The Whiskey Baron (16 page)

In Willie’s mind it was him walking Evelyn to the river tonight. He slid off the rail and onto the alternating ladder of gravel and tie. The woods thinned by the river, and although he didn’t know what was coming he knew it would be good. They walked in silence, her hand tucked neatly into his. Willie could feel her softness, and it made him conscious of his own rough, cracked skin, blistered and raw from the machines. His dirty clothes, his home-cut hair. Her hand was cool in his, and he could feel the bones in her knuckles. Every time the fabric of her dress brushed against his sleeve or his arm, he felt a tingle. Her creamy skin appeared bluish in the starlight, her features soft. She didn’t belong here with him, her blood a solid English stock, akin to aristocracy, he thought. Or maybe she had a drop of Spanish or Cherokee blood in her, some ways back, that darkened her hair.

At the river, they lay in the grass, and the grass was cool and dry beneath them. She lay back on the blanket they were about to unfold, and the flare in her eyes guided him to her. His body took control of him, and his hips rammed against hers. She bit her lower lip, and a moment later their lips meshed and he rolled on top of her. They pressed together until he burst. Then Willie relaxed and lay in the gray night, the stillness of the mill hill interrupted by the occasional creak of a board, or the shirr of leaves in the breeze.

F
ull dark had set in when Joe reached the edge of town. It was a little more than a mile walk from the Bell into Castle, but the road was flat and the weather was calm. Heat lightning flared far off in the east, but he knew it was headed elsewhere, that this region was dry tonight save the fog of humidity that would hang in the air deep into the night.

He arrived at the Hillside Inn and knocked. Three square knocks, the passcode for entry as pointless as the secret handshakes of the Masons. If you knew the right man to ask, or even if you just hung around the cotton mill long enough, no secrets existed.

“Who is it?” a voice asked.

“A weary traveler in need of brighter spirits.”

The door opened, and after he entered the darkness Depot Murphy replaced the beam across the doorway. The barkeep was a stumpy
man with arms larger around than his legs. Nearly bald, his head was burnt red as a cherry tomato and a few ugly white strands of hair curled along the side and back of his scalp. He shuffled back to the bar, said, “What say, Joe?”

Joe sucked his teeth, looked around. Two empty pool tables to the left, only one man sitting at the bar. The only light came from two bare bulbs jerryrigged to the ceiling and an oil lamp on the bar. Sawdust coated the planks of wood on the floor. Silence throughout. It was early yet, but there was a slight chance a few more would venture out on a Monday night, murder or no murder. He drew a seat at the bar, said, “Glass of whiskey.”

“You got it,” Depot said.

Without fanfare, he filled a glass with brown liquid and set it in front of Joe. The first glass of whiskey Joe’d had in twelve years. Prohibition hadn’t curtailed the county’s liquor trade, but it had helped Joe sober up. By the end of 1919, his firstborn was old enough to remember what he saw in his father. Joe remembered the curious look three-year-old Quinn had given him one night that Christmas when Joe’d stumbled in, fallen over in the living room, and laughed and laughed until he’d roused the entire family. He’d expected Quinn to cry like the baby he was, and for Susannah to rock him back to sleep, to give Joe a cold glare tonight, a talking-to tomorrow. Unpleasant, but forgettable.

Instead, Quinn had walked out of the bedroom on his own two legs and stared at his father. Perplexed, maybe, though not judgmental. Yet. The intelligence in his son’s eyes had haunted Joe, the way Quinn had picked up on his father’s weakness and seemed to understand the full story. Joe had woken to the memory of that look every day for more than a decade now, and the memory still filled him with shame. True, he missed the drink. It still was hard for him to sleep, harder still for him to come out to the Hillside Tavern on the few occasions he’d needed to find Mary Jane, to see a roomful of liquor being consumed like it was as legal as a Coca-Cola, and to walk away. But every time, he had managed to walk away, until now, when events finally outweighed the shame of that Christmas memory.

His hand shook as he held the glass. Before taking a sip, he said, “Sue’s father had a stroke on shift this afternoon.”

“That a fact?” Depot said.

“He’s all right, but he won’t be working for a while, if ever.”

“That’s a tough spot to be in,” the barkeep agreed.

“How’s business?”

“Would be better if there weren’t bloodstains on the pavement out there.”

