The old man had been somebody. He made it through the Great War unscathed as a

radio telegraph operator. While sending messages he learned a bit about business and investing.

He was surprised by the information that went out to the upper echelon in the naval fleet.

From that information, he planned his career for after the war,

and he did well.

He married way above his class after the war and invested in stocks no one else knew anything about.

During the roaring 20s he had amassed a fortune, but then that dark day in 1929. Just like that he lost it all.

He tried to make do, but his wife was accustomed to so much more, and she fell into a deep depression.

He didn't find the arsenic bottle until a week after her funeral.

For a man who had once been a celebrity of sorts, he now shunned human contact.

He left the mansion and settled on an old shack in the Louisiana swamp.

Dressed in old raggedy clothes, his hair and beard left to grow wild.

He spent his days walking the bogs and swamps, fishing, hunting, gathering his own food, doing what it took to get by.

The locals would see him now and then and he became a sort of bogeyman in the area.

You kids better watch out, old man, Willie's gonna get you.

The depression finally ended. We went to war again in the

40s and the economy boomed and Lucius Clay stayed right where he was. He didn't care anymore.

The cables were a nasty bunch of people,

always in trouble fighting, stealing.

The town of Lou Ray considered them white trash. Their mama was a good woman who married a bad

man. The marriage lasted for six kids to be born and then James cable vanish leaving Miss Cable with

nothing but six growing boys to feed South Louisiana in the 50s, no work, no husband, no money, but she did the best she could.

...