by Dale Young
The Ghost of Tobacco Road
Dale J. Young
Copyright © 2015 Dale J. Young
All Rights Reserved
Published by: Niner 8 Books
ISBN 978-0-9913710-4-4
Cover art courtesy of indiebookscovered.com
Thank you for purchasing this novel.
This ebook is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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To my Southern Belle
Table of Contents
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About the Author
Novels by Dale J. Young
1
September, 1937
A harvest moon hung low in the sky just above the tree line as Franklin Cain walked slowly down the row between the waist-high tobacco plants. The yellow leaves shimmered in the moonlight as a warm breeze rolled across the field. His muscles ached and his joints were stiff from the long day of picking leaves and stacking them on the carts. Even with the help of his wife, their five children and his mules the work never seemed to end. Tomorrow at dawn they would be at it again. And tomorrow night he would be just as tired and worn out as he was right now.
But even though it was exhausting work, Franklin always liked to walk the rows by himself at the end of the day. The smell of the tobacco leaves combined with the smoke from the chimney of his sharecropper’s house always gave him the strength to carry on. He had a family to feed and he knew the only way he could do that was to make sure the harvest was successful. Times were tough and the promise of a share of the crop in the field was all he had. Tobacco farming was his life.
Tonight Franklin walked farther from the house than usual. The night was clear and the soft breeze brought comfort to his tired soul. His wife had made him promise to stay close to the house, but as he walked slowly down the row he thought about how his wife always worried too much about things. But Franklin knew why his wife had warned him not to go too far into the fields by himself. Superstitions about the harvest moon ran deep in Starlight, ever since the first grisly murder in 1931.
When Franklin reached the end of the row he stopped and listened as the breeze combed through the tobacco leaves. The rustling sound was like a whisper in the night and made Franklin feel as if the plants were talking to him, telling him that their leaves would bring a fair price at the market and would enable him to feed his family through the winter. He breathed a tired sigh of relief as he listened to the sound. Then he slowly began to make his way up the next row.
Midway through the row Franklin paused and dropped down on one knee. He reached over with a hand and felt of the bare stalk of the closest tobacco plant. Most of the leaves were gone with the exception of the leaves near the top of the plant. Tobacco leaves are picked from the bottom to the top of the plant as they ripen, and the absence of the leaves on the lower portion of the plant reminded Franklin that the harvest was almost over. Just a few more days of picking and the plants would be nothing more than naked stalks. Then it would be time to dry and cure the leaves in the barn to ready them for sale at the market.
The yellow disk of the harvest moon floated in the sky just over Franklin’s shoulder. The light from the moon cast deep shadows down the rows between the plants, and made it appear as if the large, flat tobacco leaves were floating on top of a sea of darkness. Franklin’s body was barely visible in the shadows as he rested himself on one knee beside the plants.
Franklin ran his hand down to the base of the tobacco plant and stuck his fingers into the sandy soil. Heavy rains had delayed planting in the previous spring but the summer had been dry. He was thankful that the crop had survived and was glad the harvest would be over soon. Normally he would have already completed the harvest, but this year his crop was running late because of the delay in planting.
Suddenly a strong breeze rushed across the field, causing the tobacco plants to sway in unison. The sound of the wind sifting through the plants prevented Franklin from hearing the footsteps in the dirt as the dark figure approached him from behind.
As Franklin turned on his knee his eyes grew wide with terror. Unable to catch his balance he fell backwards onto his back as he raised his tired arms in a futile attempt to stop the blade of the tobacco axe as it arced down towards his body. He rolled to his side as the blade dug into the dirt, barely missing his shoulder.
Franklin tried to yell out but his lungs failed him. He rolled over onto his stomach and tried to crawl away from the killer. The muscles in his body screamed in protest as he tried to claw at the dirt to pull himself down the row, but he was so tired and exhausted that his body was slow to respond to his commands. Just then his right hand found the bare stalk of a tobacco plant and he was able to pull himself down the row. A brief glimmer of hope rushed through his body but in his mind he knew there would be no escape.
Franklin screamed out in agony as the blade of the axe sliced through his lower leg just above his ankle, completely severing his foot from his leg. A white-hot flash of pain bolted up his leg as he rolled onto his back. He could see the shadowy figure silhouetted against the night sky, the tobacco axe raised high in the air. Franklin instinctively lifted his hands and crossed his arms over his face. He knew his time had come, and the last thought to go through his mind was of his family and how hard it would be for them to survive without him.
The axe came down in a violent arc and buried itself in middle of Franklin’s chest, slicing through his ribcage and into his heart. The world then went black for Franklin Cain. But the killer was not finished with him. His death was not enough. Now it was time for the mutilation. As the axe was raised again and again, Franklin Cain’s tired, worn-out body was hacked and chopped until he looked like nothing more than the bloody carcass of a slaughtered hog.
