How Lightnin' Jones Went Down and Up at the Same Time
"Slink" is hardly a word you expect to hear used next to the name of a man who weighs over 300 pounds. But any honest observer would conclude that Lightnin' Jones was slinking around--lugging bags of sugar in a furtive way, stoking the fire with as little noise as possible, looking skyward in the vain hope that by sheer force of his will he could prevent the plumes of smoke, that rose from the fire, from alerting anyone--no not any one, One particular someOne--from knowing that Elijah (Lightnin') Jones was again in the whiskey business.
Lightnin's reputation as a moonshiner was as large as his considerable girth. It had been the talk of the ridge a few month's earlier when word got around that Lightnin' "had got religion, and wadn't gonna make no more whiskey." The problem was he wasn't making much money either. Winter was coming on. The Jones family had plenty of corn and sugar--laid in before Lightnin' gave up the moonshine business. Mrs. Jones had been trading sugar for eggs, milk & coffee. Lightnin' had made a deal to have some of the corn ground and the rest he was feeding to some hogs. He'd been hiring himself and his wagon out to haul stuff for folks. He had plenty of fire wood and next spring he had plans to plant a big garden and get a cow. They'd make it, but right now all the children needed shoes & the elder Joneses had no way to get any.
Strange, back when Lightnin' was making whiskey full-time he had plenty of money but didn't really care if the kids did go barefoot. "If they's cold they kin just run faster." he would have said. But a compassion for the needs of others and love for his family had been growing in a surprisingly tender heart, considering the very rough exterior in which it lived. A few nights before a fly on the wall would have observed Lightnin's hulk next to a tiny woman, his great, ham-like hands folded in prayer.
"Lord, purty soon it's a gonna be cold up on this ridge. My three boys 'n' little Lucy ain't got no shoes, 'n' Lord, fer the life a' me, I cain't figure no way to get em none. Lord we's grateful fer the corn & such, 'n' we thank ya Lord we been doin' tolerable good, but we sure could use some shoes, not fer me 'n' the missus but fer these little uns. We don't even need 'em new, Lord, long as they's nice, 'n' it'd be awful nice if Lucy Jane had some a them fancy buttons on hers. Amen."
After you hear the rest of this you might think one of those fellows from the Rowdy Gang was a fly on the wall, listening to Lightnin's prayer. I rather think someone else who knows those Rowdys very well, passed the word along. I can't say for sure, but I do know that the very next morning two of the Rowdys came calling at the Jones house.
"We's havin' a big dance down to the town square in Mount Elmo and we need to get us some refreshment, if you know what I mean."
"Yeah, I know what you mean." Lightnin' scowled. "I ain't in the whiskey business no more." As he spoke he turned to close the door.
"We'd pay top dollar, cash on the barrel head. Ten bucks extra if'n you deliver."
Many a time Lightnin' Jones had torn that door off its leather strap hinges in a fit of rage, but the mention of ten dollars cash at the very time that Lightnin' spotted one of the hounds chewing on an old worn-out shoe made the door too heavy to move. Ten dollars was more than he had made in a month. He already had everything he needed to make a batch of whiskey. No body had asked him to haul anything for more than a week. . . .
"Them Rowdys 'll jest git it somewheres else if'n I don't make it 'n' I jist cain't stand the thought a my little uns going to school barefoot n'more."
The door reversing its direction was all the answer Johnny Rowdy needed.
"Twenty five quarts oughta do it. If'n theres any left we kin always sell it after the dance, or take some home in case somebody wakes up with a headache." he chuckled.
"Usual price?" Lightnin' muttered.
"Yep."
As the last drop of distilled corn mash dropped into the last mason jar, the last remnant of hope evaporated from the huge moonshiner; there was no more miserable creature than Lightnin' Jones on the face of God's earth. His misery was only slightly lifted when he took the axe he'd been using to split wood for the fire, and so mangled the still that it could never be used again.
"No matter how much they offer me that'll be the last whiskey Elijah Jones ever makes." He huffed as he leaned the axe against a tree.
Lightnin's mood, slightly elevated by the destruction of the mechanism that had produced so much whiskey and misery, sank lower and lower as each jar of whiskey was nestled into its bed of straw in his wagon. By the time he started toward Mount Elmo, the shadows creeping across the road matched the growing darkness in his spirit.
