Tag Archives: West Virginia

In Search of Ed Haley 51

16 Wednesday Jan 2013

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Catlettsburg, Kentucky — the place where Ed Haley lived from the mid-twenties until the early thirties — was a booming timber town in its hey-day. Located at the mouth of the Big Sandy River and across the Ohio River from Kenova, West Virginia, it was laid out in 1849 and incorporated in 1858.

Catlettsburg is a blue-collar town. As of 1990, its population was 2231 with 98% registering as white. Downtown Catlettsburg extends from the courthouse area on Louisa Street between 30th and 28th streets to the vicinity of the Elks Building on 26th street, with evidence of old structures just beyond. The courthouse, which was erected in 1930, is neat and surrounded by a spacious yard. It is flanked by annexes, a few small new buildings, and an old red brick two-story building on 28th that offers apartments to the public. On a moist day, the smell of wet garbage or a strong musty odor pervades the central part of town. Down Louisa Street from the courthouse exist a few churches and a couple of old buildings now occupied by an antique store and pizzeria. Across the street, toward the river, sits a string of more old buildings, but mostly newer stuff. Continuing toward the Elks Building is Center Street. The floodwall — a hideous but necessary structure — is positioned to the right, with a few old storefronts and a bingo place where Pat Haley runs a kitchen business. On its Center Street side, the Elks Building has a carving that reads: “Gunnel Block 1906.” Toward its back is a tall slender addition called “The Yates Building 1911.” Across Center Street, evidence of a business district extends one more block to 25th Street. The town continues on but the old downtown seems to end there. Near the floodwall, just back of the old district are the backs of little houses and a few narrow two-story frame houses facing the river — or wall. On 26th Street up past the Elks Building is City Hall and a beautiful little church. The street ends at four sets of railroad tracks. Turning left onto Chestnut Street, which runs east to the back of the courthouse are nice two-story white or red brick residences with a funeral home and law office. Across the tracks, which are elevated slightly above the old part of town, is Route 23 and beyond are larger homes on the hill.

While Ed Haley spent countless days walking on most of these streets, especially in the vicinity of the courthouse, he actually lived at the western edge of town on Horse Branch. Today, Horse Branch offers a flood-prone playground, a Freewill Baptist church and old single story frame shacks crowded together against a narrow paved road. The only thing new on the creek seems to be trailers. Lawrence Haley said the old family home there was long-gone.

In Search of Ed Haley 46

05 Saturday Jan 2013

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     Several months later, I spotted a follow-up article about Milt Haley’s murder in the Spring 1992 edition of Goldenseal titled “Settling Family Differences.” It was based on an interview with Bob Adkins, a Lincoln County gas driller born just after the turn of the century at Ferrellsburg, West Virginia. It was rough country in there during his childhood.

     “I know of 18 murders within ten miles of where I grew up,” Bob said. “Never knew of anyone to kill a stranger. They were settling their own family differences. People lived by the gun. Never saw but one fistfight. I made it a point to tend to my own business.”

     Bob’s great-grandfather Henderson Dingess was the father of the Hollena Brumfield (spelled “Haline” in the article) shot in the face by Milt Haley and Green McCoy. Henderson and his wife Sally (Adams) Dingess lived on the Smoke House Fork of Harts Creek in what was then Lincoln County (but is today Logan County).

     “The Dingesses made part of their living floating logs downstream,” Bob said. “They also had an orchard and a federal licensed brandy making operation.”

     Al and Hollena Brumfield were wealthy businessmen at the mouth of Harts Creek on the Guyandotte River. Al’s father Paris Brumfield “lived half a mile below there on good bottom land,” Bob said. Al and Hollena “built a boom across [Harts] Creek to catch logs that were floated into the Guyan in the spring. Al charged by the log and prospered. They built an eight-room house and put in a store. Haline ran the store and offered food and lodging to travelers.”

     There was a picture of the Brumfield home in the article — it was the same place where Lawrence had said his grandmother was shot in a feud.

     Bob gave a great account of Milt’s murder, expounding on what I already knew while opening up a few new leads.

A fellow named Runyan [spelled “Runyon” in other sources] came in from Kentucky and put in a store and saloon and made competition for Haline and Al Brumfield. Well, when that fellow came and put in a store it was believed that he would like to get rid of Al.

