by Bob Mayer
Skull jumped to her feet and ran over to the man she had wounded. He was grasping for his pistol and she stopped that by firing another bullet through the arm. He screamed in pain. Gabriel rushed past, through the doors, covering the man she’d gut shot.
Skull kicked the man at her feet, making him crawl underneath the swinging doors to lie next to his partner, leaving a trail of blood.
“We got us two renegades here!” Skull yelled as a crowd gathered, half with guns drawn. “They kilt some teamsters up near San Anton. They’re on those wanted posters, right here.” She pulled a pair of papers out of a pocket.
A rancher bulled through the crowd, peered at the posters, then at the two men. “Sure enough. That’s ‘em. Murderers and thieves.”
The first man looked up at Skull. “But we was here to meet y—”
Gabriel smashed his face with the butt stock of the Spencer, stunning him into silence. “Shut up.”
“Hang ‘em!” someone cried out from the crowd.
“Hanging’s too good for these murderers,” Skull said. “We’ll string ‘em and bury ‘em and let Texas do the rest.”
The crowd roared approvingly. Several men stepped forward, trussing the two renegades securely.
“You’ll want to see this,” Skull said to Declan and Fremantle. The Irishman sighed and drained his shot of whiskey. The Englishman was completely befuddled.
“What about a trial?” Fremantle asked.
“They already had it,” Skull said. “They’re on the posters, aint they?”
On the outskirts of Banquet, which didn’t take long to reach, ropes were tightened securely around each man’s neck as they lay in the dirt, blood seeping into the ground. Not enough to choke them, but enough to make them struggle to breath and keep them from talking. The other end of the rope was tossed over the highest branch of a mesquite tree, which meant not very high.
“There will be no drop and, besides,” Fremantle said, “that’s not even enough vertical distance to hang them.”
“We aint hanging ‘em,” Skull said. “We stringing ‘em.”
A cluster of men wielding spades quickly dug two narrow holes about three feet deep before they hit rock. The two wounded men were jammed upright into the holes, dirt and sand packed tight around them until they were stuck. Then the ends of the ropes over the mesquite
branch were pulled taut.
“Strung and buried,” Skull said, turning back for town. The majority of folks followed but a few sadists remained to watch.
“They’ll die of thirst.” Fremantle was appalled. “It’s barbaric.”
“Nah,” Skull said. “The critters will get to them first. By tomorrow there’ll be nothing but bone there.”
“You people,” Fremantle sputtered, at a loss.
“Welcome to Texas. Still hankering to take on Americans? Now, about that price . . .”
25 December 1861, Palatine, Mississippi
Violet Rumble despised the big house. The empty rooms seemed to taunt her as she wandered aimlessly through the first level. Thirty-nine years ago when she’d arrived here as a nineteen year old bride, she’d fallen in love with the magnificent white building overlooking the Mississippi and commanding the plantation beyond. That love had gone across the spectrum from bright and burning, to faded, dried out hues, like flowers lacking water, to the grey of apathy for many years and to the bright red of rage, before sinking once more into grey.
She wearily climbed the stairs, the creak in her knees mirroring that of stairs that needed work, her breath puffing out from exertion into the freezing air. She edged open the door to her former bedroom, trying to keep the squeal to a minimum as she checked on Seneca. He was asleep, more accurately passed out from morphine, bundled in blankets against the winter cold. The fireplace was a dark hole in the wall. There was only one active fireplace, actually a tamped down pile of embers at the moment, in the kitchen for cooking and Violet dreaded having to ride out to Shantytown to plead with St. George to fill the wood bins. She’d start in on the furniture before that.
So much for Christmas morning 1861.
Violet didn’t want to contemplate what 1862 might hold in store as she shut the door. She walked down the hall and halted outside Tiberius’s bedroom. He too was passed out; she knew that without even opening the door. Whiskey. They might not be able to fill the wood bins, but somehow Tiberius was always able to fill his bottles.
