7

The plowshare cut through the rich Georgia clay, splitting it aside in waves of fertile red. The man and the animal at work in the field moved almost as if they were one, sweating and straining against the plow in the hot noontime sun that late April day as William Whitley watched from the relative shade of the interior of the Ford Model T he more often than not persisted in driving. He puffed at his cigar and took another drink from the corn liquor he had brought with him—it was a very rare occasion when he drank, but this was a special day. Today he was celebrating—today he was celebrating the future.

Rarely in his lifetime had he been more pleased with himself than he was at the moment, and the talk he’d had that morning with J.C. Cooper had put the final touch on his day. He had taken a potential problem, a potential liability, and had turned it to his advantage—how furious he had been with Elise for her having managed to get herself thrown out of school and sent home months ahead of schedule, but he realized now that it was probably the best thing that could have happened. There was no need to wait the more than two years it would take before she graduated from school for her to start her life with young Cooper, and Martha’s dreams of college for the girl were completely out of the question anyway; education was wasted on a girl, and, besides, William had much more important things for his daughter in mind, things that had little to do with school books and learning.

Elise would marry J.C.—William had known that almost from the first moment the nurse had told him Martha had delivered a girl those sixteen years before. Elise would marry J.C., and in doing so she would guarantee her father the things he had wanted for more years in his life than he cared to remember.

J.C.’s family was of the old, landed southern gentry, proud, wealthy, of even higher social standing than William’s own—but that was not the reason William wanted his daughter to marry J.C. Cooper. The Coopers owned half of the Goodwin Cotton Mill, and, as such, were a part of the most profitable business venture in all of Endicott County, and for several counties around. William might grow more cotton, work more sharecroppers, own more land, than did anyone else in the County—but it would take a share of that Mill, a fifty percent partnership, to guarantee him that he was the most powerful, the wealthiest, man in all of Endicott County. For years William had tried to buy into that partnership, but neither Hiram Cooper, nor his aging partner, old Mr. Bolt, would sell—then Cooper had produced a son, and Martha had given William a daughter, and William had seen the opportunity. Sooner or later old Bolt would retire and sell, or simply die, and his share of the Mill would finally come up for sale. With Elise married to J.C., William would be guaranteed the first chance at that share—and it was a chance he would have, even at the cost of his right arm, or his daughter, if that need be the case.

Elise could do far worse than young Cooper for a husband anyway, William told himself. The boy was from a good family; he would be wealthy, well-educated, and tolerant; and he would never lay a hand on her in anger or in violence. William had been pleased, and more than a little bit surprised, to see how excited and eager the boy had been that morning at the knowledge that Elise was coming home so soon, and he could almost pity the boy as well, for, once William had his daughter off his hands for good, she would then be J.C.’s problem—his problem, then and forevermore.

William knew J.C. Cooper would present no problem of himself in the weeks and months to come, but Elise could be another matter altogether. She could take it into her head to do just about anything. She had no interest in J.C.—William knew that—but still he was not about to let the whims of a sixteen-year-old girl ruin the plans he had so carefully laid for so many years. Women never knew their minds in such matters anyway; they talked of love and courtship and romance, when marriage was more often than not best a partnership, a merger, a profitable business arrangement for all parties concerned—but Elise’s opinion in the matter was of little concern anyway. For once in her life she would do exactly as she was told, even if William had to beat her daily to keep her in line—it was all for her own good anyway, he told himself, studying the glowing tip of his cigar for a moment. It was all for her own good. William would soon have his troublesome daughter off his hands once and for all, married to his choice of husband—and someday his grandsons would own the Goodwin Cotton Mill, thanks to his foresight now. Elise would thank him then; he knew that. She would thank him then.

William took another drink from the corn liquor and returned to watching the plowman at work in the field, fancying for a moment that he could almost hear the creak of the wooden hames and leather collar, the patient plodding sounds of the mules’s hooves on the soft, red earth. The animal snorted and brayed, its ears moving back and forth in rhythm to its slow steps as it pulled the plow down the newly cut furrows. The man seemed to handle the animal well, keeping tight control over the plow lines looped about his shoulders, issuing the monosyllabic commands the mule best understood: “Gee,” or “Haw,” for direction, with “Whoa” at the end of a newly plowed row, then “Git-up” with a slap of the plow lines to start the animal down the next.

The man’s forearms below the rolled-up sleeves of his faded workshirt showed muscles knotting beneath dark-tanned skin. A crushed and battered hat shaded his face and neck from the direct noonday sun, its sweat band already showing through dark stains of perspiration. He wore faded and patched overalls, and a shirt that looked as if it had originally been a guano sack, as did many other of the farmhands at work in the lower part of this field and in others—but there the resemblance ended. The overalls, though faded and worn, had been clean when the work had begun that morning, the shirt mended. The man’s skin was darker than that of any other of the sunburned farmers at work in the fields, his hair black and straight—he still looks like a Gypsy, William mused to himself, watching as Janson Sanders guided the mule onto unbroken ground and began to cut a new furrow into the red earth, the man handling the plow and the animal with the patience and knowledge born from years of experience.

William had never had an Indian on the place before—but, then again, Janson Sanders seemed different from most men in a great many ways. William had been pleased almost from the beginning with the boy, more pleased than he had ever thought he might be. At first there had been the worry that the boy might present a problem of himself with that pride that seemed almost inborn in him, but, in the almost four months since, William had been pleasantly surprised to have found himself with one of the best farmhands he had ever had on the place. The boy did not say much; he kept to himself and did his work, and he had made few friends in the months he had now been on the place—and that had taken on important meaning in the past few days.

