Mayhem in the Countryside (1893, North Carolina; a short sketch)

Mayhem in the Countryside (continueation from "The Last Plantaion")
Elmer Abernathy’s Story
(1893, North Carolina)


The First house, the very first house, that really didn’t look like a house, ever to sit on the Abernathy plantation property, was a shack with two rooms, and one room had a stove you fed with wood, that was back in 1853, when Elmer Abernathy was born, built by Aston Cole Abernathy (born 1771, died 1855), he built that shack in 1803, he would be Langdon’s Great, Great Grandfather. Thereafter, Elmer, married a woman twice his age, and had a child by her, she named the child Alex, born in 1879, then she ran off, a drunk with a drunk, and he, Elmer, the Great Grandfather to Langdon Abernathy, got his divorce, and he married a good woman named Elsie, gave her, her new name, Abernathy, and in 1882, she gave him a son they named Justin C. Abernathy, the ‘C’ for Cole, Langdon’s Grandfather the one who fought in WWI, the Corporal, he died in 1947.
Elmer’s father, Aston, came over from Europe in the late 1790s, bought the land around 1803, and little by little, Aston Cole Abernathy cleared the rocky land, died in 1855 of a heart attack they say, at the ripe old age of eighty-four.
Elmer was born in that little shack, so Langdon’s father would tell him, Cole Abernathy the only one not born in it would be Langdon, I mean Elmer, Justin and Cole were all born in it, but Langdon, he was born in the city hospital, of all places, down in Fayetteville, North Carolina, twenty-one miles outside the city, and brought to the plantation three days after his birth. Caroline, his mother, told Cole, her husband “This thing you call a traditional birth, that you call a right to those in your family to have it in this plantation house, that has become in itself your family roots, is for the birds, nowadays, they got hospitals for us humans, and plus, I’m having the baby not you.”
And thus, that put a stop to the tradition. Although Cole’s brother, Chris, didn’t like it, but he wasn’t married to Caroline, Cole told him. So the insisting stopped pretty abruptly. Her recovery was quick for the most part, because Caroline was a strong woman, and needed very little recuperation time; she was home in a matter of days.

Getting back with Elmer Abernathy, Langdon’s Great Grandfather, his fate was to die ungracefully, if not pointlessly, by a nobody, unfortunately. Elsie was twenty-two years old when they met, of good stock, European stock when they married. And he ended up being the one responsible for taking that little shack and building it into a full plantation house, with twelve-rooms, of which five were bedrooms. He seldom left his land, and plantation house, only to get what he needed for building more on to it, or fences and a barn, or seed for planting, he left the rest of the chores for his working men, and his wife, and their children: Alex (born 1879) and Justin C. Abernathy (born 1882); but Alex turned out to be rather lazy.
He, Elmer, never went to war, nor church, yet he was a godly man in many ways, not too romantic, but he loved his wife in a flat emotional way, and ended up being a good provider.
It was in 1893, the railroad was laying track beyond the hill, that is over beyond his fields, of which he had 400- acres of land, and beyond the edge of the hill down its slope which was the boarder line of his land, and state property, and a wooded area, and a little ways beyond that was where they were laying the track, and where some twenty-men, in tents and all were doing the labor; some black folks, Chinese and Irish.
At night it seemed some of these workers went off into the wooded area, shooting wild game half drunk, bringing back to their camp: dogs, wolves, deer and a few rabbits. And those who were too drunk to carry them back left the caucuses where they lay after they had shot them. Elmer was aware of this, and so he would walk his lands edge at night before he headed on back to his house, and go to bed; he had to make sure nobody was hanging around his land, that didn’t belong there.

