A Civil War Skirmish with the ATF
By Tracy Beer
This is an excerpt from the new book, The Confederate Chronicles
Cavalry Troopers Furman and Carter tied their horses to one of the white metal barriers in front of the Exxon station store across the street from the Middleburg Country Inn and entered the Tiger Mart. The very hungover Trooper Furman suddenly filled with delight and animation. He greeted the clerk grandly and asked, “Which way to the Ice Crackling beverages, my good man?”
“Oh sorry, I cannot sell alcoholic beverages before 9 a.m., state Liquor Board law you know,” chirped the diminutive clerk. Furman looked over at the ice-cold beers—the domestics, the importeds, and a little further over…at the wine. The very thing he had decided would cure him, just sitting there, free for the taking.
His alcoholic’s mind had already run a fast calculation that, in fact, he would not be able to get a drink until 9, it was now 7:20 a.m. and they’d have to get back to camp. This clerk was too straight to be talked into an early sale. A desperate plan took hold. Furman pulled a $50 bill from his wallet. He looked at Carter, who was frozen in place. Then he briskly stepped up to the cooler and hefted two 1 1⁄2 liter bottles of some kind of red wine. He turned and walked up to the clerk, who blurted the words, “You can’t….’
“Here, my friend,” said Furman as he placed the $50 on the counter. “It’s a national emergency!” With that, he turned on his boot heels and strode out the door with Carter just behind.
“Craig, you can’t just…”
“I just did, now shut up and mount.”
“You wait! You can’t take that…” yelled the clerk as he chased after the troopers.
As Trooper Furman bounced in his stirrup and rose up to his saddle, he lost
his grip on the big wine bottle in his left hand. It fell making a loud, explosive crashing sound as it impacted the parking lot pavement. The loud noise could be confused with a gunshot.
This sound is what had caught the gathered ATF team’s attention from across the street. ATF Agent Davis’s eyes fixed on the two mounted, gray- clad and well-armed cavaliers.
“I’ll be damned,” muttered Davis. “Men,” he called without turning. He needn’t have. All the agents’ eyes were already on the two cavalrymen.
The pursuing clerk, shocked by the crash of the fallen wine bottle, drew back and lost his footing and fell to the ground…as if shot.
Carter hissed, “Craig, look at that!”
Furman looked over just as the sprinting agents started shouting, “Freeze!”
The agents were running straight for the riders, weapons drawn. In Furman’s frazzled, hungover mind, one thought asserted itself: Hold up the remaining wine jug and show it’s just about wine, and maybe his mind was also thinking of making some kind of surrender gesture. But when he suddenly raised his right hand, it triggered the shoot impulse in more than one agent. Furman tumbled off the back of his horse, hit with multiple shots. His panicked horse took off down the road toward camp as he lay on the ground in front of the gas station.
Carter, stunned, could not process what had happened to Furman. Then a shot shattered the wooden canteen tied to the front of his saddle. Instinctively, he turned his horse away from the oncoming assault. He spurred his mount and took off down South Jay Street lying forward onto his horse’s neck. They streaked down the little lane heading straight for the Middleburg Cemetery. They shot across East Federal Street and through the front gates of the cemetery. Following a meandering grassy lane inside the cemetery, they rode straight for the backside of the burial ground and Carter launched his horse over a four-foot high, black-iron fence. His horse’s belly just clearing the faux spear points atop the old fence. The trooper’s only thought was, “Go fast.” He turned east toward the encampment and rushed through the field. Carter and his horse then leaped over a four-panel fence at the end of the field galloping along a lane that ran beside the east end of the cemetery, he crossed a big yard and turned back onto route 50. They tore down the grass buffer that ran along the two lane highway and made for camp as fast as they could go.
On the road, between the gas station and the Inn, lay the lifeless body of ATF Agent Bill Timmons, dead from a shot into the brain through his left eye. In a week, after his autopsy, they would learn that the round was a modern 9 mm slug from an unfortunate ricochet—a case of friendly fire. His best friend and Godfather to his 3-year-old daughter, Agent James Rivers, desperately performed chest compressions on Timmons. The wound to his eye said it all. Davis stood over Agent Rivers as he struggled hopelessly to save his friend. Davis then said to the other agents gathered there, “That other man will now give warning to the Confederate camp at Aldie Mill. They will be ready for us.” There was a pause for effect. Then Davis quietly said, “Let’s go.”
The Confederate Chronicles is available at Second Chapter Books in Middleburg.