The Great War Years (Chapter 4; to: "The Vanquished Plantations")

Chapter Four

The Great War Years
(The Vanquished Plantations)
1917-1929



Soldiers of the Great War in Europe


The Ammo Humpers
126-Men over the Trench
((WWI, 1917-1918) (Corporal Austin C. Abernathy Story))



The three sergeants stood side by side in the trench, in the dim shade of the privates, the Ammo Humpers that rushed artillery rounds across the field to the nearby trenches, for the larger shells they used donkey’s and even dogs when possible, they were part of a forty-four man platoon, and there were a few corporals in with the platoon that did some of the humping and when needed, acted as infantry.
The First Sergeant was a tall ugly heavy man, a Briton. And then there was the other sergeant, he was the Staff Sergeant of the Ammo Humper’s platoon. And then there was the Buck Sergeant, he was a Frenchman; his rank was equal to an American Buck Sergeant’s. It would seem the Staff Sergeant was the thinker, and the Buck Sergeant was the action man, the fighter, and the First Sergeant, was the overseer, quiet, but very observant. They seemed to have an unlimited supply of ammunition, to include rounds for their rifles, and shells for their artillery, nearby in stock.
Orders came down from the Battalion, with its four companies, of 126-men each, lacking four-men in the four companies—that is, twelve per platoon, for the five-hundred plus men, minus four to crash over the trenches, and take on the Germans, straight forward, under the barbwire, in the mud, and onto their destiny— hopefully gaining some ground.


Those three years of waiting was two-years too many for a certain general who wanted another star, “…and this is how we are going to get it: take the trenches in front of you, or make a good show of it so my superiors take note,” the general told his personal staff. Implying to take the ones that were nine hundred feet away (if possible), if not take the ones five-hundred feet away—take those trenches, the very ones everyone had been looking at for countless hours, days, weeks, months, and now years. Today was the day—and out of the bunkers, the mud brick, and wooden framed bunkers, where mostly privates lived, they came out, and the three sergeants, ordered them to load their rifles and fix bayonets.
Then the order came down, take a battery of the ammo Humpers out of the fight, have them supply the artillery, and the three companies that will clear a blazing path for the 126-men, meaning one company will crash over the trenches, stay low so the other 378-men can shoot over their heads to keep the Germans busy, so the 126-men can storm the trenches one-thousand yards away, or perhaps the trenches nine-hundred feet away, one German trench was as close as five-hundred feet away (which was the most dangerous), all three trenches were manned by fifteen-hundred Germans. The General must have wanted that star bad because it was a suicide mission, and every soldier involved knew that.
For over three years they couldn’t take those trenches, what made the general think today was the day, so all the privates and the few sergeants, and a half dozen corporals gossiped amongst themselves on this very matter.
Everything was quiet, very quiet, just before the attack, and the Germans could feel something was in the makings, up to this point in time, they had enjoyed a stalemate, and intended wanted to keep it that way, although a bit worried when the Americans came—and the French felt now the war could be won without a battle—but that was not so; plus in this situation, the game had shifted to break that long enduring stalemate (even if sacrificing a hundred and some troops to do it), and the offensive was to take place in a matter of hours, the Buck Sergeant was to lead the troops like a pack of wild bees, storm troopers, and the Staff Sergeant was to keep the Ammo Humpers busy filling the rifles for the 378-shooters, shooting over the 126-heads that were attacking the three trenches with those 1500-Germans in them, and the First Sergeant, he was the overseer, as usual, and the General, he was safe behind, deep entrenched in his bunker, as usual, as most Generals are—waiting and watching, perchance wondering, and perhaps dreaming of that second star.
Corporal Justin C. Abernathy was in the attacking group, Langdon’s grandfather (Langdon Abernathy, who had not been born yet), and now the roar of the guns had started, and they speeded toward their targets, which was the German trenches.
There was perhaps a thousand shells that burst into the atmosphere, aimed at the German trenches, five-thousand rounds of bullets, whizzed through the air, towards the German dugouts and furrows, and the Germans did likewise, thus, the atmosphere was on fire, suffocating smoke, no shame from either side, people digging-in, and dodging flying scraps of metal, bullets, it was a sleepless, agitating, nerve-racking, night.

