The Moonshine War Read online

  Drop it on corrugated tin, yes, sir, that was a swell idea cause everybody knew how tin burned.

  It didn't look like any tin roof.

  If it didn't then somebody needed glasses. No, the only way was to rush him or starve him out.

  How long did anybody figure that would take? Son didn't look like he ate much anyway.

  They'd have to rush him and that would be the show to see.

  Somebody asked who had seen the Bengal Lancers picture and they got to discussing tortures, like sticking bamboo slivers under a boy's fingernails to get him to tell where something was. Maybe they'd do it to Son if they'd seen the picture.

  The closemouthed son of a bitch, you could hardly get to tell whether he thought it was going to rain or snow.

  Somebody said, hey, look, and they all looked toward the house. No, over there coming out of the trees--tiny little ant figures running across the pasture, circling wide to get on a line behind the barn, four of them running in a single file, hurrying hunch-shouldered, the first one gradually gaining distance on the others. Everybody was watching the four men now. They heard the thin report of a rifle from the direction of the Martin house. They heard a muffled echoing report up in the sandstone rocks and they saw the first man go down and lay there, my God, dropped in his tracks from a good three hundred yards. They watched the other three men stop, looking toward the house, run back as fast as they could to the cover of the trees. They were hidden from sight before anybody on the ridge moved or looked around. One man whistled softly and shook his head. He had a funny, startled look on his face. Others stared out at the tiny dark shape lying in the pasture but nobody spoke for a while.

  They would look over at the trees, but they didn't expect to see anybody come out of there again in the daylight.

  Lowell Holbrook had got a ride out in Bob Cronin's stake truck. Lowell was the first one to notice Frank Long. He hadn't seen him come; it must have been while they were watching the four men; but there he was. His car was parked just in from where the road came out of the trees into the open and he was standing by the door looking out over the hood, studying the Martin place and letting his gaze drift over to the wooded slope, getting the lay of the land. Lowell wasn't sure what to do, whether he should go over and say anything to him or not. Finally he didn't have to do anything.

  Bud Blackwell saw Long. As soon as he did, he walked over with Virgil Worthman and a group came trailing behind.

  Long threw them off balance. He nodded and said, "I've been looking all over for you. I was out to your place and Worthman's before I learned everybody was out here watching." Long looked out at the pasture, then let his gaze move over the cars and groups of people in the clearing.

  "Yes, I see a crowd of people watching, but I don't see nobody helping."

  Bud shifted his weight, staring narrow-eyed at Frank Long. He wasn't sure what to say now, though he had part of it in mind and said, "It would look to me like you're in the wrong part of the woods. How come you're not leading your men?"

  "I'll give you a simple answer. Because they're not my men any more. They quit me to do it themselves and told me to go home or get put under." Long paused. He had them, they were staring hard at him and he felt only a little tenseness inside. "You wonder what I'm talking about, all right, I'll tell you. Those people over in the trees aren't federal agents at all. See, I wanted to do this job by myself; so I hired some boys, like deputies you might say."

  Bud Blackwell and the others were listening, not moving their eyes from him.

  "You can understand I got a job to do, to the whiskey stills. Now then, I figured if I didn't call in any more federal people I'd get all the credit myself. That was bad thinking. But the worst part, I picked the wrong deputies and they want to shoot everybody they see. Well, I got to do a job, as I said. But not if it means shooting at honest men trying to make a living. You follow me?"

  If they followed, no one was admitting it. They were letting Frank Long talk.

  "I'm here to tell you," Long said, "I made a mistake of judgment. Those people after Son are cutthroat killers, every one of them, and you're standing here watching while they try to murder one of your own boys."

  He wanted a short silence, to give his last words time to sink in. But Mr. Worthman spoke up. He said, "You're telling us this. A week ago you tell us you'll bust every still in the county if Son doesn't hand over his whiskey."

  "Because," Frank Long said simply, "I thought it would be the way to avoid bloodshed."

  "Our old uncle shed blood that very night," Mr. Worthman said.

