Though now a part of the wild life of the mountains, Bob couldn't figure out the constant fighting and killing. I was hardly ever sober, not even in the morning. I was miserable and sick to my soul . . . . One Sunday after playing cards and drinking, Bob found himself outside a Methodist church and went in during a revival. The Hillsville Massacre in 1912 helped Bob Childress realize that the drinking, fighting, and killings, so much a part of the mountain peoples' lives, were not normal.
Shots rang out everywhere.
By the time the mountaineers retreated with Allen, the judge, prosecuting attorney, a sheriff, a witness, and a juryman lay dead. News reporters from across the country flocked to Hillsville. Bob had joined the posse to catch the mountaineers. As he talked to the visiting reporters, he was surprised to learn that such fights and shootings weren't common outside of the mountains. In his new fight against drinking, Bob became a deputy to help catch bootleggers in the mountains, but when he saw sheriffs and deputies often drinking up the captured evidence, he realized the law was not the force to bring change to the people of the Blue Ridge.