Men in the Land: Times Past

By J.P. Lucas

Men in the Land is a compilation of stories that deal with real men. Men and their immovable foundations, their women, facing difficult and deadly circumstances, who understand the foundational basis of morality and decency, love of family, friends, and country. These men must deal with immorality, greed, and danger decisively, and sometimes violently, while maintaining their own integrity. Each man, in real life, must face similar decisions for himself.

There are those who would destroy us. Men in the Land are the bulwark against destruction. Kender, Stepp, Openshaw, and Trapper White, their neighbors and friends, each, in their own way, are men who inspire us to fight, against all odds, for that which is rightfully ours. They irreversibly influence the world around them.

Men in the Land are monuments to positive values, hard won, and honest achievement. They stand for something. They are granite, bigger than life, strong, and immovable.

Our nation is today because there were Men in the Land.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: May 10, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466926141

J.P. Lucas

The author has a wide range of life experience: raised in a near nineteenth-century Appalachian mountain environment; an American history student and a revolutionary war descendant; a student of human characteristics and behavior, lifelong businessman, father, mountain horseman, hunter, pilot, machinist, heavy equipment operator, MSHA instructor, mine owner; and an inventor, writer, speaker, and musician.

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MEN IN THE LAND

T I M E S     P A S T

J . P . L U C A S

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© Copyright 2012 J.P.Lucas.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction, names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

ISBN: 978-1-4669-2615-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4669-2613-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4669-2614-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012906443

Trafford rev. 05/03/2012

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Contents

DEDICATION

SPECIAL ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

TRAPPER WHITE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 41

CHAPTER 42

CHAPTER 43

CHAPTER 44

CHAPTER 45

CHAPTER 46

CHAPTER 47

CHAPTER 48

CHAPTER 49

CHAPTER 50

CHAPTER 51

CHAPTER 52

CHAPTER 53

CHAPTER 54

CHAPTER 55

CHAPTER 56

CHAPTER 57

CHAPTER 58

CHAPTER 59

CHAPTER 60

CHAPTER 61

CHAPTER 62

CHAPTER 63

CHAPTER 64

CHAPTER 65

HOW CAN TWO BE ONE?

BECKY DIDN’T SLEEP MUCH

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

A NIGHT TO REMEMBER

BOYD COBB

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

THE GEM IN DIAMONDS HAND

MEN IN THE LAND

AN INTRODUCTION

A TRUE MONTANA STORY

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 41

CHAPTER 42

DEDICATION

For many years I have written stories, poems, dissertations, and songs.

Polly and I sang, and played, Gospel Music across the country for a lot of happy years.

As for writing, for a lot of years, I wrote simply because I liked doing it. Some things I wrote about my wife, some about my children, and some about the goodness of God, and, His blessings, or just about life, history, and my experiences.

Now, I get the chance to dedicate this book, to the greatest of all blessings, my children, Anna, Wesley, Tammy, Lance and Laine, and, my wonderful wife Polly.

Wesley and Tammy have made the publishing of this book possible. Their encouragement and, financial support, have given me the time to compile its content.

Wesley has spent many, essential hours, negotiating and coordinating the business process of the project.

Anna’s, wonderful sketches, have added to the appeal of the final product.

My other children have been an invaluable source of encouragement to me.

Polly has been my rock for 50 years. Her never ending support has been the thing that has allowed me to pursue so many projects, which have ranged from the insurance business, construction contracting, coal mining, aviation, design and development of various inventions.

She has made it possible for me to fly, ride, pack and hunt the beautiful Rocky Mountain country, from which I have gathered much to write about. She has wrapped my busted ribs and broken ankles, caused when horses and I have had, for one reason or another, suddenly, crossed paths, or parted ways. I have lost a couple of engines, in flight, and had a wing partially disintegrate on a plane I was flying. I survived, and Polly was always there to pick me up, shake her head, and take me home. She has prayed for me and nursed me back, from the abyss, a number of times and encouraged me to make another stab at accomplishment, no matter what it was.

She has supported me, morally and financially, which has given me the ability to experience much more, in my lifetime, than one man can reasonably expect. She has encouraged me, and given me the freedom, to be involved in, any venture I could find, from land development to politics. That has given me the ability to say, as I have grown older, I have lived. She has encouraged our children to, really, live life, become leaders, and stand for something good in our world. Because of her, they have, and are, doing that.