Every Sunday Al and Haline rode up the hollow to Harts Creek to see her daddy, Henderson Dingess. They both rode on one horse. Runyan gave some men a side of bacon and a barrel of flour to kill them. They got in a sinkhole and shot at Al on the way back. Al jumped off, but they hit Haline in the cheek and the bullet went out the other cheek. Al ran and got away and then came back for Haline. She knew there were two men but she didn’t know who they were. Thought it was Burl Adams but became convinced it wasn’t him.

The men got away, but when it was found out that Milt Haley and Green McCoy had disappeared suddenly that night everyone agreed that they had been hired by Runyan to kill Al Brumfield. Runyan also left Harts that night. Runyan just left, and they looked for him the rest of their lives.  Then they missed Milt Haley and Green McCoy. They just left their families and disappeared. Figured it was by steamboat on the Ohio.

News got to Cincinnati that $1,500 was offered for Haley, Runyan, and McCoy. A detective there found [Haley and McCoy] and when Al heard they had his men he went down posing as sheriff, paid the reward, got them on the N&W train to Wayne County by Kenova, then up Twelve Pole Creek to Tug River. Breeden was a railroad stop and they walked from there to Harts by Left Fork of Twelve Pole.

Haline’s brother, John Dingess, had a saloon at Dingess on the way. They stayed there and stayed the next night at Grandpa’s [Hugh Dingess]. His daughter Brooke was 14 at the time. That night they took Milt Haley out, told McCoy they had hanged him, then McCoy told the whole story. Haley was held and made to listen to McCoy. Then they brought Haley in and he called McCoy yellow and still denied all of it.

Next day they went along West Fork of Harts to Fry. Stayed at Aunt Catherine Fry Adkins’s house at Fry. She was in the kitchen with the two men tied together, everyone drinking. Someone shot the lamp out over her head. Then they shot the men and took axes to their heads. This wasn’t much strange. They took the law into their own hands but made sure it was the right people.

Al Brumfield come to Grandpa [Adkins]’s that night but slept up the hollow. [They] took the bodies to West Fork of Harts and buried them in the same grave. Their relatives kept quiet.

     After repeatedly studying Bob Adkins’ story in Goldenseal, I concocted a theory about Ed’s mother that coincided somewhat with Lawrence’s story about her shooting at the Brumfield place. Bob told in the article how his father Albert Adkins met his mother Brooke Dingess while boarding at Hollena’s in the 1890s. They were married after Albert’s first wife Emma Jane Hager died of tuberculosis in 1901. Well…what if this Emma Jane Hager had been Emma Jean Haley? Had Emma Haley abandoned Ed and changed her last name so as to lose her identity as the widow of a man accused of attempted murder? Was the transportation slow enough and the memories of locals distorted enough by time to make such a transition of identity? It seemed a plausible enough theory, so I resolved to explore it by contacting Bob the next time I was in West Virginia.

Who Killed Doc Workman? 3

03 Thursday Jan 2013

Posted by in Big Harts Creek, Culture of Honor

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In the early morning hours of April 20, 1956, someone shot Doc Workman in the abdomen with a 20-gauge shotgun as he stood at the doorway to his little house on Workman Fork. “I heard the shot fired that killed him,” said Gene Wilson Dingess, a neighbor, in a 2004 interview. “It was way up in the morning. My sister Mildred and Mommy heard it, too. No one thought anything about it. People roamed all hours of the night with guns and shot rabbits and possoms.”

Upon learning the true nature of the incident, residents of Workman Fork reacted with shock and surprise. Nothing like this had ever happened on Workman Fork. Located somewhat remotely in the headwaters of Harts Creek, the fork constituted one of the most peaceful sections of the community. Moonshining was quite common, but murder? Doc’s killing — any killing — was unprecedented on Workman Fork. People were horrified.

Most everyone agreed that Doc knew the identity of his killer. “Doc knew the person at his door,” Dingess said. “He answered the door in his pajamas.” The killer’s choice of weaponry was a source of great interest. First of all, the 20-gauge shotgun used to commit the murder reportely belonged to Mr. Workman himself. Secondly, a 20-gauge shotgun was the type of low-powered firearm that a teenager or woman (or an old man) might use at close range, say, within 30-40 yards. And, oddly, it was left lying across Workman’s leg presumably without fingerprints. “It looked like someone had been standing by his door where they stood and plotted,” said the late late Roma Elkins in a 2004 interview.

