Moonshine, Trains, and Red Clay Roads

By Elaine Stewart

Levi, the son of a sharecropper in rural South Georgia and raised in the 1920s and 1930s, was accustomed to having very little. Now, he found himself facing a situation he could never have imagined. A trip across the country with one of his sisters and her husband sounded thrilling. He had never been out of Georgia when, suddenly, he found himself stranded in a small Texas town with nothing but the clothes on his back. He didn't know which was more devastating: his lost and penniless situation or being abandoned by someone he loved and who, he thought, loved him. At sixteen, alone in a strange new world, he faces one unthinkable situation after another. But he was going home to Alma by whatever means necessary and plant his feet so deeply in that red Georgia clay that he would never move again!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9781643000282

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Epilogue

About the Author

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Moonshine, Trains, and Red Clay Roads

Elaine Stewart

ISBN 978-1-64300-027-5 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64300-028-2 (Digital)

Copyright © 2018 Elaine Stewart

All rights reserved

First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Covenant Books, Inc.

11661 Hwy 707

Murrells Inlet, SC 29576

www.covenantbooks.com

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my father (daddy), Clarence Levi Waters. It is loosely based on his true-life experiences as a teenager. He was born and raised in very humble circumstances and had little education; but he was a wise man and filled with country humor. He placed my mother, Eleanor, and his children, Luci, Mike, Jet, Norma, and yours truly, above everything. He raised five children with few resources, but we were always sheltered and clothed; we never went hungry; we never doubted that we were loved! I have always been, and always will be, proud to be Elaine, one of Levi's girls!

I also want to thank the baristas at Starbucks, 4265 Roosevelt Boulevard, Jacksonville, Florida, 32210. Their wonderful spirit, sweet attitudes, comradery, and encouragement helped me finish this book! And of course, they kept me well caffeinated! Thank you, Kelly Callahan and all the crew!

Chapter 1

Levi opened his eyes and tried to stretch out the kinks in his neck and back. He was too young for these aches and pains, but even a sixteen-year-old boy can get stiff curled up under someone's old tool shed. Peeking out from under the shed to be sure no one was watching, he quickly scrambled to his feet and jumped the wire fence behind him.

He had always lived a hardscrabble life; poverty was all he had ever known. This, however, was different. How in the Sam hill did he get in this hot mess? His stomach complained loudly. He hadn't eaten in almost forty-eight hours, and that meal consisted of wild berries growing on the side of the road, not much to keep a growing boy on his feet.

Cutting across an open field, he caught the scent of bread baking. Just beyond the next little rise was an old wood frame house, small and unpainted, but well cared for. Someone had even taken a straw broom to the hard-packed dirt that led up to the porch. The old rocking chair and butter churn took up most of the space on the porch.

Levi sprinted to the side of the house. In this part of the country, it was not a good idea for a stranger to just walk up to someone's front door. If you did, you were as likely as not to face the business end of a shotgun.

Easing around the house, he saw the four loaves of bread cooling on the window sill. Just as he reached up to help himself, a strong arm emerged and put a death grip on his wrist. Startled, he stood up so quickly that he came up under that window sill hitting his head with such force that he crumpled to the ground.

The old man ran from the house to where Levi was laying, his head bleeding, almost unconscious. Alec reached down and threw the boy across his shoulder. He was getting on in years, but the boy seemed to be not much more than skin and bones.

The house consisted of one large room, and the furnishings were limited to a small square table with a stool on either side, an old faded armchair that could have been red when it was new, but the color was now nondescript, a potbelly stove, and a bed with a feather mattress over a rope frame.

Alec laid Levi on the old bed and went out to the well to fetch some water. He had been baking, so the old stove was already hot. He poured the water into a cast iron kettle and stoked the fire. While waiting for the water to boil, he looked for something to make a bandage out of.

As he sat tearing the sleeves out of the oldest of his four work shirts and ripping them into long strips, he studied the boy on the bed. Watching Levi's deep, steady breathing, Alec realized that the boy was asleep, not unconscious. He wondered how this youngster got to his place, Where had he come from? He was dressed in old bib overalls that were three inches too short, no shirt and no shoes. He obviously had not had a real meal in some time. Alec wanted to be angry with him for having the audacity to try to steal bread from his window, but instead, he found himself feeling sorry for the little thief.

Levi awoke with a jolt and sat up. Looking around, he tried to remember where he was and how he had gotten here. He saw the old man standing at the stove, stirring something in a deep pot. He could hear and smell fatback frying. There had been lean times back home, but he could not recall ever being as hungry as he was now.

