The Western Adventures of Cade McCall Box Set

by Robert Vaughan

  “Yes.”

  Adam was quiet for a moment, then he nodded. “All right,” he said. “I’ll do it. I wonder . . .”

  “You wonder what?”

  “I wonder if mom and pop have been told about Cade. I pray that they have been told. I don’t want to be the one who will have to tell them.”

  “Whether they have been given the news or not, be thankful for this. You are alive, and you will be there to comfort them,” Dr. Barnes said.

  5

  Chicago, IL:

  THE TRAIN THAT HAD COME north all the way from Nashville consisted of two locomotives, a passenger car occupied by forty Union soldiers, and fifteen cattle cars, each car filled with one hundred Confederate prisoners of war. At the tail end of the train there was another passenger car, this one with forty Union soldiers who were guards for the prisoners.

  It was cold on this December afternoon, and the wind came through the open spaces between the slats on the four sides of the car. But because the car was crowded with men who hadn’t bathed in a long time, and, because of the smell of feces and urine, there being no facilities for the men to relieve themselves, the fresh air compensated for the cold. The fact that there were so many of them crowded into the car had the beneficial effect of providing some warmth to counteract the cold.

  There was barely room to sit in the cattle cars, let alone lie down. To accommodate this, the prisoners worked out a schedule among themselves which allowed them to sleep in shifts for the three days they were in route to the Camp Douglas Prison on the shore of Lake Michigan.

  “Did you see my brother die?” Melinda asked.

  “Yes. I’m sorry. Gordon was a good man, and a good friend,” Cade answered.

  “How was he killed?”

  “It was quick.” Cade made no mention of the blood and brains spilled by the hatchet wielded by the Yankee officer.

  “They say that Gordon died bravely and that he is a hero.”

  “Yes, that is true.”

  “I would rather have a live brother, than a dead hero.”

  “So many were killed in that battle,” Cade said. “I was almost killed, the bomb burst so close to me.”

  Melinda ran her finger over the ridge above Cade’s eye. “You have no eyebrows,” she said.

  “They were burned off in the explosion. They’ll grow back.”

  Her fingers moved from a denuded eyebrow ridge up to his forehead where they hovered over a scar that rose, like a purple fishhook, just above the right eye.

  “Does it hurt?” she asked.

  “Not anymore. But I expect I’ll have the scar for the rest of my life.”

  “That’s all right, I will always love you, even with the scar, and whether you have an eyebrow or not. I know what! You can use the lock of hair I sent you, as an eyebrow.”

  “Yes, I could do that, couldn’t I?”

  Cade and Melinda were sitting in “their place” on the bank of the Cumberland River.

  “Oh, Cade, why didn’t we get married before you left? Now look. I am at home, without you, and you are on a train, going to a prison camp in Chicago.”

  “No!” Cade said. “I’m here, with you! Can’t you see?” He wanted to lay his hand on her cheek, but found that he was quite unable to lift his arm.

  “Melinda!” he called.

  He saw Melinda’s lips moving, and heard her voice. “I will always love you . . . love you . . . love you.”

  The train hit a rough section of track and the cattle car jerked severely enough to awaken Cade. For just an instant, he was caught between the dream and the reality. He wasn’t with Melinda at all. He was in a cold, smelly, and crowded cattle car.

  “Awake, huh?” Pogue asked.

  “Yeah,” Cade answered, sitting up. “You want the space to lie down?”

  “No need. We’ll be there in another half hour.”

  “How do you know?”

  “We’re in Chicago now,” Pogue said. “If you look out the left side of the car you’ll see the city; if you look out the right side, you’ll see the ocean.”

  Cade chuckled. “It’s not an ocean, it’s a lake.”

  “The hell it is,” Pogue said. “I ain’t never seen me no lake like this. Why, you can’t even see the other side of it.”

  The train began slowing.

  “We’re there, boys!” someone called. “I can see a bunch of blue bellies standin’ out there a’ waitin’ for us.”

