Untamed: The Wildest Woman in America and the Fight for Cumberland Island by Will Harlan Read Free Book Online Page A

the oxygen tank echoing. Her skin was numb, her lips purple and swollen. She had lost sensation in her fingers and toes. Just before she turned back and headed for shore, Carol pulled back the cordgrass and noticed a rusted metal ball sunken in marsh mud. She pried it up, and found another cannonball beneath it, and then another. She unearthed six cannonballs from the marsh that night, dragging each of the large shells out of the water and heaving them onto dry land.
    Jim was ecstatic. They rolled the cannonballs under the fence and loaded them in the back of the station wagon. The rear bumper nearly scraped the pavement, sagged by the weight of six hundred pounds of Civil War artillery. They couldn’t completely close the back door, so Carol—still shivering in her wet clothes—climbed atop the cannonballs and held the back door shut while Jim motored down the empty two-lane road toward town.
    Just before they crossed the intracoastal bridge, blue lights flashed in the rearview mirror.
    “Carol, grab the tarp!” Jim shouted between clenched teeth as he pulled the station wagon to the shoulder. The police car parked directly behind him. Carol yanked a battered green tarp over both her and the cannonballs while still holding the back gate partially closed.
    The officer approached the car slowly. “Keep your hands on the wheel!” he shouted at Jim, who stared blankly into the midnight darkness. The cop shone his flashlight through the back windows. Through a hole in the tarp, Carol could see the officer’s breath fogging the glass.
    Finally he arrived at Jim’s window. Jim white-knuckled the steering wheel, jaw locked, as the cop flashed his light through the open window. He asked for Jim’s license and then studied it for a long time. Finally he clicked off his flashlight.
    “Mr. Kemph,” the officer said, “did you know that your left taillight is out?”
    “No sir. I’ll get that fixed tomorrow.”
    He handed back Jim’s license. “Have a good evening.”
    Back in Atlanta, Martha Kemph wondered why her husband was spending late nights and long weekends away from home. She had met Jim’s new employee, the lewd jezebel who cursed and drank and wore baggy men’s clothes. But she didn’t suspect any mischief from her husband of nineteen years, especially with Carol, who was only three years older than their eldest daughter.
    A devoted wife and devout Christian, Martha prayed for her husband every evening in her empty bedroom, after packing lunches for six children and getting them all tucked in.
    One night, Jim came home late, half-drunk, with bad news: the radio store business was going under. Martha couldn’t believe it. He had been working late hours and spending more time than ever at the shop.
    There was only one way to stop the bank from seizing the house and the car, Jim told her: they must get a divorce.
    Martha stood in stunned, horrified silence.
    Jim explained his plan: once they divorced, he would deed the house to her and then declare bankruptcy. That way, at least she and the kids would have a place to live.
    Martha quietly consented to a divorce, though they didn’t tell their children. Martha’s parents came to live with her and help raise the kids, while Jim indulged in a midlife crisis with a woman half his age.
    Carol’s friend Tom Dickey was also a Civil War relic hunter. He specialized in defusing artillery. In the spring of 1962, Carol and Jim brought him a hand grenade they found near the river. Tom began disassembling the grenade on his workbench in the basement.
    Tom’s basement was lined floor to ceiling with shelves containing mine balls, shrapnel, unexploded projectiles, artillery shells, and other Civil War treasures dug up from Atlanta backyards, swamps in South Carolina, and Louisiana bayous.
    “Don’t you worry about all of the explosives you have down here?” Carol asked.
    “I do fret about it some. If this house caught on fire, you’d hear the last shots fired of the