“Sheriff came out to my house on Sunday. Said the rumor was Mary Jane had got himself involved here.”

Depot began to wipe down the bar with a dirty rag. “You could say that.”

“In fact, Chambers said it was Mary Jane who might have shot them.”

“You could say that, too.”

“You see it?”

Depot stopped. “Like I told Chambers, I saw Mary Jane come in here and march those boys out to the street, and then I heard two shots go off.”

“I sure hate to hear my brother’s messed up in anything like that.”

“He didn’t shoot me, didn’t shoot anyone in the bar,” Depot said. “Far as I’m concerned, whatever else that goes on, I don’t much care to know about it.”

Joe drained his glass in a single swallow. His throat caught fire and his belly smoldered. He closed his eyes, nodded. “Don’t care to know about it, huh?”

Depot started wiping the counter again, said, “That’s right.”

“Well. Pour me another’n.”

Depot brought him another, and Joe felt the liquor sidle into his blood. A hot calm, this was, much needed after Abel’s stroke. The family had been OK until today, but now their future remained to be seen. They wouldn’t leave Harvey Lane, that much was clear. Beyond that, who knew what the stroke would mean for them? Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.

He sipped his second shot of whiskey, relaxed into that old familiar stupor where the burdens of life fell away and your mind cleared. Funny how just a few sips could do that to you.

“It wasn’t him,” Joe said, thinking back on the wild days with Mary Jane, back when the brothers had first gotten back from France, when
Joe and Susannah still lived on the farm with her folks, and Willie and Hazel had yet to be born. Weekends, he and Mary Jane would go out regularly, and some weekdays too. Everyone has reckless years, he’d reasoned, and he’d earned some release in the service. Evidently, if the Roaring Twenties were any indication, the entire country felt the same. But Joe was never a part of that. Even after he quit drinking, he still tried to go out and have a big time. The end of the illusion came one night when Susannah was pregnant with Willie.

Joe was already working long days then, four to dusk on Abel’s cattle farm, but he was still young enough that the work hadn’t worn on him. He didn’t realize he was starting the rest of his life. He was just working and having fun. He and Susannah could leave Quinn with her folks, drive into town and go out with Mary Jane and his girlfriend, a woman named Arlene that Mary Jane was smitten with, and might even have married had he been able to get it together. Instead he’d gotten drunk, pissed on himself, and run screaming into the night, leaving Arlene a crying heap on the floor, an unhappy Susannah leaning over her, rubbing her back and giving Joe a glare that said, “No more.”

Joe put on his hat and strolled off after his brother. Least he could do was to make sure Mary Jane didn’t tumble into a ravine somewhere or drown in some body of water. As he listened to his brother wailing in the forest, the clap of tree limbs, the rustle of brush, he knew he should be grateful to be sober, grateful that he would not suffer a hangover in the morning, grateful that he would not have to endure the shame of sobering up, but instead he wanted to be right there with his brother. Drunk. Blotto. Stinko. He waded through Mary Jane’s blazed trail, darkness shading anything that might be there. The woods opened into a clearing with the burnt remains of some abandoned campfire. Mary Jane lay by the charred wood and stared up at the stars. When Joe reached him, his brother said, “Man, what a night.”

“Let’s get on back, Mary Jane.”

Joe sat beside his brother, who said, “I ain’t going nowhere. You remember when we used to visit Papaw and lay out under the stars? The whole mess of us.”

“I remember.” Their father sharecropped, their siblings all worked the land, but their grandfather had saved up and bought a square of land, more home to Joe than anything else. Land the family owned. Days long gone now. He’d hoped that by marrying Susannah and buying land from Abel, he’d be able to set up a life for his own children that he himself had never had, but the land wouldn’t work with them. They sold out when the boys were younger and had paid rent to the mill owners ever since. But that night out with Mary Jane, he still had reason to believe his life would turn out differently. Only one child so far, and he was buying property from Abel. His life was on the rise, so he didn’t agree when Mary Jane said, “Sometimes I think those were the best years of our life. Like we ain’t never come back from those nights out in the country.”

“Your mind’s just warped from the whiskey.”

“But that’s the thing. The whiskey makes me think clearer. Like I’m more aware now than I ever am sober. I feel it, man. It’s electric.”