"I feel lower'n a snake's belly in a wagon rut." He said staring at the rutted track before him. "Lord, if'n you get me outa this here mess, I promise I won't never get into no meanness agin!"
The wagon's lurching progress and the great load that pressed down on Elijah Jones' spirit brought his massive head lower and lower, bowed down so he could no longer see the rough track that passed for a road. Not since the time when he was six had tears forced their way from his now moist eyes. His daddy had whipped him until the sobs had forced their way past his guard, then continued the beating until the tears and wails were repressed once more. He'd endured broken legs, the death of his favorite dog, burns that raised great raw blisters, all before he left home at twelve, and never again did his self-resolve fail. By the time he entered his teen years it never occurred to him to cry. But now the dark, wet stain between his muddy boots told the tale. At first Elijah didn't recognize the shaking in his breast, the contractions of his facial muscles and the moisture on his cheeks. When the memory from long ago told him he was crying, he made no effort to stop. Like a backslider of another day, he "wept bitterly."
Maybe it was a particularly severe bounce that caused Lightnin' to look up, maybe it was the hope that if the Lord had forgiven Peter on that night he denied the Lord--hadn't Parson Smedley said so?--maybe he'd forgive a reprobate, back-slidding moonshiner.
" Jeb! Did you see some'n up aire?" Lightnin' asked, after blowing his nose on his big, red bandana. The mule didn't reply--which isn't strange, because mules often keep things to themselves--and if there was someone up there they were out of sight, going down the steep part of the road that led to Crawslie's Ford. About then the wind shifted and Lightnin' thought he heard somebody.
"Jeb, somebody's singin'."
"My Lord walked that lonesome valley.
He had to walk it all by hisself . . ."
Lightnin' strained to hear as if by some effort he could cause the music to overcome the sound of the wind in the dry leaves of an oak. The wind died just long enough for him to hear:
"I've got to walk that valley by myself."
"Whoa, Jeb. You 'n Stuart jest take it easy fer a spell."
There on the top of Hogback Ridge, under the golden orb that had just cleared the horizon, a mountain of a man lifted a mountain of guilt to the Lord, and took his place next to the rough Galilean fisherman.
"Lord it ain't right fer me to ask you to let me git by with this sorry business that I got myself into, 'n' then make it alright later. Lord I ain't gonna have nothin' more to do with it from here on out. I reckon my younguns 'll hafta git shoes some other way 'n them Rowdy's 'll be a good sight better off without this here shine. I don't reckon you won't care if'n I give it to my hogs. They's penned up 'n' won't do no meanness like them Rowdys."
He was back in the wagon seat and had already clicked to the mules when he added, "Ah, shoot. Amen, Lord. I know you know, but I ain't much good yet at this prayin' business, Lord, but I'm 'onna git better. I promise ya."
Whether it was cat, coon, or fox, Lightnin' never could tell, but before he could turn the wagon around there was a steak of brown that ran right under the mules. That might have been OK, but hard on the brown streak's tail was Rufus Hawkin's dogs, all twelve of them. Even yet peace might have prevailed had not Rufus cut loose with his old 10 guage, behind a tree right next to Jeb's ear, both barrels. Jeb laid his ears back flat on his neck, and the fire in Stuart's eyes outshone the new moon. Lightnin' nearly rolled off the back of the seat as the mules went from dead stop to full run in about one heartbeat. It was soon clear that pulling on the reins and yelling "WHOA!" made no difference. Lightnin' quickly dismissed the temptation to cuss the animals thinking that perhaps the language the mules had lived with most of their years would get better results. "I ain't 'bout to run up no more credit with the Lord this evenin'."
Lightnin' knew that if the mules started down the grade at this clip the likelihood of him making it to the bottom with a loaded wagon was mighty slim. He only knew of one hope. "If the brakes'll hold maybe I kin slow these muleheaded mules down enough to get some sense into their heads afore they kill themselves 'n me too."
He put his big right foot on the brake lever and shoved for all he was worth, and when you figure it by the pound Lightnin' Jones was worth a whole lot. The different creaks and groans from the lurching wagon and the smell of the brakes heating up told Lightnin' he was having some affect, but he could see the point where the road dropped away rushing toward him. "A little harder." he thought , as he twisted his hulk to place more of his weight on the lever. Unfortunately the lever was saying something like, "Not an ounce more!"
