Red Grass River

on a desolate stretch of the Dixie Highway south of Hobe Sound and were walking up to the vehicle with their guns in hand when suddenly one of the tarpaulin sideflaps flew up and two men inside began firing wildly into the shadows with steadily flaring automatic rifles. Bullets ricocheted off the road and hummed through the air and chunked into the pines as the Ashley Gang dove for cover every which way and then counterattacked with a blazing fusillade of riflefire and buckshot into the rear of the truck. A third guard was shooting from the cab with a Winchester carbine. Hanford Mobley snaked his way on his belly through the palmettos and across the road and then stood up in the driver’s side window and said, “Hey!” The guard turned from the other window and his last vision in this world was of the bright blast of Hanford Mobley’s .45 two feet from his face—in that instant the back of his head burst open and portions of his brain sprayed over the roadside brush.

When the shooting was done, both of the guards in the rear of the truck were sprawled on the floor, their mortal remains pickling in the wash of sprits from the shattered bottles, their blood mingling with it. John Ashley looked in at them and sighed and said, “Well hell.”

Hanford Mobley said they werent worth feeling sorry for. “Them boys could be standing there breathin and thinkin how good they next piece a ass was gonna feel, but no, they had to make a fight of it. Fuck em.”

John Ashley shook his head but couldnt help smiling. “You’re a hard man, Hannie.” To which a grinning Mobley responded goddamned right he was.

The vapor of rum stung their eyes. Clarence joked that he was getting drunk just breathing the air. Half the load was yet intact and the gang transferred these hams to their own truck. Some of the sack bottoms were soaks with bloody rum. They took up the rummers’ weapons and were delighted with the pair of .30-06 Browning Automatic Rifles. They found also a pouch of extra 20-round magazines and Hanford Mobley released the empty magazine in one of the rifles and snapped in a full one. “I just got to try this thing,” he said. He stepped out into the road and aimed from the hip at the trunk of a tall pine silhouetted against the moon. He squeezed off a long deep- popping burst, the muzzle flaming and momentarily pulling to the right with the recoil before Mobley swung it back on target without easing off the trigger and the rounds kept pouring forth and began ripping chunks off the pine trunk and then the magazine was empty. Mobley lowered the BAR and gaped at grinning John Ashley and said, “Damn!”

Clarence Middleton had the other BAR and now he opened fire on the tall pine also, shooting in short bursts as he had been taught in the marines, and bark flew off the pine to either side and then his weapons too was empty. He smiled broadly and said, “I believe we gained us a tad more firepower, what I believe.”

They aligned the three dead men side by side on the truck bed and John Ashley ordered the driver—who’d survived the fight by diving under the truck—to deliver the bodies to his bosses in Miami. As the truck clattered away to the south, the Ashley Gang made bets among themselves as to how far it would get before the cops flagged it down to investigate the effluence of rum and inquire after the bullet holes.

A few days after that skirmish Gordon Blue came to see them at Twin Oaks. He was nervous and looked paler even than his usual milkiness.

“This war has got to stop, Joe,” he said at the supper table. “How about if I tell Bellamy you’d like to sit down with him, tell him you’d like to see if something can be worked out?”

“How about he asks us to sit down with him because he wants to see can something be worked out?” John Ashley said. Old Joe smiled around his pipe and nodded.

His eyes bloodshot and baggy, Gordon Blue obviously had not been sleeping well. His goatee was in need of a trim, his suit was rumpled, his tie hung loose at his collar. He rubbed his haggard face and sighed deeply. “Joe, please—let me arrange a meeting. Hell, they dont like losing loads to you, but they dont like bad publicity either. Did you know the Lauderdale cops stopped that truck with the dead guys in it? They said it smelled like an open rum barrel rolling down the street. Said it looked like something from the war. Naturally they pulled it over. Then they open the back and see the dead guys. ‘What the hell’s this?’ they ask the driver. ‘Who’re these dead men?’ The driver says, ‘There are dead men in there? Oh sweet Jesus!’ The cops said the guy was so good he nearly made himself faint.”

Everybody laughed except Gordon Blue who but smiled weakly and shook his head. Frank Ashley winked at his brothers. He had won the wager about how far the truck would get.

