Chapter 1 meeting the whitakers
The True Maynard County Massacre
My name is Alex Walker.
I'm fourteen years old.
This is my story.
It started in 1921, during a hot summer in Southern Alabama.
My family had been traveling through Alabama and Georgia for more than two years by then. We never stayed anywhere for very long. Wherever there was work, we'd go there. Wherever there was somewhere cheap enough to sleep, we'd stay there.
We were poor.
Not the kind of poor where you had to be careful about what you bought.
The kind of poor where you thought about whether you could afford to buy something before you even walked into the store.
My father was Logan Walker.
He worked wherever he could find work. Most recently, he'd been digging ditches.
It was hard work.
He'd spend most of the day outside under the sun, digging through dirt until his hands were covered in blisters and his back hurt so badly that he'd barely be able to straighten up.
The pay was fifteen dollars a day.
It wasn't much.
But to us, it was money.
Money meant food.
Food meant another few days without going hungry.
My mother was Maria Walker.
Then there were my two younger sisters, Ann Maria and Lexi.
And there was my uncle, Eugene.
Eugene was my father's brother.
He didn't talk much anymore.
I never really knew what he had been like before his wife died.
I only knew him as the quiet man who sat in the carriage for hours and stared at nothing.
His wife had been a debt slave.
Her master was the man who owned the debt she was trapped under.
Eugene had been there when it happened.
He had watched his wife get beaten by her master.
He had watched her suffer.
And he had been forced to sit there and watch as she was killed.
He couldn't stop it.
Nobody came to help him.
Nobody came to help her.
After that, Eugene changed.
He became quieter.
He didn't talk about his wife.
He didn't talk about what happened.
And we didn't ask.
Some things were better left alone.
About a year after that, we found ourselves in Southern Alabama.
Maynard County.
It was a small town.
There wasn't much to it.
A few old wooden buildings.
Some houses.
A general store.
A dusty road running through the middle of everything.
It was the kind of place where everybody seemed to know everybody else.
The summer heat was terrible.
The sun hung over the town like it hadn't moved all day.
The dirt road was dry and dusty, and every time somebody walked across it, their shoes kicked up little clouds of dust.
Our carriage was parked just outside the main part of town.
My father had two dollars left.
That was it.
Two dollars from the work he'd done the previous month.
He held the coins in his hand as he looked toward the general store.
Then he looked at us.
“I'll be back.”
My mother nodded.
“Don't spend all of it.”
Pa smiled slightly.
“I won't.”
He walked toward the store.
I watched him disappear through the old wooden door.
The store was nothing fancy.
The building looked like it had been standing there for decades.
The wood was faded.
The windows were dirty.
Inside were shelves packed with food, tools, jars, and other things people might need.
Most of the containers didn't have the clean printed labels that stores have nowadays.
Some jars had their names carved into little pieces of wood.
Others had prices written directly onto the shelves.
The glass on some of the jars was thick and cloudy.
Everything looked old.
Everything smelled old.
Dust, wood, food, and the faint smell of oil filled the building.
Behind the counter stood a huge man.
He was big and broad.
He wore dirty overalls over a stretched-out plaid shirt.
His arms were thick, and his hands looked like they'd spent years doing hard work.
My father walked up to him.
The man looked at him.
Pa placed his two dollars on the counter.
“I need enough food for my family.”
The man looked down at the money.
Then back at Pa.
“How many?”
Pa looked toward the door.
“Six.”
The man raised an eyebrow.
“Six?”
Pa nodded.
“Six.”
The man looked at the two dollars again.
Then he turned around and began looking through the shelves.
I couldn't hear everything they said from outside.
So I waited.
A few minutes later, the door opened.
Pa stepped outside.
He looked around until he saw me.
“Alex.”
I walked over.
“Yes, Pa?”
“Go get your mother.”
I nodded.
“And your sisters.”
“Okay.”
Pa paused.
“Get Eugene too.”
I looked toward the carriage.
Eugene was still sitting inside.
I nodded.
I ran back toward the carriage.
“Ma!”
My mother looked up.
“What?”
“Pa wants everyone.”
She stood up.
Ann Maria followed her.
Lexi climbed down after her.
