The Wettest County in the World (17 page)

He thought of the look on Bertha Minnix’s face when he’d step off the running boards in his new pinstripes, camel-hair coat, boots gleaming. He would make a present of the Brownie camera; he realized now that he was planning that all along. She seemed like the type who would like to take pictures. He saw the light in her face, her thin lips smirking at the corners in embarrassment, fingering the downy hair around her neck. Jack pushed the four cylinder till the valves pinged, shifting into high gear and drifting through turns, the fresh tires biting gravel and spinning hunks of clay and dirt into the wayside. There weren’t many roads in Franklin County that you could get up past thirty except the hard road 33 and a few other stretches, but Jack figured he’d get his chance soon enough.

Have to make a serious impression, he thought, after that mess at the Dunkard church. A completely different man. An upstanding man of promise, an entrepreneur, a man who made things happen and did it with his own wiles. The world was changing, evolving, and the man who didn’t jump would be left behind in the muddy hole. Yes, Jack thought to himself, it’s time I did some courting. It’s high time I begin to separate myself from the rabble.

T
HE
F
ORD BANGED
down a gravel road just south of Penhook near the Pittsylvania County line. The car swung into a dirt drive that carried over a rise and into a small hollow, the temporary sawmill camp, a clearing between two stands of pitch pine and black spruce. In the clearing a long covered shed made of logs and discarded sheet metal stood in the sunshine, a few smaller outbuildings flanking it. At the rear of the shed, nearest the circle of trees, a tall double boiler sat rusting in the grass, its smokestacks nearly twenty feet high and blackened with creosote and canted to one side. A truck sat under one end of the shed near a tall stack of uncut pine logs, an old Model T without wheels up on blocks, coughing out great gouts of black smoke. A belt was hooked up to the rear axle that looped around a set of cogs to a large-toothed table saw. Wood in various states of milling stood about in stacks and piles, the ground ankle deep in rich-smelling sawdust. In the clearing pairs of men plied long crosscut saws to enormous logs propped on sawhorses, wrestling the saws back and forth with a ragged, desperate motion; others hitched teams of mules to the logs to drag them to the shed. Other men under the shed worked the belt saw and still more were engaged in planing the logs and stacking them into piles.

Forrest stood at one end of the table wrestling the end of a pine log into the table-saw chute. His dungarees were dusted with wood chips, the sleeves of his sweat-soaked undershirt rolled up high. He was hatless, his hair matted with sweat and sawdust. Jack worked at a table under the shed with a bulky wooden block planer, shaving the edges off planks in long strips. At the other end of the clearing at the edge of the forest Howard pulled a crosscut saw with another man. A team of mules hitched to a wagon stood in the sunlight, nosing at crabgrass and thistles that lay trampled in the dirt.

When the roadster pulled up to the shed Forrest flicked an eye in that direction and continued to manhandle the log on the table. The men plying crosscut saws paused, releasing their handles and standing up from their feral crouches, wiping their brows with their shirtsleeves. Howard glanced at the car and then nodding to the man opposite tore into the log again, his heavy torso shuddering with each stroke. Jack dropped his block plane onto the table as two men climbed out of the car. Both wore short, fat ties, low hats, muddy boots, and belted slacks. Charley Rakes’s sour, doughy face was scrunched in the sunshine. Abshire the smaller man, finely built with a delicate mouth. They walked past the pairs of crosscut men and continued on under the shed.

Here we go, Jack thought, this could be it so get your yellow ass ready. No way Forrest would let them get away with what they’d done to him, and with Howard there too it ought to be some fun. I’ll be ready, Jack thought, and I’ll get my shots in.

As the men approached, Forrest kicked a heavy switch on the floor and the big saw spun to life with a raspy whir. He pulled his hat low and pushed the log along the groove that led to the blade. Rakes and Abshire stepped back as the blade met the log with a scream, sending funnels of sawdust in several directions. For a few minutes they all watched the log inch down the chute into the blade that split it in a clean line, Forrest hunched over the far end, using an iron hook to pull the log along, leaning into it. Then Rakes pulled out a revolver from under his coat and pointed it at Forrest’s head.

