Wildwood Boys

by James Carlos Blake

  The major looked at the lieutenant, then at his men, many of whom were nodding like men with palsy. He turned back to Quantrill and said, “Oh hell, man…we surrender.”

  They herded the soldiers into a corral and ordered them to strip off their uniforms and toss them in a wagon, and they relieved some of their boots as well. They then set about seizing all the teams and wagons in town, all the horses and mules, their rebel yells keening through the streets. They ransacked the saloons and liveries and shops. They loaded the wagons with barrels of whiskey, with weapons and powder and balls, with foodstuffs and tools, tack, dry goods, pausing in their labors now and again to take a drink or two, to shoot to shards everything of glass along the streetfronts. Their howling and gunfire sent most of the town’s dogs into hiding, but a few rough curs set themselves with napes roached and teeth bared and were shot dead where they stood. It pained Bill Anderson to see dogs killed for their bravery, but he would not warn them away from holding to their natures.

  The Berry boys asked after the sheriff and were pointed to a man with bloodied head who sat crosslegged in the square, disarmed and looking addled. He was not the lawman who’d accosted them on their previous visit to Olathe. They asked who’d been sheriff back in June and were told his name was Worrell, but he’d been badly wounded in a scrap with some passing strangers and would nevermore walk without crutches and had gone to live with his married daughter in Lawrence. They asked about Harrison Porter and received directions to his ranch a few miles from town. They told Quantrill what they wanted to do and he said to take five men with them, settle their brief, and bring back all the good horses they found.

  No house or hotel room escaped searching. They kicked open locked doors, broke into trunks and chests and closets, rooted out cash and gold and jewelry. Where they found nothing of sufficient value they smashed furniture in their pique. The men were rounded up in the courthouse square and robbed of their weapons, money, watches, whatever ornaments of gold they wore. Some tried to abscond into the outer darkness, into the nearest brush or ravine, but were intercepted by Gregg’s perimeter guards. Some sought to hide in outhouses, in haylofts, in wagonbeds, under tomato vines in their garden, and some of them were discovered and some not.

  Wives took to the square to plead for their men’s safety, but they would have done better to stay at home. Where the raiders found only women in a house their rapacity was checked. Andy Blunt was set to take a small gilt handmirror he fancied for his sweetheart, but the missus of the house beseeched him for it, saying it had belonged to her daughter who’d drowned a year ago. Blunt gave it back and tendered a condolence.

  Not so fortunate was the man who tried to hide a bay pony in a small corn patch behind his house. Cole Younger heard the animal nicker and went outside and found it. The owner rushed out and snatched the reins away and said, “I’ll die before I’ll give up this horse.” Cole Younger was full of whiskey and in no temper to be opposed. “Then die it is,” he said, and discharged a bullet into the fool’s brain. But the flaring pistolblast spooked the pony and it bolted away. Cole chased after it, cursing and threatening to shoot it, but the horse vanished in the darkness and he did not see it again.

  So it went through the rest of the night. The town’s two newspaper offices were demolished, their printing presses dismantled with sledgehammers, their stores of ink poured over the supplies of newsprint, over the furniture, over the heads of the editors. When the owner of the Olathe Herald saw his cache of thirteen thousand dollars, the savings of his life, discovered by a bushwhacker and handed to George Todd, he broke into tears and cried, “Oh God, I am ruined!” George Todd told him he shouldn’t take it so hard, he should count his blessings, because things could always be worse. To the amusement of his comrades, he proved his point by shooting the man in the foot.

  The Berrys reappeared with sixteen finebred horses they galloped through the street and added to the herd of stolen stock. Ike’s pale hair hung from under a flatbrimmed hat of Californio fashion. The hat had belonged to one Harrison Porter, whose last words had been, “I don’t know what gray horse you’re talking about and I sure as hell don’t know you boys.”

  By dawn the company had acquired a train of loot fourteen wagons long. The wagons they didn’t use they set afire in the street. Quantrill’s mood was ebullient. He dispatched the plunder train and the rustled herd toward Missouri with half the company as escort and George Todd in command. He released the captive townsmen from the square and they hurried into the arms of their waiting women and clung to them as they shambled home.

