The Drinkin' Contest
By Sarah Cannavo
Most places, if you care to listen, have stories all their own, the sort people pass around like a jar of applejack at a Friday-night dance, during their own generation, and then hand down to the next, who do the same, and so on and so on until they become legends, embedded so deep in the place you can’t mention one without the other springin’ to mind. ’Round these parts the folks still talk of the time Jack Redding took on the Devil in a drinkin’ contest, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a soul here who didn’t grow up hearin’ about it at their ma or pa’s knee. Me, I’ve heard it so many times I could tell it backward and forward, or in my sleep; I’m regarded as somethin’ of an authority on the subject, and plenty of people who’re curious about it have found themselves sent my way to hear what went on deep in the pines that day.
Now, sometimes the Devil gets restless, bored with struttin’ around orderin’ demons about and torturin’ the souls of sinners, and when that happens, he leaves Hell for a bit and goes wanderin’ in the world, either to see what mischief he can stir up or just for a change of scenery.
As it happens, that day he found himself in New Jersey (a place many have thought of as bein’ only slightly better than the brimstone-soaked depths of Hell)—South Jersey, to be specific, wanderin’ through a stretch of it known as the Pine Barrens, which runs from Freehold down almost to Cape May and all the way out to the Atlantic. There are some who say the Devil’s got kin out in that area, though to the best of my knowledge he’s never rightly claimed that Leeds woman’s boy as his own, nor done much over the years to provide for him if he is. But some folks are just like that.
Anyway, it was one of them beautiful days that have a bit of summer and autumn both to it, and the Devil was feelin’ mighty fine as he walked along, whistlin’ like a bluebird and soakin’ up that fresh Pinelands air. He had no particular destination in mind, walkin’ just to walk, and God only knows how long he’d been makin’ his way down those sugar-sand roads before he happened across the Redding family homestead, set way out in the woods headin’ toward Chatsworth. It wasn’t much of a homestead, all things told, just a rundown tarpaper hovel just about good enough to keep the rain off, and a little shed out back, and the only Redding left to tend it was Jack, his ma and pa havin’ taken a fever and passed on a few years before and his younger sister Kate run off to marry a man who made his livin’ haulin’ clams in from the bay in Barnegat six months ago. Jack was twenty-five years old then and managed to keep things together pretty well, and kept up the family business on top of it all.
Some Piney families crawled on their hands and knees through the bogs to harvest cranberries come September and October; some worked makin’ charcoal and smeltin’ bog ore, at least before the Pennsylvania mines and furnaces put most of the ones ’round here out of business in the back half of the nineteenth century. Others made bricks, built ships, blew glass, or raked sphagnum moss out in the swamps, and still others fished or worked in the bays, like Kate Redding’s young man. But the Redding family was and always had been in the business of brewin’ and sellin’ applejack—Jersey Lightnin’ if you’re bein’ familiar, and moonshine if you ain’t from around here—and since this was a time when the gov’ment thought they had a right to tell folks what they could and couldn’t drink, business was pretty brisk for young Jack Redding. He housed the still in the shed on his family’s property and ran the product down the back roads of the Barrens to various folks and restaurants who disagreed with the liquor laws, haulin’ it in a beat-up Model T held together with his mechanical skills, a few well-placed nuts and bolts, and the occasional prayer.
As it happened, he was out in his front yard workin’ on that Model T when the Devil ambled by. The night before he’d been out cartin’ a few barrels of applejack, and while he’d done it without hassle, on the way back he’d noticed a new rattlin’ under the hood. Say what you will about him, but Jack was a prudent young man and wasn’t about to keep breakin’ the law in that truck ’til he could be sure it wouldn’t quit on him at an inopportune moment.
The Devil saw him workin’ on the truck, and he smiled. Ol’ Nick’s got quite an eye for such things, and he liked the look of the Redding boy, somethin’ in him sayin’: Here’s an easy mark if there ever was one. So he walked up to the Redding yard and cheerfully hailed the bootlegger, thinkin’ he might have some fine sport after all that day. “Hello there, son. Fine day, isn’t it?”
