Poison Spring

by Boggs, Johnny D. ; Abell, Chris;

  Then they disappeared from my view. A mountain blocked my vision. All I saw at first were the brass buttons against the blue jacket, the brass breastplate. Then my head tilted up, and I found the black face. This soldier wasn’t younger than me. His well-trimmed beard was salt and pepper, thick, and his forehead scarred, his eyes hard. Like the lieutenant, he wore a black campaign hat with a silver “1” pinned on the crown. A saber rattled in its scabbard. One gauntleted hand rested on the ridge around the saber’s quillon.

  He studied me for a second, then looked around at the ruins that were the Ford Family Mill, and sighed. “That’s a shame,” he said to no one in particular, before his gaze locked back on me. “Your name Ford, son?”

  My head bobbed.

  The sergeant grinned. His tone lightened. “Cat got your tongue, Travis?”

  Now I stepped back as if he had struck me with his big hands. My back pressing against the shed door, I stared in disbelief. My mouth formed the word, but it took a few seconds before it escaped: “H-h-how?”

  This led to an eruption of laughter among the nearest soldiers. Even Jeremiah chortled.

  Hammond said: “Reckon he ain’t deaf and dumb after all.”

  “No,” the sergeant said, “Travis can talk. Just never had much to say.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the white lieutenant standing, leading Baby Hugh and Edith in our direction. I couldn’t look away from the towering sergeant.

  “You don’t remember me, do you, Travis?” the sergeant asked.

  My head shook rapidly.

  Still grinning, his teeth white and straight, the sergeant took his left hand off the saber, and began tugging on the white deerskin gauntlets, which he stuck inside the belt near the big brass buckle stamped US. He held out his right hand to shake, and I stared at it, reaching, slowly understanding. His middle and pointer fingers and his thumb practically swallowed my tiny hand. The ring finger and pinky were missing. That’s when I knew.

  I remembered shaking his hand all those years ago at the sawmill. Recalled Papa and him beaming with pride after I branded my first two-by-four with the FFM.

  “Jared ….” My voice barely rose above a whisper. “Jared … Greene?”

  * * * * *

  “See, Lieutenant Bullis,” Sergeant Jared Greene was saying, “I worked for these kids’ pap at this sawmill back when I lived around here. His pap’s a good man. Real fine sawyer. Real good furniture maker. Married a gal from Iowa, Indiana, Illinois … somewhere like that. Lived at that cabin we passed a couple miles back.”

  The lieutenant nodded. “The cabin where no one was at?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Not the brick mansion?”

  “No, sir. No, Connor Ford didn’t own any slaves.” Greene’s face hardened. “Unlike his brother ….”

  “I see.” Lieutenant Bullis was middle-aged, with gray eyes and a bulbous nose, his brow always knotted. The lieutenant popped a piece of hard candy into his mouth, then offered me one. I was about to accept, until I saw the officer’s teeth. Those not brown were black with rot, and two were missing. Quickly I pulled my hand away, muttering: “No, thanks.”

  “Mill’s fallen on some hard times since those days, Sergeant Greene,” said Lieutenant Bullis as he passed the sack to Baby Hugh, who showed no hesitation at filling his mouth with the molasses candy.

  “Yes, sir. Like most of this country, I warrant.” Jared Greene looked at me again. “Your ma wasn’t home.”

  “You went by our house?” I asked.

  “It’s on the way to Camden,” Greene said. “We helped ourselves to some water. Good and cold, just like I recalled.”

  “And not poisoned,” Hammond said.

  My head nodded. “That’s because of Mama,” I said.

  “Then your ma’s alive and well?” Greene sounded relieved.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And your father?” That came from the lieutenant.

  I studied him, and fell silent.

  “He joined up, I warrant,” Jared Greene said without condemnation. “Either that or got conscripted. What outfit is he in?”

  I didn’t answer, even when Lieutenant Bullis spoke sharply at me. “Answer Sergeant Greene, you low-down Secessionist cur!”

  My lips tightened.

  “He’s ….” Edith hesitated, looked at me, and read my eyes.

  “Well?” Bullis demanded.

  Edith’s head shook.