The Ammo Humpers were racing back and froth, from the ammo dump to the front line, the trenches, and over the top went the 126-men, like phantoms, ghosts, and Corporal Abernathy, he stopped after shooting several rounds, turned over on his back, Corporal Abernathy, watched and listened to the blazing bullets whiz by him, he was taking a rest, an odd kind of rest; lit a cigarette, figuring if it was to be his last so be it, but it felt good to have one. Then he looked about, if he stood up he’d be either shot by his comrades, or the Germans, he was in an open field, but he needed to turn about to go forward and shoot some more bullets at those trenches that Germans who were jumping over like crazy and restless rates, like he and his comrades had did moments ago. He rolled over on his side, slightly turned upward, just an inch or two, no more, and a bullet hit the side of his temple, just grazed it, and his glasses flew off: he wasn’t blind, but he couldn’t aim correctly, he was shooting half-sightless now. And then retreat was sounded, and he wiggled his way back to his trenches, he and four others, all the rest, they all had been killed, all the rest—meaning, one-hundred and twenty-one others, as expedited, near all dead, every one but five out of 126-men, all slaughtered cut open by bullets and flying scraps of this and that, and bayonets.
The next day, the general that wanted that one more star order the corporal to come to his safe haven, behind a bunker, ten-feet on each side of pure adobe mud bricks, so nothing could penetrate it.
“Either you’re a hero or a coward,” said the General, “because you should be dead, by all rights, if 121-men are dead, out of 126, why are you and the other four not? Why are you alive?” asked the curious general, he saw that the right side of his head, close to his ear it was slightly cut, “I see there’s a scrape-wound near your temple? Your justification for being alive?” the general told the corporal, “the other four never even got a scratch, so I hear, and so I have to assume, they were hiding.”
“I’ll go back there sir,” said the Corporal, “too bad you can’t keep me company though, then you’ll get your second star for sure!” he added with a smirk.
“It says in the report, you lost your glasses and was firing wildly and blindly, and you may have shot two or three of the enemy in the process, but you can’t be sure,” said the General, with a little better attitude, “but the way I see it is, you shot what you were looking at, and so we’ll just modify the report a bit, I hope you don’t mind.” And the Corporal simple nodded his head, moving his shoulder up to the right, and waved his hands upward as if to say, “Whatever!”
“I didn’t have time to count the dead, nor did I have time to hide behind a bunker, I shot and was shot at, that is all I remember, and then retreat was sounded so I crawled backward to the trenches…” said the Corporal. And he then was dismissed. And the general knew they had gained five-hundred feet, took a German bunker in the process, and for that he was assured he’d get his second star, plus, he made sure he had a hero in his command, and awarded the corporal the ‘Distinguished Service Medal for service in World War I.


The General’s Star
(WWI, 1917-18)



The General watched from his dugout, the battalion, was to charge over the top of the trenches, day two in his war with the Germans, after three years watching nothing happen, and wanting his second star, the general was desperate. He had put in Corporal Abernathy for the Distinguish Service Medal, and there was much talk about it, everyone now wanting a medal to bring home, and the General wanting the second star, and everyone’s blood was like hot vinegar, hoping to impress the general, and so he ordered another attack, he was reinforced with a new company, a new 172-troops, soldiers, untested under fire, and these new troops knew, the General had lost 125- soldiers a day before, and these new troops they had just arrived, to be told there was a second suicide mission, and they heard about what happened to that 121-soldiers, and they didn’t like what they heard, and they were causing trouble with the other three companies, over 600-soldiers.
Corporal Abernathy being the only one that survived the slaughter yesterday, some soldiers had made it to the first trenches, the ones five-hundred feet away, and took them, but the Germans that were 900-feet away from them, took it back an hour later, supported by those other Germans, 1500-Germans 3000-feet away, but the General figured if one company could reach the 500-level, six-hundred might make it to the 3000-level, and that was his new star, his second star.

