Days of Darkness (28 page)

The famed marksmanship of the mountaineers seems to have been on vacation, for though they all emptied their guns, no one was killed, though Anse was wounded and his horse was killed. That night Hall's home and Campbell's store at Pin Hook were burned. Anse and Bad Tom Baker were charged with arson. Tom swore he was miles away at the time, in company with a platoon of friends who could vouch for his whereabouts. T.T. Garrard bailed him out of jail.

The Christmas season passed without major tragedy. On December 8, Sheriff Bev White and ex-Marshal William Treadway exchanged words in Treadway's saloon, stepped outside, and emptied their guns at each other. Again, the mountain marksmanship was dormant. Neither man was hit. They had been drinking, however, which may have
affected the outcome. Or perhaps their hearts were not in it; they were reportedly friends, though Treadway was usually allied with the Bakers in political matters.

Three days later a shadow fell over the holidays when Abe Pace returned to Clay. A cousin of Francis Pace, a Harlan County outlaw involved with Devil Jim Turner in the killings that sent Turner to prison in 1874, Abe was considered a dangerous man, and his return was not welcomed by the better element of Clay County. On the same day, Robert Lucas, son of Amanda Lucas, got drunk and shot up the street. Nothing was done about it, chiefly because people knew that Mrs. Lucas, a widow, had trouble enough putting up with her rowdy son, who had no daddy to beat some sense into him.

The Reverend Dickey reported, in some indignation, that saloonkeeper Bill Treadway dipped into his own stock and, perhaps in a show of Yuletide spirit, called to Dickey, “Hey, preacher, come in and have a glass of gin.” The reverend declined. He was further upset to learn that Professor Burns was leaving his school on Sexton Creek to teach at Berea. (Burns, however, stayed only a year at Berea and returned to promote the founding of the Oneida Institute.)

But quiet could not long prevail. On Christmas night 1897, Robert Bennett observed the holy season by shooting and killing Robert Gregory, who was drunk. And on December 28 Dickey wrote mournfully that three men had been killed over the weekend, two in a saloon on Horse Creek, one at Red Bird. No arrests were reported. On December 29 a big dance was held at Daugh White's. This seemed to sadden Dickey as much as the random killings; he saw dancing as an invitation to lust and lamented that “even during the holidays they can think of nothing but dance, dance, dance!”

The new year of 1898 got off to a bad start. On February 14 a large group of Bakers rode into Manchester, apparently for the February term of court where Tom and Anse were to be tried for arson. Word that they were in town spread quickly, and various Whites and Howards moved quietly toward the courthouse. When Tom and Anse were acquitted, the verdict was received by their enemies as evidence that true justice could not be entrusted to juries. The courthouse was filled with curses and threats.

Sheriff Beverly White was among the more disappointed onlookers, and soon he and John Baker were exchanging words in the hallway. When several Bakers moved to shove past him, White pulled his pistol. John Baker swung. White hit him over the head with his pistol, and blood streamed down his face. As other Bakers rushed to help John, White supporters rushed from nearby offices, and soon the
hall was the scene of a bloody fist fight. Strangely, no shots were fired. The Bakers retreated, fighting, to the courthouse yard, where they mounted their horses and rode toward Crane Creek.

A week later someone shot Deputy Felix Davidson, a relative of the Howards, on the town square, wounding him and killing his horse. Tom Baker was suspected, but no one had seen the shooting and no arrests were made. The same week a group of Ku Kluxers, whose numbers had increased sharply with the growing postwar bitterness, shot and killed a man named Barger near Bullskin. One of the Kluxers told Dickey that this had been an unfortunate case of mistaken identity; they had meant to kill Abe Pace.

On March 6, two men were killed at a dance in the bawdy house belonging to “the Hawkins woman.” Only Mr. Dickey seemed upset, blaming it more on the dancing more than on the locale. The next day Dan Woods, son of saloon-keeper Reuben Woods, shot Young Hensley, but not fatally.

