Light to the Hills: A Novel (81)

“Finn told me where the still is so we’d be sure to avoid it. He also told me Spider—I mean, Gripp—was due back from a run today. I expect if we leave right now, we can make it back ’fore midnight.”

Beady and Rai took with them a lantern; the box, which they held between them by its handles; and a pistol to have as a backup, both against Gripp and in case they ran across a bear or panther. They wasted no words, concentrating on where to plant their feet on the ground as they walked, neither keen to upset the box they carried, despite its hefty latch. When they got within a quarter mile of the site, Rai turned down the lantern and hung it from a belt she’d tied round her waist. They let their eyes adjust to the dark. A white waning moon hung low in the sky, casting a pale, thin light on the trees. Somewhere up to their left, an owl called, and they froze.

Rai motioned forward and they walked softly, straining their ears for any sound that didn’t belong. They picked up the trickle of a nearby creek and knew they must be close. Rai spotted the tangle of grapevine that Finn had described, the reason they didn’t venture much past this spot, but she also thought she knew how to go around it. A rustling to their right made them stop in their tracks, but Beady shook her head. It was only a mother possum creeping along the ground in search of food, three babies clinging with their pink feet to the wiry fur on its back.

The roosters would have long since gone to roost, but sometimes if they were disturbed, a rooster would crow at night, and Rai didn’t want to chance sounding that alarm. Silhouettes of the rooster shelters appeared here and there through a clearing in the trees. Then, she spotted a patch of green. It was foxfire, the glowing substance well known to mountain dwellers, and it lit a path around the grapevine like a divine map. Beady and Rai followed the glowing foxfire until they spotted the shed. Again, they stood still, barely daring to breathe. Any moonshiner, let alone one such as this, might shoot first and ask questions later if they were surprised by strangers.

Beady touched her ear and pointed to the shed, nodding. She could hear him in there. Rai closed her eyes, and sure enough, she heard it, too: the long, loud snores of a man who was laid out on drink. The time was right. Finn hadn’t said anything about dogs, but if he’d had one, any hound worth its salt would’ve barked by now. The pair crept forward, their skirts brushing their shins. Inch by inch, Beady eased the door open, and they both wrinkled their noses from the sour, unwashed smell of a place that hadn’t known a scrubbing in its life. There, in the corner, lay the source of their ills, the man of different names who preyed on mothers’ daughters. Moonlight shone weakly through the doorway, and in the dark, the white of his bare feet and outflung arms glowed.

Beady gestured to Rai to set the box down by the end of the pallet. She leaned down and, with a flick of her wrist, unfastened the iron latch, one that Jack Wick had no doubt fashioned in his forge. No need to open the lid. With the latch undone, the snakes would escape. They’d learned that lesson the hard way. Beady had told Rai that afternoon: the first time Jack had brought home rattlers and accidentally left the box unlatched, the lid was flipped and the box empty the next day. They were one long muscle, after all, and could push open surprisingly heavy lids by pressing against the top. More than one would be out in no time. To make sure, Beady riled them up a bit. She’d picked up a length of grapevine and thrust it into the holes on the side of the box, blindly poking at them until she heard the telltale rattles that meant they were coiled and ready. After so long in the cool darkness of the box and all that jostling, they would be drawn to the warmth and movement of a body.

Beady and Rai crept back out the door and waited just ’round the side of the shed. Sooner or later, he would wake to pee. Likker ran through a body faster than coffee.

It wasn’t long before they heard the thunk of the wooden lid as it hit the floor. The snakes were free. Gripp had heard it, too. His snoring stopped, and there was a rustling of the straw ticking as he shifted on his pallet, smacking his lips in a groggy haze. Rai gripped Beady’s hand as they crouched in the shadows beside the shack. He fumbled in the dark, thumping around and knocking over the jar that had been beside his bed. He cursed. Sooner than they’d expected, the first yelp. Had he stepped on one? Lain down on top of one that had curled up in the bed?

With a jerk of her head, Beady squeezed Rai’s hand and whispered, “For Sass.”

There was more fumbling. Rai and Beady detected the rattles, but then they were listening for them. Gripp was probably still not aware of what he faced in the dark shack, and the more he fumbled and shuffled around in the dark, the likelier he’d come too close to another. The metal clank of a lantern sounded, and another yelp, another curse.

Rai squeezed back. “For Amanda.”

A faint yellow light now glowed from beneath the door of the shack. Something heavy toppled over, perhaps stumps he used as a table and chair? Gripp’s yelps of pain turned guttural. He hollered in earnest now, with a fear and a dread that must have crept up from the pit of his pickled gut. There had been five snakes in the box. Rai thought surely the moment the lid had come off, all five had wasted no time escaping their prison. Another yelp and a holler. Gripp sobered up in record time. Rai counted at least three times he’d been bitten.

Rai, her eyes shut tight, whispered, “That ’un’s for Finn.”

“Wake up! Wake up!” Gripp yelled, his words still slurred.