Chapter Fifteen
Paying
for Ten
Almost
an hour later the scow approached a company coal barge tied to the berm. Must be Cy Elgin’s number 41, Kevin
thought. He steered a course between the
boat and the towpath. Tom slowed the mules
and paused to inspect something on the bank.
“Nobody on board!” he yelled back to Kevin. He kicked at the long plank as Kevin nodded
and held his course.
Around
the next shallow bend he saw the whitewashed face of a lockhouse a thousand
feet downstream. It was partly obscured
by something moving, and he realized that a small boat was heading upstream from
the lock. Tom saw it too, because he
blew five quick blasts on the tin horn. As
the boats drew closer, Kevin recognized the familiar lines of a company repair
scow. Its low deck was painted gray and
littered with wheelbarrows and bags of gravel and cement. Two workers sat with their backs against the
cabin wall. In deference to a loaded
boat, the repair scow steered to the berm side of the canal while its mule
driver guided his team to a stop on the outer fringe of the towpath. The repair scow’s towline slackened, fell
into the canal, and slipped beneath the surface of the water.
Tom
guided Mike and Bess forward, and they stepped carefully over the downed
towline as they passed the repair scow’s team.
Even after you’d been on the canal for years, passing a boat going in
the opposite direction was something that made you pay attention, since there
was a half-dozen ways to muck it up.
Kevin doffed his hat as the Emorys’ scow slid over the sunken towline. “Much obliged, gentlemen!” The dozing workers ignored him. The captain nodded and the driver restarted
his team.
Kevin
looked ahead toward Swains Lock, which he now knew was set for a loaded boat. When Tom blew a series of blasts, Kevin saw a
figure emerge from the lockhouse, traverse the lock, and proceed haltingly
toward the upstream gates. He’s going to
snub us, Kevin thought, as he watched Cy exchange a few words with Tom. Very accommodating of you, Cy.
“I
thought bootleggers knew how to move fast,” Cy said, shaking his head after
snubbing the scow. He looked across the
lock at Kevin who was swinging the gate closed.
“Two full days to get from
Kevin
chuckled. “I can’t speak for outlaws,
Cy. But we Emorys like to practice what
we call smart boating. Not fast
boating.” He hopped back onto the
scow. “Now if more locktenders was as
committed as you are, we might have got
here a bit sooner.”
“I ain’t no locktender,” Cy muttered, crossing
the scow back to the berm. “God help me
if I ever sink that low.” He limped
across the grass and disappeared into the lockhouse.
Tom
helped Kevin remove hatch five and the layer of firewood concealing the barrel. As they propped the barrel, Cy reappeared and
set a five-gallon cask on the deck. Tom drew
a sample from the tap into a tin cup, then handed it to Cy, who knocked back
the whiskey and grimaced. He nodded
before turning back toward the lockhouse.
Kevin
smirked at Tom. “I guess he’s buying.” They wedged Cy’s cask into position beneath
the barrel and used funnels to create a path from the tap to the cask head. Kevin twisted the tap wide open and whiskey
flowed through the funnels into the cask.
As Tom lifted the stoppered cask onto the hatch, Cy laid down a second
five-gallon cask.
“It’s
always gratifying to find a customer who appreciates a quality product,” Kevin
said.
“Let’s
hope I’m not the only one willing to pay for it,” Cy said. He carried the first cask into the lockhouse
while Kevin and Tom filled the second and set it on the deck.
Kevin
retreated to the cabin, where he knelt near the bottom stair to pull a metal
toolbox out from under the drop-leaf table.
The box had a clamshell top that was held shut by two clasps and a keyed
lock-plate. Kevin gripped the
suitcase-style handle. Heavy enough right
now, he thought -- at least fifteen pounds.
But it should weigh a lot more after we leave
He
carried the box up to the deck and set it down against the forward wall of the
cabin. Cy had vanished with the second
cask, but he reappeared and limped back onto the scow.