William puffed at his cigar and watched the boy through the haze of blue smoke that hung within the car, noting how he handled himself, as well as how he handled the plow and the animal. Janson Sanders was a strange one, staying mostly to himself in the little time he was not working, doing odd chores for Mattie Ruth and Titus Coates, or for other people in the area, earning whatever little money it might bring him, taking in eggs or meal, kerosene or lard or butter when there was no money to be had. He seemed to take on whatever extra work he could find to do—cleaning out a barn or a chicken coop, mending a roof, cutting stove wood, splitting rails for fencing, plowing, clearing land—the kind of work seemed to matter very little to him, the pay all important, whether that pay be money, or fresh meat, or even flour.

William had wondered often what it was the boy might do with the money he earned from his wages and from the numerous other odd jobs he could find for himself to do. He seemed to spend very little on himself, buying only the bare necessities at the store, trading work for them instead whenever possible; he did not even seem to have a woman to spend it on—he could even have it all buried in the barn, William mused to himself, thinking over the possibilities. But the boy earned his pay; he did his work and kept his nose clean, and he could do with the money whatever he wished—he could bury it, or burn it, or do whatever it was that someone like him might choose to do with it, for at the moment that mattered very little to William Whitley. That mattered so very little.

William took another drink from the corn liquor, and then sat for a moment considering the sunlight as it glinted off the surface of the whiskey remaining in the jar—it was good whiskey, distilled from the finest corn mash in the area, made by one of the last of the good, old-time moonshiners still left alive in that part of Georgia. It was a dying art, whiskey-making, as William well knew. It had been killed by the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and Prohibition, and all the shouting preachers who sought to tell a man he could no longer have a drink; killed by the bootleggers themselves, in their greed for profit at the cost of quality in the years since Prohibition had made stilling such a lucrative business, until many a bootlegger nowadays would no longer even drink the liquor he himself had made—but William did not worry about the quality of the corn liquor he drank. There would be no violent headaches from it, no sickness, no death, as from much of the bootleg that was sold these days. The corn liquor in that jar was possibly some of the best in that part of Georgia; and William should know—the corn and malt it had been distilled from had been grain grown on his own land, and the old man who had done the stilling had been one of his own people; even the copper in the still and the rock in the furnace belonged to him. If Prohibition had done nothing else in the past seven years, it had at least made a much wealthier man of William Whitley.

William swished the corn liquor about in the jar and turned his eyes back to the boy at work in the field—but his mind did not return to anything so trivial as a farmhand’s money, or the minor irritations often caused by a headstrong and disobedient daughter. He now ran one of the largest and most profitable bootlegging operations in his part of the state. In the more than seven years since Prohibition had come into effect, the government’s efforts to stop the sale, transportation, and production of alcoholic beverages in the United States had taken his small liquor sideline and had turned it into big business. He was now clearing more money from the bootlegging than he did from cotton production or from any other of the legitimate businesses he operated in the County. Liquor was money these days—just ask the speakeasy operators, the owners of the low-class smoke joints, the bootleggers, the gangsters running the liquor business up North, the revenue agents, the Southern country sheriffs. Liquor was big business and big money, and William would have a share of that business, and of its profits—but William Whitley was no fool. Only a fool nowadays would be involved in the direct stilling of liquor, and in the transportation or the sale of alcoholic beverages in the United States now in the 1920’s. The Volstead Act and the Prohibition laws made that dangerous, and the revenuers, though ill-funded and often inept, could make powerful enemies once they were on to a bootlegger—but William did not consider himself a bootlegger. He was a businessman involved in the liquor trade. He had men to do the stilling, men to run the liquor across the County line hidden beneath the false beds of trucks, men to handle the sale of the whiskey to the owners of the speakeasies and the smoke joints, or to other men who would only cut and re-bottle and bootleg the liquor on to someone else. In the past years, William’s eldest son, Bill, had taken on more and more of the business side of the operation, until now William was only rarely involved with the bootlegging at all—but even Bill was little involved in the direct operations of the liquor trade. There were other men to take that risk, men who were well paid for the chances they took, men like Franklin Bates, and the farmhand Gilbert Baskin.

Tall, thick-necked, absolutely bald, with massive hands and massive arms and massive shoulders, Franklin Bates had killed at least one man in the past; William knew that, for Bates himself had told him that upon coming to the place years before. William had no idea where the man had come from, and only the barest idea as to why he had left there, but still he trusted Bates completely. The man had no family and no friends, no woman except for the hours in which he needed one, no conscience, and it seemed no regrets. He did his work and was paid well for it—he belonged to William, just as surely as did the massive house or the cotton fields or the liquor stills that made him only more money. Through the years Bates had served him well, keeping peace on Whitley land and in much of Endicott County, seeing to it no one crossed William, and seeing to it that those who did often lived to long regret their actions. Together with Gilbert Baskin, he had made the stilling operation one of the largest in that part of the state, one of the most profitable, and one of the busiest, as well as one of the most despised.

Gilbert Baskin had not been on the Whitley place as long as had Franklin Bates or many other of the farmhands, but he had long since proven himself more valuable in many ways than men who had been on the place years longer. He had a liking for money and little conscience as to how he earned it, as well as a talent for getting any job done quickly and in the least-obtrusive way possible. William had started Baskin out years before hauling liquor across the County line for sale, but had soon moved him into other phases of the operation—purchasing supplies, sugar, jars, and sheets of copper in Buntain and even up in Columbus; taking corn or malt to the mill to have it ground for use in the mash; helping in the actual stilling and cutting of the liquor, and in the important preparation of the corn mash the whiskey was distilled from; as well as delivering the product out of the County to the seldom-spoken men who William did not trust, men who had made him only richer in past years.

Baskin had been one of the few men ever allowed close to the whiskey-making itself, the old man handling the actual stilling having refused to allow but few men through the years close to his operations. Old Tate had been making corn liquor on Whitley land for as long as William could remember, and he was a cantankerous old fool William knew he had to humor whether he liked it or not. The man was of indeterminable age, and he was one of the best of the old moonshiners still left alive, having made whiskey through most of the years of his life. He had survived war with the Yankees and life with at least four wives that William knew of, as well as the fathering of a brood of twenty-three children, all grown, many dead now—Tate had little left of his life but the whiskey-making, and it was something he took pride in. He would allow no popskull to leave his stills so long as he lived, and he would allow no man close to the operations unless he could trust him to uphold the quality of the ’shine he had been making for so many years. He had at last grudgingly accepted Gilbert Baskin. He accepted few others.

