Mud Creek
Kelly Ferguson
Fair Park Publishing
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Tragedy On Mud Creek
2. The Funeral
3. C.C. Bates Meets Killer
4. The Telegram
5. The Move
6. Twenty-Mile Bottom
7. Jessie’s Piano Lessons
8. Doc Grasson’s Gift
9. Summoned
10. Good Days & Bad Days
11. Checkmate
12. Say It Isn’t So…
13. Alice Fae’s Revenge
14. Willard’s Ring
15. Johnny Comes Home
16. Banker Meets Bootlegger
17. The Burning
18. Jessie’s World
19. Bertha
20. Gallant John Pelham
21. Heading To Carl’s
22. Jessie’s Promise
23. Carl Meets Bertha
24. Protecting Jean
25. Two Worlds Collide
Epilogue
About the Author
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my beautiful wife, Sandi and my friend, Mark Ramano for their kind support.
Introduction
Mud Creek is a fictional story set in rural Mississippi in 1954. It embodies the powerful struggles which make up the fabric of life: tragedy; chaos; struggle; greed; and overcoming.
Enjoy.
Fair Park Publishing LLC
210 E Main
Tupelo MS 38804
www.fairparkpublishing.com
Copyright © 2019 by Sandra Ferguson
Library of Congress Cataloging in publication date is available
Library of Congress Control Number: 1-8216554681
All Rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions of this book thereof in any form whatsoever. For Information please address Sandra Ferguson CEO, Fair Park Publishing LLC at [email protected]
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is coincidental.
FAIR PARK PUBLISHING FIRST PUBLISHED WORKS
Library of Congress Cataloging in publication date is available
Photography by Sandra Ferguson 2019 permission granted 2019
Book Design by Jeff Senter
Copy Edited by Bruce A. Brown
This Book was manufactured in the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
ISBN# 978-1-7341222-0-6 (Hardcopy)
ISBN# 978-1-7341222-1-3 (Paperback)
ISBN# 978-1-7341222-4-4 (E-books)
Nature admits no lie.
Thomas Carlyle
Tragedy On Mud Creek
Folks didn’t call it Mud Creek for nothing. When God mixed water and that lime dirt, it was a great equalizer of men. Mud stuck to you whether you were the great John Watson with 3000 acres or a broke sharecropper with no flour or hope of paying off last year’s crop. Folks died within a stone’s throw of their birth spot -- few escaped.
Sour mud mixed with the exhaust fumes from Mr. John’s new Super M Farmall tractor. Eerie shadows flickered across the water to the drone of the powerful engine. Mr. John shouted to Bully over bull frogs exalting and fat black women cursing the rain.
“Ride that left brake, Bully! Ride that left brake! Don’t you dump this load of cotton, boy!”
Mr. John knew Bully outperformed the best farm equipment operators in the county. He gave him hell, just the same. Bully fought the slipping, sliding tractor. Mr. John stood on the wooden “tongue” between the tractor and the old mule wagon. The roughhewn oak tongue was jerry rigged to the new tractor.
Huddled in the mule wagon were squalling kids of every size and description, three barking cur dogs, and seven stoic farm women. All rescued from the cotton fields by Mr. John and Bully moments before the storm hit. Water dripped off their chins, down their elbows, and no dry thread remained. Crack! Boom! Again, and again. Lightning bolts cracked and streaked across the foreboding sky. Children held their ears. Women pulled their babies to their breast.
“Bet this washes the Bonner Bridge out, Mr. John!”
Bully grinned. He backed off the throttle. Bully loved to please Mr. John, which was no easy task. Yet, the two were inseparable. A young woman had conceived Bully. No one ever knew who raped her. Mr. John and his reluctant wife, Lillian, took the two in and provided for them. Mr. John fathered Bully. In the year of nineteen hundred and fifty-four, Mr. John was a giant of a man in Lee County, Mississippi. Clean shaven with a straight back, his six-foot, four inch frame was an imposing figure. He owned three thousand acres of land, a thousand head of cattle, mules and hogs, a cotton gin, and a general store. Bully lived in his father’s shadow-- always.
