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Bootheel Bachelor

By Helen Gray

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Chapter 1

Missouri Bootheel, 1932

Jason Stevens pushed the Klaxon horn of his Model A roadster Highway Patrol car, his jaw locked into a grim line as he pursued, and then went around, an older, battered Model T. When it finally pulled to the side of the road just north of Kennett, Missouri, Rob Bridger, the local deputy who had accompanied him that day on the lookout for moonshine runners, was out the passenger door before Jason could pull the car to a complete stop.
Jason vaulted out the driver’s door and dashed around to the rear of the old Model T. As he checked the license plate, in his peripheral vision he noted two small boys standing next to a big crepe myrtle bush at the edge of a yard, their eyes round with curiosity.
He focused back on the license number. Yep, this car was definitely on their be-on-the-lookout-for list.
“Sorry, we didn’t see you back there.” The driver’s drawl rang with blatant phoniness.
“Where are you going in such a hurry?” the deputy asked curtly, leaning down to peer inside the car through the open window.
“We’re on our way to Malden, and I didn’t notice how fast I was driving.”
“What are your names?”
Jason circled around to the passenger door as Rob pulled out his three by five inch report pad.
“I’m Duke Jones. He’s my brother, Billie.” The driver jerked a thumb at the passenger beside him.
Jason peered into the back seat at the passenger sitting there—and drew a sharp breath of recognition. He had assumed it was another guy, but the round face below an oversize hat was his worst nightmare. Long coal black hair was pulled away from her face and hung down the back of her green cotton dress. Her mouth pressed into a tight line, Veda Kirby’s green eyes shot daggers at him. He glanced back at the two men in the front, searching his memory for names.
“Their name is not Jones,” he interrupted with certainty. “It’s Kirby. I don’t remember the names of those two, but that’s their little sister in the back.” His hand edged to his .38-caliber Smith & Wesson, now certain beyond a doubt what they were hauling.
From the opposite window Rob gave a nod that indicated he understood the situation.
Since they didn’t have the right to search and seize anything except weapons, Jason asked the driver outright, “What are you hauling that’s so heavy?” He edged a couple of steps back toward the rear of the car, wanting another look at how low it was riding.
“Hey, you got no business back there,” the driver yelled. Then the car lurched forward.
Reacting instinctively, Jason pulled his gun and shot a rear tire. The car kept moving, thumping unevenly. He shot the other tire.
*
Oh, fiddle.
Veda sat rigid, her insides a hard mass of humiliation and anger. Why had she believed her brothers when they said they were headed to Malden and weren’t hauling any illegal stuff? She should never have accepted their offer of a ride. She knew Pete and Phil hauled moonshine from the still that Pat and Preston operated for Dad, and peddled it to customers in surrounding towns. They normally traveled only on back roads, but today they were on the main highway because it was the most direct route to their cousin Greg’s house—and they were arrogant enough to believe they would not get caught.
If she was going to make such a mistake, why did the lawman who caught them have to be that overbearing Jason Stevens? Still quiet and serious, he was taller than she remembered—maybe a tad over six feet—with broad shoulders, dark hair, an intimidating demeanor, and probably tough as nails on his new job. She read the newspaper every chance she got and had known when the Missouri Highway Patrol started seven months ago. She had also heard her family talk about Jason being among the candidates selected for the first training class.
Veda wished she could get out of the car—and immediately got her wish.
“Step out of the car, all of you,” Jason’s partner ordered as the car thumped to a stop.
Pete and Phil sat there in defiant silence so long Veda thought they would be physically dragged out of the car, but finally they opened the doors and got out. She followed and stood beside Pete.
“You’re under arrest.”
“We ain’t done nothin’, Officer,” Pete complained in an indignant huff.
“We suspect you’re hauling moonshine, which happens to be illegal.”
“Really? We didn’t put any such stuff back there,” he continued to bluff. “If there is, somebody musta put it there when we wuzn’t lookin’.”
Veda watched Jason put handcuffs on Phil. The grim look on his and his partner’s faces said that denying any involvement would do her no good. She wanted to scream in rage, pound the truth into them. But she held her tongue and let them cuff her along with her brothers.
Would the reputation and activities of her family plague her forever? For years she had wanted to move away from where she had lived all her life, start her own business, and to be respected. Now she was finally acting on her plan to achieve that, and look what had happened.
