Louisiana History Collection - Part 2

by Jennifer Blake

  “Do you read, Ranny — I mean, since your head injury?”

  “A little.”

  “But you recognize letters and words?”

  He gave a short nod.

  “You can write?”

  A shadow crossed his face. He repeated, “A little.”

  “Would you like to be able to do more?”

  “No.”

  “But why?”

  “I can’t!”

  “You might be able to do more than you think.”

  “Don’t mock me.” His voice was flat as he swung away from her.

  Lettie put out her hand to catch his arm. “I’m not, truly. I would like to help.”

  Ransom went still as he turned his head to look down at the firm oval of her face and the steady light in her eyes. A sudden shiver ran through him so that he had to tense his muscles against it. It had been a long time since a woman had looked at him with anything more than embarrassment or pity. “You couldn’t,” he said, his voice low.

  “I could try.”

  Lettie felt the tension in his arm under her fingers. It was amazing, but she had a nearly uncontrollable urge to reach up and brush back the soft wave of hair that fell forward over the scar at his temple, to explore that old injury with her fingertips almost as if she expected her touch to heal him. She subdued the impulse, but she could not seem to withdraw her gaze from his. The seconds ticked slowly past. A bee droned around him. A cream-colored butterfly fluttered by.

  Above them a rose shattered. The petals fell, whispering down to land on Ranny’s broad shoulders where they lay soft and delicate on the rough blue chambray of his shirt. One settled on Lettie’s hand as she held his arm, and she felt its sun-warmed caress like a benediction.

  “Hey, there, you two! What are you up to?”

  Lettie jumped, startled at the call. It was Aunt Em. The older woman was coming along the road toward them with a sunbonnet shading her face and an empty basket swinging on her arm.

  Aunt Em’s question, it appeared, was completely rhetorical. She did not wait for an answer but, as she reached them, inquired after Lettie’s comfort during the night, asked if she had eaten breakfast, and, with brisk concern that robbed the query of any sign of prying, wanted to know if she had made plans for the day. Told of the proposed trip into town, she seemed to have no reservations about permitting Ranny to drive Lettie there. There were one or two errands he could run for her while Lettie was busy; she was in need of a paper of pins and her copy of Demorests Illustrated Monthly should be at the post office. The gardening articles in it were good this time, or so she had heard. The Yankee editors didn’t know much about Southern gardens — they were mighty set on tulips and peonies, two flowers that faded away in the heat — but there was some mention of cannas that she wanted to see.

  By the time Ranny had hitched up the buggy, Lettie had pinned on a small, ribbon-trimmed straw hat that tilted forward over her braided hair, put on her gloves, found her parasol, and was waiting on the steps. They set out down the drive in the direction of Natchitoches.

  Before his death, Lettie’s brother Henry had been an excellent correspondent. He had had a quick mind and a keen interest in the place to which he had been assigned. He had found the countryside pleasant and the history that dated back to French colonial days intriguing. He had often spoken of buying land and setting up as a planter himself when his enlistment was over. From his letters, Lettie had gleaned much information about the area where he had been killed.

  Splendora was located some three or four miles north of the town of Natchitoches, near what had been another small town called Grand Ecore. Grand Ecore, a thriving port on the bank of the Red River, had been burned by the Union troops under General Banks during the ill-fated Red River campaign in the spring of 1864. Natchitoches, of less importance for shipping, had been spared.

  The word Natchitoches, according to Henry, was generally accepted to mean “chinquapin eaters” and was the name applied to the Indian tribe that had once claimed the area. The settlement was actually the oldest in the Louisiana Purchase territory, older than New Orleans by some four years. It had been established as a military outpost in 1714 to hold the western boundary of the colony of Louisiana against the encroachment of Spain. At that time, it had been located on the Red River. But early in the present century, the Red had begun to alter its course to a more northward loop. The water level had gradually fallen in the thirty-odd-mile bend where Natchitoches was located until it became obvious that the stretch was little more than a branching tributary that became known as the Cane River.

  The old town itself was a picturesque place where French and Spanish influence was obvious in the plastered walls, the wide verandas that shaded the houses, the wrought-iron decoration, and the air of shuttered privacy that clung to many of the houses. The homes were shaded by huge old oaks and there were many cool gardens half hidden behind them. It was not uncommon to hear French spoken on the streets or to find newspapers, books, or advertising placards in that language.

  The main street, paved with brick and facing the waterway that had once been its life’s blood, was called Front Street. Here the names of the merchants with their foreign ring reflected the town’s heritage. Many of the emporiums were two-storied, with projecting balconies that provided a resting place and view of the river to the apartments above and shelter from sun and rain to pedestrians below. Under that protection ladies strolled, always in pairs as propriety demanded. They were dressed in voluminous skirts ornamented with the small bustles decreed by fashion, usually in the black or gray or purple of mourning, and wore gloves on their hands and veils to protect their complexions from the sun. Gentlemen moved about their business, some soberly clad and grave of face, some wearing bright plaid shooting coats and brighter waistcoats. A few trailed clouds of smoke from the cheroots clamped between their teeth. There was one elderly man who caught Lettie’s attention. He was white-headed, with a flowing white beard, and he walked with the pride and dignity of a man of means, yet his coat was shabby and his shirt collar frayed. And on his face was a look of such despair that it wrenched at the heart.

