I am a ridge runner, a liquor smuggler, a bootlegger. I follow a faint path up to a ridge in Appalachia. The revenuers are off my trail, they lost me far down below. The white lightning has been distilled, it needs a carrier to bring it to nearby towns. I arrive to the cove in the middle of the night. Two men are there carrying barrels marked with a triple X’s. It took them three batches to reach this quality This stuff is good, I think.. I lug three barrels down the windy path, which meets a dirt road.
It is Western North Carolina in 1925, and prohibition is buoyant. It has offered opportunities for former soldiers like me; we can use our understanding of war leviathans to shore up cars so they can be used for transporting. My ford engine is upgraded, the seats have been removed. Two barrels in the back, one in the fake engine. Two hundred gallons total, a prosperous load.
The moon shines a film of of light upon thick rhododendron leaves on the valley side of the road. The light that breaks through the foliage pools on the ford, gathering on the slight rivulets of mountain grime. The ford winds further down the mountain, the rhododendron thinning into strings of leaves. I drive west towards Asheville where the demand is high. Suddenly in the distance I see a road block. The entrance to the city is closed by revenuers. They are armed with flashlights and revolvers. Seeing my ford, they spring towards me. Leaving the ford I run up the slopes— the darkness closes in on me.
In my mind fighter planes are drifting in and out of the clouds. Shells can be heard pounding against the trenches of the front line. Machine gun fire is in short bursts. Vestiges of mustard gas can be found in the creases of lungs. Sleepless nights are etched into worn faces.
I escape on a bear trail that leans into the valley; my body deft at climbing through the under brush. The moon is far behind, slipping below the rim of the trees.