Lucius was a prominent slave owner and cotton plantation owner on the west side of Kentucky. He was a nasty bastard whose parents had immigrated to America from Africa.
His parents started out as sharecroppers, and with cannibal practices they had learned in Africa, anybody that crossed them was never seen again. They were able to climb very fast in the agriculture world with all the dark deals they had made.
Both parents ended up dead from KURU when Lucius was about fifteen years old.
Lucius did everything his father had done growing up, so he was able to assume the business after their passing with little incident.
Up until a few years back, there had been a war between the North and South of the U.S. over land and voting rights. The South had all the power, but the North had access to better transportation. After the North won the war, the South had lost all of its power.
The president at the time freed the slaves. The president at the time was a Melungeon. Documents at the time show that had very little to do with why the slaves were set free.
Having the entire workforce in the South now unemployed, many of the newly freed slaves would stay on with their old masters if the conditions were right. Some masters could not afford to pay workers and had to close up shop. Other masters were of the right cloth and could take on even more workers.
The fact was, the cotton industry was exploding, and the loss of free workers at that time was the worst thing that could have happened to plantation owners.
Well, definitely not the worst.
Some slaves that had a little education and loads of ambition set out to find a place that they fit in within the SLAVE FREE America. Some men even went on to become law enforcement.
One of these men went by the name of JUPITER FREEMAN.
Freeman being a common name for any slave recently set free, letting everyone know that they no longer had ties to any plantation or owner.
Some former owners of slaves liked one or two so much they refused to let that slave go. They would hide them in the house and keep them thinking that the South had won the war so they would not question things.
As a former slave and newly turned lawman, this was a burr in the saddle of Jupiter, and any whiff of wrongly kept slaves was something that Jupiter loved to sink his teeth into.
Jupiter had a white partner that he rode with. He looked white anyway. His name was PHINEAS LANCASTER, but Jupiter always called him FINN.
Finn looked white alright, but he was a slave as much as Jupiter was.
They became friends as boys working in the cotton fields. Finn had started out with his family as a boy. His family lived in the southern tip of Illinois, right where Missouri and Kentucky meet.
They kept to themselves for the most part, and everyone they knew cared about them a great deal. This was because they lived very close to the Mason-Dixon line, and that was a risky place to live for Finn and his family.
Finn was born to a white father and a light-skinned, but still black, mother. When Finn was about the age of seven, his father was shot by trackers that hunted runaway slaves. Finn's mother had put up such a fight they figured it was just easier to hang the woman.
Due to the "ONE DROP" law when it came to slaves, no matter how white Finn looked, he could be trafficked as a slave. After the slavers had him, there was really nobody to contest his freedom.
So he was sold and ended up working in the fields with his best friend Jupiter.
Finn was able to read a little, and he taught Jupiter how to read. Finn never stayed with it, but Jupiter sure took to it.
Jupiter and Finn had both been slaves of Lucius.
One day Jupiter and Finn were on a job when they ran into a former slave that they had lived with. He had been married to a wonderful woman who was very beautiful. She was moved to the house of Lucius just after they arrived on the plantation.
They never were allowed to see one another, and when the slaves had been freed, he never found her. If she had died when they all lived there, word of her passing would have moved from lip to ear like a fire tornado. To this day Jupiter and Finn keep tabs on their old friend and make their way to see him when they pass through his area.
Jupiter and Finn took it upon themselves to make their way to the old farm and see what was going on down there.
Finn looked at Jupiter as they were riding.
"You think dat place even workin anymore since we all left"
Jupiter said back, "Anything could be possible Finn. Specially with that old nasty bastard Lucius that stay there."
Finn just nodded his head as they rode into the main town that lay just outside the old bondage farm.
The town was called Shelby.
It wasn't much when they were kids, but several textile mills had popped up in the last few years, and people that needed work moved in. Now the town must have had six hundred or even seven hundred people living in it.
Jup and Finn stopped at a local bar near the city limits. The bar said SKEETER on the outside, and they went in for a drink.
SKEETER's, even at night wasn't much of a bar so much as a place that happened to sell liquor. The building sagged in on itself like it had given up trying to stand straight years ago. The front door hung crooked on its hinges, and the hand-painted sign outside—SKEETER—looked like it had been done by a drunk with a dull brush and bad intentions.
Inside, the air smelled of sour whiskey, old sweat, and something that might have once been food. The floorboards were dark from spills that had soaked in and never come out, sticky enough that boots didn't lift clean when you walked. A long, scarred bar ran along one wall, its surface carved up with knife marks, initials, and words better left unread.