  Long nodded solemnly. "I know, and that's when I began to learn these people are killers and I'd made a mistake. A man can make a mistake."

  "He surely can," Bud Blackwell said, "and you made your big one coming here thinking we'd help Son Martin. You want us to run the bad boys off so you can get down to bustin' stills again."

  "No, sir--"

  "So you can go after Son's whiskey yourself."

  "No, I'm telling you the truth. If you don't help Son right now, they'll kill him." "And you won't ever find his whiskey." "I'm thinking of him."

  "Well, bein' you're so thoughtful," Bud Blackwell said, "ought'n you be down there with him?"

  It took a couple of seconds for Virgil Worthman to catch on; then he couldn't help smiling. "Sure, he's a friend of Son's--how come he ain't helping him?"

  "That's what I mean," Bud said. "He comes up here, says he sees a crowd of people watching, nobody helping. Well, I know one son of a bitch is going to help."

  Lowell Holbrook watched them take hold of Long, a bunch of them crowding around so that Long was hidden for a minute. Then they had both of Long's arms twisted behind and were running toward the slope of the ridge. He was holding back, but not fighting; he was trying to say something. "Let me take my car down!" he said. God, thinking of his car.

  They pushed him down the slope and he ran stumbling and then rolled aways, losing his hat and getting his suit covered with dust and briars.

  He stood on the slope looking up, brushing at one sleeve. "Let me get my suitcase," he called out. "All right?"

  Virgil Worthman had gotten his shotgun from the car and was aiming it at Long. "You'll get some thing else," he said, " 'less you start a-running." Long turned after a moment and started down the hill, brushing at his clothes.

  Lowell watched him, thinking about the suitcase and the BAR rifle inside.

  Chapter Fourteen.

  Aaron's shoulder was against the grain sacks, his Winchester pointing out the kitchen window. He looked over as Son came down the steps carrying the Springfield.

  "You see who's coming?"

  "Frank Long."

  "How come you didn't shoot him? I 'spected to see him go down about at the stock pen." "He's coming to join our side."

  "Tha's nice," Aaron said.

  Son opened the door as Long reached the porch. Through the field glasses he had picked out Long on the ridge and had watched them gang him and throw him down the hill. He said, "Watch the steps."

  Long strolled in looking around the room, at the shattered windows and bullet scars in the walls and cupboards. He was in no hurry. Finally, when he looked at Son, he grinned and said, "How you doing, buddy?"

  Son almost smiled. "Not working out like you thought, is it?"

  "Buddy, I couldn't stand to look at that man any more. I come to help you run him off your land."

  "Those people up there"--Son nodded toward the ridge--"they wouldn't help you, uh?"

  "They got funny ideas, those people." "Dr. Taulbee, he threw you out, too, I guess."

  "We parted company when I learned he was nothing more than a bootlegger."

  "You mean when he told you he'd have you shot if you didn't start running."

  "Something like that," Long admitted. "But as you can see I didn't run, did I? No, sir, I've stayed to help you beat him."

  Son watched him. "You've stayed for more than that."

  "Well, you migh
t say I've stayed to protect my interest."

  "Your interest in what?"

  "That's right. I haven't told you we're going to be partners." Long kept looking at Son with his easy, almost smiling expression. "We might as well be. Since I know where the whiskey's hid."

  As Aaron said, "Now look-it what's coming--" Son turned to the door and as he saw it--the car bouncing and swerving coming fast down the slope from the ridge--he heard Frank Long say something and then almost shout it, "That's my car!"

  It looked like the same one, coming dead on toward the house, cutting through the pasture weeds with a wispy trail of dust rising behind. They could hear the rattle of it and the sound of the engine, then the high whine of rifle reports as the car reached the yard, swerved toward the barn, and came around in a wide circle to pull in with the driver's side next to the porch. Lowell Holbrook looked up through the side window, his hands gripping the wheel like he was afraid to let go. Son got him out of there and Frank Long got the suitcase from the back seat. Once they were in the house the rifle fire stopped.

  Lowell still looked scared, even as Frank Long patted him on the shoulder and said, "Boy, I think you got a tip coming."

