Just as he was about to tell his men where he wanted them and that he did not want them to fire their weapons until they heard him fire first, a deep and unrecognizable voice came from out of the darkness behind them. The voice startled them and they wheeled from where they knelt by the stone wall, pointing their guns in the direction where the voice had come from. Despite being seasoned hunters, as well as experienced soldiers, they had not heard anyone approach them from behind.
“Six men, theys six men down there. Don’t shoot, boss, please don’t shoot! I ain’t with them white folks.”
With his pistol in his right hand, Francis crept closer to the large black man who was behind them. He was down on all fours watching the men around the campfire. “Them men dun stole dat there wagon a short time ago from a barn. I dun seen them do it. Boss, is dat your wagon theys dun stole?” Francis had to listen closely as the black man softly whispered to him, afraid of being heard by the men who had stolen the wagon. He also had to try and figure out some of the words this man used as he was difficult to understand at times.
Francis quickly learned from this man, whose name was Samuel, of a horrible incident he had witnessed. He told Francis that two days prior the six men had shown up at his master’s plantation about twenty miles northwest of Mary’s plantation. He described how he and the other slaves had been returning to their cabins after having worked in the fields until late in the afternoon. He then talked of hearing gunshots as he reached his cabin. Now crying as he described the incident, Samuel told of seeing the six men riding off after the shots had been fired within the plantation’s main house. He then described running up to the main house to investigate what the shooting was about and how he had found his wife dead on the kitchen floor. He had found her with her dress pulled up around her face. “They dun had their way with my wife and then dun killed her.” Samuel’s wife had been alone in the kitchen preparing dinner for the plantation owner and his family, who had been away visiting a sick friend that afternoon, when she had been attacked by the men.
Samuel also told Francis about tracking these men for the past two days. He had wanted to kill them for what they had done, but had feared killing the men even though he knew he would have been right to do so. Samuel knew a black man who killed a white man in the South would be quickly hung for doing so, no matter how justified he was.
Already enraged by the theft of the wagon, Francis now was raging with anger from the story he had been told. “Samuel, we will take care of these men. You stay here until we are done and then you can come down to where we are. You understand me?”
“Yes, boss. Thank you, suh.”
McKinney had crept up to where Francis and Samuel were kneeling on the ground. Now he questioned Samuel as to where the sixth man was as he could still not see him. Samuel pointed his finger towards another small stand of pine trees that were about seventy feet away from where the wagon was sitting. “Boss, sees him right there in them trees. Looks real close, boss, I think dat man is smoking a pipe or maybe it’s a cigar, buts I can sure smell dat tobacco.” McKinney now looked at the trees Samuel had pointed to. As he did, he could now make out the outline of the sixth man as he appeared to lean against a tree while smoking. As he watched the man Samuel had pointed out to him, he could now smell the tobacco being smoked.
“We’ll get that son of a bitch too!” Looking at Francis, McKinney told him he would take care of the soldier smoking in the tree line when they approached the stolen wagon. Francis nodded his approval to McKinney.
With his men deployed as he had instructed them, Francis now crawled closer and closer to the campfire, getting to within twenty feet of the wagon. Raising his rifle, his pistol secured in his waistband, he dropped the soldier closest to him with a shot to the soldier’s upper chest. The soldier who was shot had been sitting on a log near the fire and had not seen Francis until it was too late. As promised, McKinney snuck up on the sixth man and knocked him out with a savage blow to the back of the head from his rifle butt. In the brief chaos that followed, three of the men who had stolen the wagon were killed. The others were seriously wounded. All of them were soon determined to be Union deserters. When Francis had his men account for the six men they had first seen, they then realized one of the Union soldiers had gotten away in the confusion of the moment. Immediately they located a small trail of blood leading away from where the deserters had sat near the fire. It was obvious the missing soldier had been wounded during the exchange which had taken place. Francis quickly sent two of his men to search for the missing soldier.
Questioning the two deserters who were still alive, Francis learned they had jumped Sgt. Steele from behind and had stolen the wagon after they found it contained food they desperately needed. A quick check of the wagon determined none of the secret compartments had been tampered with.
By this time Samuel had come down to where Francis and his men stood with the two remaining deserters, cautiously he kept his distance from them. Seeing Samuel, Francis again spoke to the Union deserters. “You men have deserted your army, and you have stolen our wagon and our food. You have also crushed the skull of one of my men and I fear he shall soon die from his injury.” Pointing his finger at Samuel, Francis spoke again. “This man here has also told me that two days ago you killed his wife after you had your way with her. What have you to say about that?”
As expected both men quickly begged for their lives and pleaded for mercy, accusing their dead friends of both raping Samuel’s wife and for injuring Steele. “Captain, sir, we were just hungry, we just needed food. We ain’t hurt no one, it was them other fellas who done all that.” Francis scoffed at their responses.
As he finished questioning the two deserters, Sgts. Foster and Davis returned from looking for the injured soldier who had gotten away from them. “Captain, that Yankee soldier ain’t gonna be stealing food from anybody else in this here life.” Francis nodded to Foster that he understood what he had been told.
