My Dirty Work

The story unfolds before you as a work in progress, never before published and raw, written in installments. An experiment of sorts. A trial by fire. I invite you to read along as the story reveals itself to you just as it does to me. I anticipate rough patches, flaws, holes, typos, but I'm "in it" nonetheless, willing to burn my bridges behind me. Let's see where I end up.

I'VE STARTED A SERIAL MEMBERSHIP SITE FOR YOUR READING PLEASURE WHILE THE BOOK IS BEING AXED, WAXED, REWORKED, AND HOPEFULLY NOT TORCHED. TO TIDE YOU OVER UNTIL MY EDITOR IS COMPLETE AND THE BOOK RELEASES.

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The Harbinger of Elemdale [raw & unedited] opening lines

PART ONE—SOUTHERN ROOTS

"Lord, help me dig into the past, And sift the sands of time, That I might find the roots that made This family tree mine. Lord, help me trace the ancient roads, On which my fathers trod, And led them through so many lands, To find our present sod. Lord, help me find an ancient book, Or dusty manuscript, That's safely hidden now away, In some forgotten crypt, Lord, let it bridge the gap that haunts My soul, when I can't find The missing link between some name That ends the same as mine."

JERYL LARSON

September 1, 2023

Element Dale, Texas

Lucillia Baldwin's voice quavers with the exhaustion of time. She looks straight ahead, rocking in her chair on the old porch and answers, "My best friend is dead. And not like how you come to know a person more deeply over the years and then one day death comes a-knocking and the friendship is a mere memory. No, he was—is my best friend who just so happens to be dead. Always has been. Well, in my lifetime, anyhow."

ELZI DUPRE

Summer 1877

The Staked Plains of the Taysha State (Texas)

We been roaming this Great American Desert under the ruthless Southern sun and cloudless sky from one dry lakebed to the next. I done crawled on my hands and knees like a dog past sk'letons of buffalo, licking drops of morning dew from what few blades of grass they is. Now we walked so far that those blades of grass just turned into red dirt. We was once huntin' Indians. Now we huntin' water.

DIXON ARTOPE

Southern Physio-Eclectic College of Medicine

Georgia, The Empire State of the South (Georgia)

Dix Artope spent his twenty-first birthday sweating over the grave of one Mrs. Mary Lamott. It was not how he envisioned his final weeks of medical college, digging up his seventh body. But a future doctor's got to do what a future doctor's got to do.

CAROLINE COLLEY

Just Outside the City of Melroy, Georgia

The Higgs Plantation, Caroline Colley's childhood abode, was the largest pecan plantation in Melroy County. Its impressive trees formed perfect canopied lanes running in precise perpendiculars for frolicking children, walking sweethearts, wandering deep thinkers, and a weary Caroline to escape into, allowing a break from wearing the hefty stoic mask she wore intermittently between times of pure hysteria and murky delusion.

WALKER WESTBERRY

The Black Mountains of the Old North State (North Carolina)

Walker Westberry watched from the cover of thick trees in the mountainside. It was dark, just before 4 in the a.m. Ten revenue agents crept around the distillery below. And though it was in the dead of night, Walker had been prepared.

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