It was only the sudden increase in speed, that accompanied the snapping of the brake lever, that kept the big man from tumbling forward. Now all he could do was hold on.
The drop was so steep that for a moment the mules vanished from Lightnin's sight. When the wagon whip-lashed over the edge and began it's descent the back row of mason jars hurtled out of their straw nest and shattered on the road. That row gone, the rest of the load was loosened so that when the mules, now running for their lives, hurtled around the hard left turn, jars flew to the right smashing and shattering as they went. Those that remained rose in a gentle arc and landed squarely on a rock, when the wagon ran over a stump a few hundred feet further down the mountain.
Lightnin' had begun to think that he might actually make it to the bottom when he saw something in the road. With frightening speed he recognized the black coat and hat as that of Parson Smedley. The preacher was singing so loudly that he couldn't hear the hoof-beats and clattering that were bearing down on him.
"Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch . . ."
Sairee, hearing the racket just in time took a leap to the right, Lightnin' pulled hard left. A hickory limb caught Lightnin' square in the chest. It would have knocked a lesser man from his seat, but the limb broke with a rifle-like crack, and on he rolled.
By the time the parson picked himself up from the brush pile where he had made a wretched landing, he didn't know what had happened. When he picked up his hat he actually looked for a bullet hole. The only evidence of his near fatal encounter was a strange smell in the air and the clatter of the wagon below.
"Well, Lord, I reckon I'm Presbyterian enough to thank you that that's over."
Hat retrieved, coat dusted, he mounted Sairee and continued song and journey.
" . . . saved a wretch like me."
I fell off my mule, but now I'm back on.
Thank God, You're watchin' over me.”
“Not bad huh Sairee?"
That Sunday the Joneses were in the front row.
Smedley appreciated their eagerness to hear, and he would never say anything, but he really wished Lightnin' would sit somewhere else. Half the congregation could hide behind him. But there he was.
"I wonna speak to you today about the God who gives us a second chance.
Look over in your Bible to the book of Jonah.
Now before I git started let me tell you that the really 'mazin' thing 'bout the book a' Jonah ain't that God made a fish big enough to swaller Jonah whole, 'n give him room to live there fer a while. God does things like that three or four time before breakfast jist fer amusement. The really 'mazin' thing about Jonah is that he takes ole stubborn hard-headed people like Jonah 'n me 'n you 'n gives 'em a second chance . . ."
By the time the Parson and Lightnin' came out of the meeting house--a smile on his face befitting his size--everyone had gone except Jake Smith.
"It was a good service, wadn't it?" said Jake
"Yeah, it was a real good service." Lightnin' replied with a conviction in his voice that said, "It was good fer me, 'specially me. I'm awful glad God'll give me a second chance."
"Say, Elijah, didn't I hear somebody say that you was in the haulin' business now?"
"Yeah, I got a good rig & their ain't no finer pair a mules on the Hogback than Jeb & Stuart."
"You know that flatlander that put that fancy stock up on Locust Ridge? Folks told him that spring up there'd go dry in the fall, but nothin' ud do him. Anyhow he came down to the store the other day lookin' fer somebody to haul water up to keep his cattle goin'. Nobody else'll mess with him cuz he's so contrary, so he'd pay good if somebody'd help him."
"I reckon I could help him out." Lightnin' replied.
He said if I could find somebody, he'd buy a load a feed from me. I'd be glad to pay you to haul that up there, too. Only things been pretty tight lately. I'd have to pay you in stuff from the store."
"You wouldn' happen to have any shoes wouldya?" the big man asked.
"Funny, that's why I'm low on cash. A feller over in Mount Elmo came up here the other day. He said he had a bunch a shoes he needed to get rid of. Said they was gonna have a big dance 'n' he needed to raise some cash to pay the fiddler 'n' such. I bought 'em all."
"Is that your little girl? I cain't swear to it, but I think I got a pair a them fancy shoes with the buttons & all that'd jest bout fit her."
He couldn't carry a tune in the back of his wagon. He couldn't even remember all the words, but I have no doubt that the angels fell silent while former moonshiner, Lightnin' Jones lifted his head heavenward and praised the Lord,
"Amazing Grace, what a wonderful sound, that gave a second chance to a poor wretch like me."
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