CLINCH VALLEY PURSUIT

By Alfred Patrick

This fast-paced story is set in the mountains of Southwest Virginia, where violence sprouts from roots of greed, hatred, rage, and vengeance. Sheri Charley Scott could never have imagined the web of savagery and death that would ensnare him and loved ones. While Scott and his wife are in Damascus, Virginia, for a short vacation that includes a h

• Language: English
• Publisher: TOPLINK PUBLISHING, LLC
• Release date: Jul 18, 2019
• ISBN: 9781733133272

Alfred Patrick

Alfred Patrick grew up in the Appalachian Mountains of Southwest Virginia, the setting for Clinch Valley Pursuit and for his earlier novels, Clinch River Justice and Clinch Mountain Echoes. With degrees from Bluefield College, Virginia Tech, and the University of Tennessee, he taught at high school and college levels in Virginia, Louisiana, and Tennessee. At Eastern Kentucky University, where he retired, Alfred served as professor, department chair, and dean in the College of Business. He enjoys writing, reading, traveling, gardening, crossword puzzles, and backpacking and has completed the Appalachian Trail, the John Muir Trail in California, and trails in other states. He and his wife, Peggy, live in Richmond, Kentucky.

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Clinch Valley Pursuit

Alfred Patrick

Copyright © 2019 by Alfred Patrick.

Paperback:    978-1-7331332-6-5

eBook:            978-1-7331332-7-2

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

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Copies are also available from the author. For prices and mailing costs, contact:

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Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Acknowledgments

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

Appalachian Trail Route Explanation

Acknowledgments

My sincere appreciation and thanks to:

Peggy, my wife, and my manuscripts’ first reader, first responder, first questioner.

Frieda, my sister and writing critic who gave me a verbal nudge that got me started on my first novel.

Patricia, my manuscript critic, proofreader, and copyeditor sister.

Chapter 1

1948

From behind bushes the man watched, his mouth agape as he gazed at the beautiful girl in the river. The willow bushes on the river’s edge kept him from seeing the young woman as clearly as he would have liked, but he did not have to use his imagination. That pretty young thing had walked upstream beside Clinch River, red faced and wiping sweat from her face in summer heat; she stopped at the water’s edge on a narrow strip of sand and fine gravels.

Who is she? He thought he had seen her before, but he couldn’t remember where or when. With her back toward him, she unbuttoned and peeled off her sweaty blue chambray shirt. Now bare from the waist up, she dropped the shirt on the beach and waded out into the river until the water came up to her waist. Don’t matter who she is, she’ll be mine fer a while.

Transfixed, the man watched the girl as she lowered herself into the stream until only her head was above water. He saw the relaxed, contented expression on her face as she reveled in the cool, cleansing stream. The girl dunked her head under water twice, dog paddled a few feet out into deeper water, and returned to the spot where she had begun her short swim. There she slowly stood as water streamed from her body and hair. Using both hands, she pressed more water out of her hair.

He now had a full frontal view as the girl walked back toward the beach; as the water became shallower, he saw more and more of the woman’s alluring body. Above her slacks, her bare, wet body glistened in the sun, and her slacks hugged lovely curves below her belt. She stepped out of the water and onto the sand. The man liked what he saw; he could hardly believe his good luck. What a body, he thought. This man had always helped himself to what he liked unless somebody stood in his way. Ain’t nobody hyere t’keep me from doin’ what I want with ‘er.

He wondered, Why’s she out hyere by hersef? Don’t know and don’t rightly kyere. She’s a prize like I ain’t never seen. They’s nary a soul ‘round hyere t’stand in my way now, so she’s my prize. An’ I aim t’have me a fine ole time with this purty little thing.

Just as the leering man started to step out from behind the bushes that hid him and as the girl picked up her shirt, another young person intruded into his territory and his plans. This newcomer to the scene was a young man. The hidden man didn’t recognize the woman, but he knew the man now with her. No matter who he is, he ain’t comin’ in hyere and takin’ this play purty I jist found fer mysef. Then he realized that the man and woman knew each other. She put her shirt on and the two spoke to each other in tones too low for Gabe Hawkins to understand their words.

