Smoke Jensen, the Beginning

by William W. Johnstone

  Kirby turned and saw her standing a few feet behind him. He had never seen such an expression on her face before. It showed nothing of that self-confidence. On the contrary, it was an expression of contriteness and fear.

  “What was that all about?” he asked.

  “I told him to stop, and he wouldn’t do it. I’m just thankful that you came along when you did. If you hadn’t . . . I don’t know what would have happened.”

  “Janey, I’ve never been around a girl . . . like that . . . so I’m not real sure how things like what I saw here could happen. But it seems to me like it wouldn’t have got that far if you hadn’t let it.”

  “I admit I was . . . teasing him,” Janey said. “But I thought I could control it. I thought that if I told him to stop, he would.”

  “Like I said, I ain’t got that kind of experience, but I’ve heard enough talk to know that it don’t always happen like that. You had to know that he’s a lot stronger than you. You was playin’ with fire.”

  “I was. I admit it now.” She went over to Kirby and put her hand on his arm, then fixed him with a pleading gaze. “I don’t know how to thank you. You came along just in time to save me. There’s no telling what would have happened.”

  “Janey, Pa told me to look out after you ’n Ma. I’m goin’ to ask you, please, don’t be doin’ nothin’ like this again. You could get yourself in some serious trouble. And I don’t know if I could even face Pa then.”

  “I promise I will be much more careful in the future. I’ve always had it in mind that I could control boys. Now I see that it isn’t as easy as I thought.”

  “You can control boys. But you’re of an age now, Janey that”—Kirby took in Janey’s body with a wave of his hand—“it ain’t boys you have to worry about. It’s men. And you can’t control men.”

  “You’re right,” Janey said contritely.

  “Why don’t you go on back to the house now?”

  “Kirby?”

  “What?”

  “You won’t tell Ma nothin’ about this, will you?”

  “I ain’t goin’ to say a word about it,” Kirby promised.

  The worry left Janey’s face, and she kissed her brother on the cheek.

  “Thank you, Kirby. Thank you for everything.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Belle Robb was someone that the people of Galena euphemistically referred to as “a painted woman.” She advertised her services by the very method that gave her the sobriquet by which she was called. Her red hair came from a bottle, her lips and cheeks from a paint pot. She wore fine, but revealing dresses and travelled around town in an elegant carriage driven by a free black man. She was the wealthiest person—man or woman—in the entire county.

  Strange as it might seem, Belle and Lettie had developed a friendship when Belle began paying Lettie a great deal of money for private tutoring. For the last two years, Belle had been coming to the school on Saturday and Sunday afternoons for the lessons.

  On this particular Saturday afternoon, Lettie was waiting most anxiously for her.

  “Say, that Pride and Prejudice is one fine book,” Belle said, returning the book to Lettie. “Thank you very much for lending it to me.”

  “I’m glad you enjoyed it,” Lettie said, though her words were without animation.

  “Lettie, what is it? What’s wrong?”

  “Oh, Belle, I’m so frightened. I . . . I have done something awful, and you are the only one I can talk to.”

  Belle reached out to put her hand on the teacher’s shoulder. “Lettie, I know you, and I know that you can’t do anything awful. Now, tell me what is bothering you.”

  “My womanly time . . . is late. I didn’t worry too much about it, but . . . now I have missed it a second time. I’m two months behind, and it could only mean one thing.”

  “You’re pregnant,” Belle said matter-of-factly.

  The way Belle spoke the words gave Lettie a sinking feeling. She had hoped someone like Belle might be able to come up with another reason. To hear her fears confirmed was devastating. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

  “Does the baby’s father know about it?”

  “No, and I’ve no intention of telling him, nor anyone else.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I . . . I’ve heard that there are ways of terminating a pregnancy,” Lettie said. “I was wondering if you know anything about it. I mean, how would one go about obtaining such a thing?”

  Belle shook her head. “I have known girls who did this, and I would advise against it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because two of the girls I knew died undergoing the process. I wouldn’t want to see anything like that happen to you.”