Baskin had proven himself valuable time and again through the years, especially in the searching out and elimination of the stilling operations of other moonshiners in the area, threatening many into halting production, reporting others to the sheriff or to revenue agents, as well as in cashing in on the customers then left without a source of supply. William knew that without Gilbert Baskin he would never have been in the position he was in now in the liquor trade; his operation would not have been so big or so lucrative—he might even have gone the way of the many bootleggers he had forced out of the business over the years. But it seemed now that Gilbert’s usefulness had come to an end. Gilbert Baskin had become a liability, and liabilities were something William knew were better done without. Something better gotten rid of.

He had known it was coming for some time now; Baskin was just too fond of his liquor and his women, just too free with his money and his talk. William had known—but still that had not lessened the surprise he had felt when Sheriff Hill had come by the house that morning not long after J.C. Cooper had left, come by with what had amounted to a quiet and friendly warning. Baskin was spending money too freely, running his mouth too often, drinking too openly, and annoying good, decent girls from nice families throughout the County—people were starting to talk, to speculate, to wonder about things that should not be wondered about. Gilbert Baskin had too much money for a farmhand, and too free access to liquor for anyone—he had made himself a danger to the entire bootlegging operation, a danger to the Whitleys’ good name, and a danger to William himself.

But Gilbert Baskin was a danger to no one anymore.

As soon as the sheriff had left, William had called in the two people he trusted most, his eldest son, Bill, and Franklin Bates—Gilbert Baskin had been driven to the depot and put on a train bound for Montgomery, and told, rather convincingly William was certain, that if he were ever to show his face in Endicott County again, he would not live long enough to see the other side of the County line.

Now that danger was passed. Gilbert Baskin had left the County, and the talk would soon die down—but that left another problem. There would have to be someone to take Baskin’s place, someone to go for supplies and run liquor and do the dirty jobs not fit for Bill or even for Franklin Bates to do. Bootlegging liquor was not the safest or most certain of professions, and the men on the front line were the ones who accepted all the risks—there were the revenuers and the other bootleggers, and the hard feeling from deals gone sour and deals long past; there were men William had forced out of the business, and men eager to grow in the business, and men who bought the liquor but who no man could trust. William could not risk his son or a man with the proven value of Franklin Bates—and, yet, running liquor took a certain kind of man, a man with little to lose, a man with a liking for money and with little conscience as to how he might earn it; and a man with the courage to do what he had to do, no matter what that might be, to get the job done.

William took another drink of the corn liquor and wiped at his mouth with the back of one hand, his eyes never leaving the young man at work in the field—Janson Sanders could be that sort of man. Unlike Gilbert, Sanders had little to do with anyone else on the place other than Mattie Ruth and Titus Coates, and, on occasion, to William’s dislike, William’s own son, Stan. He stayed on Whitley land and went into town only rarely; he had few, if any, friends, and no woman it seemed he might go talking too much to in a moment of passion. If the boy drank, it was not so anyone would notice, and he seemed to run his mouth very little—and, best of all, he had exhibited a liking for money, and a willingness to do whatever it took to earn it, and yet still did not spend it too freely or too openly. The boy was strong, and he seemed to be smart enough—but it did not take brains to drive a truck load of bootleg whiskey across the County line, or to know when to keep his mouth shut. The boy could very well prove himself as capable as Gilbert had been in driving a truck and in hauling ’shine out for sale, and even in other things he might be called on to do in the future. Right now all William needed was someone to bring supplies in and to handle runs of corn liquor over the County line to the speakeasies and the smoke joints and the bootleg distributors William rarely dealt with personally. Janson Sanders very well could be that man—but, first, William had to be certain. Too much was riding on the choice: William’s reputation, his good name, the profits from the stilling, the safety of the entire whiskey-making operation. The boy would have to be tested, proven. If he could prove himself, all well and good. If not—

If not, Janson Sanders would regret the day he had ever come to Endicott County. He would regret that day for a very long time indeed.

The quiet of late afternoon settled in over Whitley land hours later that day, bringing with it a slight chill in the air of winter trying to hold on into the new spring of late April. The smell of wood smoke filled the air, and the odors of cooking and good food from the nearby kitchen as Janson unloaded firewood near the Whitley’s back veranda, stacking it into high, symmetrical piles to dry at easy access from the wide steps, or from the covered walkway that led to the separate kitchen standing at a distance from the rear of the house.

Stan Whitley sat nearby on the wide board steps that led up to the center of the walkway, talking, as it seemed to Janson he had been doing for hours. The boy had come out to where he had been cutting firewood earlier in the afternoon in the heavily-wooded area bordering the Whitley cotton fields, and had ridden back to the big house on the wagon seat beside him, talking, it seemed, almost without stop—but it was a familiar sound, the boy’s voice droning on, changing in pitch and timbre, his hands moving as he talked, the late-afternoon sun glinting off the round lenses of his eyeglasses as he moved and spoke and then sat down again.

Janson halfheartedly listened to him as he worked, fond of him in a big-brotherly sort of way that he had never felt toward anyone before in all his life, though he could still never quite forget the boy was a Whitley. He still did not know how they had ever become friends in the first place, for he was five years Stan’s senior in age, and many years his junior in book learning and education—but they were friends, friends as Janson had known but few times in his life. It seemed almost as if the boy looked up to him, almost as if he saw no difference between them, though Stan wore fancy clothes and expensive shoes and shirts that would have cost Janson several weeks worth of wages. Stan often came out to the old lean-to room off the barn where Janson lived in the hours after supper was finished at the big house, where they would sit and talk for hours until the boy would have to go home to do schoolwork or to go to bed; or Janson would teach him to carve or to make baskets from white oak splits, and Stan would tell him stories about places and things that Janson would never even dream to see. Usually he enjoyed the boy’s company, enjoyed the way he could use words to make them say more than the words themselves were—but today he was distracted, his mind on things other than conversation as he unloaded the wagonload of firewood that Mrs. Whitley had already paid him cash money to cut and to bring to the house.