It is to this special group of people, I am privileged to know, my family, that I dedicate this effort, this work.

Jp     

3/22/2012

SPECIAL

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I want to thank my wonderful sister-in-law, Mrs. Martha Prouse for the essential help she provided in putting this project in print. She spent many hours, proof reading and editing the material herein. I would have been at a great loss without her input. Thanks Martha, so much.

Jp     

3/22/2012

TRAPPER WHITE

Trapper%20White%20final.jpg

CHAPTER 1

The man on the big bay horse thought of the beauty of this place as he passed along the road. The huge leaf covered limbs of the trees formed a natural, overarching, canopy covered, avenue.

The host of flowering plants, fresh water and the wonderful oxygen saturated mountain air, along this near wilderness track, created an incredibly, wonderful incense that richly filled the senses and charged the heart of the forest rider.

Along the creek, the sounds of the water flowing there, in the tumbling deep blue stream, were multitude. Some were the mere tinkling sounds of tiny wind chimes. Others bubbling, some booming, more, crashing cymbals in the back of the orchestra, countered by deep kettle drum thumping’s and boistrous gurglings. The slight kerplip, of drippings, blended into the constant, urgent, got to get on, rushing of the powerful water, the wonderful performance of a beautiful, backwoods symphony.

This year, as spring had come into full hot summer, he had seen catfish brought out of the creek that wound head to tail around the inside of a wooden wash tub.

Hunk, with his home made three pronged gig, had already been gigging in the creek for frogs. A few times, so far, this summer, he had brought Sarah brimming buckets full of the most tender, delicious frog legs in the world.

She was the consummate back woods chef, and the result of Hunks gig trips and Sarah’s expertise with a cast iron skillet, lard and salt, always resulted in a repast fit for a king.

He thought of how well a man and his family could live in this country. Only the lazy need go hungry, even now when times were hard.

All summer long the berries came on: blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, huckleberries, gooseberries, tiny wild strawberries. Then the apples! Some so sweet they tasted like they were pumped plumb full of brown sugar juice. Some so sour they’d make a pig squeal. Wild crabapples to mix in with the jams and jellies to set the jell. This was God’s good country.

Pawpaw fruit, hickory nuts, black walnuts, white walnuts or butternuts some called them. The most delicious chestnuts in the world, beechnuts and hazelnuts. Not a few of them, but tons upon tons of them. An overabundance of God given bounty.

Ahh, and then the harvest! Squirrels, made fat on the bounty of the forest.

Huge, red, fox squirrels, sleek grey squirrels. Floured or rolled in eggs and cornmeal and fried, either kind made the best breakfast gravy in the world.

Fresh venison. Deer with that strip of tenderloin along the backbone stripped out and sliced into sections then split into butterfly tenderloin steaks. Sarah dipped them in brown flour and fried them in a skillet with a little lard and a just right amount of salt. Browned! Lush, succulent tawny brown they came out, cooked to a delicious tan clean through and so tender they came apart with your fingers. Or she would bake the whole tenderloin smothered in onions and great big quarters of cabbage lain on top.

Bear meat! She’d clean the fat off for rendering and bake the meat with wild onions and whole potatoes, served up, with fresh hot cornbread and butter. A feast that satisfied a man’s appetite, forged strong bones, layered them in sinew, and filled his blood with super fuel to power the machinery.

Then there was fried rabbit with mashed potatoes and greens. Poke greens, dandelion greens, turnip greens, you name it!

Onions, about black walnut size, boiled and smothered in homemade butter, served up with fresh pork. Fat hog meat, sweetened by the thousands of pounds of sweet chestnuts, hickory nuts, beech nuts and acorns they fed on as they ran free in the woods. Meat, that melted in your mouth, and served with shoestring beans, cornbread and more delicious sweet cooked or raw onions and more potatoes. What king could want more?

Sometimes, the big man wondered, if the eating was the best part of all this, or was it the smelling? The aroma of Sarah’s cooking, as it wafted along the side of the mountain, was enough to make a man want to quit plowing or cutting timber, way too early of an evening. Ah, but he waited, then, in the end, the eating sure made the waiting worthwhile. The sights, sounds and smells of the country were enough to make one’s heart swell.

