Ahead of the Press Publishing

It was January, 1866 and Rudy Blake left England for the United States. Rose Bud Theodore did not argue his purpose, only the possibility of success. He swore he would write to her once he reached his destination. He gave his word. Therefore, she did not believe him and settled in to wait. Either he would return or he would die. Of the two R. B.’s, she was the least hopeful. While Rudy believed money was the root of all good, she better comprehended how hatred often prevailed over self-interest. The city of Charleston, South Carolina was under martial law. Major Daniel Adams had been given the assignment to keep the peace. It was not a job he asked for, nor one he wanted. But when the fair man was asked by the Rail Splitter to perform this last arduous duty, he could not refuse. Upon assuming his duties, Adams was given one dire warning: pray the man named Rudy Blake never returns because if he does, your job will go from hopeless to untenable. The man was trouble. Rudy Blake had returned. The Federal officer did not know why Rudy Blake had suddenly come home. Neither did the people of Charleston. They suspected him of organizing a Home Guard against Union authority; of selling rifles to insurrectionists; of inciting a rebellion by former slaves; or, conversely, of coercing black men to sail to Cuba where he would sell them into slavery. Nothing was considered beyond him, even of playing both sides against the other. Only two men knew the real reason Rudy had returned: Charles Blake, the father who had disowned him, and Ethan Odanagh, former trader in black flesh and incidentally Rudy’s father-in-law. They fully comprehended Blake’s reasons, and had set a trap for him of monumental proportions. How well their plan succeeds sets in motion a confrontation between Rudy and Major Adams. Ordered by his superior to find a charge that will stick and hang him for the sake of appeasing the locals who blamed Blake for singlehandedly losing the War, Dan Adams is unexpectedly presented just such a charge. With Rudy arrested and behind bars on a spurious warrant, the two men square off in a personal contest of wills that will not only alter both their lives, it will determine whether Rudy survives the ordeal or swings to his death from the Hangman’s Tree.