Jack looked up from his work and took in the stranger: his neat dark hair, his fine features, his dark and stylish suit of clothes (for all his faults, the Devil can be one dapper gentleman when he wants to, part of the reason it can be so damn hard to spot him sometimes), and immediately Jack’s guard went up. The area which he called home, like so many of its kind out in the Pines, was isolated, fresh faces comin’ through infrequently—travelers on their way to somewhere else: an itinerant preacher or two, the occasional wanderin’ salesman, and of course there was always the threat of revenuers comin’ around to put a stop to a man’s honest work. This man didn’t have his world on his back or in his arms like a traveler, and somethin’ in Jack (who wasn’t the world’s most religious man, but who managed to find his way to the local Baptist church from time to time nonetheless) rejected without hesitation the notion that he was a preacher. A salesman, then, with slick clothes and suave manners to help him hock his leather-bound Bibles or tonics for health, wealth, and sleep? Maybe, but then where were his case and his goods? Wary, in case he was a Fed who’d heard some rumors about how Jack earned a livin’ and was takin’ a kindly approach to get close, Jack set down the wrench he was holdin’ and said guardedly, “Yeah, it is,” thinkin’ all the while about the shotgun he kept tucked under the Model T’s front seat.
“It’s been a while since I’ve found myself in these parts,” the Devil continued, keenly aware of Jack’s caution but not lettin’ it dim his charm a whit, just takin’ care not to overdo it and scare his new mark off. “My usual haunts are a little further south than this.”
“Delaware?” Jack asked, and the Devil laughed.
“Sometimes,” he said agreeably. “Sometimes further down than that.”
“What brings you up here, then?” Jack asked, mind and hand never far from that shotgun.
“Well, to tell the truth,” the Devil said (because even he can do that, when it suits his purpose), “I didn’t really have a reason in mind when I came up, but I’m the sort that can’t bear to pass up a business opportunity when I happen across one, and you, my boy, have the look of a man who wants something. Badly.”
A salesman after all, then. Jack snorted. “What was your first clue?” he asked, lookin’ around at what passed as his worldly estate: a dirt-floored tumbledown shack, a sagging shed shelterin’ his hand-rigged still, a bare patch of earth for a dooryard, and the battered truck that ran on grit as much as gasoline. But he shook his head, wipin’ his grease-stained hands on a red rag already bearin’ a wealth of similar stains. “Ain’t too bad, though. Got food, got a roof, got my health. I don’t need much more’n that.”
It was the stranger’s turn to snort, and he waved his hand at the Redding place, dismissin’ it all. “Oh, I don’t mean anything like that, Jack, none of that surface stuff. I mean wanting something way down deep in your soul, something you can’t buy, find, or make for yourself, but that you’d give anything to possess. Something you need so badly the ache settles in your heart and won’t leave no matter what you do, won’t let you sleep or think or breathe without reminding you of it. That’s the sort of want I mean; that’s the business I’m in. And you strike me as someone with such a want, Jack. Or might I be misreading you here?” His amiable tone allowed for the possibility, but the curve of his smile and the sudden glitter in his dark eyes said differently.
He wasn’t wrong; Jack was in fact sufferin’ a powerful want, had been for some time. See, Jack was a fairly good-lookin’ young buck, a bit rough around the edges in both appearance and manners but well-built, slim and strong, with the dark brown hair and blue eyes of the Reddings, and a smile from him or a look from those blue eyes was enough to win him the heart of many a local girl. There was only one girl for him, though: Lenora Dunnett, a golden-haired beauty all of twenty-three years old and from good Pine stock, with a warm heart, friendly nature, and a laugh more melodious to Jack than church bells on Sunday are to a true believer. As it happened, Miss Dunnett returned Jack’s affections just as ardently as he gave them. That wasn’t the problem.
Lenora didn’t care one bit how her beau made his livin’. He could run Jersey Lightnin’ up and down the state, or dig up buried pirate gold or rake moss in the swamps and come home soaked in cedar water, and it wouldn’t bother her none as long as they were together, she loved him so.
Her pa, however, was a different story. Harold Dunnett owned the local general store, which did double duty as the post office and the gas station, and was one of them “pillars of the community” people are always yakkin’ about. And he was dead set against Lenora marryin’ Jack Redding on account of his profession. Harold was no teetotaler, wasn’t above takin’ a sip of applejack here and there, and even had to admit of all the vintages he’d sampled in his life Jack’s was the strongest and sharpest, but his first daughter had married a hotshot lawyer up in Philadelphia and his second a well-to-do hotel owner down Cape May way, and he’d be damned if his youngest was gonna hitch herself to a (literally) dirt-poor moonshiner. He’d threatened to disown Lenora if they married, and the lovebirds knew he meant it.
