Justice Tempered? Chapter One

Chapter One

"I SHOT THE SONS-A-BITCH."

These words continued to rattle in Ernest’s head as he reached the apex of Kosner Hill and began to descend into the valley which the small hamlet of Campo, Georgia occupied. Nestled in the foothills of northwest Georgia, Campo traced its origin back to the Civil War.

During the war the Confederate Army had established a camp in this valley. The camp had been designated simply as the letter O. Yet everyone had always referred to it as "Camp O." Even after the war the residents of surrounding towns referred to the ruins as Camp O, except it had become one word: Campo.

Ten years after the war the fortunes of the valley began to change. A young German immigrant brought to the valley a sizeable inheritance and a knowledge of firing ceramics. The South was beginning to rebuilding after the war and one of most favored building materials was brick. Richard Astor believed that with his knowledge of firing ceramics and the red clay he found there, he could supply a large number of the bricks needed for reconstruction. Having purchased twenty thousand acres north of the old camp Richard began construction of the first three kilns.

During the construction, Richard learned that having workers travel from Clarksdale, the nearest town, to the site was not an efficient way to do business. Thus he stopped work on one of the kilns and built a boardinghouse for the workers. Then he further delayed construction of the third kilns to build houses for his eventual employees. By the time the first two kilns were ready to fire, Richard had enough houses and the boardinghouse to prevent his employees from having to travel the twelve miles back and forth to Clarksdale on a daily bases.

In Charleston, South Carolina Richard had befriended another young German immigrant named Fred Kosner. Fred had worked in retail his whole life and had married into money. Richard had convinced Fred to join him on this new adventure. He had promised a sizeable amount of land on which Fred would, using his knowledge of the retail business, build a general store to supply the needs of those who would be working at the kilns. Fred built a general store on the property given him by Richard and with his wife's money he purchase the inventory to stock it. Thus the Kosner family became the second most prominent family, next to the Astors in Campo.

Richard and Fred had attempted to call the community Astorville, but, when the locals continued to talk about the kilns at campo, they relented and named the community Campo.

For eighty years Campo could have easily been used as a backdrop for one of Norman Rockwell’s paintings. In the very center of town was the Centerdale Baptist Church with it tall, white steeple which was the very first thing anyone saw when they began to descent into the valley. The rest of the hamlet surrounded the church as the petal of a rose surround its core.

There was the drugstore which was the social gathering for all the young people. Then there was the barbershop where all the men seemed to gather to tell their stories. The old livery stable had been converted into an Esso station where other men gathered to work on their cars. Next to the Esso station stood the hardware store which at one time was the Kosner general store. Next door to that was the new department store that the Kosners had built. Life in Campo had always simple and predictable.

World War I had not even been a hiccup in the life of the hamlet. The market crash and the following depression did have an effect: Richard Astor was no longer running the company, his son Charles was. Charles was no where close to being the business man his father was. Had not Bordon Brick gained control of the company, most likely it would have gone under and the hamlet of Campo with it.

World War II had taken a number of the young men of Campo, but most of them returned, some briefly, others to then live to find another way in the world. Ernest’s mind briefly forget what had happened today and flashed back, seven years, to the day when he, Buford Bucnagle and Harvey Thornton had returned home from the war.

When his mind returned to the present, he compared it to two years earlier and the incident with Miss Flora Bess. Miss Flora Bess Astor was Charles' spinster daughter. The drought that summer had everyone’s nerves on edge. Miss Flora Bess had been found wondering about town in disarray. Many people believed she had been raped by the colored man that had done some work for her. All the talk at the barbershop was what had happened to the handyman. Many speculated that he had been murdered and his body disposed of.

"No! This is worse that the Miss Flora Bess incident," Ernest said aloud as once again the words from that morning slammed into his head.

"I SHOT THE SONS-A-BITCH."