“Son, if I was you, I’d stay here and keep that catfish out of sight or he’s liable to requisition all ten pounds of it.”
Jinx nodded. He stayed behind the curtain and peeked out.
“How do, Sheriff Dean?” Shady hoisted up four jugs full of whiskey and placed them on the bar. “There you go. Your twice-monthly requisition, right on schedule.”
“That it?” Sheriff Dean inquired skeptically.
“Every last drop,” Shady answered, his eyes not meeting the sheriff’s.
Jinx had seen Shady play enough poker hands to know that his friend had no knack for bluffing. There was more alcohol somewhere.
Sheriff Dean poured himself a shot and took a drink. It hit him like a fireball and he gave a wheezy cough. “What’d you put in that? Gasoline?”
“The corn was a little green,” Shady said apologetically.
“Truth is,” Sheriff Dean said, his eyes still watering from the whiskey, “I already got a fire in my belly. There was some trouble over at the Missionary Baptist Tent Revival in Joplin back in October. One fellow ended up dead.”
Jinx caught his breath and felt his knees get weak.
“That must’ve been some revival,” Shady said over his shoulder as he took the jugs two at a time out to the sheriff’s truck.
“Yeah, well, he didn’t die of praying,” Sheriff Dean said when Shady resumed his place at the bar. “He was stabbed. There’s two fellas they’re looking for. One older, one younger.”
“Is that right? Well, October was some time ago. I’m sure those fellas are long gone. I’ll bet you’re relieved that’s out of your jurisdiction.” Shady took up his rag and wiped the bar top to a shine. “I guess the Missouri boys’ll have to deal with it.”
The sheriff hoisted his belly sideways to show off his gun. “If only that were true, Shady. Thing is, one of those Missouri boys, the one that’s sheriff in Joplin, also happens to be my wife’s brother, Leonard Nagelman. Seems as though the whole affair had died down but now he’s got it in his head those fugitives stayed around here. Somebody thinks he saw the older one a few miles from here, near Scammon or Weir. Recognized him from the revival. ‘Keep an eye out,’ he says. Knowing Leonard, he’ll be sniffing around here till he finds someone he can string up, if you know what I mean.” He raised an eyebrow. “I’d prefer that he stay on his side of the state line.”
The sheriff started opening cabinets. “Man like yourself, with such a fine establishment, I bet you hear a lot of talk in a place like this,” he said, stepping past the curtain into the back room. His gaze went past the coat hook holding Shady’s raincoat, not noticing the two bare feet sticking out below.
He poked and prodded a bit around the back room, looking in the cookstove and under the table. Just as he was leaving, his foot bumped against the washtub, which gave a not-so-hollow sound. He kicked it over, revealing a jug of whiskey.
Sheriff Dean heaved a sigh. “You been holding out on me, Shady. And I thought we had an agreement. Now, I’m going to need double the amount by tomorrow, or I’ll shut you down.”
“Be reasonable, Sheriff. I can’t make that kind of liquor by tomorrow. It takes over a week to make a quality batch of deep shaft.”
Sheriff Dean caught sight of Jinx’s trout still tipping the scale at ten pounds. He yanked the apple from the fish’s mouth and tossed it to Shady. The scale pointer sagged below the ten-pound mark. “Looks like liquor’s not the only thing you been cheating on.” He slapped the fish onto the table and, in one clean stroke of the hatchet, lopped off its head. “There’s one thing I’d think you’d know about me by now, Shady.” He wrapped the catfish in a piece of newspaper and tucked it under his arm. “I always find what I’m looking for.” He hefted up the jug in the crook of his finger. “I’ll be by tomorrow. And you’ll keep an ear out for any news on those two runaways?”
“Will do.”
Sheriff Dean lumbered out of the place, leaving the screen door open. He cranked up his automobile and sped off, sending a plume of dust to settle on Shady’s clean bar top.
