16 June 2026, Freewriters Community Daily Writing Prompt Day 3136: unnatural cruelty
“OK … Tinyville does have its own treasure map, but it's also a cold case map.”
“Yep. Your father, being my son and therefore Jubilee-of-the-mountain born out of his maternal line, called Capt. Hamilton for a very good reason about the chest, because that tree is at least a century old, and if it is 150 years old, and was planted on purpose, there's several things that could be in it, and a few of them ain't nothing nice.”
Eleven-year-old Velma Trent was talking with her father's mother, Mrs. Gladys Jubilee Trent, aka Grandma Jubilee.
“What I'm getting from this is that if you are going to live in Lofton County you really gotta know where you stand,” Velma said.
“That's true everywhere, baby,” Grandma Jubilee said, “but in Lofton County, history is close.”
As those two were speaking, Capt. Ironwood Hamilton and his team of workmen were methodically cutting the fallen tree apart, moving toward the massive root ball that held the massive chest in its grasp. Laid out in the Trent porch was a 19th-century map of what became Tinyville very early in the 20th century, a map from when it was still part of what General Joseph James Lofton had called “the bad sixty” in 1840, a sixty-mile tract of exhausted farmland he had purchased in addition to the twelve better miles he had made into Fruitland.
“But see, even as Confederates go, Gen. Lofton was almost as progressive as his younger brother,” Grandma Jubilee said to Velma. “He never owned a slave and spent decades buying folks out of slavery. Fruitland as his personal residence was a stop on the Underground Railroad because he allowed it. But, he just couldn't see the local boys marched off in 1861 without shoes or knowing how to march at all, and that's how they reeled him in – but anyway, before that, he had 72 miles of property, and he had bought a lot of it from failed slave owners in his own family circle. He allowed them to remain on the property on the condition that they compensated their workers, and in return he shared with them methods to support and enrich the land so it could produce better.”
“But probably everybody wasn't with that program, and 72 miles is a lot to keep an eye on without the Internet and drones and stuff,” Velma said.
“A horse and buggy would not even allow the general to see his property from end to end without taking the whole day to do it,” Grandma Jubilee said. “But that wasn't the problem. The problem was, General Lofton and later Major Lofton quietly let it be known that all people had the right of self-defense on their lands – so if land managers weren't going to get with the positive half of the Lofton program, the Lofton Brothers simply closed their eyes to them getting their consequences when other people decided they were people, no matter what the person abusing them thought, and struck back.”
“Oh,” Velma said, “so that chest might contain some evidence of people striking back, and why.”
“Wouldn't be the first time,” Grandma Jubilee said, “and there is a infamous disappearance in this area that no one has been able to solve: three other Lofton brothers who thought that between the general's death in 1864 and the major getting a firm grip on things in 1866 they could do what they wanted to the people around them. But Jules, John, and Joe Lofton were never seen again after September 5, 1866. Their wives, presumed abandoned, placed themselves under the major's protection, and life went on.”
“And nobody investigated; that's a bit sus,” Velma said.
“And this is where the saying, 'what's understood ain't gotta be explained' comes in, baby,” Grandma Jubilee said. “Those three Lofton brothers were known for the same thing their father and grandfather were: unnatural cruelty. So they went out drinking and carousing one Saturday night and never came back, and a lot of people breathed a sigh of relief.”
“I feel like there is a life lesson here,” Velma said. “Live like a good person so people actually want you to come home, and actually call the police because they care if you don't.”
“Ain't it the truth, Velma,” Grandma Jubilee said, – and also, so your rich relatives and your dangerous relatives don't all collectively go 'Oh well' when the wives' stories are making absolutely no sense at all.”
“Oh, it was that kind of party, huh?” Velma said.
“Just remember, baby, no matter what is in the chest: you can choose how to treat people, but you can't choose how that comes back to you. As the Bible says about a particular wicked king: Jules, John, and Joe Lofton departed, however they departed, without being desired. That's the result of choices they made long before September 5, 1866.”