Mississippi Shadows

By Elizabeth Donavan

This is a book that was started over 50 years ago by my father, Patrick, and finished by myself. It is about a man who returns from the Korean war to go home, and finds that he is no longer the same person who left, and is on a journey of self-discovery. It is bound to be controversial due to language, and situations that were found in that period of time in the south. There is also a murder mystery that weaves through the story, which grabs the reader taking them along with it. No Man's Land is a cotton plantation that just ekes by, and the family is hanging on to the fragments of the old south that are in the process of changing. Tim, the heir of the plantation, rejects the plans that his family have, and creates chaos around him, partly because of the chaos in his soul, and partly fear and loathing of himself and the future.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elizabeth Donavan
• Release date: May 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463590430

Elizabeth Donavan

Elizabeth was born and raised in the Chicago area. She worked in several jobs until finally settling down in a small southern town editing two newspapers. She did a lot of short stories that went into other people’s work, at times ghost writing. You can tell her style, which is tongue in cheek, and a dry sense of humor. She traveled across the US, and came back to the south—to the old homestead before leaving for Australia, staying several months there before leaving for Europe. She is still in Europe, and is compiling material for at least two more novels, as well as corresponding with scientists and inventors that specialize in exotic technologies that are for the most part suppressed, and hidden from the public. Sound like a good plot for a spy novel? You betcha, and when that one is ready, it will be released. “No one has a novel that shows what a world might be like with free energy, and advanced tech. Tomorrowland came close, but stopped short. The world is ready for a work that shows what kind of world we could have, but is kept from us for political reasons and corporate profits. Where would we be today if those forces failed at suppressing all this stuff? What kind of alternate universe is out there with all these amazing things?” We shall soon see!

Book preview

Mississippi Shadows

Copyright 2018 Patrick and Elizabeth Donavan

Published by Elizabeth Donavan at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

All Characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

About Elizabeth Donavan

Connect with Elizabeth Donavan

Acknowledgements

Thanks go to Toledo Hues for allowing me to stay at her place while this baby was gestating, and to all those that helped. Also to Smashwords for distributing this book. It has been both fun, and frustrating at times. I am an old timer with the print medium, and ebooks took quite a bit getting used to, along with learning new software and what it can do, which was amazing.

Writing on a Linux operating system was another thing to get used to. I likened the combination of the two with climbing a mountain. There were several revisions that the text went through to get it in compliance with submittal, and each one was a step forward. I also would like to thank Karen Elkins and Kerrie Claire for their suggestions for graphics and titling. Any suggestions are good suggestions! Hopefully, this text is bug free enough for the meatgrinder, and Sigil, which is the ebook creator.

And a final thank you for the readers, who I will be depending on for support1 I make a solemn promise not to disappoint, and will endeavor to make any fiction as readable as possible, and any nonfiction as thought provoking as I can.

This book is dedicated to the memory of my father Patrick Donavan, the first writer of this book, and his encouragement to finish it. Also to my Sister, Sheila Derry, for her help and encouragement, and RW Moore, for his help in letting me know what things were like in that time period. For all those who were not mentioned, you know who you are, and I thank you as well.

Any writing is a venting of the soul, and it takes a certain amount of life experience, and painful memories to fully realize a story. I don’t think I could have finished this any earlier in my life, and made a story with substance. A story can be either a reflection of life, as accurate as possible, or an analog of life which represents how things should have transpired, but didn’t. This story is a work of fiction, to be sure, but represents pain and experiences which percolated out of the depths of the soul. They are projected upon characters which never existed, but are a synthesis of different individuals who may have lived, and are placed in situations which the memory has experienced, or has been told that it could experience.

OK, now for the disclaimer: This was started in the 50’s, and the American South. It was a different country back then. I am saying this for the millennials who are throwing up their arms in a crimson, stomping apoplectic fit ITS RACIST! ITS RACIST! When I took it over, the perspective changes, but I tried to keep the characters true to their nature. That is not easy to do.

Welcome to the fantasy. May you enjoy the ride.