  The risen red sun cast lean shadows through the streets. Not a horse or mule was left to the town, not a wagon left uncharred nor a windowpane unshattered. Shop doors hung askew and the sidewalks were littered with glass and broken furniture. But only three men had been killed and the town had been spared the torch. As George Todd might have advised the Olathans, it could have been worse. For other towns to either side of the border, it yet would be.

  The bushwhackers mounted up and Quantrill called for the prisoners to be brought forth in a column of twos. None of the soldiers wore more than hat and underwear and boots and some wore less than that. Some stepped gingerly in their stockinged feet as the guerrillas led them out to eastward.

  “Where are you taking us?” the major called to Quantrill. “You promised parole!”

  George Maddox told him to shut up or he’d shoot him where he stood.

  The town fell away behind them. Two miles farther on, Quantrill called a halt. Some of the prisoners now fell to weeping and some to prayer. One boy clutched Andy Blunt’s stirrup and said, “Please don’t shoot me—I got a mother, I got a baby sister.”

  Blunt was at once embarrassed and outraged. He kicked the boy away and said, “Quit it, for God’s sake!” Cole Younger made a sound of disgust and spat.

  “Listen to me!” Quantrill said. “I promised parole and parole you now have. Be men of your word and stay out of the ranks.”

  He hupped the Charley horse forward and the point riders hastened out ahead of him and the rest of the company fell in behind, some chuckling and others grumbling over bets won and lost on the question of whether he would execute the prisoners.

  The militiamen watched them go, every man of them feeling gratitude and relief—and rising fear of a terrible joke to be sprung on them at any moment when the bushwhackers turned back to reveal their grins and kill them all. They watched the guerrillas until they were out of sight before they started back to town, and even then they kept looking over their shoulders.

  Bill Anderson’s prize spoil of the night was a fine gold bracelet he’d envisioned on Josephine’s wrist the moment he saw it. “I’ll have that if you please,” he’d said to the fairfaced woman wearing it. She handed it to him with the accusation, “You are a shameless brig-and.” To which he said, “I expect you’re right, mam” and kissed her hand—and smiled at the rosiness raised to her cheeks by both dander and delight. He’d also come to possess a pair of fobbed watches of excellent manufacture, a match cylinder of pure silver, a man’s ruby ring, and cash money that bulged his every pocket. His brother and the Berrys too had enriched themselves with cash, had reaped pocket pistols and watches, jewelry true and false, fancy shirts and boots, gimcrackery of every sort. All in all, it had been a night of such license as none of them had ever thought to possess save in dreams. They could not stop grinning at each other and at the passing world.

  The plunder train was slow and ponderous and they caught up to it before it made the border. Todd had sent Fletch Taylor and a crew ahead with the stock, and the herd’s dust bloomed low on the forward sky. Quantrill posted lookouts well back of the company to keep a sharp eye for pursuers, but there was still no sign of anyone coming behind them when they crossed the border that afternoon. They were well into Jackson County when they put down for the night. Fletch Taylor had pastured the herd a mile forward of their camp.

  They passed a celebrant evening drinking and
joking and raising their rebel yells, telling and retelling anecdotes of the raid. Quantrill took Bill Anderson aside and said he’d heard that he and his boys had goodly experience in wrangling horse herds. Bill asked where he’d heard that. Quantrill said it was one of those things you hear and he was just wondering if it was true. Bill smiled. Quantrill said, “I thought so.”

  He charged Bill and his boys, including Jimmy Vaughn, with delivering the Olathe horses to the Cass County ranch of a man named Dropo, who’d long done business with the guerrillas. They were to take the payment to Annette Vaughn to use toward the purchase of powder and ball in Kansas City. “I’ll send word to you at the Vaughn place,” Quantrill said, “when I’m ready to bring the company together again.”

  Shortly before daybreak, Bill’s bunch relieved Fletch Taylor’s crew of the herd and got it moving south. The rest of the company pushed eastward with the plunder train, headed for neighboring Johnson County where an entrepreneur of Quantrill’s acquaintance would pay in gold coin for their load of loot.