One of the initial suspects in the murder was Doc’s former wife, Flora Lilly. Police also questioned Doc’s former brother-in-law, Weddie Mullins, a son of Harlen Mullins. Buster Stollings, who boarded with Flora, was another suspect. Other suspects were two men named Jake and Bill who were out that night riding mules and stealing corn. Apparently locals were so incensed by the tragedy that they investigated the matter themselves. Early the morning of the murder, one eyewitness saw two young men, dubbed as “Frank” and “Jesse” here to hide their true identities, run by as she milked cows on Abbott’s Branch. “Ben Workman said he saw tracks from a woman in high-heeled shoes leading from the mouth of Workman Fork up to the mouth of Long Branch,” Dingess said. “Now who would’ve wore high heels on this creek back then?”

Today, so many years later, it appears that two young men dubbed as “Frank” and “Jesse” were involved in the murder. Although suspects at the time of the killing, they were never questioned by authorities. Jesse’s own mother believed him to be the killer. “When Jesse come in at the house that morning he had a whole roll of money as big as your fist,” his mother later said. “Him and Wed Mullins was in on that killing together.” Reportedly, Frank was haunted by the murder years later when he was on his deathbed. “My uncle went up to Logan and Frank was in the hospital about to die,” Dingess said. “There was a preacher there and Frank said he couldn’t get forgiveness because he’d helped kill a man.”

In Search of Ed Haley 44

01 Tuesday Jan 2013

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Meador’s article was my first real glimpse into the story of Milt Haley’s death since talking with Roxie Mullins. I read it carefully and often.

“In 1889, around the time the Hatfields and McCoys were killing each other along the Tug River, another less known family war was occurring, not too far away, in Lincoln County. The details of the feud are sketchy today, and would be all but forgotten had its events not been recorded in a ballad known as ‘The Lincoln County Crew.’ In 1923, the text of the ballad, attributed to George Ferrell, and a brief explanation were published in The Llorrac, a Lincoln County historical journal published by the students and faculty at Carroll High School in Hamlin.”

Meador began with a somewhat interesting description of Harts at the time of Milt’s death.

“The community of Harts, isolated in southern Lincoln County near the Logan County line, was one of the places where citizens occasionally had to take the law into their own hands. Harts, on the Guyandotte River about midway between Huntington and Logan, was a convenient stopping place for travelers journeying between the two towns. Also it played host to the teams of rough-and-tumble men who rafted logs down the river to ports on the Ohio. Because of its location and because whiskey was sold there, Harts attracted more than its share of troublemakers. Differences were often settled with a gun, and killings sometimes avenged by the family of the murdered person.”

The impetus for the feud that claimed Milt’s life, according to Meador, was trouble between Allen Brumfield and John Runyon, two merchants at the mouth of Harts Creek.

“In Harts, in the latter decades of the 19th Century, lived a man by the name of Allen Brumfield. According to Irma Butcher, Brumfield lived in a large white house near the Guyandotte River bridge. The Llorrac relates that Brumfield operated a store near Harts and sold whiskey from a houseboat in the river. Allen Brumfield, according to The Llorrac, was not the only whiskey merchant in Harts. At the mouth of Harts Creek, a man by the name of John Runyons operated a store and saloon. For some reason there were hard feelings between Runyons and Brumfield, and Runyons is reported to have hired Milt Haley and Green McCoy to kill Brumfield. Payment for the two men is supposed to have been a barrel of flour, a side of bacon and $25.”

Now that was a real interesting twist to the story — no mention of Milt’s wife getting shot at the Brumfield place. Milt was apparently a hired gunman. In a way, I wasn’t surprised. From the very beginning, I had the impression that Milt was a bad character. Roxie Mullins had said he was “awful bad to drink and kept a Winchester loaded and sitting right by the side of his door. A whole mob killed him. They was afraid of him because he had a pretty bad name.” Lawrence had said, “When my dad was very young he didn’t like the whiny way my dad was acting so to make him more of a man he took him out and dropped him in a rain barrel through the ice.” And then there was the poverty aspect: I mean, to kill someone for a barrel of flour, a side of bacon and twenty-five dollars?

According to Meador’s article, Milt and Green supposedly ambushed Brumfield, a very common thing to do in those days.

