Wreaths of Glory

by Johnny D. Boggs

  Anderson did not even look up. “It is Lawrence or hell,” he said. “But with one proviso. We kill every male thing. She has sown the wind. Let her reap the whirlwind.”

  Quantrill turned, blue eyes now on Beans. “What say you, Kimbrough?”

  “Lawrence,” Beans answered hoarsely. “Remember our girls. Remember Osceola.”

  “Aye!” George Todd called out, “An eye for an eye.”

  Added Chris Kennard: “And a tooth for a tooth.”

  Other comments drifted through the camp as the sky began to lighten. Everyone called for Lawrence, no matter the odds. Surprisingly Frank James said nothing, and he had as much reason to lobby for a raid as anyone who had lost a loved one in Kansas City. On the ride to Centerville, Frank had told Beans and Alistair how Yanks had raided his mother’s farm, whipped his brother Jesse, then stretched their stepfather’s neck with a rope, almost killing the old man. Just to learn where Frank James was hiding, where Quantrill might be camped.

  Equally quiet was Cole Younger, whose cousin had been killed at the prison. His vacant eyes looked at the dying embers in his campfire, not at Quantrill, not at any of the other bushwhackers, lost in his own thoughts.

  “Alistair?”

  His head jerked, and Quantrill’s pale eyes burned through him, held him captive. He wanted to say no, that this was indeed a fool’s play, that enough people had died already, that, hell’s fire, the war was practically over. He heard Maura Shea singing “The Vacant Chair,” and then he pictured Lucy Cobb. Dead. Crushed by brick walls. Buried alive. As if the Yankees had stoned her to death.

  “Lawrence,” he said.

  Kansas

  Chapter Nineteen

  August 21, 1863

  Brother Sam Snyder was the first to die.

  Alistair remembered him, the old minister of some congregation known as the United Brethren Church, the kindly commander of the Second Kansas Colored Regiment.

  Just last month, on that Fourth of July, standing in front of the Miller Block, Snyder had handed Alistair a piece of lemon cake.

  “Isn’t it great to be alive,” the reverend-captain had said, “eating cake, and loving our country, loving all men regardless of the color of their skin?”

  On that Friday morning, Snyder was sitting on a stool, milking his cow, when they rode to his farmhouse as dawn began to break.

  “Good morning,” were the last words he said.

  He had raised his hand to shield his eyes, but did not stand, likely thinking they were Kansas militia.

  One of the new boys took the cow with him, but they did not burn the house. When they rode off toward town, Snyder lay on his back, his sobbing widow cradling his head in bloodstained arms.

  * * * * *

  They had left Perdee’s at daybreak on the nneteenth, riding all day until they came to the Potter farm near Lone Jack at sundown. There, they had rested their horses, taken supper, and slept for an hour or so. At 8:00 p.m., they had saddled up, and rode. A hundred men from Clay County had joined them at the middle fork of the Grand River around dawn. Another fifty arrived from Bates and Cass Counties. None had flinched when Quantrill revealed where they were bound. They’d merely tightened their cinches, and checked the percussion caps on their revolvers.

  In the timber along the riverbanks, they had rested, slept, waited all the day of the twentieth, mounting again in late afternoon, riding, crossing into Kansas, by best guess, in the darkness around 6:00 p.m. They had ridden through Spring Hill, through Gardner, and Hesper, stopping only to rest their horses, and make sure no Federals followed.

  Now they stood in their stirrups, southeast of Lawrence. Four hundred strong. They carried no flag. They could see Mount Oread, the white smoke of breakfast fires serpentining out of chimneys into a pale, cloudless sky. They could see the spires of church steeples. Slowly they began shedding Union blue blouses and shell jackets that covered their embroidered shirts.

  Quantrill turned his horse, facing the boys. “I need not tell you why we are here!” he shouted. “This is the home of Jennison and Lane. They have given us no quarter. Nor shall we. Kill every soldier.”

  “Every man!” Bloody Bill Anderson bellowed, yet Quantrill ignored him.

  “But anyone who harms a woman or child shall answer to me.”

  “Damnation!” George Todd eased his horse out of formation, pointing the barrel of an Army Colt. “We have been spotted!”

