The Moonshiner's Daughter

by Donna Everhart

  She started down the hill, then stopped.

  She said, “You know, I seen her about town some years ago.”

  “Who?”

  “Your mama.”

  Those two words caught me off guard.

  I whispered, incredulous at this news, “You did?”

  She nodded, and said, “Here and there, sure, I seen her. I’ll tell you ’bout it next time.”

  Encouraged, I said, “I thought I’d never know what she looked like until Daddy finally gave me a black-and-white of her.”

  She said, “That’s good. Every girl needs to know about her own mama. Now, listen, I got to get on to the house ’fore it gets dark. My eyes at night, they ain’t so good. You and your brother, you’re welcome to come stay with me. I don’t like the idea of y’all up here alone with all that’s going on.”

  “We can’t leave. If Daddy calls, he’ll wonder where we are.”

  She said, “Well, that’s true. I’ll keep a check then. Keep them doors locked.”

  She went down the hill and waved at Merritt, who stood on the back steps, the empty sleeve of his T-shirt moving ever so slightly in the breeze. Thinking on what he’d done, I got angry all over again. To me, at this moment, he was no better than Oral, or Uncle Virgil. I went back to work, determined to find something, anything.

  Before long, I was jittery and limp and had to stop. What I’d done had brought me not one jar, not even that one-dollar bill. The sky had lost its light, like a rainbow fading. I rubbed my sore hands together and gazed at a purple-edged horizon, pinpricks of brightness winking and a quarter moon tilted against the deepening night sky. The wind lifted damp hair off my neck, and as I listened to the forlorn hoot of an owl, I stayed long enough to watch dark descend over us, turning the mountains black. I’d never felt so alone before and realized the hollow feeling wasn’t always hunger.

  Chapter 23

  Somewhere between the croaking of tree frogs and the chirrup of crickets came the raspy sound of someone walking across gravel, then a scraping sound beneath my bedroom window. This was followed by mumbling. I sat up in the bed, and stared toward the darkened glass, at the white sash sitting halfway. I threw the covers off, and soon as my feet hit the floor there was a thump against the kitchen door. I stepped into the hall as Merritt opened his door too, and stuck his head out.

  He whispered, “You hearing that?”

  I put my finger to my lips, and motioned at him, much like we did when we were getting close to a still. We tiptoed toward the kitchen. Through the curtains at the back door I saw a shadow, the moon creating just enough light to reveal the form of someone hunched over. Subtle clicks came from the doorknob. Merritt punched my arm.

  He said, “They’re trying to break in.”

  I mumbled, “Get Daddy’s shotgun.”

  He scurried down the hall while I kept an eye on the door. They were getting brave, turning careless even, making more noise as if the darkened house signaled no one was up to hear. The doorknob wiggled; then came more rattling as they tried to pick the lock. Merritt was back and carrying the gun in his left hand.

  He whispered, “You ain’t ever shot it much. You even remember how?”

  Aggravated, I took it and whispered back, “Yeah, Merritt, I remember.”

  I’d only ever done it twice before, but he sure couldn’t with one arm.

  He said, “It’s got buckshot, and I’d shoot at that spot right there. Scare’em off.”

  I cocked the gun, then hesitated. I wanted to know who it was. I inched forward.

  Merritt became agitated, and his voice pitched higher. “What’re you doing? Shoot the darn thing.”

  I said, “Wait, I want to see who it is.”

  “Why? We don’t need to know!”

  Whoever it was began hammering their fists on the door, and the kitchen was suddenly illuminated by two or three flashlights. I didn’t know how many of them were out there, but they aimed the flashlights at the windows and it was almost as good as having the overhead light on.

  Someone called out in a singsong falsetto, “Yoo-hoo, anybody home?” followed by snickering.

  Then came a high-pitched whistle, like when you want to get someone’s attention. My hands shook as I brought the gun up and pulled the trigger. It recoiled and hit my shoulder hard, making my arm go numb. I pumped it and waited. There was a fist-sized hole in the wall beside the door frame. I’ll say this, shooting a gun inside a house is completely different than shooting one outside. The noise was tremendous and the sounds that followed were muffled, as if my head was underwater. I couldn’t see the person anymore, and had a split second of dread I might’ve hit him. When the shadow of whoever it was reappeared at the door’s window, I let the air out of my lungs.

