The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart

Description

There?s little room in this world for a moral man

Meet Early ?Trenchmouth? Taggart, a man born and orphaned in 1903, a man nicknamed for his lifelong oral affliction. His boyhood is shaped by the Widow Dorsett, a strong mountain woman who teaches him to hunt and survive the taunts of others. In the hills of southern West Virginia, a boy grows up fast. Trenchmouth sips moonshine, handles snakes, pleasures women, and masters the rifle ? a skill that lands him in the middle of the West Virginia coal wars. A teenaged union sniper, Trenchmouth is exiled to the backwoods of Appalachia?s foothills, where he spends his years running from the past. But trouble will sniff a man down, and an outlaw will eventually run home. Here, Trenchmouth Taggart?s story, like the best ballads, etches its mark deep upon the memory.