River pirates, Rick, raiding passing flatboats and barges on the Ohio river in the very early 1800s, killing passengers and crew, then taking the boats and their cargos down to New Orleans to market. Worked out of a cave on the north shore of the river in Illinois. The dreadful Harpes were there for a short time but were too vicious for even that rough and murderous crowd. A guy named Samuel Mason was head honcho at Cave-in-Rock for awhile. Later on, counterfeiting was done on premises, to be passed by a network of scoundrels. The Natchez Trace ran through the dense forests from Natchez to Nashville and was the route followed by folks who would float their produce down the Ohio and Mississippi, sell it in New Orleans, then walk home to, say, Kentucky, Tennessee or Indiana with money in their pockets. Many didn't make it; if they managed to get past Cave-in-Rock safely on the way down, they were robbed and murdered on the Trace on their way back.

You can read about this bloody era in several books: Jonathan Daniels' The Devil's Backbone (a history of the Natchez Trace in the American Trails series), Paul Wellman's Spawn of Evil (a well-written story of the Harpes, Mason, Murrell and other unbelievably merciless killers and highwaymen of that time and region), or Coates' The Outlaw Years, another pretty good history of the Natchez Trace. Wellman, by the way, was the brother of Manly Wade Wellman, who wrote some fine stories about "John, the ballad hunter," whose guitar was strung with silver strings, etc., stories that are filled with folklore and magic references. These were finally gathered together into a book titled Who Fears the Devil? (if I remember correctly).

I'll give you a copy of Spawn of Evil when you and Duckboots come through next month. I just happen to have two.

Sandy