Blind tiger, p.15
Blind Tiger, page 15
Other jobs open to women required secretarial skills like typewriting and shorthand. She could learn to do both, but not without Irv’s knowledge, and she didn’t want to raise the subject with him until she had something already in place, giving him no opportunity to argue with her about it.
She also began keeping count of the nights he left the house and how long he stayed away. He was entitled to a private life, of course. He was a man, after all. But if he was gambling money away, or spending it on a woman, or women, instead of keeping their household bills current, she had a right to her say-so on the matter.
She planned and prepared to follow him at a moment’s notice the next time he slipped out the back door.
The night arrived. When she heard the back door closing behind him, she hurried downstairs and watched him from the kitchen window as he climbed into his truck and drove away.
She rushed outside, frantically cranked up her car, and, miraculously, it started the first time. She followed the taillights of Irv’s truck, never getting too close. He had repaired the faulty headlight, so she didn’t have to worry about a winking one giving her away.
Once he cleared the streets of town, he took the familiar highway that led to the shack. Maybe he simply missed his solitude and came out here to be alone. But when they reached the drive leading up to the old place, he drove on past.
The farther they got from town, the more uneasy Laurel became. Where on earth was he going?
When he turned off the highway, Laurel dropped farther back and switched off her headlights before carefully taking the same turn. But her ploy didn’t work. She topped a rise, and, there in the middle of the road, was Irv’s truck. He was standing in front of the tailgate with his hands on his hips. She pulled to a stop.
He walked up to her car, scowling. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice I was being followed?”
“Where are you going?”
“Dammit, Laurel!”
“Where are you going?”
He stewed, cursed under his breath, then said, “You want to know so bad? Come on then.”
He stalked lopsidedly back to his truck, climbed in, and pushed it into low gear. After a couple of miles, he turned onto another road, narrower and more rutted than the previous one. It wound its way between the hills. As they rounded a curve, Laurel saw flickering firelight ahead.
Irv pulled his truck off the road and drove cross-country toward the fire. The old truck jounced over the rugged ground, its headlight beams eerily bouncing off stands of cedar trees and rock formations. Laurel, with her teeth clenched to keep them from being jarred loose, followed and pulled up behind him when he braked and killed his engine.
He got out of his truck and waited as she picked her way over the rocky ground to join him. He extended his arms from his sides. “Well? Satisfied?”
She looked beyond him at the glow of the fire. “You camp out here?”
“Damn, girl. Wha’d’ya think? I’m making whiskey.”
Twenty-One
Muttering imprecations, Irv turned and led her toward the contraption being attended by a man she’d never seen before. As Irv and she approached, he stayed where he was, but stopped what he’d been doing and gaped at the two of them, slack-jawed.
He was holding onto a long stick that extended out of a pear-shaped metal vat, the rounded bottom of which was nestled in the center of a manmade stone pit. An opening had been left in the pit’s base in order to stoke and fuel the fire smoldering inside it. The fire’s smoke drifted out of a flue on the back side of the pit and curled up the face of a limestone outcropping, which formed a natural backdrop for the still, which seemed to Laurel to have been haphazardly engineered.
“Meet Mr. Earnest Sawyer,” Irv said. “Ernie, this is my nosy daughter-in-law, Laurel.”
The other man let go of the stick and doffed the brim of his newsboy’s cap. “Ma’am. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Me and Ernie worked together on the railroad,” Irv said. “Known and trusted each other for years. He’s from Kentucky. Knows everything there is to know about making corn liquor. So, when I retired, Ernie said to hell with the railroad and quit, too. We partnered up—”
“This is why you’ve been sneaking out at night?”
“You thought I was seeing a woman, didn’t you?”
“You’re making moonshine?”
“Good moonshine.”
“It’s illegal!” Her voice echoed off the surrounding hills, making both men cringe.
“Pipe down,” Irv said. “Sound carries out here. And, yes, it’s illegal, but it’s a living. A damn good one. How do you think I’m affording that rent house?”