Forenoon, the fields were quiet, empty, no firing of artillery or of any kind of ammo, the Germans just waiting as always eating their sour cabbage, and bratwursts, eating lunch, bored, and perhaps wanting the General to send some more troops their way so they could practice shooting them down like pigeons, as usual.
Corporal Abernathy figured it was hard to beat the Germans without air support, that is really what they needed, but he, the general didn’t want to wait, he wanted that star now, before he was sent back to Paris to discus the rest of the war with Pershing and the other generals, he didn’t want to be standing in the last line of generals.
When they called the six-hundred to get ready for the advance, the offensive, they sat around where the officers were, drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, just like the officers.
“What’s the problem?” asked the General to Major Sharp.
Major Sharp, who had been, somewhat tongue-tied, now was spitting out the words, “The troops heard what happened yesterday, the new ones and they see the officers safe in their dugouts, and they see the sergeants not too willing to go over the top with them, and they want everyone to go, if they’re going die for a worthless cause, everyone should die with them, everyone….”
“So the soldiers are on strike, is what you are saying, and that is not possible, that is called treason, and I’ll have them shot.” Said the General, but ordered the Major to remain where he was while he thought this out clearer, then remarked:
“Well, Major, the only thing left is for everyone to go over the top, and you too!” said the General.
“Perhaps we can get some air support,” asked the Major.
“Major,” said the General, “if you do not go over that top with your troops, you’ll be a Second Lieutenant tomorrow; where is the devotion in this war, you are like a vegetable tree, fate has me in for a second star and you are in my way Major,” and he pulled out his silver plated revolver, ivory handle, and aimed it at Major Sharp’s forehead, as he dropped his baton at the same time, and when he went to pick it up, the Major jumped on him, and in the struggle, the General was shot in the heart—dead.

In the investigation, they could not find the weapon the German insurgent used to kill the General with, the Major being the only one to escape the fatal disarray that took place in the General’s shelter, and the only eyewitness being the Major of course. The German, the report read was hiding in the General’s closet, and when the Major came in he had the General’s gun in his hands, and escaped right past the Major, knocking him down. The inquiry asked how this could be possible; it all sounded so far fetched, kind of fishy, like a cover-up. The Major said it was as possible as sending 126-soldiers out to commit suicide, and only one returning, and there was no questions asked about that, that wasn’t fishy or abnormal, to Headquarters, matter-of-fact, a Distinguish Service Metal was handed out to the one and only survivor of the suicide mission, and after the fact, not a word from Headquarters was said, and no investigation for the 121-privates now dead as a door nail.”
Thus, the Major, received a Distinguish Service Metal—likewise, for his bravery, like Corporal Abernathy, and the war went on for another year as normal.




The Wench is deceased
((1916-1919, WWI)(Earnest Stanley))



Earnest Stanley, called this war, his war, WWI, the wench, or strumpet, or wild girl, it was all the same to him, it was on a Bridal horizon you might say, the war took him away from his wife, new wife, a wench grabbed him, and he had to yield to her call to active duty in the United States Military, the Army, this youthful blue-eyed and handsome man had just married, and off to war, to WWI, for it had just started for America, once in Europe, he was among the many foreigners mixed together like goulash, it was 1917, only one year would he remain there, not even that, perhaps eight-months, but he had marred Ella in 1916, and she would wait, and it was hard for him to keep his mind on a war, when he had a new wife, a plantation, well kind of a plantation, he had put money down on it, it was rocky, it had to be cleared, it was not what it could be, would be, if he could take care of it, all the things a young man dreamed of, and here comes a war, he never wanted to fight another man’s battles, but I guess somehow he ended up doing just that, and he was part of the pack that elected that someone to office, so he could get drafted into the Army, and fight in another man’s country, because America didn’t need to fight.
It was a traumatic experience for him to see the dead, the maimed, to know about the Missing POW’s, the trenches filled with Germans shooting at him nine-hundred feet away; colonials, privates, the French, and the British among him, among the Americans, God’s human masses colliding together, collectively trying to eliminate an enemy, sometimes at lightening speed. Cigarettes lit one after the other, as men stood waiting for the next onslaught, trying to understand this war of mud and trenches, and death and diseases, while remaining in a repugnant stalemate.
He was one of the Ammo Humpers, who delivered Ammo to the trenches, he didn’t attack over the trenches, like his comrades did, like Corporal Justin C. Abernathy did, although they both were from the same location, here in combat, and back home: twenty-one miles outside of Fayetteville, North Carolina, they were neighbors, neighbors that had only met once, when he put money down on the land he purchased, but in this war, on the French front, they were combatants, soldiers of a different kind, Private Stanley was condemned, all to the dodging of bullets and incoming artillery, as he ran from trench to trench, over the fields to get to them, his comrades in arms, to supple ordnance to them men who would, and who did, go over the top, of the trenches, to bombard the Germans in their trenches, to kill, and perhaps to be killed, by other Germans leaving their trenches to reinforce the trenches their comrades were being killed in, so it was his replacement for a direct attach, which he was not subject to.