Guess I’ll hafta git rid of this feller afore I kin have my fun.

The young couple embraced each other and immediately shared a long, passionate kiss. After a few more words to each other, the couple started to move downstream. Their observer stepped out from behind the willow screen and confronted the startled pair. He told the couple what he wanted and intended to have; with no warning, he hit the young man a hard blow to the jaw.

A frantic fight ensued, but the attacker finally knocked the young man down, pounced on him, and choked him until the man’s body went limp. The shrieking young woman seemed rooted in place and unable to move from the spot where she had watched the fight. Then the man grabbed her wrist and dragged her toward a denser clump of bushes that would hide him and his plaything. The terrified woman looked back at her fallen, inert boyfriend as she struggled in vain to escape the vise-like grip of her captor. The jubilant man pulled her behind the clump of willows and . . .

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Gabe Hawkins awoke with a start and looked at his surroundings. He was not at Clinch River. Where am I? He did not have a beautiful girl. Where’d she go? Then he knew. He had dreamed. He wasn’t on the riverbank with a beautiful woman. The angry man roared a string of curses as he realized he had awakened from a thrilling, satisfying dream, an oft repeated dream. The dream’s erotic excitement and sweet taste of long-sought revenge against Charley Scott faded suddenly to the bitter reality of disappointment and renewed hatred. In dim light he saw iron bars a few feet away.

Gabe lay on his cot, alone in his tiny cell in a Virginia prison. He thought longingly about the beautiful young woman he had dreamed about. He remembered that a portion of his dream had really happened. Years earlier he had seen the young woman shed her shirt and refresh herself in Clinch River, the woman whom he now knew had been Bonnie McGraw and who later married Deputy Charley Scott. And the young man Gabe had fought and whipped in his dream was Charley Scott.

At the thought of Scott, Gabe grew more incensed and outraged. Only in his dreams and daytime fantasies did he defeat Charley Scott. Scott was the reason he was in that stinking prison, and the one thing Gabe now lived for was to get even with him. And getting even with Scott meant killing him. But iron bars, prison walls, armed guards, and a few hundred miles separated Gabe from the target of his vengeance. Gabe longed to be outside those confining walls and back in Clinch Valley where he could vent his wrath against the man who sent him to prison, but he saw no prospect of doing that in the bleak future he faced.

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Arch Bingham, an inmate at the Virginia state prison in Powhatan County, faced a life sentence after being convicted of hiring a hit man to kill his business partner. Together, he and his partner, Rush McGlothlin, had owned a successful and rapidly growing construction business in Virginia Beach. The partner discovered that Bingham pocketed thousands of dollars in kickbacks each month from subcontractors who supplied inferior building materials for huge government construction projects.

McGlothlin threatened to expose Bingham if he didn’t sell his half of the business to him, so Bingham paid a professional killer $10,000 to kill his partner. The hired assassin killed McGlothlin, but he also brutally sexually assaulted and murdered the man’s wife, leaving their two children, a ten-year-old girl and a twelve-year-old boy, orphans.

A clause in the partnership agreement stipulated that if one partner died, the surviving partner became the sole owner of the business. With the death of his partner, Bingham owned the business outright. In addition to being the sole owner of the construction business, Bingham now had no one to endanger the hundreds of thousands of kickback dollars he had stashed away and no one to stand in the way of his getting more of the same.

State Police and the FBI investigated the McGlothlin murders and finally traced two $5,000 payments from Arch to his brother, Larkin Bingham. The official reason listed for the payments was the repayment of money Arch had borrowed from Larkin back when Arch and Rush McGlothlin started their construction company partnership.

Based on an alert and nosy neighbor’s description of a car seen near the McGlothlin home at the time of the murders, including partial license plate numbers, investigators tracked down and arrested the suspected killer-for-hire. The killer was Larkin Bingham.

