Top of The Edge - Waldens Farm

The black wrought iron gate across the drive leading to Robert Walden's home was a little further off the road than Johnny had anticipated. Johnny thought to himself, "Ronald was right. I could have found this a lot easier in the day light." The house was a good ways off the road, close to a half mile by Johnny's estimate. He stopped and looked around with his spotlight and deduced that it would be impossible to park the car next to the house and turn his wrecker around so he could leave without driving through the front and side yards. That probably would have been alright with Walden, but since Johnny didn't know where the septic tank was, he wasn't willing to risk it. He drove over someone's septic tank once several years ago. The weight of the wrecker cracked the lid, and the car Johnny was towing at the time went through the lid. What an awful smelly mess. It was one of those incidents Johnny vowed never to repeat. Consequently, he ended up driving a little further back on Walden's property than he had intended, but none-the-less a much safer place to maneuver his wrecker around. He would park the Suburban here alongside Walden's barn.

Louise Ford and Billy Cook could feel the front of the Suburban being lowered as Johnny prepared to release it from the tow hook. They were both as still and quiet as possible as they heard Johnny come around to the left rear of the car to place the key on top of the wheel. They held their breath to avoid any movement of the tarp. Several seconds had passed and they hadn't yet heard Johnny step away. Then a faint light shining through the tarp suddenly pierced the darkness. Just as Johnny was about to walk back up to the front of the wrecker, he noticed the tarp through the left rear window. He stared at it for a while and finally shined his light on it. "That looks an awful lot like the tarp that I left on the ground out back of the shop. How did it get back there? Maybe it just looks like that tarp. Was it there all along? I don't remember." Then he noticed that the back hatch doors were not fully closed. Just as Johnny reached for the door handle to open the rear of the Suburban, he felt the hair on the back of his neck prickle and stand up.

"Hey Johnny, you should be careful out and about around here after dark." The sudden presence of someone speaking right behind him caught Johnny off guard. Whoever this was knew him, but Johnny couldn't place the voice. He froze for second, then spun on his heels, to face whoever it was, only to find himself suddenly looking down the wrong end of a shotgun barrel.

"I didn't mean to scare you, Johnny. We saw your headlights shining right at our pickle shed. So, they sent me over here to see if you were one of them revenuer fellas. When I saw it was just you, I figured I'd come on over and say hey." Johnny took a deep breath and exhaled slowly to regain his composure. Then he saw the Sarles family resemblance.

"You're one of Sam Sarles's boys, aren't you?" Sam Sarles was Robert Walden's other neighbor. A detail that no one bothered to fill Johnny in on. Now he understood why Ronald had been so adamant about him not coming out here alone after dark. He must have known about Sarles's 'pickle shed' AKA bootlegging operation. "He couldn't just tell me about it out right because that fellow that's working with the Feds was standing right next to him."

"Yes sir. I'm Stanley, second to the youngest. You probably don't recognize me. I've grown a bit since you last saw me."

"That's an understatement." Johnny thought to himself. Sam Sarles had 8 kids, 6 boys and two girls. Johnny never even made an attempt to distinguish any one of the boys from the others. His voice was still a little shaky as he asked, "Stanley, can you do me a little favor?"

"That depends." Stanley's brow furrowed and his eyes narrowed. "I've always been taught not to agree to do someone a favor until you know what that favor is. So... what is it?"

"Would you please point that shotgun barrel away from my face?"

"I might be obliged to do that... after you answer a few questions for me."

Johnny was shocked at Stanley's response. "Questions! About what Stanley?"

"Well for starters, I'm just going to ask you out right. Are you working with the revenuers?"

"No! Why would you ask that?"

"I've seen plenty of vehicles towed away to the shop, but vehicles being towed to someone's home from the shop... well now, that's kind of a rare thing Johnny. Wouldn't you agree? You care to explain that?"

Johnny explained the situation in great detail, hoping it would satisfy Stanley's inquisition. The entire time however, Stanley gave no indication that he believed any of it. Then with the shotgun still trained on Johnny's face he said, "I want you to try to see this from our perspective Johnny. Just as we finished packing the car with a fresh batch of... 'pickles', you pull your wrecker all the way back here by Mr. Walden's barn, and you aim your headlights right at our operation just as we're getting ready to send out a shipment. So, the way it looks to us is that you are either out here scouting around and gathering information for the federal revenuers, or this is all just some kind of crazy coincidence. But you need to understand Johnny, in our line of business we can't afford to believe in coincidences."

Johnny held his hands out with his palms up exasperated. "I don't know what to tell you Stanley. You keep talking about my headlights aimed at your pickle shed, and all I see in the area lit up by my headlights is a wide-open field with a patch of woods just beyond. I don't know anything about your pickle shed, but you obviously don't believe me. So how does this end Stanley? Are you going to keep me here all night?"

Just then they heard someone walking up from the direction of the elusive pickle shed. "What's going on over here Stanley?" It was Stanley's older brother Roger, also brandishing a shot gun. Stanley explained the situation in full to his brother who listened and nodded thoughtfully. Then he looked at Johnny and with a smile said, "Hey Johnny. It's been a while. How you been getting along?"

Johnny was incredulous. "I would be getting along a lot better if I could just hop in my truck drive home."

Then Roger said to his brother, "It's all good now. George went down the road a ways and scouted around pretty thoroughly. It was all clear. So, Adam took off with the shipment a little while ago. Apparently, Johnny here is on the up and up." Then he leaned in closer to Johnny and said, "I certainly hope you're on the up and up, because if Adam gets snagged tonight or if we get raided any time soon, we'll be paying you and yours a little visit." Stanley lowered the shotgun muzzle away from Johnny's face and said, "Now you go ahead on home and forget all about this evening, especially about our... pickles."

As Johnny drove away, he looked in his rear-view mirror. The two Sarles brothers had already disappeared into the darkness presumably back across the field to their pickle shed. It was undoubtedly very well camouflaged, because Johnny never even got a glimpse of what they were talking about.

Louise waited until it was totally silent for several minutes and finally threw the tarp back and off Billy and herself. Then she pushed the rear tailgate and upper hatch open, jumped out and went straight to the key that was sitting on top of the left rear wheel of the suburban. She helped Billy out and got him situated in the front passenger's seat. It was as if they were reading one another's minds. Neither of them said a word. They knew what needed to be done and did it. Louise wasn't totally sure as to their exact location, but she had a good idea. She followed the driveway down to what she presumed was Parker's Ferry Road. She hoped she hadn't gotten turned around. She wanted to continue heading away from the coast. She was pretty sure that she was coming from the direction of the Edisto River. So, after a few seconds of self-deliberation she made the decision to turn left onto Parker's Ferry Road. Looking in the rear-view mirror she suddenly saw a set of headlights off in the distance. She started to cut her lights but then concluded that the occupants of the car belonging to those headlights had probably already seen her taillights, and if she cut her lights now it would only arouse suspicion.