It was a wooden cattle-gate sprung on a diagonal board, secured with heavy padlock and chain. The barbwire fence ran along to either side, six strands, five feet high. It wouldn’t keep a determined prowler out but it would deter casual hikers. These were forest people; for security they relied not on fences but on their eyes and ears and instincts.

When the tanker cars drove in or out they had to go through a routine procedure: stop the car, get out, unlock the padlock, swing the gate wide open, get back in the car, drive through, stop again, get out, close the gate and fasten the padlock, get back in the car and drive on.

He climbed over the gate and posted himself prone in the shadows along the driveway just inside the gateway; it was a point parallel to where the rear of the car would be when it stopped.

They tended to run them out at forty-five-minute intervals; they were roughly on schedule tonight. He’d been in hiding a little short of ten minutes when he heard the Oldsmobile crunching down the gravel of the hill track. He gathered his muscles, tense as a runner in the starting chocks.

Stabbing headlight beams swayed wildly through the treetops and lanced downward; the car came over the last crest and made the bend and rolled forward without hurry. Kendig stayed put in the shrubbery and the front of the car went past within five feet of his nose. He was in motion before the car stopped.

He had the Vise-Grips in his right hand; he rolled behind the car, got a left-handed grip on the bumper and dragged himself sliding under the back of the car.

The driver’s door opened. The car moved a little on its springs; he heard footsteps. He felt for the target with his left hand, running his fingers rapidly across the bottom of the gas tank; he found the hexagonal nut and squeezed the Vise-Grips onto it and heaved.

It was an awkward position, lying on his back with his arm cramped across his chest; he thought he might not get enough torque: the nut was probbably a little rusted, likely it hadn’t been unscrewed in years and it was covered with road grit, an uneven surface for the wrench. He heard the bottom of the gate scrape across its arc, the tinkle of the dangling chain. He locked both hands on the Vise-Grips and heaved again.

When it gave there was a rusty metallic groan. He froze.

The gate stopped and he heard the driver’s footsteps approaching. But they were neither furtive nor determined; the driver hadn’t heard. Kendig turned the nut. The car swayed with the driver’s weight; the door clicked, shut to half-latch. Kendig reached up with his left hand and locked his fist on the outer cylinder of the shock absorber and tensed his biceps.

The engine gunned, the car dragged him forward, gravel ripping the back of his windbreaker. A stone hit his shoulderblade; he almost cried out, almost lost his grip but he hung on. His forehead glanced off the bottom of the gas tank; he’d have a lump there in the morning. Then the car kept moving and dragging him and for an awful moment he was afraid the driver wasn’t going to stop but then the ride ended and Kendig jackknifed his legs so his feet wouldn’t show.

The driver got out. Kendig rotated the Vise-Grips and now it turned easily; he unsnapped the wrench and turned the nut counterclockwise swiftly with finger pressure. When gasoline began to trickle down his wrist he pushed up against the nut, holding it shut, turning it another full turn to make sure it was free of its threads; he held it that way while he heard the padlock snap shut and the driver’s boots crunch their way back to the car.

The door slammed. The Olds dropped into gear. He straightened his legs out and dropped his head back onto the ground. The car began to move, the tank inches above his nose; he held the drainplug in place as long as he could but then the car was away from him and he just stayed put, lying on his back; gasoline gushed over his extended arm, an overpowering stink of it, soaking his arm and his hair and his shoulder. He lay perfectly still and watched the inverted image of the taillights moving away down the county road.

He let it drive all the way out of sight before he got to his feet and wiped some of the stinking stuff off his face with his handkerchief. Then he started trotting after the car.

He gave it not more than a quarter mile before the high-powered V-8 would use up the fuel in its carburetor and fuel line; sure enough he was just reaching the bend when he heard it cough and die. It freewheeled a bit and he heard it stop. He cut into the woods and walked quickly on the pine-needle carpet, dropping the vital drainplug carefully into his pocket.

When he came in sight of the Olds the driver had the hood up and was playing a flashlight on the engine. Kendig moved down toward the edge of the road, picked up the five-gallon can of gasoline he’d cached there and waited in the trees, not moving, stinking of gasoline.

It took the driver a little while to figure it out. Finally he was down under the car feeling for the hole. He came out cursing audibly. Kendig watched him walk back up the road slowly exploring with the flashlight—looking for the drainplug. It must have been loose, he’d be thinking; vibration must have dislodged it; it’s got to be somewhere around here. He’d walk on up to the yard, looking for the plug along the way; he’d tell the others—they’d have to bring one of the other vehicles down with a chain and tow the tanker back in.

It would take some time. Kendig carried the jerrycan down to the abandoned car, set it down and crawled underneath to put the drainplug back where it belonged. He tightened it in place with the Vise-Grips. He noticed for the first time the three-centimeter pipe that had been welded in place across the back of the car, concealed from above by the massive chrome bumper. It ran the width of the car and there were six jet-type nozzles sticking out of it, pointing down toward the road. That was useful to know about.

He crawled out from under and poured most of the jerrycan’s contents into the tank; he opened the hood and disconnected the fuel line from the carburetor to pour some of the stuff down the hose to prime it. Then he splashed just a little bit into the carburetor—he didn’t want to flood it—and re-connected the fuel line. He put the empty can in the back seat and glanced at the ignition lock but the driver hadn’t favored him by leaving the keys. He had to get down under the dashboard, rip a wire off the clock and feel around for the tab-contacts on the back of the ignition switch. He was no expert at hot-wiring but he knew the drill well enough; he put it in neutral and made sure the emergency brake was set and then he gapped the contacts until the starter meshed.

The car started right up. He twisted the ends of the wire around the ignition tabs and sat up, pulled the door shut and went driving up the road less than six minutes after the driver had left the car.

Pretty soon they’d be down there with their tow car and they’d find the tanker missing. They’d figure out how it had been done but they’d have to conclude it had been a rival bootlegger outfit. They wouldn’t report the theft to the law; they could hardly do that. They’d start banging around their neighbors’ stills and the feudist mentality of the back hills would make things pretty wild for a while. It was what he wanted: the more confusion the better.

He drove the Olds into his barn and closed the barn doors and walked back down the track to repair the cowbell tripwire he’d broken when he’d driven in. Then he went up to the house and got out of his gasoline-soaked clothing, showered and scrubbed thoroughly, got into work clothes and returned to the barn to disguise the Olds.

He carefully applied masking tape to the chrome surfaces and edged the tape with razor-blade cuts. The car was a dark green hardtop with a white roof. He had a dozen aerosol cans of black automobile paint. He taped newspaper over the windshield and windows and went to work with the spray paint: two coats on the roof, one on the rest of the car. He wasn’t an expert painter and the job looked mottled and amateurish but that was all right, it went with the age of the car. The paint wasn’t thick enough to blacken the roof entirely; it ended up more grey than black but again that was good enough. He removed the license plates and threw them into the toolbox of the DeSoto in the yard, and bolted the plate he’d stolen in Birmingham onto the rear bracket of the Olds.