The new puppies, Red and Black, barked with proper ferocity, rearing against the slat-fence. The horse-hooves coming south down the scrub road sounded nearer. Piety was in the back yard at the wash tubs and Lant went to the front stoop to watch. A grey horse, ridden by a stranger, drew up at the gate at the foot of the lane. Lant could make out the girl Kezzy sitting the horse primly behind the rider. She slipped down and opened the gate and the stranger dismounted and followed her.
"Hey, Lant!" she called.
"Hey."
The horseman spoke cordially.
"Howdy, son."
"Howdy."
The boy was braced, as though on a slippery bank.
"Where's Aunt Py-tee?" the girl asked.
"Back at the pot."
"The man here's lookin' for Zeke," she said, lifting her heavy eyebrows at him as she passed.
The boy's blood pounded in his throat. The stranger must be a revenuer; or, sent by the government, had tracked his grandfather down at last. He thought with relief that they were three months too late for Lantry. Then panic swept across him again. The man, of course, was after Zeke.
"What's your name, son?"
"Lantry Jacklin."
"You any kin to Zeke Lantry?"
"He's my uncle."
"Well, now," the stranger said, leaning forward, "you're just the fellow I want to see. Your uncle Zeke's at his still, isn't he?"
The boy did not answer. The man studied him. It irked him to have Zeke's family evade him. Zeke's step-daughter, alone at the house, had claimed no knowledge of his whereabouts. Zeke had already made excuses to keep him away from the still. When Pryde bought whiskey of a moonshiner, he liked to know where to find him.
"Come on, sonny. Tell me where your Uncle Zeke is right now. Just point which way."
The boy felt the coercion and threw his weight against it, like a young bull calf against the tug of the halter. His eyes glared but he did not move or speak.
"I'll just bet you don't even know."
There was no trap quick enough for the boy's instinct. He turned quietly into the house. He returned behind Kezzy and his mother. Pryde had seated himself on the stoop.
"How-do, Ma'am. My name's Pryde."
He asked his questions.
Piety said, "No, I got no idee where Zeke mought be."
"I'm the man buying that cane syrup of his," he said. "That syrup that makes a man feel so prime." He winked at her.
She said politely, "That so?"
A silence fell, in which the squirrels could be heard barking in the neighbouring hammock.
At last Pryde said, "Well, I'm mighty sorry to miss him. I had business with him."
Piety and Kezzy looked quickly at each other. It would be a pity to lose trade for Zeke. The stranger seemed all right. Piety believed him to be the man of whom Zeke had spoken. Pryde was the name, all right. She wanted to tell him to go down the road to Magnolia Landing and to halloo across the river to Zeke, who would answer him from Taylor's Dread. She was unable to do so. Caution dammed the words in her throat.
At last she said questioningly, "If you was to care to state your business now? If you was to say what-all you wants o' Zeke, mought be I could find him and tell him."
It was the best Pryde could do.
He said bluntly, "Yes, I'll state my business. Tell Zeke to put a barrel of whiskey on the Mary when she comes down Wednesday. Here's some tags to use. See, Florida Cane Syrup, addressed to the Southern Wholesale Grocery Company at Jacksonville. Tell him to put one on the barrel and to send a barrel every Wednesday until I tell him different."
The woman and the girl and boy blinked at him. The stranger turned away.
Piety said, speaking mildly after the vanishing back, "Mought be a good idee to smear a leetle rale syrup around the edge o' the barrel-head, like the juice were leakin' a mite."
Pryde said over his shoulder, "I don't care what he does to the barrel-head, as long as the barrel gets on the boat."
He mounted his horse and thumped off. Piety turned the tags over in her hand.
She said, "Reckon we better go tell Zeke. Mought make a difference, settin' up more mash, mebbe. I'll git me a hat."
She lifted the wide hat of woven palmetto strands over her head with a stiff gesture, bringing it down to sit high on her small head. The three walked across the clearing and down the hammock ledge to the open river landing. Piety took up the oars.
"I'll row down-stream," she said, "and you young uns kin spell me off rowin' back."
The rowboat moved rapidly. The river seemed to stand still while the banks slipped past. Here and there the tangled lushness bared to dry hammock, with saw palmettos visible, and yellow sand. Sometimes there was a break both in swamp and hammock, and broom-sage and brier-berries grew to the edge of the water. No one could have found the entrance to Taylor's Dread who did not know the landmarks: Hoop-skirt, the big cypress, on one side, and on the other a dead grey magnolia. The river here had the trick of sending a dribbling thread of current through a slice of mainland, making in effect an island. Yet between island and mainland the dividing creek was so tortuous and so shallow that a stranger would have called the island, swamp. Part way in, the channel merged hopelessly with swamp.