  “If . . . if the father was here, I would go to him and tell him. I’m sure he would marry me. But he isn’t here, and I don’t know when he will return, or if he ever will return.”

  “He has gone to war?”

  “Yes. If I have the child, and he doesn’t come back for a few years, how could I ever convince him that the baby is his?”

  “That could be a problem,” Belle agreed.

  “Oh, Belle, what will I do? What is left for me besides disgrace? I’ll no longer be able to hold my head up among people who had once been my friends . . . among people who respected me.”

  “You can leave,” Belle suggested.

  “Leave and go where?”

  “I have a friend, a gambler, who lives in Denver. I’ll write a letter for you to give him. I’ll tell him that your husband was killed, and you want to get away from sad memories. He’ll do right by you.”

  “Oh, Belle,” Lettie said, her eyes filling with tears. “Thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank-you.”

  It was only a matter of a few weeks after Emmett and Luke joined the First Missouri State Guard Infantry, a Confederate company, that they were involved in their first battle. Union troops, under command of Brigadier General Nathaniel Lyon’s Army of the West, were camped at Springfield. The Confederate troops, under the command of Brigadier General Ben McCulloch, formulated attack plans.

  At 5:00 AM on the morning of August 10, the two forces met at Wilson’s Creek about twelve miles southwest of the city. Rebel cavalry received the first blow and fell back, away from Bloody Hill. Confederate forces soon rushed up and stabilized their positions, attacking the Union forces. Three times they attacked that day but failed to break through the Union line.

  The Union troops received a heavy blow when General Lyon was killed during the battle. Major Samuel D. Sturgis replaced him.

  Meanwhile, Confederates routed Colonel Franz Sigel’s column south of Skegg’s Branch. Following the third Confederate attack, which ended at 11:00 AM, Sturgis ordered a retreat to Springfield. The Confederate victory buoyed Southern sympathizers in Missouri, giving the Confederates control of southwestern Missouri.

  It was shortly after that battle that Emmett and Luke were split up. Emmett protested at first, but a colonel pointed something out to him that seemed to make good sense. “Suppose you and your son were in the same company. And suppose that company was engaged by such superior forces that virtually the entire company was killed. Your wife would lose a husband and a son, and your children, still at home, would lose a father and a brother. Wouldn’t it be best for you to be separated, to lessen the chances of both of you being killed at the same time?”

  Emmett nodded. “I reckon you’re right, Colonel.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Spring 1862

  Kirby had been plowing for two weeks, averaging an acre and a half per day. By the middle of May he had the ground broken in twenty-one acres, which was just over half of the farm. What he would plant was entirely up to him, and he planned to do twenty acres of corn, ten of wheat, and ten of oats. He had already spoken with Mr. Matthews, who’d agreed to take his crops as soon as he could get them out.

  “Truth is, they ought to bring a premium this year,” Matthews had said. “What with the war go
in’ on an’ all, there’s a demand for the produce, and with so many men bein’ off to do the fightin’, not as much will be grown as in years past. It’ll be a sellers’ market, that’s for sure.”

  Kirby had done some figuring and thought the chances were good that he would be able to bring in at least fifteen hundred dollars. He planned to save as much of it as he could to have for his father and brother when they came back home.

  If they came back home.

  Reports had already been received from a battle that happened in April at a place called Shiloh. Kirby had never heard of Shiloh, and he didn’t know if his pa or Luke had fought in that battle or not. If so, he was reasonably sure that they hadn’t been killed. The casualties for Stone County, including names from both participating armies, had been posted on the door of the courthouse in Galena. Neither Emmett nor Luke’s name was on the list, but Lee Willoughby’s name was.

  So far, the family had received only two letters from Emmett. In one of them, he told them that he and Luke had been split up, and he had no idea where Luke was. They hadn’t heard from Luke.

  Kirby was thinking about this when he got the whiff of an awful smell.

