At mid-day, loud talking and splashing of water at the Buffalo River told the location of the Bushwackers.  Rising from the river ahead was ridge of bare rock, pale in the late afternoon sunlight.  Standing against the blue of a distant hill were two men watching the half-drunk men playing in the water.  This rock that held and protected the McClungs was called “The Narrows.”  This is one of the most talked about natural features of the Buffalo River.  The two riders had in Indian fashion passed the party of merry men.

The McClungs forded the river about a mile upstream from where their horses’ hooves sank into the rich earth as they crossed a flat, fertile field.  Before the war, farming in this area was like the plantations in the Mississippi River Valley rather than like the little one-family farms of hills.  Richland Creek runs into the Buffalo here.  This area was “No Man’s Land.”  Gangs of outlaws or bushwackers were attracted by the harvests.  They plundered and terrorized the countryside.  The North or the South didn’t have the manpower to occupy or protect this country.

The big rock house looked deserted from a distance.  But when the riders got near they could see the curtain move and a shotgun barrel was shoved out the window.  A voice demanded to know what the riders wanted.  Bud recognized the woman’s voice and called, “Put that gun way.  Don’t you know your nephew?’  A plump middle aged woman ran out the door and greeted the men with a hug and a kiss.

The two men, seated at a long wooden table, were eating corn bread and beans their aunt had cooked.  Their aunt’s husband had been taken to Little Rock where he was pressured into service for the Confederate Army.  She talked of how the war made her sick.  The things she had seen and heard were horrible.  She prayed everyday men would come to their senses and stop fighting.

The next morning, the brothers were found waiting for the killers.  Bud placed himself on top of a high rock.  From the brink of the cliff, he could see the country road.  Twisted junipers lined the bluff’s edge made a blind for him.  He gazed down on an open valley road toward Wollum.  Across from him he could see a high white bluff where J.D. stood.

It was a bright, sunshiny day as the lawless gang rode away from the town of Wollum.  Some of the men were drinking corn whiskey and they could be heard from the high places on the river.  When the Bushwackers rode between the two men on the cliffs the sound of bullets filled the air.  Men fell to the ground in pain.  Death echoed in the hills, not one man below left alive.