  A BATHING INCIDENT

  Some days later Bill’s bunch was back at the Vaughn place and stepping down from their horses and into the girls’ hugs and kisses. In the flurry of happy greetings, Josephine embraced Butch Berry in his turn and pecked him on the cheek. For an instant Butch felt like he’d been hit on the head—then tried to hold her to him and kiss her back, but she ducked out of his grasp and flung herself on Bill once more. Mary Anderson gave them each a welcome hug too, but they could see that her spirit was still sore with the memory of Tyler Burdette.

  “Whooo, lordy!” Annette Vaughn loudly declared. “These boys smell like something crawled into their clothes and died. Let’s get some tubs filled.”

  A short time later the five of them were soaking in sudsy wooden tubs clustered in a ragged circle in the stable, scrubbing the trail grime out of their pores, joking and laughing, recounting the Olathe raid to Finley and Black Josh, passing around jugs of the busthead whiskey Josh brewed out in the woods. They’d been at these pleasures the better part of an hour when Annette and Josephine came into the stable with armfuls of fresh towels and clean clothes and prompted outcries of indignation.

  “Sweet Jesus, Annie!” Jimmy Vaughn hollered. “It’s nekkid men taking baths here!”

  Annette made a face of mock shock and handed the clothes and towels to Josh. “As if any of you got something we never saw before,” she said.

  Finley sniggered. Bill gave Josephine a scolding look and she smiled with exaggerated sweetness.

  “Get out of here—both you!” Jim Anderson said. He slung a handful of water at them.

  “They sure seem awful ashamed of whatever it is they think we might see, don’t they?” Annette said to Josie. “Look at them all scrunched down in those tubs like turtles in their shells.”

  “Dammit to hell!” Ike Berry shouted. He sat up so abruptly that water sloshed over the sides of his tub. He was rose-eyed with drink and his white hair was plastered to his skull. “Putting on like you’re so bold!” He looked around at his fellows and said, “What say we stand up and let em have a good gawk? See how bold they are then?”

  “I dare you,” Annette said. “Doubledog dare you.”

  “Yeah, doubledog dare you!” Josephine said. She laughed and sidestepped the sopping washrag Bill threw at her.

  “I’m with Ike,” Jim Anderson said. He took another pull of whiskey and set the jug beside his tub. “Let’s just see how bold they are. On the count of three. Ready, boys?”

  “One…” Jimmy Vaughn said. He braced himself on the sides of the tub in readiness to stand.

  “Two…” Bill Anderson said, his beard dripping, himself positioned to push up to his feet.

  “Three!” Ike Berry bellowed—and he stood up in a cascade of gray soapy water, throwing his arms out wide like some stage celebrity in the spotlight, his torso and legs shining white. And in the next horrifying instant realized he was the only one who’d risen.

  The other men broke out laughing and the girls squealed and blushed behind their hands and Annette pointed at Ike but Josephine was already looking where she pointed and both girls were bent with laughter. Ike looked down and saw his privates shriveled into their nest of pale hair and jerked his hands over himself and sat down fast. The girls now cackling so hard they had to hold to each other, the men guffawing. Black Josh showed an expanse of yellow teeth.

  “You low sons of bitches,” Ike muttered, glaring around at the other men in a furious blush. Even his brother in the tub beside him was grinning.

  “Think it’s funny, do you?” Ike said. He leaned out and grabbed the edge of Butch’s tub with both hands and pushed hard and the tub tilted and then crashed over on its side, depositing Butch on the floor in a rush of water and a chorus of cheers, sprawling him on his back, arms flailing and legs flung wide—and for an instant the stable fell mute as every watching eye seized on his stark erection. Then the men were yowling with harder laughter yet and the girls were fleeing for the house in redfaced shrieks of hilarity.

  Butch scrambled to his feet and snatched a towel from Josh and whipped it around himself, grabbed up his clean clothes and stalked into one of the horse stalls to get dressed—all the while cursing everybody for no-account bastards, his ears flaming.

  The men were choking on their laughter, weeping with it. “Now he’s gone all shy on us,” Jim Anderson managed to say.