Prologue

The time is the 1950’s. The place is Mississippi, where a returning veteran of the war in Korea is on a collision course with both the past and himself. An anger melded with the chaos in his soul kept him alive when he was in Korea. But now this additional baggage of emotions is carried wherever he goes. It lives in a dark corner of his soul, in a place he refuses to visit. This is a novel about coming home as someone that has changed by the horrors that they have experienced. Being abused by fellow human beings puts a scar in the soul that cannot be easily healed, as I have experienced personally. It is too easy to cover that scar with cynicism and contempt to prevent it from happening again, and having that action push away people that might authentically care for you, rather see you has a resource to extract. It is so confusing, and hard to tell who is who. It would be so much easier to have a sharply honed intuition to see the real human beings from the empty shells that walk through life like ghosts in the night.

This is what Tim has to learn.

.....OF A PLACE WHERE COTTON GROWS...WHERE THE ALLUVIAL LAND

LIES AS FLAT AS THE MOTIONLESS BLACK BAYOUS AND SLOW MOVING

RIVERS OF MUD...OF AN ODOR, RANK AND FOUL: TWO RACES THAT

SEEK TO BECOME ONE: A DISTANT SONG OF ENDLESS TOIL AND

TROUBLED MINDS: THE DUSKTIME CACOPHONY OF MYRIAD INSECTS

AND MOANING DOVES CRYING THEIR LONESOME REQUIEM TO EDEN

LOST AND UNREMEMBERED: A VOICE, A NAME....MEMORIES FILLED

WITH NOSTALGIA, LOATHING AND LOVE AND A QUICK DESIRE TO

FORGET AGAIN AS SUDDENLY REMEMBERED..............

Chapter One

Train

At first there had been only a dim thread of light which had appeared a little behind his left shoulder. He had seen the first traces of it because he’d been waiting for it, looking at the exact spot where it would appear. He hadn’t been able to see the horizon though. He had been able to see nothing beyond the grimy double glass windows of the old coach save the dark shadow of his head and shoulder on the pane. He was upon familiar ground now, so he knew almost to the degree the course the train traveled and consequently knew exactly where to look. He watched the thread grow broader; at first silvery, then pink, then red as the haze deepened just before the red sun’s edge bit into the day.

All night the train had twisted and turned through gently rolling hills, through low cuts and over shallow fills, between scattered trees and small farms. But now the hills were above and behind. They had dropped behind the train just before the sun had risen and now the track was straight.

For an hour or so the train clattered and crashed through interminable converging, wheeling rows of young cotton. Then as suddenly as it had left the hills, it entered a swamp. A narrow band of black stagnant water lay on either side of the tracks, seeming to hold the abounding foliage at bay just long enough for the train to slip through. The day that had reached it’s full brightness but a few minutes before was now dark again—but not like the night had been: there had been no sun then. Now there was only a suggestion of the sun; shadows and nothing more.

The passenger was deep in an abyss of dismal thought when a sound at the forward end of the coach aroused him sufficiently to hear a single plaintive cry....VISALIA.......

He turned and watched an old conductor come swaying and lurching down the aisle of the train’s third and final coach, crying , VISALIA........

At a point midway down the aisle the conductor stopped and tugged at a heavy gold

chain which spanned the middle of his sagging vest until a large timepiece lay in the hollow of his hand. He studied its dial a moment, then, returning the piece to his pocket, he addressed the passenger who’d been watching him like a dreamer watches something bad seen in a dream, saying, you gittin’ off here, ain’t you, boy?

Hell no! said the passenger, turning to stare again at the wall of green. In this wilderness....... The sound stopped coming out of him, but the thought that it was born of continued, thinking...CHAOS...CHAOTIC REPRODUCTION...CHAOTIC GROWTH...CHAOTIC DEATH....HELL! THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN MY NAME....CHAOS...TIMOTHY CHAOS...BORN OF IT...SUCKLED BY IT...TAUGHT BY IT...NOW RETURNING TO IT, NO BETTER OFF THAN I WAS WHEN I ENTERED IT THE FIRST TIME....

Don’t git... but before the conductor could say more the old train careened into the clutches of a torturous curve.

I SAY, he went on, shouting above the crashing and bellowing of agonized trucks and couplings, DON’T GIT YER HACKLES UP, BOY. JEST WANTED TO GIVE YE SOME TIME ENOUGH TER GIT YER BAGS AND THINGS READY.

The one who was Timothy waited for the muffled noise of clattering trucks to announce the end of the ordeal and go on lurching and dancing over the bed of rotting ties and shifting earth.

When it was over he turned and glared at the old man and said, MY bags have been ready ever since I got on this wreck six hours ago.

