The Hatfields and McCoys used to settle their feuds with shotguns. It was messy, but they got their point across.

Now they hire lawyers.

More than a century after the last shots were fired in America's most storied feud, the Hatfields and McCoys went before a judge last week to try to resolve a dispute over access to a graveyard.

The families' legal guns are arguing about a cemetery that holds the remains of six McCoys, including three who legend says were strapped to a papaw tree and executed by the Hatfields in 1882. The cemetery is in the back yard of John Vance, a Hatfield descendant who lives on a craggy Appalachian hillside in eastern Kentucky.

"Relatives have an unquestionable right to visit the graves," said Della Justice, an attorney representing McCoy descendants.

Over the years, Vance has not minded letting a few visitors--including McCoy descendants--into his yard to look at the smattering of headstones. After all, the two families are so civil with each other now that they have joint reunions.

McCoy descendants, however, claim they have not been able to visit the cemetery in more than three years because the driveway leading to the graves has been marked with a "no trespassing" sign.

Vance is said to have become upset when he suspected that some of the McCoys were planning to add the cemetery to a commercial tour of landmarks from the age-old family feud.

Ron McCoy of Durham, N.C., and his cousin Bo McCoy of Waycross, Ga., organizers of the annual Hatfield-McCoy Reunion Festival in Pikeville, do want the cemetery to be part of a tour that would highlight points of interest related to the feud. Economic development officials in Pikeville hope the feud sites and other cemeteries will draw tourists to the mountain communities.

Larry Webster, an attorney for the Vances, said the cemetery has not had a burial in 114 years. He contends the McCoys lost the right to visit the cemetery when they abandoned it, and he accused the family of trying to capitalize on its tourist potential.

"These people are trying to charge people admission to visit my client's property," he said. "It's mountain land, as steep as a mule's face."

Still, Ron and Bo McCoy figure they have a right to visit their ancestors' graves, even if the cemetery is in a Hatfield's yard. The McCoy cousins initiated the lawsuit, and both sides dug in for a fight, which wound up in a Kentucky courtroom.

Circuit Judge Charles Lowe did not immediately issue a ruling.

"This is not about publicity," Ron McCoy said. "I would have to be a marketing genius to get the kind of international press we're getting here."

McCoy also said the cemetery is too important historically to remain closed to the public.

The feud between the McCoys of Kentucky and the Hatfields of West Virginia is believed to have begun in the 1870s over a stolen pig and escalated over timber rights. By 1888, at least 12 people had died as a result of the shooting war. The violence ended by 1900.