Steve Shell

Throughout the 1800s, barrow operations spread throughout the hills and hollers of Appalachia like a blight.

Absorbing smaller mines and acquiring adjacent land from the people who'd settled there by whatever means proved necessary, and for some families it didn't take much truth to tell.

Frontier life was hard, breaking the backs and hearts of a goodly number of folks who pushed west in search of a place they could put down roots and call their own.

Flash a little coin their way, enough say to let them return to the more established cities back east, and they were more than happy to cede their claim to a land that had never wanted them here in the first place.

Others, though.

Others had managed to carve out a home for themselves in this unforgiving land, settling into the mountains like a hand into a glove, and those would require a different approach.

The approach in question often involved a visit from a special representative of the Barrow Mining Company, someone with the requisite skills to clarify for the more intransigent residents why accepting the Barrow's offer was, in fact, in the best interest of them, their families, and quite possibly everyone they knew.

If the landowners proved more resistant than usual, a member of the Barrow family might need to pay a personal cost.

Now, for decades, this duty fell to EP's younger son, Benuel.

A visit from a dead man, making quite the impression on most folks who suddenly found they might be willing to reconsider the bearer's generous offer after all.

Over the years, however, Benuel started to be...

more of a problem becoming less predictable harder to control he he might be sent to a tiny coal camp as a misbegotten holler in west virginia tasked with ridden the barrows of a meddlesome tax assessor and end up laying waste to the entire town it's a common thing with haints who have overstayed their welcome on this mortal plane you see clinging to a life that has long since ceased to be theirs to claim their behavior becomes more erratic

and dangerous.

And while E.B.

had no concern for the collateral damage his younger boy might do to the communities where he was sent, Benuel's disobedience was becoming a problem.

Replacing a town's entire labor force was costly and inefficient.

Benyuel was fast becoming a liability in the field, and Conrad had the whole of the Barrow clan's business interests to attend to on his father's behalf, and thus E.P.

turned his eye to the concept of producing another heir.

The process of expanding the Barrow family was lengthy and was delicate work.

See, Conrad and Benuel were not AP's only progeny, no.