Chapter 3
The smell of steak and gravy. The sound of forks scraping plates. Even their chewing. All of it grated, as I sat with a glass of water before me, reading the Wilkes Journal-Patriot while trying not to stare at their loaded plates. I was looking at the front page where it showed Senator John F. Kennedy at some campaign rally in West Virginia with his brother Bobby by his side. They were interesting-looking people, but what the article said wasn’t enough to keep my mind off what was going on around me. I’d somehow found the fortitude to do what I’d told Aubrey, and had survived twenty-four hours on water alone. It wasn’t easy watching them eat and my attitude was a little more than sour at this point. The day before, when I’d told Aubrey about dieting, Daddy had come home that night and pointed about how he’d bought the food we were eating with that “good ole bootleg money.” He and Merritt laughed while I shoved my plate aside, got up, and started washing the pots and pans. Daddy had tried to get me to sit back down.
“Jessie. Jessie, come on, I was only playing.”
I kept my back to them, pictured the meat gone green, the squash and butter beans flecked with rodent hair, the biscuits filled with mealworms. The decision was mine to own, and if Aubrey’s daddy got himself enlightened, maybe I’d get answers for my own self.
This second night was harder though. I set the paper aside, got up, and began washing. Both had finished, but remained at the table. I removed their plates without making eye contact. The chair creaked as Daddy leaned back to relax.
He said, “I need you over to Blood Creek with Merritt, see how it looks while I make a quick run tonight.”
At the moment, I was not enlightened. I was light-headed and irritable.
My answer was short. “I got homework.”
“It won’t take long.”
“It’ll take long enough.”
He got up out of his chair, and as he left the kitchen he said, “Do as I say, Jessie.”
I so wanted that one last piece of steak and I’d been thinking about giving in and eating it until he said that. Merritt’s expression was gloomier than mine. With Daddy out of the room he didn’t need to say or do anything for me to know he was aggravated. It showed in the way he got up from the table, the chair shoved back harder than necessary. It was different between them. All Daddy had to do was tell him what he wanted done and Merritt acted like he couldn’t wait to get on it—but he had his own reasons. He’d been wanting to do the runs down the mountain and into the big cities, not just haul in supplies to the stills. Daddy was, at the moment, dead set against that notion mostly because of revenuers, and he sure wasn’t going to ask me, the wretched, disagreeable daughter. It was enough we had to ride with him as deterrents now and then, and he had to hear me complain about that on top of everything else.
Merritt waited by the door as I stacked dirty plates in the sink and turned on the hot water. He tried to act tough, but with a trace of milk on his fuzzy upper lip I could only view him as my baby brother while also seeing how much he resembled Daddy with his dark hair brushed back off his forehead.
Defiant, he said, “I can do what needs doing.”
“No you can’t. We both got to lift that cap off, and unload the corn, and it needs to be done quick.”
As we went down the back steps, he mumbled, “I don’t know why you got to think you’re so high-and-mighty all the time.”
I ignored him. We got in the truck and I took the keys out from under the seat. I drove Route 18, then a remote dirt path with a lot of switchbacks. It ran along Blood Creek, thus the name we used for the still. We had two other locations in Wilkes County, Big Warrior and Boomer, also named for the general areas they resided. We didn’t talk the entire fifteen-minute ride. I parked the truck out of sight under an old poplar. We each hefted a fifty-pound sack out of the back, balanced them on our shoulders, and began the walk in. We took a left on what could be called a trail until it dwindled away to nothing. From that point, the woods were dense, and we followed what had become familiar to us, but anyone else would swear they were lost. Certain trees appeared and we knew where to turn, then came the bend and wind of the creek, and we crossed it, carefully balancing the sacks. My leg muscles burned and went wobbly. I dreaded having to go back for the rest. It would take several trips and I was already exhausted.
I broke the silence and said, “It ain’t that I’m high-and-mighty.”
He was breathing hard, but had enough air to argue. “You act like what we do ain’t no good. I don’t see why you got to keep pushing the way you think. Whether you want to admit it or not, it’s why we got what we got.”
“You sound just like him.”
“I don’t care.”
“You should. It’s illegal.”
I’d given up trying to talk to him about Mama, and instead wanted him to see what we did was wrong. He’d only been two and didn’t have any recollection of her. He didn’t have a feeling of loss, a sense of missing out on something important and special like I did. Merritt plowed ahead like he didn’t want to hear any more. The way it was with Daddy and him, I was like a lone daffodil in the early spring that dares to find a way to poke through the frozen ground. I pondered my future as we went, like I did a lot these days. I wanted to get away from the legacy of my ancestors that was attached to me like my own skin, our last name synonymous with moonshine and bootlegging.
I didn’t want to be known as the moonshiner’s daughter.
As we approached the Blood Creek still, the very smell was as dishonest as a local politician. We set the bags on the ground, then squatted behind a big rock. We had us a perfect view of the ugly wooden contraption that sat festering in a stand of trees, near to a small offshoot of the creek. We assessed the surroundings. Nothing was out of the ordinary, so I nudged him and we went a bit closer. We stopped again, listening, and watching. After another minute, we moved until we were finally standing near enough that Merritt could look for what he, Oral, and Uncle Virgil set up the day before. There was a way of leaving the area so as to know if someone had been there. The easiest way was to lay a couple sticks like an X near the front of the still, and hide it with leaves. Some people tied threads so they’d get broke. He bent down and carefully swept the leaves aside. The X was still there, nothing appeared out of place, and the still was doing what it was supposed to, much to my disappointment.
We got the corn and stored the bags under the lean-to Daddy fashioned. The sun had set its edge at the tops of the trees, and the air was becoming cool. I could’ve used a jacket, especially in this heavily shaded area of the woods. Frogs and crickets began a steady serenade joining in with the late day twittering and calls of various birds. There was solitude here, the only thing I liked about it.
Merritt whispered, “Uncle Virgil’s supposed to bring more corn.”
A real family affair, I thought with sarcasm. I hoped we’d miss him. He would often show up reeking of liquor and either get into telling dumb stories about how he and Daddy were living their glory days like they were legends in Wilkes County, or he’d be moody, itching for a fight like he’d been the other day. Merritt pointed at the big box contrived from old boards and lined with copper. Blood Creek was a different type of still called a submarine. Daddy liked it best since he could get several runs of liquor off one mash recipe, and what we were checking on had been started a couple days ago. When spring hit, liquor making was nonstop. It only took three to four days for the mash to ferment, whereas in colder weather it could take up to two weeks. We were practiced and used our hands and facial expressions for communicating. Come evening, we were always more cautious. Revenuers were known to spring from out of nowhere, sometimes lying in wait after dark.
The boiler held the fermenting mash and