This Rock (12 page)

“I wouldn't dirty my toe on your rusty ass,” I said.

“Come on, kick me,” Moody hollered. He almost fell over but caught his balance and then lost it again. He crawled with one hand and his overalls down around his ankles. “If there was a manure pile here I'd roll myself in it to show what a dog I am,” he said.

“Quit acting stupid,” I said. “My trapline is ruined. Don't matter that you're sorry.”

“Ain't no money in furs,” Moody said.

“More than in drinking,” I said.

Moody staggered to his feet but didn't pull up his overalls. He
hobbled across the yard, closer to me. “You can make ten times what you do with furs,” he said.

“How?” I said. “By stealing it?”

“I'll show you,” Moody said. “I owe it to you.”

“You owe me for the tires and for all the furs in my traps,” I said.

“I'll show you how to make ten times that much,” Moody said.

“By bootlegging?” I said.

“Who said anything about bootlegging?” Moody said. “All you have to do is drive a car.”

“Get away from me,” I said. I hit him with my fist. I hit him hard as I could, in the chest, right over the heart. And it was like he was expecting it, like he wanted to be hit. He staggered back and fell to the ground with his overalls still around his ankles.

I didn't go after him again. He had took me by surprise by not trying to dodge or hit back. I looked again to see if he reached for his knife.

“You can hit me all you want,” Moody said, like he was too drunk to care about pain. “I'm going to do the Christian thing. I'm going to help you out.”

“You can't help me out,” I said.

“You can make enough to buy new traps and a new rifle,” Moody said. He looked at me sideways, like he was cross-eyed he was so drunk. “And you can make enough to buy a tool set, or more drawing paper.” It was like the liquor had made him think, made him smarter. “Or you can make enough to leave here,” he said, “to go someplace else like Canada and trap.” It was like he could read my mind. I hadn't thought Moody paid enough attention to know how much I dreamed of buying a .30-30 rifle and of leaving Green River.

“I won't have nothing to do with bootlegging,” I said.

“You don't have to have nothing to do with bootlegging,” Moody said. He set in the dirt with his overalls below his knees. I'd never seen him look so ridiculous. But he didn't seem to care. I had to laugh. I pointed at his dirty long-handles and laughed.

“How much can I make?” I kept laughing.

“Ten dollars.”

“Just for driving the car?” I played along, like I was considering it.

“Just for driving the car,” Moody said, and laughed too. “You couldn't make ten dollars in a month of trapping.”

“And what if I'm arrested?” I said.

“You can't be arrested for driving a car,” Moody said, “unless you drive into a police car, or kill somebody.”

“Why do you think I'd go with you?” I said.

“Because you need the money,” Moody said. “And because you want to help me out. We're brothers, we help each other out.”

“Since when? Are you in trouble?” I said.

“Ain't no trouble,” Moody said, “if I can get to Chestnut Springs. Get me out of this and I won't ever ask you again. There ain't nobody else I can ask, except my brother.”

“What if I don't help you?” I said.

“Then it will be on your conscience,” Moody said.

M
AMA WAS SURPRISED
when I went into the house and told her I was going to drive Moody down to South Carolina. I was surprised too. I'd never gone with him to Chestnut Springs or Gap Creek. I don't think I agreed just because I needed the money. I think it was mostly that I wanted to patch up the quarrel with Moody. While he was being so agreeable I wanted to be friends, even if he was drunk. We had fought so much, I needed to patch it up. I felt guilty because I'd hit him and he hadn't fought back. And I was curious to see what he was doing.

I reckon Mama seen Moody was in no condition to drive hisself. He never even come in, but leaned on the gatepost waiting for me.

“You be careful,” Mama said. She was frying up tater cakes for supper.

“Ain't I always careful?” I said.

“No, you're not,” Mama said.

“Don't let Muir go,” Fay said.

“Nobody asked you,” I said to Fay.

“He'll just get in trouble,” Fay said.