  A moment later the train came to a stop and shortly after that, the door was jerked open.

  “All right, out of the car!” someone shouted.

  The prisoners jumped down from the car onto ground that was covered with snow. It was very cold, and none of the prisoners had coats. Cade was fortunate in that he, at least, had shoes. Many did not.

  “Form up, form up!” a Federal sergeant started yelling.

  When the prisoners didn’t get into a formation quickly enough to satisfy the sergeant, he stepped in and using a club, knocked a couple of them down.

  “You men was in the army wasn’t you? What the hell? Don’t you Rebs know how to get in formation? Now form up, I ain’t goin’ to tell you again.”

  As the prisoners formed up in front of the cars, Cade had no idea what the temperature was, but he knew that this was about the coldest he had ever been in his life. He was standing in snow that was ankle deep, and he was chilled to the bone, wishing that he had a coat.

  “All right, men, strip down!” the Yankee sergeant that was nearest to Cade and the men with him, shouted. Each of the prisoner formations had their own blue-clad sergeant in charge.

  “Do what?” someone called out.

  “Who said that?” the sergeant asked.

  “I did,” a prisoner in the second rank replied. “I want to know what you mean by strip down.”

  “Come up here, ‘n we’ll talk about it,” the sergeant answered.

  The prisoner complied, and as soon as he reached the front, the sergeant brought his club down, sharply, on the man’s head. With a grunt, the prisoner fell to the ground.

  “Now,” the guard said to the others, standing over the prostrate form, slapping the palm of his left hand with the same club he had just used on the prisoner. “Let that be a lesson for you Secesh sons of bitches. I give the orders: you obey them. And no backtalk. I’ll say it one more time, take off all your clothes and pile them on the ground in front of you.”

  If Cade had been cold, earlier, he was infinitely colder now.

  After everyone was naked, the sergeant gave another order.

  “All right, one at a time, pick up your clothes and bring ‘em up to one of the guards who will be inspecting you for any hidden weapons you might have.”

  Cade saw, quickly, that the guards weren’t just searching for weapons. They were confiscating any article of value, such as gold and silver watches, lockets, rings, pocket knives, and coins. Because Melinda’s lock of hair was tied with a little strand of gold, Cade knew the guards would take it as well. How was he going to hide it? They would search his clothes, and he was totally naked.

  Then he smiled. He had a perfect place to hide it. Unobserved, he took the lock from his pocket, then pushed it into his own disheveled hair.

  “All right!” the sergeant called. “You Rebs get dressed now, and cover those shriveled up little peckers.”

  Cade put his clothes back on, but they had lain in the snow and were cold and wet so putting them on did nothing to make him any warmer.

  The guard pointed to a high, blank, wooden wall that seemed to stretch forever. “In case you’re wonderin’, that there is goin’ to be your new home. Onliest thing is, you ain’t goin’ to have your mama to tuck you in at night,” he said with a smirk.

  A guard stood near the gate, armed with a .54 caliber Springfield rifle. The gate was thrown open and Cade and the others marched through where they were assigned barracks. Cade and Pogue drew Barracks number 41, and once inside, they were given the first rations they ha
d received since leaving the city of Nashville.

  Lying in bed that first night, Cade assessed his situation. He was at Camp Douglas as a prisoner of war, with no idea how long he would be kept. He was also among strangers for the most part, he and Pogue Elliot being the only two men remaining from the twenty-man mess that had been together from the time the group was formed. Gordon Waters and Clint Copley had been killed. He knew that Jake, Timmy, Harold, Abner, and Pete had also been killed. He didn’t know about any of the others, and he didn’t know what had happened to his brother. He and Adam were separated during the battle, then before he could find him, he was knocked down by a close blast.

  When Cade had regained consciousness, he had no idea how long he had been out, but the battle was over; the sound of guns and screams were silent.

  He jerked and groaned in reaction to a brutal kick in his side.

