Rumor had it that, in his younger days, Coleson Masters was a  moonshiner, a racketeer, a man in cahoots with mobsters and hooligans. They said he spent a few years on the rails, and that he wasn’t a stranger to the strong arm of the law. He’d robbed, connived, beaten, lied, and, in all likelihood, killed. He was the type of sinner that even Jesus steered clear of. “Cuss and vinegar’s all that’s in his soul,” was the way Mama said it. And she knew better than anyone, as Coleson Masters was her daddy. Mama spent the better part of my life keeping us as far away from Coleson as…