BY THE TIME THE biplane touched down at the Logan ballfield, it looked like a flying briar thicket. A mad tangle of leaves and branches and bird nests were snared all through the undercarriage and landing skids from the pilot’s treetop escape. A long string of bullet holes had been stitched across the fuselage.
Sheriff Chafin waited, leaning on the long black hood of his Stutz. The pilot climbed down from the cockpit and removed his gloves. His hands were shaking.
“How many pounds of explosives did that chemist of yours pack into those damn things? First one near about blew me from the air.”
Chafin chuckled, thumbing his chest. “I think the Devil’s got dust shaking from his rafters.” He lifted his eyebrows. “You think them Rednecks heard it?”
“Heard it? There’s people in Peking with their eardrums bleeding. Ain’t you afraid what the baby-kissers in D.C. are gonna think of you dropping bombs on Americans?”
Chafin waved his hand. “Americans, hell. Half of them was born to foreigners or slaves, the rest to granny women in shacks or dirt-floor cabins.”
“Well, if they were born in this country—”
Chafin clamped a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Nobody’s going to make a fuss, Cap. I can assure you that. Now, you want to see people in an outrage, you let this bunch of Rednecks come marching into a civilized town like Logan. The papers won’t get enough of it.”
“I near about got killed. Some crazy son-bitch was on the spur above Crooked Creek with a Gatling gun, already cranking the firing wheel as I flew up the Gap. I dropped the second bomb there as ordered, but it was a dud, thank God. Don’t know if I’d of survived the blast.”
Chafin squeezed the man’s shoulder. His fingernails were clean and neatly filed; fat rings shone about his knuckles. “You done the right thing, Cap. What you had to for law and order.” He leaned closer. “For America.”
The pilot opened his hands, closed them. “It don’t feel like it.”
“Hell, that wasn’t nothing. Warning shots. Wait till the government planes get here.”
“Government planes?”
“Sure, you ain’t heard? General Billy Mitchell, chief of the Air Service, he’s champing at the bit to show what his planes can do. He was just up in the state capital, done up in his ribbons and spurs, telling the papers how his air forces could snuff out this uprising in no time flat. These marchers don’t stand down by noon tomorrow, we ain’t gonna be the only ones dropping bombs. Far from. They got squadrons ready to scramble, loaded with gas and incendiaries.”
Chafin looked out toward Blair Mountain. “Hell, these sons of bitches ought to thank us for giving them a taste of what’s coming down the pike if they don’t turn tail and run. Soon it’s gonna be the whole world coming down on their heads.” He shrugged. “We’ll say we tried to warn them.”