Death Rattle

by Sean Lynch

  He stuffed the groceries in the saddlebags and helped himself to some grain and a couple of stable blankets. He’d just mounted Snake, and taken Rusty’s reins, when Marshal Stacy walked in carrying a lantern. Ditch couldn’t know it, but the town marshal had a fondness for his own horse, which was boarded at the stable. He’d brought a pair of apples as a treat for the animal.

  “Hold it, right there,” Stacy ordered when he saw Ditch. He drew his revolver. “Get your hands up.” Ditch did as he was told.

  “You may not know it, boy,” the marshal said, “but horse thievery is a hanging offense.”

  “It ain’t thievery when the horses belong to you,” Ditch said. “These two are wearing my pa’s brand.”

  Marshal Stacy held up the lantern and squinted. “I know you. You’re Rand Clemson’s boy, Davey.”

  “That’s right. These horses are mine.”

  “Like hell,” Stacy said. “They were brought in by county deputies. They’ve been commandeered for the war effort, on Mayor Shipley’s orders. They’re now owned by the U.S. government. Get off that horse. I ain’t gonna tell you again.”

  “All right,” Ditch said. “Don’t get your britches in a bunch. I’m a-comin’ down.”

  But instead of easing himself to the ground, the athletic youth suddenly leaped from the saddle. He tackled the overweight, middle-aged town marshal, knocking the pistol and lantern from his hands and sending both of them crashing to the straw-covered ground. Ditch, as intended, landed on top.

  Before the terrified marshal could shout an alarm, Ditch furiously fist-beat him into unconsciousness. Once he was sure Stacy was out cold, and he’d caught his breath, he extinguished the lantern. Then he took the lawman’s revolver, an Army Colt .44, and his hat, before remounting Snake. He rode out of Atherton unnoticed, leading Rusty, and was back at Pritchard’s side in less than an hour.

  Ditch left his friend concealed in a stand of trees, wrapped in his bedroll with the Hawken rifle for company, before going into town. Unfortunately, he was only a mile from where he’d risen from the grave. Dizzy and with blurred vision, Pritchard wasn’t strong enough to walk far, and Ditch wasn’t strong enough to carry his extra-large friend without help.

  By the time Ditch got back, he found Pritchard wracked with fever. He explained what transpired at the livery stable as he disinfected the gunshot wounds with whiskey. The urgent need to put as much distance between themselves and the Atherton posse that was soon to be on their trail went unspoken.

  Pritchard stifled howls of agony as Ditch poured whiskey on his head and replaced his makeshift bandages with strips of clean bedsheet, courtesy of Idelle and the Atherton Arms Hotel. With his friend’s help, and now wearing the marshal’s hat, Pritchard was able to mount Rusty. The two boys headed off into the night.

  They wouldn’t get far. They rode south all night, staying off the roads, but by sunup, Pritchard had become delirious and had fallen off his horse. Ditch was able to get him remounted, but only just. He knew if the barely conscious Pritchard fell off again, he’d never get him back in the saddle.

  Ditch found a rickety cropper’s shack at the edge of a vast field of corn, on a plot of land twenty miles south of Atherton. That was far too close for his liking, but he had no choice. Pritchard simply couldn’t go on.

  Ditch led Pritchard into the shack, got some water, peach preserves, and a bit of whiskey into him, and wrapped his trembling friend in the blankets he’d pilfered from the stable. Then he grained the horses and tied them out of sight behind the crude hut.

  By afternoon it started to rain. It was a heavy late-October downpour. It was cold in the shack, but both boys knew a fire was out of the question. Ditch gnawed on dried beef, kept watch over Pritchard as he fitfully dozed, and made sure the Hawken rifle remained handy.

  Not long after dark, Ditch thought he heard a sharp noise outside and the horses whinny and stomp. He couldn’t be sure, due to the sound of rainfall on the leaky, thatched roof. He cautioned Pritchard to be quiet, picked up the Hawken rifle, and went out to investigate.

  Soon came the report of a scuffle, then a thud. The door to the shack flew open, and Ditch was shoved roughly inside to the floor. He was missing his hat, and blood trickled from his hairline. Two soggy men, both wearing Union blue, held revolvers on him. One was holding his Hawken, the other a lantern.

