"Son Of The Red Earth" is based on a story told to me in 1967. The story centers around the life of young Jorney Wilson. Starting in the early 1930s, Jorney's story is about the harsh reality of living with an alcoholic, abusive father and his struggle to keep skin and bones together for the both of them. Sold off to a neighboring farmer for the sum of fifty dollars, Jorney vows not to take another beating. He finds he has to fight back to keep that very thing from happening. With Silas Baldwin down on the ground and maybe dead, Jorney flees to a life of running and hiding, always just one step ahead of the law. From working for the Civilian Conservation Corps (C.C.C.) to running moonshine whisky, Jorney finds a way to get by and makes some lasting friendships along the way. When he finds the girl of his dreams, it seems everything is going to work out alright after all. But then Carl Betterman of the Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BOCI) manages to capture him with a truck load of moonshine whisky. When he finds himself on trial for murder, the darkest days of his young life are ahead of him. Jorney Wilson was truly born of the red earth, thus the title of this book. Follow him as he tries to make a life for himself and find justice and vindication for a crime he didn't commit. Share his adventures as he roams the countryside and helps make history in the young and growing state of Oklahoma. Sit with him in the dark cells of the Atoka County Jail as he awaits his trial for murder. Live with him as he fights to be free as a "Son of the Red Earth".

Son Of The Red Earth

By Ted L. Pittman

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2010 Ted L. Pittman
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4490-7481-4

Contents

Part One: The Beating..................................1Part Two: On The Run...................................11Part Three: Working For The C.C.C......................63Part Four: A New Place, A New Name.....................83Part Five: Blackmail...................................103Part Six: Moonshine....................................127Part Seven: The Trial..................................177Part Eight: The Verdict................................271Part Nine: Starting Over...............................287

Chapter One

The Beating

Boggy Depot was a shell of what it had been in its heyday. The General Store served the rural population and the farmers and ranchers of the area. Hardly anybody lived in town anymore. Atoka had taken over as the County seat of Atoka County some years earlier, leaving Boggy Depot as more or less a memory of better times. Still, it was a place to get supplies and maybe learn a little news at the same time. Often the newspapers lying on the table by the door of the store were a week or more old, but it was the latest news available. Atoka County Sheriff, Bill Reynolds, preferred to live in Boggy Depot rather than Atoka. He was close enough to respond to an emergency if needed, but far enough away to not have to deal with the little petty details that came up on a daily basis. He let his deputy take care of those. Besides, he was closer to Maize than if he lived in Atoka. Maize was just about the only good thing in his life. What he did to Budrow still bothered him at times. Mostly just when he saw Maize's and Budrow's kids looking at him with those big eyes. He hadn't really meant for it to happen, things just kind of got out of hand. After it was over, he loaded Budrow's body up in the trunk of the car and hauled it all the way over into Johnston County. He unloaded the body in front of the Blue River Bar and drove back to Boggy Depot. He made a big show of trying to solve the case, but nobody blamed him when he nally gave up. There was just no evidence at all. Most everybody gured Budrow was just hanging out with the rough crowd that frequented the Blue River Bar and got himself killed. The fact that Budrow never drank, didn't come into the picture at all.

He ran across Budrow coming out of the gate leading up to old man Maxwell's place leading a black and white calf just after dark that day. He stopped the car and was going to ask Budrow about the calf when Budrow took off running. He caught up to him down by the creek and managed to hit him a pretty good lick over the head with his billy club to stop him. Looked like a clear case of Budrow getting caught stealing a calf from old man Maxwell. He handcuffed Budrow where he lay on the ground and walked back to get the car. When he got back a few minutes later, he couldn't get any response at all from him. It appeared he had hit him harder than he thought. He panicked and loaded Budrow in the trunk of the car and started driving. When he got out of the county, he remembered the Blue River Bar. There had been several killings at the Blue River Bar the last few years; one more wasn't likely to cause much alarm. He dumped Budrow's body in the yard out front of the bar and headed back to Boggy Depot.

During the course of the investigation, he spent quite a bit of time over at Maize's just acting like he was working on trying to solve the case. He started taking her a few groceries every time he went out, and sometimes something for the kids. He felt sorry for the kids. He hadn't meant to kill their father, it had just happened. When he learned that old man Maxwell had given Budrow the calf in exchange for plowing up some land for him, he was just sick. Why had Budrow ran when he approached him? He hadn't done anything wrong. Maize figured Budrow had just panicked when he saw the Sheriff's car stop and start backing toward him. If you was a colored man and from Mississippi, you was just naturally a little scared of the law.

Even after the case had officially been closed, Sheriff Bill would still go by every few days and check on Maize and the kids. One thing led to another, and before long, he was sharing her bed. That's the way it had been for the last two years, and Sheriff Bill was contented for it to stay that way.

Sheriff Bill was headed out to see Maize when he spotted young Jorney Wilson headed into town with a basket of eggs. Sure was a shame that boy having to work like he did and not have a decent thing to wear or even shoes on his feet. Old man Wilson was a lazy drunkard and didn't deserve a boy like Jorney. Maize told him about the times Jorney had come to her place after his old man had whipped him to get her to doctor him up with ointment. He had seen Jorney all over the county working for first one then the other just trying to put a little food on the table. Bill didn't figure Jorney to be more than thirteen or fourteen years old. His Ma had been a good woman, but the work had made her old before her time. When she caught the flu about three years back, she just wasn't in good enough health to fight it off. Bill made sure the girl, Francis was her name, didn't have to stay on the place after her Ma died. He wouldn't have trusted old Bodie Wilson to do right by her. He talked Preacher John and Aunt Emily into taking her in. It might not be the best situation in the world, but it was much better than staying on the farm. He wished there was something he could do to help out Jorney's situation. Right now, he just couldn't think of what that might be.

I burrowed down into the corn shucks until my tortured body came in contact with the rough boards that made up the bottom of the corn crib. This was the worst beating the old man had given me since Ma died three years ago. I had fought him off as best I could, but his strength and size had finally gotten the better of me. When he had finally fallen down in a drunken stupor, I made my way to this corn crib. I could hear him hollering for me for awhile, then silence. I knew, without looking, that he had fallen into an alcohol induced sleep that would likely last up into the next day. I had to get to a better place. A place where I could get some medicine of some kind for the raw flesh that enclosed my body. The heavy rawhide strap had done its job on my back and legs. They would need a good cleaning and a covering with some kind of ointment to ward off the infection, and the sooner the better. But right now, all I could think of was lying in those corn shucks and riding out the waves of pain that racked my beaten body.

It had never been like what I thought a family should be. At least not like any family I knew or had ever heard of. The old man had always been one to pull out the strap too quickly for the smallest infractions, but after Ma passed away, he just got worse and worse. My older sister Francis moved in with Preacher John and Emily, "Aunt Emily" was what everybody called her, shortly after Ma died. I was thankful for that, though I heard she was little more than a maid to the preacher's family.

About a year ago, it started getting to be about more than I could handle. The old man didn't seem to want to do any work at all, and the little money I could come by selling eggs to the General Store over in Boggy Depot and hiring out to first one and then the other for odd jobs, didn't go very far when it come to buying vittles for us. I had taken to hiding what little money I could come by to...