McAnaly_RedLickChurch_Shootout

THE GUN BATTLE

Miss Barret had attended the old church as a small child. "About all I can remember from actually being there is that there wasn't any music. The congregation would sing, but I'm about certain that there was no piano or musical instrument of any type.
Of coarse there was the shootout. Our grandfather, Newt Lakes, was killed trying to stop it. Author Webb killed Emery McAnaly that day and Woodson Dezarn killed grandpa. Both men were hauled out in jolt wagons, pulled by a team. McAnaly was killed right there in the church house yard, but grandpa didn't die until later that evening at home.
John McAnaly was crossing the ford of the creek right after it happened, hauling his dead boy, Emery home in a wagon when he met Kate Webb, Author's wife, headed to church. He just told her not to go around there, that something bad had happened."
Something bad indeed had happened that morning. There wasn't much for people to do in those days out in the country and it was too far to town. This country carried the name of being rough. Red Lick was known for it's moonshining and whiskey making.
It wasn't uncommon for men to pack their pistols under their coats even when they went to church. There was several men packing on the morning the gunfight at the Red Lick Baptist Church took place.

Charlie Abney tells the story as he has heard it and learned it over the years and from knowing some of the men that were actually envolved in it. "It really all started sometime efore with a man by the name of Green Davidson. Davidson had been sent to the penitentiary for killing a man, but escaped before serving his term out. He had a $500 reward on him.
Sheriff Doug Young and several fellows went after him. Emery McAnaly and his brother, the one they called Raz, was in the bunch. They caught up with Davidson somewhere over in that country between the Lonesome Hollow and Needmoor on one of those Tater Knobs.
Davidson may have had his brother with him, but Green was the only one that got killed. It's been told that Emery McAnaly walded up and shot Davidson's brains out after he'd already been gunned down."
Most have heard that those "who live by the sword, shall die by the sword." Ironically, Emery McAnaly may very well have made his peace with God the very morning that he was killed. Charlie elaaborates further. "Jim Stevenson was courting Tank Webb's sister. He was going to see her when he met up with Emery that morning. The two men walked to the forks of the road together. Emery told Jim that he was going to join the church that morning, so he took the fork that lead to the church and Jim went on down the road to the Webb's house.
Old Tank was known for being a trouble maker. When Jim mentioned that McAnaly was heading to church, Tank sent word to Author Webb and some of them boys that he new had a grudge against Emery. Tank told 'em that this was the time to get him, that they could sneak up on him and that he might not have his gun on him by him going to church.
Emery had him a fresh hair cut and wa wearing a white shirt. He wasn't carrying a gun, but when them boys started showing up and he realized what was hapening, he started trying to borrow one.
Fiddler Jim Lamb had a single action .45, but he wouldn't let Emery have it. He finally managed to get a little .32 hex barrel pistol off of Henry Lamb, but there was too many of 'em and they were packing heavy. Author Webb had a .38 while Woodson Dezarn and George Hensley both had .45's. They ambushed him.
Old man Newt Lakes had partially raised Woodson and Emery, but they had a falling out between them. Old Newt saw what was happening and tried to stop them, but his words fell on deaf ears. Dezarn ran right up in his face and said "I'll get you out of the way" and killed him.
That's when the guns went to blazen. After Ole' Newt fell, Emery gutshot Dezarn, but it didn't kill him. Dezarn ran and jumped the stiles trying to get away from McAnaly.
Author Webb had hid behind a pine, while George Hensley was hiding behind the church. Author shot Emery several times in the back. He still wasn't down when he rounded the church house where Hensley was waiting. Hensley shot him right trough the jaw.
Then the strangest of all things happened. Emery McAnaly ran and fell dead right across Green Davidson's grave! The grave of the man that Emery McAnaly had hunted down the year before. The grave of the man that Emery McAnaly had shot after he had already been gunned down, probably already dead.
Most people will tell you that it was Author Webb that killed Emery McAnaly. George Hensley was the man that actually fired the killing shot, but he would have probably died anyway from all those bullets he took in the back from Webb.
All in all, Emery McAnaly was mortally wounded right there in the church house yard that day. Woodson Dezarn had been gutshot. Old Newt Lakes died at 11:00 that night at his house and a Hunter fellow, who just hapened to be at church tat day and had nothing to do with it, had taken a stray bullet in the leg.
Some say the part of Dezarn killing old man Newt was an accident, that Newt jerked the gun away from Dezarn and it went off. Either way, old Newt was wound up dead and Dezarn ended up going to the pen. Teorge Hensley left the stat, ran off to Arkansas. Author Webb managed somehow to get out of it altogether.
That was the end of the old church. They never held services there again and it would probably have been impossible to have gotten a preacher even if they had wanted too. By the 1930's the roof had fell in and the walls were just laying in a heap. Ebb Lakes burnt it for firewood.

These were the events that brought to an end "The Church of the Red Lick Fork of Station Camp...." A church that had stood for a hundred and fifteen years...Blood was spilled on hallowed ground that day. Fear and bad memories would haunt the hearts of all who bore witness and the already notorious reputation of Bloody Red Lick would become legendary.