“Both brakes, Bully! Both brakes, son!” Mr. John screamed. Bully fought through the driving rain to keep control of the Farmall. They entered the sharp, slippery, rutted decline toward the fjord at Mud Creek; the giant wheels slid, pushing gray, slimy mud forward.
Without warning, the red iron mule lurched to the left when Bully’s rain soaked boot slipped off the right brake. The mule wagon jack knifed, throwing the wooden oak tongue into the giant wheel. CRACK! The smooth tapered wooden tongue exploded in a burst of large splinters and sharp, jagged edges.
Bully fought the wet steering wheel. The Farmall slid sideways down the steep, slippery grade. The mule wagon, now free, slid parallel with its once master. “Ugh!” Bully fought to stay focused, trying to regain control of the tractor. The mule wagon crashed into the Farmall. Rain whipped sideways. Mr. John screamed. The smell of sour mud, the roaring motor and shrills from the mule wagon’s occupants flooded Bully’s mind. The mass of new machinery, aged wagon and humanity landed in the bottom of the fjord. There, the swollen waters of Mud Creek greeted them. The momentum of the Farmall carried them out into the swift, rising waters of Mud Creek. It came to rest pointing downstream into the darkness. The mule wagon was lodged between the giant rear wheel and the engine of the Farmall. Bully struggled to find neutral on the H pattern of the transmission. Blood and muddy water battled for crimson control over his soaked leather boots.
The mule wagon had become a death wagon.
Bully looked over the rear tire and his eyes met those of Mr. John’s. A moment elapsed where there was no separation--total communication. The steel blue eyes, which Bully both loved and feared, seared. Mr. John grasped the sharp bloody end of the shattered tongue; it protruded from his stomach. Blood flowed from his mouth and ran into the water.
“Bully get the chain off the cotton scale and chain the wagon to the tractor tire!” he said. Blood ran down his chin.
“Oh, god! I’m sorry, Mr. John!” Bully cried.
He clamored off the tractor into waist deep water.
Bully made his way to the wagon where the drenched mass of barking dogs, hysterical women, children, and wet cotton hung to the tractor tire.
“Where’s the chain?! Where’s the goddamn chain?!” Bully dug through wet cotton, water jugs, shoes, and leftover soaked lunch bags.
“I think it’s in the back,” a young Negro girl said, her bottom lip quivering.
Bully waded deeper into the current, holding onto iron brackets and crossmembers of the side planks. He climbed the back tailgate. The wagon shifted, releasing the front wheel from the clutches of the Farmall. Bully slipped but regained his grasp. The dark waters of Mud Creek raged. He rammed his hand, arm deep, into the wet cotton. Again. Again. There it was! Under the wet cotton, Bully felt the notched pea scale and the weights. He ran his hands up toward
zero pounds and felt the hook. No chain! Damn! Damn! Damn! Pulling back a huge wet mass of cotton, Bully felt the iron chain: rat a tat-tat-tat; steel on wood. Bully fought the current with the burden and hope of the chain back to Mr. John.
“Quick, Bully. You lose the wagon; you lose the women and kids.” Mr. John spit blood and mud. Bully ran the chain through the Farmall’s cast iron wheel and the wooden spokes of the wagon and hooked the two together. Once again, the mule wagon and the iron beast were wed.
“Bully get those young’uns and women out of the wagon, and send Jessie to get Doc Grasson,” Mr. John ordered.
“Everybody git outta that wagon, and Jessie, you run and get Doc Grasson,” Bully yelled to his twelve-year-old son.
Women and children clamored from the wagon. Eyes bulged. Faces turned. The women tried to shield the children from the gruesome sight, with little success.
“Oh, my!” cried Betty Mae, one of the older black women who had worked for Mr. John most of her life.