Following his orders, and despite their pleas for mercy, his men tied the hands of the two remaining Union deserters behind their backs and placed them on two horses. After selecting one of the pine trees present, two ropes were thrown over a sturdy limb of the tree and both ropes were tied to the base of the tree. Each of the other two ends of the ropes were quickly fastened into nooses and placed around the necks of the two deserters. Without saying a word, Francis then smacked the backsides of both horses and the two deserters were left dangly in the early morning air, soon to be dead from broken necks. “May God have mercy on each of these Yankee bastards!” There was no need for anyone to say anything else. It was the first hanging a couple of his men had ever witnessed. It would not be their last. For a slave who watched from off in the shadows, it was not the first hanging he had ever witnessed. It was the first time he had ever seen white men hung. It did not bring him any satisfaction or joy.
With the horses hitched to the wagon, Francis and his men made their way back to the Charles plantation. While he rode, Francis wondered what would have happened if they had not located the Union soldier who had gotten away. He knew that would have likely brought him a whole new host of problems. What he did not know was the dead Union soldiers would soon be found by other Union troops. That subsequent discovery would cause Union troops in the area to intensify their push south to cripple the Confederate cause.
Summer, 2011
9
The Discoveries Continue.
“Find out where your enemy is, get at him as soon as you can
and strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on.”
General Ulysses S. Grant, USA
The following morning Paul again put his boat into the river at the Wacca Wache Landing boat launch that he had used the previous day. As he did, he saw the only other people present were two elderly men who had just put their small aluminum fishing boat into the river. He was pleased no one else was in the area as
he did not want anyone asking him why he had a metal detector on his boat that morning.
After he made his way to where he had tied the boat up the previous day on the sand bar, Paul waited around for a few minutes before walking into the woods. He wanted to make sure no one else was around. Collecting his gear, he walked to where he had made his discovery the previous day, stopping only once to again make sure no one was watching him. After reaching the tree where he had found the soldier, he set the metal detector and the portable battery operated spotlight he had purchased at Wal-Mart on the ground. First he checked to make sure the bones and skull had remained as he had left them the previous day. After seeing they had not been moved, he carefully removed them from within the tree and placed them off to the side. After briefly taking the time to sweep away some leaves, and to make sure he had not missed anything the previous day, he went to work.
Grabbing the spotlight, Paul inched his way into the base of the tree so that his back rested on the large rock. In this position he could easily see up into the hollow Live Oak. After finally getting into position, he turned the Brunkman spotlight on. It lit up the interior of the tree so he could easily see the inside of it. The interior of the massive tree was easily almost four feet in diameter in places near the base of the tree. Lying there as he moved the spotlight from side to side within the tree, his first thought was about what he saw inside the tree. “There’s plenty of room in here for someone to hide if they wanted to.” As he continued to inspect the tree’s interior, he could not tell if the cavity had been caused by a deformity when the tree had grown or if it had been damaged by lighting, but he easily noticed the inside of the tree was significant in its size. He also noticed how rough and splintered the interior was. As his eyes scanned the now lit interior, they confirmed what he had been thinking about the tree’s interior. “Perhaps I was right yesterday; perhaps the rope and the clothing had gotten hung up on some of this splintered wood. If they had gotten caught it would explain, at least to some degree it would, why the clothing had remained in decent condition after all of these years.”
Paul’s eyes noticed other pieces of frayed and rotted rope still fastened to the tree’s interior. As he maneuvered his body up higher into the tree, he now looked closer at the frayed rope. “How on earth could someone have done this to make it stay here this long, especially when it’s so dark in here? Could someone really have done this when they were as injured as this soldier apparently was? Remarkable!”
Scanning the rest of the tree’s interior, his eyes only saw pieces of frayed rope and cloth fibers at first, but then, partially hidden by a small piece of frayed cloth, he noticed something else. It was something that was hanging above where the rope had been attached to the tree. Paul started to reach for it, but then stopped. Before he did anything else, he reached into the left front pocket of his denim cargo pants and pulled out his small Sony digital camera. “If I don’t take pictures of what I find, no one will ever believe that I found them inside of this tree.” Slowly moving his right arm above his shoulders, he took several pictures of the rope and cloth fibers still hanging from the tree’s interior. Somewhat blindly, he then took three additional pictures of the object hanging above his head. With that done, he now tried to get his right arm extended high enough to reach the object. At this point inside the tree the space diminished in size, but after two failed attempts to grab the object he finally succeeded.
Even before his eyes could tell him what the object was, his hand told him it now held a pocket watch. Slowly he crawled out of the tree to examine what he had just found. Sitting on the ground, Paul saw he had found a gold pocket watch. It had been suspended in place within the tree by the chain still affixed to it. A quick look at the watch showed it was still in relatively good condition, despite the number of years it had apparently been hanging in the tree. Examining the watch closer, he could see moisture had rusted shut the hinge. The rust now prevented him from being able to open it. His fingers, as they wiped away some of the grime, also told him the watch had some type of small engraving on its exterior. Not wanting to damage the watch, he made no further attempt to clean all of the grime off of it. As he continued to examine the watch, he knew the soldier had put it there, but wondered why he had. “Was this put there so he knew what time it was? Was he supposed to meet someone at a particular time? Was it put there for sentimental reasons because he knew he was dying from his bullet wound? Will I ever know why it was hanging there?” He could only guess at what the answers to his questions were.
