The Wettest County in the World (24 page)

Money piled on the log until Dick Jamison put an end to it by stuffing the dollars and coins in the bag and pinning it to the log with the knife. Dink paced around his side of the log. Howard stretched his arms over his head, his feet unsteady; then slipping off his suspenders he reached down and pulled his work-stained shirt over his head. Jack stood behind him and was presented with the broad expanse of Howard’s back, his shoulders pillows of flesh. Howard bent to the staff and Dink followed on his side.

The gun went off and both men heaved, their faces turned up, necks corded with strain. Howard’s arms were rigid in the torchlight, thick veins in his forearms, the upper arms twisted masses of muscle as he squatted deeply and drove with his legs, eyes shut with effort. Dink grunted and began to jerk, heaving in regular lurches, his eyes pinched and his mouth in a snarl. Rivulets of sweat sprouted from Howard’s face and neck and ran down his back and chest. Dink’s jerking motion began to take effect, and the log began to shift, rolling side to side with each motion. The men on Dink’s side cheered louder at this development, and Jack struggled to stay behind his brother in the throng, shouting in his ear. There was nearly thirty dollars on the log.

C’mon, Howard! Goddammit, Howard! C’mon!

The waving torches sent streams of sparks spinning through the cluster of men on the dark hillside, leaping and howling.

Then Howard grunted and his legs began to move, knees straightening, his face raging crimson; like some kind of ancient devil rising from the earth, Howard raised the staff and the log rolled down onto Dink’s hands and forearms.

Dink screamed and men threw themselves against the log to keep it from rolling farther, and still Howard drove upward with his legs. Men dropped their torches and leaped over the log to stop it, Howard bringing the staff nearly up to his waist. Dink’s screams choked off and his eyes rolled back in his head as the log crushed both his hands and arms. As if waking from a dream, Jack finally sprang forward and grabbed his brother’s arms and tried to pull him off.
Howard! Howard! Let it go!
He shouted into his brother’s face, grappling with Howard’s arms that were slippery with oily sweat.

Howard! For God’s sake, let it go!

Still Howard kept straining, eyes closed to the night, until finally the dogwood staff splintered and shattered, and Jack was thrown to the ground.

Looking up into the dizzy light from the spinning torches, Jack saw Howard standing with the broken staff in his hand, his face a terrible twisted mask of anguish. With a strange, cracking moan, Howard reared back and flung the broken staff off over the heads of the men out of the circle of light and into the darkness beyond.

E
VERYONE IN
F
RANKLIN
knew that Tazwell Minnix ran a clean, orderly farm in the Boone’s Mill section of the county. In early December as the sun rolled over Smith Mountain, spilling light on the frosted hills and fields, Jack Bondurant parked his car at the edge of Minnix’s lawn. The grass crunched under his wheels, the blades frozen hard. Jack shut down the vehicle and blew into his hands.

Tom C. Cundiff had been picked up for the assault on Deputy John Horsely. In the courtroom he lunged at Carter Lee and had to be chained to the floor. He was sentenced to two years and as he was dragged out he swore violent retribution.

Cricket Pate was dead. A few weeks after the destruction of the stills he was found lying on a shallow sandbar in Maggodee Creek, his open mouth packed full of red clay. He had forty cents and a few cigar stubs in his pockets. The stretch of creek ran about twelve inches deep in a mountain downpour. The sheriff’s department ruled it an accidental drowning, which everyone knew was a complete farce. There was no funeral but Forrest paid for a plot and stone, and Jack went through the burial with a stony feeling in his heart.

When Jack got out of the car Minnix’s dogs set to a chorus of yelps from their compound behind the house. Tazwell Minnix had a dozen hounds that he had bred and trained himself, excellent hunting dogs without equal in the county. Jack straightened himself and took off his hat, smoothing his hair, wiping the excess pomade on his handkerchief. That morning he elected to go with a simple gray three-piece suit, cuffed trousers with his black brogans buffed to a high sheen, an outfit that he felt bespoke his seriousness.

Before he could knock the front door was flung open, Bertha, her face stricken with anguish.

Oh, Jack, she cried. R. L. Minnix sat at a table stirring his coffee. He craned his neck around and squinted at the door.

Who’s there?

They wouldn’t let him in, Bertha said. Why would they do that?

And she flung herself into his surprised arms.

When they came around the side of the house everything seemed to be normal, the dogs leaping and barking, Tazwell in the pen sifting through the wriggling animals. He had built a wooden shelter for his dogs to lie in at night, the floor covered with discarded blankets. Tazwell made his way to a lone dog standing near the back of the pen. It was tan and white and small, a runt that was prone to taking a beating in the yard. The dog didn’t move as Tazwell approached, and coming closer Jack could see the light, sparkling sheen on the animal, the ice in its nostrils, the eyes filmed over with gray frost. The dog had frozen to death overnight, standing outside the pen. Tazwell knelt before the dog and regarded it like an icon. R.L. tottered up beside him, squinting.

