The future seems to hold limited possibilities for Son Erby. The African-American child of a farm laborer in 1930s Tennessee, his fate seems as certain as the sunset at day's end. But when his father takes him to work at the Coleman farm and hands down the secret to making corn liquor, everything changes.
Moving from the shaded parlors of the wealthy Sawyer clan to the illegal activities in the woods along the Mississippi river, this perceptive novel explores the roots of racism, and the dangerous power of secrets that will shatter every taboo in a sleepy little town caught between the past and the future. Beginning with Son's simple plan to make his fortune with illicit whiskey, and speeding toward an explosive climax that will expose the twisted roots of his family tree, The Legend of Quito Road is a look at a bygone time, the sobering echoes of which can still be heard today.
October 1860
Gillam Hale, a master distiller, a brewer of intoxicating spirits, lived his early life as a rare issue-free black man — one born to parents who were free. He now stumbled in the rain along a Mississippi River bluff trail between two white men on horses who had sought him for two years.
The band traveled slowly, just north of Memphis. Their course lay hidden to them, except during the frequent flashes of lightning. The horses acted as true guides. After the group rounded a bend, lightning spooked both horses and the rope around Gillam's neck jerked him forward. He tripped and fell hard to the muddy ground on his back.
"Wait, boss! Wait, bos...!" The lynch-man's noose muffled his cries. "Stop,Raford! You killing him!" Allen Sawyer,this venture's chief investor, shouted from the rear horse.
"Whoa, whoa boy." His red-haired business partner pulled the lead horse to a stop and looked back.
Sawyer jumped to the ground and tried to loosen the rope's hold on Gillam's neck. It was attached to the saddle horn of the surgically impaired male horse his partner chose to ride because of its large size and complete willingness to comply with his every command. "Damn you, Raford! He ain't worth a penny to us dead."
Raford Coleman spat out his reply: "He made just one damn batch since we bought him, so he ain't worth much to me!"
Gillam lay on his back in the cold mud. He thought, I'm valuable to Sawyer 'til he gets his money I took.
Sawyer eased the knot and, in an instant spark of lightning, looked in Gillam's face.Gillam feigned terror. The slaveholder's mistaken judgment at that moment equaled his error in Memphis's Auction Square two years earlier when he'd shouted the highest bid for the enslaved whiskey maker.
"Get up, Gillam!" Sawyer commanded.
Gillam tried to get on his feet but his hands were bound behind his back and he gripped something by which he could regain far more than his balance. As he fell back down, he remembered the words of his father,"Boy,be sure what you plant. Whiskey's the devil's seed. You reap what you sow."
Sawyer lifted Gillam to his feet, as Gillam laughed inside but put on an air of gloom. Sawyer removed his soaked hat, ran his hands through his blond hair and returned to his saddle. He wondered how his love for strong drink and gaiety had brought him to this miserable task.
Red-headed Raford jerked the rope again and kicked his big gelding forward.
Gillam felt the rope around his neck tighten again. The cord cut his wrists, but he smiled, hidden by darkness. Gillam Hale held no fear in his heart.
Three blasts from a distant riverboat's horn signaled another difficult journey on this cold October night. The rain slowed to a drizzle and the noise of the storm lessened. In his dominant left hand, the whiskey-making slave held a narrow shard of glass. He had fallen on it earlier when he slipped in the mud on a high bluff. He began to cut the rope the second Raford Coleman jerked him forward.
Gillam struggled to keep up with Coleman's horse.His muscles ached, but hope fueled him."Raford Coleman," he mumbled out of earshot of the white men, "when we get to the edge of the river, I'll fix it to where you never hunt a colored man again." The piece of glass sawed through the wet cord and Gillam waited.
The backwoods trail wound through dense woods until the narrow path overlooked the Mississippi River. Gillam freed his hands and maintained pressure on the rope as he removed it from his neck. "I's falling, boss! Boss, help me!" he screamed. He tumbled down the bank and pulled Raford and his horse with him.
"Nigger bastard!" Raford shouted.
Sawyer jumped from the saddle and strained to see. Gillam, Raford and his horse hit the muddy waters with a gigantic splash. The river swallowed all three. There was no sign of life.
The solitary blond slave owner stood alone with his skit-tish horse. "Raford! Raford! Raford!"Sawyer screamed."Raford Coleman! Rafe!" His horse attempted to pull away, but the wiry Sawyer held him fast."Raford!" Sawyer shouted again. If that Nigra's alive, he thought, the current'll take him downstream. He forgot his partner as he remembered the reason he had set out on this frightening night, his money. Sawyer swung back into his saddle and turned the mount downriver and southward toward Memphis.
His horse's hooves produced sucking noises that seemed loud in the sudden calm that followed the violent weather. Sawyer pulled his animal to a halt a short distance away and continued to scan the dark waters. He never heard a sound of anything alive. Only the noise of the river answered his silent prayers. The riverboat horn sounded repeatedly over the loud splashing from the paddle wheels of the nearby steamship. Another long, hard blast sounded just before a single human scream pierced the night. The tortured cry ceased and silence settled as the boat's wheel stopped churning.
Against the wind, Allen Sawyer shouted,"I wish I never got involved in this damn whiskey business."
From his hidden place at the river's edge, a shivering Gillam Hale agreed.
December 1932
Gillam Hale's son, Gill Erby, sat in the front wagon seat during the family's weekly ride to town.
Gill reflected on his age of sixty years and turned to look down at his thirty-four-year-old wife.He surveyed her small features and freckled nose,the only blemishes on her light-skinned body. She was, by blood, barely a Negro, but, in the world Gill Erby knew,you were either a Negro or you were not.Sarah Erby was a Negro and he was glad she was. Her straight black hair was tied into a neat ball under her simple bonnet. Everything about her was delicate, from the tips of her toes and fingers to her fine eyelashes. As he watched, a single sturdy leg, covered by a thick cotton stocking, slid from beneath her flowing skirt. The thickness of her calves reminded him of her inner strength.
For Gill, she was a beautiful sight to see, easy on the eyes, some would say, even after years of looking at her. Gill suppressed a smile that he could call such a beautiful woman his own.
Sarah Erby had looked like a baby when he first brought her home in a wagon pulled by his young mules, Dick and Dan. She turned eighteen just before Gill married her after his first wife died in childbirth and left him with a houseful of kids. Sarah still called him Mr.Erby; he simply referred to her as Baby.
He visualized the faces of each of his twelve children. His previous marriage produced six of his offspring and his current marriage to Sarah brought the other six to the world.Four of those children, all boys, had died. Gill Erby clearly remembered their faces. A boy's death meant one less male child to carry on the family name. The loss of a son stole a pair of strong hands that would never guide a plow through the soil. The pain only the death of a child brings troubled this man.
Everything about him spoke strength, his muscled arms and thick fingers. All who knew him witnessed that he was a good man, a steward at the local Pleasant Grove Colored Methodist Episcopal Church. Gill Erby, however, possessed skills church folks ought not to use.
"Haw, get up there!" he yelled and slapped the reins. The team turned onto Quito Road toward Lucy, Tennessee. Gill looked down on the animals' backs as they pulled the family wagon."Whoa, Dan!"
The mules appeared identical, but Dan was as mean as Dick was gentle. Nothing Gill tried changed Ole Dan. It cost too much to replace a mule, so this beast occupied a major part of his daily struggle to feed his large family and survive in a world not friendly to sharecroppers, especially one with black skin.
Sarah and three of Gill's daughters sat in the back of the wagon."Son,"...
