A savage night had fallen upon the Appalachian foothills by the time Gabriel Kings and his Avenging Angels found shelter at last. Within the flimsy walls of an abandoned creek mill, the young men, fresh from their first bank robbery, slept among the horses to stay warm as a tree-bending wind howled outside and rainwater leaked in through the cracks in the roof. Despite their less than glorious habitations, they had reason to celebrate. The operation itself had been child’s play compared to the games they’d all grown accustomed to over the last few years. For five of the six, as Southern-born veterans of the War between the States, going from enemy of the state to fugitive of the law seemed a welcome demotion of sorts.
At ten o’clock the previous morning, Kings, Leroy Brown-well, and Dave Zeller had burst into the First National Bank of Scarboro, North Carolina, a depository owned by traitorous scalawags and largely filled with scalawag money. The men had their hat brims tugged low but, beginners as they were, hadn’t bothered to hide their faces with sacks or kerchiefs. Their unbuttoned coats flapped wide to show heavy revolvers in army-issue flap holsters. The sight was enough to make the speechless patrons reach for the ceiling without being told and move back against the walls. With so little resistance, the outlaws drew their weapons only because they felt they should.
Outside, Tom Seward and Sam Woods, mounted on fine pacing horses, passed each other along the main street. Beneath their greatcoats, their hands lay near holstered guns, ready to pull and drive off curious bystanders at a given moment. One street over, Andy Yeager stood behind a hitch rail directly across from the saloon in which the town’s occupying troops loitered. Against Union army regulations for former Confederates in the Reconstruction South, he openly cradled a Henry rifle, which the soldiers were thus far too busy drinking to notice.
While Brownwell held a shotgun on the bank crowd, Kings strode to the teller’s cage with Zeller a step behind. The latter shoved a gunnysack across the counter as Kings leaned in with a Navy Colt and said, “I was told you’re the man to see about a withdrawal.”
The teller eyed the octagonal barrel of the .36-caliber revolver with a mixture of disbelief and fear. He sputtered and asked who they were and what the hell they were planning to do.
Zeller, for whom aggression came more easily, slid his own pistol barrel through the grate and leveled it with the man’s nose. “Unless you wanna get shot, you’ll hop to, and don’t ask no more stupid questions.”
Now with two guns on him, the teller glanced at Kings, who seemed the calmer of the pair, but he found no comfort in the man’s eyes. “And h-how much exactly do you wanna withdraw, sir?”
“Well, now, how much would you say?”
“Sir?”
“How much would you say,” Kings repeated, “that federal paymaster deposited here yesterday?” He paused, allowing his apparent omniscience to resonate.
Zeller crowded closer. “And just you remember,” he said, jacking his gun hammer back for emphasis, “what the Good Lord said about lyin’.”
The citizen’s answer came slowly. “I’d say around seven . . . thousand dollars.”
“We’ll take the lot,” Kings said. As the teller hurried to oblige, he posed another question: “Say, how them blue-bellies been behavin’ themselves? They treatin’ y’all like human bein’s?”
For a moment, the teller forgot he was speaking to a robber and was quick to divulge to his fellow Southerner that the town of Scarboro could expect no fair treatment from the occupiers.
“You be sure to tell ’em there won’t be no use followin’ us,” Kings said. “Not if they wanna make it back to their families up north. Tell ’em they didn’t get us all. They never will.”
The teller paused in the middle of transferring a portion of the money from the safe to the sack. “And . . . who shall I say you are, sir?”
Kings considered that, then, in a moment of inspiration, answered, “Why, we’re the Avenging Angels of the Shenandoah.”
As the teller went back to filling the sack, Zeller turned to Kings, chewing on one end of his stringy mustache and fighting a smile. “Kings?” he said.
“Zeller?”
“I think this is gonna be a pleasure.”
Ninety seconds later they stepped into the leather and whipped their horses into a gallop. Although they went unchased by the bluecoats, the Avenging Angels of the Shenandoah didn’t slow their mounts to a walk until they crossed the border into Tennessee. That night, by the light of a fire in the abandoned creek mill, they listened to the downpour and divided their spoils as evenly as possible. The die was cast by the passing of a bottle of sour mash.
The Wanted bills were posted two days later, on October 8, 1866, in every town, lumber mill, and general store window within a ten-mile radius. They lacked any attempt at an artist’s rendering, for Scarboro contained no artists, but at the bottom of the bills the populace was instructed to contact Col. Thomas Spooner, of the Military Department of the Carolinas, with any information that might lead to an arrest or capture.
WANTED!! IN CONNECTION WITH ROBBERY OF FIRST NATL. BANK, SCARBORO, ASHE COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA, OCT 6. ROBBERS, CALLING THEMSELVES THE AVENGING ANGELS, ESCAPED WITH SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS. MADE OFF TOWARD TENNESSEE LINE. TWO OF SIX THIEVES IDENTIFIED. DESCRIPTION AS FOLLOWS:
GABRIEL KINGS. 6 FEET. BLACK HAIR, BROWN EYES. SCAR ON LEFT CHEEKBONE, CROOKED LITTLE FINGER ON RIGHT HAND. SAW ACTION AS CAPTAIN IN 1ST VA CAV UNDER JEB STUART. ALSO WANTED FOR QUESTIONING IN MURDER CASE OF ROCKBRIDGE COUNTY LAWYER.
ZELLER, FIRST NAME UNKNOWN. 5 FEET 10 INCHES, FAIR HAIR, BLUE EYES, SMALL MUSTACHE. SERVICE RECORD UNKNOWN.
FUGITIVES CONSIDERED ARMED AND DANGEROUS. $500 REWARD PER MAN OFFERED BY U.S. MILITARY. DEAD OR ALIVE.