Dragons Die At Dawn
by
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The boy was sure that Uncle Frank was as curious as he was to learn what was going on down at the track. The boy knew this because Uncle Frank said the most curious thing. "Yo know de real reason I can’t let yo go over deah, don’t yo, boy? "Sure I do. But, just so I’m real, real sure, why don’t you tell me anyway?" "Naw, you wouldn’t believe old Uncle Frank if’n he told yo." "Try me. I believe the things you tell me about the old days in Fallston." "Yo does?" "Sure I do." "Cause dragons dey always dies at daybreak, dat’s why." The boy could barely keep from laughing out loud, but he knew that laughing at the old man would kill any chance of going to the train. Instead he asked, "Dragons? You mean fire-out-the-nose dragons? Were those things still around when you were a boy? Let me go see, Uncle Frank. Maybe there is a real dragon over there." "Deh ain’t no real dragon over deah, boy. Yo knows dat good as I does. Spozen’ yoh papa comes heah, and I tell him I sent you down deah to looking fur arey dragon? Nah, hit’s just dat my old pappy used to tell me stories bout dragons when I was a boy like yo. One of dem stories just sprung in my head, dat’s all. I reckon hit’s because dat locomotive ovah yonder is the nearest thing to airy real dragon as yoh ole Uncle Frank gwine evah see. I knows you wants to take Mister Lacy’s watch yonder to him, but hit’s too dangerous. Dat dragon ovah yonder ain’t total dead yet. Deah’s a heapa fire in dat yonder dragon’s belly yet. My pappy told me never to mess around wid no dying dragon." The status quo continued. Frank Ruffin was wary of what the boy in his charge might do, so it was no surprise that they were both facing the direction of the locomotive when fireworks suddenly up the northern sky. It began as a fireworks display and looked like a volcano erupting in the flatlands. Ashes and red hot cinders spewed high into the air. A deafening boom immediately followed the short pyrotechnics. A powerful whoosh of air forced every leaf and branch in its path to sway and quiver. As the blast wave passed the boy, he saw the boiler rising into the air. It seemed to be in slow motion, turning lazy end-over-end flips. It reminded the boy of a stuffed animal that had been tossed by its tail into the air. It was over within a very few seconds. Then silence. By lantern light the boy saw the shock on Uncle Frank’s face. Jubal never knew which shocked the old man most: the explosion or the boy’s statement. The boy stood on the threshold of the greatest tragedy that he had ever witnessed and calmly predicted, "Well, Uncle Frank, I don’t guess old Mr. Lacy will be needing his ole watch now."
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About the Book
Young Jubal Scott and his father lived on a run-down tobacco farm bordering the forlorn village of Fallston. Sweetwater Farm was once known as one of North Carolina’s most productive and prestigious tobacco plantations. Similarly, Fallston was formerly recognized as the queen of North Carolina’s colorful river ports. The story begins there during the predawn hours of August 9, 1941.
At four in the morning a railroad steam engine, from which the book draws its title, explodes on the border between Fallston and the Sweetwater Farm. Railroad investigators promptly announce that the locomotive’s three crewmen died as a result of their own carelessness. The police, media and a majority of Carolinians quickly agreed with the railroad’s conclusion. One columnist wrote satirically, "--the spectacular explosion merely replaces the period at the end of Fallston’s obituary with an exclamation point." Melinda Brandon, widow of the locomotive’s brakeman, however, is convinced that the ill fated crew, including her husband, were murdered.
Jubal Scott was spending the night at a nearby tobacco barn, and witnessed the explosion. Minutes before the blast, the nine-year-old had a bizarre encounter with a man pretending to be one of the locomotive’s crewmen. The boy is shaken by that frightful confrontation as well as the ensuing explosion.
Dozens of newspapers and radio stations carried the explosion story; including the fact that each of the dead locomotive crewman’s railroad watches had been returned to their respective widows. Jubal Scott, however, is left with more than vivid memories; he also ended up with a railroader’s pocket watch! Conscience and circumstances eventually convinced the guilt stricken boy to surrender the watch to his father. Mason Scott immediately recognizes that his son is in grave danger. An elderly black couple, Jubal’s taciturn father, a backwater county sheriff, and the Jubal’s old maid Sunday school teacher are quickly assembled as the core of the boy’s defense team. Once their charge is safe, Jubal’s defenders join the widow Brandon in the search of her husband’s killer. The big break in the case came when a member of Jubal’s team turned out to be the unwitting model from which the killer’s real motive is deduced. Based upon this motive, the team generates a list of probable suspects. But, time is running out, only Jubal knows the killer well enough to expedite the likelihood of identifying him before he decides to kill again.
About the Author
William Davenport grew up on a tobacco farm on the Roanoke River in eastern North Carolina. The farm was located very near a town that had once been a thriving river port. Davenport’s father became the overseer of a struggling tobacco farm during the Great Depression. On that farm, while yet a young child, Davenport received hands-on training in the labor-intensive business of tobacco farming. While in the midst of the intense struggle for the farm’s survival, young Davenport also learned much about the struggle between good and evil. In the nearby village where Davenport attended church and school, the boy became fascinated by the many colorful reminders of past glory he found there. There, on farm and town the seeds of Dragons Die at Dawn were planted. Later, as a young man, the author hired on as a railroad pipefitter’s apprentice where he learned the trade and worked on the last of the steam engines and the first of the diesels. After serving in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War, the author used the G.I. Bill to foster his college education. After attaining a master’s degree from East Carolina University in 1963, he began a new career as an aerospace engineer for NASA at Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. He retired from NASA in 1995 at the age of 68. While writing as a hobby, several of the author’s articles have appeared in major magazines including Reader’s Digest and Guideposts. The farm, river port, locomotive, and tobacco horses were real. The rest is fiction.