Southern Cross The Dog

Robert Chatham loses everything in the flood. His home, his family and his first love are gone. He journeys through the deep South, seeking some manner of escape from his own memories. He finds it nowhere, not in the desperation of a refugee camp or in the fiery and raucous brothel Hotel Beau-Miel. The journey takes him to the Mississippi hinterland, and he joins a band of men commissioned with clearing the swamp and building a dam. Through his journey he meets hustlers who play the piano, Klansmen who never do or mean well, and a family of fur trappers. The trappers, called the L’Etangs, are threatened by the clearing of the swamp. The L’Etang brothers are fierce, but their cousin, the soft and caring Frankie, might be the only woman who can once again touch Robert’s heart and cleanse it of the darkness and melancholy it hides.