Two weeks later a grisly event reportedly took place, creating a legend that many people still believe. Bad Tom and Wiley Baker, a man named Banks from Owsley County, and another man, possibly Jesse Fuller “Spec” Barrett, a cousin of the Bakers, were riding along Sexton Creek when they ran into a man identified only as “a peddler,” probably one of the Jewish peddlers who, around the turn of the century, walked through the mountains peddling needles, pins, thread, buttons, and so forth door to door. Tom and his friends had been drinking, and for fun they began “rousting” or “hurrahing” the peddler, pushing him around, making fun of him, probably shooting under his feet to make him dance. Apparently he objected to the fun, so one of the Baker crowd shot and killed him.

“All right,” said Banks, “what are you going to do with him now?”

“Hell with him,” said Tom. “Throw him over in the creek and let the turtles have him.” That they did, but that ended only the first phase of the story.

And on Crane Creek events were building toward a tragedy.

The Fatal Clash on Crane Creek

June 9, 1899. As Tom Baker sat in the Clay County courtroom, listening to the droning of lawyers arguing his fate, he found that he was listening without hearing, though the outcome of the talk could mean home or prison for him. More and more, as the morning ran on, he had found himself thinking back to Crane Creek and his home, how it had been to be a boy there, thinking of his mama and daddy, remembering days when he used to walk down the creek to the river. He remembered turning over the flat rocks in the shallows to catch craw-dads, remembered the sungrannies and redeyes around the ends of trees fallen into the river. He remembered standing on the bank, wondering where the river went, thinking he'd follow it down some day. How in hell did he get here?

He couldn't remember too much about the Howards back then except that they lived up the creek a way. Pap had sold them their farm. He remembered James. Never did care much for him as a boy. Sort of a goody type. Never talked much. He'd always had the idea James Howard thought he was better than others, always wanting to move into town while the rest stayed out on the creek. And he found himself thinking about that day—
that
day—when they got the Howards. Damn. Well, he didn't have much choice. They were going to get him, sure as hell. He sort of wished he hadn't let Jim come along. And he wondered again if it couldn't all have been gotten around if somebody had done something. Well, things happen. He turned to listen to the lawyer.

Accounts of what happened around Crane Creek during the month of April 1898 are so confused and contradictory that no one can say with any assurance who the villains were, who the heroes, if such there were. A possible, but just possible, key to the situation lies in an entry from Dickey's diary of April 10: “This written by General
T.T. Garrard: ‘My son James Garrard was the Auditor's agent when Bal Howard failed as sheriff. As such, he sold Howard's property and the state bid it in. It was the timber off this land that Tom Baker and the Howards fell out over. I understand that James Howard has threatened to kill my son James since this feud has come up because of his official work.'”

If this was accurate, it was the first time Jim Howard's name was connected with any mention of violence. And if it was so, what did it mean? Apparently, when Garrard said that Bal Howard “failed as sheriff,” he meant that Bal (who was called Ballard, though his name, according to court records in Harlan County, where he was born, was Adrion Ballenger), when he was sheriff (before the election of Bev White), came up short in his collection of taxes and fees and was delinquent in forwarding the proper amounts to the state treasurer, who would have sent someone from Frankfort or designated someone in Manchester to act for the state to collect the amount in arrears.

But it is hard to understand why, with a Republican administration in Frankfort, the treasurer would have sent or named a prominent local Democrat such as James Garrard to proceed against a sturdy Republican, especially with a race for governor approaching in which the Republicans had some hope of success. One possible explanation is that Bal's “failure” occurred during the administration of Democratic governor John Brown, who would have appointed a Democrat to impose a lien on Howard's property in order to collect an amount equal to the delinquent fees.

James Garrard, if the appointee, might have tried to collect the delinquent funds by putting a lien on some of Howard's timber and then hiring someone to cut and sell it. He would no doubt have relished the chance to embarrass a prominent opponent, and he seems to have done just that, hiring Tom Baker, bully boy of the Baker clan, to collect a debt from the head of the Howard family. If this is what happened, it was a calculated insult to the Howards, sure to hurt their dignity. Garrard was looking for trouble. He got it.

But is that what happened? Another version is that Bal Howard was in arrears on his fees, borrowed forty dollars from the local bank to make it up, and put up some timber as collateral, and that Tom Baker bought the note, or warrant, from the bank and demanded payment from Howard. If that version is accurate, the affront would have been even more direct. This would not account for Jim Howard's alleged threat to kill James Garrard, however.

