Once again, Brother Verber was staggering up the hillside, panting like a Lamaze student, sneezing every now and then, sweating copiously, and praying with impressive sincerity that the moonshine still would pop up from behind a rock any minute. The major differences were that he was obliged to limp and that the storm was squarely overhead and making it clear it was gonna get down to business real soon.
"Around these rocks?" Mrs. Jim Bob said, trudging behind him. "Are you sure it's there, or are you still addled from your fall? We have been up here and down there and over this and behind that to the point I couldn't find the car if you paid me. I'd like to think you would have known if Raz was lying to you, you being trained in that sort of thing, but I'll admit I'm beginning to wonder, Brother Verber."
"We have to keep the faith, Sister Barbara. That's the only way to tell the saints from the sinners, and we both know which side of the bed we get up on, don't we?" He wished he could wipe the sweat out of his eyes, but there wasn't any way to juggle the boxes and get to his handkerchief. A raindrop bounced off his balding head, adding to the ambience of impending doom. "It sure does look like rain. Maybe we ought to think about putting off this Christian mission until we have a nice, sunny day?"
"We are not putting this off for anything," she said firmly, although she was equally dismayed by the growls from the sky and the occasional raindrop. "You're the one who said it wasn't all that far, if I recollect, and you're the one who's going to lead us to the still and light the fire. If you ask me, you'd better save your breath for the climb."
The two differences have already been mentioned. Now two things were about to happen, neither expected and neither to be savored in the manner of a glass of iced tea on a hot afternoon. The first happened right off. Just as Brother Verber was finding the courage to admit he was confused (if not as lost as a flea on a sheepdog), he saw the still in a clearing.
"Oh my gawd," he said, blinking in disbelief. "I mean to say, praise the Lord. Sister Barbara, we have reached our goal. Let us fall to our knees and offer thanks for the success of our mission to rid the community of moonshine and perfidy."
"It's about time. We've been wandering in circles for more than three hours."
Brother Verber was too amazed with his luck to insist on an impromptu prayer meeting in the woods. He would have patted himself on the back, had it been possible, but had to settle for a smug chuckle and the knowledge that he had been guided by the Lord on account of the undeniable purity of his soul. He put down the packages and studied the still, a real artistic arrangement of copper coils, a big ol' vat, some gallon jugs, and a goodly collection of mason jars in wooden crates. The remains of a fire, nothing more than some charred wood and feathery white ashes, were visible below the vat.
Something twitched from underneath. He was curious enough to squat down and poke the shadow with a stick. "Something's under here," he said. "One of the Lord's little critters needs to be on its way afore we commence our mission."
"What is it?" she said, joining him. Destroying the still and burning up unspeakable lingerie was one thing-two, actually-but she didn't want any roasted groundhogs on her conscience.
This led almost immediately to the second unexpected thing. The Mephitis mephitis (also called polecat, zorrino, and, by the less couth, wood pussy) was frightened by the jabs to its hindquarters. Instinct took over and it backed out from its haven, lifted its tail, and spewed out a message that had stopped many a predator ten times its size. Having succeeded, it stalked indignantly into the brush to hunt up some tasty grubs for supper.
Mrs. Jim Bob and Brother Verber were grappling with each other as they tried to escape the yellow mist that stung their eyes, clogged their throats, and seized their lungs. Both of them were screeching something awful; the words weren't intelligible but the messages were pretty much identical. By the time they reached the far edge of the clearing, Mrs. Jim Bob was sobbing uncontrollably and Brother Verber was on his hands and knees and in the process of tossing his lunch.
"You idiot!" Mrs. Jim Bob howled between sobs. "I can't believe what an idiot you are!" She staggered to her feet and tried to wipe the miasma off her face. She might as well have tried to wipe off her nose or her chin. "You stupid idiot!"
He caught hold of a sapling and pulled himself up, in some corner corner of his mind obliged to agree with her. "I didn't know! I thought it was a-a-I dunno! I didn't think it was a skunk, for pity's sake!"
"You idiot," she repeated for good measure, "look what you've done. I can barely see. What if I'm blind forever after? How are we gonna find our way out of here?"
She remained hysterical for another ten minutes or so. Brother Verber missed some of it because of recurrent nausea, but it finally eased up and he offered her his handkerchief. She was still making disparaging remarks when lightning crackled. Not more than a few seconds later, thunder exploded with such fury that the whole ridge trembled.
"Now what?" she shrieked, immediately lapsing back into hysteria. "Now what? What do we do?"
A fine question, worthy of the beacon of the flock, he heard himself thinking as he spun around and gazed at nothing more useful than scrubby brush and the creek bed they'd come up. He couldn't recall which way the car was, but he was certain it was a long, long way. And they had a short, short time to find shelter.
"Stay here a minute," he said, then hustled himself past the still to the other side of the clearing. There wasn't much of anything there, either, and he plunged into the brush, his feet moving of their own accord and his mind nigh onto blank. He thrashed this way and that, feeling as if he were covering miles but actually making a loppy circle, and therefore was a little surprised at how quickly he returned to his companion.
"Well?" she snapped. "There's a cave not too far from here," he gasped. "It ain't a Holiday Inn, but it's deep enough that we can get out of the rain. I think Raz uses it to store his whiskey."
"What about this disgusting stench?"
Thunder reverberated, this time clearly a warning that the preliminaries were over and the rain was coming any minute. Brother Verber snatched up the packages and said, "I didn't see a shower in the cave, if that's what you mean. We'd better hurry, Sister Barbara. Time's a-wasting."
The heavens proved him right. They hurried to the cave, but by the time they arrived, they were soaked to the skin, shivering so hard neither could speak, and their clothes, rather than being rinsed off, smelled all the worse for being clammy. Mrs. Jim Bob sat down on a crate and blotted her face, then took a look at the decor, which consisted of a dozen crates of moonshine, a few stubby candles, crumpled candy wrappers, and a vast quantity of crushed acorn shells on the muddy floor.
She wrapped her arms around her shoulders and began to sniffle. It was retribution, she thought despondently. She'd sinned, and now she was being made to suffer for it. She'd entertained notions of lust, and to make it worse, had envisioned herself in the arms of another man. "Thou shalt not commit adultery," she mumbled under her breath, "and thou better not even thinketh about it." She'd said those very words to Jim Bob, time and again, once going so far as to write them down on a paper and leave it pinned to his pillow the night he hadn't come home until the roosters were crowing and the first yellow school bus was sucking in a child at the edge of the county.
"Beg pardon?" Brother Verber said as he fumbled with the buttons of his shirt. He took in her startled gaze and said, "Don't you mind, Sister Barbara. I have on an undershirt. I'm hoping it won't smell quite so bad and I can put my shirt way off in the corner behind those crates."
"I'm not about to take off my dress," she said primly, or at least as primly as anyone could who was shivering, shaking, stinking, and dripping onto the floor of the cave. "I shall not sink to indecency, no matter how trying the situation. Now you fetch some wood and build a fire."