"I ain't been here in a good whiles," Piety said. "I cain't foller these creeks."
The girl said, "I cain't foller 'em."
The boy pointed to an eddy under an overhanging swamp laurel.
"Yonder 'tis."
"That's it," Kezzy agreed. "Last time we come, Zeke cut a limb there to string fish."
Piety swung with relief through the dimly marked opening. Black rattan, twisted about ash trees, scraped the boatsides as they slid through. At times it seemed as though they must be again mistaken in the channel, for there would come an obstruction. But a submerged log that looked solid would yield to the pole; a tangle of wild rose briers would open at the last instant so that, lowering their bodies flat to the boat, they could pass through. A quarter of a mile in, there came to their noses the sour sweetness of fermenting mash. They were opposite the still. Piety spoke in a low voice, questioningly.
"Zeke?"
The answer, as low, came startlingly at their elbows. They had been seen and heard. Zeke squatted behind a clump of palmettos.
"Py-tee?"
The woman turned the bow of the boat between cypress knees. Kezzy and the boy climbed out, drawing the boat high. Piety followed. Zeke stood up.
"Hi, folkses."
Piety asked, "Where's Lulu?"
He jerked his head.
"Yonder."
He was gathering an armful of ash wood for his fire. They picked their way through the swamp to the still. Lulu was there, tending the pot. She spoke curtly to Piety. A pile of bricks and two large sheets of copper stood at one side. Zeke planned to build a larger outfit now that business was good. There was a demand, even at town bars, for good strong corn liquor. Piety gave him the message from Pryde. She described the visitor. Zeke nodded.
"That's him, a'right. That's Pryde."
Kezzy said anxiously, "I jest didn't know what to do when he come to the house. All I could study on, was, leave Aunt Py-tee talk to him."
Zeke said amiably, "You both done jest right. I jest as lief he not come nosin' around here."
The boy was prowling around the wooden barrels of mash. He stood on tiptoe and stirred one with the long paddle standing there.
"You git out o' there, Lant!" Piety spoke sharply. "You'll spile your Uncle Zeke's buck."
"That un ain't hardly buck yit, Py-tee. Hit's slow, like. Hit ain't made a cap yit and hit's 'most due to run."
"Hit's been cold, nights," Lulu said.
"That's about it."
Zeke dipped a gourd in one of the barrels of seething mash.
"You want some o' the beer, Lulu? How 'bout you, Py-tee?"
They refused. He gave a drink to the boy, his face in eclipse behind the gourd. They laughed at him. Zeke took the gourd and drank deeply.
"They got no call to laugh at us, son," he said to Lant. "Us knows what's good." He wiped the foam from his mouth. "I declare, this be the healthiest stuff to drink. How come me to drink it, hit's a pure nuisance to tote river water. And they's a taste to the creek water I jest someways cain't love. I tried the buck one day I were thirsty and felt kind o' porely, and it done me good."
The island was cool and dusky. The sunlight lay like lace under the palms and cypresses. The black moist earth smelled of leaf mould. Wild yellow cannas and blue iris bloomed around the brackish pools. The pot boiled, gurgling as it began. Its steam passed through a pipe and through copper coils submerged in water. The distillate began to drip slowly from a copper spout. The Lantrys leaned their backs against tree trunks and fell idle and silent. The boy climbed a tall sweet-gum and gathered a handful of the balls to play with. He settled himself in a high crotch where he could glimpse the river on one side, and on the other his Uncle Abner's cattle coming through the swamp to drink.
There was suddenly a commotion at the edge of the creek. Lant cried from his tree-crotch, "Hogses!" and half a dozen black shoats splashed through the swamp, throwing the muck and rattling palmetto fronds. They collided violently with one another as they discovered the group of humans, and fell in a heap. They were drunk. The boy laughed shrilly from the sweet-gum, throwing his prickly balls. Zeke shouted and lunged at them. They staggered to their feet and ran sideways, their ears flopping over hazed eyes. He drove them back across the shallow water of the creek. They ran grunting to the piney-woods beyond. Piety and Kezzy and the boy laughed, but Zeke was angry.
"Dog take them shoatses o' Posey's." He was out of breath. "They comes ever' day a-fillin' their bellies with my th'owed-out mash and gittin' hog-drunk to go back home again. Ary fool could back-track 'em here to the still. I got a good idee to move my outfit."
"You feered Posey'll call in the revenooers?" Piety asked.
"Hell, no. Ain't no revenooers in these parts, Sis. I'm skeert Posey'll come steal my whiskey."
Piety chuckled and rose from the ground to go. The boy clambered down from the tree. He ran ahead to climb in the boat and picked up the oars. It would be a long row against the current. He settled down in his usual silence, his eyes alert. On the way he might see many things; a buck crossing the river; an otter's smooth flat nose lifted above the sinuous streak that was the swimming body; always alligators and Poor Joes, and perhaps a water-turkey that at sight of them would drop from its limb as if shot, straight into the depths of the river.
