The Friendship Stones (An Ozark Mountain Series Book 1)

by Alan Black

  Hoffman said to the men by the car, “You better come look after your man.” He pointed his Winchester at the sky, but kept his hands close to the trigger. He backed his mule away from the car, putting space between him and the two remaining men.

  The bald man nodded at the other man with the hat. He gestured with his chin. He said, “Frank.” No other words were exchanged between the two men.

  The muscular man named Frank eased around to the front of the car, careful to keep his hands high where both Hoffman and LillieBeth could see them. He reached down and touched the man shot by Hoffman. He straightened and shook his head ‘no’ at the fat man. He picked up the shotgun carefully and slowly. He released the catch and broke the gun open.

  The dead man had fired both barrels. The young man pulled out the empty shells. He tossed the shells and shotgun into the back seat of the automobile through an open window.

  There was no doubt the man LillieBeth shot was still alive. He had not stopped crying since he dropped his gun and fell to the ground. Frank stood over him, but instead of checking on him, he bent down and picked up the man’s revolver with two fingers on the barrel. He held it out where everyone could see what he was doing.

  He flipped open the cylinder and dumped the cartridges into his hand. He put the cartridges in his suit jacket pocket and tossed the gun into the car with the shotgun. Using his left hand, he opened his coat jacket with two fingers. He pulled a semi-automatic handgun from a holster under his arm. He dropped the magazine into his hand, putting it in his suit pocket and sent the gun after the others.

  Only then did he kneel down to check on the wounded man.

  LillieBeth did not want to watch her handy work, but she could not turn away. She continued to stare, her face passive and unsmiling. She was shocked when Frank started chuckling. Shooting someone was not amusing.

  “Quit your belly aching, Jake,” Frank said. “You are going to live until we can get you home to Chicago. First, we will get you down to that doctor by the lake and he will fix you up fine.”

  “I ain’t gonna die?” Jake asked. “It feels like I’m gonna die, Frank. It burns like fire.”

  “Well, I imagine it does burn,” Frank said. “This woman put a shot clean through your shoulder, through and through, just the meat, no bones.” The man started laughing again. “Then, just for good measure, she shot you three more times right in your butt.”

  Frank looked up at LillieBeth in admiration. He touched the brim of his hat, giving it a slight tug of a salute. “Fine shooting, ma’am. I appreciate your not killing Jake.” He gave a nod to Hoffman and looked back at her. “Even when you had every right to.” He looked up at Hoffman. “All right if I get him in the car?”

  Hoffman nodded. “You plug those holes up, keep him from bleeding to death and he won’t be any worse for the wear. Don’t be leaving that other trash in the road.”

  Frank said, “Wouldn’t think of it, though a fellow get’s himself shot up that easy, doesn’t deserve much.”

  The old bald man eased around the back of the automobile. He nodded politely to LillieBeth, but he turned to face Hoffman. “Fletcher, this is not what I wanted when I came down here from Chicago. I swear these two misunderstood. I just said I wanted to come out and try to persuade you to change your mind about, um...” He glanced at LillieBeth. “Well, you know.”

  Hoffman said, “She is from the mountains hereabouts, Benny. She knows there are stills here and there. That won’t surprise her none. Shooting at her might have startled her a bit, but we raise them tough around here.”

  Benny nodded in admiration at LillieBeth. “I can see that. And I wasn’t trying to force your hand. I wouldn’t do that. Our mothers were cousins, Fletcher. I only wanted to talk.”

  Hoffman said, “Nothing to talk about. I already done said no. I didn’t expect to have to say it twice.”

  “I was wrong about that, too.” Benny said. “I thought I could change your mind. The money is just too good to pass up.”

  LillieBeth watched the other man drag the injured one into the back seat and dump the dead body into the trunk of the car. The man was casual about it, as if handling injured and dead men was an everyday occurrence. She wondered if maybe it was for him or if he just did not feel sympathy towards the injured and dead. He certainly looked as if he was more amused at the wounded man’s pain than anything resembling human compassion.

