the Moonshine War (1969) (23 page)

He waited until the weapon was assembled and Frank was holding it up before he said, "I've got a few things to say about this party we're having, which I don't remember inviting anybody to. I've got some other things to sa
y a
bout this partnership you mentioned, Frank. But first, I think you better move your car out of the way, else Big Sweetheart isn't going to do you much good."

"That's sound advice," Frank Long said. It was. Not twenty minutes later Dr. Taulbee came down on them.

"Jesus Christ," Virgil Worthman said, "look at the cars!" He jumped up as the first car came out of the trees wobbling from side to side, easing along in the ruts. The men squatting with him got up and people in other groups, seeing two cars coming toward them, moved out of the way and stood watching. There was an old lady a boy had to help; somebody else snatched her blanket from the ground before the first car reached it.

There was no doubt who they were, the cars coming out of the trees from that direction, from the trail that led around to Son Martin's still. But when Bud Blackwell saw there were just the two cars, with what looked like three men in each, he took his time moving aside and the driver honked his horn at him.

"You had enough?" Bud said. "You all going home now?" The man in the back seat of the car nosed a tommy gun out the window and Bud shut up.

As the cars crept by Virgil Worthman said, "They're going for something. Jesus, I thought for a minute they were coming at us, but they're heading out."

"Like hell," a man near Virgil said. And somebody else said, "They're going right the same way Lowell Holbrook did!"

They were, too, following his tire tracks in the weeds, straight down the slope.

Frank Long said, "Well, here we go, boys,"

and turned the BAR in the direction of the cars.

He had taken over Aaron's window--once he'd pushed his car away from the porch--and swiveled the BAR around in the window sill, letting the sights roam over the yard and the barn. Holding the gun on an angle out the window, he could train it on the rocks above old man Martin's grave and sweep left into the trees. Dr. Taulbee was in for a surprise.

Lowell Holbrook was on the floor. Son and Aaron were at the second window, facing off the porch with a clear view of the two cars coming at them on a line from out of the pasture. The cars didn't belong to anybody in Marlett, Son was sure of that now, and Frank Long confirmed it. "Taulbee's fastest cars," he said. "But you can bet the doctor ain't in either of them."

Son could make out the barrel of an automatic shotgun sticking out the front window of the first car. He suspected the machine gun would be in back, but didn't see it until the first car was swerving at the corner of the house to cross in front of them and he was firing the Springfield at the sunspot on the windshield and Aaron's Winchester was going off in hi
s e
ar as the BAR opened up, filling the room with its hard-pounding racket. Son was aware of a Thompson fixing from the first car, but now he was swinging his front sight to the second car, firing twice to empty the clip, then brought up the Smith & Wesson to let go at the car's side windows. Now Aaron had emptied the Winchester; he grabbed the Remington and fired both barrels fast, without putting the gun to his shoulder, and the BAR kept pounding away. Son watched the first car veer off out of control and go through the front of the barn. The second car was running for open country with Long's BAR chasing it until the pan was empty and, in the silence, they watched the car bump and scrape its way to the far side of the pasture. Two men got out and ran for the trees. There were no sounds from the barn. Past the shattered frame of the opening, the rear end of the car was barely visible in the dimness.

They reloaded and sat watching the barn. Son looked over at Frank Long a few feet away, then let his gaze move outside again. He said, "Where do you think the whiskey's hid?"

Long answered without looking over. "Under your old daddy's grave."

Son could feel Aaron and Lowell Holbrook watching him. "A hundred and fifty barrels," he said. "That would be some hole."

"If you dug it straight down," Long said
, i l
ooking at him now. "But if the grave is sitting on a mine entrance or an air shaft, then it's something else."

"That's what you think, uh?"

"I think it's funny the old man is buried up there by himself when the rest of your kin are down in the graveyard."

"That's where he asked to be buried."

"You say it and people believe it. Like the light over the grave, you say he wanted it because he died in the dark of a mine shaft." Long turned from the window. "I say you rigged the light so you can keep an eye on your whiskey when it's dark."

Son watched him get up from the window and look around the room, the BAR under his arm now.

"What're you looking for?"

"The switch."

"Right behind you, on the wall."

Long turned. The light switch was near the window. He stooped then. "The tommy guns tore up your wall, didn't they? You can see the wires where they come in from outside.

As Son rose he glanced at Aaron, whose eyes shifted briefly and returned to Long. Past Long's shoulder they could see where the window frame and wall planks had been splintered by gunfire. Long pulled away fragments of wood, then worked a board loose and twisted it out of the wall.

"It might have shot up your wiring," he said. His back was to them as he looked closely into the opening. "You've got a number of wires in there for one light post, haven't you? I see two wires coming in. One goes up to the switch. What's this other one for?"

"I guess it used to be part of the house wiring," Son answered. "Goes down to the Delco outfit in the cellar."

Long straightened, leaning the BAR against the wall. "It doesn't look like it to me. I learned wiring in the Engineers same as you did."

Son kept watching him. "Probably for something my dad had hooked up."

"You're telling me a story now," Long said. "That wire comes in from outside." His eyes moved over the wall. "Runs along there--I'd say over to that cupboard." He walked past the stove to the other side of the room; stooping, he opened the lower doors of the cabinet.

"Can goods," Son told him.

"That's all I see."

Long remained stooped, feeling inside. He jiggled the bottom board, then pushed the cans aside and lifted the board, wedging it against the shelf above it.

Aaron turned from the window, letting the barrel of the Winchester rest on Long. Son didn't move or take his eyes from the man.

