Tom Morrow robbed bootleggers, but they say he never touched a drop. He’s a legend ’round these parts. Back in those days, they said the bootleggers owned the politicians or else the politicians owned the bootleggers. Thinking back, I reckon maybe they’re one ‘n the same.
Point being, no one knew who ran this country. My daddy said sternly one time: Tom Morrow should run this country. My brother said he should run for president. Mama told him hush and dry the dishes.
They said Tom Morrow carried a shot gun – that if you didn’t hand over the whiskey, he’d shoot you in the leg. They said bootleggers killed his wife Mary, who was pregnant, and that’s why he don’t like bootleggers. I suppose I’d not like ‘em neither if I had a pretty wife and they killed ‘er.
They said the bootleggers had a bounty on his head big enough to fill the Mississippi with money. They said Tom Morrow had shoulders broad as the Grand Canyon.
When Everett E. Mann ran for governor, he rode around the state in a motor car with chrome fenders. He said he was a friend of the poor, and he put out a reward with his own money on Tom Morrow. My brother asked how much it was – Daddy said thirty pieces of silver. I asked how much that was in dollars, mama said go milk the cow.
They said when he wasn’t driving a stolen truck full of moonshine, he rode a white horse. They said he was barely six foot – but his shadow was ten feet tall.
When Everett E. Mann was elected, he taxed sugar and coffee and stamps. He blamed the rich bootleggers, saying they wouldn’t pay taxes. He said Tom Morrow was a bootlegger. My daddy said Everett E. Mann was gonna put a tax on his children’s dreams, but I never paid nothing for my dreams.
They started saying Tom Morrow was stealing from the poor. They said he was a drunk. They said he shot a man and kidnapped his wife – took her into the hills.
They said the sheriff said he wanted Tom Morrow, but the sheriff didn’t care if he was dead or alive.
One pitch black night, a man came bleeding to our door. Daddy told him go out to the barn and wait. I asked who the man was, but momma told us children to go in our room. While they talked loud and scared in the parlor, I snuck out the window to the barn. I stood on the trough, looked in through the window. The man had lit a lamp. The man was lying back in the hay moaning. He had a jug in his lap. He started to take a slug – stopped. That’s when I knew he knew I was there.
Tom? I said. I thought you didn’t drink whiskey, only water.
He laughed. I drink milk sometimes, he said, put the cork back in the jug.
I’ll tell momma to bring out some milk.
I went back to the house. When daddy went out to the barn, I went to the parlor and told momma, but she said he didn’t want any milk. She wasn’t even angry about me going to the barn. I think she was scared because daddy had worked on horses, but never on men.
When I woke up in the morning, the man was long gone. The Sheriff came to the door and Daddy told him he hadn’t seen anybody all night, and when Sheriff wanted to look around, he asked daddy about the blood on the hay in the barn, and daddy said he had to put down his favorite horse. He took the Sheriff ’round the other side of the barn. The horse was covered with a blanket.
A few weeks later, Tom Morrow was caught and hung. I remember it was springtime, and momma showed me how dogwoods had the stains of Jesus’ blood on the petals. It was the only time I ever saw daddy cry.
They said Tom Morrow was an outlaw – that he shot men in their backs. They said he gambled, beat women. They even said he killed his wife.
That’s when I quit believing what they said. All I know, when the floods came that summer and washed out the crops, a lot of folks were so hungry they ate their horses and mules, but my family – we had plenty all winter long.