The very way Briggs had operated during the war, allowing the men to spend a lot of time at home, would help keep his secret. Tom Byrd knew of Kirby’s frequent absences because he kept the mules while Kirby was gone. Kirby had told him that he was earning money by delivering messages and, as far as he knew, Byrd still believed that.
Kirby wondered what his pa would say when he learned his daughter had run off? He wondered, also, if he knew his oldest boy was dead?
Kirby was entertaining all these thoughts as he was busy plowing. Because of his guerrilla activity, he had not put in any crops in the previous two years. He didn’t think he needed to; after all, there was no need for him to support anyone but himself. And he’d taken comfort from knowing that he had two thousand dollars set aside for when his pa returned.
Or at least, he thought he did.
As he thought about finding the money gone with only Janey’s note in the bottle, he got angry again. Like his mother had said, Janey always was a little wild, but he never would have thought she was a thief. What bothered him more than the thought of her taking the money was her giving it to Paul Garner. It would have been bad enough had she kept it for herself. At least she was family. But to have given it to Paul Garner? That was almost more than Kirby could take.
He would like to run into Garner again, some day. Not as much as he wanted to run into Angus Shardeen, but he would like to encounter him some day, whether Janey was still with him or not.
“Where the hell are you now, Janey?” Kirby asked aloud. “Are you still with that sorry buzzard?”
The plow hit a rock and jolted Kirby out of his musing and back to his surroundings, popping his teeth together and wrenching his arms. “Damn, Ange. Didn’t you see that rock?”
Kirby unhooked the plow, running the lines through the eyes of the single tree, and left the plow sitting in the middle of the field. He was late getting the crops in, but no later than anyone else in the hollows and valleys of that part of Missouri. The rains had come and stayed, making fieldwork impossible. But he wanted to get something up before his pa returned. He didn’t want his pa to think that he was a wastrel.
Folding and shortening the traces, Kirby jumped onto Ange’s back and kicked the mule into movement. He plodded down the turn row on the east side of the field when dust from the road caught his eye. It was one rider, pulling up to the house leading a saddled but riderless horse, a bay.
Wondering who it might be, Kirby touched the smooth butt of the Navy .36, which he now wore in a holster. As Ange plodded closer to the house, Kirby smiled when he made out the figure in the front yard.
It was his pa.
Kirby slid off the mule and walked over to his father.
“Boy,” Emmett Jensen said, looking at his son, “I swear you’ve grown two feet.”
“You’ve been gone for four years, Pa. Someone my age grows a lot in four years.” Kirby wanted to throw his arms around his pa, but didn’t. His pa didn’t hold with a lot of touching between men. He stuck out his hand and Emmett shook it.
“Strong, too,” Emmett commented.
“Thank you. Plowin’ will do that for you.”
“I expect it will. Crops is late, Kirby.”
“Yes, sir. Rains come and stayed.”
“I wasn’t faulting you, boy.” Emmett let his eyes sweep the land. He coughed, a dry hacking. “I seen a cross on the hill overlooking the creek. Would that be your ma?”
“Yes, sir.”
“When did she pass?”
“Spring, three years ago,” Kirby said, remembering Shardeen’s raid and thinking with a twinge of regret, that all the time he had been with Briggs, they had never encountered Shardeen.
“She go hard?”
She was shot down in front of her kids. Was that hard enough? He wanted to share that with his father, and maybe he would someday. There was no need to burden him with that now.
“No, sir, it wasn’t hard at all. She went in her sleep. I found her the next morning when I took her coffee and grits.”
“Good coffee is scarce. What did you do with the coffee?”
“I drank it,” Kirby replied.
“Right nice service?”
She’s buried in a feeding trough, covered by a door. Only ones here were Janey and me, and I had to talk Janey into staying until I said a few words. Kirby did not vocalize his thoughts. “Real good service. Folks come from all over to see her off.”
