Moonshiner's Son

by Carolyn Reeder

  Tom looked pleadingly at Mrs. Taylor. “Please, ma’am?” He’d never beg for himself, but this was different.

  Mrs. Taylor looked from Tom to Princess and then tumed to her daughter. “You know you can’t have a dog. Amy,” she said. “But I think we could arrange for Tom to keep Princess here if you’re willing to take care of her.”

  Tom’s knees went weak with relief and he drew a shaky breath. He couldn’t trust himself to speak, so he just nodded when Mrs. Taylor said, “You’ll come down to see your dog whenever you can, won’t you, Tom?”

  Taking Princess from Amy, he buried his face in her puppy-soft fur one last time. Then he handed her back and said, “You’d best hold her so she don’t foller me.”

  Tom gave Mrs. Taylor a look of gratitude and set off along the old wagon road, headed for the settlement. Princess was safe, and he could see her whenever he wanted to. But he might have been able to keep her if he hadn’t made Pa angry by forgetting the tobacco twists. And if he hadn’t been caught feeding her the chicken. And if he’d asked if he could keep her instead of telling Pa she was his dog.

  When Tom came to the Widow Brown’s path, he barely hesitated before turning toward her cabin. Pa would just have to wait a little longer for his tobacco. A few minutes later, Tom was drinking a glass of cold buttermilk and pouring out his story. When he finished, Mrs. Brown said, “I sure wish you could of kept that pretty li’l dog, Tom. But you didn’t have her long enough to miss her all that much. An’ you can walk down to see her as often as you want.”

  Tom stared glumly at the ground. He knew Mrs. Brown was right, but that wasn’t what he’d wanted to hear.

  “Now, you ain’t gonna sit here feelin’ sorry for yourself, are you, Tom?” she chided gently.

  “’Course not,” he said, embarrassed to realize that was exactly what he was doing. “I’m gonna git on over to the store an’ back up that mountain before Pa decides I forgot his tobacco again.”

  If Pa asked, he’d tell him he gave the puppy to Amy, Tom decided, because no matter what Mrs. Taylor said, and no matter what he wished. Princess wasn’t his dog anymore. But he didn’t mind pretending she was, if that was the way Mrs. Taylor wanted it.

  11

  Growing the com was the worst part of making whiskey, Tom thought as he helped Pa hoe. It would be a lot less work if Pa bought his cornmeal from the miller, but he insisted that the white corn he grew made better whiskey than the yellow corn most people planted. Tom wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand and wondered how soon he dared make another trip to the spring. And how long he dared take for that trip.

  Pa straightened up and said, “Somebody’s comin’.”

  They waited expectantly, and when the preacher rode up, Tom followed Pa over to the fence. Pa’s twisted ankle was completely healed now, Tom noticed.

  “I need your help, Higgins,” the preacher said, reining in Odysseus and pulling out a handkerchief to mop his sweaty face.

  “Why would I want to help you?” Pa asked testily. “Ever since you came here you been causin’ me trouble. Even sent the federal law up here after me last week.”

  The preacher’s shoulders slumped. “Then I’ll have failed,” he said. “Failed to bring religion and education into these hills.”

  Education! Tom looked pleadingly at Pa, but his father seemed intent on avoiding his eyes. “K-e-r-o-s-e-n-e,” Tom spelled under his breath. Preacher Taylor looked at him strangely, but Tom didn’t care.

  Pa shifted a wad of tobacco to his other cheek and demanded, “Just what makes you think I can help you?”

  “The storekeeper told me you were a leader around here. He said some people even call you King Higgins. I want you to use your influence to get the men to help me build the mission’s schoolhouse-chapel.” The preacher mopped his face again. “I think that neighbor of yours, Hube Baker, has turned everyone against me.”

  Pa snorted. “He didn’t have to turn nobody against you, ’cause they always was against you. Hube’s right peeved with you, but he don’t have no influence on folks.”

  “But why would Mr. Baker be peeved with me?”

  When Pa didn’t answer, Tom said, “He probably thinks you had somethin’ to do with the sheriff an’ his deputies catchin’ him carryin’ his jars of whiskey home from the still. Everybody knows the sheriff don’t come back in here ’less he’s had a complaint, an’ Hube was caught right after you saw him loadin’ that hundred-pound sack of sugar onto his ol’ mule down at the store.”