“Jessie! Git! Go!” Bully shouted.
Jessie jumped from the wagon and splashed through the mud and water, running. He faded into the Mississippi night.
Mr. John languished. His body battled the insult; wagon tongue turned lance.
“Betty Mae, get these kids to sing my song while we wait for Doc Grasson,” Mr. John whispered. He stared into the dark waters. Willow trees and shadows danced.
Betty Mae lived a devoted life; first to God and then to Mr. John. She sang often for Mr. John. Betty Mae brought the women and children together with a piercing look. Her gaze sent fear into the hearts of the strongest field hand.
“Just a closer walk to thee. My sweet Lord, let it be.” Betty Mae whispered the old spiritual. Her bottom lip quivered. Rain washed tears from her face.
Others joined. Sounds melded: the rain, the wild currents of Mud Creek, bullfrogs exalting, the howling wind, the drone of the idling iron mule’s engine, and the slow cadence of the drenched choir. They huddled around Mr. John. He lost consciousness somewhere between the second verse and Jessie crawling under the last cattle gap to Doc Grasson’s.
Miss Lillian raged through the house, banging doors and yelling. Alice Fae, her head bowed, continued her ironing in the corner of the kitchen. Miss Lillian’s posture was ramrod straight. Her words escaped through clinched teeth. She possessed no tolerance for tardiness, Mr. John’s included. She hated storms.
“They should be here by now! Damn it! I told John to come outta the fields early if it stormed!” Miss Lillian ranted. She ran her hand through her gray, short cropped hair.
“Pickup that dress, Alice Fae! I swear, girl!” She snarled. “You are nothing but white trash! I don’t know why I put up with you!” Miss Lillian barked, wringing her hands in her apron.
Mr. John, well known throughout the county, out matched Miss Lillian only by a bit--she had her ways. She once walked into Judge Claxton’s courtroom and chastised him for having a cow running loose. She was fearless.
Alice Fae first met Miss Lillian when Bully brought her home, disclosed her pregnancy and announced their marriage date. Alice Fae’s parents consented; she was twelve at the time. Bully had just turned thirteen. Alice Fae exuded frailness, but shy failed to describe her. She made little eye contact, hid behind thin dark hair that covered her face, and never spoke unless spoken to. Every day, the men and women left for the fields and Alice Fae walked toward Miss Lillian’s and Mr. John’s house. No one offered to trade places with her.
Jessie ran even after cutting his foot while rolling under the first cattle gap. He made excellent time toward Doc Grasson’s. He knew shortcuts. Doc Grasson’s farmhouse appeared through the torrential rain. Its fresh coat of white paint glistened under the glow of the porchlight. No one knew the age of the old country doctor. He wasn’t about to tell anyone, either. However, his full mane of silver-gray hair struck his shoulders and his slight limp gave the country folks a clue. He delivered most of the babies, set most of the broken bones and pulled the sheet over most of the dead between Euclatubba and Jug Fork.
“Doc Grasson! Doc Grasson!” Jessie said. He pounded on the screen.
The hall light came on during Jessie’s commotion. He could see Doc Grasson making his way to the door in his red plaid pajamas.
“Come quick! Mr. John’s been stabbed by a big stick, and he’s all bloody and everything!” Jessie explained, dripping water and mud on the gray floor of the wooden porch.
Doc Grasson slipped on a pair of overalls and boots and grabbed his black bag. They left the sanctuary of the house and ran for his green 1951 Chevy pickup.
“Jessie, tell me exactly what happened,” Doc Grasson questioned climbing into the truck.
“It’s bad, Doc,” Jessie explained.
Doc Grasson pumped the accelerator with his left foot and hit the floor starter with his right foot. The engine came to life. Jessie continued, “Me and all these dogs and Betty Mae and these women were in the wagon. Daddy and Mr. John were pulling us through the mud and rain and stuff. We started sliding and going sideways and everything and…”
“Slow down, child. Where is the wagon and Mr. John?”