Emmett cleared his throat and coughed. “Well, I think I’ll go up to the hill and sit with your ma for a while. You put up the horses and rub them down. We’ll talk over supper. I assume we got somethin’ to eat in the house, don’t we?”
“We got some greens. I shot ’n cleaned a squirrel no more ’n a couple hours ago. Was plannin’ on fryin’ it up. I’ll make us some cornbread.”
“Sounds good to me.” Emmett’s eyes flicked over the Navy .36 Colt his son was wearing in a holster. If the sight surprised him, he said nothing about it.
“Pa?”
The father looked at his son.
“I’m glad you’re back.”
What his pa did then couldn’t have astonished Kirby any more, if he had suddenly started dancing. Stepping forward, Emmett put his arms around his son and held him. “I’m glad to be back.”
Emmett turned and walked up the hill as Kirby tended to the horses.
The cross had been handmade, probably by Kirby, Emmett decided. If so, he had done a good job. The particulars were put on the cross with white paint, the words neatly printed.
PEARL VIRGINIA JENSEN
Wife of Emmett Jensen
Oct 13, 1824–April 23, 1862
Emmett wondered why Kirby hadn’t mentioned that she was also a mother, but perhaps he felt he wouldn’t have room to get it all onto the cross.
He took off his hat and stared down at the grave. Except for the cross, nothing indicated that anyone was buried there. The earth in front of the cross looked no different from the rest of the hill.
“Pearl, I wish I could’ve been here for you. I don’t think this country has ever done anything more foolish than the killin’ spree we just come through. I was a part of it when I shoulda been here.
“I don’t reckon I need to tell you Luke got hisself killed in this war. An’ the reason I don’t reckon I need to tell you is, because more ’n likely, you ’n him is together right now.” Despite the solemnity of the moment, Emmett smiled. “I hope the first thing you done for ’im when you seen ’im was make him some cornbread so’s he could crumble it up in his milk. Lord knows, that boy did like his cornbread ’n milk.
“About Kirby ’n Janey. I didn’t do right by them, neither, leavin’ ’em here to look after themselves.” Emmett looked around the farm. “But truth to tell, I ain’t seen hide nor hair of Janey yet. Could be she’s fixin’ supper, but seein’ as how Kirby said he would do it, I think it’s more ’n likely that she’s gone.
“And speakin’ of bein’ gone, I ain’t told the boy yet, but I plan for me ’n him to get on out of here. Too many memories here. Even the good ones is painful, what with you gone ’n all. It troubles me some to be goin’ off ’n leavin’ you, but I know that you ain’t really here now. You’re up in heaven, an’ the day’ll come when I’ll join you. So, I reckon this is the last time I’ll be visitin’ you like this. I need to get on in with the boy now. We’ve got some palaverin’ to do.” Emmett put his hat back on, turned, and walked down the hill.
Over greens, fried squirrel, and corn bread, the father and son ate and talked through the years that they had lost and gained. A few moments of uncomfortable silence came between them occasionally as they adjusted to the time and place, and the fact that their positions had changed.
No change had occurred in the actual relationship; they were still father and son. But Emmett had left a boy; he came home to a man.
“We done our best,” Emmett said. “Can’t nobody say we didn’t. And there ain’t nobody got nothin’ to be ashamed of.�
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Kirby hadn’t asked him anything about the war, not knowing if he should. He didn’t know if his pa wanted to talk about it. But when his pa started talking, Kirby just listened.
“I thought it wrong for the Yankees to burn folks’ homes like they done. But it was war, and terrible things happen in war. I didn’t know there was that many Yankees in the whole world.” Emmett began coughing, a deep, racking cough. It lasted for several seconds before he continued.
“Sometimes when they would come at us, why, we would mow them down like takin’ a sickle to wheat. But the Blue bellies just kept on acomin’. You got to give ’em credit for courage. They saw their friends goin’ down all around ’em, but they kept on acomin’. Shoot one and five more would take his place.”