  “Yeah,” Bill Anderson said, wiping at his eyes, gasping, “but say now, don’t that boy know how to deal with a doubledog dare!”

  “You see them girls go flying?” Jimmy Vaughn said.

  “Hellfire,” Finley said with a skewed grin, “when I saw that ugly thing standing up like that and looking like it didn’t care what it went after, I about ran away!”

  Another swell of guffawing and hooting.

  Ike looked over at his brother, whose face seemed carved of strawberry stone. “Damn, boy, the things going on in your head.”

  REPORT OF A CHASE

  Word of the company came to Finley by way of some secret informant and he passed it on to Bill and the boys. A force of Federals had tracked Quantrill and the plunder train out of Olathe and over the border and caught up to them a mile into Johnson County. The company made a run for it but they were slowed by the loot wagons. The guerrillas fought a constant rear action as they went, but every time they stopped to fight before running again, they had to abandon a wagon or two. The Federals kept after them for ten days and didn’t quit their pursuit until the guerrillas made it into the rugged Sni-a-bar region of Jackson County, just south of the Missouri River. This was the bushwhackers’ home country—densely forested and cut with deep ravines, the hills rugged and covered with thickets, the bluffs near the river pocked with caves and sliced through with narrow passes. Quantrill’s boys knew every deer trace and hog trail in the region and could move through it like creatures of the wild. To the Feds the Sni-a-bar was a terra damnata; no detachment of Yankees ever entered that wildwood and came out again with as many men as it took in—and now they rarely ventured there at all.

  According to Finley’s informant, only a single bushwhacker had been killed in the ten-day running fight, and only a few had been wounded. But by the time they made it to the Sni-a-bar, they’d given up every wagon of their loot to the Yanks.

  DANCERS

  While they waited for word from Quantrill they tended to their horses and gear and helped Finley and Josh with some of the rougher chores around the place. They hewed dead trees at the edge of the forest and trimmed them and with horses and ropes dragged the trunks up near the firewood cribs and axed and stored cords for the coming winter—which some of the local farmers were predicting would be early in arriving and colder than usual. They were into October and the meadow grasses and pasturelands already going purple and brown, the leaves coloring like fire and some already falling.

  Every night, after the house had fallen silent and all the bedroom doors were shut, Josephine
tiptoed barefoot down the hall, silent as a secret, and slipped into Bill’s room. Sometimes he was fast asleep and wouldn’t know she was with him until he woke in the deeper night to her breath on his neck and her arms around him. And, as had become her practice, she would wake in the last dark hour before dawn, kiss his sleeping face, and slip back to her own bed.

  One Saturday evening they ventured into Westport for supper and the weekly dance, the ten of them together. Each man carried a pocket revolver under his suit coat, and Josephine thrilled to the feel of the gun against her elbow when she clutched to Bill’s arm. She wore the bracelet he’d brought her from Olathe, and she couldn’t keep from admiring its rich glimmer on her wrist, nor from kissing him on the cheek every now and again.

  After supper they repaired to the auction hall to dance to the music of a fine string band. Mary did not want to join in the dancing at first, saying she’d prefer to sit and watch. But Jimmy Vaughn had lately begun to show a warm interest in her and to ply her with gentle attentions, and he soon had her out on the floor, whirling and smiling in earnest for the first time since Tyler’s death. Through the evening, Jim and Hazel became inseparable partners as well, having suddenly perceived each other as keenly attractive.

  Butch was less timorous that evening about approaching Josie for a turn, and she accepted each of his invitations without cutting remark or a look of being imposed upon. But they didn’t speak or even hold each other’s eyes as they whirled about the floor, and she was each time quick to get back to Bill as soon as the number was done. Still, Butch couldn’t help but believe he was making gains on her heart.

  He’d just finished a vigorous turn with Jenny when he went for a mug of beer to recruit himself, and with no other partner available at the moment, tireless Jenny sat with him. As he drank the beer and watched Josephine waltzing with Bill, Jenny said, “He makes the whole world go round for her, you know. Mary and Jim say he always has, ever since she was a baby.”