  “Hell’s bells, Ange!” he swore at the mule. “Ain’t you got no better sense than to fart in a man’s face? Damn. You are the fartin’ess mule I’ve ever seen. Why ain’t you more like Rhoda? She don’t hardly ever fart. I guess she’s more of a lady than you are a gentleman.” Kirby picked up a clod of dirt and threw it at the offending animal.

  He was just reaching the end of a row when he saw Janey approaching. “Whoa,” he called.

  Janey was carrying a canvas bag.

  “Hi, sis. You’re bringing water, I hope.”

  Janey smiled. “No. I brought you something better.” She reached into the bag and pulled out ajar of tea. “It’s sweetened,” she said as she handed it to him.

  Kirby had worked up quite a thirst during the plowing and he took the sweetened tea with grateful hands, then took several, deep, Adam’s apple bobbing swallows, until more than half of it was gone. Finally, he pulled the jar away, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and smiled at Janey. “Damn, that was good. If you weren’t my sister, I’d marry you,” he teased.

  “I told you. I’m never goin’ to get married. And I wouldn’t marry you, even if you weren’t my brother. You’re too onery.”

  Kirby drank the rest of the tea, but saved the last mouthful, and spit it out toward his sister.

  “Kirby!” Janey complained to his laughter.

  “That’s what you get for calling me onery.” He handed the empty jar back to her. “What’s Ma cookin’ for supper?”

  “What difference does it make? You’ll gobble it down like a hog. You always do.”

  Ange chose that precise moment to let go another fart.

  “Oh, what is that awful smell?” Janey screwed up her face and waved her hand back and forth in front of her nose.

  “You ain’t plowed behind a team of mules a whole lot, have you?” Kirby asked, laughing again. He slapped the reins against the back of the team. “Gee!” he called, and the team turned to the right.

  Janey stood at the edge of the field, watching as Kirby started back across the field. She was thankful to him for keeping secret the incident he had happened upon between her and Merlin Lewis. She also realized that he was faithfully fulfilling his promise to their pa to “be the man of the place.” She couldn’t help but feel a little guilty as she lay in bed every morning when, while still dark, Kirby would go out to harness Ange and Rhoda, then start a full day of plowing. If he found the work too strenuous, he never complained. If he ever had the urge to leave the farm, he never spoke of it.

  Janey wanted nothing more in the world than to leave the farm. She hated farming and everything about it. The only reason she was still there was because she felt a sense of obligation to her mother and to Kirby.

  She was sixteen but could easily pass for twenty. If she left home now, that’s the age she would assume. She was fully developed by the time she was twelve. Although some of the other girls had envied her, it wasn’t necessarily a good thing. She sometimes felt as if she were a full grown woman trapped in a young girl’s body. She began to have fewer and fewer friends because the things that most interested them seemed childish to her.

  The woman she most admired in town was Belle Robb.

  She had never spoken to Belle. She knew that her ma would be mortified if she did. But she had watched the woman riding by in the back of a carriage, glancing neither left nor right, either oblivious of, or unconcerned about, the stares and gossip.

  What would it be like to have so much money that she didn’t care what others thought? Janey wondered.

  She also wondered what it would be like to be with a man . . . not a boy like Merlin Lewis, but a real man.

  As Kirby started back toward the house that evening with thoughts of supper on his mind, he was surprised to see three mounted riders out front. The riders were wearing military uniforms . . . and the uniforms were blue.

  “What’s this about?” He hurried, not bothering to take the team to the barn, but going directly to the house. His ma and sister were standing on the porch, talking to the soldiers.

  “Ma, what’s going on?” he asked.

  “Nothin’ you have to be concerned about,” Pearl replied. “They’ve come to try’n take you into the army.”

  “Wouldn’t you like to serve your country, boy?” asked the soldier who had three stripes on his sleeve.

  “His father and his older brother are already serving,” Pearl said. “Kirby is only fourteen years old. Is the government drafting fourteen-year-olds now?

  “Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am, but he sure don’t look like no fourteen-year-old.”