Janson got an armload of wood from the back of the wagon and jumped down into the newly greening grass that grew there in the yard, grass that was so carefully tended and looked after, and that Mrs. Whitley had already paid him twice to cut with the wooden-handled push mower that was kept in the storage shed out behind the kitchen. He carried the wood toward the stack he had already begun near the covered walkway, hearing Stan continue on, as he had been doing for much of the past hour, about the sister who had been sent off to school up in Atlanta in hopes that it might somehow turn her into more of a lady. He already knew from Stan that the girl was now being sent home in disgrace, having been caught cheating on some kind of test up at that fancy school—rich folks, Janson thought, still only half paying attention to what the boy was saying. Elise Whitley had all the money in the world; she would never have to work even one day in all her life, or worry about where the next day’s bed or meal was coming from. She could have anything in the world she wanted—all she had to do was go to school and try to learn to act like a lady. But she had been caught cheating on a test instead, when her only work in life was book learning and looking pretty and getting an education that most other people would be grateful for—rich folks, Janson thought again, growing irritated at the idea of someone who so easily had so much, but who appreciated it so very little.

But the girl was a Whitley, he reminded himself, and he could expect nothing less from a Whitley. None of them seemed grateful for the life they had, though they each of them had the world. Stan was the only one of the lot he could even abide, except for Mrs. Whitley, of course, who he reasoned was not really a Whitley anyway, for she had only married into the family. She often gave him extra work to do when he was free of the farm chores that earned his wages and took up most of his time, paying him in cash money for cutting firewood or mowing the lawn, weeding spring flower beds or painting a fence, or doing whatever else she might find that wanted doing. She seemed a fine lady, gentle spoken, with usually some bit of fancy needlework or prissy sewing in her hands—and she paid in cash, which was rare among the farm folk who usually hired him. Janson could little abide her husband, and he often found himself wondering how someone like William Whitley had managed to marry so fine a lady as Mrs. Whitley—but it was the Whitleys’ oldest son that he liked even less.

Bill Whitley plainly rubbed Janson the wrong way, and it was clear Janson had the same effect on him, for the two had almost come to blows several times already in the months he had been on the place. The man liked power, and he also liked to abuse that power—there was something not quite right about Bill Whitley; what that was, Janson could not put a finger on, but he despised the man, and knew without question that the feeling was more than mutually shared. There seemed to be very little of Mrs. Whitley in her eldest son, and a great deal of his father—but there was something more, and it was that something that made Janson wary of the man, cautious, more cautious than he was even with Whitley himself.

Whitley’s second son, Alfred, was little like either of his parents, or even his older brother. He was very near to Janson’s age, but, to Janson, Alfred Whitley seemed so much younger, often even younger than did Stan. He was a slick-hair, fascinated with the gangster news on the radio, blaring loud jazz music through the open front parlor windows in the rare times when he was at home. He drove his motor car too fast, and dressed purposefully like a fop, in his blue serge suits and wide trousers, with a gold watch chain always hanging out of his vest pocket, and his hair slicked back and shining with Glostora—he had even come home drunk, so Stan had said, on several occasions, to his mother’s utter horror and his father’s absolute disapproval. Janson knew that Alfred Whitley played at being a man, trying very hard to act as he thought a man should act, dress as he thought a man should dress, behave as he believed a modern man should behave, without ever having taken the time to really understand what that behavior should be. He often made a loud and deliberate show of temper and rebellion, and seemed always into one scrape or another, always hiding from some girl’s father or angry older brother. Alfred was a boy, spoiled, self-willed, with everything he had wanted all his life, and, though Janson had not met or even seen Elise Whitley as of yet, he knew she had to be very much the same as her brother Alfred. The things he had already heard about her left little doubt—and Janson did not like spoiled children, even pretty ones, as he had heard Elise Whitley to be.

He started back to the wagon for another armload of wood, still paying little attention to what Stan was saying—there were many more important things on his mind than the troubles a spoiled rich girl could manage to get herself into. There was the wood to finish unloading, and a quick supper to cook and eat before he went on to other work that had to be done this evening—work that was now causing a growing uneasiness within him.

William Whitley had approached him earlier in the day just as he and the other hands at work in the fields had taken their dinner breaks for the sandwiches of cold pork sausage or pressed meat, or biscuits and ham, or cold fried chicken they had brought with them earlier to the fields to eat. Janson had just sat down to himself beneath a tree at the edge of the field he had been plowing, uncovering the dinner bucket he had left there earlier in the day, and opening the lid on the pint jar of buttermilk he had left in the shade to remain cool through the morning, when Whitley had walked up, a big cigar in his mouth, and had stood staring down at him.

“You want somethin’?” Janson had asked, annoyance clearly in his voice as he stared up at the man—he did not like being forced to look up to anyone, especially not a man like William Whitley. He had been plowing since shortly after sunrise that morning, and he was hungry now, with little time to rest or to eat before he would have to return to the fields and the plowing still left to be done.

Whitley stared down at him for a moment, taking the cigar from his mouth before answering. “You interested in earning some extra money, boy?” he had asked at last.

