Blind Tiger by Sandra Brown

She planned and prepared to follow him at a moment’s notice the next time he slipped out the back door.

The night arrived. When she heard the back door closing behind him, she hurried downstairs and watched him from the kitchen window as he climbed into his truck and drove away.

She rushed outside, frantically cranked up her car, and, miraculously, it started the first time. She followed the taillights of Irv’s truck, never getting too close. He had repaired the faulty headlight, so she didn’t have to worry about a winking one giving her away.

Once he cleared the streets of town, he took the familiar highway that led to the shack. Maybe he simply missed his solitude and came out here to be alone. But when they reached the drive leading up to the old place, he drove on past.

The farther they got from town, the more uneasy Laurel became. Where on earth was he going?

When he turned off the highway, Laurel dropped farther back and switched off her headlights before carefully taking the same turn. But her ploy didn’t work. She topped a rise, and, there in the middle of the road, was Irv’s truck. He was standing in front of the tailgate with his hands on his hips. She pulled to a stop.

He walked up to her car, scowling. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice I was being followed?”

“Where are you going?”

“Dammit, Laurel!”

“Where are you going?”

He stewed, cursed under his breath, then said, “You want to know so bad? Come on then.”

He stalked lopsidedly back to his truck, climbed in, and pushed it into low gear. After a couple of miles, he turned onto another road, narrower and more rutted than the previous one. It wound its way between the hills. As they rounded a curve, Laurel saw flickering firelight ahead.

Irv pulled his truck off the road and drove cross-country toward the fire. The old truck jounced over the rugged ground, its headlight beams eerily bouncing off stands of cedar trees and rock formations. Laurel, with her teeth clenched to keep them from being jarred loose, followed and pulled up behind him when he braked and killed his engine.

He got out of his truck and waited as she picked her way over the rocky ground to join him. He extended his arms from his sides. “Well? Satisfied?”

She looked beyond him at the glow of the fire. “You camp out here?”

“Damn, girl. Wha’d’ya think? I’m making whiskey.”





Twenty-One



Muttering imprecations, Irv turned and led her toward the contraption being attended by a man she’d never seen before. As Irv and she approached, he stayed where he was, but stopped what he’d been doing and gaped at the two of them, slack-jawed.

He was holding onto a long stick that extended out of a pear-shaped metal vat, the rounded bottom of which was nestled in the center of a manmade stone pit. An opening had been left in the pit’s base in order to stoke and fuel the fire smoldering inside it. The fire’s smoke drifted out of a flue on the back side of the pit and curled up the face of a limestone outcropping, which formed a natural backdrop for the still, which seemed to Laurel to have been haphazardly engineered.

“Meet Mr. Earnest Sawyer,” Irv said. “Ernie, this is my nosy daughter-in-law, Laurel.”

The other man let go of the stick and doffed the brim of his newsboy’s cap. “Ma’am. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Me and Ernie worked together on the railroad,” Irv said. “Known and trusted each other for years. He’s from Kentucky. Knows everything there is to know about making corn liquor. So, when I retired, Ernie said to hell with the railroad and quit, too. We partnered up—”

“This is why you’ve been sneaking out at night?”

“You thought I was seeing a woman, didn’t you?”

“You’re making moonshine?”

“Good moonshine.”

“It’s illegal!” Her voice echoed off the surrounding hills, making both men cringe.

“Pipe down,” Irv said. “Sound carries out here. And, yes, it’s illegal, but it’s a living. A damn good one. How do you think I’m affording that rent house?”

She was presently too flabbergasted to cite the past due bills. She took in her immediate surroundings, which, by all indications, was a permanent encampment. In addition to the components of the whiskey-making apparatus, a tent had been erected at the edge of the clearing. It was dark in color and camouflaged by cedar boughs.

She took a closer look at Ernie Sawyer. He was as thin as a string bean; his overalls hung straight from the shoulder straps, seeming to touch him nowhere else. He wasn’t nearly as young as she, but not nearly as old as Irv. He was watching her with misgiving.

“You stay out here in the tent, Mr. Sawyer?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“All the time?”

“Mostly, yes, ma’am. Always when we’re doing runs.”

Laurel looked to Irv for clarification.

“A run is the process that starts with cooking the mash and ends with a jug of distilled whiskey. Ernie oversees the making of, I distribute. We split the revenue fifty-fifty.”

The pride with which he spoke left Laurel at a loss for words. Resuming her survey of the area, she noticed a number of metal barrels lined up. “What’s in those?”

“Mash. Fermenting till it’s ready to cook.”