  With a curse, Bullis snatched the sack of candy from Baby Hugh’s hands, and strode away, barking orders at the men of color.

  Greene stood, but he was smiling, and he leaned over and patted my shoulder. “That’s a good boy, Travis. Don’t tell the enemy a thing.” He turned to Edith. “Your pap’ll be proud of you. Of all you.” He turned back to me. “Connor … he’s still alive, isn’t he? You pap? He’s not dead?”

  Now my lips trembled, and I had to will myself not to let any tears show. “I … we ….”

  “We don’t know,” Edith said for me.

  Baby Hugh wailed. “Papa ain’t dead! Is he?”

  The big sergeant kneeled, and put his hand on Baby Hugh’s shoulder. “’Course not, Hugh. Big, strapping man like Connor Ford, why, Grant and Sherman and all their armies couldn’t lay a hand on him. If the Rebs had more men like your pap, we’d all be fleeing for Nova Scotia.” He put a huge finger under Baby Hugh’s chin, and lifted his head. “You don’t remember me, do you, Hugh?”

  Hugh’s head shook.

  “’Course not. You weren’t … gosh, no more than three years old when I had to leave, had to quit working for your pap at this mill.”

  “Where did you go?” Edith asked.

  “Kansas. Lawrence, Kansas. But now I’m back. Back wearing the blue, fighting for our freedom, to save the Union, to end slavery forever, fighting with the First Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry.”

  The black troops stood straighter when Greene said the regiment’s name.

  “That’s right, boy,” Jeremiah said. “We’s the first Negroes to fight in Mister Lincoln’s Army.”

  “Whupped the Secesh already,” Hammond said.

  “Toothman’s Mound … Sherwood … Cabin Creek … Honey Springs.” A bucktoothed, pockmarked mulatto pointed at the flag a soldier held, who stood beside the lieutenant. It was a blue square, with an eagle in the center, banner in its beak, arrows in one talon, something in the other, a red, white, and blue shield over its breast, and words painted above the eagle. But I couldn’t make out the letters.

  They were proud men. Like musketeers.

  “Sergeant Greene!” the lieutenant called out. “There’s nothing here. Let us march into Camden.”

  “Do we burn this mill, sir?” a soldier standing inside the doorway asked.

  “Why bother?”

  Greene cupped his mangled hand over his lips, asking: “What about these children, Lieutenant?”

  “They’re too young to shoot, and I can’t very well take them prisoners. Leave them here.”

  “With your permission, sir, I’ll take them back to their home. It’s just a couple miles down the road.”

  “They are Secesh trash, Sergeant.”

  “They’re kids, sir,” Green replied.

  “We’ve buried kids younger, Sergeant.”

  I recalled having heard this from a Confederate soldier in the past.

  “And I’d hate to bury another, Lieutenant Bullis.”

  “Well ….” Swearing again, Bullis mounted his horse. “Don’t take long, Sergeant.” He spurred the black, and loped up the lane toward the Camden-Washington Pike.

  Greene turned to me. “Where’s your ma? Don’t fib. I need to know.”

  “She’s at Miss Mary’s,” Edith answered before I could.

  “Mary?” Greene pursed his lips. “Miss
Frederick? That Mary? With the big plantation just down the road from you.”

  Edith nodded.

  Concern cracked through Greene’s tough countenance, a word I had picked up at Mr. Mendenhall’s and had looked up in Webster’s.

  “All right,” Greene said, and turned to the soldiers, barking out orders like Athos. “Hammond, Wilson, you come with me. Rest of you boys, you heard the lieutenant, Camden’s waiting to be liberated!”

  Cheering soldiers leaped out of the mill and hurried up the lane. They fell into a column of twos, and began singing as they marched away.

  We’ll rally ’round the flag, boys, we’ll rally once again,

  Shouting the battle cry of freedom,

  We will rally from the hillside, we’ll gather from the plain,

  Shouting the battle cry of freedom!

  The Union forever! Hurrah, boys, hurrah!

  Down with the traitor, up with the star;

  While we rally ’round the flag, boys, rally once again,

  Shouting the battle cry of freedom!

