Whiskey & Ashes, page 15
“I’ll eat ’em anyway,” Thomas said. “After Montana, I’d eat shoe leather and call it blessed.”
The three men sat in the front room together, the windows open to the crisp evening air, the fire low in the grate.
“You know,” William said slowly, “after the war, I didn’t think I’d live to see your weddings, let alone this many years. I’ve buried friends, kin, and your mother. Watched this country try to dry up its whiskey and lose its mind with it, but here I sit still in one piece. And now my boys come home to me, one by one.”
“I wouldn’t miss this for anything,” Thomas said. “That train… God, Pa. It sounded like thunder on iron. We hit and everything folded. Men thrown like dolls. But we were spared.”
He paused, rubbing his hands together.
“I thought what if I never told him thank you? For the hard winters and the apple switch, for the nights you read to us by firelight, for carrying the war home and still standing upright through it.”
William blinked and looked out the window. “Boys weren’t meant to thank their fathers. They’re meant to outrun them.”
“Maybe,” Thomas said. “But sometimes we need to look back and acknowledge what you did for us. We understand that more now that we have raised our own.” They sat in silence a while, just three men listening to the wind.
Then Nathaniel chuckled. “Do you remember when we dug out that old tree root and you said, ‘A man’s got to know when to work and when to use fire?’”
William nodded. “And Ezekiel and I set the whole back field ablaze. Yes. Thank you for remembering that.”
They laughed quiet, real laughter and long memories filled the room like summer sunlight.
Train Station Fairbury, IL – a few days later
The platform was quiet, the autumn air crisp and edged with woodsmoke. A distant whistle echoed across the prairie, growing louder as the train approached from the West, its plume of steam trailing like a banner in the cold morning light.
Thomas Gouge stood beside his wife Martha, carpetbag in hand, his coat collar turned up against the breeze. At his side, William Gouge held his hat against his chest, what was left of his white hair tousled by the wind, his silver blue eyes fixed on his son’s face.
“I made the trip by buggy,” William said, his voice rough but steady. “Didn’t want to let you leave without standing up proper to see you off.”
Thomas swallowed hard. “You didn’t have to come out in the cold, Pa.”
“I did,” William said. “Because a man never knows when the last goodbye will come. And I’ve missed too many already in this life to leave one unfinished.”
He reached into his coat pocket and drew out a small, folded cloth. Inside was a single dried rose.
“When you next you get to the family plot,” he said, pressing it gently into Thomas’s hand, “take this to your mother’s grave. I had the stonemason carve a rose on her marker. I want her to know I’ve not forgotten her. I never will.” Thomas nodded, his throat too tight for words.
William placed a hand on his son’s shoulder, his fingers trembling. “Tell Zeke I said to keep his shoulders square and his books honest. Tell Pantha her apple preserves might be the only reason I’m still breathing. And kiss those children for me, every one of ’em.”
The conductor’s call rang out. “All aboard for Danville, Knoxville, and Bristol!”
Martha climbed the steps first, turning to look back with a soft smile. Thomas turned and embraced his father, holding him longer than he meant to, before stepping up onto the coach. From the window, he leaned out and waved. William raised his hand, his eyes never leaving the car.
The train pulled away with a shudder, its wheels grinding into rhythm. Thomas’s face lingered in the glass; a flicker of motion framed in steam and sun. William stood rooted to the platform, hat still in hand, until the last car disappeared over the rise. Only when the tracks had gone silent did he whisper, “Goodbye, son.”
Then he turned, climbed slowly into the buggy, and drove back home carrying in his chest the ache of parting, and in his hand, a folded note for the next letter to Bristol.
Bristol – October 13, 1908
The parlor on Seventh Street was full again of voices, of warmth, of the scent of cinnamon and coal smoke. The autumn wind tapped at the windowpanes, but inside, the Gouge household was alight with laughter. Thomas sat in the high-backed chair by the fire, a folded railway map spread across his knees. Beside him, young Orde sat cross-legged on the rug, his eyes wide as saucers.
