Moon Over Manifest

But the greatest scheme ever would involve a lot of work. While the trees were lined with young sentinels keeping watch, the adults would be busy making the one thing that had brought in any money of late: the combined concoction of Shady’s hooch and Velma T.’s elixir.

Mama Santoni donned an apron and led the women in shucking corn. Greta Akkerson and Etta Cybulskis rolled up their sleeves and joined in. Their many hands made light work as they shared stories of home and family.

They talked of their common experiences of traveling to America on ships filled with immigrants, tears of emotion welling up as they recounted their first sightings of the Statue of Liberty, and the joy and fear of arriving at Ellis Island.

“I was so afraid I would be turned back,” said Mrs. Cybulskis, wiping her brow with the back of her hand. “The way they examined everyone for disease and malady.” The women nodded in agreement. They had all experienced the fear of being labeled unfit to enter America. A simple chalk mark drawn by the medical examiner on one’s clothes could have a person barred from entering his newly adopted country. An E for eye problems, an L for lameness, an H for heart problems. They would have to board another boat and go back to wherever they’d come from no matter how long a journey they had just traveled.

“In Poland,” Mrs. Cybulskis continued, “I have no shoes, so my neighbor, he is a cobbler, he makes me a new pair. Beautiful shoes with fancy heels. Never had I walked in heels. The inspectors detain me, because they think I have a problem with balance and maybe am sick.” Mrs. Cybulskis shrugged, raising her hands, which were full of corn husks. “I have to take off my shoes to show I can walk straight!” The women laughed together as they filled bucket after bucket with corn.

Callisto Matenopoulos and Hermann Keufer loaded the corn onto a wagon and hauled it over to Shady’s place. “Ma-ten-o-pou-los,” Mr. Matenopoulos said, sounding out his name. He laughed as Mr. Keufer stumbled over the pronunciation. “You think my name is difficult. At Ellis Island, the inspector asks my friend Milo, ‘What is your last name?’ ‘Zoutsaghianopoulous,’ he says. The inspector asks him if he wants to change it to make it easier to pronounce. My friend gives this much thought. After all, this is his family name. Finally, after much consideration, he agrees. ‘Take out the h.’ ” Mr. Keufer chuckled loudly.

Of course, the real excitement was at Shady’s place, and Jinx was right in the thick of it. This was the first time Shady’s whiskey still had seen the light of day. The whiskey-making machine had been retrieved from the darkness of the abandoned mine shaft on the Widow Cane’s property, where it had been in constant activity since the start of Prohibition. But one wouldn’t be enough for the operation they hoped to have up and running. So Donal MacGregor, Hadley Gillen, and Nikolai Yezierska assembled four more stills out of spare tanks and copper tubing and set them up in a run-down barn near the natural spring. This gave them an easy supply of water and an out-of-the-way location to run their operation.

But it was as if Shady himself was also thrust into the light of day and he was left stunned and unsteady. He reached for a bottle of whiskey stashed under the eaves overhanging the back steps. Just a sip to stop the shakes and give him a little liquid courage. He uncorked the bottle and moved back into the shadows of the eaves.

The back screen squeaked open and Jinx stood beside him. “Come on, Shady, you can do it. Just show ’em what you know.”

Shady ran the back of his hand over his whiskery face. “I don’t know anything.”

Jinx’s voice was calm and steady. “Right now there’s only one thing these folks need to know and you’re the only one who can teach them.”

Shady stood still a full minute before placing the cork back in the bottle. He returned it to its hiding spot above and stepped into the warm daylight as Jinx held open the screen door. Then Shady oversaw the process with the watchful eye of a master craftsman, wanting each of his apprentices to learn the art of his trade. He seemed grateful to have Jinx nearby for moral support.

“That’s right, keep that burner low, Mr. Keufer. We don’t want to scorch the mash. Casimir, why don’t you get another batch going in that tank over there? Corn, water, yeast, and sugar,” he said, rattling off the contents of a time-honored recipe used by bootleggers throughout many a dry region.

“I knew a guy in Chicago,” Jinx said, “he scorched the sugar to make a richer color.”

Shady shook his head. “It may be wrong to make whiskey, but there’s a right way to do it.”

The first batches of mash fermented day after day, with any number of men standing by, like children in Mama Santoni’s kitchen. Stirring, smelling, eyeing, wondering.

On the ninth day, Donal MacGregor stood at a simmering tank. “Give it a whiff, Shady. I think it’s ready.”