The Secrets of Hawk’S Rise

By John Dorman

In the last twenty years preceding the war between the states, life in Southern Georgia was slow and gentle, seemingly caught up in an age of assumed innocence and preferred isolation. With only a smattering of the gentility of the South to grace its society, it would be readily evident to any visitor that Carsons Cove was not on par with one of the more metropolitan areas like Savannah or Atlanta. It might well have been considered rather basic by some standards. But neither was it such a place where one would expect to discover dark, elaborate, and deadly secrets hidden, smoldering just beneath the surface, secrets interlaced into the network and the fiber of the community so that tragedy and titillation had almost equal impact. In such a close-knit setting, the casual visitor would hardly suspect the level of hurt and the depth of deception that were part and parcel of the very fabric of day-to-day living.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 25, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984542625

Book preview

PROLOGUE

I N THOSE LAST twenty years preceding the War Between the States, life in Southern Georgia was slow and gentle, seemingly caught up in an age of assumed innocence and preferred isolation.

With only a smattering of the gentility of the South to grace its society, it would be readily evident to any visitor that Carson’s Cove was not on par with one of the more metropolitan areas like Savannah or Atlanta. It might well have been considered rather basic by some standards. But neither was it such a place where one would expect to discover dark, elaborate, and deadly secrets hidden, smoldering just beneath the surface, secrets interlaced into the network and the fiber of the community so that tragedy and titillation had almost equal impact. In such a close-knit setting, the casual visitor would hardly suspect the level of hurt and the depth of deception that were part and parcel of the very fabric of day-to-day living.

This area known to the locals as simply the Cove, sprawled out across forty square miles of low rolling hills of red clay, mostly farmland, which was snuggled up against the west bank of Sweet Water Creek. It was bounded on the south by the wilderness territory of Florida, and on the north, it was garrisoned by a big cypress swamp. The creek made a long lazy sweep to the east, and in some ancient age, floods had deposited rich farm soil along the flatter lands by the banks.

Almost dead center between the territory and the swamp, on the west bank of the creek, sat the little settlement originally called, for obvious reasons, Indian Crossing. The creek was broad and shallow there, and had been used for many generations of Native Americans as the best place to ford the stream for ten miles in either direction.

It was the custom of most of the inhabitants of the immediate area around Carson’s Cove, to regularly attend Sunday services, every other Sunday, at the meetinghouse.

The Baptist Church met on fourth Sundays of the month and the Methodist Church gathered on second Sundays. Both congregations faithfully met, once a month, on their appointed dates, in the same modest wood frame building that also doubled as a schoolhouse and a meeting hall. It had once been whitewashed, but that was long ago.

Although no member of either congregation would ever actually consider officially joining the other, almost everybody would attend both services. That way they could meet their spiritual needs and, in decent weather, enjoy a social event with a fine meal, jointly spread, right there on the church grounds. It was in this way that they could readily greet their neighbors and catch up on the news of the area—and the younger folks could begin the pairing off for the courting routine that was such an exciting part of their young lives.

This combining of congregations was also helpful because most often they, together, could take up an offering suitable to pay the circuit-riding preachers. The meager cash offering usually was augmented with bushels of corn or sides of meat or offerings of eggs, all of which the ministers thankfully and rightfully received as being a provision of the Almighty through his people.

PART I

CHAPTER 1

Eli

1844

E LI HAD NEVER before even thought about shooting at a man and could hardly imagine bringing himself to intentionally shoot to kill anyone who was not a threat to him or his. He lay awake at night, wondering what he was getting himself into, that is, if he really did carry out the act. It would solve several problems for him, no doubt. Of course, it would create a whole new Pandora’s box of even larger problems if he was discovered.

With a large portion of the night gone and with several half thought-out plans meandering about in his semiconscious, he fitfully slept.

