Leola's Mountain

The dying Leola watched the Air Force pilot whom Anna loved, and could never have, take her hand and lead her into the living room. She had never seen a more beautiful scene. Anna?s dress, sheen of white, molded to the curves of her body in a whispering shuffle as they danced to the soft music. Who could have known that the ten-year-old motherless, freckle-faced, skinny child she had taken as her own would grow to have such beauty and poise? What a bonus for her to have character, leading her to love and nurse those old war veterans under her care. Whether she was the tomboy in overalls repairing a roof or visiting an old man at his whiskey still, there was always the woman?a woman unlike any other. Here was the prize of Leola?s Mountain, always caring, educated with funds furnished by a moonshiner and a carpet mill worker. Whether in a white gown or a nurse?s uniform, it quietly proclaimed all the purity that was underneath. She was a mountain gal. She was Anna Beam. Brutal and evil men came to harm her and Anna. Could the old moonshiner and his misfit friends save them?