What would be considered hyperbole in a novel is often history in the feud stories.
Otis Rice obviously considers the blood and brain spattered ground on the riverbank where the three sons of Ran’l McCoy were executed to be insufficiently gory without embellishment. Rice says that the “bullet-riddled bodies” were “swinging from the bushes.” (p.28) Then he makes it far more repugnant to the reader’s senses by introducing the carcasses and bones of dead dogs.
It is bad enough to execute men among heaps of dog carcasses, but these were dogs of distinctly inferior character. These were sheep-killing dogs!
This essay, in its entirety, can be read in my book, “Lies, Damned Lies, and Feud Tales.” https://www.amazon.com/dp/1977716814/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1511238586&sr=1-1&keywords=Lies%2C+Damned+Lies%2C+and+Feud+Tales