Moonshine Mafia (eBook)

A Crime Caper Inspired by True Events

Jon Marple (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2023 | 1. Auflage
221 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-9891742-2-5 (ISBN)

In prohibition era West Virginia, a strait-laced young lawyer takes a late-night call to bail his uncle out of another ill-fated caper. Despite his best intentions, moonshine, the mob, lots of cash, and a beautiful woman ignite the dormant fire of his rebellious, Ulster-Scot blood.

"e;Moonshine Mafia"e; is a rip-roaring story about bootlegging moonshine, the greatest heist in West Virginia history, two cat-house prostitutes dipping into a hidden stash of cash, a career criminal who come comes from a long line of "e;can't stay out of trouble and jail"e; kinfolk, a star football player-turned-lawyer who returns to his West Virginia home town to defend his family...and a dizzying array of other elements, too many to count, that make this story shine. It's laugh-out-loud, jaw-hit-the-floor, edge-of-your-seat, wonder-what's-next, fun. This is a work of fiction, although certain characters, incidents, and dialogue are based on real-life events from the author's rich array of Scots-Irish, West Virginia family. Having been given such a grand gift of characters to live with and write about, their stories gave wings to the author's imagination and flights of fancy.

CHAPTER I

FIRE IN THE HOLLER

Billy McCoy had two sons: Boo, seventeen, and Beau, fifteen, each of them slightly dimmer than the other. One summer evening, having grabbed a fruit jar of their daddy’s corn squeezin’s, they got properly juiced sitting on the front porch in old rocking chairs, watching the sun fade over the lush-green, rugged, wooded forest snuggled in the hills of West Virginia. Prohibition was the law of the land, and that made the illegal moonshine even sweeter to the boys.

They both were wearing dirty coveralls—they called them “britches”—denim that covered their front with a strap over each shoulder. Boo thought it was cool to let one strap hang down, unbuttoned. He thought it might impress Fanny Fitz, a girl who lived a mile down the hollow. No shirt. No shoes. They both had on torn, beat-up straw hats, pushed up and back on their heads.

Boo was bored. He turned to his brother and said, “Let’s go over to McKenna’s still and fire us off a few shots”—the still being the place where Pappy McKenna and his family made illegal booze, which was called “Mule Kick Moonshine.”

Beau said, “Now why for we gonna do that?”

“Cause that Lamar McKenna is payin' too much mind to Fanny Fitz, that’s what for. And I got a powerful curiosity in that gal. Fanny tells me he’s a-comin’ over all the time. Just droppin’ by. Sniffin’ round like some damn hound dog.”

Boo’s voice was picking up steam and irritation as he said, “He’s onto the scent all right, and I’m a gonna put an end to it. Never liked that sumbitch. He's way too old for her, anyway. The all high and mighty McKenna's. Puttin’ on airs cause they got that damn shine selling all over the place. Mule Kick. Mule Kick, my ass. Think they the kings of the holler. That sumthin’, ain’t it? The Kings of Devil’s Run Holler, West By Gawd Virginia. Big deal.”

“Damn, simmer down, Boo. It does occur to me that if we shoot up Pappy McKenna’s still, he might just take offense. And that boy of his, Lamar. He is a bit touched in the head. Man’s crazy. No tellin’ what he gonna do if'en he found out it was us. Hey, maybe he’s off in prison. Spends half his life in one jail house or another.”

“No, he’s here. That’s what I said, he bother’en Franny.” Boo paused and said, “What, you gonna tell the McKenna's we shot up their damn still? Whose gonna know if we don’t say nothin’?”

“Well, that seems like a funny way to send a message to Lamar by shootin’ up Pappy’s still.”

“Have a few more hits and it won’t matter if it’s funny or not.”

Boo and Beau did just that. They each grabbed one of their Pa’s hog guns and disappeared into the twilight, hooting and howling. This was not to be a sneak attack.

The boys fired a total of seven shots at the still. They were generally good shooters since they had been shooting at critters, large and small, from age seven. But not this night. The shine had taken hold.

The boys were wobbly as they fired the Big Hog Gun. Beau fired off the first round. It went straight at the Northern Star, a considerable distance from the still. As he fired, his front foot slid forward and down the damp, slick hillside. Beau pulled the trigger as he was halfway to the ground, falling backward. His butt hit first. Then his head. The buckshot headed skyward. Boo burst into uncontrolled laughter, coughing and spitting.

Getting control, Boo said, “Damn, Beau, the still is down there and here you are shootin’ at the moon. Pa is right, you can’t shoot for shit.”