There were maybe ten seats in the whole place, mismatched stools and chairs pulled in from wherever they could be found. The light was poor even during the day, filtered through grimy windows that hadn't been cleaned since before the war. At night, a few smoky lanterns did what they could, casting long shadows that made everyone inside look meaner than they already were.
It was the kind of place where news traveled fast, tempers flared quicker, and nobody came in unless they already knew what kind of trouble they were willing to tolerate.
Like most Southern places after the war, many people blamed the freed slaves for losing the war. Projection.
They sat down and asked the bartender, "Say friend, what kin ya tell me about the ol' Lucius Wagner place down the road?"
One of the men drinking walked up—I use the word walked very loose—walked up to Jupiter and said, "Hey, colors like y'all ain't allowed in here! Can't just walk in here like ya own the place ya know."
Jupiter did his best to pretend the man was not talking, or slurring, or even spitting all over him as he talked.
The drunk man grabbed the shoulder of Jupiter and spun him on his seat.
When Jupiter came around, he brained the drunk guy in the head with his revolver.
Several of the men jumped to their feet and lunged at the pair. As fast as he had hit the man, he cocked his gun and drew down, moving his sights from man to man as if daring them to try and get him.
Finn followed suit, even if it was a little slower than Jupiter.
Finn kept his bead as Jupiter spun back around to the barkeep and asked again, "The cotton farm, who lives out there?"
The bartender, now more friendly than before, stated, "It ain't changed, Lucius still out that way."
"How many men he got out there theses days?" Jupiter followed up.
The man at the bar said, "I got no clue. I knows the guy you just hit works out that way. He kin give ya more…, if'en he ever wakes up."
Jupiter and Finn tossed a couple coins on the bar.
They took the man on the floor out to his horse, tied his hands, and gagged his mouth. They mounted the horses they arrived on and headed out to the place the pair had grown up.
About a third of the way there, the drunk man began to make noise.
"You really think he gunna tell ya anything after you knobbed him like that Jup?" Finn asked.
Jupiter replied, "He better because he only got the wood. I got 6 pieces of metal that I do NOT mind parting with if his lips don't get real loose by the time we make it out that way."
"Good point." Finn said.
By now the drunk had opened his eyes and was riding up straight, not hunched over the horse like he had been riding.
The three came to a stop. Finn climbed down off his horse to uncork the man.
"We hear tell ya work out at the old cotton farm?"
The man narrowed his eyes. "What business is that of yurs?"
Jupiter returned with, "Right now my business is fixen this here OVERLOADED gun. If your talking don't start sounding sweat to me, you gunna be the cure for that problem. Follow?"
The drunk man shook his head yes as if he had a choice.
"How many men work out there?"
"There's about 12 altogether. 6 of us at night, 6 during the day time. Plus about 60 or so men that work the field during the day."
Finn turned his head to the man and said, "Ya know, if that number is off, we gunna kill ya dead?"
The drunk man nodded his head slowly.
After a spell, the men got to the cotton farm. They dismounted about one hundred yards away and gagged the drunk man once again. They tied his horse to a tree and continued on to the farm after taking any weapons the man had on him.
They tied off their horses about twenty yards from the opening to the plantation.
The plantation looked the same way it did when they left.
The drive was overgrown, swallowed by marsh-type reeds that twisted and bent like green flames reaching for the sky. They swayed in the breeze, brushing against the riders' legs and molesting them with every step, the sound dampened by the soggy earth beneath. Patches of mud gleamed between the reeds, reflecting the night sky, and here and there, the remains of old wagon ruts were half-hidden by moss and weeds, as if the land itself had tried to swallow the path whole.
The drive opened up about a hundred yards ahead, rounding into a wide clearing where the cotton fields began. Rows of cotton stretched in pale, ghostly lines across the flat land, almost mocking them. The stalks were stiff and brittle at the edges, whispering to each other with the wind, as if the fields remembered the hands that had tended them.
The house rose straight ahead, square and heavy, staring out over the fields like a sentinel. Its white paint had long since faded to gray, peeling in long strips that flapped softly against the weathered boards. The porch and steps had started to warp. The windows were as dark as the night sky, their glass dull with age, giving the sense that the house itself was watching and waiting.
To the left, the two barns leaned slightly, one farther than the other, their roofs patched with mismatched boards. The doors hung loose on rusted hinges, and the faint scent of old hay, rotting wood, and animal musk rose from their open gaps. Even the breeze carried the smell across the clearing, thick and sharp.