  His fist smacked the wood, and my fear turned to anger when he yelled, “Ain’t none of you Sassers worth a shit!”

  If my ears weren’t still ringing I’d have bet it was Willie Murry, but the voice came through fuzzy, so I couldn’t be sure. The hollering and laughing went on like a party. Somebody threw what sounded like an empty can against the glass.

  Merritt leaned over the sink at the kitchen window and I said, “Get back; they’ll see you!”

  He had no more stepped away when the window shattered and glass blew everywhere, showering us in sparkling pieces that left tiny nicks on our arms and faces. We dropped to our hands and knees and scooted back into the hallway.

  Someone muttered, “They’s hiding,” and I worried they’d try to break in again.

  Another voice said, “Virgil Sasser, that you in there? We gonna see to it you Sassers stop taking what’s ourn, one way or the other. This is your warning. We’re gonna see all them stills you got destroyed. We’re gonna find’em all; you watch and see.”

  Merritt suddenly stood and before I could stop him he shouted, “You ain’t stopping us from nothing!”

  I pulled him back down, thinking, How stupid. This was it. They would tear down the door to get us now. They didn’t know it was only me and him, and I sure didn’t want them finding out. There was more howling, and carrying on.

  Someone said, “Kill them lights!”

  We were suddenly in the dark as they shot out the back-porch light. The small scratches on my face and arms stung as perspiration snaked down my face and arms, and Merritt lost the boldness he’d had only seconds ago. He grabbed my arm with his hand, breathing hard like when he’d play ball for hours on end. On top of the darkness came silence, and the longer it went, the more uneasy I became. I could picture them, squatting by the foundation, surrounding the house, figuring out a way to get in. After a few seconds, my eyes began to adjust until I could make out the shape of the table, chairs, the white of the refrigerator and stove.

  I said, “Damn.”

  Merritt hissed, “What?”

  I held up a finger as I slipped quietly toward my bedroom. What if some blame fool came in through my open window? In the doorway, I stared at the raised pane of glass, saw the trees moving ever so slightly in the breeze. The only sound at the moment came from the same frogs and crickets I’d heard earlier. I crept closer toward it, and paused. There came a scraping sound, like boots toeing the foundation. I dreaded the thought of seeing someone’s fingertips gripping the windowsill. The scraping kept on, but even worse was the silence. Where were they? What were they doing?

  Nobody’s head inched into view; no one tried to climb in. Eventually, I leaned the gun against my bed, and moved quickly to slam the sash down. I locked it at the top. I immediately stepped away, shrinking at the thought of someone shooting like they had earlier and how close Merritt had come to getting hit. I left my room and saw him near the kitchen, watching the back door. I had to motion dramatically to get his attention. I raised my shoulders in question. He did the same back to me. We didn’t know where they were, what was going on, or what they were doing.

  I moved closer to him and whispered, “I ain’t heard nothing.”

  He said, “I
know. I don’t like it.”

  “Me neither.”

  We waited, and even the littlest of noises gave us a start. An hour went by, and I got to feeling like they were gone. I couldn’t say why I felt like that way, except that I didn’t think they’d sit out there quietly. I figured they were the sort to keep trouble coming long as they had the chance. We waited another thirty minutes or so, and by now, it was almost like it had never happened.

  I said, “I think they’re gone.”

  Merritt shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “Ain’t but one way to find out.”

  “You can’t go out there, Jessie! What if they’re waiting to ambush us?”

  I said, “That’s too much trouble for them. They ain’t wanting to fight directly. Ain’t you ever noticed how everything they do is sneaky? What about what happened at our still? They snuck out there and tore it up. And what about Uncle Virgil’s house? They’re chicken. It ain’t like them to show up like they did tonight unless Willie Murry’s behind it. I bet it was his idea, and probably a bunch of his crazy friends.”