But I think Mama was relieved that Moody and me wasn't fighting no more. She was so pleased to see us making plans and working together she didn't really raise a fuss.

“Don't you want to come?” I said to Fay.

“Ha,” Fay said.

I
CRANKED UP
the Model T, and Moody got in the passenger seat. He had buckled up his overalls and his mood had got better once he knowed I was going to take him to South Carolina. He pulled a jar out from under the seat and took a drink. Then he held out the jar to me, but I shook my head.

“That's right, little brother, stay away from demon rum,” Moody said, “especially when you're driving.”

It was just getting dark. I switched the headlights on. A rabbit bounced into the road, saw the headlights, and bounded along in front of us like it was afraid to leave the road. I felt scared as that rabbit, and I didn't know what I was doing any more than it did.

A
S WE TURNED
down the highway toward South Carolina I wished I hadn't come. I wished I'd gone to my traps and was setting by the fire skinning muskrats and mink and stretching the hides on boards.

Once we crossed the state line the highway looked like it was going down into a pit. Poplars hung over the road where it run down the edge of Possum Holler, toward the curves and switchbacks of the Winding Stairs that led down into the holler of Chestnut Springs.

“Turn here,” Moody said.

“Turn where?” I said.

“Right there, damn it,” Moody said. He pointed to a little dirt road that connected the highway to Gap Creek.

“Thought we was going to Chestnut Springs,” I said.

“You thought wrong,” Moody said.

The road to Gap Creek was rough as a gully. It was washed out in places and had big rocks standing up in the middle of the routes. And even in flat stretches it was pitted as a cob. The Model T hammered on the ruts.

“What if we break an axle?” I said.

“Then we'll have to walk home,” Moody said. He took another drink from the jar.

We passed a few houses with lamplight in their windows, but it was wild country we was driving into. It was the edge of Dark Corner, the wildest section of the mountains. We passed deserted cabins. In one place a creek run right across the road.

“Stop here,” Moody said. All I could see was a big rock leaning out over the road with laurel bushes thick around it. I stopped the car and Moody got out and walked back up the road. I heard him talking to somebody. They spoke in low voices, and then I heard Moody holler out, “You damn right!” There was more mumbling, and then he yelled, “You're damn straight!”

I wondered if I should get out and see what was going on, but I knowed Moody wouldn't want me to take part in whatever argument he was having. And I didn't want to be seen by whoever it was either. Then the passenger door opened and Moody said, “Help me load these.” I left the car idling and got out.

In the dark behind the car I couldn't see nothing at first. The woods closed over the road and there was a waterfall close by. In the glow of the taillight I expected to see whoever Moody had been talking to. But there was nobody in sight except Moody. He struck a match, and then I seen the big cans, the size of milk cans. They was five-gallon cans like dairies put milk in.

“Put these in the back,” Moody said.

“On the backseat?” I said.

“No, on the back bumper,” he snapped.

I lugged one to the car and hoisted it into the backseat. It was heavy, more than eighty or a hundred pounds. “What are you going to do with these?” I said. I knowed it was liquor in them.

“You don't need to know,” Moody said. He was all business now, all sobered up.

We loaded the cans in the car and then I turned the car around and started back up the rough narrow road. Never did see who Moody bought the cans from. The Model T hesitated on the bumps with its new load.

“You're going to have to help me carry them,” Moody said when we got almost to the highway.

“You said all I had to do was drive,” I said.

“The plan has changed,” Moody said.

“I won't do it,” I said and gripped the steering wheel.

“You ain't got no choice,” Moody said.

“I don't have to do nothing,” I said.

“We can't drive out on the highway with this load,” Moody said. “The law will be waiting for us.”

I
SEEN
M
OODY'S
plan all along was for us to carry the liquor across the mountain into North Carolina so he would not be caught crossing the state line with the blockade. It was the South Carolina sheriff he was afraid of.