Eli was awakened by the sounds of his mother preparing breakfast for his father and him. It was a gentle, pleasant sound as she stirred the fire in the stove and generally repeated the well-worn routine of the day. Eli could almost trace her movements in the kitchen by the quiet, familiar sounds.

Now she was sifting flour for the biscuits. There! She was pouring water into the pan to rinse the grits that had been soaking all night. Again, he heard the snick, snick, snick of the blade of her butcher knife meeting the hickory cutting board, as she carved thick slices of bacon from the side meat that he had brought in from the smokehouse just the evening before. Indeed it was a good life, he thought to himself, while he tugged on his well-worn brogans.

Just the day before, Eli attended the worship services with his ma and pa, and the words of the preacher still echoed in his mind.

Thou shalt not—! thundered the Baptist pastor, and he went on to enumerate enough glaring sins to condemn most of the Cove. Yet Eli himself was contemplating the taking of another man’s life for the sole purpose of personal gain. It was true that he had not firmly decided to do this evil, but the fact that he even thought it was scary to him.

In his mind, Eli began counting those that had been in attendance; the Parkers were there, and his cousin Thaddeus and his wife. The Cannell family, and of course there was Mr. Robert Blythe and his household. Eli’s counting was interrupted as his mind wandered over what he knew of Mr. Blythe.

Blythe was a member of the Methodist congregation and was also known as the most prominent man in the whole area. He had inherited most of his land from his daddy, locally known simply as ol’ man George. His holdings included the entirety of what many supposed was the prettiest spring-fed, clear-water lake in all of South Georgia. The outflow of the lake made its way downward along a twisting course, named by Mr. Blythe simply the Run. It was the source of power for his sawmill and eventually melded its waters with Sweet Water Creek.

This, along with eight hundred acres of corn, cotton, and tobacco and more slaves than anybody else in Carson’s Cove, made up the majority of his holdings. Moreover, his was the only sawmill for twenty-five miles.

Blythe had built up his holdings considerably from the original bequeathal and was generally considered to be a good man, an asset to the whole area.

A sense of dread came over Eli as he thought, Is it worth it? To kill such a man as that would be a major reason for a hanging, my hanging! He went back to running through what he knew of Robert Blythe, searching for any thread upon which to hang a valid reason to do away with him.

About fifteen years prior, right soon after his departed daddy’s old home place burned down, he had built back one of the finest houses in the county. He had married soon after it was completed. Sometime around ten years later, his first wife died in childbirth, and their only child, a baby girl, an hour or two later.

Robert had subsequently remarried in 1842, two years after the death of his first wife. His new bride, at eighteen, was nearly twenty years his junior. Young Mrs. Blythe was allowed to promptly rename the Blythe holdings from being referred to as simply the Big House, to the more elegant-sounding Hawk’s Rise. This was done partly to satisfy her poetic senses and partly in order to help her feel more established in her rightful place as the new mistress of the plantation.

In their first tour of the Blythe holdings, Robert drove around the vast grounds and pointed out to her various points of interest on the place.

Just so you’ll know what and where I am talking about when I speak of the places around the Big—excuse me, he said in a half-mocking tone, and tipped his hat while smiling at his wife, the places around Hawk’s Rise.

There stands the sugar shelter, he said as he pointed toward it. And the cane mill right beside it, and just beyond is a white oak that my daddy set out as a sapling way back about the time I was born, I reckon, and of course this here is the barn and stables. If you stand up in the wagon and look right down beside the lake all the way back, you can see the roof of the sawmill. Then this here crumbly old well curb was the one that furnished water for the original house, the one that burnt down. I have been meaning to have it filled in but just ain’t got to it yet. It has been abandoned for years.

It looks dangerous, she interjected, all crumbly and falling apart like that.

Yeah, it really is—that’s why I have told all the hands to stay away from it. Right there is the old fell-down chimneys from the old house. When it burnt, it ruined them bricks and they just weren’t worth moving. They are like that old well curbing, soft and crumbly, useless.