  She was sure a person could get used to the wounded, dead and dying in war, but they were not at war with Chicago. Or were they? Maybe the war over moonshine was just beginning and these were the first few shots. First or last did not matter, she did not want to ever shoot anyone again. However, she knew she liked someone shooting at her a lot less than she did about shooting someone else.

  She would shoot back if war was coming with Chicago. She would not like it, but she would do it. Daddy had not liked the war in France, but he had done it. How could she do less than live up to the standard set by her father?

  It was not the first time southerners from Missouri had shot Yankees from up Illinois way. Even though the south had lost the War of Northern Oppression, the men and women from the Ozark Mountains had run the Yankees out time and time again. Most folks in the hills did not hold with slavery, but they liked being told what to do even less.

  LillieBeth certainly agreed with Fletcher Hoffman. He left other people alone and he expected the same in return. Since she was still a youngster, Mama and Daddy had a right to tell her what to do. Beyond that, it was between her and God.

  Selling liquor of any kind was against the law. Daddy said it was not a good law, but it was a law just the same. Everyone knew the eighteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution had gone into affect back in the middle of winter. It made alcohol illegal, not just in the Ozark Mountains, but from the Pacific coast to the Atlantic coast and everywhere in between. She was positive Chicago was included.

  Miss Harbowe had discussed it many times in school, debating its rights and wrongs. Almost everyone agreed liquor was not good for you, but if a person was of a mind to do what was not good for them, it was nobody’s business but his or hers. The politicians had made liquor illegal regardless of what the common folks had wanted.

  Whether it was legal or not, after the Civil War the hill folk in the area had done the same with the carpetbaggers from the north that they had done with other invading Yankees. They had sent them packing, except for a few honest men like Sheriff Grissom’s father, who had come to keep the peace and nothing more. The Bald Knobbers had formed up as a response, in an uneven attempt to protect northerners from oppression. And just like the Ku Klux Klan, they had drifted from their original doctrine. The Bald Knobbers ended up chasing a few Yankees back up north even though they were of Yankee blood themselves.

  She was sure Yankees settled into the big towns like Springfield and even far away Little Rock, down in Arkansas. Both of those were cities. Little Rock was even way outside of the Ozark Mountains. Maybe city people were a little more tolerant of outsiders coming in to run things. Maybe the carpetbaggers there had Union troops to back them up.

  Whatever the reason for letting carpetbaggers gain a hold in the cities; the Klan had run them out of the hills. It was a curious mixture, as the Klan was mostly ex-Confederate men and the Bald Knobbers were ex-Yankees themselves, but neither group liked outsiders coming in to tell them what to do.

  Most people agreed the men of those groups were carrying their vigilante justice too far, since the Yankees were long gone from the hills. The Bald Knobbers all but disbanded except for a few diehard northern boys in Taney County, but they were inclined to leave people alone if people left them alone. The Klan was still strong all through the mountains, visiting their peculiar brand of hatred on blacks, Jews, Catholics and Yankees alike.

  LillieBeth did not hold any anger towards Yankees. She supposed they were just folks like everybody else. These men in their fancy maroon four-door car certainly looked like regular people. Not at
all like the cartoons of Yankees tacked up on trees and meeting houses by the klansmen.

  She had seen a few blacks in the area. They were as hard working and polite as everyone else she knew. She was very friendly with her catholic neighbors, the McMahons. They were good people and what they believed was between them and God. She was not sure about Jews, since she did not think she had ever met one, but she imagined they were people just like everyone else. Just like all of the people she knew, the blacks and the Catholics wanted to be left alone to live their lives.

  She realized that was the point of the whole thing. A man or woman had a right to be left alone. She had a sudden flash of understanding. Miss Harbowe had often recited from the Declaration of Independence, ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’. It had not made sense to LillieBeth until that moment.

  It was true she thought of herself as a southerner, but she knew the Confederacy had been wrong to hold men and women in slavery. The fighting spirit of the founding fathers guaranteed people liberty. Putting people in bondage was wrong. That did not make her a Yankee; it just meant she was an anti-slavery southerner.

