The key episode in the back story to the science-fiction novel Hurt Stoker, which is set in an alternative history where the South defeated the North in the American Civil War, is contained in the family folk tale below.

Big Daddy Gleason’s voice had always been of the deepest timbre, and had the most soothing quality, which he attributed to his morning drought of Kentucky whiskey, a daily ritual that was.

“Ben Luther was his name, after his master Captain Jonah Luther. In prewar days Ben would ride a big draft horse when he went along on errands about plantation and town with his owner. You see, The Captain rode everywhere—a skinny narrow-shouldered Whiteman he was.

“Come the war, the Captain, a man of learning, and slight constitution, gave all but one of his horses to the Confederate cause, and began serving with that horse, as a messenger. The Captain would relay supply concerns whenever his portion of The Old Dominion was assailed by the Yankee hordes.

“Ben still came jogging along on the great ham hocks he had for legs. Ben Luther, nick-named Samson by The Captain’s wife, would always be there in case The Captain, a sickly man, had a faint spell, or the old horse flagged. Legend had it, in fact, that Ben Samson once carried that tired old horse home on his shoulders, like a redskin hauling a deer in olden times—while he towed The Captain behind him, who sat the saddle on the dirt track like a child on a Christmas sled! No fooling.

“Well, one night, as the Rebel Yell rang out in the nighted groves around Chancellorsville, and Yankee ghosts by the thousands fled to the darker regions of Eternity, The Captain got word of some concern that might prove noteworthy to General Stonewall Jackson. Along with Ben Samson they went off into the night, to search for their hero.

“Then lo-and-behold, there came a dark light into the worry pale night. The terrible ghost like occurrence spooked that old horse Missy, and she threw poor Captain Luther. Ben Samson caught The Captain in one hand like a doll, and steadied Missy with the other, like she was an unruly hound, using the reigns like a dog collar.

“Amidst the thanks that usually came from nice Captain Luther, for saving his fragile form from a fall once again, a man of strange—even womanish—aspect, stepped before them. This man was dressed in soft clothes, blue coalminer’s drawers, useless looking slipper shoes, and a dainty looking jacket made of some silk-like substance that felt like good wax paper to the touch.

“After many pleasantries and questions back-and-forth between the two white men, it was discovered that this man made claim to some form of sorcery that permitted him to live his life at some time ahead, and read about man’s many misfortunes from the regrettable vantage of tomorrow. It pained this magician to no end that General Stonewall Jackson himself was to be shot that very night. The fellow wished to stop The General from scouting tonight, on account of danger posed by their own Confederate pickets, who might shoot him dead.

“Now, that last part there, about being shot by his own men, was left out by most re-teller’s of the tale, since it brought the claims of the fabulous magician into question in the eyes of Southern Manhood. That little bit is just being told here as a might-have-been-said. The long and the short of the tale is that Captain Luther was faint, and that the magician claimed to have never mounted a horse, despite being a man of means, if you can believe that! Now that is the tall part of the tale if you ask me.

“It came to pass that the white men, the Good Captain and the Mysterious Magician, elected Ben to ride old Missy in search of The General; to ride through the woods like a big black ghost, to that place in Time where the magician claimed Stonewall Jackson would lose his life!

“Now Uncle Ben, being a man of compassion-to-animal kind, and possessing the largest frame known to Man, did not wish to injure poor old Missy and asked if he could run the message along. The Captain would not hear of it, saying that old Missy had to do her part in this war as well, to keep her kind out of them Yankee glue factories.

“So off Uncle Ben rode into the night. As soon as he got out of hearing—being that old Missy was already laboring under his weight—he got off and ran, dragging the old mare behind him by the reigns, leaping over the wreckage of war that littered the darkened trails, calling out to all that might hear, “Message from Captain Luther for The General,” every tenth step, so he did not end up shot like the General had been in the weird Whiteman’s dream.

“After many adventures, including righting an overturned supply wagon; saving a casualty wagon loaded with moaning soldiers that was foundering in a creek; fixing the snapped axel of another wagon by twisting the steel shaft together like a double-switch fishing rod; and dragging a mired officer’s horse out of a mud sink; Ben Samson was struck by luck. The grateful cavalry officer, endeared by Ben’s heroics, traded his fine warhorse for old Missy, and Ben rose up in the saddle, minding the officer’s directive to call out loudly the entire way, so he would not be shot for a runaway. And off Ben Samson rode, into the gathering night, on that spirited warhorse!