"Well, now," Long said, "look-it here." He glanced over his shoulder, then noticed Lowell Holbrook watching and motioned with his head. "Boy, you ever see one of these?"

Lowell came over. He didn't know if something was going to jump out of that dark space or what. "Get closer," Long said, and Lowell hunkered down next to him.

"Know what it is?"

"It looks like some kind of a box." "What's it look like with this handle in the top?"

Son straightened slightly. "Be careful now." "He means it," Long said. "For if I was to push down--"

Lowell knew what it was now. "It's a dynamite thingumajig--an exploder!"

Long looked over at Son, grinning. "That's what it is all right--hey, Son?--a dynamite thingumajig, like we used to have in the Engineers. Boy," he said then, "why do you suppose he'd wire up to his old daddy's grave?"

"I don't know," Lowell said. "To blow it up?"

"You believe he'd blow up his daddy's remains?"

"No, I don't think so."

"No, sir, his daddy ain't in that grave. Is he, Son?"

Son hesitated. "You're telling it."

"All right, I'd say his daddy's buried some place else. That grave, what looks like a grave, covers up an old mine shaft that tunnels into the hill, and that's where the whiskey's at, set with charges, so that anybody was to dig there and find the whiskey, Son pushes the plunger and boom, nobody gets it. How many sticks you got in the hole, Son?"

"About a hundred and fifty."

Long stood up, looking at Son, smiling. "A stick a barrel. That's more'n you'd need to do the job. Let's see now, you got the two wires running out there under the ground. Insulated good, are they?"

"In some lead pipe," Son answered. He felt Aaron looking at him again, like he was crazy to admit anything. But Long was right and he was here. They couldn't get rid of him or shoot him for knowing.

"So every evening," Long said now, "you turn on your light. If it works you know your wiring's good and hasn't got corroded or chewed up by little animal creatures. Son, that's pretty good thinking. Though if you was to blow it, that would be a terrible way to treat good whiskey."

"I guess you can see the point of it though," Son said.

"Yes, sir, if you don't take the whiskey out yourself, nobody does. But things are different now, Son. You got a partner."

"How does that make it different?"

"You won't need to think about blowing up your whiskey. I mean our whiskey." Long stooped at the cupboard again. He took a spring knife from his pocket, reached in and cut the wire connected to the plunger. "So you won't blow up our business when I'm not looking," Long said. He lifted out the box, dropped it, and proceeded to smash it into pieces with the stock of his BAR "Now then," he said, "let's figure out how we're going to run old Dr. Taulbee."

The only thing they decided for sure was that after dark Lowell Holbrook would slip out through the hollow and run home. If, Frank Long said, he wasn't afraid of being out in th
e d
ark. Lowell said he wasn't afraid of the dark, that wasn't the reason he wanted to stay. But Son told him no, he had done a brave thing, but he wasn't going to stay here to get shot at; it wasn't his affair. Frank Long told Lowell he was the best bellboy he had ever seen and gave ten dollars for bringing his suitcase.

Son, with the 12-gauge, saw Lowell across the yard. Coming back, Son approached the barn from the blind side, slipped through the fence rails and got up close to the building and pressed his ear against a seam in the boards. He listened for about ten minutes before going in and feeling his way to the car. He waited again, briefly, before striking a match. There were blood stains on both the front and rear seats, but no sign of the three men. Son went out the back, the way they would have left, and looked out over the open pasture in the moonlight, at the brush shadows and the dark mass of trees beyond. Then he circled back, around the barn to the house.

Later in the night, listening, watching the slope, Son touched Long's shoulder and pointed out into the darkness. "Straight up there," he said. "You know where the grave would be?" Long said he thought he did. "Then put your gun on it," Son told him. "Right above it."

Son put his hand on the light switch. "Yo
u r
eady?" As Long answered, Son turned it on.

A hundred yards away on the hillside, th
e g
rave and the light post and a moving figur
e w
ere illuminated and the BAR hammere
d t
hrough the darkness until the figure disappeared and the light went off as Son flicked the switch.

"Buddy," Long said, "that's a good idea. It's too bad we can't pull it more than once."

"Maybe we can." Son was staring out at the darkness. One idea was leading to another, an idea that could end this; but he said no more to Frank Long.

Chapter
Fifteen.

Friday morning, June 26, Dr. Taulbee made a decision: this would be the last day he could afford to sit out here in the piney woods, playing war.

It would be simple to outwait the man and starve him out. It had seemed simple before. But now, he realized, that could take a month for all anybody knew. Dr. Taulbee wasn't financing an extended campaign, or performing for the audience over on the ridge, or taking a chance that word of the siege wouldn't get in the county newspapers. That happened and before he knew it, the federal people would be driving up. No thank you.

He had been out here two days and two nights. To show for it he had four dead, another who probably wouldn't last the day, two more shot up, two cars out of commission, and eight men left who gave him sullen stares
,
waiting for him to think of something. He asked them, don't you want to get that boy's whiskey? Don't you want to get Frank Long? All right, a hundred-dollar bonus to the man that shoots him.

But he still had to convince them he knew what he was doing. He had to maintain their confidence. And, Jesus, if he didn't do another thing he had to keep them busy, away from the boy dying with the bullet in his chest. So this morning he kept six of them peppering away at the house with rifles while the other two drove to town to get Miley. He might as well keep Miley busy too. He had an idea for getting his boys in the mood for an all-out fight and needed Miley to help him.

The image Dr. Taulbee presented to the world that Friday morning was one of relaxed confidence. He sat in a wicker-back rocking chair on the porch of Son Martin's still, smoking a cigar, rocking gently, letting his tough boys from Louisville know he had the situation under control.