Jack took a step forward and then looked to Howard, still sawing at the edge of the clearing. The circular blade started to smoke as it churned into the log and a small boy sprang from behind a woodpile with an oilcan and lubricated the blade with a practiced eye, then turned and ran back to his spot in the woodpile, where he hunched over a small block of wood that he whittled earnestly with a jackknife, an eye on Charley Rakes’s gun. Forrest leaned into the log again and Rakes swung his arm over to the Model T and put a round through the engine block, the
pock
sound barely coming through the whine of the saw. Without looking up Forrest backed the log off and kicked the kill switch. He watched the motor, oil sputtering from the bullet hole, beginning to burn off and smoke, then rattling to a stop. Then in the clearing it was just the sound of Howard’s lone saw groaning for a few more strokes, and then that sound stopped too. A few of the mules shook in their harnesses, the quiet settling.

Forrest spat dryly into the sawdust.

Dammit Charley, Abshire said. He wiped his sweaty forehead with his shirtsleeve.

Other men working at the mill dropped their saws and wood planes and began walking away from the shed toward the shade of the trees. Jack could tell that the spectators worried Abshire. Charley Rakes walked over to the large boiler. He kicked the fire door open and rapped the pipe with his knuckles. Forrest touched a finger to the hot bullet hole in the engine.

Listen, Abshire said, we need your payment if you gonna run liquor. You and your brothers.

Rakes walked back to the two men, his thumbs hooked in his straining belt.

I’ll tell you what, Rakes said, you boys get this boiler goin’ and you could fire a dozen teakettles at once. Run the whole thing right here. Gotta be better than whatever you draggin’ out o’ the mountains at night.

Forrest looked out to the men standing in the shade. They all stood watching, hands on their hips, Howard wiping his hands on his overalls, his head hanging down. What the hell is the matter with him? Jack thought. Rakes was poking around the table saw, pushing a track of sawdust along the chute with a fat finger. He was only a few feet from the giant blade. Jack saw Forrest eyeing an old rebar pole they used to stoke the boiler. A stack of fresh-cut fence posts nearby. Then he turned and pointed at Rakes.

You gonna pay for that bullet, Forrest said evenly.

Abshire took his hand from his pockets. Howard put on his hat and began to stride across the clearing, his face set. Here we go, Jack thought. He started to sidle around the shed along the opposite side, to come at them from the back.

You threatenin’ me, boy? Rakes said, coming around the table and putting his hand on his revolver.

Easy, Charley, Abshire said.

Rakes eased his gun halfway out, forefinger lying across the guard.

You think you a real hard-boiled son of a bitch, don’t ya?

Real simple Forrest, Abshire said. Either we get our payment or we cut up the stills. All of them.

Hell, Rakes said, we’ll dynamite the goddamn things. Then your station’ll be next, unnerstand?

Charley Rakes stood in front of Forrest, lifted out his revolver, and lay it across his chest.

We ain’t afraid of you and your brothers, Rakes said, like some is. Ask Jack what he did last time I caught him at a still. Ask him about how he blubbered like a little girl.

The cicadas sang high in the trees, and the men in the shade stood shoulder to shoulder watching. Howard had come quietly across the clearing and came up to the shed and stopped a few paces behind the two men, his hands hanging at his sides, his head still down so you couldn’t see his face under his hat. Jack was now standing by the deputies’ car, thirty feet behind them, coming slowly to their back. Abshire eyed the group of staring men.

Shit, Abshire said, c’mon, Charley. Bring it by the office, Forrest. We are willing to forget a few months, but we’ll need at least sixty to start, as you got back pay.

The deputies turned and walked to their car. Jack stepped back to let them get in. Abshire glanced at Jack and shook his head and climbed in the car. Rakes stood there for a moment, looking at Jack like he couldn’t place him.

Hey boy, he said. Your face healed up?

Jack said nothing. He stared at Rakes’s fat, sweating face, trying to bore into his pig eyes.

You sure can squeal, boy, Rakes said. Ought to do some fine hog calling.

Rakes glanced back at Forrest, still standing under the shed. Howard’s hulking shadow stood next to him.

Get in the car, Charley, Abshire said.

You gonna let your brothers get you into some things you can’t handle, Rakes said.

I’ll handle things fine, Jack said. Don’t you worry.

Rakes chuckled again.

Lotta threats around here, he said. Lotta talk and nothin’ doin’.