  We are springing to the call of our brothers gone before,

  Shouting the battle cry of freedom!

  And we’ll fill our vacant ranks with a million freemen more,

  Shouting the battle cry of freedom!

  When the voices died, when I could no longer make out the lyrics, Greene, Hammond, and Jeremiah stared at me.

  “You kids don’t play around here, do you?” Sergeant Jared Greene asked.

  “It’s a right dangersome place for little kids,” Hammond said.

  “No,” Edith answered bluntly. “We didn’t come here to play.”

  “Then what brought you here?” Jeremiah asked.

  The candy cracked between Baby Hugh’s teeth. “Acorns,” he said. “We come for acorns.”

  “Acorns!” Jeremiah pulled off his cap and scratched his bald head. “What is y’all doin’ that for? Y’all collectin’ nuts for winter? Y’all squirrels?”

  “It’s for coffee,” Edith told them.

  “Coffee?” the three soldiers said at the same time.

  “Yes.” Edith glared at them. “Coffee. Tomorrow is Mama’s birthday. We were going to gather as many acorns as we could, burn them, make them into coffee. Make Mama coffee. For her birthday.”

  “Acorns?” Shaking his head, Hammond had to spit the taste out of his mouth.

  I stared into three black faces.

  After a while, Sergeant Jared Greene’s determined countenance faded again, broken this time by a huge smile. “Coffee.” His head bobbed. “Acorns for coffee. Travis, Miss Edith, Master Hugh … I think we can do better than that for your ma.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Since the First Kansas Colored Volunteers were infantry, we walked back home. I guess only Lieutenant Bullis rode a horse. To my surprise, when we reached the main road, I didn’t see throngs of soldiers marching toward Camden with wagons, cannon, and caisson. I only caught a glimpse of the soldiers under Lieutenant Bullis’ command, spread out as they walked up the road.

  This is the Union Army that caused General Price to retreat to Washington? I thought. Maybe twenty men?

  Sergeant Jared Greene must have read my mind. “We’re just a foraging patrol,” he said. He tilted his head west. “Rest of the army’s coming up slowly. Hard to get along these roads.”

  “What’s foraging?” Baby Hugh asked.

  “Stealing,” Edith answered bitterly.

  “Ain’t no such thing,” Jeremiah snapped. “We’s liberating.”

  “Stealing,” my twin said again.

  Chuckling, Greene hooked his thumb toward Lieutenant Bullis and his foragers. “Captain Miller’s up ahead with a patrol. He’s scouting. We expected to have to fight the Rebs in Camden, but, from the looks of this road, they’ve done vamoosed.”

  “You should’ve seen …” Baby Hugh began, but I cut him off.

  “They don’t need to learn anything from us!”

  Pouting at my sharp rebuke, Baby Hugh looked up at Edith. “But ain’t that big darkie a friend of Papa’s?”

  “Don’t call him a darkie, Baby Hugh,” Edith said softly. “It’s not polite.”

  “That’s all rights, young ’uns,” Hammond said. “We’s been called a whole lot worser than that.”

  “By our own officers sometimes,” Jeremiah said.

  “But ain’t he …?” Baby Hugh began, then tilted his head toward Sergeant Greene, who walked behind Edith and my kid brother. I was beside Greene. Jeremiah lagged a few paces behind, and Hammond walked maybe ten yards ahead of Hugh and Edith. “Ain’t he a friend of Papa’s?”

  “He wears the blue,” Edith said. “Papa wears the gray. They’re enemies.”

  “We’re just on two different sides,” Jared Greene said. “I couldn’t call me and your pap enemies. Criminy, I always thought of us as friends.”

  “He’s no friend of Papa’s, Baby Hugh,” I said, just to say something, feeling angry, bitter. “Or ours. He quit Papa. Just up and quit him four or five years ago. Or maybe Papa had to fire him.”

  “’Cause I’m a lyin,’ shiftless, low-down darkie?” Greene had raised his voice two octaves, slurred his voice, mimicking the accent and tone I heard often in Washington County.

  My face reddened. “Maybe,” I said stiffly. “You left.”

  We walked in silence for a good hundred yards.

