“What do you want me to do?” said Zora.
“I want you in the house,” said Wes. “If all three of us happen to be outside, I know you can use the rifle, and we’ll need your help. When I talk to Mary Lula later, I’m gonna tell her that she will be the one in charge of the house durin’ the day. It’s gonna be too wet out there for the next few days to get any work done, so I want her to keep the children inside the house or on the porch. She can sleep at night, and you can sleep durin’ the day.”
“Do you still want me to go down to the Morrises’ on Saturday, Pa?”
“Yes, son, I do. Nothin’s changed with that. Whatever you find out’ll be helpful. Since I’ll be goin’ in to town to meet up with Mark and Art in the afternoon,” he said as he looked at Connie, “that means you’ll have to be around here all day. If things stay calm, maybe you can get over to the Wilkinses’ to see Maud on Sunday afternoon.”
“Okay, Pa.”
“Now, we’ll still have normal chores to do, and even though some of us will sleep durin’ the day, we still need to get ’em done. I wish there was a better way to do this, but there’s not. It’s probably gonna take a miracle of some kind to get us out of this mess, Zora, so anytime you want to pray, you go ahead and do it.”
Wes spent another ten minutes going over the details of the watch. Even though they were both familiar with the shotgun, he made sure that the boys understood how to load and fire the weapon. Once again he asked if there were any questions.
“It’s a little scary, Pa,” said Anthie, “but I ain’t afraid.”
“I know, son, but there ain’t nothin’ wrong with bein’ afraid as long as you keep your eyes open and your mind clear. This ain’t no time to be thinkin’ about girls or any other thing except lookin’ out for the Night Riders.”
Knowing that Wes wouldn’t think of praying, Zora knew there was no better time than right now to do just that. She took hold of his hand and Connie’s and then told Anthie to grab his brother’s and his pa’s hands. In the same manner as Wes had done earlier, she looked directly at the faces of each of her men. Then she bowed her head and prayed.
“Lord, we are facin’ a terrible enemy. We don’t even know who he is, but you do. We ask that you keep us safe from harm and keep us watchful. You have provided for us and kept this family safe and happy for a long time, so now we are askin’ you to send your Holy Spirit down to watch over us like he did for all of them Old Testament prophets. You are a great and powerful God, and we know that we gotta trust you to help us. Amen.”
When she looked up and opened her eyes, she saw that each of the others still had his head down. First Anthie and then Connie looked up at her. Wes muttered an Amen and then looked up as well. Zora signaled with her eyes that the boys should go on to bed. When the door shut behind Anthie, she turned to Wes.
“Wes, you know you can count on your children and you can count on me. But if you ever needed to learn that you can count on God, this is the time. Now, I gotta help Mary Lula in the kitchen.” She paused and took a deep breath and whispered, “Wes, I love you.” Zora saw something in Wes that was more than troubling, so she hugged her husband, held him close for a moment and then left the room.
Wes reached under the bed and pulled out an old cigar box. He opened it and picked up the .38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver he’d bought nearly a dozen years earlier. He counted the shells in the cylinder and those in the bottom of the box. He made sure the cylinder was empty, and then he dry-fired the pistol three times. Convinced that it was working, he reloaded it and slipped it into his pocket. He stood up, opened the door, picked up the shotgun and walked toward the kitchen. He got the jug from the cupboard and headed out to the porch. As he passed Mary Lula standing at the wash pan, he asked her to come outside with him.
She wiped her wet hands with a flour sack towel and walked out onto the porch. Wes pointed her toward the bench and when she was seated, he kneeled down in front of her.
“I know you’ve probably already figured out what’s goin’ on around here, but I want to make sure that you know everythin’.” He went on to fill her in on the problem and the plan and especially her role in all of it. When he finished, he gave her a hug and sent her back inside the house. He checked to see that the gun was loaded and then sat down on the bench and looked out into the dark, wet night. Clouds of doubt were creating a storm in his head that was greater than the one he saw across his fields.