In their investigation of the Binghams after Larkin’s arrest, law enforcement agencies discovered evidence that he had carried out contract murders of at least three other men. Virginia prosecutors convinced Larkin and his attorney that they had enough evidence to ensure a death sentence if his case went to trial. Larkin agreed to testify against his brother, Arch, in return for a sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole rather than risk getting a death sentence from a trial jury.

Larkin Bingham testified in court that his brother hired him to kill Rush McGlothlin, prosecutors presented proof that Arch paid Larkin $10,000 to murder his partner, and subcontractors affirmed they paid kickbacks to Arch. A jury convicted Arch Bingham of first-degree murder, and the judge handed down a sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole. The Virginia state prison in Powhatan County became Bingham’s new home.

Soon after the murders of the McGlothlin husband and wife, a guardian ad litem was appointed for the two minor children. After Bingham’s trial, the court appointed a guardian and conservator to represent the McGlothlin children in their personal and financial affairs. A judge also nullified Bingham’s ownership of the construction business because he got the partner’s share by having him killed, and ownership was transferred to the murdered partner’s estate, his two minor children.

Larkin Bingham’s attorneys convinced state authorities that, since he had testified against his brother, his life would be in grave danger if he served his sentence at the same prison as his brother. So he would be sent to a different prison. Before Larkin could be transferred from jail to prison, a jail employee found Larkin’s cold, bloody body one morning in his cell bunk. He had died of multiple stab wounds. No weapon was found, and detectives never determined how someone got to Larkin Bingham locked in his jail cell. Larkin’s killer or killers were never identified.

Arch Bingham welcomed the news of his brother’s death, the brother whose testimony sealed his fate to a lifetime in prison. Arch instructed his attorney to transfer a sizable chunk of money to the bank account of the wife of a jail employee at the facility where Larkin died.

Chapter 2

The Powhatan prison was also Gabe Hawkins’ residence. In a fit of anger, Gabe had used a galvanized pipe to club to death a Creedy taxi owner, Monroe Bowman, in Powell County in the southwestern tip of Virginia. The taxi owner also happened to be a bootlegger who refused to sell Gabe and his brother, Mike, more whiskey because they were already too drunk to be driving their old beat up truck. Bowman’s refusal cost him his life.

After Gabe killed the bootlegger, he and Mike took money and two boxes of whiskey from the bootlegger’s house. Two Powell County deputy sheriffs, Charley Scott and Elwood Sykes, found the Hawkins brothers at their ramshackle home with the money and most of the whiskey they stole. A muscled, scrappy fighter, Gabe attacked Charley, but the deputy whipped Gabe in a hard, bruising fistfight. Mike tried to shoot Charley, but Elwood stopped him before he could fire a shotgun, the same gun the Hawkins brothers’ Mam had used to kill her husband, their hateful and abusive Pap.

In a plea deal with Virginia Commonwealth attorneys, Mike agreed to a five-year prison sentence for robbery, and Gabe accepted a ninety-year sentence for murder with his attorney’s promise that he could be out of prison within twelve years if he behaved himself and followed prison rules. Mike now had one more year of his sentence to serve at Powhatan prison, but because of Gabe’s attitude and reckless, rebellious actions in prison, the older brother would likely die behind bars. Gabe finally realized that he would almost certainly spend the remainder of his life in prison.

Through the four years Gabe had been imprisoned, a few vivid, wrenching memories were never far from the forefront of his thinking, both in his dreams and in his waking hours. He thirsted for revenge on Charley Scott for sending him to prison and for other incidents in which Gabe came out on the losing end of bare knuckle physical encounters with the deputy.

Almost four years after Gabe Hawkins arrived at Powhatan, he paced in the exercise yard early one morning beside a heavy-gauge wire fence. As he walked, he noticed another prisoner whose name he did not know. He glanced at the stranger but kept walking; he concluded that the man must be a newer prison guest, because Gabe had seen him only during the past week or so.

Gabe walked to a corner of the yard and headed back along the fence. As he did so, the man watched him and began walking in Gabe’s direction. He fell in step two or three paces behind Gabe and said in a barely audible voice, Don’t turn around. Keep walking and listen. Just nod or shake your head. Don’t talk.