These officers had respect. Authority. They looked down on her, even though she had never done more than help run her dad’s roadside store outside of Hornersville. She had stubbornly refused to be a part of his and the boys’ side business, and never set foot in the back room of the store where Dad sold the stuff they made. She had never told the police about it, though. After all, they were her family.
After the deputy pulled the patrol car around in front of Pete’s car, she and her brothers were all forced to squeeze into the back of it. She sat scrunched between Phil and Pete, watching and listening as Jason and the deputy talked in low tones she couldn’t understand. Then Jason hopped across the ditch and went up the small embankment to where two small boys stood gaping at the action. When he spoke to them, both boys nodded vigorously, obviously thrilled to be involved in what seemed an exciting event to them. They took off across the yard, Jason on their heels. Minutes later Jason returned with a length of heavy rope, the boys following him back to their spot by the crepe myrtle bush.
Veda twisted around in the seat and watched as Jason squatted and attached one end of the rope to the front of Pete’s crippled car while the deputy hooked the other end of it to the back of the patrol car. When they finished, the deputy got behind the wheel of Pete’s car to steer it, and Jason came to the patrol car. As he opened the door, he aimed a quick glance back at her and the boys. It was a relief when he got behind the wheel without saying anything.
She stared ahead into the glare of the bright June sun, baking in its heat as they inched along the highway, Pete’s car thumping behind them. She took off her big sun hat and held it in her lap, since the top of the patrol car was down. There was a warm breeze, but jammed together the way they were—Pete on her left, Phil on her right—Veda felt like roasting peanut butter smashed between two smelly slices of bread.
She hardly noticed the cotton, corn, and soybean fields that stretched along each side of the road in shimmering waves of heat. She fought to keep from noticing the way Jason’s shoulders filled his dark blue whipcord uniform shirt. In spite of her long held negative feelings toward him, there was something intriguing about the guy. He had an intensity about him that would be noticed in any crowd, even without that uniform.
When they arrived at the jail, Jason gave a hand signal and pulled alongside the curb where there was room for the two cars in tandem. He parked and got out. As Veda exited, his dark blue eyes bored through her. When his fingers grazed her arm for a moment as she stepped past him, an unexpected tingle whizzed along it. She blinked and hurriedly jammed her hat back on her head.
“Veda’s just hitchin’ a ride with us. She ain’t done nothin’ wrong,” Pete said as they entered the building.
Pete’s defense surprised Veda. He didn’t usually pay her much mind. The oldest of five siblings, he was the undisputed boss—after Daddy—and his priorities didn’t run to looking after his baby sister.
The deputy escorted her brothers, and Jason walked beside Veda behind them. The air inside the jail was stale and unpleasant. Veda breathed in small, shallow gulps to keep from inhaling too much of the scent of occupancy by men without baths.
The deputy turned and eyed her, skepticism written on his face. “She’ll have a chance to speak for herself,” he said after several moments.
“She’s just our baby sister,” Phil spoke up, obligated to follow Pete’s lead. “Like Pete said, she just needed a ride, and we brought her along to drop her off at our cousin’s house.”
“Which cousin?” Jason asked, looking at Veda in sudden interest.
“Greg,” she answered briefly. Then she turned and marched into the room where another officer held the door open. She landed with a plop on one of the chairs around a long table.
“None of us is guilty of anything,” Phil added in a bluster as he sat beside her. The youngest of the four boys, he always needed to prove himself to the others—especially Pete, who pretty much told them all what to do. And when. And how.
“That will be decided by the feds,” the deputy drawled. “They’re being called and should be here soon.”
After more questioning, during which both of her brothers continued to insist on her non-involvement, Veda was told that she could leave. Pete and Phil were taken to cells.
Veda stood frozen in place, not sure what to do. On one hand, she was sickened that her brothers were in jail. On the other, she marveled that it had not happened long before this.
What should she do? The reason she had ridden with them was because she didn’t have a car of her own.
Jason materialized at her side, his Pershing style cap with a French-blue top in hand. “If you’ll wait around for an hour or so while I see to a couple of things, I’ll be heading back the direction you want to go. It’s not far out of my way to drop you at Greg’s house.”
Pride reared its ugly head. She didn’t want to accept anything from him. But a thirty-mile walk didn’t do much for her either. Well, she didn’t have to become buddies with him. “I’ll wait at the restaurant we passed at the edge of town.”
He nodded and went about his business.