The old man drew back a short distance and squinted his eyes to examine the passenger more closely. You ain’t been drinkin’ have ye, boy?

The young man’s face altered but little in appearance - yet the scowl became an almost

audible groan.

Ye don’t look like ye feel none too good. Ain’t sick, are ye?

The young man said nothing, but there was something in his manner that made the old man curious. So, gently lowering himself to the opposite seat beside the passenger’s outstretched legs and well groomed feet, he fell to searching the dark, smooth shaven face for the reason why.

Where’d ye come frum, boy? he asked at length.

The passenger mentioned a town in Korea which had been told by news analysts a multitude of times during the past few months.

Live in Visalia?

No, said the younger man.

Live anywhere near No-Man’s-Land?

The younger man neither affirmed nor denied the query. He merely grunted.

Don’t happen to be a James, do ye?

Ha! The younger man was staring full into the old one’s face.

Thought I reckernized ye, the old man said. I’ve heard a lot of tales about the old man when he wuz workin’ that swamp er his’n with more niggers than there was in Africa. I knew when I seen ye, ye must be his’n...er outer his’n. I recken the first un’s been dead a considerable spell now though, ain’t he?

Yeah, was all the younger man said.

Yew goin’ back to stay, or visit?

Neither.

There was an interval of silence. Then the old man said, What kind er work ye been doin’? He had either not heard, or had paid no attention to the Korean town name the other had mentioned.

WORK!

W-o-r-k.

The old man repeated the word slowly, trying to put into it something of the scorn —the bitterness— with which the younger man had so generously filled it, and saw at the same time some undefinable something in the well molded face before him that told of a strange mind that lay behind it twisting it into a sullen mask of contempt. Ain’t too good to, are ye?

The younger man’s face suddenly became dark with rage. He did not look at the source of the words, but the old man didn’t need to see his eyes to know that his query had reopened a nasty gash in the other’s soul. In his haste to close it with the only instrument at hand —apology— he forgot his dignity and waxed obsequious, Didn’t mean no offense, Mr. James. Jest wanted ter pass the time er day with ye, an’ maybe git yer mind off’n whutever twuz ye wuz thinkin’ so serious about. He got stiffly to his feet, paused a moment, and said, Work ain’t never hurt nobody yet, son..."

The younger man turned to watch the old one go tottering down the aisle to lock the waste-closet doors. Then he fell to repeating the words the old man had left him with: WORK AIN’T HURT NOBODY YET..... HA! He thought aloud, THE OLD BASTARD CALLS WAR WORK. HA.....

At that moment the train reached the station yard and to rest beneath a drab, smoke

blackened shed.

Yew ain’t sick, are ye boy? The conductor shouted from the rear of the coach.

No. No, I’m not sick, why?

Then, I recken you’d better git off if you’re aimin’ to......

Timothy James hauled the bag which contained his liquor from the rack above his head and went slowly down the aisle.

How much would a ticket like that cost? He asked when he came to where the old man was standing.

To wherever I’d like to get off?

Tim thought, when he saw the other raise his arm to signal the engineer on, that this was his answer. But as the train jerked and began to move slowly off he heard him say, Son, ye ain’t got the right kind er money fer a trip like that. Not near enough.

Chapter Two

Arrival

Tim watched the train until it vanished beyond a curve. Then, picking up his bag, he walked along the platform until he came to a baggage cart upon which the rest of his luggage lay, bulky and military in appearance. He stood and stared at the pieces that were his. The vision blurred, then faded; until he stared, and he’d have gone on staring out of sightless, motionless eyes had not a voice from somewhere behind him jerked him back to the realm of the present. It was a vaguely familiar voice: one he knew he should have recognized, but didn’t, saying, Lawd! Mist Tim, I didn’t hardly reckernize you.

Ha! Tim said as he whirled around to see the face which had uttered the words. I was just about to start thinking the old man had forgotten me.

Nawsur, said a small light colored Negro who stood worrying his doffed cap with nervous fingers. When dat taxi man brung dat WESTUN UNION dat say you headed fer home, Mist’ Will han’ me the keys an’ say, ‘Coot, you git in de cyar an’ go fotch my boy home.’ So, I got in de cyar, an’ here I is...An’ been since des ‘fo’ dark las’ evenin’. Then, pointing to the baggage cart, he said, Dem all yorn?

