The Reckoning Read online

  “But she would be alive, wouldn’t she?”

  “I guess. Who knows?”

  “But Dad would certainly be alive.”

  “Yes, along with Dexter Bell. And we would have our land.”

  She shook her head and mumbled, “What a lie.”

  “Did she really have a choice?”

  “I can’t say. I just feel so sorry for her. And for Dad. And for Dexter. For all of us, I guess. How did we get here?”

  She was shaking and he hugged her tighter. He kissed the top of her head as she began crying.

  “What a family,” he said softly.

  Author’s Note

  Many years ago I served two terms as a state representative in the Mississippi Legislature. I didn’t particularly enjoy public service, and you’d have to dust the capitol in Jackson for fingerprints to find proof I was there. I left no record; indeed, I left in a hurry. The job involved vast stretches of wasted time, and to fill those hours we gathered around various coffeepots and water fountains and listened to long and colorful and often hilarious stories told by our colleagues, all of whom were veteran politicians from around the state and accustomed to spinning tall yarns. I doubt if the truth really mattered that much.

  At some point during my little career there, I heard the story of two prominent men living in a small town in Mississippi in the 1930s. One killed the other for no discernible reason, and he never offered a clue as to his motive. Once convicted and facing death by hanging, he turned down an offer from the governor to have his death sentence commuted if only he would divulge a motive. He refused and was hanged the next day on the courthouse lawn while the governor, who’d never witnessed a hanging, watched from the front row.

  And so, I stole this story. I believe it to be true but cannot remember who told it, or where it happened, or when. There is an excellent chance it was all fiction to begin with, and after heaping on an abundance of my own embellishments, I have no qualms about publishing it as a novel.

  However, if any reader out there recognizes this story, please let me know. I would love to have it verified.

  As always, I relied upon the generosity of friends for their help in chasing down facts. Many thanks to Bill Henry, Linda and Tim Pepper, Richard Howorth, Louisa Barrett, and The Bus Boys—Dan Jordan, Robert Khayat, Charles Overby, and Robert Weems. And a special thanks to John Pitts for the title.

  Dozens if not hundreds of books have been written about the Bataan Death March. The ones I found and read are all fascinating. The suffering and heroism of those soldiers is difficult to imagine, then or now, some seventy-five years later.

  I gleaned facts from the following:

  Shadows in the Jungle, by Larry Alexander; Bataan Death March, by Lt. Col. William E. Dyess; American Guerrilla: The Forgotten Heroics of Russell W. Volckmann, by Mike Guardia; Lapham’s Raiders, by Robert Lapham and Bernard Norling; Some Survived, by Manny Lawton; Escape from Davao, by John D. Lukacs; Lieutenant Ramsey’s War, by Edwin Price Ramsey and Stephen J. Rivele; My Hitch in Hell, by Lester I. Tenney; Escape from Corregidor, by Edgar D. Whitcomb.

  Tears in the Darkness, by Michael Norman and Elizabeth M. Norman, is a thorough and engaging history of the Bataan Death March as seen from both American and Japanese perspectives. The Doomed Horse Soldiers of Bataan, by Raymond G. Woolfe, Jr., is a compelling account of the famous Twenty-Sixth Cavalry and its final charge. I highly recommend both books.

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