Behind the barns crouched the old slave barracks. Low and long, the building seemed pressed into the ground, its rough wood darkened by smoke and rain, streaked with years of neglect. Small, high windows offered little view beyond the yard, giving the impression of eyes that had been closed for decades. The air around it felt heavier, as though the place had soaked up every harsh word, every lash, every sigh that had passed through its walls.
Nothing here was abandoned. The plantation stood frozen, stubborn and unchanging, holding onto its past like a secret, daring anyone who approached to remember what it had been—and what it had done.
Jupiter pulled his binoculars out and raised them to the window, the cold glass biting lightly into his fingers as he adjusted the focus. He searched the dark interior, slow and careful, scanning corners and doorways for movement.
Feeling as though there was nobody left in the house for them to get, Finn started to get bored. He shifted his weight, boots scraping softly against the floor of the barn.
"You want me to look, Jup?" Finn said.
Jupiter held up a finger, eyes still fixed through the lenses. "Nope. I got her… or someone. I see someone. Yeah, I recognize her. No way anyone from the old slaves would'a never stuck around if they had a choice in the matter."
Finn pressed his lips together and nodded his head, emotion tightening his jaw. The muscles in his face worked as if he were chewing on something bitter.
"Stick close together," Jupiter said, lowering the binoculars. "And if you see anyone reach, you drop em so they don't get up again!"
"On three?" Finn asked.
"No. Just stick close!"
Finn was shaking enough that he had to steady the gun he had pulled out with his off hand. Jupiter noticed but said nothing. He stayed focused, mentally shutting down any feeling he still carried for Lucius or this place. Emotion had no use here.
Step by step, they made their way up to the house.
The trees and cotton seemed to rustle louder than they had remembered, leaves scraping together and stalks whispering with every breath of wind. Each shifting shadow made Finn's shoulders tense. Every flicker of movement felt like it might be one of Lucius's hands standing watch.
With every step, Jupiter felt his luck thinning. The air pressed heavier against his chest. Someone was going to round a corner and open fire on them.
But no one did.
They reached the house without a single shout or shot. Dropping down onto all fours, they crawled up to the window and peered inside, trying to read the layout and decide how best to enter.
They stayed there on the porch deck, asses in the air, side by side, moving back and forth.
That was when the sharp click of a revolver hammer snapped the moment in half.
"Who the hell are you now?" a voice called out, carried by the wind. "Come on, on your feet you two."
"OVER HERE!" the man shouted.
Two other men came running up the porch, boots pounding hard as they rushed to see what had been caught snooping.
"Take their guns," the man behind them said.
Hands grabbed at Jupiter and Finn, stripping the weapons from them before either could react. They were shoved through the doorway and forced down into chairs. The house smelled of oil, old wood, and something sour beneath it all.
One man disappeared into a side room. Faint voices moved back and forth, low and hurried.
Then a tall, sick-looking man stepped into view.
He was dressed in black on black, his clothes hanging stiff on his frame. His dark skin and nasty demeanor made his presence feel like a hole in the room, something that swallowed light instead of reflecting it.
He walked toward them slowly. His face was pitted deep with scars, and when he stepped fully into the light, the grease on his skin caught it and twisted it into an oily rainbow—purple, maroon, and deep black sliding across his cheeks and brow.
Bile rose in both Jupiter and Finn. They swallowed it down, fighting the surge of hatred and memory that threatened to fog their thinking.
"You two look familiar. Have we meet before?" Lucius's voice carried a high whine to it, like a cartoon villain or a witch out of some cheap stage play.
Jupiter answered, steady. "Yeah, you might have seen us around."
He wasn't sure whether to feel relieved that Lucius didn't recognize them, or sickened by the fact that they had grown up only yards away and barely registered in the man's mind.
"Tie em up!" Lucius snapped.
Hands wrenched their arms back, rope biting into their wrists.
"So what is it?" Lucius went on. "You think you can just walk up to a place like this and steal from me? Is that it, hmm?"
He bent down, forcing his face level with theirs.
"Big place like this hey, must be lots of cash on hand. I got every right to kill ya where ya stand! Um, ur, sit."
Just as he finished his rhetoricals a tall, slender, elegant woman came from another room within the house.
Her dark skin was so smooth and fresh it seemed to carry its own light, standing out against the dim, smoke-stained walls. She froze for a moment when she saw Jupiter and Finn bound in their chairs, her eyes wide with confusion and fear.
