Luther can’t say what his old friend Bones Pettifog, lately of Johnson City, is doing with the moonshine he’s buying from the Flaggs, but whatever it is, he’s doing it in quantity. Just two days after Bobby’s first delivery, Bones sends word via the brakeman on the Great Smoky Railway that he is in need of another fifty gallons. It is agreed that Bobby would make the run again, this coming Sunday.
“What about Boone Saunders?” Ava asks.
Bobby and Morgan sit across from her in the lunchroom at the molasses plant. Luther and Cal have gone for the day. They’d been cooking since early that morning. A new batch of shine drips from the copper coils a few feet from where they sit. They had run out of sugar that afternoon; they’d have to wait for more before starting a new batch of mash.
“Boone can’t catch me,” Bobby says.
“They all say that,” Morgan reminds him.
“Who all?”
“Billy the Kid, John Dillinger, Jesse James. They all said they couldn’t be caught.”
“I ain’t Billy the Kid,” Bobby says. “And even if I was, Boone Saunders is no Pat Garrett.”
“We have to assume he’ll be looking for the car,” Ava says.
Bobby decides not to tell them about his encounter with Boone at the Rexall. It would serve no purpose other than to make the two of them worry, and they were already doing that.
“Maybe we could create a diversion,” Morgan suggests.
“What kind of a diversion?” Ava asks.
Morgan shrugs. “Send him on a goose chase. What kind of goose would Boone Saunders chase after?”
“A goose called busthead,” Bobby says. He gestures to the Ford, parked along the wall of the building. “And he’s already in on that chase, looking for that sedan over there.”
“We better not get too cute with him,” Ava says. “The goose he cooks might be ours.”
The rear door opens then and Ezra walks in, arriving so quietly that they wonder if he’s been lurking outside, listening for a time. He appears hangdog and petulant, as has been his wont of late.
“Let me think about Boone,” Bobby says, ending the matter for now. He doesn’t want to discuss anything to do with transport in front of Ezra. The more people with knowledge of a plan, the more likely that plan will get out.
“Wondered why the lights were still on,” Ezra says as he approaches. He seems surprised to see Bobby there, but he nods. “Bobby.”
“Hello, Ezra.”
“Wrapping up for the day,” Ava tells him. She stands and collects the dirty glasses and coffee cups from the table. “I was about to come see you.”
Ezra walks to the copper coils and watches the drip-drip-drip of the clear liquor into the smaller vat. His disapproval of the whole enterprise hangs from him like a shroud. “See me for what?”
“We’re out of sugar,” Ava says, putting the dishes in the porcelain sink. “And we need to be careful where we buy it. If we buy out the mercantile in Wilkesboro every week, the word is going to get around. You know––what in tarnation are they making out there at Flagg’s Hollow? Everybody knows you make molasses out of cane or beets, not sugar. You see what I mean, brother?”
“I am not a dummy,” Ezra tells her. “But what’s it got to do with me?”
“You’ve been put in charge of sugar procurement for the business,” Ava tells him.
“You don’t put me in charge of anything, Ava,” Ezra snaps. “Who made you the president of this danged company?”
“Should we vote on it?” Ava turns to Morgan and Bobby, speaking quickly. “All in favor of Ezra being our sugar procurer, raise your hands.”
Morgan and Bobby have their hands up immediately. Ava joins them, smiling at Ezra. “Three to one. Congratulations, brother.”
“Vote all you want,” Ezra says. “And make your little jokes at my expense. You ain’t going to force me into a chore I got no stomach for.”
“I suppose not,” Ava says.
Having made his case, Ezra nods curtly and heads for the door.
“You get that money I left with Rachel?” Ava asks.
Ezra stops, staring at the door that was almost his escape. “I got it.”
“Are you under the impression that the money came from the manufacture of molasses?” she asks. “Even though we haven’t produced a drop of molasses in over a month? Are you somehow under that impression, Ezra?”
Ezra still will not look at her. “No, I am not.”
“Where do you think that money came from, brother?”
Ezra glances over at Morgan and Bobby, sitting at the table. Bobby is smiling.
“What are you laughing at, Barlow?” Ezra demands. “Nothing,” Bobby says, but his smile broadens. “Your sister is a hard case, isn’t she?”
Ezra regards Bobby darkly for a long moment, then exhales heavily as he turns back to Ava. “Where am I going to get sugar?”
