The Heart of the Hills

Set in the Cumberland Mountains in Kentucky. No one knew when and for what reason the Hawns and the Honeycutts had first clashed and for half a century the two families had, with intermittent times of truce, been traditional enemies. Just before Jason's father had died, he asked his son to 'git the person responsible'. He replied that he would. And now Jason was the man of the house with control of the land over his mother. But she knew something that she needed to tell him if he ever thought about selling it. Jason suspected there was a rich vein of coal near their land and he tried to keep a geologist away but they had found a chunk in the creek and would probably come back for more snooping.