Kezzy said, "Leave me take a oar, Lant."
"I don't want no big ol' girl rowin' side o' me," he said.
On Wednesday Lant heard the Mary whistle as she passed north and approached Two-Mile Landing above Taylor's Dread. Zeke was there, he thought, loading his barrel of whiskey with its syrup label.
"Sho," he thought, "I could tell the difference if I was a revenooer. Whiskey makes a thin sound moving. Syrup's slow and thick."
The barrel was not questioned, he decided, for three Wednesdays in succession he heard the Mary whistle and no news came of trouble. On a Monday the Mary went south up the river as usual. Soon after the last echo of the engines had been absorbed by the bends in the stream, Lant heard hoof-beats coming up the scrub road. He recognised Zeke, riding a bay mule, and ran to the gate to meet him. Zeke was small and frightened on the big animal. His pale blue eyes bulged and his mouth was tremulous.
"Hit happened," he said. "You tell Py-tee hit happened. I knowed it were a risk. The last barrel busted its hoops on the wharf at Jacksonville. Cap'n Turner's nigger boy th'owed me off a note in a bottle. Cap'n done the best he could for me. He had to tell where the barrel was loaded, but he let on like he didn't know my name. I aim to stay hid out 'til I see what comes of it."
"Where you goin'?" the boy asked eagerly.
"Son, I ain't tellin' nobody but my wife Lulu and her Kezzy—and you-all. I ain't even tellin' Martha and Syl, nor Thad. You tell your Ma I'll be at old man Paine's, and time she figgers they's no more risk, you come git me word."
He lifted his reins and the mule jerked forward.
"I'm jest dependin' on you, son," he called gravely over his shoulder.
The bay mule jogged off. The boy bolted up the lane and into the house to his mother. He repeated breathlessly his uncle's message.
"I mean, ol' Uncle Zeke is scairt," he said.
"He's got reason," she said thoughtfully. "But I some ways don't figger no revenooers'll never git fur into the Dread."
"They's nary man 'tother side o' the river would tell 'em the way to go? None o' Pa's kin what's mad at us?"
She shrilled indignantly at him.
"You got you no sense? Don't never leave me hear you say sich as that again. They's nary Wilson nor Jacklin that low-down and sorry, to turn a man up."
"Some of 'em's right low-down," he insisted, grinning.
That night he could scarcely sleep for excitement. Every sound in the night struck quickly, like a blow. Leaves fell from the live-oak on the shingles like fingers being laid on a latch. When Red and Black, chained under the house, changed position in the sand, it was as though strange men walked in the yard. He was out of bed as soon as his mother in the morning, hurrying her at the stove. He ate his breakfast in a deep absorption. He did his chores in a careless hurry. The woman heard him running down the road toward Zeke's clearing.
Lant slipped up to Zeke's back door. He wanted to see Kezzy. Her mother sometimes sent him curtly away. This time the girl herself came to the door, her square hands dripping with soapsuds.
"Hey, Kezzy," he whispered. "Where's your Ma?"
She laughed.
"She takened to the bed when the word come. She's worse scairt than Zeke. I ain't scairt. I jest got a feelin' nothin' won't come of it."
He stepped into the doorway beside her. For all his gangling length at ten, the girl at twelve was still a head taller. He stood on tiptoe to whisper in her ear.
"Did ol' Zeke leave ary whiskey to the outfit?"
"Three jugs, Ma said."
He frowned importantly.
"Kezzy, Uncle Zeke done tol' me to look out for things. He said he were dependin' on me. How 'bout me and you goin' in the boat and gittin' out that whiskey, if them gov'mint cat-birds goin' to come?"
She looked at him a moment. She took off her gingham apron, tossed it into the kitchen behind her and went with him without speaking. Her dark eyes shone. They walked flat-footed and silent until they were out of Lulu's hearing, then scurried for the road. They ran most of the half-mile.
Piety saw the pair cutting across the far corner of the Lantry clearing. It was not like Kezzy to come so close and not say "Howdy." The woman went to the fence and called to them. They stopped in their tracks. She could see them questioning each other. Finally they walked slowly towards her. Kezzy looked sheepish. The boy faced his mother boldly.
She scolded, "You jest better come when I call. I want to know what-all you young uns are up to."
Kezzy did not speak.
"We're goin'," the boy said, "no matter what you say. We're goin' to git out Uncle Zeke's jugs o' whiskey."
The woman was silent.
"You study about it right on," he said belligerently.
"The way I'm studyin'," she said, "hit's the thing to do. I been thinkin', mought be he had axes and sich could be proved was his."
