The Legend of Zinnia

By J. Lee McPherson

The Trail of Tears cost many Indian lives in 1834 leaving a shameful stain upon many of the political figures of that time. A few Indians fled into the Appalachians.

Legend has it that one such Indian called 'Many Faces' spent his life in the hills of Virginia never to be seen by the white man. West Virginia became a state in 1863 and it was in these hills where the Shawnee brave existed with only the animals as his friends until one certain day that changed his life as he knew it.

'Many Face' heard the woman's scream echo loudly through the hills. He climbed up into a tree and watched as the woman ran beneath him and then dropped to the ground before the two union soldiers who were chasing her. He slew them on the spot with no remorse. The woman was defenseless and the soldiers in the eyes of the Shawnee brave were cowards.

The Shawnee brave known as 'Many Faces' became friends with the woman and over a period of years they grew to love each other and she learned the ways of the Shawnee brave as well as his language and he learned her language as well. They grew old together and it is said that on the day he died that he passed powerful magic into the woman he loved, the woman know as Zinnia.

The Harless family would soon learn of Miss Zinnia the legend of the hill country and she would come to play a big part in the family's life. Joey, the oldest boy in the Harless family though only twelve years old would be given something magical that would drastically change his life as well as others he would come in contact with.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J. Lee McPherson
• Release date: Nov 23, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465724229

J. Lee McPherson

Hi folks. My name is J. Lee McPherson and I live in the southern part of Missouri. My hobby has been mostly singing and playing my guitar at local jam sessions as well as writing songs until encouraging words from my family uncovered in their eyes another talent of mine I didn't know I possessed. I've always liked putting words to music and my family saw something in the way I wrote so encouraged me to try my luck at writing books. Now when I'm not jamming with my friends I'm busy writing fiction novels. In my later years of life I decided to take my family's advice and to try my luck at writing. So in a short span of time I came up with 'The Shadow Dog of Jeremiah', a Christmas story called 'Bobba Long the Bowlegged Snowman', 'Stars of Ivondale' and another Christmas story called 'The Magic Snowball'. Later I wrote a science fiction novel called 'The Storm Shelter', another fiction novel called 'The Legend of Zinnia' and then 'Dream Tracker (The Beginning)'. Now I figure I've finally found my niche in life and I plan on writing as long as I can take the pictures from my mind and with a little imagination put them to words. All my books have been published to Smashwords and some can also be purchased in print. To see all the books that I've completed and that has been published go to my website at: htttp://www.jleemcpherson.com I will hopefully have more books in the near future. J. Lee McPherson

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Preface

I was a young boy twelve years of age when I left West Virginia to live with my sister in Missouri. As I grew up I wondered about a lot of my relatives I left behind but never really knew. Circumstances made it hard for me to find out what I wanted to know.

I always heard there was indian blood in my family and did some research on my own but came up against a brick wall. I was told by the daughter of my great grandfather's second wife that he was asked about the indian blood by his own daughter and he refused to talk about it. I guess in a way that was an admission of truth with no facts.

I have pictures of my great grandfather Augustus Harless and his second wife but couldn't find a picture of his first wife Rachel anywhere. It aroused my curiosity as to maybe it was she who had the indian blood.

I waited too long in life I guess to ask the questions I wanted to know and there was no strong bond between family members that still existed. Everything on my mother's side was a mystery. The only thing I knew was that she was born in Gilmer County, West Virginia and that her mothers name was Rosamis.

Now, in the later years of my life I decided to write a fiction novel about the area where my mother was born. I remember as a child of only four an old lady in a rocking chair smoking a corn cob pipe. I never saw her after that, but I do remember the family referring to her as Aunt Ziney. In recent years I came across some birth records while doing my research in Gilmer County. They were the birth records of my grandfather John Harris. They had listed his mother as being Azinnia Harris. I came to the conclusion that Azinnia and Aunt Ziney was the same person.

It's hard to find the records on a lot of those people that lived in that part of West Virginia. As a matter of fact I found it nearly impossible, other than finding an occasional birth, census or death record. Many who lived in the hill country around Gilmer County before the depression were very poor. According to my oldest sister Ruth, the old woman known as Aunt Ziney was one of those poor folks. That's all I know about the mysterious old lady. I guess I probably wouldn't have remembered as a child seeing the old lady known as Aunt Ziney if it hadn't been for the fact that she was smoking a corn cob pipe.