  The carpetbaggers had been wrong to come and try to tell them how to live. The Klan and the Bald Knobbers were wrong to continue to try to force people to do what they wanted. And these men from Chicago were wrong to come into these mountains and try to force people to work for them.

  She kept her gun ready and her ears open to Mr. Hoffman’s conversation.

  Hoffman said, “I don’t need your money, Benny. I wouldn’t take it at the point of a gun even if I did.”

  “I understand,” Benny said. “I should have known better. Besides, we can bring in a better grade of liquor from Canada with a lot less trouble than I am getting from you and your neighbors.”

  “Your boss understand what went on here, or we going to have to deal with him and these fellows’ families?”

  Benny said, “The boss will be disappointed. But I have a few samples of moonshine coming out of the stills round here for him to try. He won’t stay disappointed too long.”

  Hoffman said, “Like as not he’ll go blind. Not everyone here abouts has a gentle touch with a kettle and coil.”

  “And you don’t need to worry about these men’s families coming after you or the young woman here. I have met a few men in these hills willing to sell their product up our way, so what product we do buy will grease enough pockets to leave people satisfied.”

  Frank finished stuffing the wounded man onto the car’s backseat. He kept his hands well clear of any weapon when he faced Hoffman. “I notice you keep that old colt at your hip in cavalry style with the handle backwards.” He did not mention the Winchester, still pointed in the car’s general direction or LillieBeth’s rifle, still loaded, still at her shoulder and her finger still near enough to tickle the trigger.

  Hoffman just looked at the man.

  Frank said, “I am pretty quick with mine out of my shoulder holster, but the jacket can get in the way. I wondered how well that works for you.”

  Hoffman shrugged. “I ain’t dead yet, so it works good enough so far.”

  Frank said, “How would you do against some of the old time outlaws like Jesse James?”

  Hoffman snorted, “Jesse weren’t as much as people make him out to be. He couldn’t keep hisself from getting shot. That happened more than once if I recall. He cried like a baby when he got shot up in, where was that? Centralia, I think.”

  The man looked thrilled, “You knew Jesse James?”

  Hoffman nodded, “Yeah, reckon so. But he weren’t a fast gunhand like people say. Oh, I guess he could shoot quick enough if you’re walking away, but not so tough face-to-face. Now Frank James, he was the real hardcase of the two.”

  The man said, “Sir, it has been an honor. If you or this little lady ever get up to Chicago, you be sure to look me up. Supper and drinks are on me. You just ask anybody about Frank Nitti. They’ll find me for you.” He smiled at LillieBeth, climbed into the front seat on the car’s passenger side, grabbed his gun from the rear seat and sat quietly reloading it.

  Benny said, “Fletcher, Frank and I expect to be around until the weekend. Maybe you’ll let me buy you supper, you and the lady here, before I go back to Chicago?”

  Hoffman said, “No.”

  Benny gestured toward LillieBeth, but before he could speak, Hoffman interrupted.

  Hoffman said, “I said no for the both of us, Benny. We don’t need your supper no more than we never needed nothing else. You and I may be kin, but I would just as soon you move on.”

  Benny nodded. He got into the car, started it up and drove away. The car continued on down the road picking up speed, passing by Hoffman’s lane, and it disappeared around the curve.

  LillieBeth wanted to get on Ruth, ride home and cry on Mama’s lap. Her knees decided to quit working and she sat in the dirt with a thump. She wanted to cry right here. She had shot a man. She had shot a man four times. She had shot a man four times and watched him lie crying in the road.

  LillieBeth did not cry, wring her hands, moan and wail or even throw a prayer to God. She felt numb, barely able to grasp the rifle, letting Ruth’s lead slip away, uncaring about getting her dress dirty. She wanted to cuss and rail against the man for shooting at her first, making her shoot back, forcing her to defend herself, and pushing her into hurting him.

