Passage to Natchez

by Cameron Judd

  Clardy looked and saw three men standing, talking to each other. Two of them indeed were the Harpes; the sight of them made his blood chill. Micajah was holding the reins of a single horse. The third man, however, was a stranger.

  The manhunters set their horses into a gallop, bearing hard up the hill toward the trio of men. The stranger with the Harpes turned and ran, taking cover behind a nearby tree. McBee, in the lead, raised his firearm, which he had loaded with buckshot, and fired a blast that caught the man in the side. He yelled in pain and fell.

  Steigal yelled, “Don’t shoot him no more! That’s George Smith!”

  “Squire McBee, don’t kill me!” Smith yelled in a pain-wracked voice. “Don’t you know me, Squire?”

  “God help me!” McBee said in a tight whisper. Then he shouted: “Forgive me, George! I didn’t see who you were!”

  Clardy, who had been on the verge of shooting at the suspiciously behaving stranger, had lowered his rifle when Steigal shouted. He didn’t know who George Smith was, but evidently he was not dangerous. He turned his attention to the Harpes.

  They were gone. He felt a tremendous dismay. Micajah had leaped onto his horse and ridden pell-mell into the woods, and Wiley had darted off on foot, as slick and quick as the weasel he resembled.

  “Don’t be fretful, men—we’ll track them down, track them clear to hell if need be,” McBee said, and he had a way of speaking that made his words believable. “For now, let’s tend to George’s wounds. George, I’m mighty sorry. When I saw you run as you did—”

  “It was my fault, Squire. I shouldn’t have run. I brought it on myself.”

  “It looks like your wound isn’t a bad one, thank God,” McBee said. “We’ll bind you up good and tight.” He squatted and immediately began the bandaging himself. “How did you come across the Harpes, by the by?”

  “I was looking for strayed horses early this morning, when over the hill comes the little one, carring a rifle and a kettle. Going for water, I figure. When he seen me, he commenced to threatening me and asking me why I was out and about, whether I was part of them who was chasing them. I thought he’d kill me any moment, he seemed so fierce. His voice carried so loud that the big one heard him and came riding in from their camp, which lies no more than eighty rods distant from where I sit right now. If you hadn’t come on when you did, I’d be dead right now, Squire. Dead as a stone.”

  “It’s the becursed Harpes who’ll be dead,” Steigal said. “Why do we stand here dawdling? His wounds are bound—and if that camp is no more than eighty rods away …”

  “You are thinking my own thoughts after me, Moses,” McBee said. “Smith, I’ll leave you here for now. Hide amongst the brush and rest for a bit until the blood clots up good. And rest assured that if it is in our power, your difficulties today will be avenged very soon.”

  The Harpe campsite did not prove to be the open-aired bivouac Clardy had expected, but was enclosed beneath a huge, over-thrusting shelving rock poking out of a south-facing bluff, with another rock situated before it in such a way as to make a sort of room, safe from wind and precipitation. McBee dismounted and went to it, rifle ready. A moment later he said something, extended his hand inside, and brought out a woman.

  Clardy drew in his breath in surprise. It was Sally Rice Harpe, yet hardly recognizable as the bedraggled but pretty young woman Clardy had guarded in Danville. She was pale, hair stringing down and matted on the top, her entire person filthy beyond description, wearing rags and clutching a tattered swaddling blanket. An empty blanket.

  The sight of her brought stunned silence to the entire group. Clardy dismounted and walked up to her, awed and repelled to see her in such a state. “Sally?”

  She looked at him with vacant eyes. “Mr. Tyler? Is it you?”

  My God, he thought, she sounds like a child. “Yes, Sally, it’s me.” His voice almost caught in his throat as he asked, “Sally, where is your baby?”

  Her pale eyes filled with tears and her face twisted in an expression of sorrow. “My daddy, he ruint my doll.”

  “Your daddy? What do you mean?”

  “My daddy, he took my doll and hit its head against a tree a few nights back. Hit it real hard. Then he threw it off into the trees and wouldn’t let me go get it.”

  Clardy tried to make sense of what she said, and when he did, his stomach lurched. “Sally, your daddy … do you mean your husband?”