Emmett was quiet for a moment, and Kirby thought he was finished, but his pa continued. “They weren’t near ’bout the riflemen we was, nor the riders neither, but they whupped us fair and square and now it’s time to put all that behind us and get on with livin’.”
“Yes, sir. That’s what I was thinkin’.”
Emmett sopped a piece of cornbread through the juice of his greens, and chewed for a time before he spoke again. “You know your brother Luke is dead, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir. I didn’t know if you knew it or not. I got a letter from a fella named Colonel Willis. He said Luke was killed last year in a place called The Wilderness. Fighting with Lee, wasn’t he?”
Emmett nodded, but he was quiet for a moment.
Luke had always been Pa’s favorite, or so Kirby had felt.
“We wasn’t together, you know. I think I sent your ma a letter tellin’ her that we wasn’t together no more.”
“Yes, sir.”
“About the letters.” Emmett coughed again. “I know I didn’t send many, but it was hard tryin’ to find some way to get the mail to go out. How was we to send ’em? The Yankees wouldn’t allow any mail to pass through their lines, and they made a point of interrupting our mail as much as they could. I didn’t much cotton to the idea of some Yankee reading one of my letters, so I didn’t hardly write none at all.
“But, as for Luke gettin’ killed, I prob’ly don’t know much more ’n you do. From time to time, messengers would get through between our armies. From what I heard, he was tryin’ to get back to The Wilderness. Leastwise, that’s what I was told.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I don’t see no sign of your sister Janey, and you ain’t brought up her name. What are you holdin’ back, Kirby?”
It was the moment Kirby had been dreading.
“She’s run off, ain’t she?”
“She run off with some fella, Pa. Right after Ma died.”
“What kind of feller was he?”
“He was a gambler, I’d say.”
“Smooth talker, I’d wager.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What did his hands look like?”
“Soft.”
“You’re right. More ’n likely was a gambler. You say this was after your ma died?”
“Yes sir.”
“Prob’ly just as good. If she had run off before your ma died, it woulda more ’n likely help kill her.” Emmett said it flatly, shaking his head, then rose from the table.
“I’ve ridden a far piece these last few weeks ’cause I wanted to get home. I was hopin’ I would be comin’ home to Pearl, but what is past is past ’n there’s no point in chewin’ on it. Now I’m home, and I’m tired. Reckon you are too, son. We’ll get some sleep, then we’ll have us a talk in the morning. I got a plan.” He covered his mouth and coughed.
Breakfast was meager the next morning—grits and coffee that was mostly chicory, along with a piece of leftover cornbread. Kirby knew that his pa was working up to say something, and he was anxious to hear what it was, but he waited.
Finally, washing down the last piece of bread with the last swallow of coffee, Emmett began to speak. “I spent some time talkin’ to your ma last night, ’n I’m goin’ to tell you what I told her. I don’t think it’s good to stay here, boy. Too many memories and the land’s got too many rocks to farm. You got ’ny money left from four years of farmin’ since I been gone? I figure crops prob’ly brought in a fair price, bein’ as so many farmers was off fightin’ in the war.”
Kirby wanted to tell his pa about the two thousand dollars he had been saving, the money that Janey took, but he held his tongue about that. “I . . . uh, ain’t got no money at all.”
“Ah, don’t fret over it. Farmin’ is a hard way to make a livin’, and truth to tell, I’m proud of you just for supportin’ yourself while I was gone.
“We’ll sell the mules and milk cows and buy a couple o’ good pack horses. The mules is getting too old for where we’re goin’. Problem is, they may be too old to even sell. If we can’t sell ’em, I’d hate to have to put ’em down.”
“We ain’t goin’ to put Ange and Rhoda down, Pa,” Kirby said resolutely. “If that’s what it takes for us to go, you just go on without me an’ I’ll stay here with the mules.”
Kirby’s response irritated Emmett, but only for a moment, then inexplicably, he smiled. “You got grit, boy. You ain’t just growed in body. All right. We’ll find somethin’ to do with the mules.”
