The Golden Hour(Book 1 of the Arledge Hall Trilogy)

The Arledge Hall Book Series

Book One

One Decision Can Change Everything

In 1852, deep in the Delta of Mississippi, the choice to sell one slave sets in motion a series of tragic events for two families that will test the honor and faith of all.
Years before the brutality of the Civil War, acts of callous cruelty were already a way of life. In the rich alluvial soil of the Mississippi River, the master of Arledge Hall Plantation decides expansion is in order. To raise money for more land, he sells a young slave to
Five Oaks, a neighboring plantation. This act rips Thomas from his parents, Joe and Lucy,
and puts members of the Banks family at odds with each other as some of them know how dangerous the Stanford's abusive overseer can be. Merciless and vindictive, the overseer is a brute who has no respect for any man, regardless of skin color, and even less respect for women.
Joe and Lucy grieve the absence of their son, knowing only God alone can protect Thomas. But trying to find acceptance that the usually docile master sold their child requires a strength they're not sure they have. As they grapple with heartache, circumstances find Joe protecting a woman from the overseer's advances, and that guarantees retribution via Thomas, which forces him to escape.
This creates an unimaginable domino effect of vengeance, intimidation, and eventually,
murder, rending the two southern families' friendship and fracturing the budding romances between the Stanford and Banks children, although forbidden fruit tempts all the more.
As a vengeful enemy continues to threaten the occupants of Arledge Hall, Joe's courageous faith shines like a beacon in a storm. But when a cruel twist of fate plays out, can the two families endure while facing the approaching threat of war?
Spend a decade at Arledge Hall in this first book of the trilogy and discover why you'll want to visit again and again.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Heritage House Publishing (March 7, 2023)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 385 pages
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1735477428
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14.9 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 0.97 x 8 inches

Chapter One

Arledge Hall Plantation, Delta, Mississippi, September, 1852

Lucy’s bare feet ran fast, but they couldn’t outrun the panic in her chest. She’d dreaded this day since she first heard her baby’s weak squall as the missus placed him on her breast. Her big toes kicked dry earth as she ran through the cotton rows, her eyes scanning and begging for the sight of her husband.

“Joe!” she screamed. He stopped talking to a field hand and looked her way. In seconds, he stood in front of her, grabbing her shoulders.

“What’s the matter? What’s wrong?”

“They’re selling him, Joe. They’re selling our boy Thomas.”

Joe dropped his arms and ran. She called after him, but he didn’t stop to wait for her. Panting for air after running all the way to the field and back, she reached the overseer’s house to see Joe grasping their son’s roped hands in the back of the wagon.

“No!” She rushed toward the wagon. “Thomas!”

“Mama!” Her boy’s face wrinkled with anguish. She reached up and wiped his tears and placed her forehead against his, just as she did sixteen years ago when he first cried in her arms.

“Coffey!” Joe said. “What’s happening?”

The wagon driver held up his hands. “Now, look here, Joe, I don’t know nothing. All I was told was to put Thomas in the back of the wagon and wait to drive him and Mr. Giles over to Five Oaks.”

Five Oaks was a plantation three miles from Arledge Hall. Lucy knew it might as well be three hundred. She’d never see her boy again. Panic made her yell out when Mr. Giles appeared at the wagon.

“You can’t take my boy, Mr. Giles! He works hard for Massa Banks. He works hard!”

Joe stepped up with his hat in his hands. “Mr. Giles, why Thomas?”

“Now, Joe, you need to take hold of your woman there and step back. I have my orders.”

“Whose orders, Mr. Giles?” When the overseer climbed into the wagon, Joe asked again, “Mr. Giles, who ordered you to take Thomas? And why must you rope his hands? He won’t run, Mr. Giles.”

“I’m sorry, Joe. Coffey, let’s go.”

Coffey joined him on the seat and grabbed the reins. He didn’t look back at his friends, but stared straight ahead. Joe jumped into the back of the wagon and wrapped his arms around his son, while Lucy grabbed his hand from over the side of the wagon and kissed it, holding it to her wet cheek.

“It’ll be okay, boy. Just have faith, and you’ll be okay,” Joe said.

“Daddy, take Mama. Don’t let her watch me leave,” Thomas said. His nose ran with tears.

Joe nodded. “C’mon, Lucy. We have to let him go.”

Lucy resisted. “No! Please, don’t do this, Mr. Giles. Please!”

“Coffey!” Mr. Giles shouted. Coffey clicked his tongue and shook the reins. The wagon jolted forward. Lucy struggled against her husband’s arms as the wagon pulled away. Joe whispered something to her over and over, but she couldn’t hear anything other than the beating of her anguished heart as desperation filled her lungs and clawed its way through her senses. Her head dropped as darkness claimed her.