Chapter 9
Thursday Morning, May 10
It rained steadily all night long, soaking the fields, filling the ponds and streams, turning the country road into a muddy bog. It washed the dust off of the shed, barns and chicken coop, making them smell clean and look new. Even though it was getting close to dawn, the thick clouds kept the sky dark and blocked out the usual pre-sunrise glow in the east.
The gentle, mind-numbing sound of the rain as it fell on the trees and the roof had lulled Wes into a deep sleep. The shotgun and the jug lay on the porch where they’d fallen. Wes was lying on the bench, his hands under his head, providing a makeshift pillow. Rufus was curled up nearby and woke only when Wes’s snoring became louder than the drumming of the rain.
Over the few years Anthie’d been responsible for milking the cow, he’d developed a routine and learned, whether on purpose or by habit, when to wake up, which creaky steps on the stairs to avoid and how to gently close the door when he went out of the house. On this morning, he’d made it all the way to the kitchen without making a sound. But, when he stepped out onto the porch, the door slipped from his hand and banged against the door jamb. The noise scared Anthie. Rufus barked once and ran under the porch.
The sound jolted into Wes’s slumber like an ax into a tree, shocking him awake. He sat upright, his arms searching for something to hold onto, his eyes foggy, unfocused. The muffled shout that rasped out of his throat was muddied by the whiskey in his belly. “Where’s my gun?”
“Sorry, Pa,” mumbled Anthie. “I didn’t mean to wake you. The door slipped outta my hands.” Anthie froze at the sound of his pa’s voice. The bucket slipped from his hand to the porch, and its banging caused Wes to jump again.
“What?” Wes was clearly confused as he fumbled in the dark, trying to get his hands on the shotgun. He knocked over the empty jug, grabbed hold of the gun’s barrel and tried to stand up. His first attempt failed, and he sat back down hard on the bench. He tried to rise again and only succeeded by leaning against the wall. Wes lifted the shotgun in front of his chest, the barrel aimed toward Anthie.
“I said I’m sorry. The door slipped.”
“Damn it, boy, you coulda got yourself killed.” Wes looked at his son and then down at the gun in his hand.
“I’m sorry, Pa.” Fearing another beating, Anthie ran as fast as he could toward the barn. He opened the door and pulled it closed behind him. Then he sat down on the dirt floor to catch his breath. He waited until his heart slowed and then made his way over to the stall. He’d not forgotten what his pa had said the night before about the danger they faced and the need to be watchful. The warning had scared him and kept him from falling asleep for quite a while, but he’d eventually drifted off, knowing his pa was outside on guard. More than just afraid, Anthie was disappointed in his pa for falling asleep when he should’ve been protecting the family. Why was he sleepin’? He told us we had to stay awake and watch for the Night Riders, but that was a lie. What if they’d come last night? We might’ve been killed.
For most of the night, Wes had sat in the dark, brooding over the idea that the Night Riders wanted to raid his farm and about the offer from Jones. These two issues kept swirling around in his mind like a summer tornado. He didn’t even know who to be angry with, or who was his friend or enemy. Everything seemed to be going wrong at the same time—Night Riders were going to ruin his crop if he decided to sell it to the Trust; if he didn’t sell it, the bank might foreclose
on his mortgage; and his trusted cousin Art wouldn’t even tell him where he heard about the raid. I think I’m goin’ crazy, he thought, just like my pa did. But I’ll be damned if I’m gonna do what he did and leave my family without a husband or a father. I’m not gonna give up, I’m gonna fight. He shook his head. I’m not gonna fall asleep on guard. Never again. Then, looking toward the barn, the guilt he would never want to admit, especially to his son, draped over him like a smelly blanket.
* * *
In the small room on the second floor of the hotel in Lynnville, Jones lay asleep in the rumpled bed. His rain-dampened clothes were draped over the chair and small desk near the window. The empty flask, drained in his final moments of wakefulness the night before, was on the floor next to his muddy shoes. The night jar under the bed needed emptying, and its odor, mixed with the smell of wet clothes and sweat, gave the room an unhealthy stench.