“And that’s where it happened,” Thomas said, pointing to a small dot west of Billings. “Right here Youngs Point. We hit hard in a snowstorm. Like God himself reached down and shook the tracks.”
Orde leaned in, tracing the line with his finger. “You were right there? And the train broke in half?”
“It did. And somehow your old Uncle Thomas walked out with both shoes still on and your Aunt Martha still upright.”
Pantha looked up from a box at her feet. “We read of wreck but had no idea you were in Montana until the cable came. What on earth took you up there?”
“Well Pantha,” Thomas spoke softly as he fiddled with this mustache, “I didn’t know if I would ever be that close to Montana again. I had the money and the time, so we decided, why not enjoy. It is truly beautiful country, but then the accident....” He trailed off looking down at the map where Orde still held his finger.
Ezekiel, standing at the sideboard, nodded. “The world can change with the turning of a wheel. But the Lord was watching over you.”
Thomas smiled and patted Orde’s shoulder. “And I promised you this map, didn’t I?”
Orde beamed. “Can I keep it forever?”
“For always,” Thomas said. “And someday you can mark your own journeys.”
Across the room, Walter and Irene were unpacking a small crate wrapped in muslin and twine a parcel sent from Alice and Linda out west. A carved wooden box sat nestled among preserves, knitted mittens, and a painted tin of peppermint drops. “There’s a note,” Walter said, unfolding the letter aloud.
Dearest Mama and Papa,
The children send their kisses and we send our love. Thomas was a joy to host, even if briefly. The apples here are nothing like back home, but we’ve found a butcher who cures meat the old Tennessee way, and it made us homesick in all the best ways...
Pantha pressed her hand to her chest. “They always write just when I need it most.”
Ezekiel took the wooden box in hand and opened it inside, a small needle point of the homeplace on the Watauga, with the words “Hold fast to home.”
“She made that,” Walter said quietly, surprised.
Thomas smiled. “They still remember.”
The room went still for a moment, not in sadness, but in a hush that only memory can bring a collective recognition that though the family’s paths stretched far, the roots still reached the same soil.
Orde suddenly leapt up and ran to the hall. “I’m going to get my train cars! I want to make the whole line!”
Pantha chuckled. “Mind the rug this time, Orde. No derailments, please.”
The house swelled with life again with firelight on the walls, the creak of floorboards, the thump of small feet. Outside, the wind carried the first hint of woodsmoke from chimneys down the block. Inside, the family was whole again, for now, and that was enough.
Late Night on Seventh Street – October 13, 1908
The house had gone still. The children were asleep, Pantha long since gone to bed with her sewing folded neatly by the lamp. Martha has retired to the guest room leaving the brothers to the parlor and themselves. Only the low coals in the grate still glowed, casting long shadows across the floor.
Ezekiel poured two small glasses of the apple brandy he kept tucked behind the ledger books and passed one to Thomas, who took it with a nod.
They sat in the quiet like they had as boys shoulder to shoulder, nothing needing to be said until it came on its own.
“I can’t stop thinking about Linda,” Thomas said after a time. “And the way her youngest boy ran out to meet me at the fence like he’d known me forever.”
Ezekiel gave a small smile. “That’s how they love. No questions. Just joy.”
Thomas nodded. “And Alice brought a quilt to the table like Mama used to one stitch wrong, so it wouldn’t tempt heaven.” They both chuckled, softly.
“I’ve done well here,” Thomas continued. “Store still turns profit. Lumber contracts steady. I’m no man in need.”
“No,” Ezekiel said. “You’re a man in motion. Always have been.”
Thomas swirled the brandy in his glass. “But what if I stopped moving in that direction, and started moving west?” Ezekiel turned to look at him fully now.
“Just a thought,” Thomas said. “But it won’t leave me. I keep thinking of the hills out there. The air. The children. How Linda looks at me like she did when she was ten and thought I could fix anything.”
He stared into the fire. “I visited Pa before I came back,” he added. “He’s older than I remembered. Smaller, somehow, but he sat up straight when he saw me, and he wouldn’t let go of my hand.”