“Yeah, I’m interested,” Janson said. Whitley had taken him on for extra work before, hiring him to sweep out the barns, patch a roof, or clean out the chicken house; usually the dirtiest work Whitley could find that needed doing. The man oftentimes wanted to pay in food that was not always fit to eat, or wanted to apply the work against the small charge Janson had run at the store, but work was work, and there was always the chance he might pay in cash money this time, or at least in food that was fit to be eaten or traded for something else he could use even more. There had not been one offer of work, or of money, that Janson had turned down in the months he had been on the place—he had saved, scrimped, done without; and had worried over every single penny he had been forced to spend for food or for kerosene or matches or anything else he could not get in trade—it was worth it, worth anything, when he saw the money he had knotted into an old sock and hidden in the back of a drawer in the splintery old chifforobe in his room. Each Saturday that he received his pay that was the first place he went with his wages, or with any other cash money he could make from extra work or from selling what he was paid in trade; and he sometimes sat alone at night and counted it in the light of the single kerosene lamp in his room—not a fortune, but money he had earned, money he had saved, money he had worked for, money that would help him to buy a dream one day. Or, more properly, to buy one back.

“What you got that needs doin’?” Janson had asked, chewing into a biscuit of cold ham, ham he had taken in trade for more than two days’ work bottoming chairs for one of the local sharecroppers. He expected that Whitley would give him work much as he had given him before, farm chores, repair work, but was surprised when Whitley spoke again.

“I’m going to send you on an errand, boy. There’s something I want you to pick up for me in Buntain.”

“What’s that?”

Whitley stared at him for a long moment, not speaking. “I want you to bring back a load of sugar for me, boy—”

“Sugar?” Janson stared at him. Surely he had not heard right. Any kind of sweetening a man could want was already available right here on the place—sorghum, molasses, wild honey from bee trees in the woods or from gums kept out back of the main barn, cane syrup cooked down the previous fall in the syrup kettle out near the cane mill, white sugar that could be store-bought right on the place, or from the grocery stores in Goodwin or from the other County towns. He had even seen sacks of white sugar being unloaded at Whitley’s own store just a few days before, along with tin cans of peas and beans, colorful cloth sacks of flour, bolts of cloth, men’s overalls, ladies bloomers, and everything else that had come in on the big truck from Columbus. Surely he had not heard—

“Yeah, sugar—and don’t you go asking too many questions, boy, or telling anybody what I’m sending you after. You can drive a truck, can’t you?”

“Yeah, I can drive.”

“Good, I’ll have a truck waiting for you by the barn at dark. You’ll pick up the sugar and come back by the route I give you—it don’t much matter to me how you get there, but you come back just like I say, you got it?”

“Yeah, I got it,” Janson said, staring up at him.

“There’ll be a tarp in the back of the truck; you cover the sugar up and tie it down good before you head back—and you remember to keep your mouth shut, boy—”

Janson stared at him, comprehension slowly coming—sugar, and a large quantity of it if he would need a truck to haul it in, being bought quietly out of the County, brought in after dark. Suddenly he understood. There was only one thing that much sugar would be needed for, only one reason it would have to be purchased so quietly, and brought in under cover of darkness—Whitley was bootlegging, and he would be using Janson to make a haul of black market sugar. With the Prohibition laws so strict, and revenue agents it seemed everywhere, that much sugar could never be bought openly; it could arouse too many suspicions, start gossip—and William Whitley could not afford gossip.

Janson could tell from the look on Whitley’s face that the man knew he had made the connection. “You do good at this, boy, and there’ll be more work for you in the future. You could be earning yourself some extra money pretty regular—that is if you can keep your mouth shut and do what you’re told to do.”

More work—hauling sugar that would be used in stilling corn liquor, maybe even being called on to haul bootleg whiskey itself later on. The Prohibition laws were tough; a man could end up in jail real quick if he got himself involved in moonshining, if he did not get himself shot first—but the money, and the chance for more in the future. Moonshining was a dangerous business, with the sheriff and the revenue agents and other bootleggers all constantly after your tail—but the money—

“How much?” he asked, looking up at Whitley, not really liking or even trusting the man—but the amount he was told did much to wipe away the remainder of that thought. More money than he could earn in weeks of farm work, and the promised chance for more in the future—he accepted the run without a second thought and watched as Whitley walked away, satisfied in that moment that he had made the right decision, the only decision.

But that was hours ago, and now he was wondering. Moonshining could be a good way for a man to end up in jail, if he did not get himself killed first. Between the revenuers and the sheriff and the other bootleggers—Janson wondered now if he had not made the worst decision of his life. Even considering the money—but a man could not spend money, and he could not farm his own land, if he was in jail. Or buried.

But he had given Whitley his word, and this time it would be nothing more than sugar he would be hauling, he told himself. He would not have to take on more work in the future, more hauls, if he did not want to, and hauling sugar could not be against the law. Hauling sugar could not be—

He kept telling himself that even now as he carried another armload of wood from the wagon to the stacks near the covered walkway. There was nothing illegal about hauling a truckload of sugar—but if he were stopped, if the truck was searched, there were questions he would be asked, questions about a load of black market sugar he would probably not even be able to prove he had a claim to. Some sheriff or sheriff’s deputy would think it was stolen, or, even worse yet, probably make the same connection he had made—but he had given his word, and never once in all his life had Janson Sanders ever gone back on his word. It was a matter of pride, a matter of being the man he was. It would be nothing more than sugar this time, one haul, one run—but, even as he told himself that, he knew he would take on those other runs if they were offered to him, no matter what it was that he might be called on to haul. He would do it for the money. For what the money could buy him.