  Ragged children, black and white together, ran here and there. They leaped over the groups of black men sitting or lying in the sun, laughing and talking on the street corners, and dodged around the portly figure of a nun hurrying down the street with her rosary clacking at her waist. Negresses walked along with baskets balanced on their heads, calling out to each other with bright smiles in their brown faces or singing to hawk their wares of berry pies or sausages in biscuits, knots of herbs, bouquets of flowers, or bags of spices.

  Beyond the buildings, rising among the treetops, was the tower of the cathedral of the Natchitoches diocese, the Church of St. Mary. Its bell was tolling as Lettie and Ransom drove through town, a mellow yet doleful sound. It signified a funeral, that of a free man of color who was a planter from Isle Brevelle farther down the river, or so Ranny said. He was being buried in consecrated ground apparently, though he had killed himself in grief over the accumulated tragedies of his life: the death of two sons in the war and the loss of his fortune, on top of the more recent loss of his house and lands, property as extensive as any white man’s, for taxes. Lettie would have liked to question Ranny more closely about the matter, but there was no time. They drew up then before a dry goods store and he got down to hand her from the buggy.

  Lettie’s purchases and Aunt Em’s errands did not take long. They might have been completed more quickly if she and Ranny had not been detained in the post office while the man behind the grille entertained what was apparently a trio of his cronies with the tale of an incident that had occurred that morning.

  “I swear, if it wasn’t the dangest thing you ever saw in your life! There was that carpetbag tax collector, O’Connor, the most money-grabbin’ scoundrel in the state — and that’s saying something nowadays — tied up to a lamp post on Front Street in his underdrawers. He was dancing a jig, trying to hide his t
wo hundred and fifty pounds of pork fat behind the post and get rid of the sign around his neck at the same time.”

  “Sign? What kind of sign?” The question was asked by one of the listeners, a bearded, slow-talking man with the hard hands of a farmer and dirt embedded in the cracked leather of his shoes.

  “Just a piece of paper with one word on it: Oink! Lord, but ain’t that Thorn something?”

  The men had lowered their voices at the sight of a woman and Lettie had moved away, turning her back on them, pretending an interest in a yellowed and fly-speck-covered advertisement for ladies’ hats in the window. At mention of the Thorn, her attention abruptly sharpened.

  “How d’ you know it was the Thorn?” another of the men questioned.

  “Who else would it be?” The narrator of the tale searched around under his counter, pulled out a periodical and a handful of letters, and slapped them down on the counter in front of Ranny without looking at him. “Besides, he left his calling card, a locust and a thorn, and he was spotted just out of town by a bluebelly. Seems the mighty Union army spent half the night chasing ‘im up one side of Red River and down the other.”

  “Robbed O’Connor, did he?”

  “I should say! The cream of it is, the army was so set on catching Thorn and puttin’ an end to his fine career that they didn’t know till this morning about the robbery. They never saw the tax collector at all. It was the doc found him, coming home from delivering a baby before daylight.”

  There was a general round of guffaws. The farmer, a grin showing through his beard, shook his head. “Lord, just think of the mosquitoes. Wonder why O’Connor didn’t yell out?”

  “Hoped he’d get free without anybody seeing him, I’d say.”

  “Serves ‘im right. Tried to hold me up, O’Connor did, last time he came around. Wanted to take my prize sow ‘cause my tax bill was a day past due. Told him to step down and take ‘er — ’course I had my double-barrel shotgun in my hand at the time. The money for ‘er never would’ve showed up on the record, that’s sure.”

  “Reckon the money the Thorn took will maybe turn up again at the next tax sale.”

  “Widow Clements’s place goes up for auction in two days’ time. What’ll you bet she comes up with the exact price it takes to buy it back?”

  “It’ll be one of them miracles, dang me if it won’t.”

  The postmaster directed a shot of tobacco juice at a spittoon in the corner. “There’s some figure this here Thorn’s worked a miracle too many, such as interrupting the hanging party last Friday night and taking off Black Toby. The boys were a bit put out.”

  The conversation came to an abrupt halt. Lettie, glancing over her shoulder, saw the men eyeing each other with grim and suspicious faces. The exchange was obscure, though she thought it might refer to the activities of the night riders, the sheet-wearing citizens known in the state as the Knights of the White Camellia. They were the men most apt to be involved in what the men chose to call a hanging party.

  Ranny, with Aunt Em’s mail in his hand, moved to touch Lettie’s elbow. “Ready?”

  Lettie moved beside him as they left the post office, though there was a frown of concentration between her eyes as she went. Ranny helped her into the buggy and walked around to his own side. Climbing in, he set the vehicle in motion. They had not gone more than a few feet when Lettie turned to him.

  “You heard what they said about the tax collector, Mr. O’Connor?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “What do you think?”

