Miami Gundown

by Michael Zimmer

  “Well, blackberry wine ain’t got the same kick as a couple of swallows of Norman Wakley’s popskull, but I reckon it’ll help. It looks like them four are about as pickled as they’re going to get, and plum for the plucking.”

  “Well, hell, let’s go pluck ’em.”

  We scooted back to where the others were waiting, and I told Jim to crawl down. “Stay out of sight until we’ve got those Yankees corralled,” I told him.

  Jim dropped to the ground and handed me the reins. I left the Sharps hitched to my rig, but palmed my Navy Colt. The way those ol’ boys in blue wool were acting, I didn’t expect them to take much notice of us until we knocked at their door, and that’s pretty much how it happened. I led my men around to come at them from behind that big ol’ oak tree, then split them apart and spread them out so that we came on our prey from both sides. Me and Casey and Ardell quickly dismounted, but we needn’t have hurried. I think I was as surprised as those Yankees were when we were able to walk into camp undetected.

  “Here now,” said the man leaning against oak’s broad trunk. He started fumbling for the Springfield rifle leaning against the tree at his side, but couldn’t seem to get his fingers to work properly.

  “Leave it,” Ardell snapped, while Casey and I threw down on the three soldiers hunched over the sputtering flames of their fire. Two of them spotted us immediately, but the last one, a sandy-haired kid who couldn’t have been much older than Calvin’s fifteen-plus years, didn’t notice anything amiss until I poked him with the Colt’s muzzle. He looked up, grunting in surprise when he saw all the revolvers pointed at him, but when he tried to stand up, he lost his balance and started stumbling backward until he fell on his butt in the dew-wet grass. He rolled over on his stomach and started to heave. We waited until he was finished, then Ardell grabbed him by his shirt collar and hauled him back to the fire. The man standing under the oak tree wore sergeant’s stripes. I figured him for Moore.

  “You boys drop your guns, then move on over beside your sergeant,” I ordered the trio at the fire.

  “You kids don’t know who you’re messing with,” the sergeant growled at me with a whiskey slur. Judging that he was still on his feet, I suspect he might have been the soberest Yankee there.

  “I think we do,” I countered. “You’re Sergeant Moore, from Fort Myers, sent down here to harass innocent civilians and steal people’s property.”

  Moore spat in disdain. “Like hell, you Rebel trash. We’re down here to kick your Secesh asses up above your ears, then send that coward Jeff Davis to the gallows.”

  I glanced at Casey and whistled. “He must be one tough son of a gun if he thinks he’s going to accomplish all of that on his own.”

  “I got plenty of men to help me,” the sergeant replied, but I noticed he was starting to look around, maybe taking stock of his situation, which wasn’t as solid as it had been when he left Fort Myers the night before with close to forty troopers at his back and a lieutenant up front. “What do you scum plan to do with us?” he demanded with noticeably less vigor.

  “We’re going to hang you,” Casey replied.

  “Hold on, Case,” I said quickly. “That ain’t been decided yet.”

  “The hell it ain’t,” Roy shot back. “They killed Calvin, didn’t they?”

  “Not this bunch.”

  “It’s the same thing, Boone,” Ardell replied evenly. He was staring at me, his eyes narrowed in determination. “You know what they’re doing up north, places like Chattanooga and Vicksburg. You know what they’ll do down here, too, once they get a foothold.”

  Well, I didn’t like it, but I knew Ardell was right. This was war, and it was ugly. I was about to find out just how much uglier it could get. The Yankees had their horses picketed nearby. Reluctantly I told Pablo and Punch to bring them in.

  “Roy,” I said with an edge to my voice, “you claim there ain’t a knot you can’t tie. Does that include a hangman’s noose?”

  Growling low in his throat, Roy slid from his saddle. “It sure as hell does,” he said, heading for the Yankees’ horses. “Gimme that,” he snapped to Pablo, yanking the picket rope from the Cuban’s hand. He started forming a noose even as he circled the giant oak, looking for a handy limb.

  Moore was glaring at me, not unlike the way Ashworth had the night before, trying to intimidate me into accepting a lower offer for Pa’s herd. “If you go through with this, kid, you might as well put your own neck in there along with mine, because Lieutenant Hodges’ll hound you all the way to the Atlantic.”