  She looked confused, eyes narrowing. Behind the puzzled mask of her begrimed face Clardy felt the workings of a mind strained almost past the point of sanity, almost bereft of the ability to discern what was imagined from what was real. After several seconds of strained thought, Sally shook her head. “No, not my husband.” She sobbed abruptly. “Micajah done it! It was Micajah!”

  “What does this mean?” McBee asked Clardy in a tone that said he dreaded the answer.

  Clardy felt his own eyes flood. “It means that Micajah Harpe killed her baby. Broke its head against a tree and tossed it away.”

  McBee blanched. “Damn his soul. Damn his soul to the hottest fires of hell!”

  Sally was weeping profusely. Clardy went to her and put his arms around her. The stench of her body was almost unendurable. “Why did he do it, Sally? Why did he kill your baby?”

  “Crying … my doll, my baby was crying … he said someone would hear it, come and find us.… Wiley wouldn’t stop him … his own little one, and he wouldn’t stop Micajah from—” She sobbed; any further words were lost.

  “Oh, Sally, Sally, I’m sorry.” Clardy hugged her close and cried shamelessly before the silent group. McBee snorted, touched his own reddening eyes, and turned away.

  “And after he … after he did it, he still made me stay with them. Made me go into a town, buy them clothes …”

  Clardy forced back his tears and glanced at McBee. “The suits they were wearing when they went to Jim Tompkins’s house.” McBee nodded silently.

  Clardy hugged Sally again and said, “Sally, we’ve come to punish Micajah Harpe, and Wiley, for what they did to your baby. And to so many other innocent folks. But you must help us. Will you do that?”

  She looked up at him; again he was struck by her childlikeness. “You’ll punish him?”

  “Yes. We will.”

  In a mere moment her expression transmorphed from grief to hard, burning fury. “Yes,” she said, her voice now that of a woman, not a child. “I’ll help you.”

  “Then tell us where he is.”

  “I don’t know where Wiley is. Micajah, he went yonder way.” She pointed. Suddenly she sobbed again, her grief now mixed with a palpable fury. “He kilt my baby! You kill him, too!”

  “That will happen unless he surrenders himself at once,” McBee said. He patted Sally’s shoulder and faced his men. “Gentlemen, I am a heavy-bodied man, and my horse is weary. I propose that I remain with this woman and follow on behind you at whatever pace she can make on foot. The rest of you proceed without letting me hinder your speed.”

  Clardy might have thought that proposition cowardly had someone other than McBee put it forth. But from what he had already observed, he knew McBee was no coward. His proposal was in fact very logical.

  Clardy said, “Sally, where are the other women and babies?”

  “With Micajah and Wiley. They put me off here, told me to stay.”

  “Abandoning her, no doubt,” McBee said softly. “She had grown too … too lost. A burden on them.”

  “At least they didn’t kill her,” Clardy said.

  Sally clung tight to Clardy. “Don’t go. Don’t go. You’ve always been good to me. Don’t leave me.”

  “I’ve got to go, Sally, but just for a time. I’m going to go with these men and find Micajah and Wiley. Squire McBee here is a good man. He’ll take care of you while I’m away.”

  She looked at McBee, sniffed back her tears, and nodded. Breaking free from Clardy, she threw herself upon McBee, wrapping her arms around his ample form and leaving him with a loo
k of disquieted surprise that would have been comical in circumstances not so morbid.

  Clardy remounted and they rode on. His heart thumped like a drum. He was scared, but grew strangely excited as they advanced, filling with a satisfying expectation that very soon Micajah Harpe would receive the punishment he had so justly earned. Clardy believed without question that Micajah would be killed. He had escaped formal justice before. No one in this band would risk letting that happen again.

  Moses Steigal most of all. Clardy had only to look in the bereaved man’s determined face to know that no mercy would come to Micajah Harpe.

  Clardy was the first to see him, but he had no time even to point him out before the others also caught sight.

  Micajah Harpe, his two women, and their young children were riding on the crest of a low, wooded ridge just ahead, him in the lead, the women, with their children, straggling behind on doubly burdened horses that seemed to be having far more difficulty than Harpe’s mare in maneuvering through the undergrowth.

  Leiper, riding beside Clardy at the head of the manhunters, shouted: “Halt, Harpe! Stay where you are, or you’re a dead man!”