Jupiter lifted his head. "We have come for her. I am a lawman and I come to get the girls that you keepen here."
Shock flashed across the woman's face, her lips parting as if she wanted to speak but didn't dare.
Lucius slowly shook his head, his eyes moving from Jupiter, to the woman, and back again. One of the gunmen reached into Jupiter's coat, pulled out his badge, and placed it into Lucius's hand.
Lucius turned it over once, then smiled. "Its not always as clear as all that sometimes."
"It is very clear," Jupiter said. "You just don't wanna part with your 'IN-HOUSE' pussy. Pardon me ma'am."
Color crept into the woman's cheeks and she lowered her eyes.
"I guess you are law. Or was," Lucius said, his voice calm and almost pleasant. "Now that yur here, I can't allow you to just walk out of here."
He turned slightly and nodded to one of the gunmen. "Get her outta here. Put her upstairs."
Jupiter lifted his head. "You can't do dis forever, ya know. Someone is gunna come looking. People know we came out dis way."
Lucius chuckled, the sound light and amused. "Who? People in town? You think that any lawman, specially one that is not from around here, is going to git anywhere looken for you?"
Jupiter dropped his eyes to the left, his jaw tightening.
"Get 'em up and get them upstairs," Lucius said. "I don't want anyone see'in them from the window."
As Jupiter and Finn were being walked through the main room, Jupiter's eyes darted around, taking in every detail. The walls were paneled in dark, glossy wood that had dulled with age, and the corners were thick with cobwebs. Dust lay in pale sheets over the ornate furniture, and the air smelled of old smoke and something far fouler beneath it. Heavy curtains hung from the tall windows, the room itself seem to cast the room in shadows.
The mantle caught his eye, crowded with framed photograph their glass dulled by dust and age. Heavy iron knickknacks were scattered among them, cold and dull. A few vases leaned dangerously, coated with a thin layer of grime. Jupiter could almost feel the weight of the years pressing down.
An idea flashed across his mind and he shook his shoulders, loosening the grip the men had on him.
A sharp blow hit his back, and he lurched forward into the mantle, knocking over iron pieces and pictures with a crash. Glass shattered beneath him. As he rolled onto the floor, he slid a shard up one sleeve.
Once they reached the second floor, they were set down on a trunk at the edge of a bed. Butcher's paper was spread across the floor in front of them. Lucius followed them up the stairs, his presence slow and deliberate.
As Lucius began speaking, Jupiter worked at his bindings with the shard.
"Nice white boy like you might be missed, but nobody gunna miss another tragically STRANGE FRUIT hanging from a peach tree outside."
Lucius bent down to look Jupiter in the eye as two gunmen had their backs to him, laying out more paper. Jupiter lunged after Lucius and stuck him in the left side of the belly. Jupiter pulled the glass from Lucius's belly and stuck it into the throat of one gunman. Before he could move on the second, the gunman had gotten a shot off before getting his throat cut. Lucius ran out of the room and down the stairs.
Jupiter got up from the body he had dropped, his boots scuffing against the dust-strewn floor. Turning, he saw Finn with blood flowing from a gunshot wound in his chest. He gasped, blood spilling from his mouth, eyes wide and glassy, the fight slowly draining from him. collapsing onto the massive bed behind him. The mattress swallowed him, soft and warm against the harshness of the moment, like a small island of comfort in a storm of violence.
Jupiter leaned over him, The metallic tang of blood filled the room, mingling with the sweet smoke drifting from the spent round.
Jupiter pressed close, one hand bracing against the carved oak bedframe, the other gently moving Finn's hand to see the wound, heart hammering in his chest. "Let me see, pal, let me see." His hands were trembling as he carefully moved Finn's hand away from the wound. The blood was warm and slick under his fingers. The bullet had gone straight into the heart, and every instinct screamed at him that it was over.
Finn coughed, shuddering against the sheets, blood dribbling down his chin. Jupiter says as he fights the retch inside, "I think it missed all yur vitals! This really don't look so bad, brother!"
Finn could tell he was lying but didn't call him out. Finn said, "I love you Jup. You always let me come with you even when I was a burden. You the only family I remember. Thank you for letting me tag along."
Jupiter wanted to scream, to throw something, to make the world stop. He clenched his teeth, forcing his voice steady. "Shut up, Finn. Don't talk like this be the end. I can find us some help. Get you all fixed up. And we'll be at it again in no time. You just stay with me. You hear me?"