Violet went to the top of the landing, hands gripping the railing. She remembered when she’d stood there watching guests enter for a grand party, queen of all she surveyed. She wasn’t sure of the exact moment when it had begun to go wrong, and she was realist enough to know such thoughts were a waste of effort, but they were all she had. On some level she knew the key difference between youth and old age was that youth dreamed of making a future and old age dreamed of changing the past. It was hard for her to decide which was the more futile.
She retraced her way down the stairs to the kitchen. She stirred up the embers and tossed two precious pieces of wood onto the glowing red. She took the kettle and went outside to the pump. She dropped the heavy iron kettle onto the thin layer of ice in the basin, breaking through, filled it, then carried it back into the house. The wood was beginning to catch and she hung the kettle on its hook.
She went to the pantry and sighed. She might have to ride out to Shantytown anyway to get the stored produce of the plantation’s own gardens. Cold they might bear, but starvation was another matter.
The sound of hooves on frozen dirt distracted her. She tamped down the leap of hope that it might be Rosalie, gone for over a month to deal with the death of her father. Ever since her daughter-in-law had left, St. George had cut off supplies to the main house. If it were Rosalie arriving, Violet knew she could count on her to send a wagon of food and wood from Rosalie Plantation, enough to get them through the winter. But Violet would not write her, begging, while her daughter-in-law mourned. Violet would rather go to Shantytown and face her penance.
Violet opened the front door. She resisted the urge to immediately slam it shut when she recognized the riders. At least she would not have to ride to Shantytown to beg. She reached into the drawer in the small table right inside the door and retrieved one of Tiberius’s pistols. She tucked it in the pocket on her large skirt and went outside.
St. George came riding up the drive, a half-dozen men behind him. His subordinate overseers. They were all armed, rifles across the pommels of their saddles. Another slave must have fled, Violet thought. She remained at the top of the stairs.
St. George halted his horse at the base of the stairs and looked at her. His gutted left eye had been replaced by an orb of charred bone. The bone had been sterilized in a fire and then inserted. The bone had canals throughout its mass, allowing living tissue to merge into it, filling the hole and leaving little room for infection. An effective but painful technique, which St. George had traveled to St. Louis to undergo. Overlaid on top of the bone was a pure white porcelain cap, gleaming in the early morning sun. The white cap was pure vanity but very effective in scaring the slaves.
He sat there for a moment, taking in Violet, then shifting what remained of his gaze across the front of the house. He dismounted with a solid thud of boots meeting frozen dirt. He took the stairs slowly as his men spread out, lounging in their saddles, grins on their faces.
St. George reached into his sash and pulled out an old flintlock pistol. Violet took an involuntary step back, but gathered herself and braced for the news.
St. George tossed the weapon onto the porch with a heavy thud. “You recognize?”
Violet didn’t answer.
“It got the Rudolph name on it,” St. George said. “Your daddy name was Rudolph, weren’t it?”
“It is.”
“The name or the gun?”
“Both.”
“When those nigras did this—” he pointed at his left eye—“that was left behind. So the dead one we found in the swamp
had it or Samual had it. Don’ matter which. How they get it? You give it? You arm a slave?”
“If you found it that day,” Violet said, “why have you waited so long to produce it? How do I know you didn’t come into the house and steal it?”
“Cause I got witnesses that seen it there,” St. George said. “And I wait ‘til I’m ready before showing my hand. And I had something to deal wit’.” He pointed once more at his left eye.
“What hand do you think you’re playing?” Violet asked. “If you have a legal problem, get the sheriff.” That was as weak an argument as Violet had ever made and she knew it. But it might gain some time. For what, she didn’t know.
“Don’ need no sheriff,” St. George said. “I’m Captain of the Natchez Home Guard, w’ orders on down from General Johnston hisself.” He stepped closer to Violet. “I’m the law now. You give ‘dat nigra this gun, you be a dead woman. So you give it or Samual steal it?”
“It must have been taken from the house.”
