“About finished. Soon’s the cap passes Ernie’s inspection. He’s persnickety about the tapering. Says even before it’s sealed during a run, it’s gotta fit into the cooker as tight as a…” Clearing his throat, he’d left the analogy unspoken and simply said the fit had to be airtight.
He then circled back to other giveaways. “Don’t be caught with a stockpile of mason jars or sugar. Nobody needs twenty or thirty pounds of sugar at a time unless they’re making moonshine.”
“Where do you buy your supplies?”
“From my trusted suppliers, who will remain nameless.”
“Nameless to me?”
“Especially to you. For your own safety as well as theirs. They’re making money hand over fist, too, but they can’t be too obvious about it and jeopardize their legitimate businesses.”
“They could trust me.”
“The system doesn’t work that way, Laurel. Their trust in me doesn’t rub off on you. You’ll have to earn it yourself.”
“All right. But what’s the risk to me?”
“Competition for goods is fierce. Men have had knock-down-drag-outs over bags of Dixie Crystals. That might’ve been what got Wally Johnson killed.”
“The man who was murdered?”
“Gossip is that he hijacked a hay wagon loaded with contraband sugar that was meant for somebody else. I don’t know if it’s true, but it stands to reason. His family have recently upped their production to meet the demand in Ranger and Breckenridge.”
“Oil boom towns.”
“Yep. Populated by hundreds of thirsty men that the Johnsons intend to keep quenched.”
“Not you, though.”
“Hell no,” he said. “Those are lucrative markets, all right, but they come with risks Ernie and me aren’t willing to take. The men working on those drilling rigs are a tough crowd. They’ll shoot each other over a roll of dice, a perceived insult, or a whore. Pardon the mention.”
“I can hardly take offense, Irv. I’m a moonshiner, in no position to judge how another woman makes her living.”
“Well, around here they don’t walk the streets like in the boom towns. Mostly they ply their trade at Lefty’s.”
“The roadhouse.”
“That’s why I told you not to go near it. If a man is so inclined, he can take his pleasure in the rooms upstairs. Or get skunk drunk in the back room. Lefty’s is a regular den of iniquity. A blind tiger.”
“A what?”
He’d explained the term, and she was astonished.
“A speakeasy? Here? Where there’s a church on every corner?”
He snuffled. “Me and Ernie, and every moonshiner around, love nothing better than a tent revival that goes on for days. We raise more spirits selling corn liquor on the parking lot than the preachers raise under the tent. Make more money than what’s dropped in the offering plate, too.”
They laughed together before he turned solemn again. “When this new still is up and running, I’d like to expand the business. But those boom towns…naw,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m too old for all that rowdiness. And, if I was to poach on the Johnsons’ territory, they’d cut out my heart and feed it to a mad dog.
“Just as scary,” he went on, “are the government agents on the hunt for bootleggers and moonshiners. And it’s open season. They patrol every road going in and out of those oil towns, armed to the teeth. More and more of them are getting those new submachine guns. And even if it weren’t for the guns, Ernie and me don’t have a vehicle fast enough to outrun theirs.”
They fell into a ponderous silence, each lost in thought. Laurel picked up a piece of pie crust left on her plate and crumbled it between her finger and thumb. Her mother had taught her the technique of making it flaky. She remembered standing on a footstool in the kitchen, watching as her mother combined the ingredients and added cold water, one drop at a time, until the dough was the perfect consistency to roll out on the floured surface.
She often felt a wave of nostalgia for her mother. But never for her father. The condemnation he would heap on his daughter, the moonshiner, perversely deepened her determination to succeed at it.
“Tell me more about Lefty’s,” she said.
“It does a brisk business. Folks come from all round.”
“Who keeps him stocked?”
“A bootlegger out of Dallas. Or so I’m told. He’s talked about, but not by name. Lefty also supports the local economy, though.”
Laurel raised an inquisitive eyebrow.
All Irv said was, “Lefty and me have an understanding and do just fine by each other.”