***

After Thomas watched his grieving parents collapse into each other on the dusty ground in front of the big house, the wagon pulled into the windy driveway of the Five Oaks plantation. He could see why it bore its name. Five large oak trees stretched tall in front of the big house, and the driveway circled around them. He couldn’t see the slave quarters from there, but he knew they would be a distance from the area surrounding the big house. The wagon stopped, and Mr. Giles hopped down. An ugly white man emerged from the side of the house. Suspenders prevented his pants from sagging down to his wide bottom half, and his pitted face made Thomas want to look anywhere else, but he couldn’t look away. He hadn’t seen anyone quite that ugly before. His eyes reminded Thomas of a snake’s. Thin and wide, with an evil glint, as if he couldn’t wait to strike at prey. His ruddy complexion emphasized his fat cheeks and flat nose.

“Well, Mr. Giles. Mr. Stanford will be glad to know you were prompt with the delivery of his new slave.”

The Arledge Hall overseer didn’t respond, but he cut his eyes at the snake-eyed man. He walked around to the back of the wagon and motioned for Thomas to climb off. The fat overseer stepped up and looked Thomas over, grunting. Taking off his hat revealed thin hair barely covering his large bald spot underneath. He fanned his face with his hat and poked at Thomas’ muscular arms.

“Is he strong?”

“Yes, he’s strong,” Mr. Giles answered without looking at the man. Thomas got the idea that Mr. Giles didn’t care for the Five Oaks overseer. “Thomas, you obey and do what you’re told, you hear?” He stared into Thomas’ eyes and held his gaze for about two seconds.

“Yes, sir.” Was he warning him? Thomas’ stomach sank. He had heard of bad overseers before, had even heard rumors of the Five Oaks overseer, but there were always rumors amongst slaves, so he could only wonder if they were true. Thomas guessed he’d find out soon enough. Mr. Giles pulled himself up onto the wagon seat beside Coffey, who looked down at Thomas with eyes that shined with moisture. Thomas swallowed hard as he watched them drive away. Coffey had taught him how to drive a wagon. He remembered the days when the older man had laughed with him when he was a boy, showing him tricks with his hands that made shadows on a wall in their cabin. Coffey and his daddy had known each other a long time, and he had been a part of the family since Thomas could remember, often sitting at their table for supper through the years. Watching Coffey drive away made this nightmare real.

“C’mon, boy. Let’s get you acquainted with Five Oaks.” If he had not heard the tone in the overseer’s voice and felt the tight grip on his arm, he might have thought it a friendly invitation. They walked a bit before reaching the slave quarters. Shock hit Thomas at the sight of the cabins. Far from the solid structures he had grown up in, these quarters sagged from the rooftops, while the wood planks slapped the gaps in between each other. Mosquitos competed with flies and gnats for space to fly. Men, women, and children worked outside while swatting the pests away as if they had done so in their sleep. Thomas figured they had.

“Olie! Take this boy and show him the fields where he’ll be working. He ain’t used to tobacco crops, so be sure to make him used to it. If you don’t, I will.” He turned back to Thomas. “We don’t plant cotton at Five Oaks. We plant tobacco, so you’d better forget what you know and remember what you learn today. With the only tobacco crop in the Delta, we’re in high demand to produce. You know what that means, boy? That means you are here to work. We know all about your overseer, Mr. Giles, and how he runs Arledge Hall, letting a slave be the driver over the field hands. We do things a bit differently here.” He sneered and showed his brown teeth before shoving Thomas toward Olie.

Olie had at least ten years on his daddy, so Thomas figured him to be in his mid-fifties. He walked with a broken stride but continued at a pace that rushed Thomas as he followed. They ended the walk at a shelter housing a long wooden table, which stretched almost as long as the shelter itself. Men, women, and children stood along both sides of the long table, and they stripped the leaves from the tobacco stalks.

“This here’s the tobacco harvest. You just happen to come when we’re about to be packing these here leaves into the hogsheads. But first you need to learn how to strip these leaves from their stalks. If you would’ve come last year, you would have found yourself over yonder on the west side of the plantation. That’s where we were last season. Next season, we start all over again, and move to the north side. You got the best side to start with ‘cause those are the best quarters.”

“Those are the best? I’d hate to see the worst.”

“Oh, you will.” Olie shook his head. “C’mon, now, best get to it. Mr. Timmons will come to watch as soon as he’s had his lunch.”

Thomas’ stomach growled. Olie laughed. “You better teach that stomach of yours to wait. At Five Oaks, we got to wait to eat ‘till all the important work is done.”

“What’s the important work?”

“During harvest, it’s all important. We get two meals a day right now. Breakfast and supper, with a bit of hardtack in between. So, if you want to eat, you get the work done. And don’t go slacking no matter what. You’ll get the whip on your back.”

Thomas spent that first day in agony. His back had hurt before when working in the cotton fields, but Mr. Giles let his daddy manage the field hands under his watch, and Daddy let them have water and stretching breaks. He had heard Mr. Giles say that the slaves did better work when they could rest. Thomas wished Mr. Timmons could understand that. By the end of that first day, he scratched at bug bites that itched, but later burned raw from his scratching. His back felt like it would break in two, and his fingers blistered from stripping the tobacco stalks. A terrible thirst grew from the heat, which slowed his movements throughout the day, causing the other slaves to grumble at his work pace.