The only thing that didn’t settle well for Earnest was that the ammunition he delivered of course, in time would kill others, to kill a man you don’t know, by proxy, he didn’t do it face to face, but had a stand-in you might say, someone like Corporal Abernathy, to do it for him or Albert Ritt, who was about to start studying to be a doctor before he was called into this war, from Ozark, Alabama, that bothered him, but on the other hand, out of sight, out of mind, was a good way to live and survive in this mud licking war, I mean if you had to kill, it was a better way of killing.
The Americans had come, and that brought a new spark to the war, and he heard there might be an armistice in the making; General Pershing was in Paris, calling a meeting, he had become General of all the European Armies, under protest of course by the French, but it was a matter of: you fight your own war then, so the French gave in, as if they had a choice.
He, Earnest, like so many Americans came rushing across the Atlantic, before there was no more England or France to talk about, the Germans were no pushover, they had the war licked, won, but not now, France reminded America of there contribution to the war, that war long forgotten, the Revolutionary War, yes they went back a hundred and twenty-five years to make their point, and I guess according to Private Stanley, they must had made their point loud and clear, and dramatically, the said if we didn’t come to save the day, they’d never forget or forgive us; but we came, before they became homeless; in the process of course, the French had to swallow a lot of pride, something they never like doing, but it all worked in their favor. They knew the old saying, ‘Pride comes before destruction,’ and they were not that dump to play the pride game to the hilt; the new American troops would be the counterbalance in this war; and so the counterattacks with the Americans where in place, it was a bigger war now.

And then the war stopped, just like that, grim and grimaces, and smiles filled the trenches, and the soldiers went home to rebuild their exhausted countries, faded into its lingering society. And Earnest Stanley was about to go home also, first to St. Louis, picked up his wife, Ella, and then onto North Carolina, where he had put down that money on some land that would be called Stony Meadows in time, that that would take place in 1919. But before he left France, he explored Germany, just a few weeks, something like fourteen days, total (Albert Ritt did go back to Ozark, Alabama, and did become a doctor, a rich doctor because his father owned the bank there in Ozark).
At any rate, Earnest Stanley, while in a little town called Dieburg, they didn’t know there was a truce, or a few soldiers pretended not to know, and Corporal Judson Small a soldier from Huntsville, Alabama was with Private Stanley, it was forenoon.
There were three German soldiers less than a hundred yards away, one took his rifle—which was being carried, as if he had just come from the trenches, mud caked on him from heal to head, and even on his rifle, and he must had jumped off a truck, one was going the opposite way, and was about to go home or something, he positioned his rifle deep into his shoulder, aimed, and a shot it, the bullet passed through the air like a bee you could hear it coming, and it hit Small, tore the side of his face right off to where his teeth were showing, ripped it from the eye socket, to the lower jaw, from the ear to the nose, ripped it to shreds, meat, flesh hanging like spaghetti, he fell with a thump, flat on his back, and Private Stanley had no weapon, he stood waiting for the second bullet, looking at Small, not sure if he should run, hide, or remain where he was, but not moving, was also an option, and that was his decision, and that is what he did, and someone in the background yelled, “Ceasefire, there’s a treaty…!” it was a German woman. And the soldier ran, with the other two soldiers, and Private Stanley had a man with the side of his face blown off laying down by his feet, not knowing what to do, whom was ready to go home, tell his wife, the war he fought, was over, we won; the wench was dead, deceased. Now as Private Stanley looked down upon him, he wondered just what he’d tell his wife, they’d try to put that face back together, if they could, and he’d be ugly as hell. His wife would have to find a spot on the other side to kiss him good night. He didn’t show him in a mirror what he looked like, he just told him, it was bad, real bad. And Private Stanley sat cross-legged by him for the longest time, that is what the corporal wanted, and he died, just like that. It wasn’t from the wound; Private Stanley would tell folks later on, it was what he saw in the mud buddle next to him, the mirrored reflections of his face.