Setting the watch on the ground, and after placing the skull and other bones around it, Paul took a few additional photos for documentation purposes. After he finished taking his photos, he took his handkerchief out from the right rear pocket of his pants and carefully wrapped the watch inside of it. He placed the watch into the right front pocket of his pants for safekeeping.
Picking up the White’s metal detector he had rented from a local pawn shop in Murrells Inlet, Paul threw a quarter down on the ground to make sure the metal detector was sensitive enough to detect the coin. His only other experience with a metal detector had been using a friend’s while looking for coins on the beach years ago. He chuckled to himself that he was again using one for the same reason, but now he was searching for coins far more valuable than the dimes and nickels he had found on the beach. After he had made sure the metal detector was functioning properly, he slowly swept it over the ground hoping the area around the tree would give up additional treasures that his eyes had not detected. As he swept the ground near the base of the tree, adjacent to where the rock had sat, the metal detector chirped, indicating he had found something. Another pass over the same spot had the same result, another chirp. As he looked at the metal detector’s electronic display screen to see what had registered, the screen indicated the presence of a coin buried roughly three inches under the surface. Kneeling down, he first used his hands to move away some of the fallen leaves. Then carefully using a small gardening trowel he had brought with him, he scraped away the accumulated layers of sand, soil, and mulch which years of fallen leaves had left. Carefully scraping away the soft soil, he found the first coin. Soon he found four others. All were identical to the ones he had found yesterday, except two of the coins had been minted in 1862. “Are there more? Could these have been in the left front pocket of the blouse I found yesterday and they fell out when the pocket’s seam finally gave way?” He was again asking himself questions that he had no answers for.
Moving the rock out from inside the base of the tree, in the event something had been hidden under it by the Confederate soldier, Paul swept the metal detector over the area where it had sat. The metal detector gave no indication of anything metallic being hidden there. For one reason, he then placed the rock back within the base of the tree. As he did, he continued to ponder questions he simply had no answers for. “If he did place this rock here so he could hide up in the tree, who was this soldier hiding from and who was chasing him? Could it really have been Union soldiers?”
Already calculating what he needed to do, he then placed several items, including one gold coin, back into the base of the tree. From his previous career, Paul knew crime scenes were often staged to fool the police; now he staged the scene within the base of the tree for the same reason. Knowing he was going to call the authorities regarding this find, he knew the discovery of a gold coin amongst the items he had placed there would make the scene more likely to be considered real and untouched by the detectives handling the investigation. While he was confident the likelihood of anyone asking him any really hard questions was pretty remote, he still took his time to carefully stage the scene to minimize any questions being asked of him.
For now, Paul decided he would keep the watch, the coins, and the items he had discovered yesterday, as his instincts told him there was more to this story. Until he had the answers to his questions, he could justify keeping what he had found. At least to h
imself he could. How he would later explain to the authorities why he had kept them was another matter he did not have an answer for as of yet.
******
Several years earlier Paul had attended a law enforcement management session at the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Virginia. Held four times a year, these sessions teach law enforcement executives management skills they might not learn elsewhere. One of the benefits in attending one of these sessions is it allows attendees to establish working relationships with other cops from across the country and from across the world. However, like many others, after being at the National Academy for just a couple of weeks, Paul had quickly realized the NA had actually stood for ‘Never Again’ as the time spent away from family and work was a true hardship to endure. Even the massive quantities of beer consumed nightly in The Board Room Bar did little to make his time away from home bearable. But like the others in the 183rd Session, he also made several good contacts and one especially good friend. Bobby Ray Jenkins had been in law enforcement for almost twenty-eight years and now was a captain with the Georgetown County Sheriff’s Department, serving as the commander of the department’s Major Case Squad. Like Paul, he had also been promoted twice since they had graduated from the National Academy.
Over the years since they had attended the NA together, they had become the best of friends and so had their wives. They all had become as close as friends can be. Their families had visited each other’s homes, they had vacationed together, and they had shared far too many beers and bourbons together. Perhaps when Paul’s soldier had been alive a Northern boy and a Southern boy may not have stood much of a chance at becoming such good friends, but times were different now.
Bobby Ray had just left a monthly regional law enforcement meeting in Little River, South Carolina, when his cell phone rang. Picking up the phone, he saw the phone number displayed and immediately recognized who was calling him. “Y’all better not be telling me that you ain’t coming to dinner on Friday night. Sue Ann and I been looking forward to seeing y’all, especially your lovely wife!” Paul could not help but laugh at how his friend had answered the phone, but then he knew Bobby Ray was different than most people.
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