Dear Brother #6

Dear Brother #6 is written to Alan Greenspan, because Reese’s brother made an appearance in the episode.

Dear Mister Greenspan:

You do not know me but I have read in all the newspapers about you. They all say that you are the man who controls the money and I have learned from driving around with my friend Ben that money is very important. Gold and silver, which I expect you know all about, and not just like jewelry either.

The newspapers also say that you are independent. They say that you do not answer to either the Republicans or the Democrats. They say that you are honest. Well, it sounds to me as if you are a man who has found a middle way and since that is what I must do as well I am taking this liberty of writing to you. I thought you should know about some of the things I have seen recently because you care about this country. Also it is no good writing this letter to my brother because he was right there with me so he knows all about it already and I have gotten used to writing down the things that happened to me. But I am not sure how to write them down except in a letter.

So this all begun when me and my friends drove down to see my Ma and my brother Waylan. We live in the mountains of Tennessee, where the coal mines once were before everything got all messed up. Me and my friends had been driving around for a while doing things and we all thought we needed a rest.

Well, you would think your own family’s house could be restful, but apparently just before we got there a Pinkerton showed up to bother Waylan and Ma. The Pinkertons, as I am sure you know, were the muscle boys for the filthy mine owners when the miners went on strike. We do not like them much. We did not like this one much either.

His name was John Moses and he wore a brown suit and drove a brown German car. I only drive American cars. It is just the right thing to do, besides which they are made better, or they were once. Waylan sent John Moses on his way without telling him anything about our father.

Oh, but you would not know about him. He was a good man, and no matter what those fancy men in Detroit who pretend to be engineers tell you, he built a truck that got three hundred and thirty three miles to the gallon of gas. Yes he did, and I am no liar, ask anyone. John Moses wanted to know about that truck. I know that Waylan has been working on some things but he was not about to tell the Pinkerton. Moses did not admit he was a Pinkerton but it was clear he was up to no good.

Anyhow, Daddy sent that particular truck down a mineshaft 27 years ago, so Moses was not going to get his hands on it.

So Waylan told us about that and he pointed out it was 27 years ago to the day that Daddy did what he did and it was time to go get part of it back. You do not know Waylan but he tends to know about things so we decided we would go ahead and do it.

Just about then Eric Cody came by and tried to steal Waylan’s car. Which is up on blocks. This is why it is not too smart to go and do crystal meth even if you don’t blow your own fool self up making the stuff. Stick to whiskey if you are smart. Black hit Cody upside the head with a wrench and Ben tackled some other stupid fool who was with him and it turned out the Daugherty brothers put them up to distracting Waylan. The Daugherty brothers are the ones who make that meth. I think they must have a charm to keep them alive.

Well, that just made it all the more clear that it was time to go down into the Fraterville Mine. That was where Daddy put his car that night. It wasn’t being worked for coal or anything since it had been shutdown since 1902, which you can look up on Ben’s Internet if you like.

Black stood guard up top while me and Waylan and Danny and Ben went to see what was happening down below. I am sorry not to give you the full names of Danny and Ben and Black but at least two of them are wanted and I would not want you to have to overlook something for my sake as you do not know me. But they are good to have with you in a pinch.

Now I suppose I must tell you one other thing about me and that is that I do not much like the dark. I am just fine driving the roads where there are headlights but the dark is not much fun in my books. So you will pardon me if I am a little sketchy on some of these details of what happened down there in the mine.

Ben tells me that Danny was not too happy down there either. We found some strange skeletons including a child and all Danny could talk about was the voices in his head and the derros. Ben came through and told Danny that he was going to go through with that prophecy Danny made a while back about the king and the cross and the cornfield. I hope Ben does not have to do that for a long time. It helped Danny a lot to hear that and he struggled through as did I.

In the very bottom of the cave we found that truck of my father’s. It had gotten all strange like a throne, and there were rings of skeletons all around it, miner skeletons. Like they was trying to reach it or something. The body of the truck had grown into the walls of the mine like it was alive. And it was still turned on and running.

I guess I have to admit that I did not do my family so proud then. I went a little mad and ran to break the thing that my Daddy’s work had become with my bare hands. I remember my blood streaming down into the truck. I think Black came down around then, spinning his luck around him like a shield. And someone reached their hand into the cab of the truck and turned it off.

Everything went back to normal then, even me. Waylan went into the truck and pulled out the thing I had not mentioned yet, which was a big brick of orichalkum carved into the head of a hammer. Ben thinks it was maybe John Henry’s hammer and I think that is true enough. We were talking about how Waylan would make the engine block of his car with the hammer when who showed up but John Moses.

He tried to shoot Danny, who is as harmless as a fly, but Black’s luck was still with him and he stopped that soon enough. Then Waylan used the hammer to strike at a big boulder which was hiding Moses from us. The boulder shattered just like that and one of the fragments hit John Moses.

We talked to him a little, not very friendly, and he admitted he was a Pinkerton. Well, it figured. Since we are good people we brought him back up instead of leaving him in the dark without a flashlight and fed him some pancakes. He admitted he was working for some men in Chicago who wanted that hammer but he could see he was not going to get it. We let him go and finished our pancakes.

It turned out later that he killed the Daugherty boys to cover his tracks, and if we ever see him again — but you are an agent of the government so it would probably be best if I did not write about that. Do not worry about it, it will all come out well in the end. We are going to Chicago soon so the end will probably be pretty soon, for John Moses, anyhow.

Now, you may still be wondering why I am writing you all these things. Well, if you look up in the news you will see that the Old Man in New Hampshire fell. It happened the day after we did this thing, and we have been told that there are monsters waiting to ride both gold and silver into this land. I think we defeated one of them. I think that since you are the man who watches the money, maybe you will want to watch for these monsters as well if you do not already know about them.

I hope you have good luck fighting for this country. I know as well as anyone that it is a tough battle, but I read in the papers that you are a good man with a strong skin. Do not let those Senators boss you around and if you ever need anything from a driving man and his friends you can write me care of a man named Hank at General Delivery in Memphis and I will get the letter in the end.

Thank you for reading this. I know I am not a very good writer but I do what I can.

A citizen,
Reese Beulay