Murder near Stone Meadows

Elmer Abernathy’s Story

((1893, North Carolina) (Part one of two))


A Southern Account of Malice

The First house, the very first house, that really didn’t look like a house, ever to sit on the Abernathy plantation property, was a shack with two rooms, and one room had a stove you fed with wood, that was back in 1853, when Elmer Abernathy was born, built by Aston Cole Abernathy (born 1771, died 1855), he built that shack in 1803, he would be Langdon’s Great, Great Grandfather. Thereafter, Elmer, married a woman twice his age, and had a child by her, she named the child Alex, born in 1879, then she ran off, a drunk with a drunk, and he, Elmer, the Great Grandfather to Langdon Abernathy, got his divorce, and he married a good woman named Elsie, gave her, her new name, Abernathy, and in 1882, she gave him a son they named Justin C. Abernathy, the ‘C’ for Cole, Langdon’s Grandfather the one who fought in WWI, the Corporal, he died in 1947.
Elmer’s father, Aston, came over from Europe in the late 1790s, bought the land around 1803, and little by little, Aston Cole Abernathy cleared the rocky land, died in 1855 of a heart attack they say, at the ripe old age of eighty-four.
Elmer was born in that little shack, so Langdon’s father would tell him which is making it Langdon the only one not born in it. I mean Elmer, Justin and Cole were all born in it, but Langdon, he was born in the city hospital, of all places, down in Fayetteville, North Carolina, twenty-one miles outside the city, and brought to the plantation three days after his birth. Caroline, his mother, told Cole, her husband “This thing you call a traditional birth, that you call a right to those in your family to have it in this plantation house, that has become in itself your family roots, is for the birds, nowadays, they got hospitals for us humans, and plus, I’m having the baby not you.”
And thus, that put a stop to the tradition. Although Cole’s brother, Chris, didn’t like it, but he wasn’t married to Caroline: so Cole told him. As a result the insisting stopped pretty abruptly. Her recovery was quick for the most part, because Caroline was a strong woman, and needed very little recuperation time; she was home in a matter of days.

Getting back to Elmer Abernathy, Langdon’s Great Grandfather, his fate was to die ungracefully, if not pointlessly by an unknown nobody unfortunately. Elsie was twenty-two years old when they met, of good European stock. And he ended up being the one responsible for taking that little shack and building it into a full plantation house, with twelve-rooms, of which five were bedrooms. He seldom left his land, and plantation house, only to get what he needed for building more onto it, or mending or building fences and a barn, or seed for planting, he left the rest of the chores for his working men, and his wife, and their children: Alex (born 1879) and Justin C. Abernathy (born 1882); but Alex turned out to be rather the lazy one.
He, Elmer, never went to war, or church, yet he was a godly man in many ways, not too romantic, but he loved his wife in a flat emotional way, and ended up being a good provider.
It was in 1893, the railroad was laying track beyond the hill, that is over beyond his fields, of which he had 400- acres of land, and beyond the edge of the hill down its slope which was the boarder line of his land, and state property, and a wooded area, and a little ways beyond that was where they were laying the track, and where some twenty-men, in tents and all were doing the labor; some black folks, Chinese and Irish.
At night it seemed some of these workers went off into the wooded area, shooting wild game half drunk, bringing back to their camp: dogs, wolves, deer and a few rabbits. And those who were too drunk to carry them back left the carcasses where they lay after they had shot them. Elmer was aware of this, and so he would walk his lands edge at night before he headed on back to his house, and go to bed; he had to make sure nobody was hanging around his land, that didn’t belong there.

