Blood Lands

by Ralph Cotton

  “Going? We just got here yesterday!” said the big bearded man.

  “We’re spying here, remember?” said Peerly. “Don’t you think Ruddell Plantz is going to want his due payment when he hears the colonel slipped all them horses into town? Hell, he might even want to confiscate these horses for our own men.”

  “So, chances are we’ll be coming right back?” Conlon asked, staring down toward the restaurant as if in contemplation.

  “Once we tell Plantz about all these big good-looking horses?” Peerly grinned. “Oh yes, I’m pretty sure you can count on us coming back here.”

  “Then let’s go,” said Conlon, sucking a piece of chicken from between his teeth. He looked out through the window. “The rain’s stopped anyway.”

  “Yeah,” Peerly said with sarcasm, shaking his head, “I wouldn’t want you to ride in the rain.” He paused for a moment and looked the big man up and down. “Let me ask you something, Conlon. Would you be riding with us, Plantz, me and the others, if this war wasn’t going on?”

  Conlon shrugged his broad shoulders inside his too-tight uniform jacket. “Hell, I reckon. Why not? A man’s got to do something.”

  “You don’t mind all the killing, robbing, burning, purging?” Peerly asked as if pursuing a point.

  “Naw, not me,” said Conlon. He offered a wide crooked grin. “Every day, somebody has to die. If it ain’t us that kills them, something will.”

  “Now, there is what I call a real deeply considered opinion,” Peerly said, returning the grin.

  “Why’d you ask?” Conlon cocked his head a bit in curiosity.

  “Just making conversation, Charlie,” said Peerly, turning and walking away.

  Chapter 2

  Ruddell Plantz sat at the kitchen table with his tall muddy cavalry boots propped up on the edge, right beside a cold plate of half-eaten beans and hoecake. On the floor near his chair lay the body of Harvey Shawler. In front of the smoldering hearth lay his wife, Mattie Shawler. On Plantz’s lap lay a big Colt horse pistol and the feed sack with eyelets that had covered his face as he rode in. He’d taken his Union saber and scabbard from around his waist and laid it alongside his forearm on the tabletop.

  At the open door to the Shawler farmhouse, Carl Muller stood holding two young boys by their shirt collars. The youngsters squirmed and kicked, but to no avail. “What about these Shawler tadpoles?” Muller asked.

  Plantz hardly gave the boys a glance. “I didn’t know they were still alive,” he said. He picked up the cup of coffee one of his men had poured him from the steaming pot hanging above the hearth coals, swirled it, then said before taking a long sip, “Kill them both, Carl. Missouri tadpoles today become full-grown Missouri frogs tomorrow.”

  Muller shot a dark grin to Rance Sawyer standing beside him on the short wooden porch. “See? Ain’t that what I told you he’d say?”

  “It never hurts to check first,” Sawyer said sullenly. He jerked one of the farm boys from Muller’s hand and helped drag the two away, down off the porch and farther away from the house. “If you ask me, the war will be over before these two ever make Johnnie Reb’s roster.”

  “But see, the thing is,” said Muller, giving a nasty grin, “nobody did ask you.” He paused, then said as he raised a boot and kicked Davey Shawler forward, “If you want some good advice”—his big Remington pistol came up from its holster and fired a round into Davey Shawler’s back—“you’d do well to keep your opinions to yourself, especially when it comes to showing mercy for this Missouri border trash.”

  “Davey!” young Martin Shawler screamed. He lunged forward against Sawyer’s grip, trying to go to his fallen brother.

  “Let him go,” Muller said quietly. When Sawyer turned the boy loose, Muller let him get to his dead brother, then raised his Remington again and fired.

  Sawyer winced at the sight of the two brothers lying dead in their own side yard.

  “You see,” Muller continued as if nothing had happened while gray smoke curled from his pistol barrel, “the shorter this war gets, the more folks will start to wondering what kind of trouble they might get into over stuff just like this.” He gestured his pistol toward the two dead Shawler brothers. “Not everybody realizes that our cause is just.”

  Hearing the two gunshots from inside the farmhouse, Plantz turned a tired look toward a small bedroom separated from the kitchen by a wool blanket hung over a length of twine. “Parson, are you going to sleep all damned day?” he called out.

