by John Babb
McCorkle stepped forward and leaned down to take the money from Suggs. The knife slashed at his face, missing by no more than an inch. But when he leaped back out of the way, McCorkle bumped the table and a full gallon jug of shine fell and broke on his foot—his bad foot. The pain sent a fiery jolt through his foot and all the way up his leg. “Ahhh! You old bastard! I ain’t one bit sorry I done shot ye.”
Once the pain allowed him to limp a little bit, he retrieved the one remaining jug of shine and took a decent dosage. Then he began rooting through the place, finding some bacon and coffee, before he came back to Suggs. “You gonna hand over your money, or do I shoot ye in your damn knee?”
Suggs reached into his pocket again. “This here is all I got.”
“Pitch it over here. I ain’t giving you another chance at me.” Two quarters and a silver dollar rolled across the room.
Suggs was surprised that he didn’t get another bullet before the man left, but he’d seen enough gut shots in the early part of the war—at least before he gave up the cause and came home—to know that he’d be dead tomorrow anyway. As soon as he could be sure his visitor was gone, he pulled the table over so he could reach the top of it, and began to use his finger to write a note in his own blood to whoever found him.
Merdered by man with cruked ear an nose.
He sat back to wait.
McCorkle’s foot was throbbing like mad by the time he reached the Maid’s cabin, and he almost had to drag his leg along when he got off his horse. He decided it hurt worse now than it had when she chopped it off! Finally he got a lantern going, having fully expected her to be there, but the place looked like she’d cleared out. Well, that could work too.
Mattie heard the horse coming up the trail and made sure she was well concealed up in the woods. She figured it must be McCorkle but couldn’t tell in the dim moonlight. Once she saw the light in the cabin, she snuck down and took a look in the window. It made her heartsick to see him sitting there, working on another jug. She retreated back up the hill and crawled into her little lean-to. It was late before she finally went to sleep.
He left earlier than expected the next morning, and when she was satisfied he was truly gone, she went back down the hill and entered the cabin. His jug was still on the table, and she was surprised when she picked it up to find that it was at least two-thirds full. Maybe that’s how he was able to get up so early. One thing was certain, he was planning to come back if he left his liquor. She made a decision to help him with his problem, took the jug outside, and poured the rest of the contents on the ground. Then she spied the remaining coffee and took it back up the hill to make herself a pot.
Fifty
I Got a Lot Of Paying Back To Do
Keetsville, Missouri 1866
B. F. hated to see Crocia go, if only for three months. Things were so different when she was around. He had looked forward to every day because he knew at least part of it would be spent with her. The alternative—sitting by himself beside a coal oil lamp every night until he nodded off to sleep—was not appealing at all.
The two of them had very little opportunity to be alone, despite B. F. looking for any chance to take Crocia aside one last time. Whatever they could say to one another would have to last until the wedding in September. About all they could do was hold hands one last time at the stage stop and whisper a quick affection to each other. B. F. looked for the right thing to say as the driver hollered “All Aboard”—but with sentiments left unsaid, save a last squeeze of her hand, she was gone.
When he sighted B. F. Windes at the stage stop, McCorkle knew he’d finally hit his mark. He was close enough to see the two women being helped down from a wagon, and this was enough evidence for him to mount his horse and ride hard out of town, a few minutes ahead of the stage, on the road toward Cassville.
He had picked a narrow spot in the roadway where the stage would be forced to cross a low bridge about two miles from Keetsville. He got there soon enough and pulled a log into the road that he had found a couple of days earlier. Then he took his horse about two hundred yards further north up the road and waited on the stage to make an appearance from the south. He caught himself reverting to his old habit of licking his lips in anticipation of what might follow. When the stage was still a quarter mile from the bridge, he started his horse on a slow trot from the opposite direction in order to arrive at the log blockade at about the same time.
McCorkle could see the driver beginning to slow his team of horses as he dismounted from the saddle, bent over the obstacle, and gave an exaggerated tug to the log. He looked back at the two men on the stagecoach seat. “Say, can I get a hand here?