Eventually, two shots hit the still, before the boys ran back to safety.

The pellets put two holes through Pappy’s prized copper pot. Not only would Pappy have to set about repairing the pot, but the shot also destroyed that day’s batch of moonshine liquor.

And, as Pappy was to later observe, those copper pots cost real money.

Pappy and Lula McKenna’s place sat near the back of Devil’s Run Hollow—about five miles up the mountainside running out of McMechen, West Virginia, hard by the Oho River, just south of Wheeling.

To get to the hollow, you had to go up 21st Street. The street was paved for about half a mile and then turned into crushed gravel for another half mile, then a trail of dirt and mud. The ruts in the road were deep and well-formed. The brush, shrubs, and tree branches reaching across part of the trail could scratch up a car.

The trail was like the people who lived there; if they knew you, they welcomed you with a warm embrace and offered you food and drink. But if they suspected you might be there with bad intentions, like the mountains around them, they could be rugged, jagged, hard, and dangerous.

The trees in the hollow are rich and full with shades of green and brown luster. In the fall, those same trees are bright with a myriad of color—vivacious reds; sharp, distinct, burnt oranges; and deep, golden yellows, mixed with the dazzling white and pink of flowers and brush that may last through those first few frosty days… hillsides full of brilliant beauty. Thick and pushed together so close that not a single tree is visible, the hills and the mountains become a simple vast array of foliage. Once seen, it is unforgettable.

A creek ran by the road to Pappy’s place, adding to the beauty as it moved quietly downstream over white stone and scattered rocks. About halfway up to Pappy’s place, there was an old, abandoned mill with a large pond of water that always seemed cold—sweet too, if you took a taste.

Young boys from town and the hollow would come to the pond in the summer and skinny-dip. They would climb a cliff rising out of the water. At about sixteen feet, the cliff leveled and the boys could stand there as if it was a diving platform. The water looked, and was, a long way down. But once up, there was only one way down. “Geronimo!” they would shout as they jumped. The boys played in that mill pond with a joy that is gifted only to the young and innocent.

Pappy had three or four stills hidden in that hollow. No one really knew how many.

They were Scots-Irish from Ulster, that part of Ireland carved out for Scots, who then become indentured servants working the land for church, king, and the nobleman land owner.

They lived in small one or two-room thatched cottages with walls made of wattle and woven strips of wood covered with a mixture of straw and clay, called dung. They owned little. Everything—their animals, homes, clothes, and even their food—belonged to the Lord of the Manor.

They had little freedom. But they had their family and the clan … a community of like sufferers. They also had their home-brewed whiskey. They left Ulster and brought their whiskey-making pots and coils and knowledge of how to make what would be called moonshine, liquor made by the light of the moon.

The McKenna Clan made their way to Boston sometime before 1770. They fought with the Patriots against the despised King George. They sought freedom and land. They found both as they burrowed their families and kinsmen deep in the Virginia mountains of Appalachia.

They only asked to be left alone. And for a long while, they got their wish.

Moonshine was all Pappy ever knew. He played on the banks of the creek feeding the stills when he was three. By eight he was doing small jobs to help build, maintain, and make the shine. By twelve, he knew almost all that his father could teach him. By sixteen he was running the operation because his father, Henry, had gone off to the federal prison in Atlanta for making and distributing illegal liquor. Three years he was gone.

Pappy was smarter and more determined than his older brother, Robert. Before Henry left for prison, he placed Pappy in charge of the stills. Robert was to protect the house and put food on the table, hunting and fishing and helping his mother with the farming and the livestock.

When Henry returned, Pappy was the boss of the entire moonshine operation and it stayed that way the rest of Henry's life. Robert was gone; left home for the State of Washington and a new life. Pappy was nineteen, over six feet tall and mountain-man hard. He was set to marry Lula McCreary from Winchester, Virginia. Lula was sixteen. Pappy met her on a bootlegging trip, delivering Mule Kick to the local bars, politicians, and farmers.

He and Lula would have three children—twins, Lamar and Loretta, and a younger boy named Lloyd—who became known as “Hooch,” a tribute to his driving skills getting liquor down the mountain, past the lawmen and to the bars and speakeasies of prohibition America.

Lula loved all the children with...

Erscheint lt. Verlag	12.12.2023
Sprache	englisch
Themenwelt	Literatur ► Krimi / Thriller / Horror
ISBN-13	979-8-9891742-2-5 / 9798989174225

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