Whiskey & Ashes, page 7
“I’d say we’re blessed,” he told Pantha one night as they sat by the fire. She nodded, tired but content, rubbing the rounded swell of her belly.
“You always say that.” she replied.
“Because it’s true. Everything we built… it’s held.”
She looked at him then, seriously. “For now.”
Ezekiel blinked. “You feel something coming?”
Pantha shrugged. “A mother always feels the storm before the wind.”
He didn’t sleep that night, not restfully. The fire crackled, the house creaked, and the wind whispered along the eaves. Somewhere out there, the future turned a corner.
That year, the ledgers showed more profit than ever before. But in a courthouse in Washington, and in back rooms in Nashville, the tremors of 1900 were beginning. Temperance bills, enforcement rumors, new taxes… The “Four Mile Law” restricting sale of alcohol near schools was passed. The next century would not be as kind.
But for now, in Fish Springs, the barrels were full. The river ran true. And Ezekiel Gouge still stood, quietly guarding his legacy.
5
The Last Pour in the Valley
Fish Springs, Tennessee – Late April 1900
The children had long since gone to bed, and the farmhouse had settled into its usual hush the kind of silence that wasn’t empty, but full of memory. The kind of silence that lived in the creak of floorboards and the tick of the mantle clock and the low whistle of wind off the Watauga. Pantha sat by the window in her rocker, sewing basket idle at her feet, her fingers still while her thoughts stirred.
Across the room, Ezekiel’s chair was empty for now. He was in his study, again poring over ledgers, writing letters, drafting statements, she didn’t know. He’d been at it since supper, a small lamp flickering at his desk and a glass of that blackberry reserve sitting untouched beside him. His work had grown with the whiskey and so had the stakes.
Pantha glanced at the folded newspaper on the table. A row at Gouge’s distillery that’s what they called it. A man had been struck and knocked off his feet and into the fire. Died from it. The story made its way through every parlor and porch in the county before she’d even heard the full of it from Zeke himself. Whether it was temperance agitators or a fight turned cruel, she didn’t know. But it had happened on her husband’s land, under his name.
She’d been proud, of course she had. What woman wouldn’t be? Ezekiel Gouge had been named to the Republican Congressional Convention. A respected businessman. A voice for the mountain folk, for freedom, for the right to make an honest living the old-fashioned way. But she also saw the way his name now traveled farther than his whiskey. Fame had a cost. It changed the way people looked at you and not always in kindness.
Her eyes drifted toward the doorway, where the sound of his pen still scratched faintly. She loved that man. Had done since the first time he kissed her hand outside her father’s orchard. But she also knew him. Knew how his ambition ran deep, not greedy, but steady, like the river beside their barn. Always moving forward, no matter what tried to slow it.
Pantha reached for the shawl draped over her chair. She wrapped it around her shoulders and stood, crossing the room quietly. She paused at the door to his study and leaned against the frame, caressing the swell of her belly heavy with child, watching him in the low lamplight. His brow furrowed in thought, his hand steady as he underlined figures in a ledger. A man building something bigger than most could see.
“You’re going to run yourself dry, Zeke,” she said softly.
He looked up, the corner of his mouth lifting. “Just keeping ahead of the storm.”
“You’ve always worked hard,” she said. “But now they’re watching. The paper’s printing. The folks whispering. Your name’s more than just stamped on a barrel now.”
He set the pen down and leaned back. “Is that your way of telling me to slow down?”
“It’s my way of telling you I see what’s coming,” she replied, stepping into the room. “Politics, attention, temperance folks riled up and looking for someone to blame. The world’s changing. And not all of it will make room for a Gouge.”
Ezekiel’s gaze met hers, serious now, but not defensive. He nodded, slowly. “You worried?” he asked.
Pantha sighed, coming to stand behind him, resting her hands on his shoulders. “I’m proud, but yes I’m worried. You’ve built something worth fighting for. But don’t forget the cost. Our boys need a father. Our girls need a name that’s safe, not just strong.”
