On the surface, the main character Joseph Walker seems like a grouchy old man who wants them darn youths—and any roads—off his lawn. Underneath it all, he is a product of his life experience. While writing “A Dangerous Road” (in anthology To Wear a Heart so White!), it was difficult for me to get into his mind. What on earth could drive a man to go to the lengths he did to prevent a road, and protect a tree while he was at it?
Let’s dig in!
Civil War
Joseph came of age in Missouri during the American Civil War. Missouri was a mixed bag of Northern and Southern supporters. Residents suffered from rogue gangs on both sides that assaulted them, burned their farms, and took their supplies. It’s likely Joseph had to defend his family from Bushwackers that plagued Ava, and he was not the kind of man to wait around when something needed doing.
But is that enough to understand his actions over fifty years later, in 1916?
Since Joseph was a real person, I dug into his immediate family, trying to piece together his life, and hunting for clues. When I noticed that his brother and nephew were buried in the same grave on the same day in the 1880s, I naturally felt compelled to investigate.
Vigilance Committee Leader—Villain or Something Else?
Joseph and his brother Dave Walker were leaders of vigilance committees in their respective counties in the 1880s. This is not surprising, given the action of their younger years. The Bald Knobbers, as the committees were called, were both villains and heros. It all depended on what source I read.
I encountered a lot of fascinating folklore that may or may not be accurate, so I bolted further down this bunny trail. It finally came together for me when I ran across a dissertation paper by Matthew James Hernando–a precursor to his book Faces Like Devils: The Bald Knobber Vigilantes in the Ozarks. In this, he explained the way each county ran their vigilance committee post Civil War.
According to Hernando, while the original Bald Knobber group in Taney county “… championed economic progress and encouraged new immigration into their region, the vigilantes in Christian and Douglas counties reacted to the inequities that such changes produced…”
Railroad construction and an influx of homesteaders set their communities into a spiral of crime and suspicion of outsiders.
At first, Joseph and his brother David sought to keep their communities safe in the absence of reliable law enforcement. They typically went after those they thought were criminal or engaged in indecent behaviour, and they did so by a group vote. These offences could be anything from selling moonshine that made people go blind, to trying to monopolise railroad tie sales, to simply insulting them. The group often overstepped, especially as their numbers swelled with younger, hot-headed men. They had considerable membership among people in positions of influence, other gangs pretended to be them while committing crimes, and the law was getting more orderly. These are just a few reasons Bald Knobbers lost favour with the larger population.
The groups disbanded in 1889 with a string of court cases, confessions, fines, and a murder trial—leaving Joseph’s brother David and nephew William at the end of a noose. The details of that trial drew national attention and much speculation—a topic for a whole other post!



So, that was the 1880s. The event I wrote about was in 1916.
Joseph is now a regular guy, striving to hold on to his way of life and longing for the respect he once had.
The Good Roads Movement was gaining momentum. People wanted decent roads in and out of their towns. Joseph tried using the law to prevent road construction near him, as court cases reflect, but that didn’t get him what he thought was right and just. Furthermore, he and his sister’s family couldn’t agree on who owned what land.
Losing his beloved thinking tree to a road meant so much more than inconvenience.
It was his family’s perceived safety, his farm getting split, and the final straw was his guilt and loss coming back to haunt him.
The way Joseph ultimately went about getting everyone “off his lawn” is not recommended in the least.
A note
I will not say all of Joseph’s mannerisms, reasonings, and actions in “A Dangerous Road” are exactly the way things really happened, but it’s plausible. I hope to find out one day! If you end up reading the anthology (which you can order for 99c), you will see an author’s note at the end of this story that gives more specific details.
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