*

Prologue

The Trail of Tears cost many Indian lives in 1834 leaving a shameful stain upon many of the political figures of that time. A few indians fled into the Appalachians.

Legend has it that one such indian called Many Faces spent his life in the hills of Virginia never to be seen by the white man. West Virginia became a state in 1863 and it was in these hills where the Shawnee brave existed with only the animals as his friends, until one certain day when something happened that changed his life.

Many Faces heard the woman's scream echo loudly through the hills. He climbed up into a tree and watched as the woman ran beneath him and then dropped to the ground before the two union soldiers who were chasing her. He killed them on the spot with no remorse. The woman was defenseless and the soldiers, in the eyes of the Shawnee brave, were cowards.

The Shawnee brave known as Many Faces became friends with the woman and over a period of years they grew to love each other and she learned the ways of the Shawnee brave, as well as his language, just as he learned her language. They grew old together and it is said that on the day he died that he passed powerful magic into the woman he loved, the woman know as Zinnia.

The Harless family would soon learn of Miss Zinnia, the legend of the hill country, and she would come to play a big part in the family's life. Joey, the oldest boy in the Harless family, though only twelve years old, would be given something magical that would drastically change his life as well as others he would come in contact with.

Shale Bluff was a small town in Gilmer County, West Virginia with a population of a little over two thousand people. To many tourists traveling through it appeared mystical, the way it sat nestled in the valley with all the surrounding hills. Above the town a little ways up in the hills one can see a band of shale like a giant hand just took a large chisel and sliced out a chunk of hillside leaving a massive horizontal wall of rock. It only made sense that the early settlers who came to the area in the middle of the nineteenth century would name the town Shale Bluff.

Not many people know what goes on in the hill country outside of Shale Bluff. A lot of rumors have gone around over the years about the mysterious old woman who lives like a hermit way back in the hills. It is not known when the rumors got started, but it is a fact that some of the older folks in town heard the stories when they were children at least fifty years ago.

Legend has it that she could see into the past as well as the future. Some even said she could take the shape of an animal. She was thought to be full blooded Shawnee but it was not certain. It may have been because she was a hermit living by herself in the deep wooded hills only talking to the animals nearby.

One tale that was passed around through the hill country was that an old Shawnee Indian, just before dying, passed the powers he possessed to the one called Zinnia. However, the tale originated in the late 1880's. It was a mystery then and remains a mystery to this day. One thing was certain. The old woman known as Zinnia was still alive and still living back in the hills beyond Shale Bluff.

Folks finally decided that it was just a legend, and nothing more, as the years just didn't add up. If the stories were going around all these years about a strange old lady then she would have died long ago. Then, again, there always seemed to be something mysterious going on concerning an old woman that reached the ears of the town folks. Nothing bad ever came of it, but strange stories seemed to pop up every now and then.

One story that seemed to be true was told in recent years by someone most of the men in town knew. It seems Hank Wilson a barber in Shale Bluff, just a couple of years back, was giving a haircut to one of his customers when he gazed out the window to the street and saw nothing but a stray dog going down the alley across the street. He reached over and picked up his scissors and looked again and there was an old lady sitting in a car on the passenger side just outside his shop next to the bank. He turned to his customer then turned his head an instant later and there was nothing there. For a moment he thought he was hallucinating. Similar stories were told over the years that added to the legend of Zinnia, like the time when a man was driving through the county twenty some odd years ago.

It seems he was driving right through the town of Shale Bluff when he spotted an old woman sitting on a bench outside the town courthouse all by herself. For some reason he pulled his car over and walked up to her and asked if he could be of any assistance. She told him she needed a ride into the hills outside of town. The man wasn't even going in that direction but offered her a ride anyway.

When he was a little ways out of town she pointed to a large oak tree that stood alone to the side of the road and said she would get out there. The man looked around and didn't see any homes of any kind but did like she told him and pulled the car over. The last words she said to him just before he pulled away in his car were, Your wife will be alright sir. You have my word on it. He wondered how she even knew his wife was sick. The fact of the matter was she had incurable cancer and was dying. There was no hope left. The man turned his car around at the next road and was heading back in the direction he came from but saw no sign of the old lady he had just let out.