  "I don't know," Lowell said. "I don't believe it, but I guess I'm here."

  Long had the suitcase on the floor now, like a boy pulling open a birthday present. "You sure are here," he said. "You and Big Sweetheart."

  Son took a seat, resting his arm on the table, watching Lowell and Frank as he lit a cigarette. The boy had a good reason for coming or else he wouldn't be here. So there was no sense in asking dumb questions when it appeared the answer was in the suitcase. When he finally saw what it was--as Frank took out the parts of the BAR and began fitting them together--Son waited.

  He waited until the weapon was assembled and Frank was holding it up before he said, "I've got a few things to say about this party we're having, which I don't remember inviting anybody to. I've got some other things to say about this partnership you mentioned, Frank. But first, I think you better move your car out of the way, else Big Sweetheart isn't going to do you much good."

  "That's sound advice," Frank Long said. It was. Not twenty minutes later Dr. Taulbee came down on them.

  "Jesus Christ," Virgil Worthman said, "look at the cars!" He jumped up as the first car came out of the trees wobbling from side to side, easing along in the ruts. The men squatting with him got up and people in other groups, seeing two cars coming toward them, moved out of the way and stood watching. There was an old lady a boy had to help; somebody else snatched her blanket from the ground before the first car reached it.

  There was no doubt who they were, the cars coming out of the trees from that direction, from the trail that led around to Son Martin's still. But when Bud Blackwell saw there were just the two cars, with what looked like three men in each, he took his time moving aside and the driver honked his horn at him.

  "You had enough?" Bud said. "You all going home now?" The man in the back seat of the car nosed a tommy gun out the window and Bud shut up.

  As the cars crept by Virgil Worthman said, "They're going for something. Jesus, I thought for a minute they were coming at us, but they're heading out."

  "Like hell," a man near Virgil said. And somebody else said, "They're going right the same way Lowell Holbrook did!"

  They were, too, following his tire tracks in the weeds, straight down the slope.

  Frank Long said, "Well, here we go, boys,"

  and turned the BAR in the direction of the cars.

  He had taken over Aaron's window--once he'd pushed his car away from the porch--and swiveled the BAR around in the window sill, letting the sights roam over the yard and the barn. Holding the gun on an angle out the window, he could train it on the rocks above old man Martin's grave and sweep left into the trees. Dr. Taulbee was in for a surprise.

  Lowell Holbrook was on the floor. Son and Aaron were at the second window, facing off the porch with a clear view of the two cars coming at them on a line from out of the pasture. The cars didn't belong to anybody in Marlett, Son was sure of that now, and Frank Long confirmed it. "Taulbee's fastest cars," he said. "But you can bet the doctor ain't in either of them."

  Son could make out the barrel of an automatic shotgun sticking out the front window of the first car. He suspected the machine gun would be in back, but didn't see it until the first car was swerving at the corner of the house to cross in front of them and he was firing the Springfield at the sunspot on the windshield and Aaron's Winchester was going off in his ear as the BAR opened up, filling the room with its hard-pounding racket. Son was aware of a Thompson fixing from the first car, but now he was swinging his front sight to the second car, firing twice to empty the clip, then brought up the Smith & Wesson to let go at the car's side windows. Now Aaron had emptied the Winchester; he grabbed the Remington and fired both barrels fast, without putting the gun to his shoulder, and the BAR kept pounding away. Son watched the first car veer off out of control and go through the front of the barn. The second car was running for open country with Long's BAR chasing it until the pan was empty and, in the silence, they watched the car bump and scrape its way to the far side of the pasture. Two men got out and ran for the trees. There were no sounds from the barn. Past the shattered frame of the opening, the rear end of the car was barely visible in the dimness.

  They reloaded and sat watching the barn. Son looked over at Frank Long a few feet away, then let his gaze move outside again. He said, "Where do you think the whiskey's hid?"

  Long answered without looking over. "Under your old daddy's grave."

  Son could feel Aaron and Lowell Holbrook watching him. "A hundred and fifty barrels," he said. "That would be some hole."

