The Wettest County in the World Read Online Free PDF

running in a slap. And since he was fourteen Cricket made liquor up on the mountain, small batches of rotgut and jimmylegs, whatever he could scrape up.
    Relax, Jack said. I can drive anything.
    As he drove out of town to the south Jack worked his boots off and scratched his feet, careful to set his boots on the seat and out of the crusty mix of mud and leaves in the footwells, working the clutch with his bare feet. The two young men had the remnants of a cracked old still lined with mud daub on Smith Mountain, but no worm or cap and no money to stake the ingredients. Jack was hoping to get Howard to take him and Cricket on but he couldn’t get his oldest brother to even courtesy the subject. Jack thought for a moment about heading west over to the County Line Restaurant, to see if Forrest needed some help; perhaps Forrest would lend him the money. But he knew that his brother wouldn’t take to it: He never did. Besides, Cricket had to get back across to Smith Mountain by dark and Jack promised him if he took him into town he would get Howard to take them on as partners for a run. He knew Cricket had spent his last nickel to get a cup of coffee and doughnut while Jack talked to his brother. They drove down the darkening road in silence, Jack slowing now as he took the turns, turning the wheel easy with his palms. Cricket hadn’t asked how it went and Jack figured he didn’t have to tell him.
     
    N EARING DARK and trudging up Turkeycock Mountain, Danny working his way through the brush and jimsonweed with his hands, one holding the nearly empty jar, cursing the bluestone protrusions and roots and the cold. Howard a few paces behind, off to the side a dozen yards so as not to create the hint of a trail, shouldering the meal and bacon. The trees hung in stark relief against the dark blue sky, coal black like negative images, leafless and spindled. Howard found himself wishing for the warmth and cover of leaves.
    After a short plateau the two men walked through a copse of birch trees, and then on the eastern side of the mountain again and into a dense thicket of pine and gum that stood against the side of an exposed rock face nearly forty feet high. Firelight flickered at the base of the rock and Howard grimaced at the thought of how it would look from down in the valley; the square rock face lit up like a rising planet on the side of the mountain. But nobody would come up here, even if they knew. Especially if they knew. One of the easiest ways to end up with a faceful of birdshot was to creep up on an active moonshine camp at night. Danny began to call out toward the light, a series of high repeated whoops.
    Tom C. Cundiff sat on a log staring into the fire, a shotgun over his knees. He wore a scuffed bowler pulled low, a wool scarf tight around his neck. He was a wiry man with oversized facial features, his eyes broadly apart on his face and his limbs oddly stunted. The still sat in the shadows behind Cundiff, a hulking mass of dark metal. The camp was littered with firewood, splintered boards, cans of blackstrap molasses, and empty tins of potted meat and cracker wrappers. Howard walked over to the mash boxes they had hammered together the week before, four feet deep and three across, the outside seams sealed with clay mud. The blood pounded in his temples and he felt the liquor thrumming in his body. His nose ran freely and he wiped it on the sleeve of his coat. They would need extra wood for the slow-burning furnaces to keep the mash warm through the night. Cundiff hadn’t done this like he should, which meant there was something worrying his tragic, bent mind, but Howard also felt that rooted deep in the blue-eyed madness of Cundiff was a trickle of intelligence and compromise. Cundiff was the perfect partner in many ways: He could mix up a solid mash, determine the pressure by “whoppin’ the cap” with his fingertips, measure the bead and proof at a glance. He had been up on the mountain for four days now and it