Fiction: A Killing on a Bridge (2) A historical fiction

Saint Sebastian River Bridge
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By Roger Owens

April 1922, continued

When he finally recognized the Zeuch’s grove road through the battering rain, it was such a relief he stopped to draw a breath. He thought about that family’s name for a minute as he rested. They claimed it was pronounced “Zigh,” like “sigh,” and War’s daddy went by “Z.” Most folks just called them the “Zooks.”
    The puttering of the old engine was barely audible above the hammering drops as he sat there idling. From here it was only about twelve miles to the railroad, and it looked like he’d make it before dawn. He’d been worried he wouldn’t, and it would only take one thievin’ eye to spot his cache and rob them blind before they could sell their timber.
    Red pulled his tobacco pouch out and did his best to roll a cigarette with hands which, no matter how he wiped them on his pants, were still damp. He scowled at the result, hardly a cigarette at all. It looked like some damn cocoon from a moth. The ends were twisted to pins, otherwise he couldn’t keep the cut tobacco from falling out. He still wasted a lot.
    He bit off one end and struck a lucifer, puffing to get it going in the humid air. Satisfied he had a smoke going, he put the shift in gear and set off before the sun caught him out.

He knew where War and Floyd’s hide was

    Reaching the railway, he turned north and drove along the roadbed for a couple miles, past where he knew War and Floyd’s hide was, and made sure he checked that it was intact, looking out for them as agreed a couple months earlier. In another mile, he came to their own. The brush they’d cut to hide the trail was browning, and though the rain had helped keep it green, by next trip he’d have to cut more, or it would show.
    He dragged the branches away, pulled the truck into the shadow of the trees, and pulled the brush back to hide the entrance. He made sure to go back and rub out any marks the tires had caused. The rocks of the railbed didn’t show much but there were some damned cagey boys out on the tracks and the least chance of making an easy dollar brought them around like flies to cowshit.
    After wiping the black dust from his hands on his pants, he drove maybe a quarter mile into the woods and came to their woodpile. This was his third load, and the previous pile of planks and boards, to his great satisfaction, was right where he’d left it.
    He needed to unload the logs, exhausted as he was, and get some shut-eye. The sooner he got back, the sooner they could make some cash. He untied the load and positioned the truck just beside the last pile. He dragged the top ones back far enough to make the whole load rest its tail on the sandy soil, then got in and gunned the engine. With a grunt and a scrape, the truck slid out from under the load, which landed on the muddy ground with a thump and a squish. The truck’s ass sat up straight, like a mule ready to kick, and Amion sighed with pleasure.
    He reached behind the seat for the jug he’d left alone all that long night drive and took a good solid slash. His breath whooshed out, he shook his head, said a little “Whoo-eee!” and put the jug back. Without another move he fell over sideways on the cramped bench seat and commenced to snoring up a storm to rival last night’s rain.

Much of the east coast had once been named Mosquito County

He’d gotten about four hours of sleep when the sun got up high and the day turned off hot. The swarming mosquitoes hadn’t bothered him much, but the heat prodded him awake and he figured it was time to head back.
    He’d heard much of the east coast had once been named Mosquito County, hell, all the way over to Orlando, and the name wasn’t far off. Currently Vero was in Saint Lucie County, but there had been some talk of breaking away from Saint Lucie, because all the commissioners came from Fort Pierce and it seemed Vero and Sebastian often got the short end of the stick when it came to tax money and policing by the Sheriff. Leastways that’s what the older men said when they was sittin’ and sippin’ on the porch of the general store.
    The policing part suited Amion William just fine. Moonshinin’ was a crime, and he had no idea if anyone owned the swamp where he and Guy cut cypress or not, and he really didn’t give a damn, but Sheriff J.R. Merritt might see things a bit different.
    Merritt had just taken office that year. A feller named Ruffner had served out the last year or so of W.P. Monroe’s term before that, because Monroe had been killed in an “unexplained boating accident.” It wasn’t “unexplained” to most folks; everybody said it was them Ashley boys had done old Monroe in, and Red didn’t doubt it. Heard tell they was some hardcases all right, and didn’t cotton to no Sheriff nor nobody else a’messin’ in their bootleggin’ operations, and boats was somethin’ right up their alley. Hell, they was runnin’ rum from the Bahamas.

John Ashley got meaner, if that was even possible

    Two of John Ashley’s brothers had gone missin’ on the way back from Grand Bahama with a load, just a few months after Monroe got hisself blowed up on a confiscated rum runner, down Fort Pierce way. Might have been revenge for Monroe’s murder, nobody knew, but the word was, losing two brothers had only made John Ashley meaner, if that was even possible.
    Heard tell they’d burned out a few independent moonshiners too, and one or two went missing and figured for dead by the Ashleys’ hands. Others fell in line and paid the gang protection money for their operations. He didn’t think they’d have cause to come after him and Guy though, as they only made enough to drink themselves and maybe sell a jar or two to a buddy. And that was all over by the still in Blue Cypress, nowhere near the coast, which was what the Ashleys considered their personal territory.