What’s he want? Gabe wondered, but he did as the man instructed.

Gabe nodded and kept his pace as the man followed; they turned at another corner in the yard and kept walking. When they were at a point away from other prisoners and guards, the mystery man said, Stop and look through the fence like you’re interested in what you see out there.

Gabe stopped, gripped the cold metal fence and appeared to be looking at something; less than three yards away the other man did the same. After a pause, the man said, I’ve heard some things about you, Hawkins. Do you want to get out of this cesspool? Just nod your head if you do.

Gabe was surprised. The man knew his name; he looked quickly to both sides and behind them. He saw nobody close, and nobody seemed to notice them. Instead of nodding or shaking his head, Gabe asked, You mean git outta this prison?

The man hissed, What did I tell you to do? I said to just nod or shake your head. You don’t follow directions very good, do you? Of course I mean to get out of this prison. You interested or not?

Not liking the stranger’s demeaning words and tone, Gabe thought for several seconds, saying nothing. Then he nodded his head slightly.

If you’re willing to do whatever it takes to get out, I can make it worth your while.

Whadda ya mean, worth my while?

Can’t keep from talking, can you?

Why should I do what ya say? I don’t know ya, don’t know yer name, don’t know if I kin trust er work with ya.

I’ll give you two good reasons to trust me and to work with me. Besides not having to spend the rest of your miserable days in this container of human sewage, you can end up with more money than you’ve ever dreamed of. Are you in?

Excited at the idea of freedom plus money, Gabe said, I’ll think on it but no promises.

Think hard and think fast. I’ll be in touch, the man said as he moved away from Gabe.

That night as he ate supper Gabe learned from men seated at his table that the man who talked to him in the exercise yard was Arch Bingham. Over the next several days, he learned from other prisoners why Bingham now shared the comforts of Powhatan prison.

During the next two weeks, Gabe Hawkins and Arch Bingham had several short conversations in the exercise yard and in the mess hall. Bingham had worked out an escape plan, and for the plan to work, he needed one more man besides Gabe on the inside. Gabe volunteered his younger brother, Mike. The thought did not enter Gabe’s mind that something could go wrong with Bingham’s escape plan before they tasted freedom.

Gabe gave Mike no choice about participating in the prison break attempt. He needed a man to help him with what Bingham wanted done. Gabe knew Mike could be flighty, was sometimes afraid of his own shadow, and hadn’t been blessed with a lot of gumption. But Gabe didn’t trust anyone else he knew in the prison to keep the escape plan a secret and to carry out what Bingham said had to be done.

Mike had only one more year of his sentence to serve; then he would be a free man. He mentioned this to his older brother, but that bore no significance in Gabe’s mind. Mike would help him get out of prison. As he had always done in the past, Mike agreed to do what Gabe said he had to do, whether he wanted to or not.

Bingham had a comment and a question for Gabe. He said, The scuttlebutt is that your brother will be released in a year or less. Why would he risk an escape attempt that has no guarantee of succeeding if he can be a free man anyway in no more than a year?

Mike’ll do what I tell ‘im, an’ he wouldn’t want t’stay hyere ‘thout me no matter how short a time inside he has left.

Bingham asked, Can your brother to do what he’ll need to? Can you vouch for him?

He kin do it, an’ I’ll stand by ‘im, Gabe responded.

From Bingham, Gabe learned that the man’s widowed mother lived on her farm beside Route 80 near the foot of Big A Mountain, about two miles north of the little southwest Virginia town of Honaker.

When Bingham mentioned his mother, Gabe asked if he had a wife and children. Bingham responded, Had a wife. Don’t have one now. Years ago I had a girl and a boy but don’t know anything about them now. That’s all you need to know about my family.

Arch Bingham looked at Gabe for a few long seconds with hard, cruel eyes that Gabe had no desire to challenge and said, Don’t ever ask again.