Justin, was eleven years old, and Alex thirteen, in future time, Langdon’s Grandfather to be, he was well liked by his father, Elmer, and Alex, to the contrary, a mischievous, lazy good for nothing lad, a jealous kind of rate, snake in the grass, thin creature, an older brother that played rough with his younger brother. Alex’s eyes were bearable at times, but most of the times they were cat eyes, searching, not sure what for, but nevertheless searching, and spying on his half-brother, stepmother and father.
Alex was crude, and witted, cursed with his drunken mother’s malice mind, he’d often remain silent, in a daze, wept like a madman, and felt he could, if given the chance make everything different, so much so that his defiance went to action, a plan came into his mind, and night after night he put it together like sewing a patch on a jacket. He would be in charge of the family, yes indeed; he was going to take the issue up with the very person who caused the problem, his father. Now it happened to be a silent protest, but a few more steps in the right direction of thinking, it would be less than silent, the undisturbed plan would prevail.
He was a restless kind of kid, perhaps had too much time on his hands to think up such plans, but he did on July 2, 1893 come to the conclusion in the morning it would be implemented, his devious plan would be put into practice, and therefore, in the evening, he snuck out through his bedroom window, and up to where the railroad tracks were being laid, and talked to several men, and found two men that looked as if they were trouble makers, and he asked, “Do you carry a gun?”
The one called Clarence, the hairy one, said, “Now why would a boy your age care one way or another?”
“I want you to kill someone for me? I got $500-dollars, I will give you two hundred now, and the rest after you do the job.”
The men started laughing, and Alex pulled out his money, and then they stopped laughing, pulled the kid over behind a tree, “Who,” asked Clarence, “who do you want dead?”
“My father,” Alex replied.
“Your father, for heaven’s sake why?” asked Clarence’s friend, a puny little man of pale color, had looked like he drank himself into old age, he perhaps was only forty, and looked sixty.
“That’s my business,” remarked Alex, “are you for hire or not?”
“When do you want the job done, we’ll only be here a few more days?” announced Clarence.
“Tonight,” he said, but it was now twilight.
“You mean, right now?” said the pale looking guy.
“My father checks out the edge of his property every night to make sure you folks don’t cross over it, he’ll be over yonder there in a spell,” said Alex, anxious.
Clarence looked at his friend, they both nodded (both were temporary tramps hired for a week or two weeks work, drifters for the most part.

So the two men, and Alex hid behind some trees and bushes, waited for Elmer Abernathy just beyond the hill, on the edge of his property, and sure enough, at 10:30 PM sharp, he walked by. Clarence showed his face, and Elmer said, looking at the men, “You’re on private property, did you know that?”
“Yup!” said Clarence, his friend in back of him, and Alex hiding behind a tree.
“Well you best be getting off it before I talk to your foreman on the railroad, I’m sure youall work for them!” said Elmer with a curious look, it seemed he did a doubletalk on the tree Alex was hiding behind, he saw movement. And Clarence noticed, that Elmer noticed there was a tinge of movement in that direction.
“Someone else with you folks?” asked Elmer.
Clarence was kind of playful, and said, “Yup,” and if you guess who, I’ll give you the two-hundred dollars he gave me!”
Elmer was now confused, and Alex was sweating with embarrassment, and even held his breath.
“I aint got time for jokes or playing around, you and your friends get on off my property,” said Elmer, in a tone that made it sound as if it was final.
Next, Clarence pulled out his gun, put it up to Elmer’s head, it was a revolver, six shot, said “Your boy is behind that tree, he done paid us five-hundred dollars to kill you,” and then he yelled for the boy to come out, “come out here boy, and tell you dad it’s time to die!” But Alex remained hidden, sweating like a hog, and shaking like a rattlesnake ready to bite.
“You don’t believe me do yaw,” said Clarence; but somehow he, Elmer did believe him, because he knew how much money was in that candy jar, just five-hundred dollars, no more, and the killer knew, like he knew, the exact amount, but all he could do was shake his head, “Sorry,” said Clarence, but a job is a job,” and he pulled the trigger, blew a hole in his head as big as a silver dollar, and Elmer wobbled a bit, and fell like a three just cut from it base onto the ground, and you could hear the thump when he landed.
Next, Alex came running out, “I’m not paying you three-hundred dollars just for having fun with me,” and he turned around to walk away, and Clarence shot him in the back of the head, it hit him so hard, he fell flat on his face. After that, the pale man, his friend said, “We got to get out of town,” and rushed over to get the $300-remaining dollars from the boy’s pants pocket, he saw the boy put it in there, and he, Clarence, shot his friend the same way he shot Alex, and he took the five-hundred dollars, thereafter, and took the first freight train out of town.