“But, don’t you know, that a saddle crafted to seat some narrow-assed Whiteman who grew up drinking milk from a glass, will not do for the seat of the biggest butt in all the South, that belonged to the hard-working-boy-become-a-man who hauled that milk by the bucket from milking shed to house! So, imagine if you will, as Big Ben bellowed out into the night, “Message from Captain Luther for The General”, scaring that spirited cavalry horse all the more, how hard it was, for Big Ben Samson to keep that seat, horseman though he might have been!

“He leaped that horse over a breastwork of North Carolina boys from behind, scaring the be-Jesus out of them as he yelled for The General. The boys behind were arguing about whether or not to fire on him, to waste minnie-balls on a runaway with Yankees about, when he saw The General come around the bend ahead.

“Now, moving at this speed, and keeping his seat by the strength of his hands, Uncle Ben bore down on The General, sitting tall in his saddle, advancing towards the guns of his own men in the gathering dark. So Ben, bellowing his news, went riding down the road barely in the saddle, at one point with the pummel uncomfortably wedged you-know-where. And, lo-and-behold, by the time Ben came up on The General and his staff he had lost all control and he and that hero horse went bowling through those officers like a bowling ball through pins!

“This mess came to pass precisely as the North Carolina pickets opened fire. However, thanks to being unhorsed and nearly crushed on the ground under Big Ben’s weight, Stonewall Jackson would live to fight another day.

“Now some fanciful things have been said about this occurrence which I do not cotton to. For instance, that all of the officers were killed leaving Stonewall and Samson to walk along the country lane alone, talking of the Negro plight, and The General promising to do something about it. My favorite is the story of the hero horse who bounded off into the night, and getting the attention of hiding Yankee troopers and eagle-eye Confederate sharpshooters alike, became kind of a taxi of salvation and damnation as Yankees piled on him to hitch a ride North and Confederates emptied his saddle just as quickly, five Yankees finally making it to Washington, all piled on the mighty charger’s back, to tell Lincoln the bad news!

“The carnage and fun was not really all that. What you can believe, is that Old Stonewall Jackson adopted Big Ben Samson as his godson and good-luck manservant. And, being a pious God-fearing man, and likening the magician—who was never seen again I might add—to an Angel of the Lord, Stonewall got Ben mounted up on the biggest horse that could be found, and kept him by his side, even through his third term as CSA President. They even say that, after standing vigil at the President’s bedside for three days and three nights; that Ben keeled over from a heart attack as soon as his godfather expired.

“There you have it Mister, the most real-to-life rendition of how my Uncle Ben Luther-Samson-Jackson, saved The Man, Who Saved The South—and it were not the only time, just this being the act that bears on your magician hunt.”

Whiff remembered leaping up and clapping and hurrahing and dancing around the coffee table at the story’s end, earning another plus-eight strop-lashings.

Whiff Gleason had been a failure as a Negro League ball player. He had, however, become one of the most successful colored men in The South; operating his own carnival through various white front men. One autumn night, while admiring his personal progress, he is confronted with the greatest of ironies: he is about to be one of the three colored men to be lynched in The South in the year 2013!

In this alternative history novel the irrepressible Whiff Gleason takes the reader on a tour of a ‘what if’ America; a strange mix of the depressed 1930s, the hedonistic 1970s, and our own criminalized present.

Since Stonewall Jackson’s defeat of Meade, and the capture and lynching of Lincoln, The South had, ever so gradually, adapted to modern mores. Since The Negro Bond Act of 1898, The Act of Segregation of 1934, and The Negro Incivility Act of 1971, lynching had become among the rarest of events. Now, on this fine evening, as Dixie Day draws to a close in the sleepy town of Hawthorne Maryland, Whiff Gleason has the misfortune of being waylaid by three Pennsylvania boys in a pickup, intent on asserting their superiority south of the Mason Dixon Line, where they suppose it will be appreciated.

Most men would plead, beg mercy, say prayers to the Lord Above, or whisper a word to The Dear Departed. But not Whiff Gleason. Whiff knows that there is one incontrovertible truth in life: that there is a potential profit to be made from any situation, no matter how bad it might seem. Now all he has to do is figure out how these three rednecks are going to pay for his next French-tailored silk suit.