Folks
in Clinton don’t talk much about Silas Burdett. Not when the sun’s up, anyway.
In daylight he’s a joke you toss around over burgers at Hook’s or while waiting
on a latte at 392. A story. A shrug.
But
when the Mississippi fog slides in after dark, people stop joking.
Conversations dry up. Eyes slide toward the windows. And if you listen, if you
really listen, you’d swear you hear crackling wood. Burning. Smoldering. Old
smoke that isn’t there.
Silas
Burdett. Yeah. Him.
The
lumber baron who ran Clinton back when sawdust blew through town like blizzards
and the mills never slept. He had a voice like grinding timber and a jaw cut
from white oak. Folks say he didn’t walk so much as shove the ground out of his
way. His mill squatted on the riverfront where the LumberKings ballpark stands
now—back before baseball, before bleachers, before anything except heat, noise,
and fear.