My mother looked toward Eugene.
“He wants Eugene too?”
I nodded.
Eugene was sitting in the back of the carriage, staring out toward the town.
He didn't say anything.
My mother called to him.
“Eugene.”
He looked at her.
“Logan wants you.”
Eugene stared at her for a moment.
Then he slowly climbed out of the carriage.
We started walking toward the store.
Pa was standing outside.
But there was somebody else with him.
A man I'd never seen before.
He stood beside Pa, looking toward us.
Pa noticed us approaching.
He turned toward the man.
Then he turned back toward us.
“Come on.”
We walked closer.
The man extended his hand toward my father.
“Houston Whitaker.”
Pa shook his hand.
“Logan Walker.”
The two men looked at each other for a moment.
Then Houston looked toward the rest of us.
Most people didn't call him Houston.
They called him Pa Whitaker.
He was the patriarch of the Whitaker family.
The first person he introduced was his wife.
“This is Ann Lou.”
A woman stepped forward.
Her full name was Ann Lou Whitaker.
She smiled immediately.
“Well, hello!”
My mother smiled.
“Hello.”
Ann Lou looked at all of us.
“You must be the Walkers.”
“Yes, ma'am,” my mother said.
Ann Lou laughed.
“Oh, don't call me ma'am.”
My mother smiled.
“All right.”
Ann Lou looked toward Pa Whitaker.
“You going to introduce everybody, or am I doing all your work?”
Pa Whitaker looked at her.
“You know everybody.”
Ann Lou smiled.
“Exactly.”
She turned toward us.
“This is Johnny.”
A boy stepped forward.
“John,” he corrected.
Ann Lou rolled her eyes.
“Johnny.”
“John.”
Everybody laughed.
John walked over to my father and shook his hand.
“Good to meet you.”
“You too.”
John looked at me.
“You're Alex?”
I nodded.
“Yeah.”
He smiled.
“I'm John.”
“I know.”
He laughed.
“Well, that's easy enough.”
Ann Lou pointed toward a girl standing nearby.
“And this is Vera.”
Vera smiled.
“Hi.”
“Hi,” I said.
Ann Lou explained where her name came from.
“She was named after my mother.”
Vera smiled.
“She's told me that story about a hundred times.”
Ann Lou looked at her.
“And I'll tell it another hundred.”
John laughed.
“You probably will.”
The whole family seemed loud compared to us.
They laughed.
They joked.
They talked over one another.
They asked questions.
They seemed genuinely happy to meet us.
Then I noticed someone standing farther behind them.
A boy.
He wasn't talking.
He wasn't smiling.
He was just standing there.
Pa Whitaker looked toward him.
“And that's Jedediah.”
Jedediah looked at us.
He didn't say anything.
John looked at him.
“Go ahead.”
Jedediah remained silent.
Then he made a strange noise.
It sounded almost like an animal.
Lexi looked at him.
“What was that?”
Jedediah looked at her.
He made another noise.
This one sounded different.
Vera laughed.
“He does that all the time.”
John nodded.
“Yep.”
Jedediah didn't seem embarrassed.
He simply looked away.
Pa Whitaker was quiet too.
He didn't talk much.
He mostly stood there and watched.
He wasn't mean.
He just seemed like he preferred keeping to himself.
Ann Lou, John, and Vera were completely different.
They were loud.
Friendly.
And welcoming.
They talked to us like we'd known each other for years.
My mother and Ann Lou began talking.
John talked with my father.
Vera spoke with my sisters.
I stood nearby and watched everyone.
Eugene stayed farther away.
He didn't say much.
He rarely did.
Pa Whitaker noticed him.
He looked toward Eugene.
Then toward my father.
“Your brother?”
Pa nodded.
“Eugene.”
Eugene gave Pa Whitaker a small nod.
“Pleasure.”
That was all he said.
Pa Whitaker nodded back.
He didn't ask any more questions.
For a while, the two families simply stood together outside the store.
The summer sun was still high above us.
The road was still dusty.
The store was still behind us.
People walked through town.
Horses pulled carriages down the road.
And for that moment, Maynard County was just another small Alabama town.
And we were just the Walker family meeting the Whitakers for the first time.