“I figure you can head east,” Ava said. “Buy a bag here, a couple there. Follow the river. Hit Ronda, Jonesville, Pleasant Hill; all those little towns have general stores. They all carry sugar in bulk because everybody and his brother is cooking in those woods. You buying hither and yon won’t raise an eyebrow.”
Ezra glances about; his eyes come to rest on the Ford sedan. “Am I to drive that?”
“That car stays here,” Bobby says.
“You ain’t in charge of anything,” Ezra tells him.
Bobby grins again. “We could take a vote on it.”
“Take the old truck,” Ava says. “And leave in the morning first thing. We need that sugar.”
Ezra opens the door and looks back at her, gesturing toward the dripping coils across the building. “This will all end badly,” he says. “Mark my words.”
Mid-week Slim and Elmer are back in Wilkes County, trying once more to track down the moonshine that has become the object of Otto’s desire. It was now bordering on obsession with Otto. His mood in general had not improved in recent days; he had pitched in Nashville Saturday and hadn’t lasted an inning. He’d given up three home runs, which meant that he had three more names for Slim and Elmer, three more players to be educated as to the dangers of having success at the plate against Otto Marx. Slim and Elmer are not enthusiastic about beating up ballplayers who happened to hit home runs off Otto. Nor are they particularly enthusiastic about driving blindly around Wilkes County, where the locals all regard them as outsiders or rank opportunists. Or worse than that—Feds.
Wednesday noon they stop for lunch at a diner in Traphill. They’ve heard the area is rife with moonshiners, going back to the days of the Civil War. But nobody—not the farmers nor the merchants nor the tobacco-spitting old men lounging in front of the Stageline Hotel—will allow them the time of day, let alone tell them where they might purchase a jug or two of mountain dew.
“Do I look like a Fed?” Slim asks as they enter the diner.
“A Fed?” Elmer repeats.
“Yeah.”
Elmer shakes his head. “Do I?”
“Not in the least.”
The place is called Curly’s and run by a man of that name, a fellow who may have had curly hair, back when he had hair. The only menu is scrawled in chalk on a blackboard on the wall.
“You fellows decided?” Curly finally approached after they’d been sitting at a table by the front windows for a full five minutes. The proprietor had been regaling a couple of old-timers at the counter about a bass he’d caught a few days earlier and the story— like any good fish tale—had taken a while.
“Tell me something, chief,” Slim says to him as he comes over. “Do I look like a revenuer to you?”
“What’s a revenuer?” Curly asks.
“What’s a revenuer?” Slim scoffs. “You mugs are all the same. I bet you never heard of anybody making moonshine whiskey around here neither, have you?”
“Can’t say that I have,” Curly says. “Ain’t that agin the law?”
Slim looks at Elmer. “I bet this piker never heard of Santy Claus nor the Easter Bunny neither.”
“Just like everybody else in this damn county,” Elmer says. “I got five dollars says we could find a gallon or two on the premises.”
“Not these premises,” Curly tells them.
“Come on now—couldn’t you see clear to offer us a sample? We would surely make it worth your while.”
“Ain’t nothing to sample,” Curly says. “Like I said, I’m for certain that making and selling spirits is agin the law. You fellows care to order some food?”
Slim throws his palms in the air. “This is useless. Gimme the liver and onions.”
After eating, they walk outside and stand smoking on the sidewalk. The town isn’t much more than a hamlet, with one main street and a few buildings in behind, shotgun shacks and chicken coops and woodsheds. There’s a livery at the end of a side street, but not an animal in sight. Summerfield’s General Store is across from the diner. There are a couple of trucks parked out front and a freight wagon hitched behind two scrawny bay geldings. Slim and Elmer had already been inside the store earlier. The proprietor, of course, had no knowledge of anybody in the Traphill area making moonshine and had, in fact, appeared to have never heard of such activities. Same old song with a different tune. The citizens of Wilkes County might just as well make up a choir and take it on the road.
They’d parked the yellow Packard at the far end of the street, in a lot between the Baptist church and a shuttered blacksmith shop. Walking to the car now, they pass the freight wagon and the trucks angle-parked in front of the mercantile. One truck is a Ford double-T with a dented grill and fenders. To Slim, it looks like every other farmer’s work truck except for one thing. There’s a dozen or so fifty-pound bags of sugar in the back. A tarp thrown haphazardly over the cargo doesn’t manage to hide it.
“Hold on,” Slim says to Elmer, who is walking ahead.
“Well, well,” Elmer says when he sees the cargo. “What do we have here? Somebody’s old granny making mulberry jam?”
