Arrangements had been made to deliver the thirty gallons to Daytona Dave the following Saturday. Monday morning Luther and Morgan fire the still and begin to cook. Ava parks the two delivery trucks in the shade of a large oak tree behind the plant and then goes about the task of painting over the HOMER FLAGG & SONS lettering on the doors. She has a gallon of black paint and a two-inch brush made from hog’s bristle. She finds an old milking stool to sit on while she works. The morning grows warm but it is comfortable there beneath the massive burr oak.
She is finishing the passenger door of the first truck when Jedediah walks down from the house. He stands watching her for a time, puffing on his pipe.
“I spent my whole life upholding that good name and here you’re going to erase it in a matter of minutes,” he says.
Ava doesn’t respond while she finishes the last few strokes. Then she rises and stands back to admire her work a moment before turning to her father and kissing him on the cheek.
“People around here know who Jedediah Flagg is,” she tells him. “All the paint in the world can’t erase that. However, the business at hand requires a certain anonymity. I’m sure you will agree with that.”
She carries the stool around to the other side of the truck to start on the driver’s door. Jedediah follows her and sits down on the running board of the second truck. He takes his pipe from his pocket and raps it sharply against the fender to empty the bowl.
“I am not without doubts regarding this, daughter.”
Ava smiles. “Should I call you Thomas then? Keep in mind that Thomas became a believer in the end.”
“Yes, Thomas did indeed become a believer,” Jedediah says. “But then he wasn’t running moonshine.”
“No, he was not,” Ava admits. “People’s woes were different in the time of Thomas. There were—oh, I don’t know—locusts and floods and hellfire and brimstone and whatnot.” She continues to paint as she speaks. With each stroke, another letter disappears.
“Are you mocking me?”
“Never, father.”
“Nor the good book neither, I hope.”
“Certainly not.”
“I trust you are not,” Jedediah says. “You do not want to get on my bad side. Or His neither. Now I believe I’ll head into the plant and see if I can’t scare up another paint brush.”
Ava looks up. “You’re going to help?”
“You’re the one who advocated the lighting of candles, daughter.”
It is decided that Luther will send his nephew Jodie to Johnson City with ten gallons of moonshine that night. The fresh paint on the truck doors is still tacky by evening but Ava reasons it is dry enough for the trip.
“The air will dry it on the way,” she says to Luther.
She and Morgan watch as Luther packs the jugs beneath the truck seat, snaking an old horse blanket between the bottles to keep them from breaking. Jodie stands by, looking both eager and anxious. He’s a quiet kid. Ava hasn’t heard him speak more than a dozen words since he’d started working for them. He is game though and doesn’t shirk from a task.
Ava thought that perhaps Luther would do the delivery, but he had nixed the idea. He was cooking mash and didn’t yet trust Morgan or Ava to oversee it while he was gone. Ava then suggested that she and Morgan deliver the liquor.
“Bones is on the nervous side,” Luther had said. “He might get antsy, seeing white folks showing up to sell him shine. Keep in mind that the revenuers is all white.”
So it was decided that Jodie would go. He’d met the man called Bones once, when Bones had been in Flagg’s Hollow, visiting Luther.
“He be waiting on you around back the hotel,” Luther says to the boy now. “With the cash. Take the old road through the gap on the way, stay offa the macadam. No point in drawing attention you don’t need.”
Jodie squints as he takes in the information, committing it to memory.
Luther replaces the seat in the truck, making sure it clears the jugs beneath without snapping the bottle necks. He looks at Jodie.
“Now don’t be driving like a damn fool, boy,” he says. “You transporting precious cargo here. Bones is interested in a weekly shipment and maybe even more than ten jugs. There’s thirsty people down in Johnson City.”
It’s still daylight when Jodie drives out of the yard, bent on delivering the first shipment—albeit a small shipment—from the Flagg moonshine company. He follows the county road northwest towards Maple Springs. The tired Model T has a top speed of around twenty-five miles an hour and it’s full dark by the time he turns onto the old pike.