  The preacher looked surprised. “You must be mistaken, Tom—Mr. Baker’s not in jail. I saw him when I rode by his cabin on my way up here.”

  “’Course he ain’t in jail,” Pa said impatiently. “Court day’s not for nearly two weeks.”

  “But who put up his bond?”

  Tom and Pa looked at the preacher blankly, and he tried again. “Who left money with the court to make sure he shows up for the trial?”

  “’Round here, it’s a matter of honor,” Pa said stiffly. “Honor, an’ respect for the law.”

  Tom added, “A feller over in Ox Gore Holler killed his neighbor in a fight last year when they was both drunk, an’ all the sheriff had to do was send word with Ol’ Man Barnes. When that feller heard the sheriff had a warrant on him, he walked to town an’ turned hisself in.”

  Preacher Taylor stared down at them. “That’s hard to believe,” he said slowly. “How can people have that kind of respect for the law and still flout Prohibition?”

  “Easy,” Pa said. “Murder an’ stealin’ have always been against the law. Makin’ whiskey h’ain’t. Writin’ a law against somethin’ don’t make it wrong.”

  “But it’s the law of the land,” the preacher protested, “and—”

  “It ain’t the law of this here land of mine,” Pa interrupted, emphasizing his point by pounding his hoe on the ground. “Ain’t nobody can tell me what to do with corn I grow on my own property. What difference does it make whether I turn it into corn bread or corn whiskey?”

  “It makes a lot of difference,” Preacher Taylor said, leaning forward in his saddle. “Corn bread doesn’t make men kill each other in drunken brawls. Whiskey does. Corn bread doesn’t make men beat their wives and children. Whiskey does. Buying com bread feeds the hungry. Buying whiskey takes food out of their mouths. Corn bread—”

  Tom caught his breath as Pa held up his hand and said wearily, “Save your sermon ’til you get that schoolhouse-chapel built, Preacher.”

  “Does this mean—?”

  “I can’t speak for the others, but you let me know when you’re ready to start work, an’ I’ll be there.”

  It was all Tom could do not to cheer. If Pa worked on the schoolhouse-chapel, the other men would, too.

  The preacher’s face lit up with an almost boyish smile. “You mean that? How long do you think it will take to build it? I hate not being able to hold Sunday services.”

  Pa looked at him as if he were crazy. “You don’t need no church for Sunday services,” he said scornfully.

  “But there isn’t any building large enough to hold all the people,” Preacher Taylor protested.

  Pa spit a stream of tobacco juice past Odysseus’s nose. “Ain’t never had no buildin’ before. Any time a preacher showed up an’ wanted to hold services, we built a brush tabernacle for him.”

  Preacher Taylor frowned. “A brush tabernacle?”

  This time Tom didn’t wait to give Pa a chance to explain. “You put up a wood frame an’ cover the top an’ sides with branches an’ vines to keep off the sun, an’ you roll logs underneath it for folks to sit on,” he said eagerly. “It don’t take long to make one.”

  “Then why hasn’t anybody built a brush tabernacle so I can hold services? What do you people think I came here for?” the preacher asked.

  Pa gave him an appraising look. “Far as we could tell, you came here to rid these hills of the evils of moonshine likker.”

  “There’s a lot more
to my mission here than promoting abstinence from beverage alcohol,” the preacher said. He looked a little embarrassed.

  “That so?” Pa asked, leaning on his hoe and grinning. “Couldn’t prove it by me.”

  The preacher’s face reddened, and he quoted, “‘How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?’” Then he looked down at Tom. “Today’s Thursday. Think you can spread the word so that brush tabernacle’s ready by Sunday morning?”

  “Sure can!” Tom said enthusiastically. Folks liked any kind of community gathering.

  “Good,” the preacher said. “Then we don’t have to be in such a hurry to start on the schoolhouse-chapel. The end of September’s still a long way off.”

  “What’s September got to do with it?”

  Preacher Taylor looked surprised that Pa had asked. “That’s when school starts.”

