BlackWater Bayou The Old House On The Bayou... At the heart of a remote southern timber region lies Clayburne Hall on BlackWater Bayou, guardioan of five generations of Clayburnes. Across the bayou stands for-bidden McAlister land. The two estates are connected by a footbridge across BlackWater Bayou, but the chasm of ill feeling between the families is too deep... more » and reaches too far into the past to be spanned. Young San Francisco artist Leslie Ware journeys to Clyburne Hall at the insistent sumons of her mother, Alyson Clayburne Ware, present mistress of the family estate. When she arrives, however, her mother is dead, drowned beneath the footbridge of the McAlister side of the Bayiu, leaving Leslie heriss to the vast Clayburne fortune. Suspicious of the questionable circumstances surrounding her mother's death, Leslie is at once confronted with hostility from family members as she pursues her investigation.« less