“Well
you just relieved us of ten gallons of fine whiskey,” Kevin said, removing his hat and running a
hand through sweat-streaked hair. “Tom
and I will understand if you want to keep it all for yourself, but if you was
looking to sell, you should be able to fetch twelve dollars a gallon.”
“That’s
about what I reckoned,” Cy said. He
turned to face Kevin with watery eyes bordered by dark rings, and Kevin noticed
that his stubble was tinged with gray.
“Since you’re a repeat customer,” Kevin said, “and we want to cultivate our relationship further, we’re going to offer you a favorable price this year.” He paused for effect and to insert an incremental pinch of tobacco. “Nine-seventy-five a gallon,” he said.
“That’s no bargain,” Cy said. He glared at Kevin for a moment. “But so be it. You can have thirty now and the rest of it on
your trip back upstream.”
Kevin
stopped working his chaw and squinted as if he hadn’t heard correctly. Tom let his knife plunge into the wooden
hatch and wobble as he trained his dark eyes on Cy. “You might of told us you wasn’t prepared to
pay cash before you carted off our whiskey,” he said with a hint of menace to
his voice.
Cy
gave Tom a dismissive look. “I plan to
pay cash,” he said to Kevin. “But that
means thirty now and the rest on Saturday.”
Kevin and Tom exchanged glances but said nothing. “You don’t like it,” Cy said, “I can give you
back your ten gallons.”
Ten
gallons of what?, Kevin thought. For all
he knew, someone was already inside the lockhouse, replacing whiskey with
water. Maybe that girl. He walked over to the rail and spat. “If you want credit, the price is ten-fifty
per gallon,” he said. “We’ll take your
thirty now and seventy-five more when we see you on Saturday.” Cy grunted his acceptance and handed over a
small wad of bills. Kevin confirmed the
sum and they shook hands.
Pulling
a key chain from his pocket, Kevin knelt to unlock the toolbox. “Damn, I hate paper money,” he said to
himself, adding the bills to a clip in the main compartment. “And here I was thinking I’d need the box to
make change.” He closed the latches and
locked the box. Standing up, he saw Tom
unwinding the snub-line while Cy waited to open the wickets.
The
lockhouse door opened and a figure emerged.
It was Katie, carrying an empty basket.
She glanced at the scow on her way to the side-yard, where she began to
pull dry clothes from a clothesline. Cy
and Tom swung the lock-keys as she passed, and the lock began to drain.
Kevin
retrieved the feed bucket from the hayhouse and carried it to the berm. “I’m glad we was able to work out your
purchase,” he said to Cy, who was watching the water recede. “We try to keep our whiskey affordable, which
means keeping our costs down.” He smiled
at Cy, who radiated indifference. “One
thing we hate to do is pay for coal. Especially
since we know coal is free, for anyone who works around a lock.” He turned and spat into the lock. “In that spirit, we’d be much obliged if you
could spare us a bucket of canal-company coal from the lockhouse bin. We picked some up yesterday, but not enough
to make it to
Cy
momentarily looked as if he might throw the bucket in the canal, but instead took
it without a word and limped toward the lockhouse. Maybe he’s practicing his salesmanship, Kevin
thought, suppressing a chuckle. He
watched Cy enter the lockhouse, then headed for the side-yard. Katie’s back was turned as she unpinned a
blouse from the clothesline and folded it over the basket. He walked up behind her quietly.
“That
sure is a pretty shirt, Miss Elgin!”
Katie
spun like a startled rabbit and the blouse came unfolded in her hands. Her eyes narrowed when she recognized Kevin,
but she didn’t reply. Kevin extended his
hand and lifted a dangling sleeve to the level of her waist. “I bet that would look especially nice on
you,” he said. He draped the sleeve along
her own and stroked it with his fingers.
“I don’t suppose you’d like to try it on for me and Tom right now, would
you?” Katie stepped backward and stared
at him in silence, her hands holding the blouse at waist level as he wiped the corner
of his mouth.
“You
know,” he said, “I’m sorry the three of us was interrupted last summer while we
was getting to know each other. I think
we may get a more favorable opportunity, since we expect to make several runs down
to