And the old pike is where Boone Saunders and his boy Val begin to follow him. Boone is behind the wheel of the Cadillac sedan. They are heading home when they spot Jodie, taking a leak in the woods alongside the road, the old truck parked a few yards away. When Jodie sees them, he ducks his head beneath the gleam of the Caddy’s headlights and scurries back to the truck. Boone slows down and pulls over.
“What?” Val asks.
“You see that?” Boone asks.
“See what?”
“That’s a suspicious-looking nigger,” Boone says.
“Ain’t they all?” Val asks.
“Yeah, but we’d best investigate this one,” Boone says. “Way he ducked his head; that boy is up to something.”
He makes a U-turn and catches up to Jodie in minutes, roaring up on the truck’s tail, flashing his lights from low beam to high before slamming the heavy Cadillac into the rear bumper.
Inside the truck, Jodie is gripped by primal fear. The road is narrow and winding, more mud than gravel. Jodie is not an experienced driver under the best conditions. The Caddy rams into the truck three more times before pulling out to come alongside. Jodie accelerates but the old Ford is no match for the big sedan. Boone runs along beside the truck for a bit and then sharply pulls out in front, veering to the right and forcing the Ford into the ditch. The truck smashes into a tree, crunching the fender and hood. Steam pours from the radiator. Jodie is flung forward, his head crashing into the windshield, shattering the glass into spiderwebs.
Boone parks the Caddy fifty feet away and he and Val get out to walk over to the truck. Jodie is dazed from the crash; blood runs down his forehead and into his eyes. Boone opens the door and grabs the youngster by the collar, flings him out of the truck and into the muddy ditch.
“What are you up to, boy?”
“Nothin’.” Jodie’s voice is thin with fear. He gets to his feet but remains in the ditch, water up to his ankles.
“Jesus, you’re still pulling on your mama’s tit. Where’d you get a truck like this?”
Jodie says nothing else. He’s too frightened to speak and doesn’t know what to say anyway. Boone moves away from him to look inside the truck.
“Val, swing them headlights around so I can see.”
Val gets into the Cadillac and turns it around on the road.
“You didn’t make no answer, boy,” Boone says. “You hidin’ something? You didn’t steal this truck, did you?”
Again Jodie doesn’t reply, nor does Boone expect him to. As the Caddy’s headlights swing around to illuminate the scene, Boone leans inside the truck for a look. After a moment he lifts the seat. Val gets out of the Caddy and approaches.
“Well, lookit here,” Boone says. “We got us a bona fide bootlegger, Val. One, two, three, four, five—looks like ten gallons of what appears to be mountain busthead.” Boone gives Jodie the eye. “Where you from, nigger? You been cooking up in these hills?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, somebody has been cooking,” Boone says. “I doubt you got the smarts. That means you’re just the delivery boy. Where you taking this?”
“No place, sir.”
Boone’s eyebrows rise. “No place? You’re just driving around the county in a stolen truck with ten gallons of mountain dew under the seat. That’s your story?”
“I didn’t steal no truck,” Jodie says. “And that stuff—well, I didn’t even know it was under there, sir.”
“You’re a black liar,” Val says.
“No, I tend to agree with the boy,” Boone says. “He says this ain’t his fucking shine. So if he don’t own it, he ain’t got nothing to say about me taking it.”
Boone reaches in and retrieves one of the jugs. He uncorks it and has a drink. “Well now,” he says, handing it to Val. “That’s what I might call above average hooch.”
Val has a small drink and then a bigger one. “Where’d you get this, boy?”
“Done told you—I didn’t even know it was there,” Jodie says.
Boone walks to the Caddy and opens the trunk. “One thing I hate is a goddamn lying nigger thinks he can run shine in my backyard.” He produces two stout blood-stained lengths of oak and tosses one to Val. “You take the truck, I’ll take the liar.”