The tour continued down to the hands’ quarters, which were about the saddest excuse of someplace to live she thought she ever saw, but she held her opinion to herself. Then the hog pens, which they viewed from a distance, and Cynthia was glad. Even as far away as they were, she could still get an occasional whiff of the odor of that place.

The corncrib was next on the circuit, large and well filled; it furnished grain for the animals and for the people, black and white, producing meal and grits mostly. The tour took in a few more highlights and finally ended up about where it started, and Cynthia was impressed with the magnitude of the plantation.

It was around that time that some of the folks were even beginning to call the little settlement by the ford in the creek Blythe Town Crossing or Blytheton Crossing, as most folks now referred to it. That slight slurring of the words seemed to fit the Southern tongue most comfortably.

PART I

CHAPTER 2

Eli

1844

O N THIS PARTICULAR Monday, the day had started out as just one more sunrise in the life of Eli Jacobs, farmer’s son, and part-time sawmill hand. The waterwheel was running smoothly and the logs were not as large as they had been. It required less of a fellow’s strength to manhandle them into place for the actual sawing process using the cant-hook, known by its brand name as the Peavey. It was good to have a job that paid cash money. Thankfully, the little settlement perched on the side of the creek was growing, and folks were in need of timbers and planking at a steady rate.

Mr. Blythe, the mill’s owner, was a fair man after all, and not too hard to work for. He paid a half dollar a day in silver or gold coin, none of this new paper stuff. And that was for only twelve hours work—and a man had a half hour for his noon meal.

On top of all the other benefits of working at the sawmill, Eli thought to himself, getting a chance to just get a look at his boss’s new young wife was sure enough on the credit side of the ledger. On the days when she came down to the mill, it was almost worth working that day for free, just for the chance of seeing her again.

She was sort of on the small side, and he had always thought he preferred his women with some heft to ’em, but that all changed one day in late spring.

Cynthia, Mrs. Blythe, came out to the mill to see her husband that day, wearing a light blue-print sundress. Her high-yellow slave girl had a picnic basket in the buggy, all loaded with noon meal preparations, and immediately, Cynthia instructed the girl to busy herself spreading their fixings.

Lou, spread the blanket beneath that big pin oak tree, there, beside the mill pond.

The selection of that particular site was due not only to the shade of the tree but the cooling effect of the breeze that wafted through the gentle spray splashing off the mill’s overshot waterwheel.

The very sound of her voice intermingled with the hushed gurgle of the water and an occasional squeak of the waterwheel was pleasant to Eli’s ears and created a nice harmony in his mind, as they combined with the visual display of her beauty.

None of the three in the picnic party realized or really cared that the selected spot was right below the ventilation window on the saw deck.

Eli had an elevated perch, and from the darker recesses of the mill house, he could look right down through the small opening in the leaves of the big pin oak tree and onto the little group gathered there on that warm spring day.

As he surveyed the scene below, his eye was first was drawn to the slave girl. He had heard Cynthia call her, Lou. She was a tall, good-looking gal.

Most likely from the islands of the Indies, he guessed. Her very light skin and small facial features set her apart from the majority. He estimated she was just a year or so past full grown and, he thought, she was no doubt much appreciated by the young bucks back at the plantation. Her feminine shape could be clearly seen outlined through the thin frock that practically all slave women wore in the warmer days of South Georgia. His mind toyed with the idea of taking pleasure with her.

Big ideas! he thought, when he alone knew the truth. In his whole life there was but that one time with Susie Blackmon when she was fifteen and he was sixteen, but in his mind and according to his way of thinking, that was just curious children playing at being grown-up.

Darlene, his cousin twice removed, was the first full-grown woman by whom he had really ever been tempted and only a few times at that. But every one of those times of flirting last summer was certainly vivid in his memory. Eli’s first cousin Thaddeus was older than Eli’s own ma by a year or two and was Darlene’s pa, and like most of the rest of the South, he was not a slave owner. He tilled most of his eighty acres with whatever help he could swap out for. Sometimes in good season, he might even hire a few hands for a week or so. They were not dirt poor, nor were they rich plantation owners. They were, like the vast majority of the area, salt of the earth type folks.