It was hard to carry those cans up the ridge and down the other side. It would have been a man's job to carry one up the steep trail in the dark. But two was work for a giant. I was out of breath and sweating before I got a third of the way up the slope. And my foot was still sore. But Moody carried a can in each hand ahead of me and never did stop. We couldn't use a light and had to let our eyes get used to the dark. Carrying a heavy weight in the dark is twice as hard as carrying it in daylight. I stumbled on rocks in the steep trail and banged into trees. But Moody knowed the way and he kept on going. That's when I seen again how tough he was. He was lighter than me, and he'd been drinking all day, but he kept going up the mountain like the cans didn't weigh nothing. He was doing what he wanted to do, what he had to do. I couldn't even catch up with him.

By the time we got down the other side of the mountain to the highway, I was plumb wore out. I set the cans down in the bushes and Moody dropped down on the ground. “You go back for the car and drive it up here,” he said.

“What are you going to do?” I said.

“I'm going to wait right here,” Moody said, “to make sure nothing happens to the merchandise.”

“I don't even know the way back,” I said.

“The great woodsman and trapper can't find his way?” Moody said. “All right, you've got
twenty
bucks at the end of this trapline.”

I started back up the ridge, feeling my way a step at a time, pulling myself up on trees and laurel bushes. It was impossible to see
the trail, but if I hit brush or deep leaves I stopped and changed direction. There was a little traffic on the highway below, and that helped me keep a sense of direction. When I got to the top, I rested again and looked at the stars above the trees. It seemed so strange to be doing what I was. I wished I was out in the woods on my own, camping.

When I finally got back to the Model T, I cranked it and turned on the lights. The little road looked bleached and sparkling to my eyes that had got used to the dark. It was only a few hundred yards to the highway, and I had no sooner turned onto the paved road than I seen the black-and-white car parked on the shoulder. It was a police car. The spit froze in the back of my mouth. I steered careful past the car and seen the siren on top. I'd always heard you had to pay off the South Carolina sheriff. It didn't look like Moody had paid them anything, since we had to lug the cans all the way across the mountain into North Carolina.

I'd just got beyond the police car when its lights come on. Never seen such bright lights as them that flared in my mirror. They was so big they seemed to scorch away the night and blind me. The car with its scalding lights followed me and come up close.

Now what am I supposed to do? I thought. And then I remembered there wasn't any cans in the car. Unless Moody had left his jar under the seat there wasn't any liquor in the Model T. But he probably had left the jar there. I'd never been stopped by a deputy sheriff before. My life was changing all upside-down that night.

A red light started flashing, and I heard the siren like a squawk turning into a shriek that become a whistle. I didn't see no place to pull off the pavement, so I slowed down but kept going. The siren screamed louder. I put on the brakes and stopped in the road. My feet was shaking on the pedals.

A man in uniform come to the window and I rolled it down. “Out of the car,” he said.

I turned the key and got out on the highway. My knees was wobbling so bad I was afraid I would fall. The climb up the mountain had strained my healing ankle. There was two deputies, and they both had flashlights.

“Thought you would head back to North Carolina?” one of them said.

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“With a little product of Gap Creek,” the other one said.

“No, sir,” I said.

They was both big heavy men, and they acted like they was used to giving orders. They looked in the backseat, and they looked under the seats. They found Moody's liquor jar under the passenger seat, but it was empty. They searched in the glove compartment, and they looked under the hood and under the car.

“Where have you got it hid, boy?” one said.

“Nowhere,” I said.

The other one opened the gas tank and sniffed.

“You didn't go down to Gap Creek for an empty fruit jar,” the first deputy said.

“Got friends down there,” I said.

“I think we got a sassy boy here,” the other one said.

“Are you a sassy boy?” the first deputy said.

They made me lean up against the car and they patted me down and searched my pockets. All I had in my pockets was my knife.

“Are you related to Moody Powell by any chance?” the other one said.