  “Can you read, Sergeant?” Pearl asked.

  “Yes, I can read.”

  “I got his name wrote in the Bible, along with his sister’s and older brother’s names. That tells when they was born. If you can read and cipher, you can figure out for yourself how old he is. Do you want to see the Bible?”

  “How would I know you didn’t just put down when he was born so’s to keep him from gettin’ took into the army?” the sergeant asked. “Is that true, boy? Are you only fourteen?”

  Kirby looked the soldier in the eye. “You ain’t callin’ my ma a liar, are you, mister? ’Cause I don’t think I’d take too kindly to that.”

  “Feisty, ain’t he?” the sergeant said to the two soldiers with them. They laughed.

  “All right, boy. We’ll take your ma’s word for it. But if this war’s still goin’ on when you come of age, you need to think about your duty and come join up with us. Come on, men, we’re gettin’ nothin’ done here.”

  Kirby watched the men ride away.

  “You didn’t tell ’em Pa and Luke had joined up with the Gray, did you, Ma?”

  Pearl shook her head. “I thought it would be best not to. Supper will be ready soon.”

  “I’ll be in soon as I put the mules away.”

  Supper was pork chops, poke salad, and corn bread. As Janey had predicted, Kirby ate heartily.

  The little town of Lamar, Missouri, was sleeping when Angus Shardeen approached it on the July morning. He held his hand up to stop the thirty-six men riding with him.

  “What do we hit first, Angus?” Billy Bartell, Angus’s second in command, asked.

  “Start by burnin’ the houses,” Shardeen said.

  “That’ll get ever’one drawn out to put out the fires and save the citizens, then we’ll be able to ride on into town without much opposition, I’m thinkin’.”

  Bartell stood in his stirrups, then looked back toward the other riders. “All right men, get them torches lit!” he shouted.

  A match was struck to light one torch, then it was used to pass the light on down until twenty torches were aflame.

  “Let’s go, men! Burn the town!” Shardeen shouted.

  The group rode into town at
a gallop. As they encountered the first houses, they tossed the torches toward them. Citizens ran out into the street and were shot down without regard to age or sex. By the time Shardeen’s men reached the middle of town, at least eight houses were burning and sixteen men, women, and children had been shot down.

  The Jayhawkers stopped in front of the town’s only hotel.

  “Bartell,” Shardeen ordered. “Take five men down to the marshal’s office and kill anyone you find there.”

  “What if somebody’s in jail?”

  “Kill them, too,” Shardeen ordered. “Tompkins, find the newspaper editor and bring him to me.”

  One hour later, ten women and girls were being held in one of the Lamar Hotel rooms. Shardeen was in the dining room, enjoying the breakfast he had forced the cook to prepare for him. He looked at the emergency broadsheet he had forced the newspaper to print.

  PEOPLE OF LAMAR

  YOUR TOWN HAS BEEN CAPTURED BY THE SHARDEEN RAIDERS. TEN OF YOUR WOMEN ARE BEING HELD PRISONER. THE TOWN IS BEING CHARGED A RANSOM OF FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS FOR THEIR RELEASE. IF THE MONEY HAS NOT BEEN COLLECTED BY THREE O’CLOCK THIS AFTERNOON, THE WOMEN WILL BE KILLED.

  BY ORDER OF COLONEL ANGUS SHARDEEN,

  COMMANDING OFFICER

  “Yes,” Shardeen said after reading the paper. He smiled and handed it back. “This is exactly what I want. Now, print enough copies so everyone in town will be sure to see it.”

  “Don’t hurt the women, please,” the newspaper editor begged.

  “If you do your job, and if the town responds, none of the women will be killed.”

  “Bartell?” Shardeen said after the editor left.

  “Yeah?”

  “Which one of the women is the best lookin’ one?”

  “Well, the best lookin’ one would be the mayor’s daughter. But you almost couldn’t call her a woman, seein’ as I don’t think she’s much over fourteen or fifteen.”