Thaddeus and his wife Polly were hardworking and were known as pillars of the community. They took their place in the congregation of the Baptist Church seriously and did what they could to live up to its standards. Their grown daughter, however, was of an entirely different makeup.

It was into this setting that Eli had arrived, late the summer before, to help his mother’s nephew to break corn and pull fodder for the winter. He was more than a little surprised that it didn’t take Darlene long to decide to introduce her distant cousin to the wiles of flirting.

Darlene was a very shapely figure of a young woman, tall and narrow of waist, with naturally curly hair that was colored like spun copper, and a fair complexion with just a smattering of freckles that only served to set off the sparkle of her green eyes.

She is certainly not plain, but not a knock-your-eye-out beauty like Cynthia either, he mused.

During his few days’ stay, she had shared many things with him, not the least of which were her tales of her involvement with a drummer from over near Savannah that she said had jilted her. Eli wasn’t too sure which part, if any, of her stories were true, but after a pledge of silence on Eli’s part, she told him, Mitchell, the drummer, used come through every month or so and sell bolts of broadcloth and sewing notions to the dry goods stores. He promised me that he would be coming back in the fall of ’42 and we would run off and get married.

She was only about nineteen at that time, Eli figured, and easily fell prey to his salesman’s smoothness, and according to her, she was taken in by his glib talk. She told Eli that she would slip out of the house in the wee early hours every time he was in town, and for three or four nights in a row, she would share part of the night with him.

She had become somewhat experienced in the ways of a man with a maid, and once it became clear that her drummer wasn’t coming back for her, she began, very discreetly, to seek out another upon which to practice her exciting new expertise.

These secrets were only a part of what she shared with Eli on those hot nights last summer. He assumed that if it was true, he was the only human being in the world, apart from her and this Mitchell, who knew the particulars of this part of her life. Not even her ma would have been party to her disappointment. And for sure, her pa never knew, or he would have sent her packing to live with some aunt or the other in some faraway town so that he would not have to share his roof with a loose woman, even if that woman was his own daughter.

All this was yet unknown to Eli that first morning, well before daybreak, as he sat at the candlelit breakfast table, in the kitchen room.

It was common practice that the kitchens were built separate from the main house because of the inherent danger of fire and the oppressive heat built up in the summertime. Also for the sake of lighting no more lamps or candles than necessary for the pre-dawn mealtime, the family gathered in the kitchen for breakfast. This small building was connected to the main house only by a narrow wooden walkway about thirty feet long, raised up to floor level on small pilings. This walk was known as a dog trot to the ordinary folk, but in the bigger plantation houses, it was usually a brick path called the whistler’s walk, so named for the whistling that the slave boys were forced to do as they carried the meals from the remote kitchens to the Big House dining room. This whistling served two purposes: the family gathered around the table could tell when the next course was on time, and the head cook could ensure that the servants did not sample the master’s food along the way.

On this morning, Eli had chosen the young ’uns’ bench under the open window. The wooden shutter, having been tied back, admitted the early morning air. This seated him facing the room, with the darkness of the early morning at his back. Besides the full-length bench, the homemade cypress table also had four ladder-back chairs. Cousin Thad was seated at the left end of the table in one of those chairs, half turned away, head down, reading his Bible aloud by the light of the candles, as was his daily custom. Polly was standing to Eli’s far right with her back to the room, tending the cooking on the stove, by the light of a whale-oil lamp, and listening to Thad read.