  “When I was a boy, we had a summer term a couple of times in a ol’ cabin nobody used,” Pa said. “It don’t make no sense to have these young’ns wait till September to start school. Besides, you’ll have a easier time findin’ a teacher now.”

  “My wife will be the teacher,” the preacher said, “but I think you’re right about not waiting till fall. When can you get started on the building? I don’t want to order more lumber till the last minute.” As if to himself, he added, “Replacing those boards that burned is such a needless expense.”

  The preacher’s wife would be his teacher! Tom was thinking about how hard he’d work for her when Pa’s words shook him out of his daydream.

  “I think I know somebody who’d make a contribution of cash money to pay for that lumber,” Pa said.

  Preacher Taylor’s eyes widened. “You do?”

  “‘Deed I do,” Pa said, “an’ it’s Eddie Jarvis.”

  Tom brushed a fly off Odysseus’s nose, glad Pa had finally decided how to deal with Eddie. A man couldn’t be allowed to get away with burning somebody out.

  “You really think Mr. Jarvis will do that?” the preacher asked eagerly.

  “He will if he knows King Higgins said he would. Stop in at the store an’ leave a message for Eddie. Have Ol’ Man Barnes tell him King Higgins said he knew Eddie’d be happy to pay the cost of replacin’ the preacher’s lumber that was burned.”

  “That seems like an awfully roundabout way to do things,” the preacher said. “I’ll just ride up to Mr. Jarvis’s cabin and—”

  “You can’t do that!” Tom interrupted, alarmed. “Ain’t nobody goes up there.”

  “Eddie Jarvis likes his privacy,” Pa said. “‘Round here, we respect that.”

  Preacher Taylor frowned and said, “Maybe your way’s best at that, Higgins. I’ve never been able to get past that dog he keeps tied in his yard.”

  Tom was still reeling with surprise that the preacher had actually gone up to Eddie’s place and lived to tell about it when he realized Pa was speaking.

  “A man over in Ox Gore Holler has a sawmill,” Pa said, “an’ I think you’d do better dealin’ with him instead of the lumberyard in town.”

  “I’ll show you the sketch of what I want and let you take care of ordering whatever you’ll need, Higgins,” the preacher said. “You know a lot more about this sort of thing than I do.” He gave a flick of the reins, and Odysseus tossed his head and started back down the trail.

  As Tom and Pa began to hoe the com again, Tom said, “You know what Preacher Taylor said about the whiskey? I think he’s right. Whenever somethin’ bad happens ’round here, you can bet somebody was drunk.”

  “You think that means we should be selling corn bread instead of com whiskey?” Pa asked.

  Tom heard the challenge in Pa’s voice. “’Course not,” he said quickly. “Moonshiners don’t make com bread.” But that don’t change the truth of what the preacher said, he added silently.

  12

  It was more than a week later when Tom set off to pick blackberries to trade at the store. Half a mile down the trail he passed the Bakers’ cabin and saw Hube Baker leaning back in his chair with his feet on the porch railing while his wife, Emma, hoed the garden patch.

  “Heard about how you fooled the federal law down at the store the other day,” Hube called. “You done good, Tom.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Baker,” Tom called back. He had done good, he thought, and it should have been Pa, not Hube, who told him so. Why was Pa so hard to please? “I guess there ain’t no answer to that one,” Tom muttered as he continued down the trail.

  Halfway to the settlement he stopped at the best bramble patch he knew of and began to pick, swearing when a briar caught him on the hand and tiny drops of blood beaded up along the scratch. Tom worked quickly, and by the time he’d reached the end of the berry patch, his basket was full. That should be enough to trade for some more marbles, Tom decided as he started downhill again.

  A short time later, he was watching the storekeeper carefully pour the berries into small square boxes to sell in Buckton the next day. They both looked up as a woman came into the store carrying a small child on her hip.

  “I heard there was some excitement here the other day when you brought your pa’s whiskey down,” she said, smiling at Tom.

  “Folks are gonna remember that for a long, long time,” Ol’ Man Barnes declared.

  “I ain’t gonna forgit it soon myself,” Tom said, with feeling. As he pocketed his new bag of marbles and an extra nickel he asked, “Would you tell folks Pa’s ready for some help on that schoolhouse-chapel down at the mission?”