  After a grunt followed by a short silence, a voice replied from behind the blanket, “How in God’s name can a man sleep . . . all this shooting and screaming going on all night.”

  Plantz gave a dark chuckle. “Now, it wasn’t all that bad. Only a couple of young women and these two last night. Muller just shot a couple of boys out in the yard. Come on out and have some coffee with me. Tell me some things.”

  “Damn it, Ruddell,” the voice grunted. In a second a large hand wearing fingerless leather gloves drew the wool blanket to the side. “As long as we’ve been riding together, you’d think I’ve already told you all you’d ever want to know.”

  “Naw, I can never get enough learning,” said Plantz. He turned and watched Preston Oates, “the parson,” step into the room, shoving his gray-black hair back out of his eyes. “I followed your advice too. The blind man is still alive. Hurley and Kenny Bright have him tied to a post out in the barn.”

  “Thank you,” said the parson, “I appreciate it.” He cleared his throat and spit into the smoldering coals on his way around the table. Picking up a half cup of cold coffee, he slung the contents out onto the dirt floor and filled the cup from the steaming pot. “I felt very strongly about that.”

  Plantz offered a thin smile. “I could tell you did. You come near throwing down on Kiley when he started to cut the man’s throat.”

  “Killing a blind man on a moonless night?” said the parson, shaking his head as if in fear. “That’s the kind of bad luck we neither one want to bring down on us . . . not when things are going so well.”

  “Especially a one-legged blind man,” Plantz added with a feigned sense of caution. “Ain’t that what you told all of us last night? Or was that whiskey talking?”

  “That was no whiskey talk,” said the parson. “That was just me reading all the signs and looking out for all of us.” Easing down into a chair across the table from Plantz, he gave the man a look and said, “I know you don’t put as much stock in these things as I do. But it’s widely known in my inner circle that Napoleon had a blind man put to death the night before his battle at Waterloo.” He paused for effect, then added flatly, “It was a moonless night.” His beady dark eyes stared gravely at Plantz.

  “But was he one-legged?” Plantz asked, showing a trace of a teasing smile.

  “Whether he was or not, it’s not a matter to treat so lightly,” said the parson.

  Plantz shrugged a bit, sipped his coffee and said quietly, “Sorry, Parson, I’m just not superstitious the way you are.”

  “This has nothing to do with superstition, Ruddell,” said Oates. “This is a matter of carefully accumulated scientific fact.” As he spoke he made the sign of the cross, only instead of making it on his chest, he made a smaller version on his forearm.

  Noting the gesture, Plantz said, “Well, fact or not. It’s daylight now. I expect we can go ahead and kill this Reb sonsabitch and get on about our business.”

  “Did we do ourselves any good here last night?” the parson asked. Then, to keep from appearing greedy he added quickly, “Enough to support our just cause, that is?”

  “Naw, hell, these people have been picked to death the last few years,” said Plantz. “We’re doing them a favor, killing them.” He sipped his coffee. “We’re leaving here with a little grain for our horses, a sow hog and some skinny chickens.”

  “Chicken thieves, then, is what we’ve become,” said the parson, looking down stoically into his coffee cup.

  Plantz stared
at him in silence for a moment. “You know, I’ve been giving it some serious thought. Soon as this war simmers on down, I’m thinking about making my own private little war. Think you can go along with that?”

  “You mean . . . ?” The parson gave a sly grin and let his words trail.

  “Yep,” said Plantz, knowing he didn’t really need to explain himself any further, but doing so anyway. “I mean doing for ourselves what we’ve been doing for the cause all this time. Instead of throwing the proceeds to the Free Kansas Militia, we keep it all for ourselves.”

  The parson raised his partially gloved hands as if in dismay. “But there’s nothing left now. This is what we should have started doing a couple of years back when there was still something worth stealing around here.”

  “As soon as this war stops, it’ll just be a matter of time before there’s more money circulating than we’ve ever dreamed of. It’ll be real Union dollars too. Not these worthless gray dollars.” He gestured a hand toward the Confederate bills strewn on the dirt floor, some of them stained with blood.