Well, I’ll be…, the old man muttered, letting the curse hang in the air unsaid.

I ain’t never seen anything like it in the world, Tazwell said.

Bertha clutched at Jack’s shoulder.

Why’d they do that? Bertha said. They didn’t let him in the house!

When they returned to the house Bertha relaxed, her grief turning to exhaustion. R.L. squinted at Jack and growled to himself.

I’m sorry for what happened here, sir, Jack said. If I woulda known…

Tazwell sat at the table with his arms cast out on the table.

What possible business you have here, son? What?

I’ve come to make my intentions known, Jack said. Concernin’ Bertha.

Jack opened his coat and buttoned it again.

Things are changin’, Jack said. I know’d that I caused you trouble before, and I want to say that I’m sorry for it. Things are going to be different.

Tazwell seemed to be listening but his face was incredulous and furrowed, inspecting Jack as if he were some kind of apparition.

We know, R.L. said, where your money comes from.

I want to make my intentions known, Jack said. We…we’ve seen a bit of each other now and then. I just want to put it in the clear. I’m giving you my word. I’m giving up all the other soon as I get my packet together and get a good patch of land.

R.L.’s face was inflamed with ire. Jack steadied his breathing, watching Bertha as she stared wide-eyed at the floor, blinking slowly, her face slick with tears.

That dog didn’t have a name, Tazwell murmured. Without a name the poor thing had no soul.

O
UT FRONT
Bertha leaned into Jack.

It isn’t right, Bertha said.

Jack put his arm around her. Their breath steamed around them.

Those dogs didn’t know better. Just plain bad luck.

No, Bertha said. Something awful is going to happen, I can feel it.

L
EAVE IT
, Lucy said from the doorway.

She stood nursing the baby, the light from the kitchen framing her silhouette, hips canted to the side, the baby’s head cradled in her palm. Howard was on his hands and knees by the bed. He could see the layer of dust on the ax that lay under the bed, put there before Lucy went into labor.

We ain’t out of it yet, Lucy said.

She turned and went back to the kitchen. A pan of corn bread was cooling on the counter next to a small bowl of stewed tomatoes. She slung a dish towel over her other shoulder and while the baby nursed she placed a pitcher of buttermilk on the table, two bowls, two spoons, and sprinkled some salt on the tomatoes. A pot of wild ramps boiled on the stove. The baby was asleep when they sat down but was startled awake when Howard turned away and sneezed three times, quickly. The baby blinked and gurgled before relaxing her cheek on Lucy’s shoulder. Howard spooned some tomatoes into his bowl while Lucy broke up the corn bread.

He was thinking of the old still, one he’d run with Jamison and some others years before, tucked into another fold up on Turkeycock. The mash was already working up a good steam, all the supplies paid for by Forrest, including another car.

I could head up to my mother’s, Lucy said. They’d take me and her in.

No, Howard said. Ain’t gonna do that.

If the weather held, in a few days they would run four cars up to Roanoke County and to Floyd Carter’s gang, who guaranteed them five a gallon. His cut would see them through the winter. The thought of it exhausted Howard as he bent to his bowl of tomatoes, though at the same time he knew that he would go on. He would finish this meal, sleep like a dead man, and the next morning he would go out and do it all again. Lucy slid a plate of ramps to him on the table. Howard eyed the onions steaming on the plate, their strong odor burning in his sinuses.

You need to eat ’em, Lucy said. Purify the blood.

Howard grunted and turned back to his tomatoes.

Lord knows, Lucy said, you sure need some purifying. The stuff you put in you. It’s a miracle you alive.

Howard forked the ramps into his mouth, contemplating the fine hairs on Lucy’s forearms, the way she smoothed them with her hand. He thought of the wood chopping, the deep taproots they hacked off, roots that tunneled deep into the interior of things. The locust larvae clinging to the roots, fat and white like grubs, sucking the moisture from the pulpy flesh. They stayed under there for a dozen years and more, waiting for the right moment. To cling to a root in the moist darkness, no sound but the beating of your own heart, waiting for that silent signal to rise. True enough, he thought, I oughta be dead.

Maybe that’s the problem, Lucy said.

She fiddled with the mad stone that hung on a cord around her neck, a smooth flat stone that Howard found in the belly of a deer. It would protect her from poison and dog bites and Howard liked the pearly opalescence of it, the way it lay flat against her collarbone. The baby gurgled contentedly.

