The Inheritance (Chapter Five to, "The Last Plantation")

Chapter Five

The Inheritance
(Part of: “The Last Plantation” Chapters)



(1962) Amos, and Josh are sitting with Minnie Mae, out by her shanty, in back of the barn on the Wallace Plantation, Amos playing the banjo, and Josh drinking a large glass of something, it looks like beer, but he usually drinks beer with moonshine in it, so I’d bet that is what is in that large wooden cup of his. Burgundy, she is dancing wildly around the bonfire trying to catch the sparks as they drift off the burning wood and into the air, as if she’s possessed with a voodoo demon; her family does have an ounce or two of Haitian blood in them, and therefore, she has something on that order likewise in her blood, and so it has been said, but not on these three plantations, the Wallace’s, Stanley’s and Abernathy’s.

(Morning the next Day) Frank Wallace is sitting in a chair on the patio reading a letter he got in the morning mail from a lawyer. Burgundy Washington is in town taking care of some personal business, along with documenting her child’s official name. Henry Thompson is her lawyer’s name, Burgundy’s lawyer’s name (the child’s official name is: Otis Pity Wallace Washington).

The letter to Frank Wallace, reads: “To Whom It May Concern: one third of the Wallace Plantation, the portion that belongs to Wally Wallace, and all the bank accounts thereof, under the name of Wally Wallace has been given to his unborn son, to be distributed as needed through the Ritt Bank, and by way of Burgundy Washington, the mother of the unborn Wallace child. This is my will, Wally Wallace (singed Wally Wallace, and witnessed by Henry Thompson, and Albert Lee Ritt Sir., 1961).”
Frank’s lip quivered as he read the letter, his head bobbed back and forth: ‘What in the world has my brother done,’ he muttered aloud. Matter of fact, Frank was so upset he couldn’t talk near inclined to have a stroke, or choke to death over this letter. ‘What was he thinking with this witch, or she-devil?’ (The property was in the family since the 1820s, the land bought by Anthony Wallace II, and the plantation mansion completed finished in the 1870s by his father, Anthony Wallace IIl).
Frank’s eyes popped out, almost all the way out of its sockets, rereading, and rereading the letter, over and over, hoping I suppose he was reading it wrong, but he wasn’t, he was reading word for word, perfectly.
Frank than got up, walked into the living room, and into the dinning room, paced a bit, then went to the long wooden cabinet, a mirror above it, an old mantel clock on it, a thin drawer near the clock, he opened the drawer, a pistol was there, he looked at it, where it lay, left the drawer open, and paced again, then shut the drawer hard.
“Hell with it, give it to her,” he muttered, “let her have it!”

That night Frank went to talk to Cole Abernathy, two plantations down the road, looking for someone to take his side, brought his checker set with him, some moonshine he bought from Amos, Mrs. Stanley’s plantation hand, Langdon, his boy was upstairs getting ready for bed, and Caroline Abernathy was tidying up a bit.
“I got to give away one third of my land to this nigger she-wolf,” he told Cole, in a bitter anger voice.
“That’s because your brother was—for once in his life, responsible for someone who he left behind, he should have kept his item where it belonged, zipped tightly in his pants.”
Frank took it as an insult, even though it reek with truth, he figured this was his last communication with Cole, there was no sympathy in him, and he abruptly stood up, grabbed his checker board and stormed out of the Abernathy mansion.

The Funeral

Frank, and Amos James Boston Tucker, along with Minnie Mae, and Josh (from the Abernathy Plantation Josh Jefferson Jr., born 1890), attended the funeral, a plot of land set aside for the family cemetery behind the barn, and Minnie’s shanty. Burgundy was also present, and Mr. and Mrs. Stanley; the Abernathy’s were not invited and Abbey was not there either, the sister to Wally, (she was born in 1905, the youngest of the three children), she was visiting relative is Ozark, Alabama. There was no preacher present, and Frank and Amos lowered Wally into a grave next to his mother and father (Gertrude Wallace, wife to Anthony, born 1860) (and Anthony Wallace III (Husband to Gertrude, born 1855, He built the Wallace Mansion, or completed).