Ezekiel covered her hand with his. “I’ll always be here for you, for our children, and our home, Pantha. No matter what’s out there.”
“I believe that” she said. “Just don’t let the world out there take so much of you there’s nothing left for in here.” The two of them stood in stillness then her fingers curled over his shoulder, his eyes lingering on the red book that rested on the shelf beside him, the one he read to Walter just the night before. A legacy wasn’t just barrels and buildings. It was this, a family and memories. A woman who knew both his dreams and his limits and reminded him of them. Outside, the wind stirred again, brushing the windowpane with soft fingers. Tomorrow, the world might come calling, but tonight, home held him.
Fish Springs, Tennessee – December 1900
The room was quiet save for the low ticking of the mantel clock and the soft crackle of the fire. Ezekiel Gouge sat at his desk, a thick stack of correspondence to one side, The Comet of Johnson City folded open to the small column that bore the day’s news: “The Watauga Distilling Company… capital stock $15,000… E. Gouge, W. O. Phillips, D. M. Walters, Thomas Gouge, Isaac C. Grimstaff.”
He read the line repeatedly. His name at the head of the list still struck him not out of pride, but gravity. He had done it. What began as a dream of a boy in Carter County learning his craft by a creek had grown to a lone man with a copper still beside the Watauga, now had evolved into an incorporated company, with stock, partners, and a future that now rested in hands beyond his own.
He leaned back in the desk chair; its arms smoothed from years of wear. The familiar scent of ink, paper, and aged whiskey casks clung faintly to his coat. Across the room, his personal decanter of Happy Valley sat untouched beside the hearth. For the first time in his life, he felt the full weight of leadership not just over men, but over livelihoods.
His brother Thomas had joined him now, invested both in coin and conviction but would continue to build his own real estate and retail holdings trusting Ezekiel with the whiskey. Phillips brought retail space and access to markets, Walters knew how to read the shifting legal winds, and Grimstaff was sharp as a tack, with an eye for figures and an instinct and conviction for keeping the books clean.
Still, it was Ezekiel they looked to. He was the managing partner and founder. He could feel it in every conversation. Every decision now casted a longer shadow. If the grain order ran late, if a tax dispute arose, if the still ran too hot or too cold he would answer for it, and others would pay the price.
He glanced toward the small leather-bound ledger on the far shelf his father's. William’s hand, steady even in hardship, had kept records of teaching days, seed sales, and pension appeals in careful script. That legacy still watched over him, a reminder that honor lay not only in success, but in how a man bore responsibility and weathered failures he could not prevent.
Outside the frost clung to the windows. Ezekiel turned his eyes upward knowing Pantha would be tucking the children in now. His son Walter was a bright boy at nine, and was already showing signs of his father’s determination. Lil Zeke was strong and an inquisitive little boy always watching, like Judah. And little Elmer clung to his mama, still just a baby but full of promise like his brothers. His girls were his joy and all echos of the woman who stood as his life partner and strength.
Ezekiel dipped his pen in the inkwell and pulled a fresh sheet from the drawer. There were letters to write, contracts to review, and a new shipment to arrange. But before all that, he paused. He let the silence settle around him like an old coat and said aloud, almost to the room, “It’s not just my name on the barrels anymore.” Then he smiled faintly tired, but sure and began to write.
Fish Springs, Tennessee August 1901
Ezekiel sat at the edge of the porch, nursing a mug of coffee gone lukewarm enjoying a rare moment of pleasure reading from the book open on this lap. The barrel-stave rocker creaked beneath him, a steady rhythm against the hush of early morning. From this perch, he could see the gentle rise of the pasture, the first stirrings of steam from the stillhouse chimney, and the faint line of the railroad track slicing through the trees beyond.
Inside the house, the symphony of his family was already tuning up. He heard Pantha's low command to someone probably Bertie to fetch more kindling, and the soft clatter of a skillet meeting the stove. Eula shrieked with delight or protest it was hard to tell and was answered by the sing-song shush of Lockie trying to calm her with a lullaby she was too old to believe in but still sang anyway to her and their baby brother. The girls had delighted in the new baby now one, his third son Earl Elmer. He had the blue eyes of his older brothers. He was smaller but had a sweet nature and easy to smile.