Then, there were the intangibles. The know how to preserve all that bounty for winter. Drying, smoking, salting, pickling, jarring and jelling. Primitive frontier knowledge passed down from mom and dad, grandpa and grandma. From one generation to another.

There were things here, totally unique. Things that bound a man to the land. Something about the mountains that got hold of his heart, his very soul. Also, there was a sustaining something that lent a great deal of security to one who had loved ones planted beneath the shelter of the giant protecting arms of the forest within a stone’s throw of him. Something that gave him deeper roots than the newcomers in the land.

As the horse picked out the trail in the oncoming twilight, he thought to himself, he had much to be thankful for. When his grandpa had come here, in the last century, he had had to slip around the country with both eyes and ears open just to keep his hair. In fact, some of his kin hadn’t slipped around quite well enough. Some were buried here, in hallowed ground. Others had simply not come home. No one ever found where they had fallen. Finally the fight between the red and white man had ended.

Then another war had come and gone. Next, came the recent war like none before, in this part of the world. A war among neighbors. A war that should never have happened. A war that pitted the country against itself. Now, that war had been over for quite a while and the country, at least in some places, was beginning to heal.

For the most part, folks could travel around the country on their business without fear. There were a few outlaws in the country but, they mostly didn’t interfere with much, generally fighting among themselves. Mostly robbing and killing each other. When they stepped out of line, and got out of their little circles, the law was harsh. So harsh, in fact, that a lot of felons didn’t spend much time in jail, if they got that far. Other than the scoundrels combing the country to try and steal, by scandalous purchase, what a man had rightfully come by, it was a fair peaceful place to live.

The big man had only stopped for a couple of minutes at Hawks, with it getting on to evening and now, from somewhere behind the high walls of the forest an early ranging owl inquiringly whooed into the coming darkness and a friend, or maybe a relative, whooed back.

Late for getting home, sparrows and finches flitted about like small windblown leaves, almost invisible now against the deep darkening of forest. More heard than seen, they sought the inner branches of the evergreens and rhododendron for a safe hideout for the night. Somewhere behind him a whip-poor-will sounded into the twilight. Off toward the hollow to his left a rain crow with its beautiful long cooo called for his mate, heavenly music on such a beautiful night.

Ahead, just at the end of sight, in the branched over, tunnel road that he followed, appeared a small dark spot in one of the snaking tracks of the wagon road. Mr. Rabbit stood on his hind legs, looking like a coffee pot with long upright ears, from this distance, turning his head and sniffing the air, trying to make up his mind. Should he go up the creek, or down tonight? Which offered the best option for fine, tender young green sprouts, or clover. Seeing the horse and rider coming toward him from down the creek he decided the best possible pickings tonight would, to be on the safe side, probably be somewhere up the creek.

Just before the rider came to the log and plank bridge, a fish jumped in the creek, fell back with a slap on the water and settled back into the depths, another satisfying morsel in his gullet as he finished his hunt for the last of today’s skimmers that skated across the water in the slow spots and backwaters.

Now time was on the rider’s side. Another hour or a little more and he would be unloading his horse and the mule. He was so close to home now that he could, at least he thought he could, smell, almost taste, Sarah’s, out of this world, cooking. He marveled at the way she always fixed him a special supper when he had been away from home even for just a short time.

He wondered, actually tried to guess, what she would have fixed this time and thought if she hadn’t done anything, it would be enough just to see her, just to hold her another night. Sarah, his precious Sarah. Where had she come from? She was so different.

He had often heard her as she prayed. How she thanked God for him and for him to hear her pray that way was worth more than all the wealth of the world. Yet, he had never been able to find the words to express his gratitude for her, simply because what he felt for her went beyond his vocabulary. He had never learned how to say what he had no words for. He just knew his heart was tied to Sarah’s and God in heaven understood his gratefulness.

Then, like horsemen everywhere, his attention came back to the road he traveled as his horse pricked up his ears and cocked his head higher, looking up and down the creek as they crossed the bridge. The laden mule had held back momentarily, at the first hollow clompings of the horse’s feet upon the planks of the bridge, and then stepped up his pace to hurry across, close behind the horse.

