The Adventures of Jack and Billy Joe (3 page)

As they approached the south end of the bridge, the truck rolled to a stop and the driver and another man got out holding hunting rifles.

“This is my boy, John. He just got back from the Pacific. He was a marine,” the man said. “We’ll have a little discussion with these moonshiners.”

The man walked over to the moonshiners’ pickup and looked at the two flat tires. “You boys did that, huh?”

“Yes, sir,” Jack admitted.

“Good shots, boys,” he praised. “And you did it with those toy rifles. I’d say those were real good shots.”

Another shot rang out from the woods, hitting the side panel of the moonshiners’ truck.

“Take cover behind the truck, boys,” the man commanded, but they really didn’t need the urging. They moved.

“They’re not gonna come out on their own, Dad,” John said. “We’ll have to go in to get ’em.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” the man said. “We’ll run across the road and into the woods. You bear left and flank them. I’ll follow the creek. They only have one rifle so we should be able to get the drop on them somewhere.”

He turned to the boys and told them, “Now you check to make sure those pop guns are loaded. Stay behind this truck but watch for the moonshiners to come out. If they do, shoot ’em. Don’t wait to be fair. They won’t.”

“Yes, sir,” both boys said together.

“Just make sure you don’t shoot us if we’re the ones who come out,” John said.

“No, sir,” both boys said.

The father and son entered the woods warily, crouching low and using whatever cover was available.

The boys waited, listening, expecting to hear shots from the woods at any moment. None came. They waited.

Billy Joe was the first to see any movement. He punched Jack with his elbow and whispered, “There.”

Squinting where Billy Joe was pointing, Jack saw the movement.

Two men came out of the woods. It was the moonshiners. Billy Joe made a little whimper like a kitten in distress but stood his ground.

As the moonshiners came up on the road shoulder, a voice from the woods said, “Hold it right there. We’ve got you both in our sights. One more step and you’re dead men.”

The moonshiners stopped, hesitated and slowly raised their arms over their heads. The fat one still held the lever action rifle in his right hand.

“Throw that rifle behind you into the ditch,” the voice demanded.

The fat moonshiner hesitated again but, after some thought, tossed the rifle over his shoulder.

The father and son came out of the woods slowly with their rifles at ready.

“Move over to your truck, lean over and put your hands on the truck,” John said forcefully.

“Get some rope from our truck, John,” the father said.

John walked toward their truck while the father held his rifle on them. Jack and Billy Joe watched in amazement as the good guys took over.

“Tie ’em up, John, and put ’em in the back of our truck,” the father directed.

That done, the father said, “You ride up front with me, boys. John, you ride in the back and watch these waddies.”

They drove into town and found the sheriff, finally, in the pool hall.

The sheriff called the boys’ mothers and told them where they were. The boys gave statements concerning their adventures on Rocky Creek to be used later in court.

“Good job, boys,” the sheriff said. “But in the future, why don’t you leave the law enforcement to the grown-ups? You coulda gotten yourselves killed.”

The boys nodded but accepted the praise with pride. Jack looked over at Billy Joe, who was beaming, and he knew they’d done the right thing. The bad guys were locked up in jail and nobody was hurt.

Chapter Two

The Fire Tower

It was nice to be considered heroes for a while but the boys soon tired of it. They avoided all talk of it when they could. The town found other things to talk about and the boys moved on.

Today, they were engaged in their favorite literary activity, reading comic books in Jack’s bedroom.

“Hmmmm,” Jack said, rubbing his chin in thought.

“What’s happening in your pea brain now?” Billy Joe asked.

“The new Sears Roebuck catalog came today,” Jack declared.

“Yeah, ours did too. So what?” Billy Joe said, indicating he thought Jack had made a worthless statement.

“Well, for one thing, we need to start making our list of fishing tackle from the new book. A hundred assorted hooks cost thirty cents this year. Last year they were only a quarter. I don’t know if Momma is gonna let me order as much this year.”

“If she won’t, she won’t,” Billy Joe said. “We can make do with what we have.”

“Actually, fishin’ gear was not what I was talkin’ about,” Jack explained. “I was thinkin’ about the old catalog and what good airplanes it will make.”