  “Got you, you horse-stealin’ little son of a bitch,” the one with Ditch’s rifle announced triumphantly. “You’ll be hangin’ from a tree come mornin’.”

  “Who do we have here?” the other asked, pointing his pistol at the form lying under the blankets.

  “He ain’t nobody,” Ditch said, from his hands and knees. “Just a fellow I met on the road. Pay him no mind. He’s sick.”

  “Come out from under those blankets,” the shorter of the Union men ordered.

  Ditch recognized him. It was Deputy Merle Crittenden. The taller man with him, holding the Hawken, was a Jackson County deputy also, although Ditch couldn’t remember his name. The deputies were obviously part of the posse searching for him, and wearing Union colors to prevent being mistaken for rebels if they encountered Union forces.

  “You heard me,” Crittenden commanded. “Come out from under there, where we can see you.”

  “Sure thing,” replied a weak voice from underneath the blanket.

  The blankets were tossed aside and Pritchard came out shooting. His first shot, fired from Marshal Stacy’s Colt .44, took the deputy holding the Hawken through the right eye. As soon as he fired, he rolled. Deputy Crittenden’s return shot struck empty blankets.

  Pritchard’s second shot hit Crittenden square through the middle, and his third hit the Jackson County deputy only an inch higher than the first. Crittenden dropped his pistol and lantern, fell back against the wall, and slid slowly to the ground.

  “You sure got spry in a hurry,” Ditch remarked, regaining his feet. “Thanks for saving my life.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Pritchard said, as he stood up. “I reckon I owed you. In fact, I think I’m still down a few lives to you.”

  “We’ll call it even,” Ditch said, righting the lantern. He picked up his rifle and the deputies’ pistols.

  Crittenden held both hands to his blood-soaked gut. He blinked up at Pritchard through the cloud of gun smoke that filled the tiny shack.

  “You’re dead,” he gasped, disbelief accenting the agony in his face. “I watched you die! I buried you myself!”

  “Evidently,” Pritchard said, “you didn’t dig a deep enough hole.” He cocked the revolver a fourth time and shot Crittenden in the forehead.

  Ditch saw his friend’s eyes in the lantern’s glow just before he fired the coup de grâce into the gut-shot deputy’s brain. Pritchard’s countenance darkened as he pulled the trigger, almost as if a shadow had fallen over him. It was an expression Ditch had never before seen on his friend’s face, and it shook him.

  “When I was on my knees in front of my own grave, looking up into the barrel of a pistol,” Pritchard explained, reading the worry on his friend, “I was a dead man.”

  Ditch dared not interrupt. It was as if Pritchard was speaking in a trance.

  “When you pulled me out of that hole,” he went on, “and I realized I wasn’t dead, do you know what my first thought was?”

  “No,” Ditch said, his voice barely a whisper. “What were you thinkin’?”

  “I was thinking,’” Pritchard continued, looking down at the revolver in his hand and the dead man at his feet, “never again will I let a man point a gun at me without him paying with his life. Not if I can do something about it. I swear it.”

  “We’d best git,” Ditch said, not knowing what else to say. “These boys didn’t come alone, and you can bet the rest of their posse ain’t far behind. They might have heard the shots, even in this rain. Can you ride?”

  “I’ll have to,” Pritchard said, stuffing the Colt in his belt.

  Ditch and Pritchard hurriedly packed u
p, saddled their horses, and rode off into the night, but not before taking the guns, food, water, ammunition, and money belonging to the deputies. Ditch released the deputies’ horses, minus their saddles and bridles, after first dragging the deputies’ bodies off into the cornfield.

  Ditch and Pritchard spent the next ten, long, arduous days and nights riding south. They traveled by night and hid out and slept by day. They avoided roads and foraged for food as they went. Pritchard’s fever abated, and his strength gradually returned. The holes in his scalp began to scab and heal.

  On the morning of the sixth day of their journey, Ditch wished Pritchard a happy eighteenth birthday. They each had a sip of whiskey to commemorate the occasion. On the eleventh day the Ozark Mountains loomed ahead, and they knew for sure they’d departed Missouri.