He drove back through Shale Bluff and headed up the other highway that took him to Centerville. When he arrived at the Centerville Cancer Treatment Center he was approached by his wife's doctor. He actually had tears in his eyes as he gave him the good news that his wife showed no traces of cancer. He said it was as if the divine presence of God was at her side and lifted the sickness from her body.

When the man entered his wife's room he saw that she was the picture of health and she practically jumped into his arms. It was said that the man and his wife had never gone to church, but started going every Sunday faithfully. Whether the story was true, nobody ever really knew for sure, but it seemed at the time church attendance had increased considerably in the area.

**

Chapter 1

It was the middle of July in 1988 and people in Gilmer County, West Virginia were suffering from the high humidity after several days of rain and now the high temperatures that had reached nearly one hundred degrees the last two days. Even the dogs and cats that roamed the neighborhood were nowhere to be seen. A lot of the construction crews in the area had started working earlier hours to get out of the drastic afternoon heat. The pool at the city park was nearly empty. People didn't want to drive their children to the pool in the sweltering heat knowing they'd have to get out again when it came time to pick them up.

Going out of Shale Bluff on the north side of town the road led to a poverty stricken area that covered around forty square miles. It was hilly with a lot of trees and underbrush that would make one think of serenity if they were gazing down from some place above. To the hill folks, as the people in town called them, it was a place of serenity. Of course, if one was crazy enough to hike back through the thick underbrush, he might just stumble on to a moonshine still here and there hidden away in the thick foilage. While others admired the beauty of the countryside corn liquor helped bring another kind of serenity to the minds of those who indulged. It was a close kept secret to the hill folks. It was thought by many outsiders that moonshining went out many years back. That's what the town folks thought anyway.

The folks that lived in the hills thought the people in town were just downright spoiled, griping about the heat and every little discomfort they might have. It was a part of every day existence for the hill folks. They didn't have such luxuries as air conditioning, furnaces that came on automatically and televisions sets with remote controls for lazy people who couldn't get out of their chairs to change channels. Still they treated the people in town with respect and received the same, or so it seemed.

Lewis and Lola Harless lived on a gently rolling twenty acre spread in a low area of the hill country with a picturesque view of the surrounding rugged terrain. Lewis Harless worked at The Old Johnson Sawmill a couple of miles from his house. His wife Lola mostly stayed home and took care of the children but once in a while took in a little extra money from babysitting. Their house was built by Lewis himself with a little help from his neighbors. Lola helped quite a bit when she could. Most of the lumber came from the sawmill where Lewis worked and that was, in a round about way, how Lewis got his job there. In the process of buying lumber he and the owner of the sawmill, Homer Johnson, became good friends. When Homer lost his right hand man in a car accident he asked Lewis if he'd like the job. Lewis started from scratch with no experience but in no time he learned everything Homer taught him.

Lewis and Lola's house wasn't anything fancy but they did have three bedrooms, one bathroom, a kitchen with plenty of cabinets and a small living room Lewis made sure it was built solid because he planned for it to be in the family a long time. Lewis and Lola worked hard getting the house and land to match the picture they had dreamed of for so long. They planted several fruit trees, some grapes and had a neighbor plow a nice size garden spot. They had a healthy blackberry patch and a creek that ran year round with a fine swimming hole. Through the years they managed to acquire a few chickens but that was the extent of livestock on the property. The four children came along and there was nothing left to put on their want list but just a reminder to thank the good Lord for all they'd been blessed with.

Lewis's Parents Jubal and Cora Harless, who lived across the hollow, gave the land to Lewis and Lola when they got married. Everything was paid for so, other than property tax and the taxes held out on what Lewis earned at the sawmill, they were in fine shape. Still it took nearly all the money they took in to keep food on the table and to keep the utility bills paid. Lewis and Lola were extremely happy with all they had, including the love they had for each other. Even though they never attended church, they still retained their spirituality and thanked God everyday for what they had.