She was presently too flabbergasted to cite the past due bills. She took in her immediate surroundings, which, by all indications, was a permanent encampment. In addition to the components of the whiskey-making apparatus, a tent had been erected at the edge of the clearing. It was dark in color and camouflaged by cedar boughs.
She took a closer look at Ernie Sawyer. He was as thin as a string bean; his overalls hung straight from the shoulder straps, seeming to touch him nowhere else. He wasn’t nearly as young as she, but not nearly as old as Irv. He was watching her with misgiving.
“You stay out here in the tent, Mr. Sawyer?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“All the time?”
“Mostly, yes, ma’am. Always when we’re doing runs.”
Laurel looked to Irv for clarification.
“A run is the process that starts with cooking the mash and ends with a jug of distilled whiskey. Ernie oversees the making of, I distribute. We split the revenue fifty-fifty.”
The pride with which he spoke left Laurel at a loss for words. Resuming her survey of the area, she noticed a number of metal barrels lined up. “What’s in those?”
“Mash. Fermenting till it’s ready to cook.”
“And all that?” She indicated a pile of what appeared to be building supplies.
“Materials to make our second still,” Irv said. “We’re duplicating this one, based on Ernie’s great-granddaddy’s design. It would already be assembled and doubling our production, but I had a list.”
She let that shot pass without comment. “What about your fix-it business?”
“A front. Don’t get me wrong. I fix plenty, I’m good at it and in demand. But driving around hither and yon, going from job to job, allows me to—”
“Distribute your product.”
“Secret-like. There’s a false floor in the bed of the truck. You can’t hear the jars clinking together with all my tools rattling around. Plus, I’m old and have a crippled hip.”
“He plays that up,” remarked Ernie.
Irv shot him a dirty look, then said to Laurel, “I’ve got the perfect cover.”
Still disbelieving, she rubbed her forehead, wet her lips. “It’s not only against the law, it’s dangerous. A local moonshiner was murdered recently. At his still. I read about it in the newspaper.”
“Wally Johnson,” Irv said with a snort of disdain. “The world’s better off, believe me.”
“They’s all sorry, them Johnsons,” Ernie said. “Sorry and mean. We’re smart enough not to cross ’em.”
Earnest was befittingly named. He spoke with perfect conviction. However, Laurel questioned his smarts. “Why didn’t you set up shop in Kentucky?” she asked him. “Isn’t it known for moonshining?”
Irv spoke up ahead of his partner. “So’s this area. Texas’s best held secret. There’s stills all over these parts.” He made a broad sweep with his hand. “Lot of hills to hide them in. Unlimited cedar and oak for the fires. Cedar gets it to going good, oak keeps it burning low and even.
“Hear that gurgle?” He angled his head toward the wall of limestone. “A natural spring flows out of that. Unlimited supply of cold, clean water, filtered by Mother Nature herself. You gotta have good water to make good ’shine.”
He pointed toward a wooden barrel with a spout close to the bottom which emptied into a glass jug with a funnel acting as a stopper. “Ernie’s great-granddaddy preached filtering and testing. First, filtering makes the whiskey smell and taste better. Testing prevents accidents.”
Ernie chimed in. “No Sawyer in my branch of the family tree has ever poisoned or blinded nobody. We don’t turn out popskull, neither.”
“Popskull is—”
“I don’t care what it is, Irv,” Laurel snapped, cutting him off. Then she took a deep, calming breath. Her father-in-law and his crony had obviously lost their marbles, to say nothing of their morality. She must make them see reason. “The consequences of what you’re doing could be dire.”
“Dire?”
“Dire. Who owns this land? Tell me it’s not government property.”
“No, me and Ernie own it. He chose this spot, saying it was as ideal a place for a still as he’d ever seen. The previous owner, a cotton farmer who’d lost three crops in three years straight to the boll weevil, was happy to get rid of some of his land that wasn’t fit to grow nothing. Ernie and me pooled our savings and relieved him of ten acres.