"You got good sense sometimes, Ma," he said approvingly.
The woman and girl laughed together at him.
"I'll go along," Piety said. "You young uns cain't lift them jugs."
The rowboat was at the open landing. Paddling with the swift current, the boy reached the entrance to the Dread in a few minutes. It was hard poling through the creek channel and he could only go slowly. His high thin cheekbones were wet with sweat. All three felt hurried. They plunged across the swamp to the abandoned still. It stood bleak and cold. The mash had been ready to run the day before and was now flat. Zeke's axe lay in plain sight with his initials burned in the handle. Kezzy ran with it to the boat. The woman made three trips with the five-gallon demi-johns of liquor. They were heavy for her and at the creek edge she dropped the third jug. It struck a stump as it slipped and the crash reverberated back and forth across the Dread. It frightened them. They shivered in the dark swamp.
"Git the boat goin'," the woman said nervously. "We're fixin' to git caught ourselves."
Out of the swamp and on the open river, Lant allowed Kezzy to take one of the oars. Piety sat in the stern seat, her long full skirt spread out around her, covering the two jugs underneath. The boy took his thoughts from the swamp and river to watch his mother's small face, drawn with her fear. Half-way home, the chugging of a motor sounded down the current. A small launch swung suddenly around a bend and passed close to them.
Two strangers on board eyed them casually; nodded to the woman, the girl and the boy, and were gone, leaving a wake that rocked the light rowboat. The boy and girl continued to row, not daring to look at each other. The woman's thin lips were dry. They heard the launch stop at Two-Mile Landing. The boy thought his heart would burst against his ribs. Safe at the river-bank at the Lantry landing, he spoke.
"Reckon we kin tote them jugs up the ledge?"
The woman shook her head.
"Hide 'em under the palmetters and lay moss and trash on top."
They walked in single file up through the hammock.
Kezzy said, "I best be gittin' on back to Ma. She'll be rarin'." She was subdued, but her mouth twitched as she left them. "You Mister Lant, you," she said drily, "next time you git a idee you jest keep it."
Piety sat down weakly in the breezeway. The boy sat beside her, kicking his heels against the steps. He had set out proud and bold. Now he felt limp and half-sick. Piety dipped herself a drink of water.
"A ruckus like this takes the starch outen you," she said.
"Ma," he asked, "what happens if them gov'mint buzzards cold-out ketches a feller?"
She blinked her turtle-lidded eyes and shook her head.
"Jest ain't no tellin'."
They passed a week of torment. Kezzy did not come to the house. They were trying to make up their minds to walk down to see her, braving Lulu, when Cleve Jacklin, who had been visiting his Uncle Abner across the river, brought Piety a note from him. Phrased discreetly, it passed the word that the revenue agents had come and gone. They had questioned half the men at Eureka. No one had heard of any moonshining on the river. The revenuers had tried to find the outfit, working back from Two-Mile Landing, but the swamp had been too much for them. It was safe for Zeke to come home again. Piety might know her brother's whereabouts; Abner did not. Cleve stood gossiping with his aunt. The boy Lant slipped away.
When Cleve had gone, Piety found Lant saddling the mule. Red and Black leaped about its heels.
"I kin go tell Zeke, cain't I?"
"Go ahead. Kin you make Pat's Island by night-fall?"
"Yessum."
"You want to carry cold rations?"
"Better wrop up some biscuits."
"What about your dogs? They're rarin' to go, but it's mighty fur for the leetle fellers."
"Call 'em back, time I'm down the lane."
He was gone, thin and bony on top of the mule, his elbows at angles.
As he rode the long miles to old man Paine's, the sand road shadowy under canopied pines, a load lifted from him. The river was safe, after all; intruders came, but they went away; and swamp and hammock and scrub were safer. When he reached the tall yellow pines that lifted Pat's Island high above the dry scrub country, and found Zeke and old man Paine smoking and chatting on the stoop; when they hailed him like a grown man; when he spent the night in a strange bed, with the smell of strange walls and bedding about him; and when the old hunter said at daylight, "Boy, you spend a week-two with me. Your mammy won't keer"; he forgot his fears. It was as though he had been away in a chill far land and had come safe home again to the good scrub.
Zeke rode away to join the timber crew. He was through with 'shining. The old man and the boy watched after him.
Paine said, "Zeke say you want to quit school and he'p make a livin' for your mammy. I got a bait o' trapses you kin borry. You kin trap all winter. You got a fine place for trappin'. You kin learn to shoot good and sell venison to them river-boats. Son, I'll learn you tricks about huntin' and trappin' will open your eyes like a nine-day puppy. I know the tricks."
He pulled his stringy whiskers and winked.
"A young 'coon for runnin'—but a ol' 'coon for cunnin'."