The heat in Cypress Creek, Alabama, didn’t just sit in the air; it poured itself over everything like a thick, syrupy haze that made even the cicadas sound tired. For ten-year-old Ricky, the summer stretched out before him, as long and empty as the dirt road running past his house. His days were a cycle of lemonade, dog-eared Louis L’Amour paperback novels, and the pitiful whir of a box fan in his bedroom window.

All that changed the day he saw the boy down by the old train trestle.

Ricky was chasing a frog that had hopped from the creek when he looked up. The boy was just there, perched on a sun-bleached railroad tie like a ghost. He was skinny, all sharp angles and elbows, with hair the color of wet straw and eyes that seemed too old for his face. He didn’t speak, just watched Ricky with an unnerving stillness.

“Hey. I’m Ricky,” he finally managed, wiping his muddy hands on his shorts.

The boy considered this for a long moment. “Jonah,” he said, his voice a low rasp, like he didn’t use it much.

Jonah became Ricky’s secret. He lived with his grandmother in a weathered house at the edge of the Blackwater Swamp, a place folks whispered about. “Them Duvalls,” Ricky’s father had once said, “got a streak of trouble runs a mile deep.” But Ricky didn’t see trouble. He saw a boy who knew how to find the best blackberry and huckleberry bushes, who could imitate a whippoorwill’s call perfectly, and who moved through the dense, shadowy forests with a silent, inborn grace.

Their kingdom was the swamp. They spent their days navigating its tea-colored waters in Ricky’s old rowboat, the Beulah Mae, weaving between cypress knees that rose from the water like gnarled fingers. Jonah pointed out the hidden things: the nest of a water moccasin coiled on a low branch, the iridescent flash of a blue dragonfly, the quiet, deep pool where the biggest bass slept. He spoke little of his past, but the shadows in his eyes spoke volumes. Ricky learned to understand his silence and to value the companionship that didn’t need words.

The secret of the summer was a shared project: a map of their territory, drawn on a roll of brown butcher paper Ricky had smuggled from his Mawmaw’s kitchen. They marked everything—the ‘Gator Sunning Spot’, the ‘Best Swimming Hole’, the ‘Fort of the Old Oak’.

It was while adding a new detail—a hidden path Jonah had found—that they stumbled upon the real secret. The path, overgrown and forgotten, led not to a new fishing spot, but to a small, neglected family graveyard, so old the names on the mossy headstones were almost worn smooth.

“I ain’t never seen this before,” Jonah whispered, the swamp suddenly feeling too quiet.

They moved between the markers, brushing away vines and dirt. Ricky stopped at a taller, gray stone. The name ‘Elias Vance’—Ricky’s own Pawpaw—was carved into it. Beneath his name were the dates and the words: Beloved Husband and Father.

“Hey, this one’s got the same date,” Jonah said from a few feet away. He was staring at a simpler, smaller headstone made of discolored marble. He cleared the moss with his hand.

Eleanor Duvall. Beloved Daughter.

May 12, 1938 – August 3, 1956.

The same death date as Elias Vance.

A coldness seeped into Ricky’s bones; a chill the swamp’s heat couldn’t touch. “My Pawpaw died in a hunting accident,” he said, his voice shaky. “That’s what my daddy always said.”

Jonah’s face was pale. “My grandma… she just says our family’s got a history of heartbreak. She never talks about her.”

Driven by a dawning, dreadful need to know, they went to the town’s tiny library the next day, their innocence already beginning to evaporate like a summer rain shower. The ancient librarian, Mrs. Gable, knew where everything was. She brought them a heavy, leather-bound book of old town newspapers, her eyes lingering on the two boys together. A Vance and a Duvall. Don’t that just beat all?

They found the article from August 5th, 1956. The yellowed page told a different story. It wasn’t a hunting accident. It was a scandal.

“Young lovers, Elias Vance, 27, and Eleanor Duvall, 18, were found deceased in a cabin near Blackwater Swamp on Thursday. The sheriff’s office suggests a murder-suicide pact, following the strong opposition from both families to their relationship, particularly in light of the fact that Vance was already married with a family. The Vance and Duvall families have had a long-standing and bitter feud over land and water rights…”

The words blurred. Ricky felt the world tilt. His kind Pawpaw, the one from the smiling photo on the mantel, had not died by accident. He had died for love. And the girl he loved was Jonah’s great-aunt. They had been killed by the same hatred that still simmered between their families, a hatred Ricky’s daddy and Jonah’s grandmother had quietly inherited and passed down through whispers and warnings.

They walked back to the swamp, the weight of the past heavy on their small shoulders. The buzzing of the insects now sounded like an accusation. The familiar, comforting shadows of the cypress trees seemed to hold old ghosts.

“So that’s why,” Jonah said, his voice flat. “That’s why my grandma gets that look on her face when your Pawpaw’s name is mentioned. That’s why we’re ‘trash’ to y’all.”

“We don’t… I don’t…” Ricky said, but the protest sounded weak. He had heard the comments, but had never questioned them.

They stopped at the split in the path—one way led to Ricky’s neat, white house, the other to Jonah’s tumbledown home on the swamp’s edge. The invisible line between their worlds was now as stark and real as the gravestones they’d discovered.

Jonah looked at Ricky, and the easy camaraderie of the summer was gone, replaced by a painful, new understanding. “Guess we were supposed to hate each other all along.”

The summer ended after that. Not officially, but the magic was drained from it. They tried to meet a few more times, but the conversations were strained, the adventures felt like play-acting. They were no longer just two boys. They were legacies.

On the last day before school started, Ricky rode his bike to the train trestle. Jonah was already there.

“I don’t care what they say,” Ricky said, the words tumbling out. “It don’t matter to me.”

Jonah nodded slowly, a sad, knowing look in his old-young eyes. “It will,” he said quietly. “One day, it will.”

He turned and walked down the path toward the swamp, swallowed by the green shadows. Ricky stayed until the lightning bugs flickered like tiny, lost stars in the purple dusk. The sticky heat was still there, but it felt different now. It wasn’t just the heat of a slow Alabama summer; it was the heat of a truth that had been buried too long, finally uncovered, forever changing the shade of everything they thought they knew.

*****

And, you know I mustn’t neglect the obligatory shameless self-promotion. New Yesterdays is available through the following links: Books-A-Million, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon as well as your favorite bookshops. The Audiobook is available from Libro.fm, as well as Amazon.