Jack didn’t want to sunder his sweetheart so completely from her family if he could help it, but Harold’s apt sum-up of his state rankled him. Jack was a steady worker and not a profligate spender, but he didn’t pull in as much for a haul as some of the bigger outfits in the Barrens did, and certainly not as much as those folks who ran booze down across the Canadian border or into New York ports. He wanted to give Lenora a good life like he felt she deserved, and if he could provide her with it maybe Harold Dunnett would ease off and not cut her out of the family after all. Of course, that all hinged on Jack makin’ his fortune, and soon, before his love for Lenora drove him right out of his mind.
Jack was so caught up in thoughts of this that he forgot to wonder how the stranger’d known his name when he’d never said it. And, givin’ him a wry smile instead, Jack said, “Well, you better be the Devil himself, then, mister, if you’re fixin’ to get me what I want, since prayin’ to God and workin’ for it myself ain’t been doin’ a damn thing for me.”
The stranger’s smile grew then. “Pretty serendipitous that I came along, then, Jack, if that’s the case,” he said, and though Jack couldn’t’ve spelled “serendipitous” with a huntin’ rifle pressed to his temple (his family never havin’ had much money for schoolin’), he gathered the meanin’ well enough. A moment later he also gathered that this stranger had called him by name twice now without bein’ given it once, and that was when a few things started clickin’ into place for young Jack Redding, who looked on the eloquent, well-dressed man with different eyes, a chill skitterin’ down his spine even as his body stiffened.
“You’re from south of here, huh?” he asked, and the Devil’s handsome face well and truly shone with amusement and delight now.
“Much farther north originally, but down south now.”
“Uh-huh.” Jack felt like a man walkin’ through a cedar swamp: well aware that the green carpet beneath his feet wasn’t as solid as it appeared and one wrong step would plunge him deep into dark treacherous waters. “And you’re sayin’ you can get me what I want—for a price, I’m guessin’. I pay it and you make it, let’s say, so I have enough money to take care of Lenora and her pa can’t quibble about my job anymore. That about right?”
The Devil’s eyes were still glitterin’; he looked now like a cat watchin’ a bird flit to lower and lower branches of a tree, just waitin’ for the perfect moment to unsheathe his claws and sink ’em in. “You’ve got it, son,” he said. “Although you can pay for your fortune … or you can play for it. Your pick.”
Jack’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean, ‘play’?”
The Devil smoothed out a nonexistent wrinkle from his black coat. “I’m a businessman, Jack, but I’m also a sporting man; I like to have some fun now and then when I’m out conducting my business, make a few wagers, that sort of thing. And there might be a way for you to get what you want without even having to pay. Is that something you might be interested in?”
Is a bear interested in honey? Jack knew he should’ve been runnin’ away just as fast as he could go, but he found himself listenin’ to those honeyed words instead—lettin’ the Devil make his pitch, if you will. The Devil was well aware he had our hero by the ear, and fluid as silk that pitch went on. “A contest, Jack, you and I. If you win, I provide you with enough gold that your sweetheart’s father will be throwing himself at your feet to beg forgiveness, and probably a loan or two. And if I win ...” Oh, then the Devil smiled like a cat with that bird’s blood already on his tongue, and his eyes glowed like the hottest coals in the heart of a fire. “I get your soul.”
Now, I already told you that Jack didn’t have much schoolin’, but that doesn’t mean he was a fool. He knew right well the risks of acceptin’ such a challenge from such an opponent, and facin’ the scorn of Lenora’s father every day for the rest of his life was a far more tolerable scenario than havin’ his soul sent straight to Hell marked Special Delivery, all postage paid. He’d heard plenty of tales about people with too much confidence in their abilities who’d taken on the Devil and lost.... But then again, he’d also heard tales of people who’d taken on the Devil and won, like that fiddler, Sammy Buck, right there in the Pinelands. It could be done. So wasn’t it possible he could do it, too? Jack asked himself, his mind goin’ again and again to Lenora: her cornflower-blue eyes, that sweet little laugh of hers, her warm tender kiss. Might as well hear what he has in mind, he reasoned, and asked, “What kinda contest?”
The Devil was feelin’ generous that day (and mighty cocksure of his own abilities, to boot), and spread his hands magnanimously. “I’ll let you pick, Jack, my boy.”
Jack eyed him shrewdly, feelin’ for a trick. “Anything I want?”