As he’d sat on the bed the night before, Jones had taken turns sipping from the flask and complimenting himself on how well his idea had worked. He certainly hadn’t liked being escorted out of the store by Wilson, but he was certain the other men had heard what he’d said about the tobacco price. For most of an hour, he’d sipped and smiled and planned how he would use this change in fortune to buy most of the tobacco in the district. Before falling asleep, he’d gotten up and written himself a note to remember to see the clerk about some more whiskey and to make one more stop at Wilson’s store before he returned to Mayfield. When he’d finished the flask, he’d dropped it on the floor, turned toward the wall and passed out.
* * *
Outside Jones’s hotel window, the rain continued to fall. In Lynnville, there was little activity near the muddy crossroads. Mark Wilson’s store was closed up tight, and there were no lights showing through the windows of the nearby houses and stores. The glow from the blacksmith shop a few lots to the west of the store was the only sign that the town was surviving the rainstorm. Away from the town, surrounded by their drenched fields, the people living on the farms were getting up and doing the same chores that farmers had always done.
North of town, in the shack Ol’ Man Smith let them use, Art’s two farmhands were still trying to sleep. The old roof of the shack had a few leaks, and several of them were right over the crude, straw-filled sacks they used as mattresses. J.D. had pulled his slicker over his head so the rain that dripped down on him was being channeled to the floor. Charley wasn’t as lucky. His bed lay underneath the bigger leaks, and there was just no getting away from the streams of water that poured through the roof. He’d also pulled a slicker over himself, but it was short and left his feet exposed. He tried to sleep, but he was wet and cold.
“This rain is gonna make me sick,” he mumbled.
“Shut up, will ya?” growled J.D. under the slicker as he turned to face the wall. “I’m tryin’ to sleep.”
Charley shuffled under his cover, trying to find a dry spot. “My feet are cold. I’m hungry, and I could use another drink. Where’d you put the jug?”
“The jug’s still empty, just like it was when you took the last snort. Now shut up, damn it, and leave me alone.”
“We gotta find a better place to stay or get the old man to fix the roof. It ain’t right that workin’ men gotta sleep in the rain.”
J.D. turned back toward Charley. He lifted his slicker just enough so he could see his partner and snarled, “Well, we ain’t workin’ today, that’s for sure, and when we don’t work, we don’t get paid. Besides, where else in this lousy town are we gonna get a place to stay for free? So quit yappin’ and go to sleep. We’ll go into town later and see if there’s somethin’ we can do to pick up some money, maybe even enough to stay at the hotel. Then you’ll be dry and I can get some damn sleep.”
He let the slicker fall back over his face and more water ran onto the floor. Charley shuffled once more under his cover and mumbled, “I’m still hungry.” How the hell did I get in this mess, he thought as he shivered and tried to pull his feet up under the cover. I shoulda never let him follow me.
Outside the shack, the rain continued to fall, and a cold, gray, wet dawn broke on the countryside.
* * *
After putting the coffeepot on the stove, Mark returned to the bedroom he shared with Gertrude, picked up his clothes and shoes and returned to the kitchen to get dressed. For most of the years he’d been married, he’d dressed more times in the kitchen than he had in the bedroom because Gertrude was a light sleeper. On those few occasions in the early years when he’d dropped a shoe or closed the wardrobe door too loudly, he’d suffered the scowl and bitter words she threw at him. On this day, however, the rain falling on the roof seemed to muffle the sounds of his feet on the creaky floor.
Leaving the house, Mark made his way through the wet grass along the side of the road. He thought about the things he wanted to do at the store that day and about how he might help his brother. He stepped up onto the small porch at the back of the store and unlocked the door. His thoughts went quickly to the dark morning a few weeks ago when he’d found the door open. He’d discovered that someone had taken his whiskey jug and some food, but hadn’t damaged anything else. When he told the constable about it, the man had said he’d look into it. Shaking his head, knowing that he’d never see the missing items again, he walked into the back of the store. It took him only a few minutes to start a fire in the stove, get a pot of coffee going and open his safe. He took out what change he thought he’d need for the day, put it in the cash box and then closed and locked the safe.
