back of her skirt forward and up, tucking it into her belt and making her very proper skirt into a pair of exceedingly less-than-proper pants, which pulled up at the bottom to show a daring amount of ankle. Preacher Mason looked shocked at her garb, and Tavvy broke into laughter.

  “Oh goodness, Reverend, it’s not as though you haven’t seen me wear pants before! Bubba, give me my Winchester.”

  Bubba handed over Tavvy’s 30-30 lever action rifle, and she cocked the lever to make sure the gun had a round in the chamber. Bubba flicked off the safety on the Dervish, then reached behind his head to flip the ignitor switch on his moonshine reservoir. It always made him nervous carrying ten gallons of moonshine behind his head and next to an open flame to boot, but he couldn’t argue with the effectiveness of the weapon.

  Preacher Mason looked down at the Colt .45 in his hand and grinned. “I somehow feel the least armed of any of us.”

  “Don’t worry Preacher. You’ve got the best backup.” Bubba said, pointing up. Then he reared back with one huge foot and kicked the warehouse door open. It flew inward with a crash of splinters, and Bubba charged in, looking for something to shoot. Nothing immediately presented itself, so he waved the others in.

  A deep voice, accented like the Russians Bubba had seen in a traveling circus bear-wrestling act trumpeted through the warehouse. “The door was open, you big oaf.”

  “Ain’t no need for name-calling. Now get on out here with them Indian relics and I won’t burn your warehouse down.” Bubba hollered back.

  “You won’t do that regardless. You won’t risk starting a fire that would send Atlanta up in
flames. Again.” The voice laughed. “Kill them, my pets!”

  Bubba stepped further into the warehouse, a huge building nearly twenty feet high inside. It was almost completely empty, except for a car at one end of the long, narrow building, and several crates near the vehicles. As Bubba approached the crates, the lids flew off and dozens of spiders crawled out. Huge spiders, nearly two feet tall, each one made entirely of metal. The brass spiders flowed out of the crates in a glittering, shimmering carpet of clicking legs and waving mandibles. Each spider had a pair of nasty-looking fangs sticking out of its mouth, and walked on six legs, not all eight. The front two legs waved in the air, and Bubba could tell even from twenty feet away that they had been sharpened to razor edges.

  Wave after wave of the clockwork beasts roiled out of the crates, and the voice echoed laughter from one end of the warehouse to the other. Bubba felt his blood boil as the unnatural creatures scurried forward. “Oh yeah?” He yelled. “Let’s see how funny you think this is!”

  Bubba squeezed the trigger on the Dervish, and hot lead and death poured forth in a roar the likes Atlanta hadn’t seen since Sherman left her in tatters. The moonshine burned, producing steam which spun the three shotgun barrels, accepting a new shell from the spring-loaded feed mechanism and firing the round in a fraction of a second. Bubba swept the front of the Dervish across the moving carpet of brass spiders, and they blew apart into springs, coils and strange silvery rocks. He kept the barrage of lead flying for almost twenty seconds until he ran out of ammunition, then he flipped the small bypass switch by the trigger and ignited the fuse at the tip of the barrel. The raw moonshine flowed down the tube that seconds before had contained scalding steam, and burst into a gout of flame at the end of the Dervish. Bubba bathed the remaining spiders in flaming moonshine, and in less than a minute had turned the hundreds of mechanical arachnids into so much molten brass.

  “How you like, that, Mr. Laughing Man?” Bubba hollered. He shrugged out of the empty Dervish and set the device gently on the floor. “Good gadget, sis.” He grinned at Tavvy, who gave him a fierce smile in return.