  “Maybe you ought to start putting things in order with your Maker, instead of blabbering about what your buddies will do,” Ardell advised.

  “Sarge,” one of the men spoke up, as if not quite sure he believed what was taking shape around him.

  “That goes for the rest of you, too,” Ardell said. “If you got prayers to send, get ’em off.”

  “You can’t hang us,” Moore protested. “We’re regulars. You’ve got to treat us like prisoners of war.”

  Casey hesitated, glancing at Ardell, then me. “Is that true?”

  “We aren’t soldiers yet,” Ardell replied. “If they’d captured us last night in Punta Rassa, they’d have hanged us on the spot as traitors.”

  “That’s because you ain’t soldiers,” Moore argued. “Hell, look it up, or find some Reb officer and ask him. You boys can’t hang us. It’s against the law.”

  “So is stealing pack horses and scaring Negros that ain’t your property,” I said, my anger flaring. I nodded to Roy. “Get those ropes strung, before the rest of Hodges’s bluebellies show up.”

  I spotted Jim from the corner of my eye. He was standing next to the spilled packs, silently watching our preparations. I wanted to walk over and see what he thought, maybe feel him out about how Pa might have handled the situation, like I had that night at Chestnut Thumb. Then, inexplicably, I turned my back on the old colored man. I didn’t want to hear what he had to say, or what he thought Pa might think. This was my decision. For better or worse, there was no backing out now.

  Well, we couldn’t find a limb long enough or straight enough to hang all four men side-by-side, but we did locate four branches stout enough to hang them individually. That’s what we did, stringing up the sergeant first, then the men under his command. We did it one at a time, with the sandy-haired kid last, still too drunk to fully realize what was going on, which was probably for the best. When it was done, I told Jim to pack up what the Yankees had scattered. Only later would it occur to me that they must have found the whiskey and wine before they did the gold. I wondered what their response would have been if they’d known of the fortune that lay so close to their pilfering fingers. I doubt they would have been sitting around a dying fire like turkeys at a rifle frolic if they had.

  With the packs in place, I told Jim to start riding. “Keep those horses moving until we catch up,” I added, then turned back to where the others were standing solemnly around the gray ashes of the fire. The Yankees were still swinging gently, although I don’t recall there being any breeze that morning. Not after we got away from the coast.

  I’ll admit I felt about half sick by what we’d done, racked with all kinds of guilt and doubt. I think the others felt that way, too. Even ol’ Roy was sporting a hound-dog expression that morning. But I have to say, even after all these years, I think we did the right thing. I would show leniency only once before this was all over and regret that far more than I ever have hanging those Fort Myers Yankees.

  After setting Jim on his way to Pete Dill’s trading post on the Upper Caloosahatchee, I told the boys to turn the Yankee horses loose, then toss their saddles and tack into the scrub. After the war, a lot of cow hunters would grow real fond of those McClellan rigs the Union favored. They offered more solid seating for the drover and better ventilation for both horse and rider, what with the open frame down the middle, but, at the time, I was more worried about being caught with them in our possession.

&nbs
p; I was the last one in the saddle that morning, and after reining around to face the others, I said: “You boys still set on riding north to join the fight?”

  Clearing his throat, Ardell replied: “We were talking about that while you were helping Jim reload the pack horses, Boone, and we’ve decided we’d like to tag along with you for a spell, if you don’t mind.”

  “I’m just going back to the Flatiron.”

  “You’re going through Dill’s place first, though, right?”

  “Always do.”

  In 1864, Pete Dill’s trading post was about the only hub of information in that part of Florida’s interior. Pete traded mostly with the Seminoles, exchanging supplies for hides, furs, and plumes, although he’d sell to anyone with hard cash in their poke. Pete always kept a good supply of liquor on the premises and served whiskey to all manner of men on their way through that part of the country, be they white, black, or red. I would have swung past Pete’s place under any circumstances, but I was especially curious about what he’d heard regarding Dave Klee’s demise and Jacob Klee’s intentions. I didn’t have any doubts that he’d know something.