  Harpe’s answer was an oath. He heeled his mare to faster speed and continued along the ridge. Leiper raised his rifle and fired, but the ball sailed high, singing off above the rider’s head. Micajah veered his horse to the left and went out of sight on the far side of the ridge. The women, meanwhile, had already dismounted, and now knelt beside their panting horses, arms upraised in surrender, their children standing at their sides.

  Leiper, trying to reload his rifle, engaged in a flurry of cursing. The rainstorm that had drenched them all in the night had caused the wooden ramrod of his rifle to swell in its thimbles so that he couldn’t withdraw it. He shoved the useless weapon toward Tompkins. “Here—give me your rifle, and you take mine,” he said. “I’m a better shot than you.”

  Tompkins, a gentle and compliant man, didn’t argue. He handed Leiper the rifle. He turned to Clardy and said, “That rifle is loaded with powder that Micajah Harpe himself give me in a teacup when he ate supper with me, pretending to be a preacher.”

  Leiper said, “Tompkins, you and Lindsey stay here. Guard the women and their young. The rest of you—on! Don’t let him get away!”

  The rode up and over the ridge that Micajah had traveled upon. Clardy cursed the strong mare that carried Micajah Harpe. The man might actually escape them because of it. His own horse was growing very tired, but Clardy urged it on.

  “There!” one of the others shouted.

  Micajah Harpe was bent low in the saddle, trying to race his mare up another ridge. But the horse was obviously growing tired. Three of the pursuers raised their rifles and fired at Harpe. One ball struck him in the leg, but he kept riding.

  Clardy and Leiper had not fired their rifles. As the others paused to reload, the pair rode forward after the wounded man, who suddenly halted his mare and looked back at them.

  “He thinks all the rifles have been fired off,” Clardy said to Leiper.

  “He thinks wrong,” Leiper said. He halted his horse, lifted his rifle, and aimed at Micajah Harpe, who only too late realized that he should not have paused just yet. Harpe was about to race on again when Leiper fired the rifle—Tompkins’s rifle—and gunpowder that had once belonged to Micajah Harpe himself sent the rifle ball hurtling to rip through the backbone and spinal cord of the bulky outlaw.

  “You hit him!” Clardy yelled.

  Astonishingly, Micajah Harpe rode on, though at the moment the ball hit him he nearly pitched out of the saddle. He was almost out of sight again when he paused once more, raised his own rifle with obviously excruciating effort, and snapped the trigger. The gun, apparently too hurriedly loaded, did not go off. Harpe swore and threw the rifle to the ground. Clardy raised his own rifle and fired. He missed. Micajah Harpe cursed at him.

  “Halt and dismount, you murdering son of a whore, or I’ll shoot you dead!” Steigal called.

  Harpe freed and lifted his belt axe, and shouted back: “I’ll halt when you do, damn you!” Clardy was awestruck by the outlaw’s defiance, but noticed at the same moment that the voice that had always been strong and rich before now sounded weak and tremulous.

  “He’s going to fall off his horse,” Clardy said.

  Yet just as the words were spoken, Harpe turned his mount and headed it into the canebrake. His legs dangled limply on either side of the animal, indicating that he had no use of them. Micajah Harpe was paralyzed, holding the saddle with sheer force of devilish will.

  The pursuing party quickly reloaded and followed after him. The canebrake was dense and difficult to travel through, but they were determined. By the time they reached the other side, Harpe was fully in view, only a few yards ahead. He came out of the brake, barely in the saddle now, and once in the open, leaned forward. The exhausted mare was moving slowly now, and Harpe himself appeared to be dying. Clardy was the first to catch up to him. Coming up beside the outlaw, he reached over and pulled the belt axe from his hand, then gave Harpe a shove that sent him pitching out of the saddle and heavily onto the ground.

  The others rode up, halted, dismounted. They gathered silently around Micajah Harpe, who lay with eyes half closed, his breath coming hard. For a while all were silent. Then through the canebrake came the rest of the party, Tompkins and Lindsey leading Micajah Harpe’s two wives and children, and a puffing, sweating McBee pulling Sally along by the hand. All joined the circle around the dying man.

  Harpe opened his eyes a little wider. “Water!” His voice was a faint rasp, no more.