The man sitting beside the driver pulled the brake back hard, leaned his rifle against the seat, climbed down to the roadway, and stepped around the four horses. McCorkle could see he was not wearing a sidearm, so he drew his gun and pointed it at the driver up on the seat. “Pitch that rifle and your pistol down here.” The driver hesitated. “I ain’t funnin’ ye now. Do it quick or yer a dead man. Don’t really make no difference to me which it is.” The two guns landed at the side of the road. “Now drop them reins and get down here.” He eyed the man on the ground and waved him around on the left side of the stage with the driver.
He called out into the coach. “Anybody armed in there, I better see guns pitched out the window.” Nothing. Then to the stage driver. “What’s wrong with your manners, friend? Open the door for the ladies.”
He pointed his pistol at Crocia and Elizabeth as they stepped down. “Ya’ll come right over here and stand by me.”
Elizabeth looked at him with contempt. “We’ll do nothing of the kind. We have very little money. I believe you’ve stopped the wrong stage.”
McCorkle smirked. “You got somethin’ almost as good as money.” He took three quick steps, grabbed Crocia’s wrist, and pulled her toward him. Elizabeth reflexively grabbed her daughter by the other arm and held on. The stage driver thought he saw his chance and he made a quick move to grab the rifle on the ground. McCorkle let go of Crocia, took a step back, and shot him in the knee. “Dadgum it—see what you made me do? Ye provoked me!” He waved his gun at the four of them. “The next bullet ain’t gonna be at no knee. That goes for all of ya’ll.”
He grabbed Crocia again. “C’mon girlie. You’re goin’ with me.” She fought against him, but he simply let go of her and pointed his pistol at her mother. “Your choice, girlie.” Crocia looked at Elizabeth and immediately ceased to struggle. He backed up to his horse, picked her up by the waist, and pitched her halfway over the horse, with her stomach across the front of the saddle and her legs dangling on one side and arms on the other. Then he stepped into his stirrup on the right side of the horse, sat behind her, and clicked his horse over in front of the man who had been riding shotgun. “Just so you’ll not be shootin’ me in the back, I’ll be taking that carbine.”
Elizabeth ran at the horse and riders, tears running down her cheeks. “If you want a hostage, take me. Leave my daughter be.” She pulled at Crocia’s feet while McCorkle held on, finally pushing her away with the barrel of the rifle.
McCorkle looked at her and smiled. “Don’t have room for you today, Mama.” He winked at her. “Mebbe some other time.” He kicked his horse and they left the road, riding to the east across a knee-high field of corn. By the time they got the stage and team turned around in the road, the horse and riders had passed completely out of sight in the woods at the far end of the field.
Henry Sedgwick met John Durham at his front door as soon as they returned from the stage stop, and they departed immediately, riding a mile south on the Wire Road before heading back to the southeast on a narrow wagon road toward Blockade Hollow. In no more than a mile and a half, they entered the hollow, and had to soon begin picking their way around the remains of felled trees and brush every hundred yards or so along the wagon track. At many places, the incline on the sides of the road was so steep that it was difficult for the horses to n
egotiate around the obstacles with any assurance of surefootedness.
After a half hour of slow progress, John held up his hand. “This is the draw up to Mattie’s cabin. Shouldn’t be any more than half a mile. But there’s no wagon road up to her place—just a foot path.”
The huge oak and chestnut trees on the sides of the steep draw appeared to have never been cut, as many were at least four feet in diameter. Henry was peering closely at the ground as he rode, and spoke up. “Looks like there’s been a horse up and down this trail purty recent.”
“Mattie doesn’t have a horse. Probably somebody coming to get their fortune told.”
“I was hoping she warn’t doin’ that no more.”
“Times are might hard, Henry. Like a lot of folks, she’s just trying to keep fed. Besides, she does a heap of good for people—me included.”
Henry looked down. “You’re right, Mistuh Durham. Matilda’s the best girl they is.”