“Anything at all,” the Devil assured him.
Jack grinned. “A drinkin’ contest.”
#
Aside from lies, illusion, and temptation, the Devil’s got himself quite a few other talents: fiddlin’, for one, is among the most well-known, and dancin’, and he’s pretty good in a footrace, too. But what you might not know is that Ol’ Scratch can bend an elbow like nobody’s business, and as of Jack Redding’s challenge no one, be them angel, human, or demon, had ever beaten him in a drinkin’ contest. In fact, most of his opponents were under the table before he got anywhere close to tipsy. There’d never been a booze brewed that was too strong for him, never a glass, bottle, or keg he couldn’t drain. So when the challenge was issued that day in the Pines, the Devil was sure he had Jack’s soul all sewn up as his own and accepted without hesitation, even when Jack specified it was his Jersey Lightnin’ they’d be drinkin’.
You might be wonderin’ just what in the hell Jack was thinkin’, pickin’ a challenge like that. Why not, say, a psalm-readin’ contest, or seein’ who could recite the Lord’s Prayer the fastest? The Devil had said any contest, after all, so it wouldn’t even be cheatin’. But if the Devil was a hardy drinker, so was Jack; his prowess with tossin’ back applejack as well as brewin’ it had already made him half a legend in area, and folks crowded the local waterin’ hole, the Red Apple Tavern, whenever news got ’round that he was in for another drinkin’ contest. And before you go hollerin’ that it’s all well and good to beat a few locals at the game of drink, or even a legion of ’em over the years, but another thing entirely to take on the Prince of Darkness his own self, you gotta understand, it wasn’t beer or whiskey or wine Jack had grown up drinkin’ but straight applejack, and it’s called Jersey Lightnin’ for a reason. The Redding brew in particular was a bolt from the blue that’d knock you flat on your ass before you knew what hit you, and yet Jack could take a full storm and stay standin’.
So goin’ into this contest, man and Devil each felt secure in their own chances, and the pair headed into Jack’s house, where the contest could be carried out with less risk of discovery (not that the revenuers bustin’ in would much faze a being who could disappear with a snap of his fingers, but Jack wisely didn’t trust his opponent not to cut out and leave him holdin’ the bag—or jar, as it were—if that happened). It wasn’t a palace, but there was a table and two chairs, and though Jack had delivered a large portion of his product the night before to the Red Apple, where they supposedly wouldn’t pull you anything stronger than a cola—unless, of course, you knew to order the house special—he still had enough full Mason jars on hand to make things interestin’.
The contestants settled themselves in across the rickety wooden table from each other, their first drinks poured and waitin’, and the Devil smiled at Jack and, ever the gentleman, asked one last time, “You sure about this, Jack? A soul’s a mighty big thing to stake on a contest like this.”
Jack knew it, all right, and I’d be lyin’ if I said there wasn’t a part of him, as he sat across from the Devil in that sunlit shack, shakin’ like a leaf in the wind and shoutin’ at him to back out while he still could. But his thoughts were of Lenora, and a man in love is a creature damn near impossible to dissuade no matter the obstacle, so he only nodded and said, “Worth it, though.”
The Devil grinned and raised his first shot. “Let’s get goin’ then, shall we?”
Jack raised his own shot and they tossed them back, and that’s when the Devil started to realize just what he’d gotten himself into.
The thing was, the Devil’d never had applejack before. Whiskey—rivers of it. Bootleg liquor—of course. But for all the time he’d spend in Jersey no God’s-honest fresh-from-the-still Pinelands applejack had ever passed his lips, and so when it hit his throat he choked, unable to keep from sputterin’ and his eyes from streamin’ at the burn.
Jack, who’d gunned his drink down like mother’s milk, smirked. “Forgot to mention it’s got a bit of a kick. Sorry.”
“No, no, it’s fine.” The Devil muffled a cough with his fist, blinkin’ his stingin’ eyes to clear ’em. “Delightful vintage you’ve got here, Jack.”
“Thanks.” Jack poured the next round and slid the Devil’s to him, and his smirk grew slightly when Ol’ Nick hesitated for a moment, eyein’ the drink like he thought it might suddenly spring for his throat. Only for a moment, but Jack woulda sworn on his ma and pa’s graves that he saw it, and his own confidence surged a heap in that moment. “You sure about this?”