Justin, was eleven years old at the time, and Alex thirteen, in future time, Langdon’s Grandfather to be, he was well liked by his father, Elmer, and Alex, to the contrary, a mischievous, lazy good for nothing lad, a jealous kind of rat, snake in the grass, thin creature, an older brother that played rough with his younger brother. Alex’s eyes were bearable at times, but most of the times they were cat-eyes, searching, not sure what for, but nevertheless searching, and spying on his half-brother, stepmother and father.
Alex was crude, and witted, cursed with his drunken mother’s malice mind, he’d often remain silent, in a daze, wept like a madman, and felt he could, if given the chance make everything different, so much so that his defiance went to action, a plan came into his mind, and night after night he put it together like sewing a patch on a jacket. He would be in charge of the family, yes indeed; he was going to take the issue up with the very person who caused the problem, his father. Now it happened to be a silent protest at this juncture took place, but a few more steps in the right direction of thinking, it would be less than silent; the undisturbed plan would be explosive, if succeed.
He was a restless kind of kid, perhaps had too much time on his hands to think up such plans, but he did on July 2, 1893 come to the conclusion in the morning it would be implemented, his devious and dubious plan would be put into practice, and therefore, in the evening, he snuck out through his bedroom window, and up to where the railroad tracks were being laid, and talked to several men, and found two men that looked as if they were troublemakers, and he asked, “Do you carry a gun?”
The one called Clarence, the hairy one, said, “Now why would a boy your age care one way or another?”
“I want you to kill someone for me? I got $500-dollars, I will give you two hundred now, and the rest after you do the job.”
The men started laughing, and Alex pulled out his money—cash, paper currency, and then they stopped laughing, pulled the kid over behind a tree, “Who,” asked Clarence, “who do you want dead?”
“My father,” Alex replied.
“Your father, for heaven’s sake why?” asked Clarence’s friend, a puny little man of pale color, had looked like he drank himself into old age, perhaps no older than forty, and looking sixty.
“That’s my business,” remarked Alex, “are you for hire or not?”
“When do you want the job done, we’ll only be here a few more days?” announced Clarence.
“Tonight,” he said, it was near twilight.
“You mean, right now?” said the pale looking guy.
“My father checks out the edge of his property every night to make sure you folks don’t cross over into it, he’ll be over yonder there in a spell,” said Alex, anxious.
Clarence looked at his friend, they both nodded (both were half tramps hired for a week or two weeks work, drifters for the most part.


So the two men, and Alex hid behind some trees and bushes, waited for Elmer Abernathy just beyond the hill, on the edge of his property, and sure enough, at 10:30 p.m., sharp, he walked by. Clarence showed his face, and Elmer said, looking at the two men, said: “You’re on private property, did you know that?”
“Yup!” said Clarence, his friend in back of him, and Alex hiding behind a tree.
“Well you best be getting off it before I talk to your foreman on the railroad, I’m sure youall work for them!” said Elmer with a curious look, it seemed he did a doubletalk on a tree, the very one Alex was hiding behind, he saw movement. And Clarence noticed, that Elmer noticed there was a tinge of movement in that direction.
“Someone else with you folks?” asked Elmer.
Clarence was kind of playful, and said, “Yup,” and if you guess who, I’ll give you the two-hundred dollars he gave me—I mean us!”
Elmer was now confused, and Alex was sweating with embarrassment, if not down right shame, but he could live with it, he simply held his breath, and like any unashamed person of such malice, had no blood in his face.
“I aint got time for jokes or playing ‘round, you and your friends get on off my property,” said Elmer, in a tone that made it sound as if it was final.
Next, Clarence pulled out his gun, put it up to Elmer’s head, it was a revolver, six shots, said “Your boy is behind that tree Mister, he done paid us five-hundred dollars to kill you,” and then he yelled for the boy to come out, “come out here boy, and tell your old-man it’s time to leave this earth, to die!” But Alex remained hidden, sweating like a hog, he had let out his breath, what he was holding inside of him, and shaking like a rattlesnake ready to bite.
“You don’t believe me do yaw,” said Clarence; but somehow he, Elmer did believe him, because he knew how much money was in that candy jar, just five-hundred dollars, no more, and the killer knew the boy’s name, like he knew the exact amount in the candy jar, but all he could do was shake his head looking towards the tree—in disgust.
“Sorry,” Clarence told Elmer, “but a job is a job,” and he pulled the trigger, blew a hole in his head as big as a silver dollar, and Elmer wobbled a bit, and then fell like a tree just cut from it base onto the ground, and you could hear the thump when he landed.
Next, Alex came running out, “I’m not paying you three-hundred dollars just for having fun with me,” and he turned around to walk away, and Clarence shot him in the back of the head, it hit him so hard, he fell flat on his face. After that, the pale man, his friend said, “We gots to git out of town befur the law gits wise!” and rushed over to get the $300-dollars remaining in the boy’s trouser pocket, he saw the boy put it in there, and he, Clarence, shot his friend the same way he shot Alex, and he took the five-hundred dollars himself, for himself, thereafter, and took the first freight train out of town just after twilight.