Stan had gotten up from the wide board steps that led up to the center of the walkway, and he now moved back and forth between the wagon and the growing stacks of firewood, carrying small loads of the wood and handing it to Janson to stack with the much larger loads he carried. The boy continued to talk on about his sister, but Janson now heard hardly a word, his mind on the meeting scheduled with Whitley just after dark, and the haul that would come later—and the other work that might come soon enough. He did not want to get involved in running corn liquor, not for the rightness or wrongness of the act, for his desire for the money well overcame that, but he could not help but to worry over what might happen to him if he were caught tonight with such a large amount of an ingredient known to be needed in moonshining, or, later, with an even more damning cargo. He kept assuring himself that little could happen to him for being caught with a load of even black market sugar—but to be caught with a load of bootleg whiskey—

He suddenly realized that Stan was waiting for a response to some question asked or some comment offered. The boy stood with a small load of firewood in his skinny arms, the redness of a setting sun glinting off the round lenses of his eyeglasses. The sleeves of his expensive and well-laundered and pressed shirt were rolled to above his elbows, and a dark smudge of dirt shown on the front just beside where his suspenders went up over his shoulder—his ma’ll tan him for that, Janson thought, realizing how peculiar it looked to see a Whitley working, a Whitley doing physical labor as if he were one of the farmhands or sharecroppers.

Janson took the small load of wood from the boy’s arms and stacked it with what he had carried from the truck, then turned to look at him again. “You better go back and sit down. Them fancy clothes of yours ain’t much for workin’ in.”

Stan obeyed, going to sit down again on the steps of the covered walkway, then resumed what it was he must have been saying in the first place. “Anyway, I’d be worried if I were Elise, coming home now to face Daddy—I’ve never seen him so mad in all my life as he was when he first found out she had been expelled. I’d be plenty worried—”

So would I—Janson thought, but said nothing. He had seen Whitley’s temper often enough over the four months he had been on the place, had seen him curse and threaten and verbally abuse the farmhands, the sharecroppers, even his own sons—but the girl rightly deserved it, Janson reminded himself. She had been given her life on a silver platter, all she could ever want in the world, and was still spoiled and blind and willful enough to not even care. Janson had little patience for spoiled, petted children, and little sympathy when they got what they rightly deserved—Elise Whitley had probably well earned what her father would give her, earned it several times over. A good, sound spanking would probably do the girl a world of good, even if she was sixteen now and “full-growed t’ be a woman,” as Titus Coates had told him.

Janson’s attention began to stray again, his mind occupied with his own thoughts as he moved back toward the wagon for another armload of wood.

“Daddy’ll be meeting the train day after tomorrow. Elise and Phyllis Ann—I’ve told you about her, haven’t I?” Stan interrupted himself to ask.

“Phyllis Ann?—yeah, you told me—”

“Well, anyway, Daddy’ll be meeting the train, and Elise won’t be too happy with the surprise he’ll have waiting for her.”

“Surprise?” Janson asked, still only half paying attention. He jumped down from the back of the wagon with another armload of wood and started toward the stacks near the walkway.

“Oh, yes—a surprise in the form of J.C. Cooper. Daddy’s taking him along to meet the train. Elise will be furious.”

“I thought your sister liked J.C..” Janson had seen J.C. Cooper at a distance only a few times; he seemed a decent enough fellow, spoke rarely—and seemed scared of his own shadow. Janson could little imagine him with the flirtatious, bobbed-haired, lipsticked little flapper he imagined Elise Whitley to be, with her bold, modern ways—but, then again, he could hardly imagine J.C. Cooper with any woman.

Stan shrugged his shoulders. “Elise likes him well enough, but she won’t want to marry him, which is what Daddy wants. She won’t want to marry anyone just to please Daddy.”

“Then what’s your pa wantin’ her to marry him for?”

“For the cotton mill. J.C.’s daddy owns part of the mill, and Daddy wants to be partners with him in it—anyway, Elise won’t want to marry J.C.—”

“Sounds t’ me like it’d do her good t’ get married. Maybe a husband an’ some young’ns’d settle her down—”

“I think she’d scare J.C. to death if he tried to settle her down.”

“Well, then that’s his own fault. If he’s man enough, he’ll handle her.”

“Elise would never agree with you on that. She’s very modern, you know, very independent—”

“That’s what’s wrong with th’ world, independent, bobbed-haired, modern women,” Janson remarked absently, stacking wood on a pile, and then turning back toward the wagon.

Stan shrugged again. “Well, Elise is very independent. She’d be furious with any man who tried to settle her down, J.C. and Daddy included.”

“Then, if you ask me, she needs t’ get married,” Janson answered, somewhat more than distracted now. “A man could do her a lot of good, get some ’a th’ flighty ideas outta her head—sounds t’ me like a sound spankin’ wouldn’t do her no harm either—”

Stan laughed, but Janson did not even break stride as he walked back to the wagon for another armload of wood. There were much more important things on his mind than the marriage plans for a spoiled rich girl. He had enough worries of his own over the planned haul of what he knew would have to be black market sugar tonight—and the possibilities of what he might be called on to haul in the future. Besides, Elise Whitley sounded to him like more trouble than he would wish on any man, J.C. Cooper included. If J.C. wanted to take her on, and her father in the bargain, then perhaps he was more of a man than Janson would ever have given him credit for being.

And perhaps he was more of a fool as well.

The truck jolted and bounced over the rutted, back-country roads a few hours later, the dim headlamps picking out only a few feet of red clay road before the front tires. Janson gripped the steering wheel with both hands, straining forward, trying to see any hazards in the road before the truck could hit them—if he were to break an axle, or ruin a tire out here in the middle of nowhere—

He had hoped that the weight of the heavy cloth sacks of sugar that now lay beneath the tarp covering the back of the truck would help to reduce the pitch and sway of the vehicle over the worst of the ruts, but it had done little good. He was headed home now, over the route that Whitley had given him, the roads he had been traveling for the past hour some of the worst he had ever seen, rough, rutted, completely washed out in places. His palms sweated against the steering wheel as he fought to keep the truck on the road and still avoid the deepest of the ruts; but it was not just the worry over breaking an axle or ending up in one of the ditches alongside the road that concerned him—what would he say if he were stopped, if the truck was searched to reveal the large, cloth sacks of sugar that lay beneath the tarp over the back? How would he explain hauling such a large amount of sugar over these back roads at this time of night? It would be more than obvious to some sheriff’s deputy that so much sugar would be needed for only one reason. Only one—