  “Hey, Sarge, here’s one that’s still alive!” someone called out.

  “How bad hurt is he?”

  “How bad hurt are you, Reb?” the soldier asked.

  “I, I don’t know,” Cade had answered, realizing then that the man was a Yankee.

  “Can you stand?”

  Moving some of the dead aside, Cade stood up, and though the effort made him a little dizzy, he didn’t seem to be badly hurt. He was aware of blood running down his face.

  “He can stand on his own!” the Yankee soldier called out.

  “Send ‘im over here. We’ll put him with the rest of the prisoners.”

  As that memory faded, Cade took the lock of Melinda’s hair then held it under his nose to breathe in her aroma.

  Could he actually smell her? He didn’t know if he could, or if he just thought that he could. But it didn’t really matter, under the circumstances; perception was as good as reality. As long as he had her lock of hair he had her. Melinda was here, in this very cot with him. But it wasn’t a cot, it was bed, their bed, in their own house, on their own farm.

  Cade smiled, and kissed the lock of hair. As long as he knew he had Melinda waiting for him, he would get through this.

  Each barracks had its own kitchen, the kitchen staff made up of prisoners. The kitchen was separated from the rest of the barracks by a partition. There was a window in the middle of the partition that was kept closed between meals. During the meal the window barrier would slide open, and the food, generally a weak broth with very little meat and fewer vegetables, would be pushed through the “crumb hole” as the prisoners called it.

  Cade soon became friends with two more prisoners, Jed Carleton, and Albert Dolan. Cade already knew them, because both men had been in Captain Hanner’s company, of the 33rd Tennessee; they just hadn’t been in the same mess as Cade and Pogue.

  At six feet two, Jed was an inch taller than Cade. Jed was a rather unusual man, who, because his father owned a riverboat company in Memphis, was wealthy enough to have bought himself a commission. He eschewed that opportunity though, choosing to serve as a private.

  Before the war, Albert Dolan had been a deputy sheriff in Davidson County, Tennessee. He thought his experience should merit a commission and he complained, often, that a mistake had been made. He was somewhat resentful that Cade had been promoted to sergeant, and he hadn’t.

  “What difference does it make to us now?” Jed asked with a laugh. “We’re all prisoners, and Cade doesn’t have any more authority than any of the rest of us do.”

  “That’s true,” Cade said.

  Dolan smiled. “Yeah, that’s true, isn’t it? How does it feel, Cade, to know that you aren’t a sergeant anymore?”

  “It feels great,” Cade said. He put the back of his hand to his forehead. “The responsibility of command is just too much for me.”

  Dolan and the others laughed.

  The four men: Cade, Pogue, Jed, and Dolan became inseparable, depending upon the friendship and mutual support to survive the ordeal that was facing them. Jed even gave the group a name.

  “We are the Forty-one Quad,” he said.

  “What’s that mean?” Pogue asked.

  “We are in Barracks number forty-one, there are four of us. The Forty-one Quad.”

  “Yeah,” Pogue said, understanding then. “Yeah, that’s a good name for us.”

  The prisoners had been introduced to the various infractions that would draw punishment on the very day they arrived. Talking after six p.m., even quietly, would warrant punishment. So would cooking a meal on the stove, or even standing next to the single stove to get warm.

  The most serious infraction was “gathering for a disturbance.” Anytime a guard perceived that such a thing was happening, he was authorized to shoot to kill. Three prisoners, standing together in the prison yard, constituted gathering for a disturbance, and because of that, the Forty-one Quad could never be together when they were in the yard.

  About a month after arrival, Cade, who had gone to get water without permission, learned first-hand the punishment called “riding the mule.” The mule was a sixteen foot long saw horse, with a very narrow cross beam, elevated five feet off the ground. The prisoner being punished was forced to straddle this beam, the condition exacerbated by having as much as fifty pounds of weight tied to each ankle. That not only increased the pressure, the thin cords cut into the ankles.

  The period of punishment was rarely less than two hours.