The Devil sat up straighter, regained his composure. No way was he lettin’ some backwater booze throw him off, even if it kicked like a mule with a hot poker up its ass. He was the goddamned Prince of Darkness, the Adversary, the bane of sinners and the tormentor of souls, who’d unleashed legions of evils upon the world. He wasn’t goin’ down on the first fuckin’ shot. “Damned sure,” he said, and grabbed his drink.
The second wasn’t much gentler than the first, nor the third than the second, though the Devil managed not to cough or tear up—too badly, anyway. Jack and the Devil matched each other drink for drink, time tickin’ away unnoticed as sun and shadow crept through the shack at their own pace, now one with a further reach, now the other; nothing mattered to the combatants but the empty jars mounting around them, their own refilled with another shot’s amount by Jack each time they drained them.
How drunk were they by this point, you ask? Well, Jack was doin’ all right—his calloused hand was still steady when he poured a drink or took one, and when on occasion he talked there were still the proper spaces between his words, no slurrin’ or stumblin’ to speak of. And as for the Devil, he was pushin’ resolutely onward. As you might’ve gathered, if you’ve heard anything about him, he has quite the store of pride to draw on, and he was sure as shit drawin’ on it that day. It was a good thing for him, too, because to be honest his head was swimmin’ a little, a novel sensation for him, but it didn’t matter, he kept tellin’ himself. Whatever he was feelin’, the human had to be feelin’ something ten times worse, even if he was hidin’ it well, and sooner or later it’d start to show. Jack Redding was just a man, after all, and men always broke in the end.
The Devil rode that line of reasonin’ for a good long while and at one point decided to needle the Piney a bit, see if he couldn’t probe for a crack or two he could help widen, to hasten along that inevitable collapse. “How much longer do you think you can hold out, Jack? There’s no shame in an honorable surrender, you know.”
Jack cocked his head. “Huh? I didn’t quite catch that.”
Was he goin’ deaf or something? “I said—” the Devil started, and then he cut off, because something did sound off about his voice all of a sudden; something felt wrong, too, with his mouth, and he frowned and worked it a moment, tryin’ to figure out what. His tongue, it was his tongue: it was startin’ to get heavy for some reason, and it was knockin’ his words out of shape, the way a malformed mold in a forge will only turn out useless lumps of metal instead of workable iron. The furrows in his brow carved themselves a deeper swath, and it took him another few moments before he realized that, for the first time in his eternal life, he was tipsy.
Horror washed over him. How was it possible? How could some Jersey home brew succeed in doin’ what no other booze before it had, and when he’d only had ... He blinked, lookin’ around and realizin’ he’d kinda lost count, but what the hell should that matter? And how could Jack be so clear-eyed when he’d drunk just as much as the Devil?
For the first time worry started gnawin’ at the edges of his stomach. Maybe, just maybe, this wasn’t goin’ to be as easy a conquest as he’d thought.
But so what? Where was the sport in “easy”? Tipsy was certainly disconcertin’, but it wasn’t drunk, and therefore wasn’t the end of anything. The Devil forced his words back into proper form. “I said there’s no shame in surrender.”
Jack opened another jar, the fumes bloomin’ in the air like the fragrance of a particularly poisonous flower. It was the odor that’d clung to his pa’s clothes after he’d spent some time in the shed with the still, the odor of his own livelihood now, and as it seared his nostrils he said, “I bet I ain’t the first mortal you’ve said that to.”
The Devil shrugged. “When you find a good line, you stick with it.”
“Well, it seems like something you oughta keep in mind. You ain’t lookin’ too steady there,” Jack observed. Don’t get me wrong, Jack was startin’ to feel the applejack’s effects too; after all, he was, as the Devil’d so aptly observed, a mortal. But he’d long ago learned how to keep up an appearance of cold sobriety even when he was beginnin’ to burn and buzz—a handy skill in any drinkin’ contest—and so far he was managin’ to keep up that appearance fairly well though he was currently clingin’ to sobriety the way a danglin’ man clings to the edge of a cliff with someone hangin’ on his ankles: aware of his precarious position and prayin’ like hell the other guy lets go before he does.
Apparently he was sober enough for decent aim, his comment squarely strikin’ a nerve. “Just pour the damn drink,” the Devil snarled, eyes blazin’, and you bet your ass Jack did.
