THE STILL
I handed over Raynelle’s nickel, and both the lard pail and me was brim-full as I headed towards home. And my head was brimming with questions. Questions about Mamaw and Papaw and a man with money who swept Mamaw off her feet. Questions about Mama and Daddy. If they was so head-over-heels in love, why did she up and leave?
Miz Bailey said Daddy didn’t drink much afore Mama left. Was it the pain of losing her that drove him to drink? It seemed like love was a devil if it caused folks so much pain.
I didn’t have time to paw through all them questions. The westward sun beamed down a warning. I had lollygagged too long in gitting to the Baileys’ and listening to Miz Bailey talk, and now I’d be late gitting home.
Did I dare resort to the shortcut across Myrtle Henry’s property? The old biddy didn’t take kindly to trespassers. But I didn’t want to make Raynelle cross neither.
Near-leafless trees didn’t offer much cover, but I dared anyhow. Creeping through dry brush at the edge of Miz Henry’s yard, I listened after each step I took, but the only noise come from me.
Her house looked quiet. No gnarled fingers pulled back a curtain or threw open the door. I hurried across the edge of the open yard and into the woods beyond it.
Once in the cover of trees, I breathed easier. But I walked quick-like, the need to git home pulling me along.
In the deepest part of the woods, I heard the clank of metal, and I smelt smoke. I peered around a big maple trunk. In a clearing no bigger’n a tablecloth, a fire brewed under a sizable contraption of containers, pans, and copper tubes. A man in overalls moved jugs and crocks under barrel spouts that set under the contraption.
I clamped my hand over my mouth to stifle the gasp that started to soar out of me. Copper coils twisted around and through that moonshine still, and my innards felt likewise twisted when I seen a shotgun leaning against a tree.
A row of empty Mason jars set on an upturned wood box, jist like the jars I seen behind the For Sale or Rent sign at our old house. Was this the moonshiner who used our old front porch as a drop place? There wasn’t no jars behind the sign last time I was there. After Daddy quit drinking.
I held my breath and looked a tad closer at the man. Gray hair curled out from under his straw hat’s brim and I watched the way his hand reached back to hitch up his drawers through the seat of his overalls. His behind had a familiar shape to it. A shape I had seen often. In the front pew at church. A shape wearing blue linen.
The moonshiner wasn’t no man a’tall!