  The parson sat in silence for a moment as if having to give it some thought. Finally he said, “Hell yes, I’m with you. Only, why wait for the war to end? We could head out tonight, rob and kill all the way to San Francisco, far as I’m concerned.”

  “We’ve got a total of eleven men . . . nine of them right out there, Parson,” said Plantz, jerking a short nod toward the barn and the surrounding yard. “How many do you think we could count on to ride with us if we broke away from the Free Kansas Militia right now?”

  “I’d like to say all of them,” the parson replied after pondering it for a moment. “But to be honest and practical, I’m going to say six or seven.”

  “Yeah, that’s about the same number I came up with,” said Plantz. Raising another finger each time he mentioned a name he said, “I figure, Carl Muller, Kid Kiley, Goff Aimes, Clement Macky and Buell Evans.” He held up five fingers, then added, “Clarence Conlon, and Nez Peerly too, once they catch up with us.”

  “What about Delbert Reese, or Rance Sawyer, the ones who won’t go along with your idea?” the parson asked, lowering his voice lest anyone outside hear him.

  Lowering his voice as well, Plantz said, “Well, if there’s one thing we’ve all learned from this war, it’s that ‘He who is not with us is surely against us.’ ”

  “In other words . . .” Staring intently at Plantz, the parson raised a finger and ran it symbolically across his throat.

  Plantz gave him a thin guarded smile. “If it comes to that,” he said, “but maybe we tell them we’re disbanding, and shake loose of them without having to . . .” He made the same sign across his throat.

  “Right, of course,” said the parson, catching himself before he appeared too bloodthirsty. “I meant only as a last resort. God forbid it come to that.”

  “Yeah, I agree,” said Plantz, without much commitment in his voice. “God forbid it come to that.” He hesitated for a second, then said, “I’ve got Peerly doing some checking around, seeing who we can count on when the time comes.”

  “You say when, not if,” said the parson.

  “Yeah,” said Plantz with a level gaze, “I suppose I did.”

  The two fell silent and turned toward the sound of a young gunman named Kid Kiley whose high-welled cavalry boots pounded up onto the wooden porch. “Ruddell! I mean, Captain Plantz, sir!” he said in an excited tone, sticking his head inside the open door. “We’re bringing this blind basta—That is, we’re bringing the prisoner from the barn, sir!” He gave a quick, awkward salute.

  “At ease, Kiley,” Plantz chuckled, rising from his chair. “Get out of the doorway and go calm yourself down. You’re panting like a hound on a deer trail.” Turning to the parson, he said as Kiley ducked away and pounded back off the porch, “Come on, Parson, let’s see how these boys handle this. We’ll see who fits in our plans and who doesn’t.” The two stood with their coffee cups in hand and stepped onto the porch.

  Propped up between Kenny Bright and Joe Hurley, Avrial Shawler hobbled toward the house. He turned his blind eyes back and forth aimlessly, searching his endless darkness for any sign of his kin. “Davey?” he called out. His ears piqued for a response. When no response came he called out, “Martin . . . Marty boy, can you hear me? Jed? Speak up, one of you! Where’s Sister Loretta? Sister Rose?”

  “You don’t want to see Sister Rose and Loretta,” Muller chuckled. “They’re a mess.”

  “Jed . . . ?” Bright said curiously, almost to himself. He looked all around the yard.

  Kid Kiley, who had hurried to join Hurley and Bright in accompanying the blind man across the yard, snickered and answered in a mocking, teasing voice, “Here I am, big brother. I’m down over here with a bloody hole in my back, deader than hell!”

  Avrial Shawler stopped abruptly and stiffened in place, causing his two guards to stop also. “What have you devils done to my kid brothers?” he cried out. “Where’s my ma and pa?” He swung his head back and forth wildly, shouting, “Pa! Ma! Where are you? Somebody answer me, for God sakes!”

  “I did answer you, you stupid bastard!” Kiley called out in the same cruel taunting voice. “We’re all dead! Every gawddamned rebel-loving one of us! Except you!” He ran in close in a short circle, spit in Avrial’s hapless face and kept circling, preparing to do the same again.