And he poured another, and another, and another, and he and the Devil shot them all back, Ol’ Scratch runnin’ on pure stubborn pride now and Jack thinkin’ of Lenora, of the life his winnin’s would buy ’em. Both drinkers had dug their heels in and were pushing hard against each other ... and the Devil felt himself slowly but surely beginnin’ to slide further and further away from sobriety. He reached for his jar and the applejack in its glass belly sloshed as his graspin’ hand shook; he dragged it back across the rough wooden battlefield between himself and Jack with, he realized, his dismay mountin’, the deliberate care of a drunken man determined not to spill a drop of his next drink. And as he lifted it there was a weight to the liquid he coulda sworn hadn’t been there before—it was like tryin’ to lift a jar of molten iron. He managed to get the applejack down, but his head was spinnin’ like a whirlwind and he grasped the table’s edge to keep himself upright as he involuntarily swayed.
“Ready to call it?” Jack asked. He recognized the state the Devil was in, had seen more than a few men enter it before—had even stumbled into it a time or two himself back when he was just startin’ out. Right now the Devil was still in the game, might even be able to hang on a little while longer, but it was a tenuous grip at best. If Jack’s hold lasted, he’d come out champion once again.
“No,” the Devil said, or meant to say; it came out as a hiccup instead, and his eyes widened in shock, his hand flyin’ to cover his mouth. Jack couldn’t help himself—I ask you, who in that situation could? Show me someone who honestly could, and I’ll show you a liar.
Jack laughed.
And for a moment it seemed Jack’d pushed his boundaries a bit too far and passin’ out’d be the least of his problems. The air filled with a mighty hiss—what he thought a buncha demons might sound like if they all got worked up about something at once—and he realized the applejack he’d just refreshed the Devil’s jar with was steamin’ and sizzlin’, hot droplets of it leapin’ out and pockin’ the table like embers as they landed. He jolted back in his seat, gut coilin’ tight and blood goin’ cold, as the Devil slammed the jar down and shot to his feet, the wooden chair tippin’ back and splinterin’ at the force of the shove. The jar didn’t break, but there was another loud sizzle and a whiff of burnt kindlin’ as the bottom of the jar seared a dark ring into the tabletop, the Devil’s eyes blazin’ with hellfire as he looked down at Jack.
“How dare you mock me, you pathetic Piney?” he snarled, the force of his voice knockin’ a few cups and dishes from the shelf on the wall. “I held sway over my own dominion before your blithering, bearded ancestors brewed the first drop of their noxious swill, and I will be a king in Hell long after the last of your blighted seed has withered to dust, you damned ... damned ...” He faltered, blinked, hiccupped again, all of which had quite the detrimental effect on his intimidation, and then his eyes rolled back into his head, his knees gave way, and he dropped like a sack of stones, snorin’ before he hit the ground.
Jack gave him a minute, waitin’ to see if he’d rouse himself, but all that happened was the Devil’s snorin’ deepened, even when Jack nerved up and cautiously nudged Ol’ Nick’s prone form with the toe of his boot. He was good and passed out, and just like that, it was over.
Jack had out-drunk the Devil.
He smiled the smile only a man whose soul had gotten close to hellfire and escaped without gettin’ singed could smile, gazin’ fondly at his jar of applejack before he set it down. “Wait ’til Lenora hears about this,” he said to no one in particular, then grabbed hold of the unconscious Devil’s legs and dragged him over to the shack’s narrow bed.
#
Jack couldn’t collect his winnin’s until the Devil woke up, which meant he had to wait a bit, since the defeated Devil slept through the rest of the day and well into the next. When Lenora stopped by to visit Jack the morning after the contest, she stopped dead in the shack’s doorway and stared, her pretty brow furrowin’, at the well-dressed but now-disheveled figure sprawled out dead to the world in her beau’s bed.
“Who’s that, sweetheart?” she asked after acceptin’ Jack’s kiss.
“The Devil,” Jack replied.
Lenora laughed that bubbly little laugh of hers. “Sure it is, Jack. Now who is it, really?”
Jack still smiled at her, but there was something in that smile, in his eyes, that gently but firmly pressed the point, and Lenora’s laugh died away. She looked again at the sleepin’ figure, then back to Jack, who gave a small nod. “Jack, what the ... what the hell did you do?”
“It wasn’t me so much as the applejack.” He wrapped his arm around her shapely waist and guided her back out the front door so they could let the Devil rest in peace. “Fella just couldn’t hold his drink. Gave it a good try, though.”
