by Anne Brown

Created on: April 26, 2009

Chapter One

Jasper County, Georgia-1824

Bolin S. Jeffries was five years old the first time he met his cousin, Rebecca. His Aunt Betsy had given birth a few weeks earlier and his mother; Nancy took him over to visit the family. Betsy was married to Nancy's brother, Robert Tuggle, and Nancy was married to Elizabeth's brother, William Jeffries, so Rebecca was Bolin's double first cousin. At age five, he went where his mother took him and cared less about visiting a new baby. Taking one look at the tiny little red-faced, he turned and ran outside to play with the other children and their dog.

The Tuggle and Jeffries families had moved from Oglethorpe County, Georgia before Bolin was born. One of his grandfathers, Lodowick Tuggle, had been a Captain in the Pittsylvania County, Virginia Militia, during the American Revolution. The other, William Jeffries, had married Esther Lee who was the younger sister of Dorothy Lee, wife of Lodowick. After the death of their parents, some of the Jeffries and Tuggle children sold the lands which had been their inheritance and move to Jasper County. There they all purchased large pieces of property on which they built houses, and like most white landowners of any good size plantation, had slaves to work the fields.

Bolin had become a friend to one of his father's slaves, a boy named Buck. As was the custom, Buck had taken the last name of his owner, so he and Bolin shared the same surname. Bolin and Buck Jeffries were born only a few months apart and had been together since they were babies. It was common knowledge, that if you saw one; the other would not be far away. Buck and Bolin were more like brothers than slave and master.

Slaves were expensive and only kept by large, wealthy, plantation owners and it wasn't unusual to see many slave families split when a mother, father or child was sold when the need arose. The Jeffries family had always tried to keep their slaves together and having to sell one was something none hoped never to face. All of the slaves owned by William and Nancy had been with them from the beginning of their marriage, so the thought of Bolin and Buck one day be separated, had never even crossed anyone in the family's mind.

When the boys were older, beginning around the age ten, they started going to Murder Creek, a stretch of water which ran through the plantations owned by both Robert and William. It was their favorite place to visit and both had often wondered how the creek had earned such a dark and ominous

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