SHERIFF CHAFIN STOOD AT home plate of the Logan ballfield, leaning cross-armed against a black Stutz motorcar. He was watching one of his biplanes sideslip the crosswind on final approach.
Behind him there was panic in the streets, as if barbarians had already breached the town gates. The fighting was audible, the incessant crack of high-powers sounding over the ridges, crackling through the atmosphere. Stray rounds punched through kitchen windows and barn stalls and car doors. People were fleeing, strapping grandfather clocks to the roofs of automobiles and throwing saddles on shuddering horses.
I hear the Rednecks are at Crooked Creek.
That ain’t but four miles from here.
They’ll pick us clean, take everything ain’t nailed down.
Chafin stood at ease. His head, hat, and smile all cocked at the same angle, his bull neck pinched over his bowtie. An unworried man, thumbing the nipplelike scar beneath his shirt. Word was, the Union official who’d shot him had thrown out his little .22 pistol after the incident, disgusted. “That God-damned son of a bitch is liable to get well. If I’d had my .44, he’d be gnashing his teeth in Hell.”
Chafin always smiled at that, and he’d learned a lesson, too. Don’t use a weapon fit for the task. Use the biggest piece of ordnance you’ve got.
The biplane cleared the trees and bounced down in centerfield, bird-light, as if the very ground were unsafe. Chafin made a chopping motion and the pilot cut the engine, the wood-and-wire wings drooping slightly as the propeller chucked to a stop. The airman hung his elbow over the side of the cockpit, keeping his gloves on. A local man, he’d been an Army flight instructor during the Great War.
“Line’s holding strong at Blair itself, Sheriff, but it don’t look good at Crooked Creek Gap. Tony Gaujot’s barely holding the line. The miners mount a full charge, they’re liable to break right through the pass. There’s plenty enough of them to do it.”
“Not to worry, Captain.” Chafin motioned the man from the cockpit. “We got an ace up our sleeve.”
Reluctantly, the airman climbed down from his ship, not taking off his gloves or flying helmet. Obviously, he didn’t like being on the ground under the present circumstances. Chafin led him to the back of the Stutz, a seven-passenger model with a large traveling trunk mounted to the rear bumper. He set his palms on the lid and kept them there, as if feeling the warmth or strength of a living thing. Gauging its power.
He looked at the pilot. “Got us a chemist up in Charleston. What you might call a patriotic man, respects law and order. He made up something real nice for us. Real nice.” Chafin flipped up the brass latches on the trunk and raised the lid. “The Rednecks ain’t listened to them Presidential leaflets we thrown down on them. Maybe they’ll listen to these.”
The pilot stepped back from the trunk, his face white. “I was hired on for reconnaissance, Sheriff. Not for that.”
Chafin cocked his ear toward the storm of gunfire coming off Blair Mountain. “You hear that, Cap? It’s a war on. At our very doorstep. Surely you ain’t the kind of man who’d let these Reds march in here to loot, pillage, and plunder us—not when you could do something to stop them?”
Chafin put one large ringed hand on the pilot’s shoulder, friendly-like, thumbing the rough twill of the man’s flying suit. Not even the pastors of Logan County were safe from his reach. Everyone knew that. Not even the Devil. Chafin smiled, squeezing the pilot’s shoulder. “A man such as that, Cap, I wonder how he could live in this town after that. Hell, not even his people would be safe.”