CHAPTER 2

They came from under the trees, out of the brush and weeds, by the side of the road in the late evening twilight, as quickly and unexpectedly as copperheads, their movements masked by the increased darkness of the overhanging trees and the sound of rushing water in the creek. Armed with pistols and knives, one grabbed the reins of the frightened saddle horse, as the two other men fastened hold on the rider.

The horse was fighting a sudden ghost who had materialized out of the near darkness. Rearing in his fright and striking out with his forefeet to rid himself of the half seen demon in the flapping black coat that was trying to drag him back to the ground by the reins of his bridle.

The rider was struggling with two other groping, grasping imps attempting to drag him from the saddle. Suddenly, loosening a foot from his stirrup he kicked at the head of one of the men, striking his attacker in the eye with the hob nailed heel of his boot. Ab Hawkins, screamed and grabbed his face momentarily then, anger overcoming his pain, he, becoming furious, returned to the fight, with a knife in his hand.

Delmer Cowley had managed to stop the fighting horse in its attempt to flee, Enoch, the third man, still unwounded, and pulling on the horseman, had managed to partially unbalance and almost drag the rider from his saddle.

Ab Hawkins, with the wounded eye, was now attempting to leap onto the horse behind the saddle and keep from entangling himself in the lead rope that was attached to a frightened, kicking, rearing, pack mule, meanwhile trying to stab the rider in the back with his knife. His first attempt, resulted in a painful, and dangerous wound to the riders back. In his effort to evade the man behind him with the knife, the rider jumped from his horse, wrapping his arms around Bryant, the man pulling on him from the ground, struggling to unhorse him.

Finding himself atop Bryant when they hit the ground, the rider, wounded, now in desperation, drove his oaken fists into the face of the man with all his might, hoping to take one man out of the fight. Bryant stopped moving, but the man with the knife, in the meantime, had leaped from his half seated position on the horse and managed to stab him in the back once more.

Hawkins’ attempt to kill the man from the horse resulted in the rider falling forward on top of the motionless Bryant. Hawkins stabbed him in the back again.

The rider now lay motionless.

Cowley, who had been holding the horse, had released it in a general effort to help his companions and both animals had immediately fled, packs and stirrups flapping, up the road in the direction they were traveling before the attack.

For some moments Cowley and Hawkins stood, shocked, almost unbelieving, at the ferocity with which the rider had instantly defended himself and the damage he had been able to inflict in such a few seconds.

Hawkins, with the wounded eye, knew he had lost the eye and suffered a broken bone in his eye socket, possibly more. He thought his head was going to burst. He wondered how he had ever been caught by the man’s boot-heel so perfectly that it smashed his eyeball. He was screaming, mad, holding his face, half seeing, kicking at the man, his former adversary, in horrendous fury and agony. Bryant, the man beneath the rider was still motionless, his facial bones crushed by the hammer blows of the rider.

They had been warned. This man would be no easy target, but how tough could a hick farmer be? Then, they were not amateurs either. They were professional killers. Hired to do what should have been a simple and quick job.

They had not used their guns for fear of being heard and now two were badly wounded.

Cowley, the horse holder, the only one unhurt, rolled the body of the man they had attacked, whom they assumed to be dead, off his partner.

Having no choice, he forced Hawkins, despite his agony, to put aside his pain and rage and help him drag the rider into the creek and into a place that would at least keep the body from being found immediately, which should give them some time to get away.

They, in coming to the spot they had chosen for the attack, had left their horses about a half mile down the creek, in a seldom traveled hollow where they were unlikely to be seen or heard by anyone. Now, two of them were badly wounded and Bryant hurt so badly in fact that they were unable to revive him.

They decided they would drag their compatriot into the brush and then Cowley would help Hawkins, with his wounded eye, to his horse and come back with his own horse and another for the unconscious man. Cowley could then get his two frightfully wounded friends to a safe place and go for help.

It, in the end, was a wasted trip back for Bryant. The old convict no longer needed help, he needed what he had never shown anyone else: mercy; God’s mercy, in fact, for he was dead.

Cursing their luck and loading him on his horse Cowley hauled Bryant about halfway back to where Hawkins waited, wading the horses in the creek, to cover his trail. Removing Bryant’s body from the horse, he carried him up the creek bank, and dropped him behind a rotting log on the side of the hill.