“The day chosen by McCoy and Haley for their grim deed was a Sunday afternoon in mid-August of 1889. Allen Brumfield and his wife, Hollena, were returning on horseback from a visit to Mrs. Brumfield’s father, Henderson Dingess, who lived on Harts Creek. Mrs. Brumfield was on the same horse, behind her husband. From ambush and without warning, McCoy and Haley fired at the couple as they rode down the river. Their aim was good but not fatal. Allen Brumfield received a bullet in his arm and his wife was shot in the face. Brumfield jumped from his horse and by running was able to make his escape. Mrs. Brumfield also survived but was disfigured for life. Irma Butcher, who knows little about the history behind the ballad, remembers as a young girl visiting in the home of Allen Brumfield’s widow, Hollena, at Harts. Mrs. Butcher relates that widow Brumfield had a hole ‘the size of a quarter’ in her nose, where she had been shot during the feud.”

After the shooting, Milt and Green fled across the Kentucky state line to escape from the law.

“Haley and McCoy fled to Martin County, Kentucky, but in mid-October of that same year were captured and lodged in the Martin County jail. Their captors were no doubt attracted by the reward offered by the state of West Virginia and supplemented by Allen Brumfield.”

A posse fetched Milt and Green and brought them to Lincoln County.

“The accused gunmen were returned to West Virginia by way of Logan County, which was then a border county including what is now Mingo County. There they were turned over to a party of Lincoln County men headed by the aggrieved Brumfield himself. The group journeyed as far as Chapmanville by mid-afteroon and tried to find lodging for the night among the families there. No one would take them in, evidently because of a fear of mob violence. Still looking for overnight shelter, the party continued down the Guyandotte River. For some reason, the guard split so that a portion crossed to the other side, leaving but an officer and three men in charge of the prisoners. A few miles below Chapmanville this small company entered into Lincoln County, soon finding lodging at the house of George Frye. The Frye house was located near the mouth of Green Shoals at Ferrellsburg.”

At Green Shoal, Milt and Green were brutally murdered by a mob.

“About eight o’clock that evening, according to the Logan County Banner of October 31, 1889, an armed mob estimated at 20 or more men surrounded Frye’s house and demanded that the prisoners be turned over to them. Frye and his family were ordered into the kitchen and the guards were allowed to leave the house. The mob then rushed in, firing their guns. McCoy and Haley were dragged out into the front yard and shot several times. The angry crowd then took rocks and smashed in the skulls of the two men. Their bloody work accomplished, the mob disappeared into the darkness, leaving the neighbors to take care of the bodies.”

No one was brought to justice for the killings.

“The Logan County Banner, in relating the story of the murders of Haley and McCoy, said that there had been no arrests in connection with the killings even though it was generally well known in the area who had been involved. The paper also gave the impression that most local people were in agreement in condoning the action of the lynch mob. The paper itself seemed to justify the unlawful treatment of Haley and McCoy on the grounds that they had shot an innocent woman.”

At the end of Meador’s article was an interesting note about Paris Brumfield, father to Al, hinting at past trouble between the Brumfields and McCoy.

“Another mystery concerns a man by the name of Paris Brumfield, who is mentioned in Professor Cox’s version [of the song] as being murdered by his own son. A story quoted in the November 7, 1889, edition of the Logan County Banner, says that Paris Brumfield was engaged in a shooting scrape with Green McCoy about a year before the attack on Allen Brumfield.”

Who Killed Doc Workman? 2

01 Tuesday Jan 2013

Posted by in Big Harts Creek, Culture of Honor, Halcyon

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Doc Workman was born on January 20, 1893 at Halcyon in Logan County, West Virginia. His parents were Thomas B. and Martha (Hill) Workman. Doc served in the First World War. According to his draft registration record, he was blue-eyed, had dark brown hair and was of medium build. “I think he got gased over there and he just barely made it,” said Gene Wilson Dingess, a close relative and namesake, in a 2004 interview. “They were in foxholes most of the time.” A decorated veteran and prisoner of war, Mr. Workman spoke little of his war experience after returning home. “He never told big tales about his service,” Dingess said. “If you asked him about it, he’d answer you in about thirty seconds and then change the subject.”

In 1919, Doc married Flora Mullins, the pretty red-haired daughter of Harlen Mullins, a local farmer. For many years, the couple enjoyed a happy marriage. By the early 1930s however, according to neighborhood gossip, both began affairs. Doc, who some called “Slick” because of his charms with women, reportedly courted a sister-in-law, while Flora reportedly sparked a Dingess. The family remained intact until at least 1940. Some time thereafter, Doc and Flora separated and eventually divorced. Mr. Workman built himself a small dwelling house just below his wife where he lived with a stepson, Dennie. Around that time, perhaps in related events, a few homes were burned in the neighborhood.