The sharp blade split Franklin’s forehead in two and cut a path down through his face to his lower jaw. Blood splattered onto the surrounding leaves as the blade of the tobacco axe was yanked out of his skull, raised into the air and then brought down again, and again, and again until Franklin’s head and face were chopped into an unrecognizable mound of flesh and bone.
Then as quickly as it began, it was over. As the harvest moon hung like an eyeball in the sky, the tobacco plants continued their gentle dance in the breeze, unaffected by the carnage that had just taken place in the field.
Franklin’s dead, mutilated body in his blood-soaked and ruined overalls would be found several hours later by his wife and son who had finally set out to find him when he
had failed to return to the house that evening.
2
2014
Logan Shaw peered through the blinds of the office on his small car lot as a smile crept onto his face. He watched as the young man walked around the red Toyota sedan while rubbing his chin, clearly interested in the car. Logan knew the best thing to do was to let the guy think about it for a few more minutes and then go out and make the deal. And Logan needed to make the deal. Here it was the second week of the month and he still had not booked a sale. If he sold this red Toyota he would be able to eat and pay his rent for the rest of the month. As for next month, he’d worry about that when the time came.
“Good afternoon,” Logan said as he walked up to the young man peering through window of the red Toyota. “She’s a beauty, ain’t she?” The two men then shook hands. “I’m Logan Shaw. Pleased to meet you.”
The young man, probably in his early twenties and purchasing his first car on his own without the help of his parents, smiled nervously at Logan. He had heard stories about used car salesmen. Still, the red Toyota had caught his eye several times when he had ridden past the lot on the city bus and he wanted to know more about it. He had just graduated from college and needed a car but money was tight and he knew he couldn’t afford anything on the lots of the big, name-brand dealerships. He knew the high-mileage cars found on small used car lots were about the only thing he could afford. All he had to do was get something for the time being and in a year or two he’d be able to upgrade to a better car. But right now he needed something to get himself back and forth to work. He had only been at his new job for about a month and was already sick of riding the city bus to work. And was he also tired of bumming rides from his friends on the weekends. And to make matters worse, it seemed that no girl wanted to date a guy without a car. He had learned this the hard way over the past few weeks.
“My name is David. Pleased to meet you too.”
Logan nodded his head and then launched into his practiced routine, honed from years of hocking cars on his lot. He knew he would not let this David kid leave unless he was riding in the red Toyota or one of the other cars on the lot.
“This red beauty is a one-owner car, an elderly woman. Yep, she said her cataracts were getting so bad that she was afraid to drive any longer. She took good care of this baby. In fact, I was thinking about just keeping it for myself but I figured that I make my living by providing great cars at great prices so I would be ashamed of myself if I didn’t pass this vehicle on to one of my customers. It just wouldn’t seem right to keep it all to myself.”
In reality, Logan had bought the car at auction less than a month ago. It had been repossessed from a young girl who was the third owner of the car.
David smiled and knew he was probably being fed a line of bullshit. But just like everyone else that bought cars on small used car lots from guys wearing clip-on neckties, there was that tiny flicker of hope in the back of his mind that what he was hearing really was the truth. It was enough hope for David to keep listening. After all, he needed a car and he only had a certain amount of money to spend on one.
He kept up the pressure. “I’ve got the keys right here. Let’s take this sweet thing for a ride, how about that?”
“Sure,” replied David.
They both got into the car and rode around for about ten minutes. Logan could tell that David liked the Toyota when he started fiddling with the stereo. Logan knew that nowadays most young people didn’t know much about what was going on underneath the hood of a car and that the stereo was about the only thing they cared about.
When they returned to the lot, Logan had David park the car near the front door to the office. This was an old car salesman trick. Never let the customer return the car to its original parking spot. Always make them park it near the office. This way it made them feel like the car was that much closer to being theirs.
After the customary haggling, David finally agreed to a price. Little did he know that his down payment was more than the amount that Logan had paid for the car. This was how Logan did business. He would require a down payment that was at least the amount he had invested in the car, hopefully more, and then he would finance the rest of the price of the car at a high interest rate. All the subsequent payments would be pure profit since he had already recouped his investment before the customer ever left the lot with the car. And if they missed a payment down the road he would have the car repossessed and put right back out on his lot to wait for the next fool to come along.