Kicking dirt and leaves over the body, Cowley slid down the creek bank to his horse, mounted his horse, and leading Bryant’s, went quickly on down the creek. He rode up the now pitch black hollow where the pain crazed Hawkins waited, tied Bryant’s horse behind that of Hawkins, took the reins of Hawkins horse and led him away, uphill and into the dark and dripping mist of the forest.

They were several miles away from the scene of the fight when Cowley, tired to the bone, from his exertions and nursing Hawkins, finally stopped to tie him on his horse to keep him in the saddle. Then while listening to his incessant moaning, he realized that they had not completed their job and now, even their pay was at risk. They were supposed to steal the man’s money and equipment. This was supposed to have looked like a robbery.

CHAPTER 3

Sitting in the office wing of his mansion on a hill in Pittsburg watching the sun go down, Ross Connelly waited for news from West Virginia. This part of the country was in a boom time. The steel mills in the east were feeding off the land hunger of the immigrants in the west. Western Indian tribes that had held millions of acres of land, whole sections of the country, were being decimated or were already eliminated.

Railroads were vying with each other, like any other school of sharks, for right of ways into new territory. Millions of tons of steel were being turned into rails, engines, rail cars and cranes for the western expansion. Steel was now replacing wood as the major component of ship building.

Riveted steel bridges by the thousands were being built. Steel was gold, in cold gray form. Coal was essential to the making of steel. Good coal, excellent coal, was worth a fortune. Pennsylvania coal miners, as miners everywhere, were eeking out an existence creating millionaires.

West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia had some of the, best of the best, developing coal. The southern businessman had been hopelessly crippled by the war. There was little or no competition from them. They had been financially destroyed. The land now, and all it held, belonged to the Yankee businessman, who knew how to acquire and develop it.

Though western Virginia, now West Virginia, was officially a northern state, the people were, for the most part, hardscrabble hillside farmers. As such they were in need of work and cash in a desperate way. When given a job in a coal mine they could be worked hard and, in fact, could be worked like slaves. The best part was that one could pay them with scrip.

Scrip, one of the most ingenious designs ever, for buying men. In fact the labor and loyalty of whole families could be bought for money one could print himself.

As far as labor went, a man could not get a better deal. Hire the worthless hillbillies for slightly more than they were worth, nearly nothing, then, pay them in scrip that was no good except in a man’s own store.

Build them a shanty, a rough sawn clapboard house on the side of a yellow clay mud hill to live in and deduct the rent for the pigsty from their scrip wages. This was a right to own slaves, granted by a government that had the gall to claim to have eliminated slavery.

A better scheme had never been devised to get rich if a man had a place to start. Cheap labor, and a high demand product. Ross Connelly had found a place that had the product and the labor. In his mind, he had already laid claim to it.

Another one of the good things about mining coal was that it was a market that fed on itself. Coal was shipped on freight trains that consumed tons upon tons of coal a day to make steam for the engines that pulled them. Someday soon, railroads were going to come within spitting distance of what Major Connelly thought of as his mother lode.

Major Ross Connelly knew where some of the best coal south of the Mason Dixon lay and had set in motion a plan to acquire it. He had done his homework.

During a stopover in Charleston, he had heard a conversation between a couple backcountry farmers that had aroused his curiosity. They had only mentioned in passing that they were trying to lay in enough of White’s coal to carry them through the winter. They had said it sure made starting a fire a lot easier if you used White coal. One could nearly light it with one of them newfangled sulfur-head matches and it surely did burn hot and clean.

After a few casual inquiries around town, Connelly had found where the White coal lay. Having checked out the survey records and deeds to the land, he had decided that what Eugene White had was worth a further investigation. He had stayed in the area and had hired a man who lived along the river a few miles from the place to purchase a sack of coal from White. He was astounded at the quality of the coal and from the court house records, at the amount of it that White owned.

He immediately wired for two of his co-conspirators to come down from Pittsburg to plan a strategy for getting the coal out of the mine, he, and his partners, now envisioned as their own, to the river and the railroad that was planned to run to the north. Most of the coal from the Kanawha was shipped downriver on barges. Connelly wanted his coal to go north to Pennsylvania and maybe as far north as New York, although, there was nothing wrong with the downriver market either. His planning for the development of his fortune eliminated nothing.

