Mama’s been with the Lord for a good many years now so this story happened long ago, on a lovely Spring day, when the mature trees had each turned their particular shade of green.
We’d gone to lunch, then slid carefully around the twisting, turning road, some curves wound so tight they almost touched one another. Though we had chattered much of our time together, we were both unusually silent. I admired the late April beauty, sometimes looking down at the deep cliff-drop thinking – what if some city guy, not accustomed to these roads, missed a curve in his fancy sports car?
The men who built those roads, pushing through cantankerous red dirt and dynamiting rock, producing two narrow lanes, are heroes whose names are long forgotten though they engineered the highway that started at the corner of Blood Mountain and climbed high toward North Carolina. My Daddy’s Daddy, once a ragged moonshiner, had found the Lord, straightened up, and got a job with the Department of Transportation, working out his final years by breaking his back on that devilish rock. One of the tallest mountains in the Appalachian trail, Blood Mountain is so named for the war that raged between the Cherokees and Muscogees until blood ran down the mountain.
At Turner’s Corner, we turned left and headed toward Neel’s gap. Mama and I exchanged a few thoughts, then fell quiet again as we traveled Highway 9 and made our way into one of the rural South’s most infamous counties – Dawson. It is predicted that, at its height of production, moonshiners were shuttling 30,000 gallons of moonshine across those treacherous, pin-turn mountain roads, headlights off and the law uselessly chasing souped-up, high-power hot rods. Fords, usually. The county had less than 3,000 people.
“Imagine those moonshine runners swingin’ ‘round these curves with no headlights on a moonless night?”
Mama, looking out the window and nodded. Her thoughts were deep. She was either remembering – these mountains had been the place of her birthing and her raising — or she was trying to recall. Her thoughts pieced together, she spoke softly in a regretful tone.
“Roy Hall broke my heart.”
I nearly missed a curve. “Mama! Did you date Roy Hall?” I practically screeched. Mama, a raving, black-haired beauty, had been the most sought after girl in “them parts.” At least that’s the way she always told it. We do know she broke two engagements before she was 18, then broke another to marry Daddy.
“Floozy,” declared my brother-in-law.
People around there, with any memories of the 1940s and 50s, still call Roy Hall the handsomest man “ever was.” “Nary a Hollywood star had the good looks of Roy Hall,” one of his friends told me.
His dark eyes spewed out danger which appealed fetchingly to the Baptist girls who were warned by their parents to stay away from that renegade. Roy and his cousin, Lloyd Seay, were acknowledged as the fastest, bravest runners carrying moonshine into Atlanta for their cousin, Raymond Parks, who became a Hall of Famer.
Lloyd’s story was tragic. Also a lady’s man, he won the stock car racing championship on September 1, 1941, in Atlanta. Then, the next morning, was gunned down in a dispute over sugar bought to make moonshine.
“Mama,” I prompted. “Did you date Roy?”
She turned to me. “Goodness no,” she bristled. “He came to a church your Daddy was pastoring. He sat on the front bench, his head in his hands, and cried while Ralph preached. He didn’t go to the altar, though.”
The last “Amen” muttered, Daddy went over to shake his hand and invite him back. Mama, never shy, introduced herself and commented, “You look sad. Can we help?”
He wiped at his tears. “Ma’am, with what all I’ve did, ain’t nobody can help me. Ever.”
He walked up the aisle and out the doors of the church.
“I hope he found peace,” she whispered.
Ronda Rich is the bestselling author of the Stella Bankwell mysteries series. Please visit www.rondarich. com to sign up for her free newsletter.