Lewis often thought back to the time he met Lola Truax. It was in the same school building where his own children go and will be going when school starts again. He was in the sixth grade at the little Prairie Grove Schoolhouse just two miles down the road when his teacher, Mrs. Rinehart, announced a new classmate to the children. Lewis turned around to look and when she glanced at him he felt his heart leap.

Her folks had just bought a little farm a mile in the other direction from the school. Lewis and Lola became instant friends, spending many hours studying together. After a few visits to Lola's house, Lewis got to where he liked her parents Rose and George and felt comfortable being around them. As a young man Lewis had a good appetite and thought Lola's mother was an excellent cook and her husband George, with his funny jokes, kept him in stitches.

Jubal and Cora Harless liked Lola right from the start and enjoyed having her around. Somehow they knew that this child would be part of their family for a long time. All Lewis would talk about was Lola and, by the way his eyes would light up at the mention of her name, Jubal and Cora knew their young son was caught hook, line and sinker.

Lewis thought Lola was the prettiest girl he'd ever seen with her blonde hair and bright blue eyes. Even though they'd only known each for a short time, he knew that someday she would be his wife.

Lola also had the same thoughts, for she had never met a boy like Lewis and, although they were just good friends at the moment, she knew she would some day be married to this tanned dark haired boy who sat next to her. There was no question in her mind. It was already settled and that was all there was to it.

Now, lying in bed at night cuddled in her husband's arms, she wondered if maybe she was dreaming. 'How could things be so perfect?', she asked herself. 'I've got a husband that loves me and four wonderful children. I'm going to wake up in the morning and see that it's not a dream. It's just the good Lord taking care of good people.' Then she said aloud, Thank you Lord for all that you've given me and my family. Good night Lord and amen.

What did you say? said Lewis, half asleep.

I just said goodnight, honey.

Night darlin'.

Chapter 2

It was morning at the Harless homestead. Lola and Lewis were sitting at the breakfast table with their eight year old son Jackie. They had two other boys, Benny and Joey, as well as a two year old daughter named Lilly. Benny was ten, Joey was twelve and Joey naturally thought, he being the oldest, made him boss over the other children. Joey was good however at taking care of his siblings. They looked up to him for advice and liked listening to the stories that he made up occasionally at night when they were all in bed. Very seldom did they make it through the story without falling asleep. The next morning they would always ask for the ending.

As they sat there at the table Lola spoke up and said, Lew, you know we could use a fan in the kitchen. It gets downright hot when I'm cookin'. The next time you go into town could you see if you can find a cheap fan at that second hand store by the barber shop?

Well, I reckon I can if I got the money, darlin'. You know money's pretty durn hard to come by these days. With me just workin' three days a week at the sawmill it don't leave much after payin' the bills.

I know, but don't go to any trouble, honey. I meant if you could spare it. We got by this long and I'm sure we can get by a little longer.

Pa, can I go out this mornin' and pick some blackberries? I saw a whole bunch over the hill in back of the place. said Jackie.

I reckon you can, son. You know where the pails are that I made up don't you?

I sure do, pa. That was a good idea 'cause I can carry more berries that way. I'm gonna go by myself I reckon. Joey and Benny ain't even ate breakfast yet. I guess they know where I'll be if they've a mind to look for me.

You go ahead honey, said Lola. I'll tell the boys where you are. Now you bring back your mama lots of berries, you hear?

I will mama, if I don't eat too many.

Go on then, but don't be gone too long. It's gonna get mighty hot out there today.

A few minutes later Jackie was heading down over the hill toward the blackberry bushes. He could see the little black spots glistening in the morning sun on the bushes and hoped he wouldn't eat too many, with the thought of a big cobbler in mind.

Jackie loved pickin' the wild blackberries over the hill behind his mom and dad's place. Here it was eight o'clock in the mornin' and his two older brothers were too lazy to get their butts outta bed to go berry pickin' with him. 'That's okay,' he thought. 'I'll show them when mama turns my berries into a delicious blackberry cobbler. Mama always lets the one pickin' the berries get first dibs on the cobbler.'

Jackie had the two small pails with a short length of rope tied to each handle slung around his neck. The small pails were sold in the stores with a little shovel, meant to be used