Judge William Callahan did not take the physicians’ conclusions well.

Over the next several months, brief conversations became more frequent.

They discussed history.

Poetry.

Religion.

Politics.

Thomas found himself looking forward to their meetings.

Ruth challenged his assumptions and asked questions few others dared ask.

For perhaps the first time in his life, Thomas felt understood.

As 1859 progressed, tensions across the South continued rising.

Talk of secession appeared in newspapers.

Political arguments grew heated.

Even remote plantations felt the pressure of approaching change.

Within the Callahan household, however, another conflict was brewing.

Judge Callahan had begun considering increasingly desperate solutions to the problem of inheritance.

The future he imagined for his family seemed to be slipping away.

And desperation often leads powerful men toward dangerous decisions.

Thomas sensed something changing.

Conversations stopped when he entered rooms.

Letters arrived and disappeared quickly.

Business associates visited more frequently.

One evening he overheard fragments of a discussion between his father and an attorney from Natchez.

The words chilled him.

They spoke of legacy.

Bloodlines.

Control.

And preserving the family name at any cost.

For the first time, Thomas realized that the greatest challenge of his life might not be his fragile body.

It might be the ambitions of the man who had raised him.