Red made much better time driving back to the Blue, as the sun shone and the mud dried. In an hour and a half, he was back at the trail to their secret cutting. He drove past the hidden entrance, looking both ways and into the forest to see if anyone was watching. Satisfied he was alone, he dragged the cover away, drove in, and again replaced the cut branches and shuffled away any evidence on the road, which here was almost all sand.
    Once back in the truck he drove slowly through the shade under the cypresses and scrub oaks. Here and there he could see out to open patches of prairie, spotted with stands of slash pines and palmetto, where fresh grass grew waist-high in the noonday sun. This was good pig and deer country, and later he meant to get off away from the clearing and get them some camp meat.
    He and Guy had four more loads of logs to haul, and the next load would tip the scale to where Guy would have to come along and watch over the growing pile of lucrative timber by the railroad tracks. It would still be four or five days before they got back to their farm north of Vero, and their supplies of flour, corn meal and coffee were running thin. They had plenty of ’shine left though; Guy and his moonshine still made sure of that.
    When he pulled into the clearing, Guy was sitting on a cypress log next to the small fire that smoked under the boiler on that still, stirring the ashes and tossing on little cypress scraps. He’d been boiling some peanuts too, in water he dipped from the little creek just back of their pile of logs, and after two days they were near-about done. Took forever to boil pinders, but when they went all soft they sure were good, and you could just about to live off of them if you had nothing else.

Guy was a tad too fond of the ’shine

    He noticed Guy had cut a few more logs, which lay here and there around the cutting. He was a good worker, although he didn’t really care to drive and was a tad too fond of the ’shine. Now and again, he would wind up too drunk to do much, and it pissed Red off some, but hell, they were brothers and partners, so he didn’t make too much fuss about that.
    Guy got up, tossed the stick he was stirring the fire with into the flames, and went to give his little brother a hug. The Dedges were a close family, and by God when you came and went you hugged everybody in sight, family or not.
    “See you got some more cuttin’ done, that’s good.”
    Guy looked around and nodded. “Reckoned what with you doin’ all the hauling I art’a had something to show for my time other than sittin’ on a stump. Saw a few deer ’way off thataways,” pointing west towards where Blue Cypress Lake glittered through the trees and shadows, “but they ’as too far off and by the time I got my scattergun they was gone.”
    Red cut them each a piece of cane with his pocketknife and they chewed in silence, the sweet fiber rough on their tongues. Neither had the least notion that sugar cane would rot the teeth right out their heads before they were past thirty; it just tasted good, and that’s where the ’shine came from.
    The best ’shine came from Green German cane, as it had the highest sugar content. City boys didn’t know the difference between corn liquor and cane; technically moonshine was made from corn, and cane made “white lightnin’,” but the country boys just called it all ’shine. After all, most folks made and ran it at night, by moonlight, mainly to escape detection by the revenue men, and, since Prohibition, the lawmen too.

The ’shine business had gotten downright dangerous

    And since the Ashleys had made such a ruckus lately and even killed folks over it, the ’shine business round here had gotten downright dangerous. The lawmen were inclined to shoot first and ask questions later, due to the Ashleys and their kind, and many a farm boy had lost his life for nothing more than a few jugs of liquor. Just didn’t seem right they ought to go shooting innocent boys like that, but that’s the way it was.
    “Got some cornbread and collards in th’ pot, if’n you’re hungry,” Guy said, and Red allowed as he was.
    “My stomach thinks my throat done been cut,” he said with a grin, and Guy ladled a big lump of greens onto their one plate, handed him their one fork, and cut him a fat slice of cornbread. “Them boiled pinders’er done too, or art’a be. Got a bit of salt pork in them greens, that’ll stick to your ribs.”
    Another good thing about Guy was that he was a passable cook, a skill highly prized among unmarried men who mostly could grow food but weren’t often fond of preparing it. Red sat on a log and dug in.
    When he finished the food he tried to roll a cigarette and was failing badly when Guy came to his rescue. “Come on, let me.” One more damn thing Guy was good at: he rolled a tolerable cigarette. He rolled two, both from Red’s pouch, but damn, they were almost like factory rolls, thick, and flat on the ends.
    Red got a stick from the fire and lit them up. They smoked their pleasure into the warm, creaking day.
    When Red was done with his smoke, he went and brought the jug from behind the truck seat and they both took a slash. “That there’s some tol’able ’shine,” he said, and Guy followed that with “Damn right, who you think you’re talkin’ to?” Guy was right proud of his ’shine.
    Red wiped the plate clean with the last of the cornbread, which was tolerable as well, and stashed it in the lean-to. “Reckon we art’a get to it, them logs ain’t gonna load theyselves.”
    Guy nodded and went to get the loading strap. They used the same strap they normally drove the saw table with to lift the ends of the logs and set them on a stump so they could back the truck under them to load them up. Farm boys all knew every way there was to handle weights they otherwise couldn’t, just like Red had unloaded the logs at the railroad track.
    The sun was sinking low by the time they had a full load, and Red said he was thinking of going to try to get a hog.

Copyright © 2022 by Roger Owens