  Leaving the store, Tom headed toward the mill. But when he saw the group of men and boys sitting on the steps outside the building, away from the noise of the machinery, he forgot all about passing along Pa’s message. Cat Johnson, his lanky body draped across several steps, was telling a tale.

  Tom was soon listening as raptly as the others, watching Cat’s expressive face and joining in the laughter. When Cat finished, he shifted his plug of tobacco to the other cheek and looked right at Tom. “Did your pa send you down here?” he asked.

  Surprised, Tom nodded. “I’m supposed to spread the word that the foundation’s laid an’ he’s ready for some carpentry help on that schoolhouse-chapel now.”

  “Wal, dum!” Cat said. “I thought maybe he sent you down here to learn how to tell a tale.”

  After the laughter died down, one of the men said, “You tell your pa I’ll be there. I want my boys to learn to write their names so they don’t have to sign a X like I do.”

  The murmur of agreement assured Tom that Pa would have all the help he needed.

  A few nights later, Tom and Pa sat on the porch waiting for Andy to come up and swap tales. Tom was turning a block of wood over and over in his hands, trying to decide what he should carve, when he heard Andy’s holler.

  “Hey, Andy!” he called as the big man drew near the gate.

  “Hey, Tom. Hey, June. How’s everything with you?” Andy asked as he lowered himself into the rocking chair.

  “Tolerable,” Pa said, “Tolerable.”

  Tom was waiting patiently for the men to finish their ritual greetings so they could settle down to the story-telling when he heard the sound of hoofbeats.

  “Wonder what’s so dadburn important it couldn’t wait till he saw me down at the buildin’ site tomorrow mornin’?” Pa muttered when Preacher Taylor rode up.

  Seeing the man’s out-thrust jaw as he swung down from the saddle and strode toward the porch, Tom felt a little tingle of anticipation. This might be interesting!

  “Somebody’s been spreading lies about me, Higgins,” the preacher said, ignoring Andy and Tom and not bothering with a greeting.

  Pa shrugged. “I don’t lie, so it couldn’t of been me.”

  “It had to be one of the men down at the work site, and I want you to find out which one.”

  Pa sent a stream of tobacco juice off the porch. “Might help if I knew
what he said.”

  The preacher’s face reddened. “I’m not repeating it. It was insulting to me both as a minister of the gospel and as a man.”

  Tom grinned. “I know what he’s talkin’ about, Pa.” He turned to the preacher and said, “You must mean that tale Cat Johnson told down at the mill about how you hit your thumb with the hammer an’ then spent the rest of the afternoon apologizin’ for what you said, an’ then—”

  “So it was Cat Johnson!” the preacher burst out. “How dare he? It’s all lies! I never hit my thumb, much less allowed blasphemous words to pass my lips. And the part about the board wasn’t true, either.” He appealed to Pa. “You’ve been there all the time—you know it’s all lies.” He ran his fingers through his hair, leaving it mussed.

  Pa frowned and pursed his lips. “Far as I know, you ain’t never hit your thumb, but what’s this about a board?”

  The preacher’s hands clenched into fists and Tom could see the rise and fall of his chest as he began to breathe harder. He opened his mouth and shut it again.

  Tom spoke for him. “Cat said the preacher picked up a real long board, an’ when he turned ’round, the other end of it knocked everybody down. First it whacked you, Pa, an’ pushed you into one of the Simpson brothers, an’ then he fell an’ knocked Cat over, an’ then—”

  “I can see it now! Like a row of dadburn dominoes.” Pa threw back his head and laughed aloud.

  “You know very well you saw nothing of the sort!” the preacher said, spluttering.

  Still chuckling, Pa said, “You don’t listen good. Preacher. I said ‘I can see it now.’ I didn’t say I’d seen it then.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Cat Johnson wasn’t lyin’, Preacher. He was just tellin’ a tale.”

  Tom nodded in agreement. “Fact is, he told it before they even started the carpentry work down there.”

  “‘Keep thy tongue from evil and thy lips from speaking guile,’” the preacher began, but Andy interrupted him.