ashes of bluebird - prologue

7/31/2019 Ashes of Bluebird - Prologue

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This is an excerpt fromAshes of Bluebird.

Go to ashesofbluebird.com for more information.
http://ashesofbluebird.com/http://ashesofbluebird.com/


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I never would have imagined that my life would

end where it began, on Bluebird Road.

Just east of this blight, kids feel safe to run and play

after dark. Its where I learned to ride a bike, hitch up a

team of plow horses, and throw a curveball with my

brother. East of our farm stands the little white

clapboard church where I was taught to praya skill I

would practice every day of my life, especially during

times like this.

How ironichow absolutelyso like me was it

that I was going to die on this road where I had spent

so much of my life?

Memories of my father were on this road

memories of a Ward Cleaver brand of working man

who loved his wife and kids and worked at a factory all

day, just to walk behind a team of work horses and

plow a field when he got home. A sweet, honest man

who deserved better than the hand he was dealt. A

gentleman who didnt deserve to be cut down in the

prime of his life. I always imagined that Dad was

looking down on me with a smile, very proud of the

choices I had made and the man I had become, proud

A S H E S O F B L U E B I R D

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that I had fulfilled my childhood dream of becoming a

sheriff.

I couldnt allow myself to think about all of this

now. I had to concentrate on the task before me and

think of the deputies I had brought along as backup.

They all had families toofathers who were proud of

them, wives who sent them off to work with a kiss

goodbye, children who bragged to classmates that their

dad wore a badge.

On this night, they deserved to go home to those

families as whole as they left them, and I had to see to

that.

The gravel crunched beneath my boots as I crept

from my car alongside the thick hedgerow lining the

path to the little rundown shack. It was unlikely that I

would be seen or heard since the clouds obscured the

moonlight and the noise coming from the house was

deafening as I got closer.

The people who lived next door had been calling

my office since sundown complaining about the music,

loud laughter, and other unidentified sounds that were

roaring from this joint. I had to take action, and this


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crowd needed to see that I meant business again.

This apparently was a re-start of a business that had

burnedone of a half-dozen of the illegal

establishments that had been set ablaze by rival

bootleggers and gamblers, only to rise from the ashes

and move down the road to taunt me.

Throughout my career in law enforcement, I had

been called many times to investigate this place and a

dozen just like it lining Bluebird Road. The abandoned

and re-purposed hovels housed gamblers, moonshiners,

dog fighters, drug dealers, and hookers. That was on a

peaceful night.

Police never patrolled this area without backup, as

the more sinister elements moved in to mark their

drug trade territory with weapons local law

enforcement couldnt begin to match.

In the decades since our family farm was split in

half by Interstate 40, this western end of the street had

gained a nasty national reputationa notorious

embarrassment to any elected official foolish enough to

think he could make a clean sweep of the rusted out


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single-wide trailers and boarded-up shacks and call it a

day.

I had been elected sheriff on the promise that I

would clean up this area for good, making it safe for

the rest of the neighbors who were law-abiding, hard-

working, blue collar people with mortgages, kids, well-

kept clapboard houses and clipped lawns. These were

taxpayers who had to dodge staggering drunks and

flying bullets as they drove down this road to get to

church on Sunday morning.

It was high time something was done, and it was

time the high sheriff did it. That would be me. I had

found out many years before that this was one

campaign promise that was going to be very difficult

and very dangerous to keep, but I had no intention of

breaking a promise to anyoneleast of all, to myself.

One big raid wasnt going to do the job. I was going

to have to devise a plan that would make life

considerably uncomfortable for these criminals, and I

would have to make small, consistent efforts over a

period of months. In the weeks following the election,

I was consumed with the idea of making Bluebird


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Road the respectful and safe neighborhood I

remembered.

With my deputies parked nearby to watch my back,

I would burst through the door like a bull, using my

double-barrel shotgun or my M-16 rifle as a battering

ram. I would turn over jukeboxes, smash bottles, and

break tables, chairs, and pool cues in half. The business

owners and customers were violent and usually armed.

Add drunk to that rsum, and you can get some idea

of the type of element I was up against.

The purpose of this show was to let them know that

I was a combat veteran, I was armed to my chin, and I

wasnt afraid to come out there by myself to do what

needed to be done.

I would soon learn that my efforts were akin to

using a teaspoon to dip water out of a sinking canoe.

Within hours of making arrests and shutting down

one joint, we would learn another had sprung up to

take its place, leaving the entire department frustrated,

disheartened and angry. The good people who couldnt

afford to leave their homes on this road had long since

given up hope that it could change for the better.


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All of this was getting the best of me on this night. I

didnt realize my emotions were beginning to cloud

what was normally my conservative judgment

regarding safety. As I made my way down the long

path to the house, I was careful to scan the front yard,

which was packed with cars of every description.

License plates from out of the county and out of state

were attached to everything from new luxury cars to

old rusted-out pickups. I was thinking that if all those

people were in that tiny house, it must certainly look

like a fraternity prank in there, and my deputies and I

were going to be dangerously outnumbered.

