The Boy From Detroit

Chapter Thirty-Three

Kareem arrived at school an hour before the first bell and discovered that most of the security and staff were busy blaming the football team for the broken glass in the admin office door. They seem to believe that one of them missed a pass and shattered the glass. Although, the usual suspects who usually mess around in the hallway, were making a strong case against the accusation by demanding the Solace High staff check the footage.

Meanwhile, Kareem turned away from the scene and headed straight to the library and met with Mrs. Yoon, The Korean Cat Lady as most kids called her behind her back, and told her that he was looking for reading material on the history of Solace and Philip Hudson Walker. She then looked at him and pointed toward the respective section of the library which was a corner shelf full of leather-bound books.

"You can also check out the newspaper section as well," Mrs. Yoon said. "You'll find everything you need under Solace."

"Thank you. And by the way," Kareem said to Mrs. Yoon. "Is Mr. Walker, our AP History teacher, related to Philip Hudson Walker I by any chance?"

"Why, yes he is," Mrs. Yoon said. "Philip Hudson Walker I is one of the founding fathers of Solace."

Kareem smiled.

"How did you know that?" she asked.

"A wild guess. I guess they have the same beard. And the same last name."

"I see." She paused and threw Kareem a probing look. "You seem very interested."

There you go.

When Kareem googled Philip Hudson Walker I, he found some fascinating details about the Walker family tree and the town of Solace itself. But he didn't want to go about it that way. Because following the advice of FBI Special Agent Joseph Lamb, Kareem wanted to announce that he was onto Walker and his step-sister, but in a subtle way. From the grapevine of the school staff, Kareem wanted Walker to know that Kyrie Coltrane was suspiciously interested in the Walkers. Why? Because Kareem simply wanted to. Hence, Kareem had to showcase his interest publicly and ask questions about Mr. Walker from people, especially people like Mrs. Yoon as Kareem was confident that she would spill the beans to Mr. Walker before lunch. And in case Kareem was to be confronted by Walker, he had the perfect excuse to justify his sudden interest. So he thought it was a brilliant plan.

"Yes," Kareem said. "I'm very interested."

"Any particular reason?" Mrs. Yoon said.

"I find him fascinating. So I'm just curious." Kareem lied. Because that wasn't the reason I was going to tell Walker. That was the answer he'd concocted to get his attention by proxy. "Is he a respected man at Solace High?"

"Yes. Not just in this school, but the entire community of Solace knows him."

"Great. You seem to know a lot about Solace."

"I've been living here for more than twenty years. It wouldn't hurt to know about its history."

"Absolutely. If I want some more details about this topic, could I count on you?"

"Of course. I'm the librarian after all."

Kareem gave a PR smile. "Fantastic. Thank you so much."

Upon arriving at the Historical Non-fiction section next to the Braille section, his eyes immediately started searching for the word Solace on the leather-bound spines. Twenty seconds later, his fingers came across a thin spine titled: Walker's End: An Account of Solace, Missouri.

It was safe to say that he learned more in that book than surfing the internet. It was as if he was transported back in time to the 1800s.

Philip Hudson Walker I (September 22, 1810 – March 26, 1864), known by the nickname "Dead Man" Walker, was a soldier who was one of the deadliest and most notorious Confederate guerrilla leaders in the American Civil War. Walker co-led a band of volunteer partisan raiders, alongside William T. Anderson, who targeted Union loyalists and federal soldiers in the states of Missouri and Kansas.

Raised by a family of Southerners in Kansas, Walker began to support himself by stealing and peddling horses in 1862. After a former associate and secessionist turned Union loyalist sheriff killed his father, Walker slaughtered the sheriff and absconded to Missouri. There he raided explorers and slew several Union soldiers. In early 1863 he joined Quantrill's Raiders, a group of Confederate guerrillas which operated along the Kansas–Missouri border.

He became a capable bushwhacker, netting the trust of the group's leaders, William Quantrill and George M. Todd. Walker's bushwhacking marked him as a daring man and ultimately led the Union to incarcerate his sisters. After a building collapse in the makeshift jail in Kansas City, Missouri, left one of them dead in custody and the other permanently marred, Walker devoted himself to retribution. He took a tertiary leading role in the Lawrence Massacre and later took part in the Battle of Baxter Springs, both in 1863.

In late 1863, while Quantrill's Raiders spent the winter in Sherman, Texas, animosity developed between Philip Hudson Walker and William T. Anderson and Quantrill. Walker and Anderson, perhaps falsely, implicated Quantrill in a murder leading to the latter's arrest by Confederate authorities. Walker subsequently returned to Missouri as the leader of his own group of marauders and became the most feared guerrilla in the state, robbing and killing a large number of Union soldiers and civilian sympathizers.

Although Union supporters viewed him as incorrigibly evil, Confederate supporters in Missouri saw his actions as permissible. In September 1864, Walker led a raid on the town of Shallow Creek, Missouri. Unexpectedly, his men were able to capture a passenger train, the first time Confederate insurgents had done so.

In what became known as the Shallow Creek Massacre, Walker's bushwhackers killed 24 unarmed Union soldiers on the train and set an ambush later that day which killed over a hundred Union militiamen. Walker himself was killed a month later, in battle, and the people renamed Shallow Creek Walker's End until it was renamed Solace in 2006.

Historians have made incongruent assessments of Anderson; some see him as an atrocious, psychopathic killer, whereas others put his actions into the viewpoint of the general desperation and unruliness of the time and the brutalization upshot of warfare.

Kareem read on. A few pages later, something caught his attention. It was about the House of Solace.

In the mid-1800s, the House of Solace was a slave prison, torture chamber, and slaughterhouse that was used to house about 200 African-American prisoners who were reluctant to bend their knee to slavery and who were caught for a surplus of other misdemeanors including theft, trying to escape or hurt and criticize their owners. As the read progressed it turned darker and darker. The hairs on his neck stuck up. It started showing depictions of slaves being beheaded, whipped with spiked whips, and children of serious offenders being fed to hellhounds and wives being hanged and being shot in the head.

Kareem shut the book not so subtly. Every student in the vicinity glanced at him, startled. With a beating heart, he returned the book to its shelf and vowed never to open it under any circumstances. He stood still for a moment, trying to gather his bearings, and then hurried through the library without even glancing at Mrs. Yoon, who was clearly expecting a thank you or take care.