Maybe, Lucy said, all that stuff you puttin’ in youself is the reason why our children is born the way they is.

Here it is, Howard thought, she finally said it. He had a flare of rage and his fingers gripped the table. He could shatter it with his hands or flip it like a coin across the room. He began to play it out in his mind, the way it would go. Lucy saw the look on his face and quickly got up, backing away, holding the baby with both hands. Howard looked at his hands, his knuckles torn and scabbed from wood cutting and the log-rolling game.

Hell, he thought, what is the goddamn point, anyway?

I can’t break myself. No matter how hard I try.

F
ORREST SET
the valise on the counter between them.

What’s that? Maggie said.

The money. I want you to take it.

Maggie lit a cigarette.

What am I gonna do with it?

Don’t know. Whatever you want.

She seemed to consider this for a moment, then reached over and unbuckled the valise. Forrest wanted to reach out and take hold of her wrists but he didn’t. She looked at the stacked bills inside for a moment, then closed the valise.

Let me ask you something first, Forrest said. All right? And I’ll need an answer.

Maggie stared at him for a moment, her eyes narrowing, a tight smile on her lips.

I ain’t for sale. You might just get it for free.

It ain’t that. Somethin’ else.

Her face hardened and she turned to walk back into the kitchen. Forrest reached for her elbow, brushing her with his fingers. When he touched her she froze.

Please, he said. I got to know what happened.

Nothing, she said.

Maggie stood at the kitchen door, arms folded, her back to him.

What? Look at me.

Forrest suddenly wanted forgiveness from this woman for everything he had done in his life.

I’m sorry, he said. I was the one that brought that trouble in here.

No, she said. That don’t matter none. It weren’t you.

Either way. Look at me.

She turned to face him.

I just gotta know.

Not a damn thing, she said, her voice low and measured. Now you know. Not a goddamn one of ’em, she said,
ever
did a damn thing to me.

He heard her footsteps clomping up the stairs, across the floor, and the groan of the bedsprings. Forrest walked over to the radio by the front window and turned the knob. It crackled to life and he scanned the static as he gazed out the window down the road that led across Maggodee Creek.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
Forrest eyed the snow through the upstairs window as he slipped on his heavy socks, dungarees, wool shirt. The woods across the road from the filling station were dead still, the sifting snow falling straight down and piling neatly along the crooked fingers of birch and oak trees. Small drifts gathered on the windowsill. The weather would make things more difficult, Forrest thought, particularly the driving. They would need snow chains and shovels.

Downstairs the kitchen was black and cold and smelled of bacon grease and smoke. He lit the grill and started coffee before shrugging on his heavy car coat and stepping outside to clear off the fuel pumps and check the gauges. He thought of the storage shed behind the station, bare now save for empty five-gallon cans and crates of jars. Everett Dillon’s face, blank as a clear sky when Forrest handed him the money. He accepted the deal immediately. He must believe that I can protect him, Forrest thought.

During the winter nearly anyone in the southern reaches of Virginia and northwest Carolina who was making cold-weather booze came through Franklin County to unload their wares. They were mostly scrawny, desperate mountain men, blue in the face, an unruly, stinking lot of spitting fools. Most came by Forrest’s Blackwater station because they knew they would get a good price without trouble. Forrest was a known, stable quantity, a poor man’s only real lasting wish. But it had been weeks since he’d had a run through, dropping off or picking up. He knew it was Carter Lee. They had destroyed the stills and locked him down, and now, Forrest thought, they would simply wait him out.

The cold intermittent touch of snow on his face reminded him of that night at the County Line, which for some reason always brought him a comforting feeling. He had been afraid as he knelt there in the parking lot, he was afraid of dying, and this thought made him want to go back to his bedroom and lie on the narrow cot with his blankets pulled up to his chin. They would have to go through with it. Once disorder was introduced to the world it could not be undone.

Walking back into the station he searched himself for a possible change, something that was different. Shouldn’t something like that change a man? Forrest sliced some bread and cracked eggs on the steaming grill and worked the spatula around the bubbling edges. He had the same wants and needs, the world as a whole looked the same. His feet still got cold in his boots, his eyes ached when he did the books in low light, he still stood in dark rooms for hours while others slept, his mind refusing to rest.

There was a rustle of cloth and bare feet on the floor and then Maggie appeared beside him. She took a cup down from the cupboard and poured herself coffee. She gave him a thin smile, her dark eyes smudged with sleeplessness. Forrest slid an egg and some buttered toast onto a chipped plate and handed it to her. Maggie stood by the window overlooking the road, chewing on her toast. Forrest watched her face as she took in the snowfall and felt his heart seize in his chest.