Veda retrieved her suitcase from Pete’s battered car and set off down the street. As soon as she came to a gas station, she went inside and asked to use their phone. She called her dad and told him what had happened and that the boys were in jail. He said he would get there as soon as he could, but he sure didn’t sound happy about it. He would pay their fines, which he and other bootleggers considered a business expense. He needed the boys back on the road, delivering the hooch they made in the houseboat.
Veda hung up and paid for the call, then hiked on down the street to the restaurant. She ordered a cold soda pop and a sandwich, but the churning in her gut made it impossible to eat. She wrapped the sandwich in a napkin and put it in the pocket of her skirt. Then she finished her pop, paid her bill, and went outside to sit on the bench in front of the building.
Half an hour later, Jason drove up and parked in front of her. When she picked up her suitcase and started to the car, he hopped out and came to take it from her. While he put it in the back, she scrambled into the passenger seat and sat with her face aimed forward, her eyes locked on the light mounted on the right front fender.
Heat rose in her cheeks, sensing Jason’s scrutiny of her as he got behind the wheel. She edged closer to the door and continued to ignore him. They both remained silent as the car rolled out of town and turned north on the highway. A half hour later, Jason turned onto the road that led to Greg’s house. Minutes later they rolled up behind a decrepit old Ford. Oil burning smoke rolled from its muffler and clouded the air.
“The front end is high, and the rear is nearly to the ground,” Jason muttered, as if speaking to himself. He stepped on the gas and got closer. When the old car turned onto another side road, he eased off the gas and followed at a distance.
Veda closed her eyes, but only for a moment. She thought she remembered seeing that old car around before, but couldn’t be sure. Since the crash of ’29, unemployment and hardship—as well as plain old appetites for illegal alcohol—had led many to take to bootlegging.
When the car slowed down, Jason pulled to the side of the road and stopped, but kept the patrol car’s engine running. He reached down behind his feet and came up with a pair of binoculars that he put to his eyes. As he peered ahead, another car appeared, coming slowly toward them. When the two cars met, they stopped and backed up until their rear ends were almost touching.
Veda could see all that, but she couldn’t see the faces of the drivers. “Do you know them?” she asked, and then wished she hadn’t voiced her curiosity.
“Maybe. Not sure.” He continued to watch as the two men transferred cases of what she knew had to be moonshine from the old Ford into the later model one, both engines still running. Jason put the patrol car in slow motion.
The two drivers were so absorbed in their task that they didn’t notice Jason’s approach until he was nearly upon them. When one of them looked up, he did a startled toss of his head and tossed his cargo in the back of the car. Then he pulled out a gun. He fired a wild shot, and both men ran to get in their cars. The one Jason had been following roared off down the road. The other one backed up, executed a circle turn, and headed back the way it had come.
Jason stepped on the gas to pursue them, but then eased off as the cars picked up speed, their trunk lids still open and bouncing wildly.
Veda stared across the seat at him. “You’re not going to try to catch them?”
He heaved a long breath and tipped his hat back. “Not with a civilian in the car with me. Too dangerous.”
Veda wasn’t sure how to feel. She appreciated his concern for her safety, while feeling bad that she had hindered him from doing his job. She knew he still suspected that she was involved with her brothers and Dad in the very business they had just encountered.
“I guess you catch a lot of bootleggers,” she commented, finding herself unexpectedly interested in his work.
He didn’t speak until he was headed back toward Greg’s house. “Quite a few.”
“How do you know where to look for them?”
He glanced over at her, as if unable to believe she would ask such a question. Did he think she was looking for ways to help her brothers elude them? Oh, what difference did it make?
“Some we run into unexpectedly, like this. But we get tips from informants, too.”
She nodded. “I suppose some ‘shiners like to help you catch their competition. If I hadn’t been with you, would you have caught those guys?”
He shrugged. “The old car would have been easy, but even though knowing the roads around here makes my chances better, I couldn’t have stopped both of them by myself. These guys like to play hide and seek, and it takes up more law enforcement time than most crimes.”
Becoming uncomfortable with the subject, Veda turned her attention to the familiar landscape—and recalled the first time she had met Jason almost two years ago. She had been visiting her Uncle Otis and Aunt Hazel and their four children, Greg, Grant, Hannah, and Gabe. As she chased a fox out of their hen house, Jason had arrived to pick up his sister, and Veda had collided with his car. And blamed him. They were not friends. Never would be.