I recall thinking it was odd that no one was hanging

out in this lot, drinking and talking as they sometimes

did around these types of places.

I carried a .12 gauge, sawed-off, double-barrel

shotgun securely across my chest with my finger on

the trigger as I gingerly crept along. The deputies were

parked all along the road, quietly hidden away in the

shadows awaiting their cue from me.

About fifty yards from the house, I was ready to

give that cue when an ominous-looking, black mass of


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a man sprang from the bushes to my left. In the

darkness, I could barely make out who or what it was,

but then my eyes fixed on the signature bowler hat of

old Legs Stinson.

Legs, a nickname he came by honestly at 6 foot 7,

was a towering fixture in this neighborhood and had

done his fair share of shooting craps, betting on the

ponies and drinking, and had even been caught up in

an arrest or two in his time. He was a friend to law

enforcement, however, and the gentle giant kept me

informed as to what was going down on any given

night in the hood.

Long before there was an organized Neighborhood

Watch program in place, there was Legs Stinson, and

on this night he had come hereor should I say he was

senthereto save my life.

Sheriff, you dont need to be goin down thea now.

They gonna kill ya tonight, Legs whispered with

urgency in his voice Id never heard before.

They brung ovah some fellas from Memphis and

they done set it up to kill ya. Dey waitin in thea for ya

now. Please dont go down thea, Sheriff!


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Legs had a vice grip on my elbow as he begged,

desperately trying to keep me from taking another step

toward what he knew would be the last raid I would

ever lead.

Not a man in the habit of bullshitting, most tips

from Legs were usually right on the mark. And if he

told us who had moonshine and where they were

hiding it, we could take that information to the bank, or

more importantly, to a judge to get a warrant. I knew

he was telling me the truth at this moment, and I was

humbled that he thought enough of me to risk his own

skin to save his friend from getting his head blown off

by a gang of hit men from West Tennessee.

But I was determined to move forward if Legs let

go of my elbow, because my mind was certainly not in

the retreat mode. The fact that I was probably in some

gangsters crosshairs at this point didnt enter into the

equation.

For a moment after hearing Legs warning, I wasnt

giving anythingthat much thought. I felt the heat rising

to my head. I was furious.


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My anger fueled a part of me that Ive always

known was buried deep down in there somewhere

that crazysumbitch battlefield mentality that can

blind a man beyond reason when the adrenaline is

pumping.

I wanted to run toward the house as fast as my feet

could carry me, screaming at the top of my lungs,

firing my shotgun into the air, acting out every bit of

the old guns ablaze clich, but I took a deep breath

and snapped out of it. I had to think of my deputies.

Upon hearing the gunshots, they would have to come

out of their hiding places to protect me and would be

killed in a crazy, confusing hail of fire.

This volatile situation had to be brought down a

notch, or it was going to look as if Al Capone had

thrown up in the parking lot.

Legs stared at me and was probably thinking I had

suffered a stroke, as he waited for me to make my

decision. I managed to nod my head in a feeble thank-

you to the man who was attempting to save me to fight

another day. Giving my elbow one last nudge, Legs


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turned and ducked back into the bushes near a ditch

where he had hidden his car.

Once I saw him drive away, I continued to move

forward as if he had never appeared.

I dont know why I continued to move toward my

guaranteed demise for as long as I did, although Im

sure being totally pissed had a part to play in it.

Suddenly, I just stopped. A cold chill ran over me as

if self-preservation were trying to freeze me in place. I

stood there for a moment, then began slowly to back

my way out in the same tracks I had made going

forward. Somehow, the trip backward seemed longer.

Once inside my patrol car, I radioed the deputies to

tell them the impromptu raid was off for the time

being. The words stuck in my throat. The way I saw it,

calling off the raid when we were thisclose was as

good as going on the ten oclock news and announcing

that I had broken my promise to the people who put me

in office. I would have to think of another way on

another day.

At least I would be alive to draw up an alternate

plan of attack.


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While I was extremely disappointed that I hadnt

accomplished what I had set out to do, with every beat

of my pounding heart, I was thanking God for sending

an angel in the form of a six-and-a-half-foot-tall

African-American affectionately called Legs.

In the following weeks, our intelligence confirmed

what our accurate informantthe makeshift angel

had told us: professional hit men from Memphis were

waiting inside that house with automatic weapons and

shotguns, ready to blast me out of the county as I burst

through the door. We had been called to the house, not

by angry neighbors as we had assumed, but by the very

people who had paid for the hired guns. It was a setup

a setup I survived only because the hand of God was

firmly in the mix as it had been in so many of the

tragedies and triumphs of my life.

So here it is, a book that has been in the making for

more than half of my life. A collection of memories

from just a few of those tragedies and triumphs. The

story of a small town sheriff who has seen more than

his share of close calls, heartbreaking cases, and the

worst humanity can dish out.


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Its an intimate look at how I miraculously rose

from the asheson and off of Bluebird Road.


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ashes of bluebird - prologue

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