A 1942 draft registration record described Dock as six-feet tall, 178 pounds, of ruddy complexion, with gray hair and blue eyes. In the opinion of most people on Workman Fork, he made for a good neighbor. Lloyd Farley, a son-in-law, in a 2005 interview, said, “Doc was a fine fellow. He was hard to get to know but he would give you the shirt off of his back.” Mr. Dingess also had fond memories of the old gentleman. “We stopped there at Doc’s every day after school to see him,” he said. “He had candy and marshmallows and he always offered us a dollar to let him bust an egg between our eyes.” Dingess recalled that Doc was an excellent marksman. “Doc kept a loaded gun just inside his door to shoot foxes when they got after his chickens,” Dingess said. “He could shoot a fox from 100 yards away.”

In his last days, Doc received a pension for his service in the Great War and began to carry a significant amount of cash on his person. “He drew a veteran’s pension,” said Mr. Farley. “He often packed one-thousand dollars on him.” Not long before his murder, he loaned fifty dollars to his brother-in-law, Buck Mullins, who then lived in Logan. (Mullins soon repaid the loan.) Neighbors spoke of Dock’s money, of his pension… Family members cautioned him against keeping so much cash on hand, afraid that someone might rob him. Adding fuel to the fire of neighborhood gossip, Doc occasionally disappeared from the creek. “Doc would go out of here and be gone for a month at a time when I was young,” Dingess said. “We never did know why he left.” Just a few weeks before the murder, his son Dennie moved away to find a job. “Dennie had just left to work away from here two or three weeks when Dock was killed,” Dingess said. About one week before the killing, according to Farley, Weddie Mullins, Doc’s former brother-in-law, caught him with his arm around his wife’s waist. He told him that he “better not do it again.”

Who Killed Doc Workman? 1

31 Monday Dec 2012

Posted by in Big Harts Creek, Culture of Honor

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Fifty-six years ago, someone shot Wilson “Doc” Workman in cold blood at the front door of his little frame house on Harts Creek. Today, his unsolved murder is  largely forgotten.

“Workman, 63, was found dead by his estranged wife, Mrs. Flora Workman, at 6 a.m. Friday at his home on Workman Fork of the West Fork of Harts Creek in Logan County,” the Logan Banner reported on Monday, April 23, 1956. “The victim died as a result of a stomach wound inflicted by a 20-gauge single barrel shotgun which was found lying across his left leg.”

Doc Workman was a man in the twilight of his life. By all accounts, he was a well-liked resident of the community. He was a quiet farmer, a former timberman, a veteran of the Great War and the father of nine children.

“Daddy and Mommy sure liked him,” said the late Roma Elkins, a native of nearby Ferrellsburg, in a 2004 interview. “He’d bring us a big water bucket full of eggs and wouldn’t let us pay him for them.”

Initially, Logan County sheriff Ray Watts and state law enforcement officers suspected robbery as the motive for Workman’s murder.

“Reports said Workman had been known to carry large sums of money around on his person and was believed to have between $400 and $500 at the time of his death,” the Banner reported. “Only a few dollars was found in the home after the shooting.”

On Sunday, April 22, Workman’s funeral was held at his home on Workman Fork. The service began at 2 p.m. and concluded with the burial at Simpkins Cemetery on West Fork.

On Monday, the Banner ran Workman’s obituary on its front page, listing his wife, nine children, four brothers and three sisters, most of whom lived in Logan County.

Heavy Heart

29 Saturday Dec 2012

Posted by in Harts, Pearl Adkins Diary, Women's History

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“My dear, dear dream boy came one evening,” Pearl wrote in May or June. “He stayed all night. After supper I was sitting on the porch. Cora was out there. My heart dearest came and sit down at my feet. He talked to Cora of first one thing then another. He changed the subject all at once and asked Cora if the doctors thought there was any chance for me ever to walk. I don’t remember the talk for I felt slighted and hurt. To think he would sit at my feet and then ask some one else about my walking powers, if there was any chance of me ever.