The possibilities of ending up in one of the ditches seemed to be growing by the minute, the road before him becoming progressively worse. The truck jounced over the deepest rut yet, throwing him against the inside of the driver’s door, and he held his breath for a moment, praying, until he was certain the tires were still sound and the truck still in running condition. He slowed to make a turn onto a second, seemingly even worse road, glancing back as he made the turn, thinking for a moment that he saw the lights of some sort of a vehicle bob into sight on the road behind him. He forced himself to continue on at the same speed, trying to concentrate on the road, but found himself glancing back over his shoulder, slowing, watching as he came into a straight—the lights were there again, and again a few minutes later as he came into another straight. The nervousness that had been sitting in the pit of his stomach for hours was now growing—he was being followed. He knew that it was impossible, that no one could know—but, still, he was being followed. He was certain of it.

He gripped the steering wheel harder in his sweating palms, forcing his eyes to concentrate on the few feet of rutted clay road that the headlamps picked out before the truck—he just wanted to get off these damned roads and back on Whitley land. He just wanted—

He risked a look back over his shoulder again, seeing the lights bob into view, just coming around a curve—they were closer now. The truck hit a deep rut, throwing him against the door, and he tried to make himself watch the road before him, and not behind—goddamn it, they were closer. He pushed down fully on the accelerator, hearing the truck’s engine whine and complain—but the damned thing could blow up if it wanted to, so long as it got him off these roads first. So long as it—

The lights were growing closer as he glanced back again, gaining distance as he tried to force even more from the tortured machine, the steering wheel becoming slippery in his sweating palms now. He fought to control the truck as it bounced over the deep gullies washed in the roadbed, its frame squeaking in protest as it careened along the rough clay road at speeds neither it nor the road were ever meant for—forty miles an hour, forty-five, the heavy load of sugar shifting beneath the tarp over the back, increasing the pitch of the vehicle into a curve, the tires sliding in loose rock and dirt, almost losing everything as he came out of one curve and went into another. The lights grew even closer, showing now even inside of the truck, all semblance of innocence now gone, and the knot of fear tightened even further in his stomach—he had been followed. He had been followed; and now—

The truck slid into a sharp curve, coming to within inches of the ditch—suddenly all control of the vehicle was gone, the tires skidding in loose dirt and rocks at the roadside, a huge oak tree looming before the headlamps. Janson jerked the wheel in his hands, slamming his foot down on the brake. The truck skidded wildly, the rear end seeming suddenly independent of the front. He yanked the wheel in the opposite direction, praying and cursing all at the same time, feeling the truck jerk, recover for a moment, then go wildly in the other direction. He fought the steering wheel, clenching it in his hands until his palms hurt, struggling to keep the truck on the road as it recovered and finally came out of the curve, the oak tree going by only bare inches away.

He forced himself to slow, to breathe, damning the driver of the other vehicle as it slid into the same curve, recovered, and then sped on, closing the gap between them even further as he glanced back again. He pushed at the accelerator, then slowed as he came into another curve. The heavy load beneath the tarp shifted again, worsening the sway of the vehicle and throwing him against the inside of the door with the force of the turn. He pushed the accelerator down again, the truck recovering, coming into a straight—and then slammed his foot down on the brake as the headlamps picked out a car across the road ahead. The truck skidded for a moment, then finally came to a halt, the tires throwing up a thick cloud of red dust that choked the air around him.

Janson sat, staring at the car just yards ahead that blocked the roadway, its headlamps dark. He fought down the urge to jump from the truck and take his chances in the nearby woods—sheriff’s deputies, revenue agents, bootleggers; whoever it was, they might be more likely to shoot a man if he ran. And then it was too late. The car following him ground to a halt on the rear of the truck, and two men emerged from the car ahead, one of them training a flashlight in Janson’s direction—he was caught. He could still take his chances in the woods—but he could not make himself move. He could only grip the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles turned white, watching as the two men ahead slowly approached the truck. There was a sound from the vehicle to the rear, a door opening, its lights now out as well—but Janson’s eyes stayed on the men before him, settling on one as he came even with the truck and peered in the window.

William Whitley stared at him with a half-amused, half-pleased expression on his face—the goddamn son-of-a-bitch, this was a test, Janson thought, realizing suddenly that he was shaking. The goddamn—

“You’re white as a sheet, boy—did Bill put a scare into you, running you like that?”

Janson took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to force a control over the anger that raged up inside of him. He turned loose of the steering wheel with hands that ached from released tension—the goddamn son-of-a-bitch, this was a—

“You stupid half-breed—” Whitley was quickly shoved aside and the truck door yanked open. Bill Whitley reached in to grab Janson by the shirt collar and pull him from the vehicle, then turned to shove him hard back against its side. “You about lost that whole load back there, and almost got me killed just trying to follow you—you goddamn—”

Janson shoved him away, clenching his hands into fists, ready to fight the man. “What the hell were you doing on my butt like that anyway!”

“Did you really think we’d trust you with a truck and that much money? I was betting you’d head straight for the state line; everybody knows you can’t trust an Indian, not even half-breed trash like—”

Something snapped within Janson. He went after Bill Whitley with a fury he had not known since the day he had almost killed Buddy Eason in that carriage house back in Eason County almost two years before. He grabbed Bill by the shirt front, turning and slamming him hard back against the side of the truck. “You goddamn son-of-a—”

But he was suddenly grabbed from behind and thrown backwards into the red dirt of the roadbed, William Whitley standing over him, staring down. “You watch your mouth boy—” he said, his eyes never leaving Janson’s face in the darkness.

Janson stared up at him for a moment, and then slowly got to his feet, dusting off the legs of his faded dungarees. He saw Whitley motion away the third man, who had stepped up to intercede, turning to stare as Franklin Bates moved a step away, his hand still resting on the gun tucked into his belt, and Janson realized suddenly how close he had come to death in those moments.

