Half of Paradise

“They’d find it sooner or later and get my registration number.” Gerard spit into the water and waded to the bank. “We got to get rid of them. Let’s go get the others.”

They started towards the cove.

“What’s the sentence for running whiskey?” Avery said.

“One to three years.”

“Do you have a drink on you?”

“I never touch it.”

They went through the underbrush to the cove where the sandbar jutted away from the shore. They could just see the hard-packed crest beneath the surface in the moonlight. Gerard stopped for a moment in silence and looked out over the water at the sandbar, and then followed Avery back through the trees towards the road. They passed the clump of willows and turned along the gully. They could see the outline of the wagon and the kegs on its bed in the shadows. LeBlanc was sitting up on the seat with Tereau.

“What did you see?” Tereau said.

“They’re there,” Gerard said.

“Bastards,” LeBlanc said.

“I think I got a way for us to get out,” Gerard said. “We’ll have to load the whiskey first.”

“You can’t outrun them with a boatload of them kegs,” Tereau said.

“They ain’t going to chase us. They’re going to be piled up on the sandbar. Take the wagon up to the boat and we’ll get loaded.”

Tereau slapped the reins against the mules’ backs. The kegs lumbered from side to side as the wagon creaked forward. LeBlanc sat beside the Negro with his hand on the butt of his revolver.

“You ain’t going to need the gun,” Tereau said.

“I’m the judge of that.”

“We never had no shooting. We don’t shoot and they don’t shoot.”

LeBlanc looked grimly ahead. Gerard and Avery took the mules by their harness and turned them around so the tailgate would face the boat. Tereau tied the reins to the brake, and climbed down and went to the rear of the wagon. He pulled the metal pins from their fastenings and eased the gate down.

“It ain’t too late,” he said. “I’ll give you your money back and take the whiskey to the still.”

“We’ll make it,” Gerard said.

“It’s your three years,” Tereau said, and took the first keg off the bed onto his shoulder.

Avery got up on the bed and handed the kegs down. In a quarter hour the boat was loaded.

“Now what?” Tereau said.

“You better get ready to move,” Gerard said.

“It ain’t smart what you’re doing.”

“I never had to ditch a load yet.”

LeBlanc got into the long flat outboard and climbed over the kegs to the bow. Gerard got in and sat on the board plank in front of the motor. He took a flashlight from under the seat and placed it beside him. He wrapped the rope around the starter, put the motor in neutral and opened the throttle; he yanked hard on the rope. It caught the first time, and he increased the gas feed and raced the motor wide open in neutral. They heard the two Evinrude seventy-five-horsepower engines of the police boat kick over across the river.

Gerard took up the flashlight and shone it through the willows so it would be visible from the river. The throbbing of the police boat’s engines became nearer, then they saw it come around the river bend full speed towards the mouth of the cove, the water breaking white in front of the bow, the flat churning wake behind and the spray flying back over the uptilted cabin. Someone on board must have seen the sandbar, because the boat swerved to port just before it struck the crest. The bow lurched in the air, and the engines, still driving, spun the boat around on its keel until it came

to rest with part of the stern out of the water and the starboard propeller churning in the sand.

LeBlanc stood up in the outboard and shouted at the police boat.