Ambling around the country for the next several days, they came to the conclusion that they had discovered El Dorado. From their investigation they had determined that the coal was exceptionally easy to mine. The grade from the mine to the river was perfect for laying track and ran gradually downhill all the way to the river.

Small mine owned engines, loaded at the mine mouth tipple, would hardly have to work at all to pull narrow gauge train loads of coal down to the tracks at the river. There it would be transferred from the mine cars to a conveyor belt onto the long haul cars of the mainline or loaded on barges to go down river. The engines, then, pulling a string of empty cars could easily travel back to the tipple and reload at the mine mouth.

Having the connections that they did, they had an immediate market for the coal. It was a lead pipe cinch. Millions in the bag and on to bigger game. Connelly, and company. Long live the King! King Connelly.

Acquiring the property had become an obsession. Then the unexplainable stupidity of an idiot hillbilly had deflected Connelly’s final shot. It was as though he had run into a brick wall.

Well, brick walls had been torn down, destroyed if you will, for the building of better and greater things and this brick wall, Eugene White, would be removed to enhance the progress of Major Ross Connelly and company.

The war had taught Connelly many things and one of them was that, one man doth not an army make. Eugene White had not even participated in the last war. Major Connelly laughed as he thought of what kind of piddley army it would require to take down this unschooled, untested, egotistical boor?

He would never forget the day he, and his companions had approached the home on the side of the mountain knowing they had the cat in the sack.

It had been an unusually beautiful, sunny day. The Dogwood was in full white and pink blossom. The bottoms, along the creek were carpets of daisies. Long stems of goldenrod stood tall waving in the slight breezes like the spears of a forward marching army, over-blessed with wealth.

Nature had infused the woods this day with a mind boggling display of plumage. The forest was clamoring with the screech of blue jays, chattering sparrows and trilling robins. Catbirds meowed along the creek and beautiful Orioles sat in rows along split rail fences.

Huge obsidian crows caw cawing to, or at, each other. Cowbirds hopped along in front and behind the riders, flashing their iridescent blue black wings in sporadic pseudo flights every few feet along the road. Wild canaries in flashing flocks of brilliant lemon yellow dipped and flowed into sight across the meadows under a lovely, pale blue sky.

The beautiful, soft, haunting coo coo cooo’s of the doves, or rain crows, as the people here called them, came from deep within the trees.

It was a day to raise the spirits of the forlorn, and bring jubilation to the heart of one, on the inside track to unbelievable wealth and success.

CHAPTER 4

The Major and his companions had ridden easily out to Hawks place, by noon. There they stopped to take in one of Mrs. Hawks incomparable noon-time feasts.

They had been in such fine fettle that they had decided to actually partake of a little of the table conversation, with the local rabble, where at some point, they had mentioned that they were going up the creek to talk to Eugene White about some personal business. The gist of the conversation finally coming down to the possibility that they were planning on doing great things to help the local people, never really saying it, but insinuating that they were about to develop some great industry in the area.

Hawks himself, slyly egged the conversation along, suggesting that there probably was a need for some type of industry in the countryside to help with employment due to the influx of new people. Then, discerning the thoughts of the three visitors, knowing he had thrown them some bait, he moved on to the condition of the crops and the horse market.

The meal ended pleasantly. Major Connelly and his friends were so impressed with the meal, the service and the conversation in fact, that in addition to the payment for their meal, they had generously left Mrs. Hawks a pittance of a tip.

After having bid Mr. and, the dowdy, hardworking, Mrs. Hawks good-day, out of whom they thought they had suckered an agreeable statement about their project, they rode out into the road by the creek, while having a good laugh at the kindly but ignorant hillbilly wife and her howdy do’s, you’ns be keerful, and thankee’s.

As they passed through the gate, bound upstream, Mrs. Hawks suggested to Mr. Hawks that someone should possibly go over the hill, the shortcut way, and tell Eugene that these men were coming to his place. Mr. Hawks, for his part, thought that Eugene did not need much help in dealing with the likes of these nincompoops. They would not have believed that everyone at the table, down to the last plow hand, as was the way with mountain people, had interpreted every word they had said into real language and cut to the bone of truth.

