THIRTY
The story comes out in dribs and drabs over the course of the next few days. When Edgar arrived at the Saunders farm, Boone and Val were on the porch, where they had a game of cribbage going beneath a forty-watt bulb. They’d opened a jug from Cyril’s and were working their way through it. In Edgar’s telling, Boone was about three quarters drunk and Val was all the way there. Myrna Lee, tired of their cruel and slothful ways, had gone into town with a friend, to the picture show. The movie had been Bobby’s idea. He’d even given Myrna Lee money for admission and popcorn.
Edgar said that he was there at the bequest of Bobby Barlow, doing the Saunders boys a favor. When he told them that the Ford sedan they’d been seeking for the past week was at that moment loaded down with moonshine and headed for Knoxville with a bright yellow Packard in tow, Boone and Val practically fell over each other loading weapons into the Cadillac.
They caught up to Elmer and Slim a few miles out of Blowing Rock. Val was behind the wheel of the Cadillac. First he side-swiped the Packard, pushing it into a ravine beside the road, and then roared up to crash into the rear of the Ford, propelling it into a stand of saplings. Both Elmer and Slim came out of the cars with guns in hand. When the shooting was finished, Elmer and Boone were dead and Slim close to it, having taken a load of buckshot in the chest. Val was shot in the shoulder and jawbone. He and Slim lay out in the woods until morning, when a farmer happened along and discovered the carnage. The Caldwell County Police came and called an ambulance for Slim and Val and a hearse for the others.
The Feds showed up shortly afterward, tipped off by somebody with knowledge of the gun battle, possibly a deputy looking for brownie points or maybe someone from the hospital. Seeing that the sedan was packed with jugs of moonshine, the Feds took over. They were eventually to find out that the car wasn’t quite as filled with liquor as they thought. Only the half-dozen jugs in the rear that were easily accessible were moonshine. The rest were filled with mountain spring water from Flagg’s Hollow.
On the other hand, the fifty gallons in the rear of the double-T Ford driven that night by Ava Flagg were in fact filled with genuine Flagg’s Hollow moonshine. Bobby took the wheel when they left the lot behind the Wilkesboro Hotel. He knew the back roads to Bristol. And he could drive better than Ava, even she had to admit.
“How did you know they were going to steal the shipment?” she asks as they head north along the red dirt road.
“They stole from Morgan and Luther, didn’t they?” Bobby says. “Why would tonight be any different?”
“I suppose.” Ava thinks about it. “But how do you know that Boone will chase after them?”
“That’s one thing that I got no pause about,” Bobby says. “Boone is as predictable as the sun coming up. He figures he’s been wronged, even though he hasn’t. That don’t matter to Boone. Vengeance is like mother’s milk to him. And Val—well, that’s an acorn that never fell far.”
In the slow-moving truck, it takes them the better part of four hours to reach Bristol. Earl Danville is waiting at his place, sitting in a wicker rocking chair on the front porch, a flyswatter in one hand and a glass of bathtub gin in the other. After the introductions are made, and the liquor sampled, he counts six hundred dollars cash into Ava’s hand.
“We said ten dollars a gallon,” she reminds him.
“I’ll pay twelve,” Danville says. “Providing I get first crack at the supply.”
“There could be a problem there,” Bobby says. “There’s competition from Knoxville. You should know that the game could get rough.”
“What competition is that?” Danville asks.
“You know the name Otto Marx?”
Danville smiles. “Everybody knows who Otto Marx is.”
Ava frowns, puzzled by the smile. “We hear he’s not a man to trifle with.”
“The news out of Knoxville is that Otto himself got trifled with,” Danville says.
“How so?”
“Bunch of baseball players beat the living hell out of him and ran him out of town,” Danville says. “From what I hear, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.”
It is nearly dawn when they get back to Flagg’s Hollow. Ava is sleeping against the door when Bobby eases the truck into the parking lot behind the old molasses factory. He sits quietly for a while, wondering what transpired after they had left last night. Did Edgar find Boone and deliver the message—more importantly— did Boone find the two mugs bound for Knoxville? Bobby decides he can wait to find out. Right now he needs a place to lay his head.
He reaches over and shakes Ava. She comes awake slowly, blinking into the sunshine just now showing on the horizon to the east.
“Where are we?”
“Home,” is all Bobby says.
