The Wettest County in the World Read Online Free PDF Page B

looked like he hadn’t slept in all that time. Most important, he kept his mouth shut.
    Sure, Howard thought as he uncovered the mash boxes, he wants me there to back him up when he makes a big sale. Forrest wouldn’t even give him a cut of the deal; he’d just say he’d take it off what Howard owed him already. Howard picked up a jar from their previous run and shook it in the firelight to check the bead. Heavy bubbles the size of marbles settled on the surface of the liquid; 150 proof at least. Cundiff could watch the cooking mash through the night, and when he finally succumbed to exhaustion and went down, Danny would take his turn through the next day until Howard got back.
    Howard sent Danny off to gather more firewood and taking up a plank he stirred the mash boxes, checking under the cap of malt, dipping his finger and tasting the still beer. Before the light was gone completely they needed to get the first batch in the still, the mash already snowballing, the foaming, lumpy expression of fermentation that came to the surface and eventually overflowed the mash box. Cundiff rose from the fire and together they dragged the long half tube of beaten metal up to the run that they had diverted from a spring draining down the mountainside, and set up the flue that would carry a good stream of fresh water down to the cooling barrel that held the coil.
    An hour later they got the first mash box of beer into the still and Howard opened a fresh jar of corn whiskey, sending the metal lid spinning off into the darkening woods with a flick of his fingers. The three men sat by the fire splitting off the jar, wordless, the first sip like swallowing hot ash and then the rest strangely cool, like a refreshing drink from a spring, the three of them staring into the glowing coals, their numb throats working convulsively. When Danny finished off the jar he dashed the dregs into the fire and they exploded in blue light.
    Later as the evening grew dark and colder Howard fried up some bacon, sticking it under the still, and the men ate it with their fingers right out of the skillet.
    Why should I care? Howard thought. I ought to just let Forrest handle his own damn business. He blinked at the fire and thought about just what all he owed his brother.
    Cundiff was stirring the still and sealing the cap, tapping it down and crisscrossing the chains over the top to hold it down under the intense pressure. The thumper keg, connected by a length of copper pipe between the still and the condenser coil and filled with a slop of steaming mash, began to knock woodenly, a steady beat as the pressure built. Danny was sleeping, curled up near the side of the still, hands under his head, the hot bricks warming his skinny body, his pale ankles naked above his boots. There was a tinkle, a metallic music, a pattering of light, and for a moment Howard thought he was hearing music like bells ringing but then he breathed again and slouched lower on the log, the soles of his feet hot from the fire. The tall trees swam in conflicting arcs of light above him and he closed his eyes again.
    Howard awoke to find himself sitting on the ground leaning against the log before the furnace, Cundiff kneeling by the condenser, watching the singling coming out of the cooling barrel and into the pail, the first run working its slow, singular way in a tiny puff of steam, the foreshot bubbling with small knots of material, a hot stream of liquor and sediment. Cundiff’s face a flickering, cracked carapace like a beetle’s wing. Howard’s legs were splayed out before him like deadwood. He began to feel the mountain breathe with him; each time he expanded his chest the mountain swelled, bringing him hundreds of feet into the air, beyond the trees, into the darkness of the sky lit with stars that he dimly knew could not be there. Exhalation brought him back through the canopy to the ground, the fire shimmering crimson and gold through his eyelashes, then darkness.
    Howard’s