  Finally Sergeant Greene said: “I didn’t have much choice.”

  “Was you Papa’s slave?” Baby Hugh said.

  “Hugh!” Edith said. “You know better ….”

  The three soldiers laughed.

  “The sarge is a freedman,” Hammond said. “Always been a freedman. Now Jeremiah Wilson and me? We wasn’t so fortunate. I run off from Dardanelle. That’s up yonder in Yell County. Place just filled with stumps. Stumps ever’where. Stumps and rocks. And I was always tryin’ to get ’em stumps outta the ground. So I run off. By my ownself. No Underground Railroad. No Kansas friends of ol’ John Brown. Just me followin’ the drinkin’ gourd, outrunnin’, outsmartin’ all them hounds they fetched after me. Run all the way to Topeka, Kansas. Jeremiah? He got hisself liberated by some boys who taken him off that field some place in Missouri and fetched him back to Kansas. Where was that you was a field hand, Jeremiah?”

  “Big Joe Obojkski’s farm in Cass County, just outside of Harrisonville.”

  “That’s right. So me and Jeremiah, we’s nothin’ more’n runaway slaves. But sarge, he’s always been free.”

  We kept walking.

  After a while Sergeant Greene said: “Depends, I reckon, on how you define free.”

  “What do you mean?” Edith asked. I wasn’t about to ask anything, though begrudgingly I had to admit I was curious.

  The sergeant grinned, but said nothing, just kept walking through the mud for a long while. Finally, with Edith still staring at him as he walked, he said: “You ever hear of Dred Scott?”

  Even I shook my head.

  “Figured,” Greene said. “Y’all would have been a mite young back then. And I don’t think I ever heard your pap speak of politics. Now your mother ….” He smiled.

  “I ain’t heard of Dred Scott, neither, Sergeant,” Hammond said.

  “I have,” Jeremiah said.

  “You ain’t.”

  “Have, too.”

  “Ain’t.”

  “Have ….”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Greene said sharply. “Keep your eyes in those trees, Hammond. You, too, Wilson.”

  “Ain’t no Rebs within ten mile of here, Sarge,” Jeremiah complained.

  “Maybe not. But seein’ a man of color in Yankee blue’s liable to provoke a civilian in these parts into firing a shot at us.”

  We walked, only now a little more nervous and observant
.

  “Dred Scott,” Greene said after we had covered a few rods, “was a slave. In Missouri.”

  “That’s where you’s from, Jeremiah,” Hammond said. “You ever met that boy?”

  “Told you I knowed him.”

  “You said you’d heard of him.”

  “Knowed him, too.”

  “Did not.”

  “Did, too.”

  “Did ….”

  Greene raised his voice and hand. “Let me see if I can get through this story without interruption.”

  Silence. Just the sucking of mud against our shoes and Baby Hugh’s bare feet.

  “Way I recall it, Scott tried to buy his freedom. His owner wouldn’t let him. Anyhow, I don’t know all the particulars, but the case wound up before the United States Supreme Court. United States, I said, not the Confederate States. This happened before there even was a Confederate States of America. Well, the Supreme Court … the highest court in the land … says that folks of color, like Hammond and O’Brien and Dred Scott and me, have no claim to citizenship. Said we didn’t have the rights of a white citizen. No matter if we were free or slave.”

  We walked.

  “That ain’t right,” Jeremiah said.

  Greene shrugged. His saber rattled. “Well, it’s what the Supreme Court ruled. Way back in ’57.”

  “So …” Edith began. “What did that have to do with you?”

  “Had everything to do with me. The Supreme Court said I wasn’t a citizen. Despite the fact that I was born free. My mama and daddy were free. Think my mama was always free, but my daddy had to buy his freedom when he was in Kentucky. Went to school. Learned to read, to write, do my cyphers, even learned a bit of French. I worked a spell in Kentucky before I moved down here. Arkansas was the frontier. There were a number of freedmen in Arkansas when I settled here. I paid taxes. Owned a few acres. Had me a cabin. Worked for your pap. Connor Ford treated me fine. Maybe on account of your mama’s leanings … her upbringing … but I think Connor was a good man. Is a good man.”