“The tract is long and skinny. Shaped sorta like a fishhook.” He drew one in the air. “We’re here, at the bottom of the bend. The shack is up here on top.”
She’d never thought to ask about who owned the shack and the plot it was on. “It seems farther than that.”
“Nope. The road loops and meanders around. But as the crow flies, the shack is just over that hill. Didn’t you ever notice the smoke coming from this direction?”
“I thought it was another house.” She’d had distractions, God knew, but her own gullibility fanned her temper. “You could get caught, Irv.”
“Haven’t yet, and we’ve been at it going on five years.”
“Yes, but now Prohibition is in effect.”
“Increasing the demand for whiskey,” he said, giving her a shrug that emphasized the practicality. “That’s why we want to double our production.”
“You could go to jail!”
“Not for the first offense. We’d be fined, is all.”
She flung her hand back toward their vehicles. “You drive around in that rattletrap, which is always breaking down, and it’s loaded with jars of moonshine? That’s…that’s begging to be found out.”
“I stage most of the truck’s breakdowns, so all its rattling is convincing. As for being found out, I’m in plain sight every day. People are used to seeing me.”
“Who do you sell to?”
“I have a route of regular customers that I keep supplied.”
“Someone, anyone, who buys from you could turn you in.”
“What kinda damn fool getting corn liquor delivered straight to his door would turn me in? Wives, now, are another thing. Gotta be careful of them, but that ain’t my problem.”
Infuriated by the logic of his arguments, she lashed out, “I should turn you in myself!” She pivoted and gave the two of them her back, hugging her elbows to her body.
Ernie hissed, “Shit, Irv. Have you gone plumb crazy, bringing her out here?”
“I didn’t bring her. She followed me,” Irv whispered back. Apparently both had forgotten how well sound carried.
On top of Derby’s suicide, on top of Pearl’s cruel death, on top of everything, THIS? Her father-in-law was committing a federal crime, with nonchalance and no shame, and for months she had been living off the profits of it, oblivious.
Dear God! When would enough be enough? What was she supposed to do about this?
“Laurel?” Irv said softly and with hesitation, “Are you gonna—”
She raised her hands, fingers spread, in an unspoken but emphatic demand that he not say another word. He fell silent.
She looked above at the panoply of stars. There was only a fingernail moon. The sky was very black. Somewhere in the distance a coyote yapped. While living out here in the shack, she’d gotten used to hearing them.
Now that she thought about it, it was remarkable how much she had gotten used to in the months she had been here. She was a different person from the woman who had left Sherman, clinging to the fragile hope that Derby and she would be happy together, or at least that their situation would improve. How naïve she’d been about love, loyalty, life, about a lot of things.
She looked down at the ground, pressed a loose rock deep into the chalky soil with the toe of her shoe, then turned her head and looked back at the still.
It was an odd configuration; all the separate parts of it looked crudely assembled, wrongly angled, and disjointed. She wandered over and went up the slight incline toward the limestone backdrop where Ernie had resumed using the long stick to stir the contents of the cooker.
Still regarding her with apprehension, he said, “It’s just beginning to bubble. We’ll be capping her soon.”
Laurel peered down into the simmering mixture, then looked over at the empty glass jug sitting on the ground beneath the spout of the barrel, waiting to be filled with a product in huge demand. She thought of the “file cabinet” full of unpaid bills.
She met Ernie’s nervous gaze, then turned to Irv.
“What’s the recipe?”
Twenty-Two
When Sheriff Amos strolled into the stable late one afternoon, Thatcher was in the center aisle grooming a mare that had been brought to him the day before.
“Another bucking bronco?” Bill asked.
“No, this one just needs to be taught that it’s not up to her when she’s ridden. Her owner has to chase her down. She has him trained, not the other way around.”
“I’ve seen your handbills all over town.”