  “Think?”

  “About what was done to him.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Ransom realized that he should have foreseen her questions. He might have hustled her out of the post office if he had. Instead, it had seemed a good opportunity to expose her to a different view of the Thorn from the one she apparently held, judging from the comment he had overheard the night before. There was nothing he was going to add to it, however, even if he could.

  “You must know!” she insisted. “The man was attacked and publicly humiliated. I realize — that is, I’ve heard that taxes are high and the men who collect them sometimes less than fair, but did Mr. O’Connor deserve what was done to him?”

  “What,” he asked, “does humil — humil — that word mean?”

  Lettie looked at him, meeting his clear gaze for a moment before turning her head away. She was expecting too much. She had forgotten. The man beside her had his limitations and she must not press him. Strange, how badly she had wanted to know what he thought.

  Her voice low, she said, “I’m sorry, Ranny. It isn’t important. Shall we go to the Freedmen’s Bureau now?”

  The Freedmen’s Bureau had been established to aid the Negroes in adjusting to freedom and to their-newly acquired rights. It had been charged that the bureau had instead become a substitute master, encouraging the former slaves to depend on the government and guiding them toward support of the radical Republican party and its aims. It was true that a great many promises had been made, such as the pledge of forty acres and a mule for every Negro male. Where the promise had originated could not be said, but it was equally true that it had raised expectations that could not be met. The bureau, with many of its offices filled by former Union soldiers who intended to settle in the South, was, in general, conscientious. Its greatest contribution, most agreed, was likely to be in the education of the Negroes.

  Lettie’s appearance at the bureau office was greeted with enthusiasm. She had written ahead and was expected. Unfortunately, she was told, it would be a month, maybe more, before she could begin work. This was the planting season and there would be few students who could be spared from work until after the crops were laid by — that was to say, until the final plowing of the seedlings as summer advanced. In the meantime, she must be patient. They would let her know when her services would be required.

  From the Freedmen’s Bureau, Lettie asked to be taken to army headquarters. The building, formerly a private home, was very like Splendora in style, with the same raised basement and wide verandas. Ranny, his expression stolid, handed her down outside and prepared to wait.

  The officer in command of the Natchitoches district was Colonel Thomas Ward. A tall man with a soldier’s bearing, he was perhaps a little over thirty and attractive in an upright military fashion. His hair, worn long and curling in the back, was walnut-brown, and there was a touch of red in his brown cavalry mustache. His green eyes were red-rimmed with fatigue at the moment, as if he had been up most of the night before. He stood as Lettie entered and his greeting was cordial enough before he invited her to be seated in the chair across from his desk.

  “Miss Mason, how may the United States Army, and I, be of service to you?”

  Lettie had prepared what she was going to say with care. Unfortunately, she could not quite remember just now how she had meant to open the subject. She moistened her lips, suddenly doubtful for the first time of the wisdom of her quest. “I—I believe you knew my brother, Henry. You wrote my mother a letter of condolence.”

  “Yes, indeed, a fine officer, your brother. I take it you are here about his death?”

  “Yes,” Lettie said in relief, and plunged into a recital of why it was so important to her to discover his killer and what she intended to do in the coming weeks, including her teaching commitment with the Freedmen’s Bureau. The colonel heard her out, only giving a slight nod now and then, though his gaze touched in turn the shape of her lips as she spoke, the curves of her breasts, and the narrow turn of her waist.

  “You are aware”, he said when she was silent at last, “that the army has already conducted its own investigation?”

  “So I understand. It doesn’t appear to have been conclusive.”

  “There was simply no evidence. It pains me to have only discouragement to offer you, Miss Mason, but I doubt that you will be able to find anything sufficient at this date to show who your brother’s killer may be, much less hang him.”
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  “I know it won’t be easy. I thought I might start by looking at the place where he was shot, this woodland spring, if you can direct me to it?”

  He frowned, touching a forefinger to his mustache as he leaned back in his chair.

  “The site is some distance away and in rather wild country, not the kind of spot you would want to visit on a picnic outing.”

  “Indeed?” Lettie’s tone was cool. It always amazed her how ready men were to jump to the conclusion that all women were foolish about distances.

  The colonel smiled. “I realize that may sound odd, considering that you have just made a journey halfway across this country, but what you may not realize is that the area is the stamping ground, so to speak, not only of the man you seek, our local Robin Hood, the Thorn, but also of a collection of other unsavory characters. These desperadoes are, many of them, former Confederate guerrilla fighters or else the deserters of the Confederate army known around here as jayhawkers. We are beginning to believe the organization may be of some size, rather like a band of the kind of outlaws that are epidemic in the Southwest. One thing we do know about them for certain is that they can be completely ruthless.”

  She paid scant attention to his last words, seizing on the phrase that caught her interest. “Robin Hood? A strange name surely for such a vile criminal!”

  “That’s what the locals are calling the man, though for myself, being in something of the same position as the Sheriff of Nottingham, I find the comparison less than apt.”

  “I should think so,” she said, relaxing a little in appreciation of his wry humor.