Ezekiel nodded slowly. “He’s still Pa.”
“He is,” Thomas said. “Still quoting scripture with one breath and cussing politicians and bureaucrats with the next.” They both laughed again, but there was something heavy under it.
“He asked me to take a flower to Mama’s grave,” Thomas added after a pause. “Said he’d had a rose carved on the stone. Wanted her to know he never forgot her.”
Ezekiel looked down into the amber in his glass. “He never did. And neither did we.”
“I wonder sometimes,” Thomas said, quieter now, “if I’ve done right by them. Ma’s life was always about staying rooted, Pa’s was about moving on after her, and mine’s been steadiness like I feared stretching out.”
Ezekiel turned to him. “Ma stayed because she was a part of that land, her family, a legacy. She didn’t want or need anything more. Pa moved because he needed a change, he needed to find a life after Ma. And now you wonder if there is more beyond the known here and yearn for the closeness of your grandchildren and the daughter you watched leave too. There’s no shame in that.”
Thomas nodded, but didn’t speak for a while. The fire popped once. Outside, a train whistle cried faint on the horizon. “I don’t know if I could leave Tennessee,” he said finally. “But maybe. Just maybe.”
Ezekiel said nothing just reached over and placed a steady hand on his brother’s arm. “I’ll miss you if you do,” he said softly.
Thomas looked at him, his voice barely above a whisper. “And you’ll be the last of us here.”
“I’ve always stood my ground,” Ezekiel said. “Even when the ground shifted under me.”
They sat in silence then, two sons of the mountains, two men on different paths but rooted by the same blood. Somewhere deep inside, they both knew this was the beginning of goodbye.
~
Garfield, Washington
April 26, 1909
My dear Brother,
We have arrived safe, sound, and already up to our elbows in spring chores. The train west was long but kind, and the air here is the kind that makes your lungs forget they ever worked too hard.
We’re settled now not more than a half mile from Linda’s place. The land is good soft and dark and eager to grow. I’ve purchased a fine farm just east of town. It was a working farm so there is not much building or changes to be made, but as you know the maintenance of a farm is never ending.
Ezekiel, I never thought I’d say this, but there’s something sweet about feeding chickens at dawn, or watching the grandchildren carry water buckets twice their size and pretend not to stumble. The same chores I cursed as a boy in Limestone Cove have become a kind of peace. Maybe it’s the years. Or maybe it’s knowing this time, I chose it.
Martha sends her love, and so does Linda. Her youngest, Henry, is the spitting image of our cousin Bill Birchfield same wide ears and that grin like he stole a peach.
We stopped briefly in Illinois again on the way out and saw Pa. He was tired, but strong in spirit. He gave me another note to pass along, though I imagine he’ll write you himself soon enough. His love goes with you always, as does mine.
I was thinking as I watched the sun come up over the Palouse hills if you ever had to turn your back on Bristol, if the law turned too sharp or the spirits dried up for good... well, I reckon you'd love it out here. You’d hate the quiet at first, but in time it would suit you. And your boys would thrive. You’re always welcome. Always.
But I know your heart. It’s made of limestone and ledger ink. I just hope it still has room for dreaming now and then.
Write when you can. Tell Pantha her preserves held up in shipping better than I expected. Our love to all of the children. For young Orde, I am enclosing another map. Tell him I’ve found new rail lines for him to trace.
Your brother,
Thomas
10
Across the Line Still Standing
Bristol, Summer 1909
The freight wagons had made their last trip. The stills were cleaned and carted. The ledgers packed, the safe emptied and rolled down the front steps like a coffin. From the upstairs window, he could just make out the rooftops of State Street, that invisible line dividing Tennessee from Virginia his past from whatever came next. It wasn't far.
They'd moved into the new house at 313 Oak Street just last week. A finer house than he ever thought he'd own. Spacious, brick-fronted, with a porch that wrapped around like arms ready to hold the whole family, but it was in Virginia and that sat like a burr in his boot.