  “We’ll ride with you as far as Dill’s,” Ardell said. “I’d like to hear what he has to say.”

  Meaning, I took it, that he was also wondering about the Klees.

  “Let’s make tracks,” I said, heeling my marshtackie into a lope.

  I don’t mind admitting that I was grateful for the company. I figured when those Union boys of Hodges’s found out what we’d done, they’d be swarming after us like wasps for retribution. I wanted to be as far away from that oak tree as possible when it happened.

  We caught up with Jim less than a mile down the road. Not wanting another run-in with Federal troops, I led the boys south, back into the northern fringe of the Big Cypress. I think we all breathed a sigh of relief when the jungle finally closed in behind us.

  It had taken us two weeks to reach Punta Rassa after crossing the Caloosahatchee River at its upper ford. It took us four days going back, and that largely on account of the difficult route we followed. Before the war, you could have made that trip in two, staying to open country.

  Pete Dill’s place sat north of the river, just below the upper ford, near the falls at Lake Flirt. It was a large, cypress-log cabin with a veranda across the front and pine shingles on the roof. The trading room, living quarters, and storeroom were all under one roof, so as you can imagine, it was a fairly large structure.

  Even though the building stood a good hundred yards from the river’s edge, Pete had built it on six-foot pilings to keep the floor above flood stage during the rainy hurricane season. Set beside the main trading post was a corral with a lean-to tack shed and a larger pasture out back surrounded by a split-rail pine fence.

  Still leery after our encounter with the Yankees at Punta Rassa, we hung back in the scrub while Ardell rode ahead to scout the place. He returned thirty minutes later to announce that the way was clear.

  “Not a piece of blue uniform in sight,” was how he put it.

  It was late afternoon when we finally rode up to the trading post. There were only a few horses in the pasture out back, all of them Pete’s and all for sale or trade. A kettle hanging from an iron tripod above a low fire in front of the post smelled of simmering cabbage soup, raising an anticipatory rumble from my stomach.

  Pete’s Seminole woman stood bent at the waist in the shallows along the river, washing clothes. She straightened when she saw us, the hem of her brightly colored skirt—vivid reds and yellows and greens over a black background—tucked into the waistband, exposing dimpled, copper-brown knees. She met our hungry gazes stoically, until I finally told the boys to keep their minds on the business at hand. Pete’s wife was as pretty as a freshly minted nickel, but it was common knowledge that she’d killed a man with a knife when he tried to take advantage of her one night. Knowing her even the little that I did, it was a story I didn’t doubt.

  Standing at the far end of the trade counter as we trooped inside, Pete Dill greeted most of us by name, although I don’t think he knew Dick Langley, who hailed from farther north. Jim was the last one through, and Pete greeted him as warmly as any of us. Removing his hat as he stepped to one side, Jim said: “Afternoon, Mistah Pete.”

  Dill was a beefy man with a quick laugh and a fiery temper. Already well into middle age when I first met him, he wore his steel-gray hair long, despite the slick baldness it fringed. He had a bushy beard but no mustache, and a corncob pipe thrust into a corner of his mouth like it was hammered there. Tobacco smoke curled lazily past one squinted, blue eye. I remember once asking Pa, back when I was a little squirt, if old man Dill slept with that pipe between his lips, and Pa had chuckled and said: “Likely he does, boy.”

  Pete had always been friendly with the McCallisters and the Davises, largely, I think, because he’d served with my pa and Negro Jim and Matt and Big Ed during the Indian Wars. He was watching us charily that day, though, which put me instantly on guard.

  “You boys looking to wet your whistlers?” Pete asked.

  “I wouldn’t turn down something with a little kick,” I replied. “Might pay a few cents more if it wasn’t some of Norm Wakley’s rotgut.”

  Pete chuckled from deep in his chest, and the atmosphere in the room grew a smidge lighter. “Wakley’s stuff is all I’ve got since the blockade. Ol’ Norm’d make a fortune if there was anyone left down here to buy his stuff.” He set a bottle and six glasses on the counter in front of us and started pouring. Glancing at Jim, still hanging back by the door, he added: “It’s all right with me if you want a drink, Jim, as long as it’s OK with your master.”

  I swung around on one elbow. “You want a snort, Jim?”