“Mud Creek fjord,” Jessie blurted out. “Then the thing between the wagon and the tractor broke and stabbed Mr. John in the stomach, and he’s all bloody and everything!” Jessie rambled.
Doc Grasson made his way over the muddy roads and through the driving rain.
Rain poured in sheets. The wind swirled around the truck, trying to dislodge Doc Grasson’s Chevy from the gravel road. They made their way toward the Mud Creek fjord. The vacuum powered windshield wipers created a rhythmic sound. They struggled to displace the torrential rain. Doc Grasson, always the clinician, noticed Jessie rocking back and forth in cadence with the windshield wipers. He chanted an audible singsong. Doc Grasson knew extreme stress symptoms when he saw them. Turning a long sweeping curve in the muddy road, they could see the tractor’s lights in the distance through the rain, mist and gloomy darkness.
Betty Mae saw Doc Grasson’s truck lights first. She held Mr. John’s hand and refused to let go. The words of the old spiritual cracked through her pressed lips. Bully paced back and forth, muttering to himself and periodically bashing his head on the mule wagon. The women ignored him and attended to Mr. John. Bully, too, saw the lights and slogged through the mud toward the truck. Doc stopped on the firm surface of the road.
“It’s bad, Doc! It’s real bad!” Bully screamed, wild eyed.
The rain pounded his face.
“Get me to him, Bully,” Doc Grasson directed, holding his hat and bag.
Bully led with Doc in close pursuit. Jessie jumped out of the truck and followed the two men, who moved at a very rapid pace along the water filled, rutted road. When the three arrived, the huddle of field hands parted, and Doc Grasson rushed to Mr. John’s side, where death welcomed the old country doctor. Death and Doc Grasso knew one another well. Doc Grasson reached across Betty Mae’s hand and directed his light on to Mr. John’s expressionless face. He lifted an eyelid and closed it, then he pressed the wrist attached to the hand Betty Mae held. Bully, Jessie, Betty Mae, the other field hands and children waited for Doc Grasson to tell them what they already knew.
“Mr. John has passed on,” Doc Grasson whispered. He removed Mr. John’s hand from Betty Mae’s clinging grasp.
He spoke into Betty Mae’s ear in a kind, but firm voice. “Betty Mae, you and the women folk take the children to my truck. They have seen too much.”
Betty Mae barked without hesitation, “Git in that truck, now!” She met no resistance. Doc Grasson turned to Bully, who had become a man of prayer, sitting atop the Farmall.
“You can pray later, Bully. Help me get Mr. John off this damn death contraption!”
Rain poured off Doc Grasson’s hat brim.
“Whose idea was this? You got one foot in the nineteenth century and one foot in the twentieth century!”
“It was an accident, Doc, I swear,”
Bully pleaded, climbing off the tractor.
“We can sort all that out later, Bully. Grab his left hand, and when I count to three, pull! One, two, three pull! Pull! Pull!”
Bully’s grasp slipped, and he fell back into the creek and current. He grabbed the wheel of the tractor.
“God dammit, Bully! Get back up here before I die of pneumonia!” Doc said.
Bully struggled to regain his footing in the moving water and pulled himself back to his position.
“I don’t know if I can do this, Doc.”
“You damn well can. Now, 1, 2, 3 pull! Pull!”
Mr. John’s body moved. and the shattered tongue retracting from sight through his bloody shirt.
“Again. Pull!”
Mr. John’s body came off the broken tongue; both men struggled under his considerable weight.
“Don’t let him go, Bully!” Doc commanded. “Work him around to the side of the wagon.”
Both men fought the current and the down pour. Pushing; pulling. They extracted Mr. John from the muddy water.
“Don’t stop, Bully. We’re moving, let’s go!”
The two men gained speed. They drug the limp body through the mud to the awaiting truck and collapsed on all fours, gasping for breath.
Mud Creek Page 1
