Louisiana Loco-Motive

Chapter 1

Butterville, Louisiana 1975

A Marlboro Red 100 long cigarette protruded from between her lips. Unlit, it just dangled there, stuck to her bottom lip, as she told her tale from the barren field they stood in. The field had been freshly burned in preparation for the next season of cane. They were next to an old oak tree;  and I do mean old. At least 200 years. Its trunk and branches were dried out, but the tree itself was still massive in size.  It had died the same day the woman's husband's great great granddaddy had died. It was the same tree that all the men of the brown family used to have their family stand beneath as they passed down the legend about the locomotive that ran on the tracks right through the center of the town's Square. The chugging of the locomotive's engine was so loud, it could be heard as far out into the rural area past the sugar cane fields of the Prejean plantation; and, it was precisely the sound of the locomotive's engine that was the precursor to the sinister thing that happened that fateful day. It falls right in line with the legacy that started with Ranger Brown. He was Remi's great great granddaddy and after he married, he had his own son called Ronaldo, who grew up to marry and have a son of his own called Rufus. Continuing with tradition, Rufus once grown, also married and had a son who he called Reggie. When Reggie married he broke the long tradition of producing a firstborn male offspring by having the first girl in a long lineage of brown family men. His daughter is Remington, or Remi, as she is referred to by everyone.