After their car drew off down the road the other men came back to their places on the saws, spat on their hands and took up the handles. Jack joined his brothers under the shed. One of the men was talking loudly, a skinny fellow with a drooping mustache named Whit Boitnott.

Don’t need this foolishness, he said. All these guns and what the hell a man supposed to do about that?

He lit up a cigarette with shaking hands.

Goin’ get us all kilt if he don’t watch out. Man can’t work in this kind of—

Forrest grimaced and stretched out and picked up the rebar pole and whipped it at him in one quick movement. Whit flinched, hunching down and bringing up his arms and screamed as the pole flipped just over his head. The pole sailed on out into the yard and stuck end up in the dirt, quivering, and the men began to laugh. Whit scrambled up and started running for the wood, clutching his neck.

Ed, Tyler, Forrest said, you boys get this boiler fitted out and ready and hook it to the saw.

The men set about setting up the old boiler, others moving to stack cordwood for fuel, emptying the ash pit. The brothers drew off apace.

Cundiff, Jamison, the rest of ’em, Jack said, they paying?

Not Cundiff, Howard said. He won’t. Think we the only other ones left.

Look, Jack said, we gotta do something. We gotta get that piece of cowshit Rakes.

We don’t gotta do anything at all, Forrest said.

Well damn, Jack said, I already done it. We run a hundred gallons to Burning Bag a few weeks ago. Floyd Carter up there told us to bring it anytime.

Forrest turned to Howard with a look of disbelief, genuinely surprised. Howard stared at a spot on his brother’s chest, hands on his hips.

He’s got places, Jack said, all over to drop, and we gon’ do it again soon as Howard gets another batch up. I’m a part of his syndicate now, the Midnight Coal Company.

That so? Forrest said.

Yeah.

You don’t know a thing about Carter or his Midnight Coal Company.

I know they’ll take our liquor for a good price. I know they makin’ money. Unlike us.

Forrest put his finger into Jack’s collarbone.

You don’t know a damn thing, Forrest said. Floyd Carter jus’ as soon as plug you as shine his shoes. There ain’t no kind of guarantee with them.

I can look out for myself, Jack said.

Can ye now? Forrest said.

Look, Jack said, you got that Sharpe woman running more through the county than anyone and they haven’t caught her. I mean, goddamn, if we gotta pay to make it and then pay again per load for someone else to move it, it seems like we oughta cut them out. We cleared near four hundred between us. Me and Cricket did the driving. Easy as falling off a log backwards, ’specially now that I got my own car.

Forrest clapped the sawdust off his hat and seemed to measure a voice that came rising out of the trees.

Howard’s got good stills, Jack said, and we’ve got some vehicles and we could get some more. I know you know where we can get our hands on some materials. We could put together a set of big submarine stills, do three, four hundred gallons at a time. Floyd Carter’s people will take all we got. Once we get through a few times the others will quit paying and the whole thing will give. I’ll drive the pilot car myself. And if Rakes and Abshire try to stop us I swear to God I’ll shoot Rakes myself.

You’ll shoot him? Forrest said.

I swear it, Jack said.

Once something like that gets started, Forrest said, something else will have to stop it.

Then we just keep it close, Jack said. We stop it ourselves.

Forrest fixed him with his eyes.

What makes you think, Forrest said, that after it gets going you will
want
it to end?

A
S THEY BROKE DOWN
the camp for the night Jack was working out the logistics of the plan in his mind. Forrest agreed to look for suppliers of heavy-gauge copper for some new, larger stills. If Jack and Howard could get it built they’d start making large runs in the early spring, when the weather thawed. Jack had no doubt that there was plenty of money to be made; his cut of it would be enough to put something down on a little place somewhere, maybe in Roanoke, and get out of the sawmill camp and his father’s place for good. Forrest had done it before, Jack thought, that’s how he got the money to buy into the County Line to begin with. A little stake to start something of my own, take my rightful place, fingers on the switch. To hell with breaking my back at the sawmill and picking tobacco for nothing but chips and whetstones.

T
HAT AFTERNOON
Howard came through the woods and into a large field. The sun was low over Fork Mountain to the west and shone over the matted grass and broom straw. A dozen red-and-white Herefords stood spaced over the hillside, down into the hollow and up the other side of the valley, broad swaths of green and exposed rock, the cows nosing for tufts of alfalfa and clover. The cattle turned to watch the man emerge from the forest.