During one conversation, Gabe mentioned money. He said, Ya know, since that first day we talked, you ain’t brought up money agin. I need t’know more ‘bout that money an’ ‘bout me gittin’ some of it afore I go any futher with this plannin’.

Arch told Gabe that he had last visited his mother just prior to his trial, and on that visit he had stashed in an unlikely hiding place in Russell County a huge amount of money comprised of large denomination bills. Arch told Gabe that they would pick up his hidden money as soon as possible after they escaped Powhatan and that Gabe would be rewarded generously for helping him escape. Gabe asked where he hid the money.

Bingham replied, You don’t need to know, Hawkins.

Gabe said, If somethin’ should happen t’you, I ort t’be able t’find the money.

Bingham responded by telling him only that he buried the money in a miner’s aluminum lunch bucket; then he walked away from Gabe, in effect saying he would give no more details about the money’s location. Several days later, Gabe broached the subject of hidden cash again with Bingham and pressed for more details about where he buried the money.

Bingham said, Hawkins, you just don’t give up, do you? You wouldn’t be making plans to see that I don’t escape this lockup, would you? If I didn’t make it and you knew where the money is, you could have it all for yourself if you got out. Is that what you’re thinking?

Course not, Gabe blustered. I wuz jist lookin’ at what could happen. They’s a lot of risks in what we’re aimin’ t’do. It might be that just one or neither one of us gits out of this place alive. If you make it out ‘thout me, yer still on yer way tuh that money. If I git out ‘thout you, I ain’t got nothin’. So it kinda weighs on my mind that I should have some kinda inshorance in case ya don’t git out.

Bingham stared at Gabe with a poker face and finally said, Hawkins, I’ll tell you a little more about the location of that cash. But if I see anything to make me think you’re planning to cross me to get the money, just the least little thing, I’ll make sure you don’t live to get out of Powhatan. Or if you cross me after we get out, I’ll leave you for the buzzards to pick your bones clean.

Gabe eyed Bingham with a sullen face and steely, unblinking eyes but made no verbal response.

Bingham said, I’m going to give you one more little bit of information about the money, and this is the last time we’ll talk about it, ever. At least, while we’re still inside. If you know what’s good for you, you won’t ever mention it again. You got that?

Gabe nodded, and Arch Bingham told him he buried the money at the foot of the highest structure within four or five miles of Honaker. Bingham added a few more details about the location of the stash and ended the discussion with, That’s all I’m telling you, Hawkins, so you’d better make sure I stay healthy if you want to get a chunk of that cash.

Gabe started to walk away, but Bingham said, Hold up, Hawkins. We’re getting close to the time to put our plan into action. Are you and your brother ready? Now I need you to tell me straight. Can you two do what you’re supposed to? We all have to do exactly as I’ve planned, or we won’t make it out.

We’re ready.

What about your brother? He seems to be off in another world sometimes. Will he do what I need him to do?

Mike ain’t got ‘nuff brains t’crow ‘bout, but he’ll do what I tell ‘im. So don’t worry none ‘bout me an’ him. We’ll do aer jobs.

With a cold glower, Bingham said, See that you do.

As Gabe walked away, Bingham’s narrowed eyes followed him as he thought, Hawkins, if we get out of this place, you and your brother are going to be in for a big surprise. No, a shock. But no money. But then you two won’t be needing money anyhow.

Back in his cell, Gabe pondered the riddle of where Arch Bingham hid his money. Highest strucksher? What does that mean? Is it a house er barnd er some other buildin’? Could it be a coal tipple? I’ve hyeard they’s some coal mines over in that county. What else could he be callin’ a strucksher? He finally concluded, Well, I guess he’s right. I need tuh make sure Bingham lives t’git us t’that money.

Chapter 3

On a special morning in late May 1948, Gabe Hawkins lay awake in his bunk long before daybreak. He had slept little through the night. Arch Bingham had told him at breakfast yesterday. Bingham reviewed their plans again, telling Gabe once more what he and Mike had to do to make the escape attempt work. Later Gabe went through the plan with Mike and made sure he understood his part in it. Their day was here, their chance—probably their only chance. Today! The big day! Escape! Freedom!