“Well, I spent another sleepless night for he slept in the next room. I can now see him as I write next morning at the breakfast table. I looked across the table straight into those clear but sad eyes — those eyes which sent the blood over my neck and face to burn my fevered brain. He is gone and left a heavier heart and a sadder face behind him than was there when he came. I don’t guess he ever thought of the joy he brings to a sad and lonely woman when he comes or even dreamed of such a thing that I loved him. Well, I don’t care if he ever knows. I love him just the same.”

Parkersburg Landing 41

27 Thursday Dec 2012

Posted by in Ed Haley

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     When I got back in Nashville, I ranted and raved over Haley’s fiddle before taking it downtown to John Hedgecoth, an instrument repairman. John and I went over its every detail. We fitted a bridge to it and put Black Diamond strings on it (the brand Haley supposedly used), then I brought it home and played on it for about two weeks. I focused on learning Ed’s version of a fabulous tune called “Half Past Four”.

     “It just sounds like a dream,” I said to Lawrence when I called him. “You play on it real light and it’s got that sound in it.”

     “Well, that’s great, John,” he said.

     “Now I had to put a chin rest on it and I am using a shoulder rest with it because that’s what I’m used to and I had to put tuners on it because I like to keep it in tune,” I said.

     “Okay. Well, that’s all right,” Lawrence laughed.

     I said, “I tell you what’s interesting about it. It looks like at one time the back had been taken off and re-glued.”

     Lawrence said, “Yeah, it got damp and the glue came loose on it and I guess that back warped or something. I don’t think it was completely off. Well, my son Steve had somebody down there in Nashville to repair it but that bridge — that thing looked real odd to me. I had an old bridge here. It’s in a drawer around here somewhere, I’d say, and I’ll look for it. I never really got it strung up since then. I just figured, well, there’s enough glue on that old fiddle that it ain’t gonna sound right anyway. If you use too much glue, you’re gonna lose a lot of the resonance in the wood.”

     I said, “Now, it also looks like at one time the neck was broken out of it and reglued.”

     Lawrence said, “Well now, it was not in the best of shape when Steve snuck it out of here. He took it out and had it repaired for me for a Christmas present. I just figured it’s gonna lay around here and just deteriorate again, maybe draw dampness some way or it’ll fall apart anyway. I just thought since you showed so much interest in it I’ll just let you have it.”

     I said, “Well, I sure appreciate that. One of the things… The fingerboard, when you look at it straight on, lays over to the right in a funny kind of an angle.”

     Lawrence said, “Yeah, that’s what I figured. I don’t remember it being like that. That fingerboard, it looked to me like it had some wear on it where my dad had fingered it so much. It looked like it had slight indentations from his fingers. I didn’t know whether it would fret right.”

     I said, “And also, the sound post is an inch back from where it ought to be.” I wasn’t sure if Ed had kept it there or not; I felt it likely that it had fallen over in the decades after his death and been misplaced by some half-wit repairman.

     I got Ed’s fiddle and played “Half Past Four” for Lawrence, who said, somewhat amused, “You’re trying to play one of his pieces. Sounds pretty good. Well, maybe some time down the line you’ll get that ‘Cacklin’ Hen’ down. It’s just working at it. And that fiddle does sound good from over the phone.”

     I said, “It’s got a little overtone in it that none of these other fiddles have and when I go back and listen to those tapes I hear that overtone in there.”

     Lawrence said, “Maybe you got a prize there. I don’t know. I think everybody agrees that you should have it. Steve seems to know more about you than what we do. I don’t know how he does but he’s a musician too, you know. He taught high school band for a while and he plays in a jazz band some. Plays the trumpet. His wife’s a musician. She’s a church organist — used to be. Two of the children… One of them’s in some kind of Nashville junior symphony. Plays the cello. The other plays the violin.”

     I told Lawrence I wanted to be sure and go back to Harts Creek in the fall and find out more about his dad’s early years there.

     “All right,” he said. “We’ll go back up there. I don’t think anybody up there, once they find out who you are will have any objections. One of my second cousins, Noah Mullins, he killed one of the revenuers that come up through there and that give Harts Creek a bad name, I guess. Those days are gone. I believe the second time up there everybody’d be glad to see you and talk to you like they were this last time. They won’t be any problem about that. People are a little suspicious if they don’t know who you are. But if they know you got a purpose and reason for being up there that isn’t detrimental to their causes they ain’t gonna jump you or anything or give you problems.”