Raw whiskey is raw whiskey. We buy this whiskey for two reasons: one, it's cheaper--they can sell it for about a dollar a gallon. It costs us nearly twice that much to distill our own raw whiskey. You get the taste of whiskey and the smoothness of whiskey in the way you age it and the way you handle it, so you see, that's why the raw whiskey they make is just as good as the raw whiskey that we make. But they've got another edge on us. Their raw whiskey is a higher proof than ours. You know what proof means, don't you?'
Longarm nodded, 'Yeah, I drink one-hundred-proof Maryland bourbon whiskey. Yes.'
Carson said, 'I've tasted it, and I understand. I don't think it's any better than the whiskey that my family makes, but every man to his own taste. Well, this raw whiskey that the Coltons make is about one hundred sixty proof, and about all you can make out of whiskey is one hundred ninety proof. That's about as high as she goes, nearly pure white lightning. But they make a higher proof going in than we do.'
Longarm said, 'How come that?'
'They use more sugar. You've got two big costs outside of your time and labor in making whiskey,' said Carson. 'That's the corn and especially the sugar. They use more sugar, so they get a higher proof. We can buy their raw whiskey and not only save by the gallon, but we can cut it even more and still end up with an eighty- or ninety-proof finished product. Of course, we lay ours down in barrels anywhere from six to eight years. They're not willing to do that, or maybe they are. Maybe they've got some laid back in the woods, I don't know. All I do know is that they sell a hell of a lot of raw whiskey. This is probably, right now, the whiskey capital of the United States.'
Longarm said, 'I see.' He thought a few moments, not certain he should say the next, but after a hesitation, he decided to go ahead. He said, 'But don't you save a little more than just the price per gallon over what you can distill it for?'
'How's that?'
'On them federal tax stamps. I've already heard about those. Ain't that what them Treasury folks are down here looking into?'
Carson gave him a small smile. He said, 'We don't save anything on the Treasury stamps. Once we get our whiskey ready to age, it goes into a bonded warehouse and there's a federal stamp goes on every barrel. We pay the tax. We ain't got no problems with that.'
Longarm smiled back at him. 'You mean to tell me that you can buy it here and carry it to Tennessee and there ain't no stamp involved?'
Carson gave him the barest of a look. 'I didn't say that, Mr. Long, and if I's you, I wouldn't pursue that line of thought.'
Longarm nodded. He said, 'I'm in your debt, sir. We'll play this your way.'
Carson took his reins up in his hands. He said, 'We better get moving; we've still got a pretty good little ride left, and you're likely to be wanting some supper before dawn. I know I will.'
As they rode, Longarm said, 'Frank, one little question keeps occurring to me. You are carrying me back into these hills where I reckon that every one of these gentlemen that I'm going to meet is going to have a long beard and an even longer rifle. What am I going to do back here, and how long am I supposed to stay?'
'Well, Custis, that's entirely up to you. I done what I thought was necessary in what little time was available. Now, you can turn around and ride back into town as far as I'm concerned, but if I's you, I'd kind of lay down behind the log for a while until things settle down a little bit. I would imagine that they're going to be scouring the country for you for the next week or so. That would be my guess. You did shoot a deputy sheriff, and you knocked the hell out of another one, and you scared the piss out of Morton Colton, which may have been the biggest mistake of all. So if I's you, I wouldn't be in too big a hurry to go flying around the country. I'd wait until such time as it was a little more settled.'
Longarm said, 'You say they are going to go to scouring the country for me? What's going to keep them from coming back here in these hollers or wherever it is we're going--these whiskey camps--looking for me there?'
Carson gave a sharp bark of laughter. 'I can promise you this. There ain't a lawman in the country that is going to come back into this area, not if they expect to come out alive. That's why they are very grateful to do business with Morton Colton right there in town. You couldn't pay one of them to come back here. One smell of moonshiners' smoke is enough to send these old boys running to the Texas border.'
Longarm said, 'You reckon I could do any business back here? You reckon I could buy me a load of whiskey back here and somehow think of a way to transport it?'
Carson's shoulders made a faint shrug in the dim night. He said, 'I reckon anything is possible. They'll freight it Out to the nearest railhead, but whether they'll do it or not for you is another question. As far as I know, they ain't looking for any more new customers.'
It had come solid dark and it was only a quarter of a moon. Frank Carson had taken the lead and was following a trail that Longarm had a hard time picking out. He said, 'Frank, are You sure you know where you are going? Seems to me that we're just riding between the high places.'
Ahead of him, Carson chuckled. 'That's damned near the case.' He pointed, raising his arm to where Longarm could see. 'See that little notch, way up yonder, far off at the top of that mountain? I'm just guiding on that. That will bring us into Salem Colton's place. That's where you can stay the night. I don't think he's going to let you stay more than one night, but he might pass you on up the line toward the old man's place.'
'Who is the old man?'
Carson turned in his saddle and looked back. 'If they want to tell you, that's okay with me, but I'm not going to be the one to tell you about the old man.'
'What did you say the first man's name was?'
'Salem. His wife's name is Bathsheba. They've all got names out of the Bible.'
'Churchgoing folks, then?'
Carson chuckled again. 'I wouldn't count on it.'
Gradually they had begun to climb to the first slight slopes of the mountain range. They rode into the tree line. Suddenly they were under a canopy of oak and sycamore and elm and maple and pine, all flushed out with spring leaf. If it had been dark before, it was even more so now. Longarm could barely make out the form of Frank Carson