Pantha had taken to it quicker. The girls liked the bigger kitchen, and the boys had already claimed the attic for their treasures and schemes. Even little Orde had whispered, “It feels like the whole house breathes better.” Maybe it did. But Ezekiel's heart stayed on the Tennessee side.
He lit a cigar and moved to the study, where the last of the ledgers remained. On the desk was a copy of the Herald Courier, the headline bold: BRISTOL DISTILLERY RESUMES BUSINESS. It named him plainly E. Gouge of Carter County. He smiled at that.
They could drag his license across state lines. They could drown him in lawsuits and call him outlaw. But he was still Tennessee-born. He was still a Carter County man, and the boy who built a still out of scraps and learned the science of corn and copper from men who had passed down the craft for generations.
August 1st was coming fast. By then, the boilers would be humming again on South Sixth Street on the Virginia side now. Gaugers assigned to the warehouse would arrive, notebooks in hand, and he'd have to mind every measurement, but it would run. By God, it would run. He touched the ledger’s cover gently and whispered, “We’ll make it work, old friend.”
Then he folded the paper and tucked it under his arm, stepping out into the summer dusk. From the porch, he looked east just a few blocks to the border. “I haven’t retreated,” he muttered to no one but himself. “Just shifted my ground.”
Ezekiel’s Office, Bristol, October 9, 1909
The office on smelled of pipe smoke, damp oak, and ambition. Ezekiel unfolded the newspaper and smoothed it flat on the desk, the black headline catching the light:
“Distillery Starts in Bristol.”
He adjusted his spectacles and read aloud. “The plant has a capacity of 200 gallons of corn whisky daily, but the company expects to double its capacity in the near future…”
W.T. Sams gave a low whistle. “They printed that?”
“They printed exactly what I told 'em,” Ezekiel replied with a half-smile, tapping the paper. “That’s not just a number it’s a warning shot. Let Nashville read it.”
Walter leaned forward. “That puts us ahead of Daniels, doesn’t it? Out in Lynchburg?”
McNabb chuckled, “That ol’ boy makes a fine sipping whiskey, but he don’t clear 150 gallons a day not these days.”
Ezekiel folded the page carefully, like a deed being sealed. “Daniels has marketing. We’ve got volume. And we’ll keep it one way or the other, on this side of the line or across.”
The room went quiet a moment. Outside, the clatter of barrels being rolled echoed faintly.
Sams broke the silence. “And if the court sides with the drys?”
Ezekiel looked to the map pinned above his desk, the line between Tennessee and Virginia traced in red string. He stood, hands behind his back. “Then we walk it across. We’re already halfway there.”
Walter’s voice was steady. “We’ll follow.”
Ezekiel nodded slowly. “Good. Because come January, this won’t just be about staying in business. It’ll be about staying remembered. They want us silent, but they’ll hear our name in every tavern from Roanoke to Chattanooga.” He placed the paper in a drawer beside a sealed bottle, then turned back to his partners.
“Let’s get back to work. The still’s warm and the law’s not won yet.”
Bristol, VA – December 1909
The smell of ink and paper clung to the office walls like a second skin. Ledger books lined the shelves, their spines softened and creased from years of careful handling. Outside the front window, the amber slant of autumn light filtered through the glass, falling across the heavy desk where Ezekiel stood shoulders broad, hands firm on either side of an open map. Bristol's streets bustled just beyond the pane, but inside the room, only the rhythmic scratch of a pen stirred the quiet.
Walter, seated at the desk’s corner, kept his head down, marking figures with practiced precision. At eighteen, he was already proving himself a force quiet, tireless, and unflinching. He carried Pantha’s thoughtful eyes and Ezekiel’s steady hands, and in the last year, had become the spine of their operations.
Across from Ezekiel sat W.T. Sams, sharp-suited and already flipping through the latest court notices with a lawyer’s reflexes. McNabb, in from Erwin, lounged more comfortably in the worn chair beside him, twirling a fountain pen between callused fingers. Their partnership formed in courtrooms and tempered across rail lines and bottling yards was ironclad now.
