Selectively Lawless. Asa Dunnington
Goldwater spent time there, too.
None of that was known to Emmett at the time, of course—not then and probably not ever. But like those other men of drive and ambition, he recognized the necessity of the land beneath his feet and felt its pull on his spirit.
His own father had been tied to the land, but it was land owned by others. Land that changed from month to month depending on where work could be found. Emmett wanted more than that. He needed more than that. There was something primal about owning the land beneath your feet, almost spiritual, and Emmett was bound to have it. He would never be tethered to land he didn’t own or to a job he didn’t want.
Emmett drove right up to the cotton field where his family was working, his bright-red car gleaming in the afternoon sun. Chester was the first one to reach him, but as he ran toward his brother, time seemed to almost slow down, as he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.
Emmett had stopped off in Dallas and bought himself an expensive three-piece suit, some awfully shiny shoes, and a felt fedora that made him look like how Chester imagined the president himself would look. Emmett laughed when he saw his brother’s pace slow and his jaw drop. He was leaning against his polished red Roadster, which he’d taken care to wash once he was a few miles away for maximum effect.
Chester was walking toward him now, staring at his little brother’s smiling face.
Ches stopped several feet away from Emmett, staring at the man his brother had become seemingly overnight. The rest of the family was still a ways off, so the moment between the brothers was private, almost intimate.
Ches raised his eyebrows quizzically, silently asking his younger brother if he’d made good on the rest of his promise.
Emmett smiled broadly and took his hands out of his pockets. Each of his fists was stuffed with cash. Emmett nodded to his brother and replaced the money in his pockets, and the two of them fell into each other’s arms, laughing hysterically. By the time the rest of the family got to them, they were rolling on the ground in the dirt next to the shiny red Roadster like a couple of children after the last school bell.
Emmett insisted they all stop working for the day so that he could buy them dinner in town. His parents’ initial resistance was erased by the sight of the eighteen thousand dollars in cash he showed them, much as he’d shown Chester, by giving them a quick glimpse at the contents of the pockets of his fancy new suit.
Emmett and his family obviously had a lot of catching up to do.
The next day, Emmett went to see his friend Walter, although nobody had called him by his Christian name since he’d learned to walk. He was known as Boots from his very first steps until the day he died, because he learned to walk in, you guessed it, his father’s boots. As a toddler, he rushed to put them on the moment his father took them off.
Boots had been Emmett’s best friend in grammar school, and since Emmett had money to spend and a hankering to turn it into more, and since his old buddy Boots was always up for a little mischief, he figured Boots would make a good partner in whatever business the two of them could concoct to produce the largest return on their investment.
Being that this was the 1920s, the business that turned out to promise the richest reward for the least amount of work was moonshine.
Emmett remembered the words of Big John Mackey: “Son, this is America. You can buy anything you want if you have the money.”
Which also meant that if you had what the people wanted, they would be willing to part with that money.
Now, in spite of their mutual entrepreneurial spirit and Emmett’s large stake, the two of them realized they needed a little more expertise than they currently possessed to get started, so they approached an older friend, J. B., who they knew would be able to get certain materials they’d need to build the still.
J. B. had access to the copper tubing they’d need, as well as the know-how to actually build the still. Boots was in charge of the raw materials, like grain and sugar, and Emmett, being the man with the money, was responsible for bribing the right law-and-order types, who any successful bootlegger knew would be needed to look the other way from time to time.
Emmett found out who the local revenue agent was and introduced himself.
“What can I do for you, young man?”
“I was just wondering if you preferred coffee or tea in the morning,” Emmett said.
The man looked at him strangely. “Why do you ask me that?”
“I figure a man who drinks coffee in the morning spends more time in the outhouse at night,” Emmett said.
The man laughed. “I guess that might be so.”
“And a man who spends time in the latrine at night might miss a thing or two while he’s in there, from time to time.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “Like what?”
“Like that sawbuck down by your feet, sir,” Emmett said, pointing at the floor by the desk, where he’d surreptitiously dropped a ten-dollar bill.
The revenue agent looked down at the bill and back up to Emmett.
“If I was a betting man,” Emmett continued, “I’d bet that fella down there’s got a big family, all ready to come visit when the time is right.”
“And what time would that be?”
“At night, after the coffee’s been drunk.”
The man stood up from his desk with a stern look on his face. After a moment, he walked over to his office door and closed it, then turned to face Emmett. “Fifty dollars a month for every hundred gallons, plus twenty-five a week whether you cook or not.”
Emmett stood up, and they shook hands.
“And two jugs a month,” the revenue agent added, “to splash in my coffee.”
Emmett nodded. This is going to be easier than I thought.
They built the still in the woods at the base of the nearby Wichita Mountains in the game preserve area, home to bison and prairie dogs and plenty of freshwater creeks feeding Bass Lake, from which they figured they could draw as much cool, clear water as they needed to make large amounts of moonshine.
Emmett also had the brilliant idea to buy votes from the local Indians, who didn’t always trust local law enforcement and so were more than willing to go to the polls and help elect the “sympathetic” sheriff of Emmett’s choosing for a dollar apiece. Some of them voted several times, as a matter of fact.
Emmett Long’s moonshine empire was in business, and business was good.
Then one day, Boots and Emmett decided to dynamite one of the feeder creeks to kill the fish and prepare the creek for use exclusively for their still.
They’d just set off the blast when a game warden suddenly appeared behind them out of a thick stand of trees across the water. “Where’s your still?” he shouted, and Emmett instinctively drew the forty-five from his hip, spun, and fired.
The warden, his hand on his holstered sidearm, dropped where he was standing. Emmett had always been an excellent shot.
It was eerily quiet for a very long moment as Emmett and Boots just stared at the man’s body, realizing the implications of Emmett’s instinctual act. The man had obviously known why they were dynamiting the creek and likely could have sent them both to prison, but it was still shocking to them both.
After a moment, without a word between them, they both trudged into the woods where the still was located. They had recently leveled the ground where the still sat, and so there were shovels at the ready for what they knew they had to do.
Still silent, Emmett and his childhood friend dug the grave of the game warden, who, on closer inspection, looked no older than they were. Neither man spoke as they dug, their shirts wet with sweat by the time they’d finished the gruesome work.
Afterward,