Jinx came out from his hiding spot, still a bit shaken. “Shady, I—”
Shady held up his hand and for a moment said nothing. Then he began again mopping off the dusty bar top. “Some fish get caught for biting and some fish just get caught for being in the wrong part of the pond.” Shady studied Jinx, letting his words find their mark. Then he leaned over the bar top, staring into the sheriff’s half-empty glass of whiskey. “I’m no diviner, but having been in the wrong part of the pond most of my life, I can usually tell which fish bite and which fish don’t. I suspect you may have found yourself in the wrong part of the pond a time or two.”
Jinx felt himself relax a little. “That man’s got you over a barrel,” he sighed.
Shady peered questioningly into the whiskey glass, seeming to look for an answer. “We’re living in drastic times, Jinx. War’s going on and a man trying to make a living gets his legs knocked out from under him by a crooked lawman. Where’s the justice?” Shady’s hand shook as he swallowed the last of the liquor. “Hand me that cork,” he said. “At least I can smell the stuff.”
Jinx picked up the damp cork and sniffed the strong whiskey aroma. He rolled it back and forth in his fingers and sniffed it again. There was something familiar about that smell.
“Give it here. A boy your age has better things to do than sniff hooch. I’d offer you breakfast, but seeing’s how all that’s left of it is an apple core …”
Jinx eyed the cork as if it was gold, then slipped it into his pocket. He hopped off the stool. “Drastic times call for drastic measures, Shady.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means meet me in the alley behind Velma T.’s tonight at midnight,” Jinx called over his shoulder as he let the screen door slam behind him.
The night was dark, lit only by a quarter moon. Shady looked around but could barely see the shed behind Velma T.’s house. He heard a twig snap.
“Hooo, hooo,” he called out, sounding like an owl who’d smoked a few too many stogies.
“Shady, over here, in the shed.”
Shady banged his head on the low doorway. He held his forehead, letting loose a string of oaths. “What’s this all about, Jinx? I’m surprised Velma T. lets you near her place after that explosion in her chemistry class.” Shady stooped to step inside, accidentally kicking one five-gallon jug against another. A dog barked.
“Shhh.” Jinx pulled the rickety door shut. “It wasn’t an explosion. It was more of a strong disagreement between some carbolic acid and nitrous oxide. Besides, I guess Miss Velma T. figures if I’m going to be in chemistry boot camp as punishment, she might as well put me to good use. She had me filling these jugs the other day. She’d just made up a new batch of one of her ‘good for what ails you’ elixirs.”
“I don’t think this stuff’s going to fix what’s ailing me. Sheriff Dean is still going to shut me down when I don’t have his whiskey ready by tomorrow.”
Jinx wiggled one of the corks out of a jug. “Smell this.”
Shady took a slight whiff, then a deeper one.
“Smell familiar? She used the same green corn you did in your last batch of whiskey.”
Shady sniffed again. “So?”
“So if it smells like whiskey, maybe it’ll taste enough like it to get Sheriff Dean off your back.”
Shady looked up as if seeing the light at the end of a long tunnel, but shook his head. “No can do. Velma T.’s not going to hand these jugs over. And I won’t abide stealing.”
“It wouldn’t be stealing. She said her elixir has to oxidize for two weeks. We’d just borrow some of hers now and replace it with some of yours later.”
“You don’t think she’ll be able to tell the difference?”
“She probably never drinks the stuff, but we can save some of hers and mix it with yours.”
Shady considered the prospect. “It’d sure make her concoction go down a litt
le easier. Maybe we’d be doing her a favor. More people might drink the stuff.”
Jinx handed Shady a hose. “We’ll siphon out a couple gallons from each jug and pour it in those empties.” A dog barked again as the two began work in silence.
Several nights later, the scene was identical except that the moon had waned to a sliver and the siphon was pouring liquid back into the jugs left half full of Velma T.’s elixir.
“Hand me that stick, Jinx.” Shady stirred each jug to blend the two elixirs.
“Everything go down all right with Sheriff Dean?” Jinx asked.