  She wondered why she had not dropped the gun and held up her hands. She could have surrendered. She wondered why she had shot him more than once. She could have easily not shot again unless he pointed his gun at her. She wondered why the man had even shot at her.

  She looked up at Hoffman, who just looked back.

  She said, “I am sorry I shot that man.”

  Hoffman said, “I am sorry I killed that man I shot. I thought I was done with killing. It don’t appear that the killing is ever going to get done.”

  “What do I do now?” LillieBeth asked.

  “You get on your mule and go home,” Hoffman said. “I told you more than once that you shouldn’t be coming round here.”

  LillieBeth said, “I do not have a choice. I have to come round. You are my friend.”

  “That ain’t done you much good so far, has it?”

  “Not yet, but the good will come. I just never expected to shoot someone, here or anywhere.”

  “It ain’t nothing for you to worry about, girl. He shot first, you shot best and he still ain’t dead. I don’t reckon God will hold that against you.”

  “The man you shot is dead,” LillieBeth said.

  “Yep. Dead as old Caesar himself. I have enough dead against me listed in God’s big book that one more won’t matter much. Hell will be waiting for me just as quick for this one as for any of the others.”

  LillieBeth struggled to her feet. Ruth had not wandered off even with the lead lying loose on the ground. Almost without thinking, she cleared the rifle’s breech of cartridges making it safe, slipped it into the saddle scabbard, climbed up on the mule and took a tight grip on the reins.

  She said, “Hell doesn’t have to be waiting, Mr. Hoffman. Like it or not, God will forgive us our sins if we say are sorry for them.”

  Hoffman nodded. “I am sorry the man is dead, but I ain’t sorry I shot him. He would have shot us both if I hadn’t. God will forgive you for shooting that man. You had to and he ain’t dead. But me? Well, seems to me I’ve got more killing and past devilment writ down agin me than God’s got the forgiveness for.”

  LillieBeth rode Ruth down onto the road until she was next to Hoffman. As the mules faced opposite directions, she could look him in the face. She used her fingers to brush her hair away from her eyes. It was an uncomfortable gesture and an unfamiliar one. Years of braids had kept the hair out of her eyes. But, braids were for little girls and children. She no longer felt like a little girl.

  She said, “I do not recall the Bible putting a limit on how much or how often we ask for His forgiveness. It just says to do it and He wi
ll forgive.”

  “Maybe that scripture is only good for saying ‘dang it’, wearing your hat in church, or passing gas in polite company.”

  LillieBeth frowned. “Well sir, I will admit that I am not an expert, but it seems to me the only thing God does not forgive is not accepting Jesus Christ as your savour.”

  “I ain’t much at talking to Bible thumpers, so I’ll take your word for it. I’ll think on that a mighty bit. Truth be known, I am sore tired of killing.” He cleared his throat and looked pained. It was as if what he had to say next literally hurt. “I thank you for your help.”

  Hoffman spurred his mule forward and followed along the road past his place. He went the same direction the car had gone.

  LillieBeth watched until he was out of sight around a curve. She nudged Ruth forward with her heels in the mule’s ribs. She let Ruth take her time, plodding along as mules often do, constant and steady, in for the long haul, not racing with the wind, but head down, muscles bunched, pushing forward against wind, rain, uphill and carrying a heavy load.

  Ruth was not fighting uphill or even against the wind, but LillieBeth felt like she was a heavy load. Her heart alone was heavy enough to burden a team of strong mules. She could not even think of where to begin asking for God’s forgiveness for shooting a man.

  No matter what she had told Fletcher Hoffman, she knew this had hurt her heart. She knew God would forgive her, but she did not really feel sorry. It was true she wished it had not happened, but he had shot at her. She was sure he would have shot Hoffman and her if she had not shot him. How could she ask forgiveness for something she truly was not sorry about doing? She was sorry for the man having been shot. She was not sorry she had done it, because he had made her do it. It was too confusing.

  How would she ever tell Mama?

  How could she ever tell Daddy?

  Would they be disappointed in her enough to not trust her with the rifle? Would they stop loving her?