After a moment, William Whitley spoke back over his shoulder to his son. “Bill, take the truck on to the house and get somebody to unload it.”

Bill Whitley stood staring, unmoving, his eyes never leaving Janson.

Whitley’s voice rose. “I said go!”

For a moment Bill Whitley did not move; then he slowly turned and got into the truck, slamming the door behind himself. His eyes met Janson’s again for a moment just before the truck started away—there would be another time.

As the truck slowly maneuvered around the car blocking the road ahead, Whitley turned toward Bates. “Franklin—”

There was a sound of acknowledgment from the big man, a slight lift of the head, but no words. He continued to stare at Janson, his hand never leaving the gun in his belt—Janson had wondered for months what a man like Franklin Bates might do for Whitley. Now he knew.

“Take my car on to the house. I’ll take Bill’s Packard; the boy’ll ride with me. We’ve got some talking to do.”

Bates nodded without a word, then dropped his hand from the gun at his waist. He turned and started toward the car that blocked the road, never once looking back. Soon Janson was left standing alone in the middle of the rutted clay road with William Whitley.

“You did good, boy,” Whitley said, staring at him with eyes that Janson could not read in the darkness. The man reached into his pocket and pulled out a roll of bills, counted off several, then shoved the remainder back into his pocket. “You’ve earned this money right and proper tonight, boy—and there’s more where it came from, if you can keep your mouth shut and do what you’re told to do without asking too many questions.” He held the bills out toward Janson. “There could be some extra work for you pretty regular. You can be earning yourself some good money, boy, if you’re interested—”

Janson stared at the bills in Whitley’s hand, the reason he had taken on the haul of sugar in the first place. His suspicions that he had walked into a bootleg operation were only stronger—why else the need for such secrecy; why else the need to test him as they had done tonight. William Whitley was a bootlegger, and Janson was—

He took the money held out to him, crumpled it into one hand, and shoved it into his pocket—if anything, he was no fool. Whitley was offering him money, more money than he could make in years of working as a farmhand. If he wanted his land back, it would take money, and a lot of it. Whitley was offering him a chance for that money, and Janson knew that he would be a fool to turn that chance down—no matter what it was he might be called on to haul.

“Yeah, I’m interested,” he answered, meeting Whitley’s gaze levelly. “I’m interested.”

The following day crawled by with a nervousness growing in the pit of Janson’s stomach. He was to meet Whitley behind the big house at dusk—there would be work for him to do tonight.

As the afternoon hours came and the sun began to lower toward the tops of the pine trees in the west, throwing the yard and the fields into long, slanting shadows, Janson could little think of anything else but the meeting to come, and the possibilities of what he might be called on to do that night. He knew what Whitley was—common sense told him that—and, as dusk began to settle in over the fields, he had to fight the urge to grab his things and head straight for the County line. It was only the thought of the money that kept him walking toward the Whitleys’ big house, and not toward his room off the barn and then the road out of town.

Whitley and Bill were both waiting for him behind the separate kitchen, near a truck that Janson had never seen before. Franklin Bates was at a distance from them, hunkered down by a tree in the yard, his eyes on Janson as he approached. Janson looked at him for a moment, then toward Whitley and Bill, his eyes finally settling on the truck—there seemed something not quite right about the truckbed, even in the failing light. But he had little time to pay attention as Whitley spoke.

“You’re late, boy.”

“I was plowin’. I had t’ take th’ mule back t’ th’ barn an’ see to it she was fed,” Janson said.

Whitley stared at him, but it was Bill who spoke first. “I figured you’d be headed for the County line by now. I always did hear that Indians were cowards, as well as thieves, drunkards, and liars—”

Janson took a step forward, ready to wipe the smug look from the man’s face, but Whitley stepped between them. “That’s enough of it between you two. There’s no time for that now. You’ve got a job to do, boy, if you’re interested.”

Janson stared past him to Bill for a moment—the time would come. He knew that. But right now there was work to do, money that he could earn. “I’m interested,” he said, bringing his eyes back to Whitley. “What kind’a job?”

Whitley stared at him, shifting the cigar to the other side of his mouth. “There’s something I want you to take into Buntain for me.”

“What’s that?”

Whitley looked at him for a moment, then turned to hook his hands beneath what appeared to be the truckbed, and lifted—but Janson already knew. The false bed came up, revealing a space beneath, the fading light glinting off the surface of the glass jars of bootleg liquor concealed there. Whitley reached to lift one from its nest, then held it out toward Janson.

“You know what this is, boy?” he asked.

Janson had known, but still he had not been prepared—corn liquor, bootleg whiskey, moonshine. He had the sudden impulse to tell Whitley that he had made a mistake, that he wanted out—then he saw the look on Bill Whitley’s face. The man thought he would run, even now.

He said: “Yeah, I reckon’ I know what that is.”

Whitley nodded, seeming satisfied. He replaced the jar of corn liquor back into its nest before lowering the false bed back into place. “That’s your load, boy. The wood covering makes it look like an empty truckbed at night, unless someone gets real curious.” He considered Janson for a moment, the cigar clamped between his teeth. “Well, boy, you want the haul or not? There’s good money to be made delivering corn liquor for me. I could be giving you extra work a couple of times a week, taking corn liquor into Buntain and other towns outside the County, bringing back sugar and other supplies.” He stared at Janson for a moment. “Well, boy, are you interested?”

Hauling bootleg liquor. Running against the law and the revenuers and other bootleggers. Maybe ending up in jail, maybe shot. Hauling black market sugar had been bad enough; did he really want to—

“How much?” he asked, forcing all other thoughts away. “How much’ll you pay?”

He had plenty of time later to wonder if he had made the right decision, as he jolted over rutted, back-country roads with a truck load of bootleg liquor.