  Chapter 13

  “Halt, or be fired upon!” a deep voice called out from the forest. The clicks of twenty or more hammers being drawn back echoed through the heavy fog.

  Pritchard and Ditch stopped in their tracks. They were on foot, leading their horses to drink from a stream, when the challenge was issued. It was just after sunrise, and the early-morning fog permitted only a few yards’ visibility.

  “Put up your hands!” the voice commanded further. “Iffen either of you move so much as a hair, you’re done for.”

  The boys slowly raised their hands. Men in gray uniforms and kepis materialized from the woods. Almost all were bearing Fayetteville rifled muskets, most with bayonets affixed, except one who was armed with a dragoon revolver and saber.

  Their horses were taken, and they were searched. The Confederate troops relieved them of their pistols and the Hawken.

  “They’ve got food and water,” said a sergeant, rummaging through their saddlebags. “Whiskey, too, and almost forty dollars in gold.” He held the bag of coins and a bottle aloft.

  “I’ll take custody of that,” the officer said, taking the bag of gold coins and tucking it inside his uniform. The enlisted soldiers circled and began passing the whiskey among themselves. The bottle was only half-full. Ditch used the other half, and the other bottle, cleaning Pritchard’s head wounds three times a day.

  “That’s my property,” Ditch protested, as his money was confiscated.

  “Who are you, and what’s your business?” the officer demanded.

  “My name’s Dave Clemson,” Ditch spoke up. “This here’s—”

  “—Joe Atherton,” Pritchard broke in.

  “—my friend Joe Atherton,” Ditch repeated, though he looked quizzically at Pritchard. “We’ve come from Missouri to find my brother Paul. He’s fighting with the Fifth Regiment of Shelby’s Iron Brigade. We’re lookin’ to join up.”

  The officer, wearing the insignia of a lieutenant, appraised them. “How old are you boys?”

  “Twenty,” Ditch lied.

  “And I’m Abraham Lincoln,” the lieutenant said. “Neither of you look more than a month off your mama’s teat. You have to be in long britches before you can fight in a war.” Several of the soldiers snickered.

  “I killed one Union man getting here,” Ditch said, red-faced at the insinuation he wasn’t man enough to serve, “and Joe here sent three of the bastards to hell. Them revolvers you just took offen us? Every one of ’em was plucked from a dead Union man. We can carry our end.”

  “Mule fritters,” the sergeant grunted. “You boys are lying. You stole them horses, all right, but you two ain’t never killed no four Union men.”

  “Hell if we didn’t,” Pritchard said. He removed his hat, and the bandage underneath, to reveal the circular scar at his hairline above his right eye.

  “That’s a ball hole, all right,” the lieutenant whistled, “if ever I saw one.” The enlisted men leaned in to examine the still-angry wound. “Why aren’t you dead, boy?”

  “I’ve still got a few more Union men to kill,” Pritchard said.

  The lieutenant frowned. “Well, boys,” he said, “you’ve just been captured by a platoon of Upton Hays’s Eleventh. The outfit you seek is further south. Come on along, and I’ll introduce you to our commander. Maybe he’ll find some use for you.”

  “Are we prisoners?” Ditch asked.

  “You’re guests, for now. Depending on the colonel, that could change for better or worse.”

  Ditch and Pritchard were led through the foggy forest by the soldiers. Before long, they began to smell decomposing flesh. Soon the scent became overwhelming.

  They entered a clearing. As the sun rose, the fog began to dissipate, and the scene before them unfolded. Dozens of horses, and countless men in both blue and gray uniforms, lay dead in the tall grass of a large meadow.

  The soldiers spread out and kept their weapons ready. They crossed the meadow of dead men and animals unmolested, and within a quarter mile of reentering the forest again were challenged by a sentry supported by a line of riflemen.

  Once the password was accepted, the soldiers and their “guests” were allowed to pass the pickets and enter a bivouac area where dozens of tents, and several hundred more Confederate soldiers, milled about. A sizable herd of horses was rope-corralled at one end of the camp. The scent of decomposing flesh from the meadow blended with the odor of cooking food.

  Four enlisted men remained with the lieutenant, who went directly to one of the larger tents. The sergeant and the other soldiers took Snake and Rusty in the opposite direction, toward the corral.

