Later that evening, I expressed an interest in visiting Alice Workman. Alice was Billy’s aunt by marriage and lived right across the street in Harts. More importantly, she was the daughter of French Bryant, who, according to some sources, had murdered Milt Haley and Green McCoy at Green Shoal.

French Bryant, according to Billy’s notes, was born in 1855 or 1858 in Logan County, (West) Virginia. His parents were Rufus and Lucy Adeline (Caldwell) Bryant. French married Polly Dingess, a daughter of William and Emaline (Stollings) Dingess, and settled on Marsh Fork, a tributary of the West Fork of Harts Creek, in Logan County. He and Polly had six children: Carolina (1880), Edna (c.1882), Almeta “Allie” (1885), Fannie (1889), Hollena (1890), and Auglin (1896).

Just after the turn of the century, in 1902, French married Augusta Bryant, a cousin, and had one child, Gladys (1903). In 1904, he married Martha Ann Carter (1882-1964) and had nine children: Clarence (1905), Ruth (1907), Ruby (1907), McDonald “Doc” (1909), Robert Lee (1911), Wilson “Wig” (1913), Pearl (1915), Ann (1917), and Alice (1921). He and Martha raised their family on Piney Creek, a small West Fork tributary in Logan County.

French died on February 9, 1938 and was buried on the ridge in the head of Piney and Hugh Dingess Branch.

I wondered if Alice might be willing to talk about her father with us. I pictured her as an ancient woman — much like Roxie Mullins — who was full of stories and family heirlooms. I asked Billy if we were going to stir up any trouble asking her about Milt and Green’s murder and he laughed and said, “I don’t think so. Just don’t forget — you get to go back to Nashville. I have to live here.”

Alice greeted us at her back door. I was surprised to find that she was a relatively young woman, just slightly older than I. Billy told her that we were doing research on some of the old-timers around Harts and wondered if she had any old pictures of her father. Within a few seconds, she produced an incredible photograph of French Bryant in his younger days. Instead of looking like an “axe-wielding murderer” or a “feuding hillbilly with a chip on his shoulder,” he was a real “stud” — neatly groomed, in shape, and sporting a respectable suit (bowtie and all).

Alice said she didn’t know much about her father’s early life because he died when she was a teenager. In his younger days, he had supposedly worked as a stonecutter and made railroad ties. “They say he was a real dancer in his younger days,” she said, smiling. He eventually settled in the head of Piney Creek, where Alice was raised.

Billy told Alice that I was interested in the old vigilante mob in Harts — people like French Bryant, his grandpa Fed, the Brumfields… She sort of laughed, saying, “Yeah, yeah,” but didn’t offer any information. We got the impression that she probably didn’t know anything about her father’s supposed participation in the 1889 mob and that if she did she wasn’t going to tell us about it. She did say that her father loved Hollena Brumfield and used to visit her in Harts. We knew that he had named a child after her.

Alice basically remembered her father in his graying old age. She said he kept the mustache of his youth, packed a pistol only for protection, and seldom drank anything. He was baptized about two years before he died. His widow (Alice’s mother) thereafter settled on a West Fork farm — the same place where Lawrence Haley and I had stopped when looking for directions to Milt’s grave in 1993.