"Jiss stay with me." As Jupiter finished his words, he could see the light pass from Finn's eyes. The life leaving him was like watching a picture develop in reverse. One tear rolled down each of Jupiter's cheeks, hot and sharp, cutting through the numbness as he forced himself to step away from the bed. His hand wiped clear his face, and the world still waiting outside.
Jupiter ran to the bedroom across the hall. His heart pounded, chest tight with adrenaline and grief as he gathered the beautiful woman that had been kept there. Her dark eyes widened with fear and hope, and she clutched at his arm as he spoke.
"Is there anyone else? Anyone in the house…, like you?" Jupiter asked, scanning the hall as if the walls themselves might answer.
"No sir, they all run away or dead. I's the only one leff," she replied softly, her voice trembling, yet steady enough to carry the weight of her ordeal.
Loud noises echoed from the basement below, a low, chaotic roar. "Go wait outside for me. I will be right out," Jupiter told her firmly, keeping his gaze sharp and protective.
She nodded, her dark eyes wide and glimmering with fear and hope, and hurried down the steps toward the front door, pressing her hands to her chest as she moved. The cool evening air brushed her face, as she paused just outside, watching the dwelling with apprehensive anticipation. Jupiter moved through the house, every sense on edge. Dust motes floated in the dim light, disturbed by their movement, glittering like tiny sparks in the gloom.
Jupiter's eyes caught the flicker of orange from the cellar below. Once he got to the bottom of the cellar he could see the fire play with the narrow tunnel, a hill of flames that separated him from Lucius and his men. Heat pressed against his body, the smoke thickening. The tunnel beyond glowed, shadows of Lucius and the gunmen dancing along the walls, their shapes distorted in the flickering light.
Then, without warning, Lucius threw two big glass bottles into the fire. In an instant, the tiny blaze erupted into a roaring inferno, fire raged like an animal that had been locked away and beaten for years. Sparks shot like arrows, heat pressed outward in waves, and the roar of the fire filled the cellar, transforming it into a living, breathing wall of flame.
Beyond the fire, the tunnel gaped dark and foreboding. Just inside the entrance, Lucius and his gunmen moved quickly, safe behind the inferno they had created. Jupiter could only watch — the heat and fire blocked any path forward, trapping the men in their tunnel and making it impossible for him to follow.
He pressed back from the flames, the heat biting at his face. He retraced his steps up the cellar stairs. Outside, the night air was cool, carrying the scent of smoke as he reached the woman, waiting tensely in the shadows.
Jupiter took her arm firmly, guiding her away from the burning house. Behind them, the inferno devoured the building in moments, collapsing it in a cascade of fire and rubble. The roar of flames filled the night, but Jupiter's mind was somewhere else entirely.
Finn's face floated in his vision—pale, eyes wide, blood streaked across his lips, the life that had been there moments ago now gone. Jupiter's chest tightened, a raw, unrelenting ache clawing at him. There would be no second chance. No way to make it right. Finn was gone, and the weight of that truth pressed on him harder than any flame.
He had no time to grieve, yet the grief was already settling like stones in his gut. Every step he took away from the inferno carried the memory of his brothers final words, the way he had to fill every silence, the warmth of their shared history in the cotton fields and the battles they had faced together. The anger began to coil beneath the grief, simmering, ready to ignite toward Lucius—the man responsible for all of this.
The woman tugged at his arm, pulling him back from the dark spiral. "Are you… okay?" she asked, voice trembling.
Jupiter blinked, forcing himself into the present. She was out and alive anyway.
The fire painted the sky above them in furious shades of orange and red, smoke curling like a living thing into the night. He led her to where the horses were tied, each step a drumbeat of grief and anger. He could not leave Finn behind—he could not undo what had happened—but the fury that now burned inside him was a weapon, sharp and precise.
"You were married to a slave at one time?" he asked, voice low, steady despite the chaos.
She nodded slowly, her eyes cautious but curious, reflecting a mix of hope and grief.
"I think I know where your husband is," he said, and mounted his horse with practiced ease, the woman following behind him. The man tied up from the bar had made off long ago. The distant crackle of the fire was swallowed by the night, the house already starting to collapse inward as the flames consumed it from basement to attic. Jupiter could hardly hold his body straight as he road — but there was no time to grieve. They rode off toward the town, each hoofbeat carrying them further from the danger, closer to seeing Lucius's body opened up like a circus tent.