  Some of the men hooted and laughed; other men only looked on in shame. “All right, Kiley, that’s enough!” said Bright, jerking the blind man to the side, away from the circling Kiley.

  “See?” the parson said quietly to Plantz, the two observing from the porch. “Kenny Bright is a good man, but his heart just isn’t in it, not the way Kiley’s is. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Yep, I see what you mean,” said Plantz, staring straight ahead. He sipped his coffee, his big Colt in his right hand, hanging down at his side. “All right, both of yas, stand down!” he called out to Bright and Kiley, seeing their tempers begin to flare.

  “He started it,” Kiley replied. “I’m only doing my job! My job is to hairy-ass the enemy any chance I get!”

  “This man is no longer the enemy,” Bright said. “He’s been sent home, out of the war! He’s harmless!”

  “As long as he’s alive, he’s still my enemy!” Kiley shouted.

  “You’ve got a knack for harassing the blind and the infirm, Kiley,” Bright said flatly. “I can’t wait to see you someday have to face up to—” His words stopped short beneath the roar of Plantz’s big pistol. Kiley ducked away as if he’d been shot.

  “Damn it,” said Plantz. “Didn’t you two woodenheads hear me tell you to stand down?” He stepped off the porch and sauntered forward, eying both men sharply. Hurley turned loose of Avrial Shawler’s arm and stepped away.

  “Sorry, Captain,” said Bright, one hand on the blind man’s thin upper arm, helping to steady him. “I see no need in all this killing . . . and certainly no need in torturing a man this way.”

  “Torture?” said Plantz, turning his harsh stare to Bright alone. He gave Kiley a gesture with his pistol barrel, sending him away. “This isn’t torture. You haven’t seen torture.” He reached out with a muddy boot and kicked Avrial Shawler’s wobbly leg out from under him, dropping the blind man to the wet ground. Bright could only turn loose of the downed man’s arm.

  “If you want to know about killing and torture, ask me about Lawrence, Kansas, the night Cantrell and his men rode through!” He kicked the helpless blind man in the side, causing him to roll into a ball, gasping. “Ask me about Centralia . . . about Whitfield, or Logansport.”

  “Captain, I—” Bright tried to reply, but his words cut short again as Plantz took him by his forearm and pulled him away from the man on the ground.

  Hearing the big pistol cock in Plantz’s hand, the blind man said with tears streaming down his face, “Go on, kill me then, you murdering sonsabitch! I ain’t going to beg! I ain’t going to crawl!”

  “Is this da
ylight enough for you?” Plantz called out to the parson. “Does this fit your accumulated scientific tastes?”

  The parson only nodded, watching with a firm grin of satisfaction.

  On the ground, Avrial Shawler had heard enough to know that his life would end any second. “Ma! Pa! Little Brothers! I’m gone. Can you hear me? I love all of you!” He sobbed and shook his bowed head, his blind eyes seeming to search the wet ground beneath him. “Ma!” he said. “Please say something. Let me hear your voice!”

  “She can’t talk,” said Plantz, reaching his pistol out at arm’s length. He gave a trace of a cruel grin. “We cut her tongue out.” He paused for only a second to let it sink in; then he added, “So she can’t tell what we’re all going to do to her.”

  “Noooo!” Avrial Shawler shrieked and swung his hands wildly back and forth, trying in his desperation to grab on to his tormentor.

  Plantz squeezed the trigger on his big saddle Colt and watched the impact nail the screaming man’s head to the ground in a spray of mud, blood and brain matter.

  In the sudden silent wake of the explosion, Plantz turned to Bright and said, “You heard him mention another brother, didn’t you?”

  Bright stared at Plantz for a moment before finally saying, “I heard him call out the name, ‘Jed.’ I don’t know what he meant by it.”

  “If you were to guess though,” said Plantz, “would you think there might be another brother around here somewhere, maybe somebody who saw everything that just happened? Maybe somebody who will spill everything he saw to the regulars, first chance he gets?”

  “I suppose that could be,” said Bright.

  “Yeah, I suppose that could happen too,” said Plantz, staring Bright harshly in the eye. “Why didn’t you say something right then, when you heard him mention it?”