St. George laughed. “You lying. Sure as I standing here. Mighty Mistress Violet be lying. When we catch Samual, if he still alive and the swamp not take him, we’ll make ‘im talk. And when he tell us you give him this gun, we coming for you.” He bent over and picked up the flintlock. “I be keeping this. Evidence for your hanging. I think we hang you from that angel. Watch you kick and turn for a while.” He turned to leave.
“St. George.”
When he turned back, he faced the pistol in Violet’s hand. She pulled back the hammer. “I don’t have much to live for any more. So it does me no trouble to shoot you.”
“What about your lil’ boy then?” St. George said. “Miss Rosalie away. You think he last long if you die now? Who give him his medicine? I took nothing. I took the pain. No need for medicine. They burn what left of this eye out while I awake and put the new one in.”
Violet moved her finger to the trigger. “I’ll have some satisfaction before I die.”
St. George smiled and took a step closer. “You won’ shoot me. You know your boy die if you do.” He reached up and took the gun from her hand.
Violet’s shoulders slumped in defeat.
“I’d kill you where you stand,” St. George said. “But I want you to suffer. See that one-legged son of yours die. Your weak husband drink to death. Your other son killed fighting for the damn Yankees. Then I gonna come and I gonna take this place and make it mine.”
He turned to go, but paused. “Something you ought know. Your lil’ boy getting sent east. That was mine doing. I a powerful man now around here. You best remember that. While you still breathing.”
St. George stomped down the stairs and mounted. With a whoop, he led the men on a gallop down the drive and onto the main road. The sound of the hooves faded in the distance, yet Violet didn’t leave the porch, her heavy shawl wrapped around her frail shoulders.
She took deep breaths, trying to gather her energy, a chore growing more difficult by the day. She tried to develop a plan. Without the house slaves, she doubted she could harness horses to the wagon and, even if she managed, she knew she couldn’t haul Seneca out and load him. She couldn’t leave Seneca to go to Rosalie to get help. Tiberius was worthless. She couldn’t--
“Mistress Violet.”
Violet spun about. “You’re alive!”
“I be,” Samual said.
Violet looked over her shoulder, the dust from St. George’s party hanging over the road. “You can’t be here! It’s dangerous.”
Samual edged onto the porch, a revolver looking like a toy in his large hand. “I aint alone.”
A white man came from behind Samual, someone vaguely familiar to Violet. He was dressed in buckskins, had a long rifle in his hands, and a large knife tucked in his belt.
“Ma’am, I’m Elijah Cord. We met many years ago at Seneca’s wedding.”
Violet nodded. “I remember. But what are you doing here with Samual?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “St. George was just here. He’ll hang you if he finds you.”
Samual tapped a finger to his ear. “We hear, Mistress.”
“Sounds like you might be facing a hanging,” Cord said. “And St. George is scouting with the home guard. Probably heard some Union spies was in the area.” Cord grinned. “Not sure why he’d be hearing that.”
“Samual, why didn’t you do what I said? Why attack St. George? Why didn’t you get Echo? Why aren’t you in Canada?”
Samual turned to Cord, overwhelmed by the deluge of questions.
“St. George needs attacking,” Cord said. “One day I’ll kill that son-of-a-bitch. If you pardon my language. And Samual didn’t get Echo because she’s not in Clarksville. When my friend Ulysses Grant, you’ll remember him from the wedding also, took Paducah, many fled Clarksville, your family among them. I found—rather Samual found me-- in the area. From what we could pick up, your family went somewhere near Atlanta.”
Violet closed her eyes at more bad news. “Yes. We have cousins in Georgia.”
“Samual works with me now,” Cord said. “We’ve been riding for weeks. Scouting. The forts on the Cumberland and Tennessee. Clarksville. Down along the Tennessee River, through Corinth and then here. Tell me of Ben. Have you heard more?”
Violet shook her head. “Little mail comes through.”
Hundreds of miles of riding through enemy territory without achieving his one true goal hit Cord hard.
“Mistress,” Samual said.
“Yes?”
“Something you need know. My boy, Agrippa. He might be living. James told me before he die he saw him crawl ashore ‘dat day.”