  “Those horses belong to us,” Ditch said. “And that’s my daddy’s rifle.” The lieutenant ignored the comment. He parted the tent flap and saluted.

  Seated at a folding table covered by a detailed map, surrounded by several other Confederate officers, sat a thin, bearded, long-haired man in a braided uniform with colonel’s insignia on the sleeves. He was smoking a pipe. He casually returned the lieutenant’s salute.

  “Good morning, Colonel,” the junior officer announced. “Lieutenant Gabel, back from the morning patrol. No sign of enemy about, sir.”

  “They’re out there, all right,” came the reply. “Even if we can’t see them. Better than an entire brigade to our regiment, I’m afraid. Who are these two men?”

  “Boys,” the junior officer corrected. “Found them on patrol. They claim to be Missourians. Said they were twenty years old. Don’t know if either claim is true. They were in possession of a Hawken rifle and several serviceable revolvers, as well as two excellent mounts.”

  The colonel stood and approached the boys. “They sure breed ’em big in Missouri,” he commented, appraising Pritchard.

  “They claim to have killed four Union soldiers,” the lieutenant went on, “and were traveling south to join up with one’s brother, allegedly assigned to Shelby’s Fifth.”

  “Ain’t no ‘claim’ about it,” Ditch said. “It’s the honest truth.”

  “I sincerely doubt that,” the lieutenant said.

  “I’m sure gettin’ tired of being called a liar,” Ditch said, turning to face Gabel. “Do it again, and you’ll be eating your teeth for breakfast.”

  “Young man, if you even attempt—”

  “At ease,” the colonel cut them both off. He addressed Ditch. “Why don’t you tell me your story yourself, son?”

  “Except for our ages,” Ditch began, “which I admit we lied about, everything else we said was true. We’re both only eighteen.”

  This was only partly factual. While Pritchard’s birthday came and went on the trail to Arkansas, Ditch wouldn’t turn eighteen until December. Ditch didn’t want Pritchard to get any more dispensation than he did, so he fudged his age once more.

  “Go on,” the colonel said.

  “Union men, dressed like rebs, burned down Joe’s house and hung his pa from a sycamore tree. We killed two of ’em. The other four got away.”

  “How exactly did you accomplish this?” the colonel asked.

  “I shot one with my pa’s Hawken rifle, and Sam—er, Joe—stuck the other with my skinning knife.”

  “Are you
skilled with that Hawken?” the colonel asked.

  “I’m a fair hand,” Ditch said. “But Joe here is a plumb sharpshooter. He was one of the best shots in the county.”

  The colonel gestured to Pritchard with his pipe. “How did you acquire that unique wound on your forehead?”

  “Got another just like it on the back of my head,” Pritchard said drily.

  “Union men captured him,” Ditch explained. “They shackled him, took him to the river, put him on his knees, and headshot him. Then they buried him.”

  “They buried him?” the colonel said, his eyebrows lifting.

  “That’s right,” Pritchard said.

  “Evidently,” the colonel said, “they didn’t do a very effective job of it.”

  “Ditch,” Pritchard said, “I mean Davey, dug me up. I guess I wasn’t expired yet. Then he went into town, stole back a couple of the horses the Union men stole from his pa, and we lit out for Arkansas.”

  “You said you killed four men? When did you kill the other two?”

  “We killed a couple of the posse who came riding after us.”

  “He did it,” Ditch said, motioning to Pritchard with his thumb. “With a revolver.”

  “That’s quite a tale,” the colonel remarked, drawing on his pipe.

  “It ain’t a tale,” Ditch said. “It’s the truth.”

  “What were your plans, once you arrived in Arkansas?”

  “We aim to find his brother Paul,” Pritchard said, “and become Confederate cavalrymen.”

  “So,” the colonel said, “you two are horsemen, are you?”

  “As good as any you’ll find,” Ditch said.

  “I’ve got all the horsemen I need,” the colonel said abruptly. “And I’m not in the habit of putting lying young whelps on good mounts and sending them off into battle alongside men who’ve earned the right to be called Confederate cavalrymen.” He turned on his heel and went back into the tent.

  Ditch and Pritchard exchanged glances.