The Final Chapters of The Trial Of Summary James — Nineteen and Twenty

A great African nation has risen in North America. But something is… wrong. The final two chapters of the novella.

Aug 25, 2025

For those of you new to this short novella…

This is an alternative history murder mystery set in a modern North America where slavery ended in the late 1700s and the Trail of Tears never occurred. What sprang from that was a multicultural nation governed by a democratic theocracy. Longman Jones is a former newspaper reporter and (of course, because it’s a murder mystery) martial arts expert who sees visions of murders immediately after they take place.

Lately, his visions have morphed from certain to possible ones. In the previous chapter, he encountered another. His latest vision showed his friend, Hiawatha, killed in a confrontation with the alleged mastermind of a murder and conspiracy plot.

Previous chapters can be found at the end of Chapter One.

Read Chapter One

Chapter Nineteen

I tapped the earpiece again. “Hiawatha can you hear me?”

“Yeah brother, I can hear you.”

“Where are you?” I asked frantically, but not as frantically as when I saw Sonata die, because this time, I was confident that the target of my vision was not dead.

“Just outside the voodoo house,” he said.

“I think there’s a sniper on the roof. I just had another vision.” Just so he knew that my vision was real, I added, “And she’s not my girl.”

“Hell, she isn’t. And thank you. I’ll keep you plugged in. Talk me through the place once I get in. Where to find Alon.”

“He’s in the third room on the right down a hallway you’ll see when you get there. Three doors on each side, he’ll be in the third on your right. Don’t bother banging the others all down.”

He didn’t reply. Instead, I heard him giving some orders, but the words weren’t distinct. I heard several rounds of automatic gunfire a few minutes later. “Sniper is down,” he said soon after. “You were right. Holiest of shits, you do have quite a gift.”

I heard lots of indiscernible commotion. Loud voices, instructions, cussing. A woman screaming, Hiawatha assuring me she’s okay, just scared, as she was getting pushed and locked into a room for her safety. Probably the front desk lady I had met.

The sounds mostly blended into one kerfuffle, except when a riff of automatic gunfire pierced through. Hiawatha cursed, but not into the phone. “Man down,” his throat hurried before I heard a loud thud that sounded like full bookshelves falling. Hiawatha was cursing a lot, now, sounding concerned.

Footfalls. Running. “Zak!” he screamed, “two o’clock!” More cussing, more gunfire. It was like listening to a war movie in which you had no idea whose side was winning.

There was clearly a lengthy gun battle. Finally, silence. “I think that was Horse Luemba who just took a few rounds,” Hiawatha said within a series of gasping breaths through a voice sounding smothered and distant. “I think we lost a man, Longman. He’s not looking good from here.” A deep breath. “I see someone at the end of the hallway.”

After more harried noises, Hiawatha said to me, “There’s a little bald man running down the hallway in a white bathrobe. Got a little spot of black hair on the top of his head like it’s a mistake.”

“That’s probably Alon,” I said.

I heard more running. Even through the earpiece, I could sense the determination, the significance of the next moments. I could almost see Hiawatha signaling his men where to move. Next, the only obvious noises I could make out were the sounds of military-grade boots hitting the floor. A lot of them.

“Nowhere for you to go, Alon,” I heard Hiawatha say. “You are Philippe Alon, are you not?”

I could faintly hear Alon’s French accent say in its high-pitched voice, “Oui, now please remove these weapons. You are in a Synod-registered congregation.” Hiawatha’s reply was swift and simple.

A long round of gunfire cut through my earpiece. “Register this,” I heard Hiawatha say.

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Chapter Twenty

“Lordy, it’s hot down here,” said Sonata Holmes, taking a drink of a cool pineapple and seltzer water through a straw. A wooden bat delivered its magical sound into the stands as it struck a baseball and lofted it far over the outfield fence, which sent Thériault Mawlings’ hands clapping high into the air as he rounded the bases in triumph. Sonata and I had taken it upon ourselves to bring a very special guest to a playoff game in Port-au-Prince.

“A lady from Texas complaining about the heat,” I said, stricken as always by her company. I clapped my hands, too, as I watched Mawlings being greeted at home plate by three others who scored in front of him, all of them jumping up and down like happy children.

Mawlings had finished the regular season hitting .327. I was obviously not destined to win any bets, especially now that the gambling operation had been taken out by Hiawatha. And especially, too, now that the federal government was pouring resources into what it considered congregational warfare. There was a long way to go, I knew, before all the truth would be found, and I had no idea what my role might be in finding it.

Summary James, sitting on the other side of me, jumped up and spilled his drink all over his pants while cheering on the next batter, who also hit a long home run, all of which elicited a loud laugh from Sonata.

I took Sonata Holmes’s hand in mine and kissed it, comfortable with the uncertain future, but glad to be away from congregational politics, if only for a day.