Excited, nervous, and jittery, Gabe could hardly wait to be outside these smothering, confining prison walls—a place where walls and bars and razor wire hemmed him in. Where guards armed with billy clubs, pistols, shotguns, and rifles kept a man from going where he wanted and doing as he pleased.

Two years after Gabe and Mike Hawkins came to Powhatan, their youngest brother, Rafe, had been duped into killing a man—a good man, but a man carrying a dark, sinister secret. A man whose first wife died mysteriously and whose second wife wanted him dead. A Powell County judge sentenced Rafe Hawkins to life imprisonment for murder, with assurance from his attorney and the prosecuting attorney that he could be eligible for parole in twelve years. Rafe spent time in two jails and a state prison before he found himself at the same prison where his brothers resided, and he arrived at Powhatan only a few days prior to the momentous day for which Arch Bingham had planned.

With high hopes for her sons, their mother, Nettie Hawkins, gave them names of angels —Gabriel, Michael, and Rafael. All three of Nettie’s angels were now prisoners, but she had not lived to know that.

Gabe heard that his youngest brother had joined him and Mike at Powhatan, but he hadn’t seen Rafe. That brother had not always done what Gabe had wanted him to do back home in Powell County. Gabe couldn’t trust his youngest brother, so he would make no effort to see him. He would not take Rafe with them when he and Mike left the prison walls behind them today.

Mr. Big Shot Convict, Arch Bingham, had convinced Gabe and Mike that his plan would get them out of Powhatan prison. Gabe Hawkins was ready; ready to leave this hellish penitentiary that had been his home for the past four years. Arch Bingham would fake some sort of severe physical ailment that the old prison physician, Doc Lubek, was not qualified or equipped to diagnose or treat and would have to send him by ambulance to a hospital in Richmond.

Gabe didn’t know that Bingham had bribed Powhatan prison guards. Bingham had gotten word to his lawyer instructing him to mail a package to Mr. Farley Renfro, General Delivery, at Mechanicsville, Virginia, a town a few miles northeast of Richmond. The package contained $5,000 for each of the two prison guards. Bingham told one of the bribed guards which post office to go to and the name to use to pick up the package. Each guard got more cash than he earned at the prison in two years, and they were promised that within two weeks of Bingham’s escape they would receive the same amount already paid.

One of the bribed guards, Ron Bolton, would know when the prison ambulance arrived at the infirmary to pick up Bingham. The other guard in on the escape plan, Perry Gardner, would arrange to have Gabe and Mike in the hallway of the infirmary by the time the ambulance arrived there. When the driver pulled the ambulance in near the outer infirmary door, one guard would distract the driver and attendant so that Mike and Gabe could knock the men out and drag them into a supplies closet; the Hawkins brothers would then put on the men’s caps and jackets. They would put Bingham in the ambulance and drive out of the prison.

The time ticked by much too slowly for the eager, optimistic jailbirds who could already taste the sweet freedom they anticipated. The day finally progressed into late afternoon, and the planned time for the prison escape neared. Bolton closed and locked entrances to the infirmary area so that no other prison personnel could get into the area. Arch Bingham had also arranged for other prisoners to temporarily disable the prison loudspeaker and communication system and the telephone system.

The prisoners who helped Bingham thought they were just hassling the prison warden and staff, not that they were helping one of their own to escape, one who had no concern for any of the other prison residents. Fellow inmates had also agreed that at a designated time they would throw the main electrical switch and disconnect emergency generators that ordinarily would automatically kick in to produce electricity when the normal power supply failed.

As a result, nobody else would be able get into the infirmary area, and nobody could communicate from one area of the prison to another or telephone outside the prison. Prison sirens could not sound their wailing alarm. Bingham knew that when the communication and electrical systems were disabled there would be ample daylight through the windows to see clearly in the rooms where they would be.

Chapter 4

Day 1

When the time came to execute the escape plan, Bingham began the most important acting performance he would ever give. Guards Bolton and Gardner half-carried Bingham to the infirmary where he appeared to be