  Merritt acted like I was the one who was crazy, flailing his left arm about. “You keep on lying about how you ain’t the one who tore up our still.”

  “I didn’t.”

  He gave me a skeptical look, but I also saw a weakening, and puzzlement more than anything.

  “But you wanted to.”

  “Yeah. But I didn’t.”

  It was getting to where it didn’t matter if he believed me or not. The hole in the wall allowed warm air to come in and the curtain at the back door flapped lazily every now and then, like a hand beckoning us closer. I opened the door.

  Merritt said, “You see anything?”

  I stepped outside. There was a slight sheen coming off the windshield from Sally Sue in the shed up the hill, the murky depths of the woods beyond the house, a sky dotted with stars, nothing out of the ordinary anymore. Merritt’s shape filled the doorway.

  I turned and spoke to him in a hushed tone, “They might come back. We ought to leave.”

  “Where’re we gonna go?”

  “Mrs. Brewer said we could stay with her.”

  “But what about Daddy? What if he calls?”

  “I’ll try to get a message to him. Hurry up and get your stuff together.”

  In my room I grabbed what I’d need for a few days, plus Mama’s picture from where I’d propped it on my desk. We’d go to Mrs. Brewer’s, but not for long. I was afraid if we weren’t here, we would come back and find our house burned to the ground like Uncle Virgil’s. Back in the hall Merritt held a bundle wadded up against his chest. He’d attached his discarded prosthetic arm. I said nothing about it. In the kitchen I went to the back door, my brain and ears attempting to separate the common from the unusual. Like before, it was quiet. I took the set of keys off the hook by the door, and out in the yard, I waited again, listening and watching. I could still hear them hooting and hollering in my head.

  I said, “Let’s take Sally Sue instead of the truck.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. It just seems like the thing to do. She’s faster.”

  He mumbled, “Only when Daddy’s driving.”

  I locked the back door and we trudged up the hill, and tossed our things onto the back seat.

  After the car was started, I said, “I got to get a job, get some money together, and help Daddy.”

  He snorted. “A job.”

  “Yes, Merritt. A job.”

  “It don’t make no sense. Daddy’s always said ain’t no job can make money like making and running shine.”

  “Like I’m about to start doing that.”

  “Mama did.”

  I ignored that and pulled out from under the shed. Out on the road I guess you could say I was showing off a little when I floored it and quickly gathered speed. And I guess you could say I felt a little bit proud when Merritt said, “Dang,” as I rolled the steering wheel, left, right, left again, the road in front of us captured by the headlight beam. We made our way down Shine Mountain, and I was able to keep Sally Sue tight in the curves, like Daddy had taught me. Merritt was quiet, watching what I did with a keen eye.

  We came to the bottom of the mountain, and made it out onto the road without me sending us off the side into some deep holler, when Merritt ventured to say, “You could do what Mama done.”

  I wanted to wallop some sense into him, but I can say this one thing about me and Merritt. We’d never hit one another even if I did think he couldn’t much stand me most of the time.

  I said, “I ain’t likely to take up something I hate, Merritt. No matter how good the money is. I might as well go out and be a prostitute, or something.”

  “Well, damn, Jessie. That’s like saying that’s what Mama was doing.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “You just said it was like being a prostitute.”

  “I’m only saying it’s illegal. It ain’t right.”

  “It ain’t nobody’s business but ourn. We ain’t harming anyone.”

  “Sometimes I wonder, Merritt, if you ain’t about as dumb as Oral.”

  He sat back, and said not another word the entire drive to Mrs. Brewer’s. When we pulled into her driveway, of course the house was dark and I got to feeling bad about springing in on her so late. I knocked on the door, and hoped she wasn’t hard of hearing. I knocked again and a light came on in a back room. I could see it through one of the three little windows in a row at the top of her front door. I went on my tiptoes and saw her coming, wrapping a housecoat over a long nightgown. She saw me through the little window and yanked the door open.

  “What’s happened?”