“Oh!” Violet fanned herself.
“Are you all right?” Cord asked.
“That’s the best news I’ve heard in a long, long time,” Violet said. She took Samual’s hands in hers. “I so pray this news is true.”
“We can’t stand around here all day chatting,” Cord said. He rubbed the stubble on his chin, trying to figure out the next move. “You need to leave. Can Seneca take a trip in a wagon?”
“He feels no pain,” Violet said, “and his stump has sealed.”
“I take that as a yes,” Cord said. “Samual, could you please get the wagon ready?”
“What do you propose?” Violet asked.
“You got some place to go where you’ll be safe from St. George?” Cord asked.
“Rosalie’s plantation. But her father died recently and they’re still in mourning and—”
“They’ll be doing more mourning if you don’t leave this place.”
The implications hit Violet. “Abandon Palatine? It’s our life.”
“Isn’t much of a life any more,” Cord said, “and it’s gonna get worse, ma’am. Your kin fled Clarksville. The war, no matter what the boys around here say, will be coming south. And even if it doesn’t, it just plain isn’t safe for you to stay here, ma’am. You did give Samual that gun.” Cord glanced over at the barn, where Samual was readying the wagon. “And there’s a chance the two of us might get caught. I’d get hung as a spy and they’d bring him back here and give him a lot of pain to make him talk. Then you’d be hung too.”
Violet tried to rally some of her former self. “I asked you not to call me ma’am. I do not run a house of ill repute. Let me gather some things and we can prepare my son for travel.”
It didn’t take long to get Seneca loaded in the wagon. Cord kept a wary eye on the road, anxious to be moving. They set off down the lane. Cord rode next to the wagon. Samual drove, Violet in the back with Seneca. As they reached the end of the drive, she took one last look at the old white house.
There were no tears.
They turned the corner.
She never mentioned Tiberius.
25 December 1861, Washington DC
“Is it war or peace with England, sir?” Stanton asked as soon he opened the door to the President’s office. “The Cabinet is waiting.”
Rumble paused in the doorway, uncertain whether he shoul
d enter behind Stanton who had escorted him once more to the office.
“And they can keep waiting,” Lincoln told Stanton. He waved at Rumble. “Come in, come in.”
Stanton reluctantly stood to the side, allowing Rumble to pass and shutting the door behind. It was just the three of the men in the room and Stanton went over to window, now closed against the chill Christmas day.
“Sit, please,” Lincoln said, his attention once more on a piece of paper.
Rumble sat on the hard bench and waited. It was a minute before Lincoln put the paper down and turned his attention to his visitor. “You were not a fan of General McClellan if I remember rightly.”
“He’s a fine organizer, sir.”
“He’s been organizing for a couple of months now,” Lincoln said, “and with winter baring its fangs, I suspect he’ll be organizing for several more. He tells me he cannot advance on the Confederates before Spring.”
Rumble remained silent.
“Do you know what else he says?” Lincoln didn’t wait for an answer. “’I can do it all’. Can you believe that? All encompasses quite a bit, don’t you think, Sergeant Major?”
“It does, sir.” The President was angry and Rumble was uncertain how to respond to the raw emotion, a drastic change from the last time he’d been in here.
Lincoln rubbed his right temple with two fingers, as if trying to press back the vein pulsing there.
“You know about the Trent affair?”
“I read the papers, sir.”
“Should it be war?”
Rumble glanced at Stanton, who was half-turned to the room now. “We have a war, sir.”
Lincoln slapped the desk and his face lightened for the moment. “Exactly! One war at a time. Perfect.” He glanced at Stanton. “That will be my entire speech to the cabinet, even though almost to a man they desire to fight England. Well, they desire to declare to fight England and then send others to do the actual fighting. We’ll give Slidell and Mason back to the British and they can have them, for all they’re worth. Very good, Sergeant Major, very good.”
The mood in the room changed like that and Rumble blinked, never before experiencing such command of emotion from another person.