“Without a hitch. Said he was going to save it for a poker game he had coming up next Saturday. Said his brother-in-law was breathing down his neck to find those two runaways from the revival in Joplin. They’d been seen having an argument with the deceased before he come up dead. One older, one younger, he said.” Shady glanced sideways at Jinx. “Whoever it is better lay low or they’re going to find themselves in more than chemistry boot camp.”
Jinx jerked and nearly upset a half-filled jug.
“Take it easy there, Jinx. No sense getting the jitters now, we’re almost done.” He set the jug upright. “There now. Still plenty left. Besides, it’s not like this stuff’s going to save lives or anything.” Shady filled up the jug and replaced the cork.
Even after Shady’s comment about Sheriff Dean and his sheriff brother-in-law in Joplin, Jinx felt strangely at ease and comforted as they made their way back to Shady’s place. Never before had Jinx felt this safe. Manifest had been a refuge for him and he’d allowed himself to be lulled into thinking that bad things didn’t happen there. Not in Manifest.
But as they neared the German Fraternal Hall, he noticed that the area around it was strangely lit up. Shady put a hand firmly on Jinx’s elbow and they both stood motionless, staring at the sight before them. The men in their white hooded robes were nowhere to be found, but there in front of the small building stood a large cross set ablaze.
HATTIE MAE’S
NEWS AUXILIARY
JULY 20, 1918
Since the recent unfortunate happenings at the German Fraternal Hall, everyone has been on edge and the mood of the town has been somber. It is unclear if the motive was the Germans’ nationality or their attempt to organize at the mine. Mr. Keufer says future meetings of the order have been postponed until further notice.
It is in times like these that this news column cannot provide the needed comfort and solace. But as I was instructed in my journalism correspondence course through Harper’s Magazine, a good reporter must continue to do her job, even in the most trying of times. These are certainly trying times.
It has been one year since the first “Yanks” went overseas, and the country hoped they would be home by Christmas past. However, our boys rally on. The American Defense Society continues to push for abolishing Hun names in America. For example, changing sauerkraut to liberty cabbage and frankfurters to patriotic pups. However, many folks in Manifest seem to think that a bit unnecessary. Especially Mr. Hermann Keufer, who rather likes his name and does not consider himself or his sauerkraut to be a threat to national security.
Many of the soldiers from Camp Funston had a rough boat ride overseas and are still feeling indisposed with flu symptoms. The army doctor says he’s never seen such a fast-spreading outbreak but it should soon be under control. The troops will be pleased to know that Velma T. has sent off more relief parcels with her newly concocted elixir.
For Mrs. Larkin, who hasn’t been feeling herself of late, the elixir went down fairly easy the day of the Women’s Temperance League meeting. After consuming nearly an entire bottle, she appeared to be feeling better, and although her rendition of “How Dry I Am” was a little off tune and a somewhat surprising selection for the gathering, she did seem to have a healthy glow about her.
On a sad note, the Widow Cane passed away in her home on July 1. A foremost authority on prairie flora and fauna, she could discuss at length the thirty-seven varieties of hydrangea in Crawford County. Mrs. Cane was blessed with ninety-three years of healthy living, and several people who attended the funeral commented, “She didn’t look a day over ninety.” For all the whos, whats, whys, whens, and wheres both here and abroad, turn to “Hattie Mae’s News Auxiliary.”
HATTIE MAE HARPER
Reporter About Town
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Dead or Alive
JUNE 17, 1936
I folded Hattie Mae’s article and found myself in the same somber mood the town of Manifest had been in after that cross had been set on fire in front of the German Fraternal Hall. It usually didn’t take me long to find a “News Auxiliary” that related to Miss Sadie’s stories. The events she’d told me about so far had taken place over the course of several months and Hattie Mae’s articles were all dated and ready for reading. Plus I had time on my hands.
Lettie and Ruthanne were away for a couple of days at their great-aunt Bert’s second funeral. Her first, they said, had been on Aunt Bert’s seventy-fourth birthday. She’d wanted to hear all the nice things folks would say about her, so they went ahead and held the services early.
