DEADMAN’S HOLE
A possible NANOWRIMO novel for 2019
Alvin Haden and Quinten Taylor grew up on adjoining homesteads
in Burnet Country west of Austin. The
two boys weathered droughts, drove cattle, and fought Comanches together. Their
friendship even survived courting the same girl. The civil war changed
everything. Alvin left Texas to join the
Union cause and Quinten became a decorated Confederate officer.
The two warriors tried to reestablish their friendship after the
war, but any hope ended when Alvin started working on the ranch of Judge
Kendal, a Federal Judge, and Quinten joined a local group of “fire eaters.”
The Burnet Country Fire Eaters were a radical group of
Confederates who continued to fight for slavery and Southern rights long after
the war ended. For the Fire Eaters, the list
of Unionists living in the Hill Country west of Austin, Texas are the worst
kind of traitors. Men who deserved Texas justice at the end of a rope. In their acts of violence, the Fire Eaters
were said to be worse than Indians.
One night, Judge Kendal is dragged from his home
and deep in the hills, near Marble Falls, the judge is tried and hung from an
oak tree, after which his body is cut down and dropped directly into a
cavernous sink hole.
Alvin learns about
the Judges’ end in this unceremonious mass grave that is known by the Fire
Eaters as the Deadman’s Hole. Bringing this secret group of killers to trial
becomes Alvin’s mission; little knowing that Quentin is one of the leaders. When
Alvin’s name is added to the target list of Union men, Quinten must decide
whether their one-time friendship is stronger than his oath to the Southern cause and the quick justice dealt out at the Deadman’s Hole.
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