Darlene came down the dog trot and into the room, still dressed in her nightgown and dressing robe, and passed behind her father, patting him on the head as her normal signal of recognition, to which he grunted in reply, without looking up, and hardly missed a word of his reading. Eli was seated on the end of the bench nearest to Thad, and Darlene had to squeeze between him and the open window to take a seat beside him on the bench. In so doing, she took a great deal of pleasure in letting the dressing robe fall open and making sure that her ample body, hardly covered by the thin cotton gown, caressed the back of his head and neck. She even paused ever so slightly while in contact with the back of his head and wiggled a little, just for the fun of it.

The next morning, the little scene was repeated but this time Eli had his right hand up over his shoulder, and when she again caressed the nape of his neck, she found his hand waiting. He gently squeezed and was a little surprised that she did not slap him or cry out, but rather, she put both her hands on the sides of his head and pressed with the heels of both palms, as if she would squeeze them into his ears. This whole enactment lasted no more than a few seconds, and she took her place beside him at the table.

Not a word passed between them lest they interrupt the reading, but Darlene, seated beside Eli on the bench, with the table between her and either of her parents, boldly sat so that her leg touched Eli’s right thigh.

He almost lost his breath. He turned a bit to look at her, and she just smiled and ever so slightly shook her head in a warning not to make a sound, placed both elbows on the table, and cupped her chin in her hands, pretending to listen to the reading of the scriptures. In just a moment following this, she pursed her lips at him and continued to move her leg up and down very slightly. She was fully aware of the effect it was having on him but did not look at him again. She just smiled and continued with her teasing. Thankfully, breakfast was a little longer that morning so that he did not have to stand up before he was ready.

During his stay, Eli slept in the barn, up in the hayloft, on a big blanket pallet atop some fluffed-up hay. The second night, after the little escapade at the breakfast table, Darlene awakened him around midnight, by gently whispering his name. When he roused, she placed a finger over his lips and quietly sounded the universal warning, "Ssshhh" even though the closest ones to overhear were more than fifty yards away in the house, and fast asleep.

I just figured you might want some company out here all by yourself like this, she said in a low whisper. Can I sit down here beside you and talk for a while?

I reckon so, was his only reply, not knowing what to expect, but somewhat suspicious of this girl cousin and her teasing pranks.

They had talked for only a few minutes about mostly nothing before Darlene said, It’s mighty pretty up here, to be able to lie here and look out of the loft door at the moon and the stars like you do. It is powerful warm in the house though, even with the windows open. You really don’t mind if I interrupt your sleep while I cool off a bit?

Not having a clue as to what was coming next he said, Sure, why not?

He could clearly make out her silhouetted form against the pale moonlight filtering through the loft door. Her copper tresses and creamy white skin were almost more than he could take in. She quickly knelt beside him and kissed him, like he had never had anyone to do before.

As his blood began to heat up, he reached out and grasped for her and was somewhat emboldened by her not immediately drawing away. And he noticed, at that moment, very briefly, she smelled as if she had just come from her bath, with the faint aroma of lilac-scented homemade soap still lingering on her skin.

He was on fire, but having had such limited experience, he was very unsure of what to do next. But she took control and moved away from him slightly, and before long, the moment was over. He had heard about this thing known as pleasuring, but now he understood better why it was so named. The event so long ago with Susie had been exciting, but it was nothing to compare with this.

She stayed with him an hour or so as they both just enjoyed the flirting with one another. They even found time for some conversation. He felt the freedom to ask questions and she was more than willing to share from her rather limited firsthand knowledge.

After a while, she stood and straightened the nightgown, kissed him lightly once more, climbed quickly down the ladder, and slipped out of the barn. He watched from the open loft door, as she circled around in the moonlight behind the sugar shelter and came to the path to the outhouse. In case she had been missed in the house, it would appear that she had just made a necessary moonlight trip to the privy.

This scene, with several variations was played out five or six times during his stay. He learned a lot and was a quick study. The two of them hardly spoke during the day, when her folks were around, but the nights together in the hayloft were almost unbelievable, even as he thought back on them later.

Besides those brief interludes with Darlene, there was only that one other time, this past February. He had spent most of an afternoon with the Widow Landers, who used to live