  I’d never heard Mrs. Brewer sound like she did right then, her voice thin and frail, and I hoped I wasn’t bringing trouble to her doorstep by coming.

  She held it open and we went inside.

  I said, “I’m sorry to wake you, Mrs. Brewer, but we got trouble up to our house. Someone tried to break in. They shot the kitchen window out.”

  She said, “They went to shooting, jes’ like that?”

  I said, “I shot first, just as a warning. I only wanted to scare’em off.”

  Mrs. Brewer said, “Shouldn’t been there they didn’t want to get shot at. Got my own gun for such as that, and I don’t hesitate in using it neither.”

  She nodded to where an old single-barrel sat propped near the door, looking like it had taken care of plenty of varmints. Without a word she clomped off to the kitchen, and we followed. She flicked the light on to reveal even more roots and herbs drying here and there than last time I was here. She pointed for us to sit at the kitchen table while she bent down in front of the old woodstove, struck a match, and had a blaze going in no time. She slammed the door shut, then ground some coffee using a hand-cranked box. She filled an aluminum pot with water, put several scoops in the basket, and set it on the stove. She retrieved a large white opaque bowl out of the drain in the sink. Aunt Juanita had talked about how all her milk glass was gone from the fire. Mrs. Brewer’s bowl was milk glass too, and when she opened a cabinet there was more of it. She tossed in flour, lard, salt.

  Out of the blue, she said, “You gon’ have to fix it.”

  Her fingers worked the lard through the flour and salt. She sprinkled in some water, and kept going. My stomach was hollow and I tried to remember when I’d eaten last.

  Her words were a contradiction to the calming effect she’d been having on me, and I said, “Fix what?”

  “You gon’ have to get their respect, and you gon’ have to do it quick.”

  “I don’t care about them.”

  “You got to, or else they’ll drive you and him”—and she nodded at Merritt—“off’n that mountain and all your parents ever had will be for naught.”

  “Maybe that’s for the best. Maybe it’s what I want.”

  Merritt stiffened, and anger made his voice shake. “Well, it sure as hell ain’t what I want.�
��

  I said to Mrs. Brewer, while pointing at his missing arm, “Even after that, he still thinks making and selling shine’s not a bad thing. Even after all the bad that’s happened. Ain’t nothing good from what I’ve experienced, but according to him, I don’t know nothing.”

  Mrs. Brewer said, “He can’t help it. It’s in his blood, and I reckon it ain’t in yers, simple as that. Ain’t a thing wrong wantin’ to do somethin’ different.”

  I raised eyebrows at Merritt, like, See? Only Daddy’s words came back to me, It’s in your veins, girl, like an echo.

  Then she said, “It still don’t mean you ignore what’s been done to yer family. No, you got to fix it, like I said; then you can move on. If you don’t, it’ll come to you all of a sudden like, the things done wrong to you and yern, and how you chose to let it go. It’ll eat at you, and won’t be nothin’ can be done about it then. It’ll be too late.”

  “I don’t see what I can do.”

  “There’s always a way. Trust me, you got to figure it out all along, like you been doin’.”

  She rolled out the soft dough and cut thick biscuits using the top of a large glass. She placed them on a pan, warped with age with one end higher than the other. She stuck it in the oven and checked the time. It was going on 5:00 a.m.

  The coffee finished perking, and as she poured us a cup, she said, “I reckon now’s as good a time as any to tell y’all what little I know ’bout your mama.”

  Chapter 24

  Mrs. Brewer’s knobby fingers encircled her mug, and as she blew steam off the top, I waited somewhat impatiently for her to tell us what she knew. In the seconds before she spoke, it got so quiet, I could hear the ticking of the pan inside the oven as the metal adjusted to the heat, like some small creature tapping to get out. She stared at me a long time with an intensity like she might’ve changed her mind.

  Finally, she said, “You know, she truly wa’n’t big as a minute. ’Bout like how you are.”

  I sat up straight. If this was how it was going to start off, it was going to be real hard for me to believe anything she had shared.

  I said, “Why do you keep saying things like that?”