Logan watched as David drove off in the red Toyota. He figured that he would get six or seven payments out of this kid, all profit, before the kid would get tired of the maintenance bills on the car. He would then miss a payment and Logan would have the car repossessed. Then the cycle would begin all over again. Logan knew that if he was lucky he wouldn’t get another angry letter from some sue-happy law firm like he usually did. Being sued for his business practices was becoming commonplace for Logan Shaw.
He locked the door to his office and sat down at his desk. It was late in the day and he had finally made a sale. The cash he had used to buy the red Toyota at auction was now back in his pocket and then some and he could finally breathe a sigh of relief. Maybe tonight he would stop by the grocery store and buy himself a sirloin steak if he could find one on sale, take it home to his trailer, fire up his little charcoal grill and have himself a barbeque.
He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. A sirloin steak… How long had it been since he had had one of those? Lately it had been instant noodles in a Styrofoam cup or bologna sandwiches. Cars just weren’t moving on his lot the way they used to. And the economy seemed to be getting worse by the day.
Despite his attempts to stop himself, Logan opened his desk drawer and retrieved the small bottle of whiskey he kept for special occasions, like when he sold a car. But lately he had been using the whiskey to take the edge off of the days when he didn’t sell anything. But today he knew he could have a shot for celebratory purposes. Hell, maybe two shots. He had just sold the red Toyota, recouped his money, and was by his best estimates looking at probably six months of pure profit payments. Why shouldn’t he celebrate?
Logan poured himself a shot of whiskey into his empty coffee cup. He tossed back the cup and swallowed the whiskey in one gulp. He relished the burn as the cheap whiskey cut a hot path down his throat. He closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair and tried to relax. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast and as a result he could feel the effects of the whiskey almost immediately. After a few minutes he poured one more shot. After it was down, he placed his cup on his desk and let out a long breath as he placed his feet up on his desk. The second shot of whiskey was causing his face to warm, and he could feel the muscles throughout his body beginning to relax.
The two shots of whiskey gave Logan a light buzz. Outside the sun had set and the blinds were beginning to glow purple from the twilight. Pretty soon he knew he would be sitting alone in the dark.
He knew what he really wanted, besides another shot of whiskey, and that was a visit from Sexy Sarah. He liked that name because he knew that she only used it with him. At least that’s what she always told him. That made it even better.
He had sold Sarah a car about six months ago. It was one of the few times that he had actually sold a halfway decent car to someone. Sarah had walked onto his lot looking for something cheap because she was about to leave her husband. All she wanted to do was get out of town and go somewhere no one could find her. She had found out that her husband was cheating on her with one of the paralegals in his law firm and Logan took pity on her and sold her a rather nice high-mileage BMW that he had bought at auction. He had sold Sarah the car at cost because he wanted to help her, and because he hated lawyers. And since her husband was a lawyer Logan figured that helping Sarah leave the guy was the closest thing he would get to revenge against lawyers. Little did Logan know at the time that Sarah would end up staying with her husband, having formulated a b
etter plan for revenge than just leaving him and skipping town.
But tonight Logan resisted the urge to call Sexy Sarah. It had been too long since he had last sold a car and now that he had finally booked a sale he knew he had to take care of his lot rent or he would be out on the street. He was behind a month already, and he knew that selling the red Toyota would enable him to get right with his landlord. And then after he paid his rent and had that sirloin steak he was dreaming of, if he had any money left for Sexy Sarah he would give her a call.
Logan sat in his chair until his office was consumed by darkness. Then he got up from his desk, gathered his suit coat and locked up. On his way to his trailer he stopped by the grocery store to buy himself the sirloin steak he had been craving. His whiskey buzz had worn off and on the ride home he felt almost good about himself. He had limited himself to only two shots of whiskey to celebrate, and now he was going to have himself a steak grilled on the small patio behind his trailer. Life could be worse. It had been worse, but maybe now things were looking up.
He bought the steak, a small bag of charcoal and a large potato. He knew that his purchase would scream “bachelor” to the girl at the checkout counter but there was no use in trying to hide the obvious. He was, after all, a bachelor of almost a year, his first and only wife having left him for a lawyer who worked for one of the prominent law firms in Logan’s home town of Wilmington, NC. Yet another reason to hate lawyers, Logan thought to himself as he placed his items on the checkout conveyor. Then he put it out of his mind. He wasn’t going to let anything spoil the rest of his night and his celebration of selling the red Toyota.
***
Logan’s home was a modest, single-wide trailer in a large trailer park near the port of Wilmington. Most of the tenants were merchant mariners whose trailers sat vacant for six months at a time while they were at sea. But the lot rent was cheap, there wasn’t a lot of trouble since many of the tenants were gone most of the year, and it was as safe, as safe as a trailer park could be in that part of town. But Logan kept a handgun in his trailer just in case.