The Frenzied Murder near
Stone Meadows
((1929) (Part Two))


Clarence Carpenter was found dead with multiple wounds, stab wounds in his head, neck, back, the Fayetteville Police told the detective, matter-of-fact, there were 320-stab wounds in his whole body, he had been tied to a tree, in the woods in the back of Stone Meadows (in back of the Stanley Plantation, next to the Abernathy Plantation), twenty-one miles outside of Fayetteville, North Carolina, that is, 320-confirmed stab wounds. The detective shook his head; he had never seen or heard of such an atrocity, massacre to a human shape, body, and flesh. His job was to figure out why, and who did it. Clarence had once worked on the railroad in that area of the country, but that was years ago, many, many years ago, he was now in his 70s, the last time he was in this part of the country was back in 1893, it was now 1929, and he was a bum back then. Now married and semi retired: he was said to have been a victim of a frenzied, brutal, horrific attack by perhaps Satanists; or so the police reports had read.
Justin C. Abernathy, back in 1893 was eleven-years old, he was now forty-seven years old, been through WWI, got a metal for his bravery, and was kind of rich. His father had been killed by a transit, a person who worked for the railroad back then, and left town. His name was also Clarence. So now finding this person dead in the back of his farmland was odd indeed the police thought, and Tina Tate Carpenter, Clarence’s wife, whom was 59-years old, whom had hired the deceive, was living in New Orleans the past thirty some years, married twenty-five of them to Clarence.
Detective Bob Faulk, was a young sporty kind of man, thirty-years old, and more than willing to take risks. He lived in New Orleans, and was highly recommend, Tina Tate hired him, she had a next to new shop that sold used cloths and such things, her husband had set her up in business, as a way to get her away from him so he could live his quiet life. Clarence had been working on other enterprises, and would never tell his wife exactly what they were, but he brought home money, and at times lots of it, so she said little to nothing.
Tina offered the Detective $5000, to find the murderer of her husband, and if he couldn’t, she would simply pay him $200 for his efforts, and he had a month to do it.
The whole matter puzzled Bob Faulk, although the proposal was good, not all what he wanted, expected but he took the case, and was now in the morgue with the police looking at the body.
The third day, Bob was at the Abernathy plantation, talking to Justin C. Abernathy, the hero of Fayetteville, from WWI, and when they talked, outside of his plantation house, he seemed too much occupied with work to be personal or even helpful, that in itself irritated Bob, even gave him ideas he was the killer.
“I am new here,” said Bob, and you do not know me, and it has been said your father was killed by a stranger by the name of Clarence, and there was a man by such a name back then working for the Railroad, Clarence Buck, and perhaps the murderer mistook this stranger to be Clearance Carpenter?” said Bob.
“Are you asking a question, or making a statement, or trying to accuse me of a murder?” asked Justin—looking at Bob straight in his eyes.
The detective followed Justin into the barnyard, and helped Justin unhitch a horse to a buggy, Josh a Blackman, a hired hand for the plantation, used it quite often, not knowing how to drive, he’d use it to go to the country store a few miles up the dirty road, past all the plantations.
Nothing was said between Bob and Justin, only Josh had a moment’s conversation with Justin, and an introduction to the detective, other than that Justin was of an occupied mind, as was Bob Faulk; yet somehow he was convinced Justin got his revenge for his father’s death by killing Clarence, but how did he do it? I mean, who goes all the way to New Orleans, and brings back the suspect to his father’s exact spot where he was killed, and murders him just beyond his door, on public property, tied to a tree, and then goes crazy with a knife. It was all too bazaar.
He, Bob Faulk, knew he had to become more acquainted with Justin, so he asked, “Do you mind if I stay on at your place for a week or so, while I clear up this investigation? I’ll pay you $20-dollars a day room and board.”