  Albert Dolan and Jed Carleton were there to help Cade down from the device, and, because he couldn’t walk on his own, one of them got on each side.

  “Lean on us, we’ll get you back,” Dolan had said, sympathetically.

  “Separate! Separate now or I will shoot!” a guard shouted.

  “Go, Albert,” Jed said. “I’m bigger than you are, I can handle Cade by myself.”

  A couple of days later, while on a work detail, Pogue managed to steal three loaves of bread from the guards’ kitchen. That night, all the men of Barracks Forty - one gathered around to enjoy the unexpected bounty when the door to the barracks suddenly burst open and half a dozen guards came rushing in. The bread was confiscated and every occupant of the barracks was taken outside and forced to spend the rest of the night standing naked in the snow.

  There were other incidents over the next several weeks where the guards seemed to have eyes in the back of their head, interrupting plans that the prisoners had made in total secrecy.

  “I think we have a spy in our midst,” Pogue said.

  “What makes you think that?” Albert asked.

  “Because it seems that no matter what we do, the Yankees find out about it. And I just don’t think the Yankees are that smart.”

  “Why would someone spy?” Jed asked. “What would be in it for them? I mean you are suggesting it might be someone from the barracks, but if you look around, we are all in the same boat. Nobody seems to be getting any more food than anyone else, or any extra privileges. And when we spent the night outside, ever’ one in the barracks was out there just as well.”

  “I don’t know,” Cade said. “Pogue might be right. It does seem like the guards know what we’re going to do before we do it.”

  “If that’s true, what do you suggest we do about it?” Albert asked.

  “I don’t think any plans we make from now on should go beyond the Quad.”

  “I agree,” Pogue said.

  “All right,” Albert said. “I’m not convinced there is a spy in the barracks, but it won’t hurt to be extra careful.”

  “That seems reasonable to me,” Jed said. “From now on, we trust only the four of us.”

  6

  SOON AFTER THAT DISCUSSION, the Quad undertook the most daring operation of all, plotting an escape while keeping the plans secret from everyone else in the barracks. Sneaking out at night when everyone else was asleep, they began digging a tunnel, starting under the barracks, and heading in the direction of the closest fence, which was forty feet away. They worked by twos, one man digging, and another standing watch. When they finished before morning, they covered
the hole with boards, then scattered dirt over the boards so it couldn’t be seen.

  Three weeks after they started the tunnel, which was December 30th, 1864, they reached the other side of the fence.

  “We’ll go tomorrow, just before midnight, when the guards will be celebrating New Years,” Cade said.

  “After we get out, how are we going to get back home?” Pogue asked. “We’re a long way from Tennessee.”

  “My father has a business associate here,” Jed said. “I’ll go see him. He’ll lend us enough money to buy civilian clothes and the train tickets that will take us back.”

  “Won’t he turn us in as escaped prisoners?” Cade asked.

  Jed chuckled. “I know this man. Trust me, he is more loyal to business than he is to politics. And he’ll want to do business with my father again, once the war is over.”

  “What do you want, Reb?”

  “I want to talk to Colonel Sweet.”

  “What do you want to talk to the commandant about?”

  “I want out of here.”

  “You think all you got to do is ask for a parole?”

  “I’ve got something he’s going to want to hear.”

  “You can tell me.”

  “No, I’ll tell the colonel.”

  The guard stroked his chin. “All right, I’ll take you to him. But this better be good, ‘cause if it ain’t, you’re goin’ to be sorry you ever brung it up.”

  “All right, prisoner, Sergeant Haverkost said you had something for me. What is it?”

  “If the information is valuable enough for you, is it worth a parole?”

  “It depends on what you have.”

  “Some men in barracks forty-one have been digging an escape tunnel.”

  “How far have they gotten?”

  “They’ve finished it. It’s ten feet beyond the fence at the northwest corner.”

  “You’re sure about this?”

  “Yes, sir, I know this for a fact.”