  "If you dug it straight down," Long said, i looking at him now. "But if the grave is sitting on a mine entrance or an air shaft, then it's something else."

  "That's what you think, uh?"

  "I think it's funny the old man is buried up there by himself when the rest of your kin are down in the graveyard."

  "That's where he asked to be buried."

  "You say it and people believe it. Like the light over the grave, you say he wanted it because he died in the dark of a mine shaft." Long turned from the window. "I say you rigged the light so you can keep an eye on your whiskey when it's dark."

  Son watched him get up from the window and look around the room, the BAR under his arm now.

  "What're you looking for?"

  "The switch."

  "Right behind you, on the wall."

  Long turned. The light switch was near the window. He stooped then. "The tommy guns tore up your wall, didn't they? You can see the wires where they come in from outside.

  As Son rose he glanced at Aaron, whose eyes shifted briefly and returned to Long. Past Long's shoulder they could see where the window frame and wall planks had been splintered by gunfire. Long pulled away fragments of wood, then worked a board loose and twisted it out of the wall.

  "It might have shot up your wiring," he said. His back was to them as he looked closely into the opening. "You've got a number of wires in there for one light post, haven't you? I see two wires coming in. One goes up to the switch. What's this other one for?"

  "I guess it used to be part of the house wiring," Son answered. "Goes down to the Delco outfit in the cellar."

  Long straightened, leaning the BAR against the wall. "It doesn't look like it to me. I learned wiring in the Engineers same as you did."

  Son kept watching him. "Probably for something my dad had hooked up."

  "You're telling me a story now," Long said. "That wire comes in from outside." His eyes moved over the wall. "Runs along there--I'd say over to that cupboard." He walked past the stove to the other side of the room; stooping, he opened the lower doors of the cabinet.

  "Can goods," Son told him.

  "That's all I see."

  Long remained stooped, feeling inside. He jiggled the bottom board, then pushed the cans aside a
nd lifted the board, wedging it against the shelf above it.

  Aaron turned from the window, letting the barrel of the Winchester rest on Long. Son didn't move or take his eyes from the man.

  "Well, now," Long said, "look-it here." He glanced over his shoulder, then noticed Lowell Holbrook watching and motioned with his head. "Boy, you ever see one of these?"

  Lowell came over. He didn't know if something was going to jump out of that dark space or what. "Get closer," Long said, and Lowell hunkered down next to him.

  "Know what it is?"

  "It looks like some kind of a box." "What's it look like with this handle in the top?"

  Son straightened slightly. "Be careful now." "He means it," Long said. "For if I was to push down--"

  Lowell knew what it was now. "It's a dynamite thingumajig--an exploder!"

  Long looked over at Son, grinning. "That's what it is all right--hey, Son?--a dynamite thingumajig, like we used to have in the Engineers. Boy," he said then, "why do you suppose he'd wire up to his old daddy's grave?"

  "I don't know," Lowell said. "To blow it up?"

  "You believe he'd blow up his daddy's remains?"

  "No, I don't think so."

  "No, sir, his daddy ain't in that grave. Is he, Son?"

  Son hesitated. "You're telling it."

  "All right, I'd say his daddy's buried some place else. That grave, what looks like a grave, covers up an old mine shaft that tunnels into the hill, and that's where the whiskey's at, set with charges, so that anybody was to dig there and find the whiskey, Son pushes the plunger and boom, nobody gets it. How many sticks you got in the hole, Son?"

  "About a hundred and fifty."

  Long stood up, looking at Son, smiling. "A stick a barrel. That's more'n you'd need to do the job. Let's see now, you got the two wires running out there under the ground. Insulated good, are they?"

  "In some lead pipe," Son answered. He felt Aaron looking at him again, like he was crazy to admit anything. But Long was right and he was here. They couldn't get rid of him or shoot him for knowing.

  "So every evening," Long said now, "you turn on your light. If it works you know your wiring's good and hasn't got corroded or chewed up by little animal creatures. Son, that's pretty good thinking. Though if you was to blow it, that would be a terrible way to treat good whiskey."