Execution Eve. William Buchanan

Gibbs, twenty-seven, hoisted another sack. “I don’t know. I just don’t get it how all of a sudden you figure that tomorrow’s the right day.”

      The third man, twenty-three-year-old Ezra Dehart, spoke up. “Know your problem, Earl? You’re yellow.”

      Gibbs threw to the floor the heavy sack he’d just hoisted. “Dammit, Dehart! I’m not taking anymore lip from a scum-sucking punk like you.” He made a threatening move toward Gibbs, who didn’t cower.

      McNair stepped between the two younger men. “Cut it out! Now!”

      Neither of the adversaries doubted the husky McNair’s ability to enforce the order. Gibbs lowered his fist.

      “That’s better” McNair said. “Now listen good, both of you. Tomorrow is the right day. I’ll explain it later. Right now, keep cracking on those sacks.”

      The two men gave each other contemptuous looks, then returned to their tasks.

      Five minutes later, Dehart cried out: “Hey, Bob! C’mere!”

      McNair and Gibbs hurried to where Dehart stood pointing to a flour sack. It looked identical to the others, with a minute exception: the top seal was sewn with pale yellow, rather than white, thread.

      McNair lifted the sack to a nearby table and slit it down the middle with his bakers knife. He plunged his hands into the flour and groped about. After a moment he broke into a wide grin. He withdrew a small bundle from the sack and laid it on the table with care, as if he were handling fine crystal. Removing the oilcloth wrapping, he lifted a snub-nose .38-caliber Colt revolver.

      “Jesus,” Dehart exclaimed. “Look at that baby!”

      McNair checked the cylinder. The pistol was loaded. He rewrapped the gun in the oilcloth, placed it on the bottom of a deep pan, and covered it with flour.

      “Know what I hope?” Dehart said. “I hope Buchanan’s in the admin building tomorrow when we bust through. I’d love to put one of those lead slugs through his gut.”

      McNair gave a mirthless laugh. “You got the brains of a jackass, Ezra. If you’d read anything in the papers except the comics you’d know Buchanan’s going to be in Owensboro tomorrow, making a speech to a bunch of Feds. That’s why I decided tomorrow’s our day. We don’t want him anywhere near this place when we break through. Trust me. I know him a hell of a lot better than either one of you do. He’s one bad-ass son of a bitch!”

      He let the point sink in, then ordered the two back up to the bakery. “I’ve still got things to do down here.”

      Dehart and Gibbs returned to the bakery to finish their shift. McNair remained behind to think things through yet again.

      Robert McNair had good reason for his assessment of Jesse Buchanan. He had locked horns with him once, long before the new warden came to Eddyville.

      A Jack-of-all-crimes, McNair’s most lucrative enterprise in those years was running “moon” out of Eastern Kentucky. Down Thunder Road to Knoxville and Nashville, and up Nightmare Alley to Cincinnati. He had a reputation for being the best in the business. He drove a souped-up Ford V-8 with a false rear seat and a sealed trunk that hid two frame-mounted stainless steel tanks. In an emergency, even with a full load, he could peg the needle at 100. But he was careful to obey the speed laws, town and rural, so as not to draw unwarranted attention from the local law. Still, it wasn’t the village constables or hick sheriffs that worried him. Most of them had their palms out, and a couple hundred dollars now and then guaranteed most county roads would be safe.

      It was the Feds who were the problem. It took steel nerves and a sixth sense to stay ahead of the despised revenuers—the U.S. Marshals. McNair prided himself there, too. Possessing a legendary sixth sense, he could smell a road block a mile away, and more than once he had ripped a new road through a field of corn in a hasty change of itinerary.

      He was also proud of his product. He hauled good stuff: hundred-proof bourbon, brewed in remote Cumberland hideaways by master distillers who drip-cured each drop through charcoal until it took on the hue of rich amber. Smooth, easy-sipping whiskey, it was a far cry from the quick-cured, lye-treated “white lightning” being produced by disreputable shiners over in Harlan and Breathit Counties and shipped east to Atlantic City and New York. A single pint of that searing rot-gut could blind or kill a person. No, McNair’s cargo was always first-rate, his take was top dollar, and he was thinking about expanding. Getting a couple of more Fords, maybe. Training his own drivers.

      Then came the night of Frog Island.

      With the repeal of the Volstead Act, which had enforced prohibition throughout the land, alcoholic beverages were once again legal. The lucrative eastern markets, which once depended on the moonshiners, turned to legitimate sources. To compete with the legal booze, bootleggers were forced to change tactics. One was to drastically lower their prices. Another was to expand into new markets.

      One August evening, McNair received a call from a broker in Paducah. The markets in St. Louis and Little Rock were ripe for good moon, the man claimed. He needed premium bourbon fast and was offering a $300 bonus over the going rate.

      McNair had never dealt with the broker, but a grapevine check of his credentials revealed him to be an ex-con, a rum-runner himself in earlier years, and more recently a distributor for Capone. No reference could bear more credence. The first delivery was set for a Monday, two weeks hence.

      His best source for good bourbon was in Letcher County, 375 miles from Paducah. McNair made the wholesale purchase that Monday morning, then waited till noon to depart, scheduling himself for a slow run to arrive after dark. For the first five hours the leisurely trip through the rolling bluegrass hills of central Kentucky was uneventful. McNair swigged black coffee from a thermos, ate a couple of baloney sandwiches, stopped once for gas, and mentally catalogued landmarks for future reference. Just past the town of Beaver Dam, Route 62 entered upon a straight, three-mile stretch of blacktop leading to the Green River crossing. Near sundown, McNair rounded the final curve leading to the straightaway. He slowed. Three-quarters of a mile ahead a farm truck lay overturned, blocking one lane of traffic. Some motorists had pulled to the side and were milling around the wreck. A flagman was stopping vehicles, then allowing them to proceed, one by one.

      McNair took his place in the line of cars inching toward the flagman. On the ground near the truck, two men lay swathed in bandages. The hairs on McNair’s neck pricked up. Something was out of place. The car ahead of him cleared the flagman and drove on. McNair pulled forward and stopped. Then it hit him: bandages, splints—and there wasn’t a medic or ambulance in sight. He studied the scene more closely. There were no women or children among the onlookers, nor were there any in the parked cars. Wary, he pushed the clutch to the floor, shifted into first gear, and waited.

      The flagman stooped at the window. “May I see your drivers license, please?”

      Drivers license? Why the hell would a flagman at an accident be checking drivers licenses? It was a set-up. And he’d driven right into it.