He expected a flat no, but Justin looked at him, “Thank you for your offer of money, but it will be an inconvenience, yet we can talk about it over coffee, and if you offer $30-dollars a day, I might say yes.”
Bob knew he had to make that $5000-dollars, that $200 advance was just not going to make it, and now he was not certain if it was Justin, he kind of broke the resistance cord.
Justin knew in his mind, the New Orleans man, had a scheme, but it didn’t seem to bother him all that much, he was to be financed for a week, and that could help him make enough money needed rapidly for seed to plant, times were hard it was 1929, the country was in a depression; and at dinner that evening at his house, he asked for it in advance, $210-dollars for a week, and he got it, not with a smile, but a big sigh from Bob Faulk, the detective, he had to add money out of his own pocket to make the sum, that was his advance, down the drain.
Evening after evening the two men talked on the subject, and the more they talked, the more Bob was convinced it was not him, there were deep shadows in the back of his mind, shadows that told him, someone else was in back of this. He then thought about Josh, the negro helper, there was something sleek about him, something that suggested a well-bred mind, one like a cleaver hound.
As he spent the following two days talking to him, in pursuit of the information, he tried to make it fit into his scheme, but he only grew a long jaw trying to carefully wiggle parts that didn’t fit, into his puzzle.
The whole week was coming to an end, when he talked to Amos, from the Stanley plantation, and he said, he was sure, Amos was sure he saw a woman and a man in the backwoods there, and in some way suggested it might have been his lover on the side, but Bob couldn’t figure why they would be here and not in New Orleans.
As they, Bob and Justin sat on his porch the last day of the week, the day he was to return to New Orleans, they both sat in the darkness, the front porch only lit by the moon, the plantation house had no voices, just the two, and he, Justin pulls out a letter, “I got this today from the post office, it’s for you,” he said.
The detective opens the letter it read, “Dear Bob, the murderer was Tina Tate Carpenter, she did not fritter away any time in going to the insurance company to cash in on her $25,000-dollar insurance policy, evidently he talks in his sleep, and she discovered he had in fact killed a man called Elmer Abernathy from North Carolina, and had her husband taken here out to where he did the slaying back when he worked on the railroad back in 1893—simply saying she was curious, and threatened to expose him if he didn’t, he was somewhat drugged it seems, and was to a certain degree unconscious of the fact; she knew he murdered Mr. Abernathy, and she knew he was dating younger woman, and the inclination for her to put an end to all and make a handsome sum in the process, was too unbearable not to take. She now is in jail. It looks like you may not get your fee, since we found the murderer, or I should say the insurance company did. But that will be between you and her estate, if and when judgments come in for it to payout. So my best recommendation is for you to do just that—try and put a judgment against her estate, she will not be going home for a long spell.”

“It looks like you’re broke?” said Justin to the detective.
“Well,” he said, “it’s been an interesting summer, and it sure is a still night, a slight breeze blowing down over the hill from the railroad tracks, I could hear the rumbling the last few nights, it all was nice, I’m happy it is not you, or Josh, I like you both, and there is a possibility of a judgment against her estate, it was Tina Tate Carpenter who killed Clarence, her husband, and now that puts an end to this melodrama of sorts for you and me both.” And then they simply sat back in their chairs steadily breathing in the fresh cool air of the night, and both started laughing, not at each other or Mrs. Carpenter but perhaps at the liberated feeling they finally had, the case was finalized, although neither one could be friends openly, not inanimate friends anyhow, but distant laughing friends—they could be.