Alec heard the ropes on the bed creak and turned to face the boy. He tossed him a bar of homemade soap, a towel, and a thin blanket. Levi was instructed to go to the pond at the back of the house, shuck his filthy clothes, and wash up before he could eat. There was a cauldron on the fire outside that already held Alec's few clothes, and Levi was told to toss his overalls in the water so that they too could boil clean. The smell of food inspired Levi not to question or argue; he sprinted out the door and was standing back inside with the blanket wrapped around his scrawny frame in less than twenty minutes.

Levi's mother had been a great cook before she died. His daddy used to say that she could make an old cowhide taste good. There had been times when there wasn't much more than that to cook for her large family. Sharecropping was a hard life, especially when either the rains didn't come or they came with a vengeance; or when the ground stayed frozen too long or the summer was so hot that it burned the corn before it could be harvested. But that was the life they had, and his parents had done the best they could before that life put them both in early graves.

Levi was so hungry that he really couldn't say if Alec was a good cook or not. At that point, anything edible tasted like a gourmet feast. He ate his fill of greens, fatback, and corn bread, savoring the last bit of the pot liquor he sopped up with a remaining morsel of bread.

There had been no real conversation as they ate, and when the meal was finished, the old man tended the wound on the boy's head. Levi could hardly keep his head up long enough for the doctoring to be done. Alec had made him a quilt pallet on the floor in the corner, but after sleeping on the ground for the last few days, it looked and felt like the softest bed in the world to Levi. Full and safe, he quickly fell into a hard sleep.

Chapter 2

Levi lay with his eyes still closed, listening to the familiar sound of the rooster announcing that a new day was dawning. Any minute now, Mama was going to come and tell him that it was time to rise and shine because there were chores to be done before breakfast. He sniffed at the air expecting to smell the aroma of biscuits baking, but all he smelled was the faint mustiness of the cotton quilt he was wrapped in.

Slowly opening his eyes, he realized that he had been dreaming. Mama was lying next to Daddy in the small family cemetery back in Bacon County, Georgia, and he was a very long way from home. In fact, he didn't really know where he was except that he was somewhere in Texas. Thinking about how far he was from home and how he had gotten there, Levi wanted to cry, but he had run out of tears after his first few days of walking.

His emotions took a hard swing from sadness and despair to a mixture of anger and heartbreak. He was so angry that he had been abandoned, the old Model T he had worked so hard for stolen. He was heartbroken that his sister and that so-called man she had married were the ones who had deserted him, leaving him like discarded rubbish on the side of the road.

Levi had never had much in the way of material things, but he had always had the love and devotion of his big family. Oh, they fought among each other, all nine kids possessing the lethal combination of Irish and Cherokee tempers; but if an outsider went after one, they had to tangle with the whole crew. This Waters family worked hard and fought hard; they also loved hard. That was why it was almost inconceivable that his own sister would toss him aside with nothing and no one to turn to. He left home declaring his manhood, but at this moment, he felt like a lost little boy, and the sorrow weighed him down.

He almost smiled remembering how excited he was when he was finally able to work off the last payment on the old tin Lizzie. It had seen better days, but the motor still cranked, and the tires stayed inflated. That was enough for him.

Levi's father had passed away some time back; he was still a relatively young man, but the years of trying to scratch a living out of the Georgia clay and keep his large family fed had sapped his strength and stolen his health. His mother died not long after, and Levi and his younger siblings had been taken in by their older brothers. Levi lived with Dewitt and his wife, Sally, who, already having quite a brood of their own, just added them to the mix.

His sister Stella and her husband, Otis, appeared one day unexpectedly. It wasn't unusual for kinfolk to drop by, and there were no telephones to notify of a visit. Stella and Otis making a surprise appearance was a different situation. Stella was their sister, and they all loved her, but Otis was another story. He was not exactly known as an upstanding man. He made his meager living, they believed, by theft, bullying, and making corn liquor. Levi had no doubt that if his daddy had still been living, he would have run Stella's suitor off with the shotgun. But things being as they were, he had wooed and won her, and they had eloped some months before.

When the couple admired, oohing and aahing, over the old car, Levi was as proud as he could be. It was then that they talked about their dream of leaving the red clay of Georgia and going west to California. Otis took Levi on a fanciful trip through the states, talking about the sights they would see. Then he spoke of the palm trees, beaches, and beautiful weather in California and how it was easy to make money there. California was considered a wealthy state, Georgia a poor one. Even though the man had never been west of Alabama, he made it sound so wonderful, and it wasn't long before the wide-eyed boy had been convinced that the three of them could head west in Levi's old Ford.

