In the Blink of An Eye by Jerry Baggett (ebook reader for surface pro TXT) 📕

The road narrowed to barely enough room for the vehicle to pass through thick trees. Heavy branches overhead created a tunnel effect. Suddenly, they were in bright daylight. Hans stopped the car.

Both men stared at the scene. A wide, unpaved street, with buildings on both sides. The seldom used graveled road had wild grass growing knee-high in some places, bare in others. A horse stable and blacksmith shop on the right, a feed store on the left. Farther down, a barber’s pole in front of a small building. Then a dry goods store, followed by tiny shotgun-style houses on both sides of the street. Several more buildings were visible down a narrow cross street.

Marino said, “Drive on down the road, there’s more. When I was a kid, this place was surrounded by fields of cotton and corn. The crops were replaced with pine trees, for the paper mills located on the rivers, south of here. The empty buildings appeared practically the same as they are today, well preserved from the past. Many of them have signs identifying their original purpose. Every building here was owned by a plantation family member in those early days.”

He gestured with his head. “The big house and the overseer’s house are off to the right after you pass the school building. The plantation owner had nine adult children. Each built their own home from timber on the family property and they all worked, managing saw mills, grist mills, cotton gins, and lumber operations. The family also owned more than thirty-five adult slaves, with children.”

Hans drove on, following the road. “How do you know all this, boss?”

“I never talked about myself, not to anyone, until now. My great-great-grandmother was a young, light-skinned daughter of a slave. She was the house servant of the overseer, or slave master. He fathered my great grandmother who married a white man in the late 1860s. We’re looking for the overseer’s house, now.”

“Wow! You know a lot about your life. There’s a bunch of history here, boss.”

“You may as well hear the rest of the story, Hans. My great-great-grandmother’s slave husband was older than her and he died fighting Union soldiers with the plantation owner at Brandy Creek, the first battle of Bull Run. That was during the Civil War. His name was Joseph. He told his wife he knew where the family’s gold and silver had been buried. He knew that because he’d helped the old master bury everything before going off to war, as manservant to the colonel.”

He pointed. “That’s the school house. The burned remains of the big house stand ahead, on the left. Stop there for a moment. God O’ Mighty, that’s a big house, maybe three stories high. It was built out of logs, like a log cabin. Only about half of it burned. Why didn’t they repair the house after the fire?”

Marino got out of the car and stared at the ruins. He ignored the light rain falling. “The oldest grandson of the original plantation owner died in that house fire. My grandfather killed the man and set fire to the big house. Other family members dragged him out to a large pecan tree behind the house and hung him by the neck until he died from lack of oxygen. Some people in the community bragged that he was the only white man ever hanged on McGowin property. The family trust took charge of the estate after that and farming the land ended. I was born near here, years later.”

He turned and looked at Hans. “My grandmother never let me forget how she watched her father take his last breath. We lived only a mile away, in a home on the trust property. My grandmother worked for the family. She hated every minute, believing she was entitled to the lost treasure. she picked up where my grandfather left off. She spent all her later years searching quietly for the treasure. Her only clue, provided by Joseph; buried under the floor. She believed that meant in the big house. It was not to be. She worked her whole life at a job she hated, believing she would soon find the treasure. The lost fortune was never recovered.

“The overseer’s house is back in that pine thicket, about a hundred yards to the right.” They left the car and looked at the ranch-style log house. Like all the buildings, vegetation was kept cleared away and the original shake roof had been replaced with corrugated tin, for more practical preservation. The windows were all shuttered to protect the glass.

Hans put his shoulder against the front door and turned the latch. The door opened with a light squeal. Marino directed the light he was carrying around the room, from corner to corner. He held it briefly on a worn old rocker and two straight-back chairs with hide-covered bottoms. He knew that most of the original furniture had been handmade by slaves. All bedrooms were located on both sides of the hallway, two on each side, entering from the hall, through an alcove. He moved down the hall to the large dining room.

“Look at this.” He shined the light on a heavy wood table with a bench seat across one side. “Have you ever seen craftmanship like that before? A magnificent piece of work.”

He flashed the light across several fine, old handmade cabinet pieces before moving into the kitchen area. “Open up the doors. There’s one on each side of this room. We need more light in here.”

“Boss! This is unbelievable. A copper trough with a handpump for water, next to a butcher’s block table in the center of the room. A huge wood stove near one corner, and free-standing cabinets on three walls. Look at that big booth and table, for eating in the warm kitchen on cold mornings. We can make this