Growing Up Southern: August 22, 2017

There once was this lonely tombstone in the middle of a cotton field not far from where Brenda’s parents lived. It’s gone now, physically gone. The memory of it disappears as well, nibbled away by the relentless and uncaring apathy of time. Too bad, it makes an interesting story.

It seems there was a stranger that came to the vicinity of Lonoke, Arkansas sometime after the Civil War. People knew very little about him, except for the fact that he evidently “got into a scrape” with someone in town.

They fought a duel with knives, supposedly, at a place still called the “Doc Eagle Bridge,” although the original bridge disappeared years ago. The local man killed the stranger. I don’t know what happened after that except that they buried him a few miles away and erected a tombstone. I’m not even sure it had a name on it.

Over the years, they began raising cotton around the site of the grave, but left a small area around the gravesite unplowed.

When we were first married, Brenda and I, cheap dates were the only ones that fit our budget. A favorite, cheap date that is, involved walking plowed fields looking for Indian artifacts that would rise to the surface after a spring rain. Our first dog, a mutt named Jeremiah would help us look if we promised to buy him an ice-cream cone later. They only cost a dime back then and he was a big help.

Yeah, well, it passed for fun in those days: pre-social media, cell phones, internet and all.

A favorite spot to look was along a wetland called “Baker’s Bayou.” It had apparently provided a popular camping area for the original inhabitants of our country. Later, a state archeologist would point out on a map for us several known encampment sites. Thereafter, we would classify the artifacts we found by the various locations.

One lay near the grave of the unknown duelist. I can still recall the quiet, peaceful spot standing out among the small stalks of cotton like the remnant of some ancient vegetation ritual. But, as each year passed, the unplowed spot marking the gravesite grew smaller. I’m sure it was troubling to have to plow around the grave.

Then one late spring it disappeared completely. The entire site was plowed and the tombstone was gone. I’ve often wondered what happened to it. I like to think that it sits in a corner of some dusty old barn somewhere, and new generations of grandchildren still hear the story about the stranger who came to the area to lose his life, a story perhaps accompanied by a warning concerning the non-efficacy of violence.

I don’t know. It just seems interesting that beneath a stretch of lonely farmland lies a rich history of the earliest inhabitants of the land, and those who came along later. It’s just something to think about.

The Happy Artifact Hunters Three