Yeah, Tim said. All but one. Bring the cart on to wherever the car is parked and we’ll unload it there.

Tim followed a little behind the cart which the Negro was tugging at with a large show of effort. His mind was quite as blank as it was when he’d stared at his luggage and it remained that way until he reached a point several paces beyond the entrance of the colored waiting room. His eyes had caught a glimpse of a young woman sitting in one of the nearer benches. His mind had recorded the vision of course, but the paradox lay cold until vision vanished and only the image remained. He stopped, thought a moment, then backtracked to a point directly before the door and stared, and the longer he stared the more amazed he became at the thing he saw. He glanced back at the sign above the door which said unequivocally in large sooty letters— COLORED. He looked back at the girl and thought, NOW, WHAT IN GOD’S NAME IS A WHITE WOMAN DOING SITTING IN A COLORED WAITING ROOM? MUST BE NORTHERNER...DOESN’T KNOW THAT WE STILL DON’T RECOGNIZE EQUALITY...OR DOESN’T KNOW THE MEANING OF WHITE AND COLORED...OR...YES, THAT’S IT! SHE’S JUST A DAMN YANKEE...PRETTY

THOUGH...HMMMM...WONDER IF I SHOULD TELL HER? NO. NO, MAYBE NOT...

Coot had thrown all of his luggage into the rear of the car except a small locker which he was struggling to move when Tim reached the parking area before the station. Coot saw him out of the tail of his eye and said, Whut you done put in dis ol’ trunk ter make it so heavy?

That locker ain’t heavy.

You come here an’ move it den.

When the locker was deposited with the rest of his gear in the rear of the car, Tim got in, puffing a little, and waited for the Negro to take his place behind the wheel. But instead of doing so the Negro thrust his head through the window and said, Mose wuz at the house when de word come ‘bout you comin’ home, an’ he say ter ax you effin ol’ Jane’s Callie come, did you min’ us brangin’ her home?

Of course not, said Tim. Did she come?

Yassur, she come on de 7:20.

Then, what are you waiting for? Go get her.

The Negro went off at a smart pace, swinging his arms in a full half circle, filled to the brim with self importance. Tim watched him draw near to, then vanish beyond the doorway above which the sign COLORED hung. But instead of turning his eyes away from the void, he continued to stare into it, seeing with his imagination the drab, lonely room made horribly ugly by the presence of a pretty young woman who had neglected to read the sign above it’s door.

His sightless eyes did not have time to crystallize and become thought before the void into which he stared suddenly filled, then overflowed with the shape and motion of the Negro followed by that of the image — the image which his wide-eyed dream had not had time to strip.

Hi come you lookin’ like dat, Mist’ Tim? Coot asked when they reached the car. Dis ain’ no ghos’. Dis Miss Callie. Sholy you ‘member Miss Callie.

Yes, of course I remember Callie. But not this Callie, he said, addressing the girl who stood sheathed in crisp white cotton near his door. The Callie I remember is still a child, climbing about like a little monkey in an old chinaberry tree.

A smile played about the girl’s lips and eyes as she shook her head slowly from side to side, saying, No, that Callie died a long time ago, and so did a certain little boy... Don’t you remember? They fell out of that chinaberry tree one day and broke their little necks.

This he was totally unprepared for, and, to fill the gap left by his silence, he could think of nothing better to do or say than to open the door and wait for her to do or say something else. But instead of doing either, she continued to stand in an attitude of indecision, her face clouded with perplexity.

Get in, he said at length.

How can I.......... Unless you want me to sit on your lap?

You don’t have to. There’s room.

Not unless you move over, she said.

Tim looked about, and when he saw the vacant space which she indicated beside Coot

his wits sank a little deeper into the quagmire of frustration her first words had flung him into. Out of deference to her sex, if nothing else, he remembered that he should have been gentleman enough to have got out and held the door for her. Oh, he muttered stupidly as he slid to the center of the seat.

Callie got in without another word and settled herself into the space beside him, her flank pressing hard against his own. It was a good feeling, but at the same time there was something about the thing that caused his sub-conscious to jab its finger antagonistically at his conscious as though trying to intimidate it into action. ‘Wake up...Wake up!’ It seemed to imply. ‘Wake up. Why don’t you wake up and think about this thing which is happening to you?’ But before this thought had time to progress very far beyond the scope of a few misplaced word-dreams, Coot swung the car sharply to the left, and in the next instant Tim found himself pressing hard against the girl. An apology rose up in his throat, but died unuttered beneath an onrushing flood of fancy which swept across the plane of the present. Nothing was left in its wake save the image of the girl...stripped and waiting.