Rather than reply, and consider his own demons, Joe left his brother there, retrieved his wife, and went home to their sleeping son.

Someone knocked on the door of the Hillside, and Depot opened the door. Two men came in, one in his thirties and the other maybe sixteen. Judging from the crisp clothing they wore, they looked like they lived in town, and they walked over to the pool tables like no one owned them and no one would dare try to stop them. Depot brought them a half-empty mason jar and two glasses. The older one looked familiar to Joe. He had a buzzed haircut and bald triangles above his temples that were spreading back high on his forehead. His skin was tanned, and he had gray-blue eyes, a sharp jawline, a puffy nose. Joe stared, and after a moment he got up and walked to them. “That you, Lester?” he said.

The man looked up, squinted. “Goddamn, Joey Hopewell. How you been?” They shook hands and Lester looked at his friend and said, “This is an old army buddy of mine. We were in Germany together.” To Joe, he said, “This is Moses Cope’s boy.”

“Little young, ain’t he?”

“I’m eighteen.” The boy’s voice was hoarse and on the verge of cracking.

“I’m sure you are.”

“Hell, Joey, long time.” Lester lowered his voice and leaned in: “I heard about Mary Jane yesterday. Damn shame.”

“It is that.” Joe refilled his glass from the jar of whiskey, said, “Hell, let’s get a game going.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Lester said, already reaching for a pool stick.

They started a game of pool but didn’t finish before another knock at the door interrupted them. Depot let another man into the tavern, his back dim in the shadow cast by the light at the bar. Joe leaned onto the pool table and shot. The cueball popped and sank the seven fast, and Depot said, “Evening, Sheriff. What brings you out?”

Joe leaned against his stool as the kid took his shot.

The sheriff sat at the bar, a big man, one you’d expect would be a lumberjack before a sheriff, broad shoulders stooped over, a thick beard covering the front of his neck, an olive green felt hat atop his bizarrely rounded head. He said, “I’m looking to talk to Larthan some more about them boys. He around?”

“He’ll be here directly.”

“How bout a drink while I wait?” He took off his hat and added, “Relax, Depot.”

Joe sipped his whiskey and stepped back up to the pool table. The room was starting to spin on him, the table unmoored on the barroom floor. The kid stood behind him and pushed at his shoulder. He was drunk and slurring that Joe shouldn’t miss this shot or else he was going to step up and whoop ass on him.

“Whoop ass,” the kid said. “You ain’t even going to get another shot. I’m a run the table.”

He shoved off Joe’s shoulder and stumbled back to the stool, missed, and fell into the wall.

“Hellfire, boy,” Lester whispered. “You better straighten up fore that sheriff decides to take a closer look at you.”

“Let him come. I ain’t scared. Let him come.”

Joe glanced at the bar, saw the sheriff hunched forward to talk to Depot. They weren’t looking this way yet, but he knew the sheriff wasn’t here to have a drink before calling it a day. It wouldn’t be but
a few more minutes before he ambled over here to try and see if Joe had heard from Mary Jane yet.

He sank his shot and rubbed chalk on the end of his stick and studied the table.

“Lucky break, but you better just make em all fore I come in there like some goddamn trench warfare,” the kid said.

“What do you know about trench warfare?” Lester asked. “You wasn’t even an itch in your pappy’s cock when me and Joey was off in the trenches.”

“I would have whooped up, though, just like I’m about to whoop up on this here pool table.”

Joe took a slug of liquor and said, “You boys can learn something from this.” The cueball zigzagged around the table, struck the one ball, and kept going. The one bounced twice and missed the side pocket.

“That’s a shame,” the kid said. When he moved to take his shot, he fell right over.

Lester howled. “Boy, you’re drunker’n a polecat that’s been guzzlin homebrew.”

Lester helped the kid stand, and Joe cursed about his missed shot, eyed the bar. The sheriff and the bartender looked their way, so he downed the last of his whiskey. “Watch him,” he said to Lester. “I’ll get us another’n.” He moved to the bar, aiming to get whatever the sheriff had to say to him over with. “How bout another pint?” he said to Depot.

“Seems that boy’s had his share and then some. Thisn’s for you and Lester, right?”

“Absolutely,” he said. While Depot went for another pint, Joe turned to the sheriff.

“Evening, Joe,” Chambers said.

“You taking a break after quittin time, or you investigating?”