In less than ten minutes, Durham pointed ahead to a small clearing. “There’s her cabin. You want me to wait with you to be sure she’s here, or you want to do this yourself?”
Henry’s eyes were shining. “Mistuh Durham, I sure appreciate ye comin’ all this way with me. But I been dreamin’ about today for four long years—thinkin’ about what I’d say, and what she’d say, and just how things would be. I’d like to do this my own self.”
“I understand, Henry. Come back to town after you get settled in. Maybe we can find work for you.”
“Thank ye twice, Mistuh Durham. I sure appreciate that.” He lifted his hand, giving a half salute-half wave, and turned his old horse toward the cabin.
John Durham hadn’t gone more than a hundred yards when he heard a shout echoing through the hills. “Matilda. Matilda. It’s me, Henry Sedgwick, come home to ye!”
The stagecoach charged up the hill back into Keetsville. The injured driver was in the cab with Elizabeth Rayl and the second man was driving, using the whip without let up. Elizabeth cried to him. “Stop at the house on the left. That’s where we’ve been staying.”
The stage careened into the front yard and finally pulled to a stop, the horses nervous and unsettled. Elizabeth began hollering for the Durhams as she ran to the door. Minnie and Sue got there simultaneously, surprised to see her again. “What’s wrong, Elizabeth?”
“Are Matt and John here? A man just took Crocia off the stage and rode off with her. If they hurry maybe they can catch them.”
Minnie took charge. “Sue, Matt is out in the garden in the field behind the house. Get him quick and I’ll get his horse saddled. Tell him what’s happened, and that he’s to go get B. F. and anybody else that can ride. Run, girl!”
In no more than fifteen minutes, Matt, B. F. and Squire Cave were back at the house, trying to get as much information as possible from Elizabeth.
“Had you ever seen the man before?”
“No.”
“What did he look like?”
“He was about thirty. Average size. His left ear was all scarred up, and his nose looked like it had been broken.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It was crooked.”
“Did you see any sign of anybody else?”
“No. But it didn’t look like he needed any help. He seemed pretty sure with a gun. He didn’t hesitate to shoot one of the men on the stage.”
“Did he kill him?”
“No. He shot him in the leg.”
“What kind of horse was he riding?”
“I don’t know. It was brown and white—but had brown spots all over the white on its head and neck.”
B. F. spoke up. “Was it a mare?”
“I didn’t pay any attention.”
“Which way were they headed?”
“There’s a log in the road north of town by a little bridge. He stopped the stage there, and he took Crocia straight across the corn field on the right. There’s something else. It seemed like taking Crocia was all he was after. Didn’t even attempt to rob anybody—just grabbed her first thing. I tried to get him to take me instead, but he was dead set on taking Crocia.”
B. F. put his hands on Elizabeth’s shoulders. “You stay here in case the sheriff comes down from Cassville. “Don’t you worry. We’ll get her back.” He held the woman firmly, making sure she was looking at him. “I promise you.” Then he called to Minnie. “If John gets back here before we see him, tell him come back to Blockade Hollow—I think that’s where they’re headed.” He turned to Matt and Squire. “Let’s get going.”
In the yard he explained himself. “I didn’t want to worry Minnie. I believe I’ve seen that horse before. It belongs to a man that was staying with Mattie Lansdown. I saw the horse just this week at Peevey’s, so the fellow is still around.” He looked at Matt. “I’m afraid John Durham is headed right into trouble with Henry this morning.
“In case I’m wrong, Squire, you go get Lem Simpson—the man can track anybody, anywhere. You two head up the Wire Road to where Crocia got taken and start tracking from there. Matt and I are headed for Blockade Hollow, and I hope we catch up with his pa before something bad happens.”
Mattie heard, but she could not believe. She stared at the tall, skinny man getting off his horse and realized it just might be true. She ran down the hill to the clearing in front of her cabin and stopped a few feet from him, looking him over from head to toe. “Henry, is that truly you? I thought you was dead. I couldn’t see ye no more in my visions, and I just know’d you was gone.”