Then came ten-year-old Walter, thudding down the steps two at a time, waving a folded copy of the Elizabethton Star like a trophy.
“Papa!” he called, breathless and proud. “You’re in the paper twice this week!”
Ezekiel raised an eyebrow and opened his arms. Walter handed him the page and flopped beside him in Pantha’s rocker, grinning. Five-year-old Little Zeke trailed behind and climbed up into their father’s lap, holding out his toy train for Ezekiel to see.
Ezekiel scanned the clippings. One, about a barrel lost when a careless driver failed to check the hoops twenty gallons soaked into the dirt. The other, his own words about sheep mauled by strays on land loaned to a drover passing through for his flock to rest. Sixteen dead in one night from the dogs.
“They printed that?” Ezekiel muttered.
“You said it!” Walter beamed. “Mama says folks listen when you talk now.”
He smiled at that, folding the paper. “Words matter, son. Make sure the ones you put out in the world are worth their ink.”
From the kitchen window, Pantha’s voice rang out, “And tell him breakfast’s getting cold!”
Walter darted off with Little Zeke in tow. Ezekiel stood, stretching stiff joints, and turned toward the open door. But before stepping in, he paused. Inside, the chaos had a rhythm only Pantha understood. Her voice, calm and commanding. The girls Bertie, Norrie, Mollie, and Lockie moved in and around each other like dancers on a stage. Bertie, ever the helper, stacking dishes. Norrie plaiting Eula’s hair while bouncing the baby in her hip. Lockie sulking near the stairs, arms crossed, frustration painted across her face.
And then there was Mollie.
She moved quieter than the rest. Always had. Not shy, never that, but observant. She was brushing flour off her hands and laughing at something Bernice said, but her eyes were fixed on something far beyond the kitchen walls. There was a dreaminess to her sometimes that Ezekiel couldn’t place a softness that stood apart from the sharpness of Pantha’s world. She caught him watching, and for a moment, smiled at him a soft, secret smile, like she knew a story he hadn’t heard yet. He returned it with a nod, but his chest tightened unexpectedly. He didn’t know why. Maybe it was the way she held herself, like something fragile growing strong.
He stepped inside, the scent of ham still sizzling and sorghum for the flapjacks thick in the warm air. Pantha handed him a plate without looking. “That driver you hired needs replacing.”
“He already has been,” Ezekiel answered, kissing her temple.
Her expression softened, just slightly. “You can’t afford mistakes like that. Not now.”
He looked around the kitchen the glowing hearth, the chatter, the steam from the coffee pot. Here was his kingdom, future, and heart.
“I know,” he said quietly. “But I don’t plan on losing anything else.”
As the family settled around the table, Ezekiel lingered near the doorway for a beat longer than usual. Watching. Holding the moment. Unaware, yet somehow sensing, that not all of them would stay in the circle forever.
That evening they all sat in the parlor. The pace of the day slowed as everyone relaxed before turning in for the night. Ezekiel pulled out a letter delivered earlier today from the driver returning to the distillery from his delivery to the train stop. The mark told him it was from his father, so he had waited to read it to the family.
Ancona, Illinois, July 20th, 1901
Dear Zeke, Pantha, and all the little Gouges,
Well, I’ve had myself quite the adventure this week enough to earn a few more gray hairs, and a good lesson in letting the young ones do the fishing while I keep an eye on the world.
On Tuesday, I took the Cooper boys (two lively little fellows about the age of your Walter and Horace, they remind me of you and your brothers at that age) down to the Vermillion River for a bit of fishing. We’d barely gotten settled when they decided they ought to dig for bait. I turned my back just a moment, and next thing I know, they’ve wandered off down the bank and completely disappeared.
Now, I spent the better part of an hour stomping through brush and calling out for them, thinking maybe they’d fallen in or gotten tangled up in the reeds. I finally secured help and was just about to head home for more assistance when I ran into my good wife racing recklessly toward the river in a borrowed livery rig, white-faced and convinced I'd drowned.
