Nash Reardon said, “Easton Sasser?”
Daddy still didn’t respond.
The man with the eye patch said, “I recognize him; it’s
him.”
He took the patch off, exposing what was beneath it, an
empty, pink eye socket. Daddy had no reaction and acted as if he was in another place.
The man said, “Remember this?”
Daddy ignored him, his expression passive, staring straight
ahead. He moved slightly, trying to face me, but both Nash
Reardon and the other man closed in tighter, like they thought he might try to make a run for it.
Mr. Reardon said, “Good stuff, Smith. Let’s get on back to
town, and get the process started for his day in court.”
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The man called Smith pulled the patch back over his eye.
Mr. Reardon motioned for Daddy to follow him, while Smith
and the other man stayed behind and began hacking at the
still. Daddy came within twenty feet of me. He didn’t dare
look at where I was hiding, and there was nothing I could do except watch as he went by. Once he and Nash Reardon were
out of sight, I didn’t move while the pounding and banging
went on. Like before with Boomer, the distinct smell came
as Daddy’s shine gushed out and onto the ground. They left
soon after. I remained, head down, bewildered and shaken
by what I’d heard and witnessed. I didn’t feel vindicated like I thought I would, and all the anger I’d held on to for years suddenly seemed petty.
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Chapter 21
I remained in the hiding spot for some time, tears free-falling off my jawbone. Finally, knees cramping, I had to stand. I rose from my crouched position, stiff-legged. I stepped into the
clearing, waited, and listened. Blood rushed to my deadened
feet, the way the water rushed over the rocks nearby. I left, moving slow while sniffling. I stayed off the usual path just in case, so it took a while before I made it back to where the truck was parked. I was too nervous to go to it right away,
and I hid behind a tree, staring at it, noting it was well hidden. We’d not seen anything odd when we first got there,
and I couldn’t imagine how they’d found the still. Wary and
skittish, I tried to decide when to take a chance. I had to get home, had to figure out what to do. I half-ran, half-stumbled to the truck, opened the door, and slid in. I dug the keys out of my shirt pocket, panting in the manner of a dog during the summer, apprehension making my hands tremble as I gripped
the steering wheel. I cranked the truck, reversed, and went
down the path fast as I could without wrecking.
On Highway 18 I relaxed some, but kept my eyes on the
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rearview. An occasional car whizzed from the opposite direc-
tion, but there was no one else on the road. Before long I was back on Shine Mountain, and going at a speed fast enough
to make the truck doors rattle like they might come off the
hinges. I rounded the curve to the house and pulled into our drive. Around back, I noticed Uncle Virgil’s truck was gone, him still off looking for that job. I dreaded telling everyone about Daddy, and believed Uncle Virgil would go clear off his rocker once he heard. He’d take off out of here on a revenge mission, but it was telling Merritt that would be hardest. I went in the back door, sickened by the thought. He sat at the table alone, apparently mad, and upset.
I said, “Where’s Aunt Juanita and Oral?”
With a strange glance, he said, “Gone.”
“What do you mean gone?”
“They’re gone and they ain’t coming back.”
I sat down at the table with him, and waited for what else
had gone wrong today.
He said, “Soon as you, Daddy, and Uncle Virgil left, Aunt
Juanita said, ‘I ain’t sitting here waiting on more trouble to come. I’ve had about a bait of it. You tell your uncle he can find me at Mama’s.’”
I said, “But how’d they get there?”
“She called her mama. She picked them up an hour later. I
think she had it planned.”
I sat back on the chair. It was a surprise, then again not.
She’d threatened it. I stalled, unsure how to begin about
Daddy.
I said, “Uncle Virgil will go after her, job or no job.”
Merritt lifted his shoulders like it didn’t matter all that
much to him. He got up and looked out the door into the
backyard. “Where’s Daddy?”
Merritt scanned the backyard before he spun around, and
said, “Where’s he at?”
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I couldn’t hardly speak right when I said, “Come sit down.”
His voice angry, he said, “Is what you’re gonna say got any-
thing to do with the way you look?”
I could only imagine. Eyes wild and hair stringy. Pale-
faced. Sweat making my clothes droop like they were hang-
ing on a clothesline.
I said, “Daddy got caught by revenuers.”
He went still, mouth open in disbelief, and I went to study-
ing the streaks in the wood of the cabinets, the tabletop where someone’s greasy fingerprints showed up. That made me
think about Daddy getting fingerprinted. I could hear Mer-
ritt fighting not to cry, a muffled noise like he’d swallowed wrong.