Slim nods. “Yeah, I suspect that’s just what it is.”
Elmer has a look inside the cab and then walks around the truck. He notices that the passenger door has been crudely painted over with a brush.
“They covered some writing on the doors,” Elmer says. “Why would a person need to do that? Unless they was hidin’ something.”
But Slim isn’t listening. He’s at the other side of the truck, looking at three round holes in the driver’s door. “Lookit here.”
Elmer comes around the front of the truck as Slim pulls the .45 semi-automatic from inside his jacket and releases the clip from the gun. He thumbs a shell out and fits the nose into one of the holes. He turns to Elmer.
“I thought this truck looked familiar. You’ll recall I’m the one put those holes in that door, a few weeks ago in Knoxville. Those two pikers running shine to Daytona Dave. Or trying to.”
“I’ll be damned,” Elmer says, realizing. “Those pikers what was infringing on Otto. Same damn truck—and loaded to the tits with sugar, by God.”
Slim slides the clip back into the .45 and tucks the gun in his belt. “About time we caught a break.”
They sit in the Packard fifty yards away to wait. It’s not long before Ezra Flagg comes out of the store, a bag of sugar over his shoulder. He plunks it down in the box of the truck, then pulls the tarp over the load. He pays no attention to the Packard as he gets behind the wheel and drives off, heading west.
“He ain’t one of them from that night,” Elmer says. “There was a youngster and the fat colored what shat himself.”
“This is one of the crew, I expect,” Slim says. “Maybe even the cooker himself.”
They follow Ezra at a distance for the next hour or so, watching as he stops at the general stores in Mulberry and Fairplains, picking up more sugar in each place before continuing on west, towards Wilkesboro.
Ezra chugs along at a slow pace, mindful of his heavy load. A couple miles shy of Wilkesboro, he takes the turnoff north. When he reaches Flagg’s Hollow, Slim and Elmer hang back, aware that they’re very conspicuous, driving the new Packard into a community where horses and mules outnumber automobiles. They park short of the crossroads and watch as Ezra backs the truck to the loading dock of the molasses plant. Luther comes out a moment later, followed by Ava.
“That’s the nigger from before,” Elmer says.
“Who’s the dame?” Slim asks.
Elmer shrugs. “No idea. So how do we handle this?”
“I ain’t too sure,” Slim says. “First question is this—are they cooking here or is this just a depot for the ingredients? Most of these boys hide their stills up in the hills.”
Elmer points. “Sign says it’s a molasses factory.”
“I don’t care if the sign says they’re making gingerbread,” Slim says. “I shot holes in that truck and when I did, it was loaded to the gills with busthead. These people are cooking moonshine, whether it be here or somewhere else.”
“One way to find out,” Elmer says. “Kick that door in and have a look.”
“No,” Slim cautions. “We don’t want to spook them. We kick the door down tonight and we might come back tomorrow and find the place cleared out.”
“Not if we explain to them certain things. I mean things to do with their health.”
Slim scratches his cheek as he looks out the windshield to the sky. “Nigh on to dark. I say we head back into town and get us a room. We’ll come out here tomorrow first thing. People ain’t scared during the day like they are at night. We come back tomorrow and see if we can’t talk a little business with these people. Like Otto says, they was looking for a buyer that night in Knoxville. Why would that have changed?”
Slim drops the Packard into gear and they pull a U-turn and head towards town.
Inside the building Bobby is watching the two men in the yellow Packard. He showed up a while earlier, with ten gallons of gas for the Ford sedan, in preparation for the run to Johnson City. He couldn’t drive the car into town to fill the tank, not with Boone Saunders and who knows who else on the scout for it. While dumping the jerry cans into the Ford, Bobby had heard Ezra drive up in the truck and gone to the window for a look. That’s when he spotted the Packard, which had quite obviously been trailing Ezra.
It’s the same car Bobby had seen a few days earlier in town, when the two city mugs had quizzed him about bootleggers in the area. They’ve obviously been stumbling around in the dark, without so much as a candle or a match to light it. But it’s apparent now that they aren’t giving up, whoever they are. So now they’ve been following Ezra, while he was hauling a truck full of sugar. Given the nature of his task, Ezra should have been mindful enough to notice a shiny yellow Packard on his tail. But then Ezra is a tad oblivious in general, and too busy pouting to take note of much of anything. Whatever his state of mind, he has succeeded in leading the two mugs right to the family doorstep.
They weren’t stumbling around in the dark anymore.