THE RECKONING OF TOM FRANKLIN(Rich Puckett) **THE RECKONING OF TOM FRANKLIN**
*(A Southern Gothic Tale of Blood, Gold, and Retribution)*

I. The Rot in the Blood

The Alabama woods *breathed*—slow and wet, like a drunkard’s sigh. Spanish moss hung limp in the heat, and the earth beneath the Franklin cabin had long since begun to swallow it whole. The walls, warped by humidity and neglect, groaned like a dying man. Inside, Franklin himself slouched over a bottle of **Popskull whiskey**, his knuckles scarred from fights he’d lost, his teeth yellowed from tobacco and spite.

His wife—*if she could still be called that*—was a wraith now, her once-full figure whittled down to bone and sinew by years of silent labor. She’d been **a prize once**, the daughter of a man who owned **forty acres and six slaves**, enough to make her a catch for a younger Franklin. But the land had dried up, the slaves were sold off one by one, and all that remained was the **sour stench of failure**—and the children.

*Three girls. One boy.*

The girls had his name, but not his eyes. **Too light. Too soft.** Franklin never asked questions. He just took the money when she scraped it together—coin earned on her back in the tall grass behind the church, paid in secret by men who still had something to lose.

And when each girl turned **thirteen**, he sold them.

*"Hunnert dollars apiece,"* he’d grunt to the farmers who came looking for wives. *"Strong enough to breed. Young enough to train."*

But the boy—**Tom**—he kept.

II. The Forging of a son

Tom Franklin grew up hard, like a weed cracking through stone. By **twelve**, he could skin a deer. By **fourteen**, he could gut a man. His father taught him two things:

1. **"Ain’t no sin if you don’t get caught."**
2. **"Everything’s got a price—even people."**

At **seventeen**, Tom left. Not with tears or goodbyes—just his father’s **Colt Navy revolver** and a hunger for something more than rotgut and rot.

He walked until the swamps gave way to **Andalusia**, where men wore clean shirts and gold gleamed behind bank tellers’ cages.

He watched. He learned.

Then, on a Friday evening when the air was thick with honeysuckle and greed, he walked into the **First National Bank of Andalusia**, leveled the Colt, and said:

*"Empty it. Or I empty you."*

III. The Trade in Flesh

Montgomery made him new. A **hot bath**. A **straight razor**. A **whore named Delphine** who smelled like rosewater and sweat.

By dawn, he was gone—westward, in a **canvas-topped wagon**, with a plan sharper than any knife.

**Mississippi was ripe.**

Planters had daughters they couldn’t claim—**light-skinned, high-cheekboned girls** with eyes too much like their own. Tom bought them cheap:

- **$50** for a scrawny twelve-year-old.
- **$200** for one who could pass for white.

In **Hot Springs**, the buyers were waiting—**small-time farmers, widowers, men who needed wives but couldn’t afford slaves.**

Tom sold them like cattle:

*"This one’s meek. This one’s strong. This one’ll give you sons."*

The prettiest fetched **$1,000**.

IV. The Reckoning

Then came **Kaitlyn**.

She was **different**—**fire in her eyes, honey on her tongue.** For the first time, Tom thought of keeping something for himself.

He dressed her in **calico and lace**, let her ride beside him on the wagon seat. At night, he took what he wanted, and she gave it—**not willingly, but not fighting either.**

Until the night she **smiled** as she poured his whiskey.

Until the night he woke up **choking on blood.**

Her knife was sharp. Her hands were steady.

*"You ain’t no better than him,"* she whispered as his vision darkened.

She took his gold. She ran.

She didn’t run fast enough.

They caught her at dawn, strung her up from a **live oak’s limb** while the sheriff smoked a cigar and the men joked about **"uppy yella gals."**

The rope snapped tight.

The cicadas screamed.

And someplace far away, a **rotten cabin creaked** in the wind—waiting for the next Franklin to come home.

*"The South always eats its children."*

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