But this time was for real and Lettie said everyone was trying to come up with new nice things to say. Unfortunately, as Great-Aunt Bert could be a bit cantankerous, they were having to be creative. According to Lettie, most of the family agreed that in the future, family members would be allowed only one funeral and they’d have to pick if it would be when they were dead or alive.
With Lettie and Ruthanne gone and no new prospects on who the Rattler might be, I was left with nothing to do but hunt down more roots, weeds, herbs, and bugs for Miss Sadie. One morning she had me traipsing out at the crack of dawn for prickly poppy, toadflax, spiderwort, and skeleton weed. If that doesn’t sound like the makings of a witch’s brew, then I’m the queen of England.
I made a pass into town, hoping to stop by the newspaper office for a glance through some of Hattie Mae’s old newspapers. She was just pouring herself a cup of coffee.
“Well, good morning, Abilene.” She greeted me with a smile. “I’m fresh out of lemonade this morning. I’ve got a little milk if you’d like some.”
The smell of her fresh pot of coffee took me back to many a chilled morning with Gideon. “Could I have coffee, please?”
“Well, sure, if you think you’ll like it. There’s a little cream. Help yourself, sweet pea.”
I liked it when she called me sweet pea. “Thank you,” I said, pouring in more cream than coffee. I thumbed through a stack of papers, enjoying the smell of ink and newsprint. Those old newspapers were full of stories about all kinds of people in good times and bad. Mainly, I looked for “Hattie Mae’s News Auxiliary.” It was in her whos, whats, whys, whens, and wheres that I found the most colorful and interesting news.
“Hattie Mae,” I said, working up my nerve. “How come nobody seems to know much about my daddy?”
“Why, what do you mean?” she said, not looking at me. “I can tell you your daddy was sure one to fish—”
“I know, he fished, swam, and caused havoc. That’s what Shady said.” I remembered the look of revelation Shady’d had when I told him about Miss Sadie’s story. He’d been pretty tight-lipped about Gideon ever since. It seemed Hattie Mae had a case of lockjaw herself. I wondered if Miss Sadie had cast a spell over both of them. Maybe I could undo her hex. “There has to be something more. I m
ean, he lived here. If a person lived and breathed in a place, shouldn’t he have left some kind of mark? Shouldn’t there be some kind of whos, whats, whys, and wheres that he left behind?”
Hattie Mae put down her mug. “You miss your daddy, don’t you?”
I nodded, thinking that I had started missing him before we’d ever said goodbye.
“Well,” she said thoughtfully, “maybe what you’re looking for is not so much the mark your daddy made on this town, but the mark the town made on your daddy.” Hattie Mae stared into her coffee as if she was looking for the right words to say. “This town left its imprint on your daddy, probably more than even he knows. And sometimes it’s the marks that go the deepest that hurt the most.”
“Like a scar,” I said, touching my leg. It was that scar on my leg that marked me and had marked a change in Gideon.
Hattie Mae patted my arm. “That’s right, sweet pea.”
I cupped my hands around the coffee mug, trying to feel any warmth that might be left. It had gone cold. “Shady said to tell you he’s holding church services this Sunday night and he’d be pleased to have you.” Hattie Mae looked at me with a kind of sad smile. “Thanks for the coffee,” I said.
Billy Clayton rode up on his bike just as I was leaving. He had half a bag of newspapers left to deliver.
“Hey, Abilene,” he said. His freckles stood out even against his tan face.
“Hey, Billy,” I said, still distracted by my talk with Hattie Mae. “How’s your mama and that new baby brother of yours?” I remembered how relieved Billy had looked when Sister Redempta had told him his mother and the new baby were all right.
“They’re fine. Little Buster—that’s what I call him—he’s been pretty colicky. But Sister Redempta brought over some of Miss Sadie’s ginger tea. You just soak the tip of a rag in it and let him suck on it. Calms him right down.”