  Knowing Lawrence better than most of the raiders, Beans and Alistair rode near the point. Alistair kicked the blood bay forward, and looked. Two riders were trotting toward them, but had stopped. The rider on a black took off at a gallop.

  Alistair swore.

  “Hey,” Todd shouted, “one of ’em’s ridin’ side-saddle!”

  She stayed put.

  “I’ll get the other bastard!” Oll Shepherd loped after the one fleeing toward the cornfield.

  Alistair spurred the bay, drawing one of his Navies. “He’s mine!”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Todd, Quantrill, and the rest racing toward the girl on the white horse. Over the pounding of hoofs, the air rushing past his ears, he could hear Shepherd’s curses, and Maura Shea’s screams: “Hurry, Alun! Hurry! Ride! Ride like the wind!”

  She kicked the mare into a run, heading toward town, but, even as good a rider as Maura was, Alistair knew that she’d never outrun the boys. Not side-saddle. The irony would not strike him until much later. Had Conor Shea not insisted that his daughter never ride like a man again, she might have been able to warn the town.

  He just prayed the boys would remember Colonel Quantrill’s warning about not harming a woman.

  He pulled even with Shepherd, who grunted, spit, brought the reins into his mouth, and drew another revolver with his left hand. By then, however, the bay had exploded past Shepherd. Alistair had not seen the day when Oll Shepherd, big as he was, could outride him.

  The black leaped a fence. Alun was a magnificent rider. Alistair’s bay did not even slow, clearing the top rail easily, landing perfectly, not missing a beat. He thumbed back the hammer, aimed, and slumped in the saddle as he jerked the trigger.

  Ahead, Alun leaned lower.

  He must not be carrying a weapon, Alistair thought, wondering why Alun was not in camp with the other recruits. A leave? Preferential treatment? Or maybe the Kansans had as much discipline as Quantrill’s troops. Alistair fired, turned, saw Oll still riding, having also cleared the fence. He could not see Maura. Quantrill’s men had surrounded her.

  The black cleared a ditch. So did the bay.

  Both horses plowed into the cornfield, the stalks and long leaves whipping horses and riders, then moving out into rolling prairie. Alistair had lost his hat. Alun’s kepi had been knocked off.

  Alistair fired again, deliberately missing. Alun swung out of the saddle, and dived into the heavily wooded ravine. The black took a few steps, and snorted. Salty froth lathered its coat. That horse wouldn’t have been able to have carried Alun much farther.

  Reining up, Alistair fired one round into the trees, then holstered the Navy. Oll Shepherd slid his brown mare to a stop, cursing, snapping a futile shot himself. “Why don’t you go after him?”

  “In those woods?” Alistair wheeled his horse. “We’d never flush him out. Besides, he can’t warn anyone. Let’s get back to the others.”

  He gave Shepherd no time to argue, and kicked the bay into a hard run, back over the ditch, through the cornfield, jumping the fence, glancing once just to make sure Oll Shepherd was riding behind him. He was. Alun Cardiff was safe.

  For now.

  He reined in the bay in front of Quantrill. “He got into a thicket, sir. But he’s too far from town to sound the alarm.” Oll Shepherd came trotting up beside him, confirming Alistair’s report.

  “Very well.” Quantrill gestured over his shoulder. “
Todd, Anderson, Jarrette, take your men and hit the soldier camps. Cut them down like the snakes they are. Kimbrough, you find Lane. Kill him. Shepherd, this woman will guide you to the homes of the other men we want. How is your horse, Durant?”

  “Pretty winded, Colonel,” Alistair lied.

  “Then you shall accompany Shepherd.”

  Quantrill’s horse was jittery, bouncing, fighting the bit. “McCoy, Kennard. To the top of that hill. You are our lookouts. Let us know when you see dust. The dust will mean the Yankees are on their way. The rest of you, to the Eldridge!”

  The army of killers galloped toward town, Quantrill at the head of the charge. Mounds of dust forced Alistair to turn his head. He even coughed. When the powdering cleared, settled, he wiped his face, longing for a sip of water, but then saw Maura Shea, her face paled by shock, by revulsion.

  “Jim?” she whispered.