My voice low, I offered the details. “He did like he always
does. He went first, and as soon as he was close enough, they came out of the woods where they’d been hiding and waiting.”
“How’d they find it?”
“How do I know?”
My voice was higher pitched, sounding like I ought to be
blamed even when I shouldn’t. Everything was tangled as a
briar patch.
Merritt said, “It’s because of you, and you know it.”
Worried, I said, “What do you mean, because of me?”
“You’ve always talked about how you hate it. Wishing
Daddy would stop. Oral told me about you wanting to mess
up our stills. He said you’re the reason their house burned
down. I didn’t want to believe him, but why would he make
that up?”
Shame flushed my face while Merritt stared at me like I
wasn’t anybody he wanted to know.
I said, “It’s true, I did want to stop him from making li-
quor, but I didn’t have nothing to do with him being caught.
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were doing, did he? I bet he didn’t open his mouth about that.
Come with me.”
He shoved his hand in his pocket, his expression defiant.
He said, “What for?”
“You won’t believe me if I told you, so you got to come see
for yourself.”
I led the way out the back door, up the hill, and around to
the back of the shed.
Once there, Merritt said, “I don’t see nothing.”
I could see what he couldn’t, funny little disturbed areas in the grass, subtle, but there. I went t
o one area, and pulled on a section of grass. Up came a chunk at least one foot by one foot, like pulling a cap off someone’s head. I got on my hands and knees and moved the loosened soil. It was easy. I lifted out a jar, held it up for Merritt to see. Empty.
I said, “They’ve been stealing Daddy’s money.”
Merritt looked incredulous, angrier.
He shouted, “And you didn’t say nothing? You might as
well have been stealing it too, Jessie!”
“I tried to fix it! Remember when Daddy found that five
hundred dollars? Remember how Oral said I could have
Mama’s picture back for five hundred dollars?”
He shook his head. Nothing I could tell him would make a
difference, but I told him anyway.
“I found that money in my room, hidden on the window-
sill. I was the one who put it back in his nightstand. I should’ve told him, but I figured putting it there would make him suspicious something was going on and he’d find out himself.”
He didn’t say anything for a minute; then he said, “You
tried to fix it without taking blame for it; that’s what you did.
Now what’re we gonna do?”
He was right. I hadn’t had the guts.
I said, “I don’t know.”
Later on the phone rang. What if those same calls started
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up again, as if the caller was sensing we were here alone, and vulnerable?
I picked the receiver up, hesitated, then said, “Hello?”
Daddy’s voice came across the line, “Jessie, it’s me.”
I sank against the wall. My throat closed up. I shut my eyes, and for the first time in as long as I could remember, I addressed him in the way I’d not done in years.
I said, “Daddy,” and started to cry.
He said, “I know, I know, but listen. I need you to listen.
Jessie? Stop crying; it ain’t gonna do no good.”
Which only made me cry harder, even while I tried not to.
After a few seconds I managed to say, “I’m okay. Go ahead.”
He said, “In my drawer is that money, that five hundred
dollars. I’ll use it for bail, get to come home for a bit. There will be a court date, but you and Merritt ought to know, it
might be I’m going to have to spend some time in here.”
I gripped the receiver when he said the amount for bail.
Coincidence?
I felt a little flicker of hope, and whispered, “Okay.”
Another voice in the background said something, and
Daddy said, “I got to go.”
The line went dead. I turned to Merritt.
His mouth was thin and determined, him ready to do
whatever Daddy asked. “What’d he say?”
I said, “He talked about posting bail. It’s five hundred dollars.”
I went down the hall to Daddy’s room, encouraged I might
redeem myself, if only a little bit. Merritt followed, watched as I opened the drawer. The money wasn’t there. Merritt
made a derisive noise as he left. I found him near the shed
furiously scraping at the ground. Just plain furious, really. I joined him without saying anything, and when we took a
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dug with hope, but as the day went on, I began to lose it when nothing was found.
Later that afternoon, I was surprised to see Uncle Virgil’s
truck coming up the drive. He climbed out and didn’t bother
looking up the hill. He went inside and I glanced over at
Merritt, but understood from his silence, I was on my own,
far as he was concerned. I started down the hill, and heard
him following some distance behind me. Uncle Virgil was in
my bedroom, and I watched from the doorway as he opened
and closed the closet door, the drawers on the bureau, moving faster and faster as he discovered Aunt Juanita’s things missing.
Merritt was a silent spectator behind me, yet I could feel an energy coming off him that made my spine tingle.