“Could use more fellers like that driver,” Old Joe said, still chortling. “Shoulda hired him, Johnny, while ye had the chance.” John Ashley smiled and nodded.

“It’s not really funny,” Gordon Blue said. “The papers in Lauder-dale and Miami both ran a story about it. Bellamy was as hot about the bad publicity as he was about getting jacked again. I’m serious, Joe, he’s ready to work something out and we ought to take him up on it. If we dont, there’s no telling what’ll happen but it wont be any good for anybody, thats for sure.”

“I’ll tell you what can be worked out,” Joe Ashley said. “He can agree to give us a cut of everything he brings through Palm Beach. He agrees to that and he can run all the hooch he wants through here. You reckon he’ll go for that?”

“Well yes, sure—sure he will,” Gordon Blue said, surprised by Old Joe’s sudden amenability. “Bellamy’s a reasonable man, Joe. It’s cheaper for him to give you a cut than keep losing loads to you and he knows it. Hell, giving you a cut is the only compromise that makes sense. Let me arrange a meeting and the two of you can talk about it.”

Old Joe looked at Bill Ashley sitting beside him. “I reckon I know where you stand on this.”

“It’s time we made some kind of deal so we can do business without more shootin,” Bill said. “I’ve said that from the start. We can quit jackin him and start concentrating on bringin more booze in from the islands.”

“Bill’s absolutely right,” Gordon Blue said to Old Joe. “You’ll make more money if you strike a deal with Bellamy. Everybody makes more money all around. The main thing is, the shooting’s got to stop. Sheriff Baker’s let us operate in whiskey without interference, Joe, but if this war with Bellamy stars scaring the citizens he’ll have to do something about it. That Boynton Beach fight a few weeks ago was way too close to town. People heard it, Joe, they got woke up by it. A stray bullet broke the window out of some fellow’s car a half- mile away. They were a dozen complaints to Bob Baker. He told the newspapers he was thinking of organizing a special force to do nothing but track down whiskey camps and catch bootleggers on the roads and the beaches. Nobody needs that—not you, not Bellamy.”

“Shit,” Ed Ashley said. “Bobby Baker’s too busy anymore gettin his picture took by the newspapers at the openin of ever new bank and restaurant and hotel in the county. He anyhow dont give a shit what rummers do to each other, everbody knows that.”

Old Joe turned to John Ashley. “Boy?”

“I guess it’s worth it to try and make a deal.”

“You caint trust that sonofabitch!” Roy Matthews blurted. All heads at the table turned his way. “I know what I’m talkin about. I done business with Bellamy before. He’ll cross us sure.”

“I know he kilt you friend, Roy,” Old Joe said softly. “But thats somethin between you and him and got nothin to do with business. This is business we’re talkin. Now, if the man does cross us, well, we’ll deal with that if the time ever comes.”

“It aint because of his friend,” Hanford Mobley said. “He just dont wanna run into his old bossman again.” He tucked his hands up under his armpits and flapped his arms like chicken wings. “Bawk-bawk-bawk.” He had never forgiven Roy Matthews for the business with the smoke rings and everybody knew it.

“You keep runnin you mouth, boy,” Roy Matthews said. “You just about to the edge with me.”

Hanford Mobley affected a look of fright—and then laughed and looked around at the others that they might join in.

“It’s enough of that, Hannie,” Old Joe said.

“You best listen to me on this,” Roy Matthews said, pointing a finger at Old Joe. “Bellamy’ll mean trouble to you some kinda way, you make me.”

“You made your point, boy,” Old Joe said, staring hard at him. He was not one to have a finger pointed at him or be told what he’d best do. Roy Matthews threw up his hands and looked away and said nothing more.

“All right, Gordy,” Old Joe said. “See to it.”

They met in a West Palm restaurant called The Clambake on a warm humid forenoon in latter May. Gordon Blue made the arrangements. They had a private backroom to themselves and sat at a long table bearing pots of coffee and baskets of biscuits and doughnuts. Nelson Bellamy and three of his men sat on one side of the table, and on the other, Old Joe Ashley and his boys Bill and John. As mediator, Gordon Blue sat at the head of the table. He