I came upon the two men in the black of night.

Surely if they had seen me before I took their lives, they would not have known what to make of this figure rising from the mire. Lithe. Half-naked. Female.

I killed the one that slept first. Silently exposing his insides, while the other played his harmonica, completely unawares of what was coming for him. I did the other just as quickly, playing a note with his final breath.

I left them in that bog to bloat under the next day’s sun. Such was what they deserved.

They had dug up the grave of my beloved, desecrated his body, and fled with his skull. No doubt they meant to sell it to buy more poison to throw down their gullets.

To do such a thing to a great man like John Murrell was more of a sin that any I have committed.

The Mystic Clan may have faltered since the passing of their founder and master, but I could never, ever, forget him.

I would shepherd his remains to that ancient sycamore tree. Part the rich earth with my hands. Then plant him like a seed amongst the roots.’

Memphis Note
John Murrell and his Mystic Clan were a loose organization of several hundred bandits in the Mississippi River region of Tennessee and Arkansas between the 1820s and  1840s. Murrell himself was a bit of a regional legend, though one more akin to a boogie-man than a benevolent figure. It is said that millions of dollars in plunder are still buried around Western Tennessee, yet another reason he was called the Great Western Land Pirate in his day.