  “It’s Alistair,” he said. “Alistair Durant. Of Clay County, Missouri, ma’am.” He choked down the bile rising in his throat, and barked out at Shepherd. “Come on. You heard the colonel’s orders!”

  * * * * *

  Eighteen rode with Shepherd, Maura riding between Oll and Alistair. They stopped first at a two-story farmhouse surrounded by a good cornfield.

  “Who lives here?” Shepherd asked Maura.

  “I don’t know,” she answered stiffly.

  Shepherd glanced at Alistair, who shrugged. “It’s a big town, Oll. Lot of farms around here. I don’t know who lives here, either.”

  “Somebody’s beat us to it, Oll!” one of the newcomers called out. “Barn’s already a-burnin’.”

  “Hell.” Still, Shepherd nudged the brown mare forward, and they rode to the farmhouse.

  Two of the boys stood in the garden, but their faces were unfamiliar. One bit into a slice of cantaloupe, the thick juice streaming down his pockmarked face. The other leaned against a scarecrow, putting a fresh cylinder into his Remington. Beside them, between a row of beans and tomatoes, lay a bald man, the back of his head blown off.

  The one pitched the rind onto the corpse, wiped his mouth, and saw the newcomers. “Y’all missed the fun,” he said, and he and his comrade left the dead man, trampling the plants, as they found their horses, mounted, and rode toward town.

  By that time, the slamming of a screen door drew Alistair’s attention. Two long-haired, bearded men, some of the newcomers from Bates County, came out of the house, already billowing smoke. One carried two silver candleholders, which he stuffed inside his saddlebag. They swung into their saddles, and followed the two others toward Lawrence.

  A slender woman charged out of the house, screaming: “Help me! Help me! For the love of God, please help me.” She dropped a china pitcher on the grass, and ran back inside. When she came out, she was coughing, scattering three tintypes and some silly glass figurine beside the pitcher. “Help!” Smut and grime covered her face. She tried to move back into the burning house, but her knees buckled, and she fell, pleading: “Help … me.”

  Alistair felt himself swinging off the bay, but, to his surprise, by the time his feet touched the ground, Oll Shepherd was already moving toward the screen door. In less than a minute, they came out, sweating, eyes burning, Oll carrying a mirror, and Alistair dragging a rocking chair. These they placed beside the sobbing woman, and went back in. When they returned, coughing raggedly, sucking in deep breaths of hot air, they lowered a pie safe—the paint on one side having bubbled from the heat of the flames—onto the ground beside the hysterical widow. Alistair wiped his face, and started for the door, but Oll grabbed his arm, and jerked him back.

  “No use,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Inside, came the shattering of glass. Flames leaped out of the lower windows. Smoke poured from the door. The roaring of the blaze intensified as Alistair turned for his horse.

  The woman grabbed his left hand, brought it to her mouth, kissing it repeatedly. “Thank you,” she gasped. “Thank you. Thank you.” She was still thanking him, between sobs, as he pulled away, grabbed the reins, and swung back into the saddle.

  “Crazy,” one rider said. “Her man’s lyin’ yonder with his brains blowed out, her home’s a-fire, and she’s thankin’ y’all.”

  “Shut up.” Alistair spurred the blood bay.

  * * * * *

  “You will not set fire to this house!” Maura blocked the path with the white horse.

  It was another farmhouse, this one a shotgun-style one-story. No one appeared home. Likely, they had fled. Or were inside … dead.

  “Get the hell out of the way, lady!” A walrus-mustached man with a delicately flowered shirt nudged his stallion forward, drawing an old Dragoon Colt from a saddle scabbard, thumbing back the hammer. The next sound was a click, and the man turned, cursing to see Alistair’s Navy pointed at his chest.

  “We come here to kill,” the man complained. “Your sister got her legs busted at that dungeon in Kansas City. And I hear tell another one of them girls that got kilt …”

  “Remember the girls!” another man shouted.

  A third cried out: “Remember Osceola!”

  “You heard the colonel’s orders,” Alistair said. His hand did not waiver. “You threaten her again, I’ll kill you.”