That bunch was going up to Eugene Whites place to try to impress or bully him and buy his coal lands. Then, if they could handle that job, they were going to run a railroad down the creek through anybody’s property they wanted, enslave everyone they could coax onto their scrip payroll, and make themselves filthy rich.

Mrs. Hawks knew they were holding back their insulting remarks about her for a good laugh later, but, they would have never guessed that she, out of politeness, was holding back her remarks, and laughter, for when they came back down the creek, dragging their tails between their legs like whipped pups.

Leaving Hawks and traversing a rugged two miles of creek crossings and bottomland, Connelly and friends had come to the foot of the hill, at the mouth of the hollow where the mine was located.

From the creek to the White house was a road in much better condition than that of the main road. Evidently it had been worked with a slip and stone boat. The grade on the main hollow road to the mine was easy and well stoned. The stone had been broken up, with sledge hammers and worked well into the road. This did not fit in with the picture of an ignorant hill farmer and it was evident. A negative and, possibly irritating, thought crossed Connelly’s mind as he came closer to what he had until now assumed would be a dirt poor farmer’ s home. He dismissed it and continued to survey the scene.

There was a well maintained corn field in the bottom, below the house, probably three acres. A well cared for house garden was planted along the hillside below a stone walled flat where the house stood, and evidence of several more acres cleared, or being cleared, for farming on the hillsides above, and behind the house. Still, it was a far cry from the neat rolling hills and farmsteads of Pennsylvania.

This was a hardworking farmer selling a little coal on the side to keep the wolf from dragging him out through the door. What Connelly was about to offer him would sweep him off his feet. He had every intention of retiring Mr. Eugene White. He was going to offer him a paid for farm, anywhere in the state he wanted to go, and money in the bank for his land and holdings. Only a fool would turn that kind of offer down.

They had ridden up the road along the hill under the stone wall and had turned back on the angling hillside road toward the house. This turned onto a path under the huge oaks in the yard and around the house that brought them directly in front of the high front porch where a couple of hounds had been resting until now. These black and tan, bigboned, creatures had come out from under the porch now to anounce the presence of visitors and assure that no one got down from their horses. They were large healthy dogs, who appeared to the visitors to be amply equipped and prepared to perform surgical amputation on anyone who might infringe upon their territory.

For a moment they had thought noone was home and then they had seen a man come down the hill behind the house and had heard a door close in the rear. Moments later the man came out the front door, onto the porch, spoke calmly to the dogs telling them to lie down, and greeted them with a simple straight mouthed, hello.

He neither seemed friendly nor confrontational. He had just appeared, said hello, and stood there. It was an awkward situation for Connelly, for he was used to being shown at least some semblance of respect. Nearly anything was better than this. No extended hand of friendliness, no handshake, no anything.

If the man had been angry, at least he could start the conversation with an apology for interrupting his work and, with a little finess, work his way around to showing the man that he was here to help him. Then again, the man was standing on his porch which was about four feet off the ground, on this downhill side of the house, which made Connelly and company have to look up at him at an awkward angle, even from the seat of their saddled horses.

The fact that the man had not come around the house on the ground, which would have made him have to look up to Connelly, was not lost on the Major. This man, even if he were ignorant of what he had done, was more than Connelly had bargained for.

Was he one of those born tacticians? One who would instinctively take every advantage on a battlefield even without thought. In an uncomfortable moment Major Connelly had to gather his thoughts. It was evident the man would speak no more until spoken to.

Connelly had known from the moment Eugene White had stepped out on the porch that he was at a terrible disadvantage. He could usually size up his man in a few seconds. But, here stood a man with a belly flat as a bridge plank and legs like gateposts on a toll road. From the looks of it if he bent his arms too far at the elbows the muscles in his arms might burst the sleeves of his lindsey woolsey shirt. This man was a two legged mountain mule with brilliant, mind reading, blue eyes.

Connelly thought, he has to know by the look of our Thoroughbreds, the equipment we are riding and our dress that we are not ordinary passersby.

Yet White didn’t say a word. He was not impolite in his manner, was neither uppity nor condescending. It thoroughly rankled Connelly that this hick farmer just plain didn’t care if he and his friends existed or