The car was approaching a squalid settlement of Negro dwellings which lay at the city’s edge like a great canker. It drew nearer. Then they were in the heart of it and the foul odor of human excrement filled the dreamer’s nostrils and lungs, dispelling the fantasy he’d so unwittingly fashioned from that which he’d seen and felt...

With angry impatience he emptied his lungs of the tainted air and held until the noise of gravel beneath the wheels had mounted to a low, steady roar. Then, inhaling a great breath of fresh, clean air, he returned to the thought which had produced his lusting dream.

But before he’d had time to conjure up another vision a voice, barely audible above the roar of the speeding wheels, demanded all of his attention. He turned and watched the girl’s lips a moment, then said, What did you say?

Her lips stopped moving and her eyes gazed into his, delicately probing: "I didn’t say

anything."

But your lips were moving. I thought...

I was singing...That’s all.

Oh... he said. I thought...

Thought what? she asked.

Nothing. Just nothing at all, I guess.

Presently he stopped thinking altogether and became absorbed in whatever object lay on either side of the road as it meandered between countless, endless cotton rows. Several live oaks decked out in an odd array of abundant summer leaves and wintry gray moss, loomed then vanished before he revived sufficiently to think an often thought thought about how much they resembled old beggar women who’d disguised themselves as queens, only to be betrayed by petticoats tattered and torn and as filthy as time.

Soon after that he fell asleep leaning forward with his head cradled in his arms, and they upon the dash. And thus they rode, the three of them, to a common destination: a strange trio, strangely juxtaposed by the fickle finger of fate.

Chapter Three

Home

That night as Delia, the great fat cook, waddled about removing the dishes from the table, Tim watched his father’s face and waited for him to break the silence which had descended upon the room like a thick, unseen fog. It soon became apparent, however, that the older man was deep in thought, and Tim knew from experience that when he surrendered himself to these fits of mental activity the moment was usually a long one. So, turning his gaze upon his sister who sat opposite him, he tried to think of something to say.

She returned his stare for a moment, then said, I’ll bet its twenty to...

Tim looked at his watch and nodded.

Twenty to what? she asked.

...To eight.

Oh-my-goodness! she cried as she flounced to her feet. Luke’s coming at eight, and look at me...a total wreck!

As she was leaving the room the father looked first at his wife, then at Tim, saying, What’s all this gibberish about TWENTY TO? Twenty to WHAT?

Oh, you know, Will, said his wife. Whenever there’s a lull in the conversation Sue always insists it’s because it’s twenty minutes to—or after the hour."

William grunted in such a way to make it quite clear that he thought the idea stuff and nonsense. Then, turning to Tim he said, Quit broodin’, son. Don’t do no good.

"I know, sir, but...

...Know-but-be-damned! said the old man. You’ve had yours and it wasn’t by a damn site as bad as it might have been. Even if you did get a piece of your gut blown out. It’s over and done with now, and you ought be a better man for it.

Will! interjected his wife with mild reprimand in her voice.

Don’t interrupt me, Peg. Hell, I’m likely to say a heap worse than that if this young’un don’t cut out this here broodin’. Then to Tim he said, Son, the reasons for wars ain’t for the likes of us to try to figure out. They come and they go. They always have and they always will—at least as long as there’s more than one human left on the face of the earth. All this gibberish about making the world safe and peaceful is a lot of nonsense just as you say, but as long as a man’s country’s holdings are jeopardized then there has got to be a counter move to defend it. Suppose some scoundrel decided he could take No-Man’s-Land away from us, wouldn’t you make an effort to keep him from doin’ it?

If it meant killing him, I don’t know, sir. I just don’t know.

Of course you don’t know. You’ve never been threatened with the possibility. It could happen though.

"Yes sir, I know it could happen. It could happen very easily. It’s been mortgaged ever since I’ve known it and, if a couple of bad years made it impossible to meet the obligations, you nor I nor anybody else could prevent the loss. Even if you considered it a small principality and made an army out of all the hands in the place, you still couldn’t go and cut the guts out of the factor that threatened to foreclose because if you did you’d