Another version of the controversy is worth consideration. The Howards and Baker owned adjoining timberland, and though they were not friendly they cooperated from time to time in cutting and
selling the timber. Tom Baker hauled logs out of the hills to the banks of the South Fork for Israel Howard; it is possible that he cut and hauled logs for Ballard and that he cut more Howard logs than he delivered. This is quite possible; property lines were indistinct throughout the mountains and a constant source of trouble, violence, and litigation.

Bal and Tom also occasionally made up log rafts together and floated them downstream to the sawmills at Beattyville or Frankfort. On one trip Bal reportedly stopped at a store in Beattyville for supplies and, having no money on him (or possibly seeing a way to even a debt with Tom), told the clerk to charge it to Tom Baker. The clerk, knowing Tom, agreed. The next time Tom went downriver he was told of the debt, paid it, and later demanded repayment.

Whatever the facts were concerning the debt, it seems that Bal somehow owed Tom Baker some money, either fifteen or forty dollars. During the second week of April 1898, the two families were putting together log rafts at the mouth of Crane Creek. Tom, his son James, his brother Wiley, his cousin Jesse Barrett, and Charlie Wooten were hauling logs down from the hills to the lumber yard where the rafts were being lashed together. It had been raining off and on the previous week, and it was apparent that the South Fork would soon be high enough to float the rafts downriver.

Less than a hundred yards away, on the other side of Crane Creek, the Howards were putting the final touches on a raft of their own. With Bal were his sons Israel and Corbin, his adopted son Burch Stores (whom Bal had “taken in” when Stores's Harlan County parents died), John Lewis, young kinsman of Bal's wife, Mary, and two Shackleford boys. The work stopped when Tom Baker approached and faced Ballard.

“I'd like that fifteen dollars you owe me,” he said. This could indicate that the dispute had nothing to do with a shortage in Bal's accounts as sheriff and concerned the debt in Beattyville; or it could indicate not one but two instances in which Bal owed Tom money. This is puzzling. The Howards were not poor. They owned a large farm. They were in the the logging business. Bal had been sheriff, and Jim was tax assessor. How did the head of the clan fail to have fifteen dollars? Or to be forced to borrow forty dollars from the bank?

“I don't owe you fifteen dollars,” Ballard replied. “I don't owe you nothing. You owe me. The way I figure it, you took off 300 more trees of mine than that warrant called for. [That would indicate that he did, indeed, borrow from the bank—but only fifteen dollars—and give a note on his timber, a note that Tom apparently bought.] You pay me for the 300 trees, I'll give you fifteen dollars.”

As the two sides gathered quietly around their leaders, someone
appeared to reach for a weapon. Tom threw an auger at Bal, who ducked and swung a peavy at Tom. Tom hit Bal a glancing blow with a pistol. Israel Howard then fired at Tom, giving him a slight flesh wound, but Corbin Howard and Jesse Barrett jumped in to separate the battlers before anyone was killed. The two groups, eyeing each other nervously, backed off.

There was no more trouble that day, but a fuse had been lit. The next day Tom Baker was standing in his yard, waiting for some of his men to arrive, when Hudge Allen came walking down the road. The two men nodded and exchanged greetings.

“Tell you what,” Allen said in a low voice. “I'm not looking to take sides or nothing, but if I was you I wouldn't go down to the yard just now.”

“How come?” asked Tom.

“Well,” said Allen, “as I heard it, the Howards are hiding in the weeds down there, waiting for you. Now, as I say, I don't know that, it's just as I heard.”

Tom nodded and went back to the house, but he decided not to go to the lumber yard just then. But just after dinner (the noon meal), as he was sitting on the porch, a shot was fired from the nearby woods, and a bullet slammed into the doorframe behind him. Bolting into the house, he grabbed his rifle and scanned the road and the surrounding woods but saw no one.

Tom stood there for a while, thinking. Then he went into the house and said to his wife, Emily, “The Howards are after me, that's certain. We're going to have to do something. We can't just sit here and let them pick us off.”

Earlier that day Big Jim Howard, sitting in his tax assessor's office in Manchester, had heard about the trouble out on Crane Creek and decided to try to head it off before it became bloody. In a move that his defenders later pointed to as evidence of his peaceful nature, Howard went down the courthouse hall to the office of George W. (“Baldy George”) Baker, county attorney and patriarch of the Baker clan, and proposed a truce.