Moon Over Manifest

Shady smelled the brew. “Cap it off and Jinx’ll hook up that copper tubing. When the liquid separates from the mash, it goes through the tubing and ends up in this barrel.” He lifted the spigot at the base of the oak barrel and captured a few ounces of amber liquid in a glass jelly jar.

Shady’s hand showed only a slight tremor of need as he held the jar to the light to check the color, and smelled the liquid’s aroma. Folks who knew Shady knew he struggled with the drink. So when he poured the whiskey back into the barrel and said, “It’s ready for Velma T.’s elixir,” everyone understood that was to be the code of conduct. Not a drop would be had by any man there.

•   •   •

Jinx and Shady hauled the first barrel over to the high school. Mrs. Larkin caught sight of them on the front steps. “Shady,” she called in a shrill voice. “Shady Howard.”

They pretended they didn’t hear her, and walked into the high school and down the hall to the chemistry room. Mrs. Larkin had been working Jinx pretty hard, making him weed her garden and clean out closets of her husband’s old papers. Worst of all was sitting down for afternoon tea, carrying on what she called polite conversation, which, in her estimation, was something every gentleman should be capable of doing. So it was understandable that Jinx would wish to keep his distance.

But as Mrs. Larkin stormed in behind Shady and Jinx, all three stopped dead in their tracks.

“What’s that smell?” Jinx rubbed his neck as the pungent odor practically singed through his nose, clear to the back of his head.

Hattie Mae looked up through safety goggles while Velma T. stood sentry over several beakers of clear liquid warming over Bunsen burners. “A fermented mixture of corn, castor oil, eucalyptus extract, menthol, iron, potassium, and calcium,” Hattie Mae answered.

“Nothing that wasn’t in it when you two ne’er-do-wells took it upon yourselves to play hanky-panky with my elixir,” said Velma T., jotting some notes on a clipboard. Her safety goggles looked like bulgy fly eyes against her narrow face.

Shady and Jinx both knew they’d have to tread lightly, as Velma T. was not completely on board with their endeavor.

“How do you make so much with just those little beakers?” Jinx asked.

“This is what is called the base mixture,” Velma T. answered, “which you would know if you ever showed up to my chemistry class. This syrup combined with Manifest springwater in an exact four-to-one ratio makes up a palatable and restorative elixir.”

“Velma,” Mrs. Larkin interrupted, “surely you are not going to participate in this”—she struggled for the right word—“this … charade. My husband, the late county appraiser, would be rolling over in his grave at this exercise in depravity. Why, I’ve a mind to telegraph my sister’s boy in Topeka. He works in the governor’s office. He’s the assistant to the assistant, you know.”

Most folks were surprised and more than a little curious when Mrs. Larkin stayed behind for the quarantine instead of leaving town with the rest of the people of means. She’d certainly made her objection to Jinx’s plan clear the night of the town meeting. Her daughter, Pearl Ann, was already away at the university, and some speculated that Mrs. Larkin was less a person of means than she liked others to believe and maybe couldn’t afford to leave town. At any rate, since she was still here, there was nothing they could do but hope that she wouldn’t ruin everything.

Ignoring Mrs. Larkin, Velma T. lifted her safety goggles onto her head and glared at Shady and Jinx through narrowed eyes. “You know, I should have let Sheriff Dean arrest both of you for tampering with a medicinal product and endangering the public health. My elixirs are carefully synthesized compounds of potentially dangerous elements.” She poured the syrupy liquid into a measuring glass and tested the volume and density. “They are meticulously prepared remedies that deserve a little respect.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Neither Jinx nor Shady pointed out that her elixir had never remedied anybody until it was mixed with Shady’s whiskey. However, the following silence said it all.

“Still, I suppose serendipity is a force to be reckoned with,” Velma T. said with a sigh.

Hattie Mae came to the rescue. “Now, don’t you underestimate yourself, Miss Velma. Of course there are discoveries made by unexpected occurrences. But it takes the right someone to make sense of it all. You told us yourself, ‘An apple is just an apple until it falls on Sir Isaac Newton.’ ”

“Then what is it?” Jinx asked.

“Gravity,” Velma T. said. “I suppose you’re right. Even Louis Pasteur, the father of modern medicine, said that ‘chance favors the prepared mind.’ ”

Mrs. Larkin was beside herself. “Velma, really! You can’t be serious about this so-called miracle medicine.”

“I’m not prepared to say that there is anything miraculous about this combined elixir. But it seems to have put you right, Eudora.”