  Leiper knelt and pulled off one of Harpe’s shoes. He took it to a pool at the edge of the canebrake, filled it with water, and brought it dripping back for Harpe to drink. The man managed only a few swallows.

  “You are dying,” McBee said. “We shall give you mercy and hasten your death if you wish. But we will not be such hard men as to not give you time to pray and set your soul right with God while there is yet time.”

  “I care nothing for that,” Micajah Harpe said faintly.

  “Tell me,” Leiper said. “What made you do the things you have?”

  Clardy did not expect Harpe to have the strength to answer, but the outlaw drew in a shaky breath and said, “Wiley and me, we were put in this world to punish mankind. We had grown disgusted with men, with the way folk treated us. We decided to kill as many as we could while we yet lived.”

  “You are a devil, sir,” McBee said. “How many have suffered because of you?”

  Micajah began to tell, very briefly, of various murders he and his brother had done. The list seemed endless; Clardy quit keeping count at about twenty. Some of the murders were already known, others were unheard of by any there. Clardy listened with rising fear that he would hear something that would rouse suspicion that Thias was among those killed.

  “Have you no remorse, man?” McBee said.

  “Only for one death,” Micajah Harpe replied. “I dashed out the brains of Sally’s child against a tree. It cried and vexed me. I wish I hadn’t done it.”

  “Tell me, sir: Did you spend last night in the home of Moses Steigal?”

  “Yes.”

  “And did you murder the others there—Colonel Love, Mrs. Steigal, and the little one?”

  “Aye, I did at that.”

  “Curse you, man, why? Why did you kill innocent folk who had given you shelter?”

  “Because it is my way to kill. It is the reason I was put on this earth.” He winced, a little more of himself dying before their eyes. “And that Colonel Love … he snored. Snored so I couldn’t sleep at all.”

  Clardy looked into the broad face and wondered how it could be that a man could have ever become what Micajah Harpe was.

  “Why did you kill Steigal’s baby?”

  “Life would have … would have been hard for the little one, with no mother.…”

  “With no mother only because you, sir, murdered her! Have you no shame, no heart
at all within you? Does the life of your fellow man not matter to you at all?”

  “No sir, not at all. Never has. All them that I’ve killed, all but Sally’s baby, none of them mattered, not a whit.”

  At that Steigal stepped forward, knelt, and shoved his face close to Micajah’s. “None mattered, you say? Murderer! Devil! Bastard! You killed my wife and babe without a quiver, and now you say they did not matter?” He drew a long butcher knife from his belt and held it before Micajah’s face. “You see this, man? It’s this blade that will take your head off your shoulders.”

  Micajah looked weakly at him. “I am just a young man,” he said. “But already I feel the death sweat rising. I know my time to die has come. I’ve known it for days—I’ve felt the earth tremble beneath my feet time and again, telling me that soon …” He stopped talking, too weak to continue.

  Clardy, perceiving what Steigal was about to do, said, “If you aim to kill him, be merciful and shoot him. Don’t take the knife to him.”

  “I’ll treat him with the same mercy he treated my own,” Steigal snapped back. Clardy backed away. He would say no more, nor would anyone else there.

  Steigal wrapped his fingers in Micajah’s coarse hair and jerked his head up off the ground. He thrust the knife in behind the neck and cut fiercely. Blood flowed out over the blade and Steigal’s hand.

  Micajah’s eyes opened wide and he fixed them upon Steigal’s face … and smiled. Clardy gaped, hardly able to believe what he saw.

  Micajah said, “Steigal, you’re a damned rough butcher, you are, but cut on and be damned!”

  Steigal let out a terrible cry. He brought the blade around to the front of Harpe’s neck, and Clardy turned away so he wouldn’t have to see the rest. The sounds alone were almost too much to stand.

  When Clardy looked again, Steigal stood with Micajah Harpe’s head in his hand, held by the hair. It was a repulsive yet fascinating sight. The only thought Clardy had while looking at it was that Thias, with his weak stomach, certainly could not have abided seeing this.

  He heard laughter. Turning, he gazed blankly at a sight that would haunt him for years thereafter. It was Sally, laughing and clapping her hands in childish glee, dancing about the headless corpse of Micajah Harpe.