  “If it ain’t too much trouble, a snort would go down mighty fine,” Jim said.

  “Come on up and grab one, then.”

  I could see Roy Turner’s expression darken at my invitation, but he wisely kept his tongue in check. I figured that of everyone there, only Roy, and maybe Pablo, would object to drinking with a black man. Pete sure never seemed to have a problem with it.

  The trader fished two more glasses from under the counter and poured rounds for himself and Jim. Roy grumbled a little when Jim bellied up to the bar, which I know Jim heard because he quickly backed away when Pete handed him his whiskey. I felt like punching Roy Turner in the nose right there, but instead gritted my teeth and remained silent. Sometimes you’ve just got to swallow back the ire that rises in your throat, even if it does taste like bile at times.

  “To the Confederacy,” Ardell said loudly, and we all cheered and threw back our drinks. Punch choked a little on the whiskey’s fire, but kept it down all right. The rest of us, having had more experience with hard spirits, never batted an eye, and Jim’s smile broadened as the whiskey’s warmth spread through his system.

  “That’s mighty fine sippin’ whiskey, Mistah Pete!” Jim exclaimed, and several of us laughed at the absurdity of calling anything out of Norman Wakley’s copper still “fine.”

  Pete refilled everyone’s glasses, but we took our time with that second round. I could still feel the first one knocking around my gullet like a madman with a sledgehammer. Casual like, as he topped off the last glass, Pete said: “Which way you heading, Boone?”

  “I’m bound for home. We sold a small herd to a buyer in Punta Rassa, is why we’re so far south.” Pete studied me quietly for a moment, until I started to grow uneasy. “You got something you want to say?”

  “Mostly just thinking. That and wondering if you knew what Jacob Klee’s been saying.”

  Me and Casey swore in unison, and Roy growled: “If he’s tryin’ to lay blame on Casey and Boone for Dave Klee gettin’ pulled under by a ’gator, that’s pure hog shit.”

  “That a fact?” Pete asked mildly.

  “You damn’ right that’s a fact,” Roy answered. “You can ask any of us. We was all there.” He turned to Pablo, standing at his side. “Ain’t that
right, Torres?”

  Pablo ducked his head in order to avoid Turner’s gaze. After a terse moment, he muttered: “I did not see it.”

  “You didn’t have to see it!” Roy exclaimed. “You was there, boy. We all were.”

  “It’s a lie, Pete,” Casey said, interrupting the conversation between Roy and Pablo. In a quiet voice, he outlined what had happened at Chestnut Thumb, then told the trader about what the Klees had said about us in Punta Rassa. “It ain’t nothing but a lie, though,” he finished. “You know me’n’ Boone.”

  “I know your daddies, too,” Pete replied soberly. “Things got bloody during the Seminole Wars, but neither man shied away from what had to be done.”

  “We wouldn’t, either,” I said with a trace of heat in my words. “But I wouldn’t feed a man to an alligator, no matter how I felt about him. Neither would Casey. You’ve got to know that.”

  “Jacob said a couple of Flatiron riders shot Davey first, just to make him bleed, then threw him in that ’gator hole.” After an uncomfortable pause, he added: “Said he heard you boys laughing about it afterward.”

  “Laughing!” I exclaimed, but Pete held up a hand before I could take off.

  “Don’t go blowing out a tooth, Boone. I’ve been dealing with old Judah’s kith and kin ever since I came to the ’glades. I know which ones I trust, and which ones I wouldn’t turn my back on for a wagonload of gold. Jacob Klee’s a bad one. He’s a double-crossing, mean-hearted old codger, but he does tend to believe his own lies after a while. That’s why . . . well, I thought maybe you boys had already been home, and now you were headed south.”

  My spine stiffened at the trader’s words. “What’s that mean, Pete?” I asked tonelessly.

  “It means Jacob came through here with ten men about three days ago, but only four went south with him, into the swamps. The other six went north.”

  “Toward the Flatiron?”

  “Maybe. The Flatiron or a hundred other places they could’ve been headed for, but something the old man said struck me as odd. As them six were walking out to get their ’tackies, Jacob said . . . ‘Let ’em know you were there, boys.’”