“Not sure I’ve heard of that.”
“It’s not on the maps.”
THE HOLLOW MEN
Hopkins Hollow was owned by the MacTierney clan. They were, in fact, distantly related to my old “partner,” but I did not find that out immediately. The Hopkins family had been gone for decades before the Kurians even showed up, but they never changed the name because tradition and common use meant more than family ego.
Pre-2022 it had been touched by a road, but a washed-out bridge turned it into another of the many jeep trails crisscrossing the Coal Country on disused roads and rail lines, marked by old post boxes covered by creepers and filled with squirrel scat.
A stream ran through it year-round and a largish open meadow was the divide between the MacTierney clan and the Bilstriths. Other than water, they shared every bounty that came their way. If the MacTierneys slaughtered a pig, they invited the Bilstriths over to enjoy roast loin, and the Bilstriths would then insist that the MacTierneys use the Bilstrith smokehouse. Weddings and births to one clan or the other were celebrated as if they’d happened at home, and there was an unspoken rule against intermarriage between the two groups—though from what I observed, a Bilstrith’s first sexual explorations were usually with a MacTierney and vice versa.
It was a little piece of saddle country between three higher hills, two to the south and a third to the north. The MacTierney clan had the wider south end for its plots and pastures; the “neck” to the north was under another group, the Bilstriths.
“Hell, it’s the Guerilla Grog from Number Four,” a boy whooped as I approached.
A sparse-haired, hawk-nosed man who introduced himself as “Old Leslie” showed me around. “You picked the right day to come; a hog has met its fate.” Old Leslie’s accent was noticeably different from that of the other hill people, even to my inexperienced ear, drawling as opposed to their gentle modifications of vowels, adding an “ah” sound where possible: “Ahhh dooon’t riiightly knoow” against “Ah doan’t ratley know.”
He’d fled another revolt farther south, escaping up the spine of the Appalachian Mountains until he landed here. It turned out he’d worked in a rum distillery as a boy, and he added that experience to the family’s own somewhat famous still. Now “M
acTierney White Whiskey” was the closest thing to a famous label that you could get with moonshine. He’d become a local favorite as a toastmaster for gatherings, having a remarkable memory for names and incidents.
“That’s Kemper Bilstrith there. She’s run the family since her husband died in the ’fifty-eight fevers. He married in, took her name. Curious, eh?”
He pointed out a man in a shovel beard with bright red suspenders with polished brass fittings. “That’s Red MacTierney, more or less the head of the MacTierney clan, but he looks at it as more a ceremonial post and defers to the heads of household for most everything. He’s eager to meet the giant Grog that put the whole of the Coal Country into a revolt.”
“I followed my own instinct for what seemed the right thing to do,” I said. “I think everyone was ready to turn on the Kurians; I just happened to be here when the moment came.” I find that statement very easy to remember; I have repeated it many times since then.
“Reminds me of the snakebit preacher. You ever heard that one, big fellow?”
“No.”
“Well, in these hills there’s still a strong Pentecostal strain. Don’t know if you’ve heard of them, but on occasion they prove their faith by handling serpents, because God decides when the asp bites—and the righteous don’t get bit. So this preacher fellow was famous, when the mood was upon him, for giving his whole sermon with a snake or two draped around him. Sometimes they’d crawl right inside his shirt and go to sleep, as a matter of fact.
“So one day, one of his parishioners has a cousin visiting from a couple of watersheds away, and the visitor wants to see a man so favored by the Lord that venomous serpents go to sleep in his shirt. At first, the preacher joked that it was because his preaching was so boring, it put man, babe, and beast alike into a slumber. But his parishioner and the visitor insisted, so he went and got the snakes out, picked them up, and sure enough, he got bit right off.
“‘Serves me right,’ the preacher said. ‘I should remember that it’s only safe to pick up a snake when God tells me to. Doing what man asks me to do requires prudence and judgment.’”
Old Leslie laughed, and then indicated all of the members of the group:
Caspin and Deed MacTierney, the hard men of the MacTierney clan. If they felt cheated or wronged, they attempted to right it, civilly and quietly if possible, but right it they would. Between them they’d killed five men.
V. Scott Mallow, a drifter who joined up because he wanted to fight the Kurians.
Jebadiah Bilstrith, one of the best hunters in Virginia. A bowman, he used his weapon—which had a reel—to hunt or fish.
Glassy, the lone female. Just “plain old mean.” Her weapon was a knife.
The Neale brothers (Rod, Able, and Mercy) were from a nearby county and were good friends to the Bilstriths. They were shotgun men and great judges of horseflesh. “They’re horsemen, through and through. They can ride any animal anywhere.”
Old Leslie himself—a survivor of the Charlotte revolt in the Georgia Control, he had fled to the Coal Country to hide out.
“I’m a durn good shot, if I don’t say. I can make you some reloads for that big .50, if you care to give me your casings.”
Mancrete—a huge bear of a man, with a hook for a right hand and a machine pistol for his left. “Uses taped-together magazines.”
“Ten men? Against the whole Coal Country?”
“They’re ten of the best men in the mountains. The way we see it, we’re not at war with the Coal Country. This is a feud with the Maynes clan.