Cleav stood staring after them, rooted to the spot. With the unusual and hurried circumstances of the wedding, the last thing he'd considered was a shivaree. Yo Crabb, his new father-in-law, hurried up behind him.
"Good Lord, son," he said. "Go after her."
Cleav started after them, but the culprits divided up as soon as they reached the cover of trees.
Wandering around without picking up a trail for the better part of an hour, Cleav decided that striking a bargain was his best chance of getting his wife back before morning.
Hurrying back to the General Merchandise, he found Mort Riggly, the local moonshiner, waiting for him on the porch of the store.
"Evenin', Cleavis," Mort greeted him amiably. "Was it a nice weddin'? Sorry I missed it."
"It was fine," Cleav answered distractedly. "How'd you know to be here?"
"Armon tole me you'd be needing another jug for the ransom when he bought his."
Cleav's eyes widened in concern. "They already have one whole jug?"
Mort heard the worry in his tone and waved it off. "Don't get yourself in a dither," Mort told him. "I admit that, drunk or sober, Will and those Roscoe boys could throw all their good sense together and wouldn't have enough to make change." Mort chuckled at his own little joke. "But Armon's up there with her. He's wild, but he ain't stupid. And he's got feelings for the gal anyway."
"Feelings?" Cleav felt the inexplicable rise of jealousy, and his question was harsher than he intended. "What do you mean by that?"
Mort found Cleav's agitation downright amusing. "I sure don't mean what you think I'm meaning," the whiskey seller assured him. "He's been courting those twins now for nigh on a half year. I suspect he's thinking your gal is practically his in-law." Mort laughed out loud. "Now, that's something I never woulda thought to see. You and Armon being practically relation."
"Armon Hightower is not a member of my family," Cleav stated tightly.
"Not yet, maybe," the old moonshiner admitted. "But when you marry up with folks like the Crabbs… " The man shook his head. "Hell, Mr. Rhy, you probably got shirttail relation from here to Memphis, each poorer than the next."
"I married Miss Esme, not her family," Cleav said coldly. "Now, do you want to sell me that jug of liquor or just talk to me all afternoon?"
In full knowledge of the situation, and perhaps a bit of spite for Cleav's attitude, Mort asked three times the going rate. Cleav had no choice but to pay for the whiskey. And because he never drank spirits himself, he couldn't even threaten to take his business elsewhere in the future.
Counting his money contentedly, Mort Riggly became encouraging. "Don't you worry about a thing, Mr. Rhy," he said. "That little gal of yours is as safe on that mountain as if she was in her daddy's arms. Shivaree's a good thing for weddings. A woman getting married, well, she gets a little bit scared of her husband, that's natural. When some other men come along and steal her away, well, then she's even scareder of them. Her man comes and rescues her, she ain't nothing but grateful."
Mort patted Cleav's clean white shirt consolingly with a grimy hand. "Shivaree gets a marriage from 'him and me' to 'us and them' in a hurry." Elbowing a playful dig to Cleav's ribs, he added, "About midnight tonight you'll be downright beholden to those kidnappers."
Cleav's expression was stony.
Mort slapped his thigh with hilarity and with a lusty laugh headed off into the night. "Mark my words," he called back to Cleav. "You'll be thanking those boys afore morning."
Cleav ignored his words. Those boys would be lucky if he wasn't killing them before morning. What on earth was he doing tracking a gang of ne'er-do-wells through the mountain with a cask of sorghum molasses because of a pagan custom!
Attaching the handle of the whiskey jug to a piece of rope, he hung it over his shoulder like a quiver of arrows, then went to retrieve a barrel of molasses from the store.
Ransom assembled, Cleav gave a sigh of resignation and began the grueling task of rolling a full and heavy cask of sorghum molasses up one of the steepest inclines in eastern Tennessee.
The week before having been wet and rainy, the ground had reached saturation point. His shoes repeatedly slipped in the fresh mud, but he managed to catch himself each time. At least he hadn't ended up sprawled in the mud. He could imagine what a disaster that would have been with a barrel of molasses rolling over him and back down the mountain.
It was far too dark to see "signs" on the trail. Cleav just assumed, and rightly so, that the men would have taken the roughest, most difficult path.
"Is this woman worth it?" he asked himself more than once. He never bothered to answer that question, he just braced his foot in the next slippery step and pushed the cask a few feet higher.
He never did actually find them. Will Gambridge finally stepped out from behind a tree, startling him.
"You've done better than I thought," the hill boy commented with a modicum of respect. He asked Cleav for the whiskey and, after taking a good long swig, offered the jug to Cleav.
"No, thanks," Cleav answered, not even tempted. The ordeal wasn't over yet, and he needed to keep his wits about him for Esme's sake.
Will led the way to the clearing where they held Esme, laughing and talking as if this were the best game he'd ever played.
