in the darkness ahead of him. He spoke in a low voice. It seemed to call for a low voice. He said, 'Mr. Carson, I reckon you ought to throw me the end of a rope.'
'Why?'
'Because it's done got as black as the inside of a cow, and if I lose sight of you and you get away from me in this pitch, I ain't ever going to find my way out of here. I don't even see how you know where you're going.'
'Just keep looking through the trees at that notch in the top of that mountain and keep bearing on that,' Carson said.
'Yeah, but we're going away from it right now.'
'But as soon as I can, I'm going to cut to the left, back toward it.'
They went down gentle draws, up sharp inclines, and then suddenly came into a broad meadow. It was wide enough that a little moonlight could filter through and Longarm could see long rows of young corn. He said, 'By the by, you mentioned sugar as being one of the main costs of making whiskey. How come they can afford to put so much more sugar in their raw whiskey than you do?'
Carson said, 'Yeah, that would be a question, wouldn't it? You know they grow sugar down in Louisiana. They've got a couple sugar mills down there. In fact, a couple of them are up pretty close to the Arkansas line. One of them is in Monroe, Louisiana, in the northern part.'
'Yeah, but ain't Tennessee damned near as close to Louisiana as Arkansas?'
Longarm could hear Frank Carson spit tobacco juice, then he heard him clear his throat. Carson said, 'Yeah, you'd think that, wouldn't you?'
Longarm said, 'You're being mighty careful not to answer my question.'
Carson chuckled. 'I'm trying not to tell you that about four years ago, there was a trainload of sugar stolen from northern Louisiana. They found the train in eastern Arkansas, but the sugar was gone.'
Longarm said, 'Oh. I reckon I don't want to know any more about that.'
'It might be for the best. Ignorance can sometimes be a good friend.'
Longarm said, 'But what I don't understand is, we're back here in this wild-assed country. I need to buy a considerable amount of whiskey, and I sure as hell don't figure I can take it back to Little Rock and put it on a train. How do they get it out of here? How do you buy it?'
From up ahead, he could hear Frank Carson's voice through the black. 'I think you're getting a little bit ahead of yourself. In the first place, you ain't got no guarantee that they'll even sell you any whiskey. Fact is, I'd say your chances are slim and none, and slim's gone visiting. But the way it comes is in ten-gallon demijohns. There's four demijohns to a crate, which they pack with straw. They've got some big, stout wagons and they've carved out a road to a little town north of here. There's a railroad spur line that comes through there. They'll get it to that line for you and after that, it's your whiskey and your problem, but they ain't going to sell any less than a thousand gallons, so if you've got anything less than that on your mind, you won't be doing any business with these folks.'
Longarm said, 'Well, I was thinking bigger than that.'
He was suddenly conscious of Carson making a forty-five-degree cut to the left. He could barely make him out as he tried to follow, and then the ground began to descend. Carson turned his head and said over his shoulder, 'We better be quiet from here on in. We're starting to get close. These folks shoot at sound. Understand?'
Longarm said, 'I understand, but I was under the impression that you did enough business with them that they wouldn't be likely to pop you out of the saddle.'
'In case you didn't notice, Mr. Long, it's a little black out here, and they just might not recognize me. I don't care to take the chance. Do you?'
Longarm said, 'You're doing the leading.'
They traveled on through the night over the rough ground for what seemed like, to Longarm, an eternity, though he knew it couldn't be more than fifteen minutes or a half hour. Then, almost as if they had parted a curtain, several lights suddenly shone through the dark. In a few more moments, they were at the edge of the tree line that surrounded a big clearing. Longarm could easily make out a long, rambling house that appeared to be made of rocks and logs and shingled with wooden shakes. He could see a number of outbuildings and through the black of the sky, he could see thin mists rising up that he guessed were smoke from the still fires. Carson called out, 'Hellooo... helloo the house.'
For a moment, nothing happened. Carson called out again, 'Hellooo the house.'
There were lights enough in several windows to make it clear that people were still up and around. Longarm said, 'Might be they've gone to bed.'
Carson said, 'No, this is a twenty-four-hour-a-day operation. They keep those stills running all night. Somebody has got to tend them. There's plenty of people awake. They're just giving us a little bit more time while they think about it.'
Longarm said, 'Why don't we ride forward a little more, get out of the dark of these trees where they can get a look at us?'
'That ain't a real good idea,' Carson said.
Almost before he had finished speaking, the door to the house suddenly opened and a woman stood there, framed in the light behind her. She called out, 'Who be it?'
Frank Carson called back, 'That you, Bathsheba?'
She said, 'I'm doin' the askin'. Who be it?'
'It's Frank Carson with a friend.'
The woman called, 'Well, ride on forward a bit, but do it right slow. You know there's guns trained on ya.'
Carson said, 'I'd be mighty disappointed if there weren't.'