“What are you talkin’ about now?”

“Don’t you remember when Mr. Edwards took us up in the fire tower on Tawanta Hill?” Jack reminded him. “I said at the time how good paper airplanes would fly off of it. Well, now we have lots of paper in this catalog.”

“You gonna ride your bike all the way down to Tawanta Hill—what’s that, five miles—just to fly paper airplanes?”

“You got a better idea what to do? I don’t,” Jack said. “We ride further’n that with nothin’ to do.”

“Yeah, I guess, and I bet the paper airplanes would sail a long way. That tower must be two hundred feet and it’s on a hill that must be a mile high,” Billy Joe exaggerated. “When did you want to go?”

“I was thinking about tomorrow mornin’ early,” Jack said.

“Okay, I’ll go as long as we don’t have to leave at five o’clock in the morning like you always want to do.”

“Nah—no need to rush. We can pack some lunch and make up a quart each of Penny Drink. That and the catalog won’t be too much to carry,” Jack planned.

“Okay—where you wanna meet?”

“I’ll meet you at the place where the road from the junior college crosses Highway 11 at seven in the morning. That’s a good place so neither one of us will have to double back,” Jack said.

“Yeah—that’s good and I like it that we each make our own Penny Drink. The last time you made it for both of us, you put in too much sugar and I couldn’t hardly drink it,” Billy Joe complained. “I think you got sugar diabetes or somethin’.”

“Naw I don’t. I just like things sweet, that’s all,” Jack explained.

Both boys went home to have their supper and listen to
The Shadow
and
Inner Sanctum
on the radio, before turning in early.

At six AM, Jack’s clock rang loudly, causing him to sit up in bed with a start. He had been dreaming about crossing Tallahala Creek on the rickety old swinging bridge at Bynum’s Bluff. For once, he was happy the clock had woken him up. That bridge was dangerous and if you fell from it, it was a long way down. The power company had built the bridge under its high-powered transmission lines so they could maintain them without having to drive around the creek to a car bridge miles away.

Jack quickly regained his composure when he realized it was just a dream. He pulled on his blue jeans, a striped pullover, athletic socks and his high-topped tennis shoes and headed for the kitchen.

“Mornin’, Momma,” Jack greeted her as he entered the kitchen through its swinging door.

“Mornin’, Jack. You goin’ with Billy Joe this morning down to the fire tower, you said,” Jack’s mother remembered.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What do you want in your lunch?” she asked.

“A peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I guess, with a few cookies and a quart of grape Penny Drink in a fruit jar,” Jack said.

“I’ll put in an apple, too. You don’t get enough fruit,” she noted. “You make your own Penny Drink. I don’t ever make it sweet enough for you.”

“Yes, ma’am. Thank you,” Jack said as he took a quart fruit jar from the pantry shelf.

Jack’s mother served him sausage with buttered biscuits and honey and a glass of orange juice. He ate it watching the clock to make sure he wasn’t late meeting Billy Joe.

Jack loaded the lunch bag, his drink, a canteen of water and the Sears Roebuck catalog in his bicycle basket and was ready to roll.

“Now you be careful on US11, Jack,” she said, sticking her head out the door to watch him leave. “There’s getting to be more and more cars on it since gas is more plentiful.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jack replied. “I’ll watch out.”

He was right on time to meet Billy Joe and hoped he would be there first. Whichever of the boys arrived first always chided the other for delaying the departure.

Jack cut through the junior college campus and out its back gate to a gravel road, across the railroad track and down the little hill to US11.

As he approached US11, he saw Billy Joe coming down the highway from the north. They arrived at the appointed meeting place at the same time.

“Well, I see you made it on time for a change.” Jack manufactured a reason to fuss at Billy Joe.

“I’m always on time. You’re the one who’s always late,” Billy Joe countered.

Jack let that slide and they pedaled off to the south along US11 on the left shoulder facing traffic as they had been taught to do.

They passed Rocky Creek, their old fishing hole, the State School for the Mentally Handicapped and then the rolling hills leading up to Tawanta Hill and its tower. Each hill was harder to pedal up than the last one but the boys could console themselves that coming back would be mostly downhill. This was tough going and at the top of each hill they would stop for a couple of minutes and sip a little water.