Mr. Timmons rang the large bell by his house to signal that the work should stop for mealtime. Thomas couldn’t wait to eat, but he had always eaten with his parents in their cabin, so he didn’t know what to do. He followed Olie, who looked back and stopped.

“Oh, no, boy. You’ve got to go to your cabin and get your own bowl. It’s right there.” He pointed to the worst shack in the second row. Thomas walked in, noting its one-room layout with a tiny wood stove. A bed stood on the opposite wall that looked as though it needed to be replaced a decade ago. The buzzing pests swarmed all around the cabin, and the stifled air made him turn on his heel and sit on the steps outside. He sucked in the warm air, which proved little comfort. He missed the shaded steps of his father’s cabin. No, that wasn’t right. It was Mr. Banks’ cabin. Just like his father was Mr. Banks’ slave. He had become comfortable in his life at Arledge Hall. His daddy had always warned him not to do that. They were slaves. They were property. To white people, they meant nothing more than that broken bedstead inside. When they’d used him up to nothing, they’d just let him sit and rot, too. He couldn’t help but remember how he, Silas, and Massa Richard once played by the small pond in front of the lush gardens near his parent’s cabin, chasing minnows with sackcloth. Whoever caught the most won, and whoever lost, had to eat one. They laughed until their bellies ached when Silas lost three times in a row and gagged when he tried to swallow the third minnow. Now, Massa Richard spoke to them both in the same manner his father spoke to Thomas’ daddy. Not cruel or nasty, just separate. Always separate. Thomas thought of those childhood days often and wondered how the years could change so much. The minnows still swam in that pond, but Thomas hadn’t laughed there for a long time.

He watched as everyone brought bowls to an old woman, who cooked over a pot outside, just as the old cook Abraham did at Arledge Hall. Thomas rose from the steps and looked inside his cabin for a bowl and a spoon. He found them on the only table inside. Dirt smudged the sides of the bowl, so he searched for the washbasin to scrub it and the spoon clean. He ached at the thought of his mama putting supper on the table for Daddy, Cissy, and Ben. He pictured the sadness on their faces and swallowed the tears in his throat before walking to the supper line to await his supper. No one paid him any attention, but Thomas figured it was better than the wrong attention. He stepped up to the woman, who turned the dipper over into his bowl. She stopped and squinted. Then she scooped up some beans she had just put into his bowl and dumped them back into the pot.

“You gotta earn yo keep around here, boy. Tonight, you eat that. You want more, you learn to do more. That was a sorry first day on the stripping table.”

He looked down into the small serving she gave him, and wondered if the flies ate more around there than he would. It was going to be a long night.

***

Lucy woke at midnight. She climbed out of bed and wondered where Joe could be. She peered around the partition in the middle of their cabin and noted that her children slept in their beds. Thomas’ empty bed stood out from beneath the window. Walking over to his pillow, Lucy picked it up and pulled it toward her face, stifling the sobs that came over her. If she had swallowed an anvil, she couldn’t have hurt more in the deep part of her chest.

“Mama?” Cissy whispered nearby.

“I’m sorry, baby. Go back to sleep.”

Cissy jumped up and rushed to her mother’s side. “I can’t, Mama. It’s not right without Thomas.”

“No, baby. It’s not.”

“Why did Massa Banks sell him? How could he be so cruel?”

“I don’t know.”

“Daddy will fix it. Right, Mama? He can’t let Thomas stay away.”

“Cissy, yo daddy ain’t got no power over what the Massa does. If Massa wants to sell our children, he’ll sell ‘em.”

“But Massa likes Daddy.”

“Liking ain’t the same as respecting. You need to remember that. No matter who it is that likes you, that don’t mean they respect you.”

Joe walked in, so Lucy stood up. She kissed Cissy. “Go back to bed, child. We’ll talk in the morning.”

“Mama?”

“Yes?”

“Ben cried himself to sleep. He didn’t know I was listening, but I heard him.”

Lucy looked over at her youngest son and sighed. She figured they’d all be crying for many nights to come.

She and Joe embraced for several minutes, and he let her cry on his shoulder.

“Did you carry me back here today?”

He nodded. “It was okay. The missus looked shocked; she didn’t know nothing about Thomas, and she said you needed to rest. She told me you don’t have to work at the house tomorrow if you want to take a day to recover.”

“Recover? How could I recover from losing my child? Could she?” Lucy shook her head. “No. I need to work. If I think about him all day, I’m afraid I won’t be able to breathe. Right now, I can’t see nothing but him gone. That’s all I see, Joe. If I don’t work, that’s just hours of seeing him gone. Seeing him gone is worse than not seeing him. Oh, I know that makes no sense. I can’t make any sense!”

“It makes sense, Lucy. It’s about the only thing that does right now.” He placed his forehead against hers and cried with her.

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"Two families with very different backgrounds face trials and shared enemies in antebellum Mississippi. The story is the first in a series and leaves the reader anticipating the second book. It is well written, and the characters are relatable." ~Two Friends Talk Books