“It’s me, Matilda. I don’t look like much—but it’s me. Can we go in the cabin and get outa this sun?”
“Henry, it’s a long story. But I been livin’ in a lean-to up on the hill yonder. There’s a man that run me outa my cabin, and I’m scared of him.”
“Where is he? I’ll get rid of him!”
“He rode off this mornin’. I never know when he’s comin’ back, and I’m afraid to be down here at the cabin if he shows up. He’s armed, and he’s a drinkin’ man—mean when he’s had too much.”
“Who is this man?”
“His name’s McCorkle. I found him on the trail some time back and nursed him—sewed him up an all. But of a sudden he took to bein’ mean—real mean.”
Henry cast his eyes down before he asked the question, not sure if he could stand the answer. “How long has he been here?”
“A couple months. I had to cut off two of his toes, do quite a bit of stitchin’ on him, and he was sick for quite a while. Just started gettin’ around a week or so ago. That’s when he took off and come back drunk and mean.”
He looked down again. “Do you care for this man?”
To see how much it pained him to ask her that question made her remember all over again why she had cared so long for this gentle man. “Henry—yer my true love. Ye oughta know that.”
He reached out and took her hand, pulled her to him, and looked in her eyes. “That’s good enough for me.”
John Durham didn’t realize it at the time, but he had his thirst to thank for staying alive. As he neared the head of Blockade Hollow, he kept thinking about the cool moonshine manufactured by Lydel Suggs. Sure, he’d made a promise to his wife he wouldn’t go over there anymore, but it was just so hot—what was a man expected to do on a day like this? And if he wasn’t mistaken, Suggs’ place was no more than a quarter mile up the last deep draw before leaving the hollow.
He convinced himself he wouldn’t stay long, but the sun was just too intense to be out in the middle of the day. He stuck his hand in his pocket to be sure he had a little money, and satisfied, he turned his horse to the east, following Simms Creek upstream. As he came within sight of the cabin, he was surprised to see the front door standing open and sort of hanging at an angle.
At almost exactly the time he got off his horse, passing behind him along the main trail of the hollow was McCorkle and his captive. Had Durham and McCorkle met face-to-face on that road, in all likelihood McCorkle’s killer instinct wou
ld have prevailed. Thankfully, they were completely unaware of each other’s presence.
Durham walked up to the cabin and felt apprehensive enough that he drew his pistol. “Mr. Suggs? It’s John Durham. Mr. Suggs?” He recognized the smell before he reached the front step, and heard the flies working their victim. He stepped sidewise around the half open door, allowing his eyes time to adjust to the muted light in the cabin. He shook his head when he saw Suggs lying there in his own gore.
Someone must have been a lot thirstier than he was to do something like that. In his hurry to get away from the stench, he almost left without seeing the note. He marveled that Suggs could be so calm as to describe the man who shot him as he was dying. He didn’t look around for anything to drink. His thirst had seemed to disappear somehow.
There was nothing to do but head back to Keetsville and send someone into Cassville to fetch the sheriff. He was on the wagon road, headed back to the northwest toward the Wire Road when he spied two riders headed his way in a big hurry. Unless he was mistaken, the one on the left rode just like his son Matt.
Crocia struggled again to get his hands off of her, but she had to spend most of her efforts just holding on to the horse. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“I got a lot of payin’ back that needs doin.”
Once they had reached the relative safety of the woods, McCorkle had allowed her to sit in front of him. She was trying to keep from straddling the saddle horn, but the road was so rough she couldn’t seem to get her balance for more than a few seconds at a time. Twice she had almost fallen off, and he had man-handled her back to an upright position in front of him. “I don’t even know you. What are you paying me back for?”
“I’m payin’ back a bunch of people. Them Yankees that kilt my little sis, Charity, in Kansas City three years ago for starters.”
“I’ve never even been to Kansas City!”