*
When Jason pulled to a stop in front of Greg Kirby’s house, Veda practically leaped out of the car and grabbed her suitcase before he could turn off the engine. So he sat and watched her march to the porch, his thoughts in a whirl. She looked—and acted—so innocent. But she had to know about her family’s liquor business. She must be part of it. So why did he want to believe otherwise?
Women were a mystery to him, one he had no desire to solve. His job was his top priority. Working twelve hours a day, and sometimes more, left him no time for such nonsense. Furthermore, what he had seen of the institution of marriage as a kid made him a poor candidate for it as an adult. His dad had beaten up on his mother, who had stayed with him because of her children. He had no idea how a good marriage was supposed to work, or if it was even possible. He hoped so, for his married sister’s sake, but the life of a bachelor was his destiny.
He drove home to the house he and his sister had inherited after the death of their dad, and he now shared with Otis Kirby, Veda’s uncle. His sister, Jessie, had married Otis’s son Gabe not long after Mrs. Kirby’s death, and Otis had decided he wanted to leave the running of his big cotton farm to Gabe and offered to stay here with Jason and help him look after the place.
With Jessie married and living on the neighboring farm, and Jason working most of the time, he had accepted Otis’s offer. It had been a good deal, and they had become close. The man treated him like another son.
Otis met him in the yard. “You look hungry, boy. I got a big pot of ham and beans cooked. Got some cornbread, too.”
Jason cleaned up at the washstand in the screened in back porch and dried his hands on the towel hanging from a nail above it. Then he went back into the kitchen and sat down to eat.
Otis asked the blessing, and they filled their bowls. Then the older man paused to study Jason from across the table. “You look like you’ve had a long day, and you’re troubled. What’s bothering you?”
Jason put his spoon down and met his dear friend’s gaze. He hated to tell him, but it was better than having word reach Otis through the family grapevine.
“A deputy and I stopped a car of runners.”
“And?” Otis leaned forward on his arms, his eyes beaming right through Jason. “Someone we know?”
Jason cleared his throat, reluctant to speak.
“Well, say it, boy. Was my brother’s family involved?”
He nodded and breathed deeply. “Two of his sons and the daughter were in the car. The trunk was full of ‘shine.” He had called headquarters after delivering Veda and had it confirmed.
Otis leaned back and raked a hand over his brow. “I’ve told Ollie over and over he’ll live to regret what he’s doing. I know business has been really bad for him. This Great Depression is hurting people everywhere. But I told Ollie the Lord will take care of them. He won’t listen.”
“Or accept help from you?”
Otis shook his head. “He flat refused. I understand. But I’m afraid …”
Now Jason leaned forward. “Afraid of what?”
Otis closed his eyes, and then reopened them. “That he does what he’s doing because he likes it. He always did like taking risks, trying to outsmart others, running things. But his wife and daughter aren’t involved,” he added with certainty.
“Are you sure?”
The older man’s head bobbed. “It’s the only thing I ever heard Mildred stand up to my brother about. She refuses to sell anything in that back room of his, even though he gives her a hard time about it. Veda wouldn’t sell the stuff either, when she worked in the store.”
Jason’s eyes narrowed. “She doesn’t work there anymore?”
“No, and she’s been through a hard time. I ‘spect she doesn’t mean to go back home.”
“Back home?”
“She got married and moved out several weeks ago.”
Jason frowned, not understanding why his stomach dropped. “So what’s she doing running around the countryside with her brothers on a moonshine run?”
Otis frowned. “I guess she needed a ride. They probably told her they weren’t hauling. Or she might have had a big enough reason for catching a ride that she didn’t let anything stop her.”
“Doesn’t her husband object to her running around without him?”
Otis’s face turned somber. “No. He’s dead.”
Jason blinked, struggling to absorb all these revelations.
“Veda and a young man took a fancy to one another when they were just kids. They planned to marry after they finished high school, but right after they graduated, the young man took sick. They put off the wedding so he could get well, but he kept getting sicker. Turns out he had cancer. This past spring the doctors said there was nothing more they could do.” The sober recitation slowed to a halt.
So that was what Otis meant by her having a hard time. Jason swallowed, anticipating what was coming.
“I guess they decided they had wasted enough time. They got married.”
“How long did they have?”
“About two months.”
“So she’s a young widow. What is she going to do?”
Otis shook his head. “No idea. But knowing Veda, she has a plan.”
She probably needs money. Is she dealing in moonshine to get it?

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