  “Ain’t this a pile of shit.” Shepherd sprayed tobacco juice on the ground, and let out a mirthless chuckle. “Meacham, look at that place. Ain’t nobody home, and any pickin’s we’d find there’d be mightily slim. Meacham, Durant, put ’em guns away. We come here to shoot Kansans, not each other. Let’s find some to kill.”

  Cursing bitterly, Meacham lowered the hammer, and slammed the big horse pistol back into the scabbard.

  Alistair lowered his Navy, but did not holster it.

  They left the farmhouse standing.

  * * * * *

  Smoke blackened the sky as they rode past South Park.

  “Where’s the Eldridge?” Shepherd called out without reining in his horse.

  “On Massachusetts,” Alistair answered.

  “And that other hotel?”

  “The Johnson?” Alistair tilted his head. “It’s on Vermont.”

  Now Shepherd reined up. He reached inside one of his shirt pockets, and pulled out a crumpled piece of yellow paper. Alistair’s stomach again began to heave. He knew what this paper was. When Beans had given Quantrill the list of names, Quantrill had passed it on to John Jarrette to make several copies. Slowly Shepherd unfolded the paper, looked at the names, and asked: “Where’s this Capt’n Conor Shea live?”

  Alistair would not look at Maura. He simply turned and pointed. “Right down there. About two blocks.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Images, burned forever into Alistair’s brain, came out of a nightmare.

  A dark-haired farmer sat propped up against a fence, arms stretched out along the lower rail, throat cut from ear to ear.

  A boy in his teens lay on the steps of his home, now lost in hungry flames, the back of the boy’s shirt smoking.

  Two soldiers lay in the ditch, dead, their lips turned upward as if they were sharing an improper joke.

  A bushwhacker galloped past them, cutting loose with a Rebel cry, then lifting a bottle to his lips. Behind him he dragged a filthy flag of the United States of America.

  A woman walked along the side of the road, away from the roaring flames consuming barns, privies, and homes. Her unblinking eyes stared straight ahead, and from her left hand dangled a rag doll. She did not speak, did not even appear to notice the raiders as they trotted past her.

  They rode past another farm. Bushwhackers surrounded the well. Smoke billowed out of the house. Alistair could not see the woman for the crowd of men, but he could hear her. He would always hear her.

  “Please, please, for mercy’s sake. You’ve killed my husband. You’ve killed my oldest son. Spare him.
Spare Charles. He’s all I have left. He’s just a boy. He’s done you no harm. Spare him.”

  “I spare no Yankee.” He recognized Bloody Bill’s voice. The revolver’s pop made Alistair jump in his saddle.

  A woman’s unbearable wail followed.

  He almost rode too far, but caught his breath, made himself stop thinking about everything going on around him, and reined up in front of a burning three-story mansion.

  “Sorry, Oll,” he said. “Somebody beat us to the Shea place.”

  As if he ordained it, the roof crashed down as soon as he finished speaking, startling the tired horses, sending a shower of sparks into the once clear, now vile morning air. Their horses danced, jerking, pawing.

  “Well, I hope that bastard’s burnin’ in there,” Shepherd hissed, and spit. “Whoever he was.”

  “I’m sick of seein’ nothin’ but farmhouses,” Meacham said. “Let’s see what’s happenin’ in town proper.”

  “Besides,” came another, “I ain’t et no breakfast.”

  Shepherd’s horse was eager to leave the conflagration. “Suits me,” he said, and wheeled the brown around.

  Alistair’s eyes accidentally found Maura’s when he turned the bay. She stared at him, but he could not read her face. Didn’t want to, either. She did not thank him, but he had not expected that at all. He glanced at the ruined house, wondering: Who really lived there?

  * * * * *

  They rode away from the base of Mount Oread and into the smoke, turning down Massachusetts. The camp of the Second Kansas Colored was empty of bodies, only trampled tents, scattered clothes, broken boxes remained. Maybe those Negro soldiers had managed to escape, Alistair hoped.

  Flames turned the city into Hades. Smoke stung their eyes. They had to keep tight grips on the reins to control their panicked horses. A young white soldier lay dead in the street. Another body lay on the porch of a home, flames slowly carving a path toward him. Alistair recognized the corpse. It was Card Cardiff, Alun’s father, bootless, shot in back of the head, hands bound behind his back.