Finally they reached the gravel road to the left that led past the fire tower. They turned in there and a few feet further, they turned right into the yard of the fire tower attendant’s house.

They didn’t see Mr. Edwards’ car so they thought he might have gone into town. To make sure, Jack knocked on the door and they waited for a reply. None came.

“I guess he’s not here,” Jack stated the obvious. “He won’t mind us goin’ on up to the top landing if we are careful and don’t go into the cab of the tower.”

“Yeah, why would he care?” Billy Joe agreed. “We can leave everything except the catalog down here and go on up.”

The boys pulled their bicycles into the shade at the end of the porch under a big oak tree where they would be out of the way of cars.

Jack carried the catalog and they started to climb the tower steps. Each landing was up two sets of eight steps and there were twelve landings under the tower cab.

The boys were puffing when they reached the top landing. There was a stiff breeze that they had not noticed at ground level.

“I’ll put the catalog down on the steps leading up to the cab so we can both get pages from it,” Jack said.

“What are we gonna do, just tear the pages out?”

“Nah—use your pocketknife. Start with the middle pages first and just run the sharpest blade you have along the page and you should get a clean cut,” Jack directed.

Billy Joe tried that and it did, indeed, make an even cut.

“Yeah—that’s good,” he said with a smile as he folded the page into a paper airplane.

“Sail ’er off. Let’s see if it will fly,” Jack urged. “Throw it off the side the wind is blowing to—not into it.”

Billy Joe wet a finger and held it up as if he needed to do that to tell which way the wind was blowing. He launched the plane off the tower with the wind. It flew like a bird, turning and dancing on the wind, circling around and flirting with the tower.

“I guess the wind is different at different levels of the tower,” Billy Joe noted.

“Yeah. That’s great. That means they won’t go straight to the ground—they’ll float around and all do somethin’ different,” Jack pointed out. “Some should go a long way.”

As fast as the boys could cut the pages and fold them, they sailed them off the tower. They really enjoyed themselves for over an hour.

Finally, after tiring themselves out folding and sailing the little paper gliders, they gave it up and decided to climb down and eat their sandwiches and drink their Penny Drink.

Climbing down the steps was easier than going up so they made good time in that direction.

“Hi, boys. You havin’ fun?” said Mr. Edwards, who was standing at the bottom of the steps.

“Yes, sir,” Jack said with a big smile. “Those paper airplanes really sail off the tower.”

“I’m really glad you enjoyed it,” he said. “Now there’s something I need for you to do for me.”

“Yes, sir. Glad to. What’s that?” Jack wondered.

“Each of you take one of these”—he handed each boy a bushel burlap sack—“and pick up every piece of paper you can find. Next Saturday, I want you to come back out here and pick up those that blow down out of the trees.”

“We gotta pick them up?” Billy Joe asked in disbelief.

“Oh, yes. Fun is not normally free. If you don’t pick them up, I’ll have to and I didn’t have the fun of sailin’ them off the tower. I suggest you get started so you can finish before dark and make it home by supper,” he said with the same big smile.

“Yes, sir,” Jack said as they each took a sack.

“You and your big idea of sailin’ airplanes off the tower,” Billy Joe said when they were out of earshot of Mr. Edwards.

“You enjoyed every plane you sailed off the tower and you know it,” Jack said.

“I’ll let you know at supper time if I liked it this much,” Billy Joe retorted.

Chapter Three

The Fishing Trip

The paper airplanes were fun to sail off the fire tower, but both boys questioned if it had been worth all the work picking them up. They had sailed for miles, it seemed, around the tower.

Riding back home on their bikes, Jack was trying to get Billy Joe’s mind off the work he had been required to do.

“Sho’ wu’d like to go on a good fishing trip to somewhere we ain’t never been.” Jack dangled a bait toward Billy Joe.

“Yeah, me too, but that ain’t likely to happen.” Billy Joe went for the bait. “We been to every fishing hole around here and as far as I can see, we ain’t got no way to go to them that are far off.”

“I don’t know,” Jack cryptically continued. “Tomorrow could change that if we work it right.”