As it turns out, the boys had followed the river all the way to Tucker’s Ford and stumbled into a kindly man who saw their plight, took them to Ancona. They told everyone I had been swept away in the current and drowned. Poor boys were certain of it.
When I finally got home and found the house still standing and no funerals being planned, I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. It gave me a good chuckle once the dust settled, but I’ll tell you, Zeke it stirred something in me too.
Watching those boys explore reminded me so much of my own grandsons. I pictured Walter or Little Zeke getting into the same kind of trouble back home in Tennessee. There's a certain poetry in watching the next generation make the same missteps we did. But Lord willing, I’ll stick to fishing alone next time or at least dig the bait myself and keep the boys in sight.
Tell the children their grandfather sends his love. I miss you all more than I can say. There’s nothing in this prairie wind quite like the smell of mountains or the sound of the creek behind your home.
With affection and a lesson hard-learned,
Your father,
Wm. Gouge
P.S. The moral, as the local paper rightly put it: always let the boys fish, and you dig the bait.
Fish Springs, Carter County – Autumn 1902
The letter from the commissioner in Greeneville lay open on Ezekiel’s desk, its words as sharp as any blade. Charged with illegal removals Bonds would have to be made. The government was making their move. Ezekiel sat alone in the study he’d built with care, the fire behind him casting long, flickering shadows across his shelves of history and law volumes, ledgers, and distillation manuals. The red leather book, the one passed from his father’s hand to his own, rested nearby the only thing that seemed steady now. He read the words again, eyes catching on the figures. Four thousand gallons. A number that would have once seemed impossible, now presented as a crime.
They were claiming illegal withdrawals from the warehouses, the kind of accusation that could seize your product, your property, your future. William B. McNabb and W.T.Sams from Unicoi County names were there with other distillers, alongside his own. The circle was tightening.
Outside, the leaves had begun to fall, gathering against the corners of the distillery yard. His workers kept their heads down. There had been whispers of raids again, of undercover agents lurking in the hills. One of the freight drivers had already taken another job, too nervous to stay on. Pantha entered the room quietly, her presence grounding. She had come to check on Elmer whom she had left sleeping in his cradle near the hearth. The babe had not so much as stirred and still slept sound. She carried the ledger he’d left open in the kitchen, the one tracking bond payments and the latest rail shipments.
“They’ve named you outright,” she said, placing the book on his desk.
He nodded. “They mean to make an example.”
She crossed her arms, her silhouette framed by the lamplight. “And you mean to fight it?”
“I do.”
“But at what cost?” she asked. “Walter is only twelve, but he hears the whispers. The girls feel the tension in every room. You’re on the tongue of every paper-pusher from here to Nashville. You can’t tell me you don’t feel it closing in.”
“I feel it,” he said softly. “I’ve felt it for years. Every barrel I watched rolled into that warehouse was stamped and taxed by a gauger they assigned, and yet still they come. They want to break the independents. Men like me who built something before they had a law to measure it against.”
Pantha sat beside him, hand resting on his. “I know what you built. I know what we’ve built. But don’t let this become a noose.”
Ezekiel turned to face her, the firelight dancing in his eyes. “I won’t run, Pantha. I won’t hand over what I’ve carved out of these hills to men who don’t know a barrel from a bucket. And I won’t ask McNabb or Sams to fall alone. We swore we’d stand if it came to this.”
She gave a long breath. “Then make sure the standing is worth it. I will have supper on soon.” And with that she stepped out and down the hall to the kitchen leaving him to his thoughts.
Ezekiel began to once again review the ledger ensuring every barrel had been accounted for and every tax noted. A noise from the hall caught his attention. He looked toward the door as footsteps approached, they were small and hurried. Walter entered, hat in hand, cheeks flushed from the cold. He held out a folded scrap of newsprint. “Papa, you were in the paper again. McNabb too. It says you will be examined by Commissioner Ferrell in Nashville. Mama says supper will be in ready in 15 minutes.”
