Moon Over Manifest

Sheriff Dean lumbered out of the place, leaving the screen door open. He cranked up his automobile and sped off, sending a plume of dust to settle on Shady’s clean bar top.

Jinx came out from his hiding spot, still a bit shaken. “Shady, I—”

Shady held up his hand and for a moment said nothing. Then he began again mopping off the dusty bar top. “Some fish get caught for biting and some fish just get caught for being in the wrong part of the pond.” Shady studied Jinx, letting his words find their mark. Then he leaned over the bar top, staring into the sheriff’s half-empty glass of whiskey. “I’m no diviner, but having been in the wrong part of the pond most of my life, I can usually tell which fish bite and which fish don’t. I suspect you may have found yourself in the wrong part of the pond a time or two.”

Jinx felt himself relax a little. “That man’s got you over a barrel,” he sighed.

Shady peered questioningly into the whiskey glass, seeming to look for an answer. “We’re living in drastic times, Jinx. War’s going on and a man trying to make a living gets his legs knocked out from under him by a crooked lawman. Where’s the justice?” Shady’s hand shook as he swallowed the last of the liquor. “Hand me that cork,” he said. “At least I can smell the stuff.”

Jinx picked up the damp cork and sniffed the strong whiskey aroma. He rolled it back and forth in his fingers and sniffed it again. There was something familiar about that smell.

“Give it here. A boy your age has better things to do than sniff hooch. I’d offer you breakfast, but seeing’s how all that’s left of it is an apple core …”

Jinx eyed the cork as if it was gold, then slipped it into his pocket. He hopped off the stool. “Drastic times call for drastic measures, Shady.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means meet me in the alley behind Velma T.’s tonight at midnight,” Jinx called over his shoulder as he let the screen door slam behind him.

The night was dark, lit only by a quarter moon. Shady looked around but could barely see the shed behind Velma T.’s house. He heard a twig snap.

“Hooo, hooo,” he called out, sounding like an owl who’d smoked a few too many stogies.

“Shady, over here, in the shed.”

Shady banged his head on the low doorway. He held his forehead, letting loose a string of oaths. “What’s this all about, Jinx? I’m surprised Velma T. lets you near her place after that explosion in her chemistry class.” Shady stooped to step inside, accidentally kicking one five-gallon jug against another. A dog barked.

“Shhh.” Jinx pulled the rickety door shut. “It wasn’t an explosion. It was more of a strong disagreement between some carbolic acid and nitrous oxide. Besides, I guess Miss Velma T. figures if I’m going to be in chemistry boot camp as punishment, she might as well put me to good use. She had me filling these jugs the other day. She’d just made up a new batch of one of her ‘good for what ails you’ elixirs.”

“I don’t think this stuff’s going to fix what’s ailing me. Sheriff Dean is still going to shut me down when I don’t have his whiskey ready by tomorrow.”

Jinx wiggled one of the corks out of a jug. “Smell this.”

Shady took a slight whiff, then a deeper one.

“Smell familiar? She used the same green corn you did in your last batch of whiskey.”

Shady sniffed again. “So?”

“So if it smells like whiskey, maybe it’ll taste enough like it to get Sheriff Dean off your back.”

Shady looked up as if seeing the light at the end of a long tunnel, but shook his head. “No can do. Velma T.’s not going to hand these jugs over. And I won’t abide stealing.”

“It wouldn’t be stealing. She said her elixir has to oxidize for two weeks. We’d just borrow some of hers now and replace it with some of yours later.”

“You don’t think she’ll be able to tell the difference?”

“She probably never drinks the stuff, but we can save some of hers and mix it with yours.”

Shady considered the prospect. “It’d sure make her concoction go down a little easier. Maybe we’d be doing her a favor. More people might drink the stuff.”

Jinx handed Shady a hose. “We’ll siphon out a couple gallons from each jug and pour it in those empties.” A dog barked again as the two began work in silence.

Several nights later, the scene was identical except that the moon had waned to a sliver and the siphon was pouring liquid back into the jugs left half full of Velma T.’s elixir.

“Hand me that stick, Jinx.” Shady stirred each jug to blend the two elixirs.

“Everything go down all right with Sheriff Dean?” Jinx asked.

“Without a hitch. Said he was going to save it for a poker game he had coming up next Saturday. Said his brother-in-law was breathing down his neck to find those two runaways from the revival in Joplin. They’d been seen having an argument with the deceased before he come up dead. One older, one younger, he said.” Shady glanced sideways at Jinx. “Whoever it is better lay low or they’re going to find themselves in more than chemistry boot camp.”

Jinx jerked and nearly upset a half-filled jug.