“They’ve paid off. I’ve got only one empty stall.”
“Good for you. When you’re done there, let’s take a walk.”
Thatcher lowered the currycomb and looked over at the sheriff, whose grave expression indicated that this wasn’t a social call. He asked the first question that came to mind. “Has she been found?”
“No.”
Thatcher waited, but when the sheriff didn’t expand on that, he said, “Time to quit anyway.”
After returning the mare to her stall and putting away the grooming utensils, he walked with Bill toward the bridge. They didn’t cross. Instead the sheriff led him down the grassy embankment to the water’s edge. The creek’s current was sluggish.
Bill removed his hat and fanned his face. “This spot isn’t as cool as I thought it would be. Not much of a breeze.”
“Doesn’t bother me if it doesn’t bother you.”
The sheriff turned his head and gave Thatcher several moments of intense scrutiny. “Does anything bother you, Thatcher?”
“Lots of things.”
“You don’t show it.”
Thatcher raised a shoulder, not knowing how else to respond.
“What about people’s opinion of you?”
Thatcher shifted his stance and tilted his head to one side. “One thing that bothers me is for someone to beat around the bush.”
“All right.” Bill hiked up his gun belt and took a deep breath. “I officially called off the search for Mila Driscoll today. It’s been three weeks. Volunteers have petered out. I can’t spare the manpower to keep up the search.
“I informed Gabe in person. I promised to hop on any leads that turned up, but I’m not hopeful there’ll be any. The case remains open-ended.”
Thatcher was quick to catch on to the reason for this visit. “This leaves me the one and only suspect.”
The sheriff backed up to a butt-high boulder, propped himself against it, and folded his arms. “I don’t think you had anything to do with it, Thatcher. None at all. But people are funny.”
“It’ll be like a shadow of doubt following me around.”
“I hope not, but people—”
“Need somebody to blame.”
“It’s human nature.”
Thatcher knew Bill was right. An unsolved mystery was like a sore tooth. It couldn’t be left alone. He was the logical solution to this mystery, and, no matter what he did, in the back of some folks’ minds, he would continue to be.
He supposed he could leave town as suddenly as he’d arrived, but that would look like running and only justify suspicion. And where would he go? He could probably be hired on at another ranch, but that would somehow seem disloyal to Mr. Hobson. City life held no allure for him.
Wildcatters were actively soliciting for roughnecks to work in the new oil patches, promising good pay. But he’d be living in a men-only camp and doing a dirty and dangerous job. If that lifestyle had held any appeal for him, he would have stayed in the army.
For the time being, staying in Foley was his best option. But he knew the prejudice he would come up against every day, and that rankled. “Damn. There’ll always be those who think I’m guilty, won’t there?”
“Until proven otherwise. What do you think happened to her?”
“What difference does it make?”
“Venture a guess.”
“What for?”
“Why not?”
Thatcher hesitated, then squatted down, picked up a rock, bounced it against his palm a few times before pitching it overhanded into the creek. The plop sounded loud in the still air.
He squinted up at the sheriff from beneath the brim of his cowboy hat. “My guess? I’d say the doc had her with him when he left the house that night.”
The sheriff assumed a contemplative expression. “She wasn’t with him at Lefty’s. Or with him when he made the stop to check on that breech delivery.”
“Breech delivery?”
“I haven’t mentioned that to you?” Bill explained Dr. Driscoll’s second stop that night. “All had gone well, but because of that additional delay he didn’t get back home until after one o’clock when he discovered that Mrs. Driscoll wasn’t in their bed where he’d left her.”
“Nobody can vouch for that.”
“Except for the old biddy across the street who put Mayor Croft on to you. She says she saw their bedroom light go off around nine-thirty. That’s consistent with what Gabe told me about their bedtime. The light came back on around ten, then went back off only a few minutes later. Eleanor Wise saw him collecting his medical bag from his office. That light went off. He backed his car out of the driveway a few minutes after that.”