Uncle Virgil said, “Where’s her stuff ?”
I said, “Merritt said she’s gone to her mama’s. Her and Oral both. Said to tell you that’s where you’d find them.”
“I will be damned. I knew it!”
“There’s something else too.”
“What.” His voice was flat, guarded. With his hands shoved
into the pockets of his ragged coveralls, grass stains on the knees, I pictured him up on the hill where we’d been, doing
what we’d been doing. I couldn’t help but wonder how it was
that he could be brothers with Daddy. The only common
thing I could see between them was their last name.
I said, “Daddy got caught by revenuers earlier today. They
done took him down to the courthouse jail, and that’s where
he sits. He needs bail money.”
Uncle Virgil took a step backward, and sat on the bed.
“You shittin’ me?”
I shook my head.
“Sons a bitches.”
“We’ve been up on the hill, trying to find the money, and
there ain’t none left. None.”
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He said, “Well hell.”
“You ought to give it back, that and the five hundred dol-
lars that’s gone missing.”
Uncle Virgil shook his head, his voice rigid. “We had us an
agreement, remember?”
“I didn’t agree to nothing.”
“Why, sure you did.”
Frustrated, I said, “He’s stuck in there!”
“The odds was against him, and he got caught. It was
bound to happen to one of us, one of these days.”
Uncle Virgil leaned in so we were eye to eye.
“You tell your daddy I consider us even steven now. Tell
him I’d stick around, but I can’t get put in that there penitentiary. She’d never let me back in the house.”
He jingled his keys once, glanced about the room, then
walked by me into the hall where Merritt hovered.
He stopped, and said, “You want to come with me? I reckon
I can do that much for him. Look after his boy.”
The offer obviously didn’t extend to me, and the only way
I’d have gone with him was if he’d offered to pay Daddy’s
bail. Merritt appeared to consider it for a second.
He finally shook his head and Uncle Virgil said, “Suit
yourself.”
Out the door he went, cranked his truck, and tore down
the drive. We didn’t speak about Uncle Virgil or what he said.
We went back outside and up the hill, back to the futile effort of finding even a dollar bill. We dug the rest of that day, and again the next morning. All we found were three more empty
jars lying in knee-high weeds, discarded like trash. We began to dig random holes, stopping and starting over and over. Finally, we quit. Filled with dread, and feeling sick nonstop, I waited for Daddy to call again, and when the phone rang late the next day, I almost couldn’t get up to get it.
Distressed, I answered with a shaky voice, “H-h-hello.”
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He said, “Jessie. Why ain’t you done w
hat I told you to?”
I was at a loss for what to say.
“Why ain’t you come here yet to put up the bail?”
I blurted out, “We can’t find any money.”
I heard the intake of his breath and held my own. I waited,
knowing he’d get to asking me questions I wouldn’t be able
to answer.
He said, “I, myself, put it there, so it has to be there.”
I almost whispered, “No.”
“What?”
“It ain’t!”
He didn’t say anything for a few seconds; then he said,
“Somebody’s took it. Listen, near the shed . . .”
I confessed, “Uncle Virgil, maybe Oral, they might’ve been
digging around the shed some.”
“You saw them?”
“I wasn’t sure what they were doing.”
There was a long silence and I could hear a clanging noise
in the background, a gate being shut.
Finally, in a low, tight voice, Daddy said, “Put Merritt on.”
I motioned at Merritt, and he snatched the phone from my
hand, and where I hadn’t hardly been able to speak, he had
plenty to say. “It’s her fault, everything that’s happened. She wanted to ruin our stills, Oral said he overheard her friend Aubrey and her arguing about it.”
He stared right at me as he said this and he wasn’t finished.
“For all we know, it’s why they run us off the road that night.
Why I lost my arm, and can’t play ball no more. The reason
Uncle Virgil’s house burned, and Oral got branded. I bet it’s why you’re in there.”
I shook my head. It wasn’t true.
I said, “It ain’t true,” to the room.
Merritt listened to whatever Daddy was saying, responding
with a, “Yeah,” before he put the phone on the counter. He
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walked out of the kitchen, his back rigid with anger. I picked the phone up and put it up to my ear.
I said, “Daddy—” but he cut me off.
He didn’t sound like himself when he said, “Damn, Jessie.”
The line went dead again, not because he had to go this
time. That much I knew.
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Chapter 22
I was up on the hill, stabbing at the dirt again, searching in vain, when Mrs. Brewer showed up, waving a newspaper in