“I don’t know if Mr. Byrd will buy ’em, but he’d take ’em, and look after ’em. He likes ’em, and the mules like him.”
The expression on Emmett’s face indicated surprise and curiosity. “How do you know that?”
Kirby wasn’t ready to tell his pa just yet about going out with Asa Briggs and leaving the mules with Tom Byrd.
“He, uh, told me one time that if I ever wanted to get rid of the mules that he would take them.” That wasn’t a complete lie. Byrd had said once that, as often as Kirby brought the team over, he may as well leave them with him.
“All right. We’ll leave ’em with Tom,” Emmett said. “What day is this, anyway?
“It’s Wednesday, Pa.”
“How far you been from this holler?”
Kirby thought about his experiences with the Ghost Riders. He had been as far north as Liberty and Glasgow, Missouri, west into Kansas, east to Clark’s Mill, Missouri, and south to Cane Hill, Arkansas. He felt bad about deceiving his pa, but again, that wasn’t information he was ready to share just yet. “A good piece, Pa. I been to Springfield.”
“Then it’s about time you got out to see more of this country.” Emmett stuffed his pipe and lit it, then pushed his rawhide-bottomed chair back and looked at his son.
“You got somethin’ in mind, don’t you, Pa?”
“Toward the end of the war, Kirby, some Texicans and some mountain men joined up with us. Them mountain men had been all the way to the Pacific Ocean, but they talked a lot about a place the Shoshone Indians call Idee ho, or somethin’ like that.
“I’d like to see it. Texas too, and some of the rest of the country between here and there, and maybe get all the way out to the Pacific Ocean.” Emmett coughed again.
“I seen the Atlantic Ocean, and I tell you boy, you never seen so much water. If I was to see the Pacific Ocean, too, why that would mean I been all the way across this country from east to west. You just got no idea how big this country is. But the West is where all the people seems to be headed now, so I figure we’ll just head on out that way, too.”
“Pa? How will we know when we get to where it is we’re going?”
“We’ll know.”
“You got any regrets, Kirby? Leaving this place, I mean.”
“Hard work, not always enough food, Jayhawks, Yankees, cold winters, and some bad memories,” Kirby replied. “If that’s regrets, I’m happy to leave them behind.”
Emmett’s reply was unusually soft. “You was just a boy when I pulled out with the Grays. I reckon I done you, your sister ’n your ma a disservice, like half a million other men done their loved ones. I didn’t leave you no time for youthful foolishness, no time to be a young boy. You had to be a man at an
awful young age, and I don’t know if I can make up for that, but I aim to try. From now on, son, it’ll be you and me.”
CHAPTER 7
The Jensens pulled out the following Sunday morning just as the sun was touching the eastern rim of the Ozark Mountains of Missouri. Kirby rode the bay, sitting on a worn-out McClellan saddle, which wasn’t the most comfortable saddle ever invented. Emmett had bought it from a down on his luck Confederate soldier trying to get back to Louisiana.
They left the cool valleys and hills of Missouri, with rushing creeks and shade trees, and rode into a hot Kansas summer. The pair rode slowly, the pack horses trailing from lead ropes. The father and son had no deadline to meet and no particular place to go.
They passed a small sign that read BAXTER SPRINGS 2 MILES.
“Boy, what do you say we stop in this little town ahead?”
“Why?”
“Why not? It’s been a hot ride and a beer might taste pretty good about now, don’t you think?”
Kirby shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never drunk a beer.”
“You haven’t?” Emmett laughed. “I guess not. You were just a boy when I left. Well, as far as I’m concerned, you’re a man now, so if you want a beer, this is as good a time and place to start as any.”
Baxter Springs was one of the places Kirby had visited when he was riding with Asa Briggs. They had crossed into Kansas looking for Shardeen but didn’t find him. By chance, they ran into Quantrill heading south on the Texas Road on his way to winter in Texas. A short time before the two groups met, he had happened upon and killed two Union teamsters who were from a post called Baxter Springs.
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