Two days later, they cranked up Lizzie and started their journey. Levi's older brothers and sister had spent most of the night trying to talk him out of leaving, and the younger brother and sister cried, but he was a sixteen-year-old man-child looking forward to an adventure, and he could not be swayed.

It was a tedious trip, with limited funds, sleeping on the side of the road and eating mostly saltines and peanut butter, but to Levi, it was still a grand adventure. As the landscape changed from pine trees to swamps to cactus and desert plants, he was filled with wonder. Driving across south Texas, he kept dreaming of the beauty of California that had been promised.

One evening, the air was damp and cool, and Levi went in search of something to use as a blanket. Their meager belongings were tied together in a bundle, but he spotted a familiar pattern in the middle of the cluster. With furrowed brow, he started to tug on it, pulling it free. It was his Sally's favorite quilt! As he continued to pull, other familiar pieces of clothing and bed linens started to fall out. At first, he was confused, and then he remembered Sally washing clothes on the old scrub board and hanging them on the line to dry.

Levi's quick temper exploded! He was still a boy and much smaller than Otis, but it didn't stop him from leaping onto the man's back and trying to pummel him with his fists. To be a thief was bad enough, but to steal from family went beyond the pale! Otis flicked Levi off like so much tissue paper and sent the boy tumbling through the dirt. Stella watched helplessly, wringing her hands, praying that her husband would show some restraint and not really injure her brother. She wasn't sure which feeling prevailed, fear or shame.

The atmosphere in the crowded auto was quiet and tense, the animosity between Otis and Levi palpable. About midday, they had stopped to check the water in the radiator and the air in the tires and put gas in the tank. Levi took his leave and found the privy behind the old filling station. After a few minutes, he came out, pulling up the strap of his overalls onto his shoulder, and he came around the corner of the old station just in time to see his car through a cloud of dust heading on down the road.

He wasn't sure how long he stared after it, not believing what he had seen. At first, he thought it would be a joke, a good laugh on him, but the truth of the situation was finally clear.

He had been abandoned, left by the side of the road like so much trash. For a little while he cried, but the sorrow quickly turned to anger. It was his rage that mobilized him and kept him on his feet.

A strange sound from outside shook him from his reverie. Wiping his eyes with the back of his hands, he ventured out to investigate. Levi was glad no one had been around to see the tears. After all, he was a man full grown now and had to act like one.

A thick stand of scrub trees grew behind the old house. Wandering along the edge, he spotted a narrow path of worn-down grass. There was that noise again; it was a tinny sound of something metallic being struck. Levi followed that sound until he came to a small clearing. The old man was swinging a hammer at a pipe connected to a round copper tub and calling it every name the boy had ever heard, as well as a few that he hadn't!

The sight, sounds, and smell emanating from the still were certainly not foreign to Levi as he had seen many moonshine stills back home, including his own father's. Being well acquainted with the secrecy surrounding the making of home brew, he tried to ease away, backing up as slowly and quietly as possible. He had almost made it out of the clearing when Alec stopped swearing and cocked his head to one side, straining to hear. The old man moved cautiously to his right. That's when Levi spotted the shotgun leaning against the tree. With an ease of motion that belied his years, Alec spun around, grabbed the old blunderbuss, and aimed it in the boy's direction. He wanted to drop to the ground; he wanted to hightail it out of the woods, but not a muscle in his body cooperated. He just stood there, frozen in place, all color draining from his face.

When Alec realized it was the boy and saw the stark fear on his face, he almost collapsed in laughter, rare tears running down his leathered face. Throwing the hammer to the ground, he wiped his brow and motioned the boy to come over to him. Realizing there was no danger, Levi fell to his knees and struggled to breathe and regain what little dignity he had left.

When Alec had collected himself enough to pick the hammer up again, he gave the pipe one more whack, producing a gurgle in the pipe and a belch of steam from the top. The coiled tubing began to expel the hundred-proof liquid, drop by drop into the stone jug it hung in.

Levi was put right to work, washing out and filling the mason jars, carefully lining them up on the makeshift shelves that consisted of old boards and bricks. It was hot work, and the shade from the trees did little to alleviate the Texas summer heat, but he was happy to be busy; it made the time pass quickly.

The afternoon sun was waning before they finally stopped for more than a dipper of cool well water, both man and boy exhausted. Alec made one more stop at the smokehouse and pulled a ham off a large hook. Levi's stomach complained loudly just from the sweet, smoky smell.

Having filled their stomachs with thick slices of ham and bread, they sat on the porch watching the fireflies gather. These were the