When the Devil finally woke, he was just about the most miserable creature anywhere in the universe; I wouldn’t’ve wanted to be a demon or a sinner’s soul in Hell that day with the bossman nursin’ a hangover like that. Not to mention he’d been dealt a mighty blow to that pride of his, which hurt just as badly as his poundin’ head. But sulky and sufferin’ as he was, he made good on his word and paid Jack a gleamin’ pile of gold—the real stuff, too, none of that trick gold that turns into dried leaves the instant the Devil’s outta sight. Then he trudged back home, and it was a long, long while before he could stand to set foot in New Jersey again.
And as for Jack, his new-won fortune had just the effect he’d hoped it would. Rumors flew fast and thick about the source of his sudden wealth, the most popular bein’ that he’d discovered a cache of pirate or Refugee treasure buried somewhere out in the Barrens. But the truth got out quick enough, the ring burnt on Jack’s tabletop addin’ extra weight to the tale, and from then on he wasn’t just Jack Redding the local moonshiner, but Jack Redding, the man who’d out-drank the Devil, the title he’s still known here by to this day.
He used some of his winnin’s to buy the nearby shuttered Buck’s Horn Inn and brought it back to life, makin’ another name for himself as a respectable workin’ man. And he used a little more to build up the shack on the Redding land into a proper, comfortable house fit for a family (keepin’ the burnt table and the shed and still, of course; as long as the people of the Pines were thirstin’, he’d brew for ’em, and they were always plenty thirsty).
Because, yes, Harold Dunnett allowed the glitter of Jack’s gold to blind him to the young man’s continued involvement in the Redding family business, sure at least that Lenora would be taken care of, and the couple were wed at long last and without further delay. As he carried his blushin’ bride over the threshold of their new home, Jack was the happiest he’d ever been, and all thanks to some prime Jersey Lightnin’.
Over the years that followed, the couple’s fortunes and happiness continued to increase—businesses and family rapidly and steadily growin’. I was the first of many children, son and heir to the Redding legacy, and grew up hearin’ the story of the drinkin’ contest straight from the champion himself. We all did. And me and all my plentiful brothers and sisters wound up workin’ in one of the family businesses or another; me, I tended bar in the Buck’s Horn, since by the time I was old enough to, the gov’ment had wised up and repealed them liquor laws (which didn’t dent the livelihoods of the Piney moonshiners as much as you might think, what with the taxes the gov’ment levied on “legal” booze and all). And I became an unofficial historian of sorts, separatin’ fact from fiction about my pa’s battle with the Devil and helpin’ to keep the legend alive. That’s why you wound up on my front porch, ain’t it? Because you were passin’ through town, heard some hint of it, and wanted to know more, so one of my siblings, nieces, or nephews down at the inn or gas station or general store sent you my way? I thought so—ah, Millie, was it? Good kid, that girl. Got a fine head for figures, and the Redding blue eyes, no doubt about that.
My pa? No, he’s no longer with us, God bless his soul; he passed on quite a few years back. My ma’s gone too; they’re buried together in that little cemetery just up the road yonder. Of course I still miss ’em, but they lived long and happy lives, which is all a body can ever hope for in this world, I think. Like the poet said, they loved with a love that was more than love, the kind where they’d do or risk anything to be together and did, and that’s a rare kind of love right there. Once a week one of us Reddings heads down there and puts a jar of applejack on the graves, in honor of a toast my pa always used to make: he’d wrap his arm around my ma, raise some ’shine, and say with the world’s biggest grin on his face, “To what was supposed to keep up apart, and what made sure we could be together.” She’d laugh, they’d kiss, and we’d drink. There are worse ways to grow up.
Well, I hope the tale was worth your time, traveler. If you ever find yourself in this part of the Pines again, feel free to wander on by. I got plenty of yarns about the Barrens I can spin, even ones that don’t involve my kin. Like I said before, most places have their own stories, and around here there’s all kinds of places and all kinds of stories just waitin’ to be passed on.
If you ever do wander back this way, though, keep an eye out for a handsome, well-dressed man on these sugar-sand roads; he still comes around from time to time, and if he smiles charmin’-like and offers you a way to win your heart’s desire, listen if you will, but be careful what contest you choose, because it’s your one and only soul on the line, and that’s a hell of a thing to lose.
If you do manage to win, though, consider buyin’ the Devil a drink to console him; he gets mighty sore about losin’. Best you skip the applejack, though. From what I hear, he’s never acquired a taste for it.
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