Last night’s incident with Jones bothered Mark. He was concerned about the kind of trouble the man could stir up. Mark could tell that he had no morals. Jones lied for his own gain and cared only about himself. He clearly wasn’t worried about what might happen to any farmers who were raided by the Night Riders. If a farmer lost his crop, Jones would just move on to another part of the county where the Night Riders didn’t exist. Mark knew about the raid in Cuba, and he’d heard rumors that something similar had happened down in Tennessee a few days after that. He also knew that, although unified in their distrust of the company, the farmers did not agree on how to deal with the problem of low prices, and this was beginning to create tension among them.
He poured himself a cup of fresh coffee and walked to the front of the store. Taking a sip of the hot brew, he looked out the window at the rain and the muddy crossroad and wondered if he’d have any customers today. The comforting sound of the shower and the popping of the blaze in the stove and the peacefulness of the empty store, however, were not enough to calm his fears about Wes. He loved his brother and owed him plenty for his loyalty and support when he was growing up. Mark had known early that he didn’t want to be a farmer. On the day he told his mother about his decision, she cried, telling him that the Wilsons had always been farmers. Even his brother George had tried to get him to change his mind. But Wes was the only one who seemed to understand him. After he’d grown up and moved off of the farm and into town, it was Wes who helped him get settled. Then, when his store nearly burned to the ground three years ago, Wes was there to help.
Not long after those tragic days, he’d decided to rebuild the store on the same lot. He borrowed some money and added that to the little he’d gotten from the insurance company. Then he put all of it into erecting the triple-brick building that now housed Wilson’s General Store. Although most of the citizens had feared that the fire signaled the end of Lynnville, Mark’s efforts led many of them to rebuild as well, and now the community was thriving again. Even though the local doctor’s house was destroyed, he rebuilt it and expanded it to include an examining room for his patients. The blacksmith managed to survive most of the destruction, but he replaced his roof with one made of tin-coated steel. East of the hotel, the feed store had been totally destroyed, but, inspired by Mark, the proprietor erected a safer, but smaller warehouse for his supplies.
Like near
ly everyone in town, Mark owned a gun. He kept it out of sight under the counter in the back of his store. Only on occasion had he thought he might need to use it; he mainly kept it to protect his family. But now, more than ever, he thought it was important to keep it close at hand. Even though Lynnville had been a peaceful town, there had been difficult times. Mark had seen it all. Most of the difficulties, however, could be tied to the very things the town’s preachers railed against every Sunday—greed, pride and the rest of the seven deadly sins. There might be some truth to that, Mark thought, remembering what had happened to him two years ago.
One Saturday night about nine o’clock, he’d been sweeping up after a busy day in the store, and someone started banging on the back door. At first Mark ignored the noise. When it continued, he went to the door and yelled that the store was closed. But the pounding kept on. Mark went to get his pistol and returned to the back of the store and eased the door open to see who was there. He was caught off guard when the man, John Canter, pushed the door into his face and knocked him onto the floor. He aimed his gun at Canter and pulled the trigger five times. Canter was hit once in the right side of his belly and stumbled back out the door. The gunshots coming from the general store brought many people out of their homes. Canter was taken away by the doctor, and most folks expected that his wound was mortal.
After a few days, however, Canter recovered. Everyone was convinced that Mark had acted in self-defense, since Canter had been drinking and was a known troublemaker who had shot and killed another man a year earlier. Rumors whirled around town how it took him five shots to hit Canter once. Mark had no choice but to go along with the teasing and the laughter. For a while, they called him Ol’ Five Shot and Dead Eye and other, less pleasant names. In time the teasing ended and the shooting was largely forgotten by everyone but Mark. He’d never gotten along with Canter, but he always felt bad about shooting him.
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