Tanner's Law

by Charles G. West

  “I didn’t kill him,” Jeb replied defiantly. “I found the horse and the rifle back yonder in that field. I’m just sorry it wasn’t me that did shoot him.” He took a quick glance behind him to see if Tanner had escaped detection.

  “Is that so?” the sergeant responded. “Well, boys,” he said, addressing his men then, “murder, horse thievin’, stolen government property. We got us a hangin’ to tend to.”

  Jeb started to back the sorrel away, but was stopped before he could move. With five rifles leveled at him, he relinquished the reins. “Well, that’s about right,” he spat. “Takes about six Yankees to hang one Reb.”

  “You suppose we ought to take him back and turn him in with all those other prisoners?” one of the Union privates asked.

  “Shit, no,” the sergeant snapped back. “We got other things to worry about without havin’ to look after him. He’s done plenty to warrant a hangin’. We’ll string him up on that hickory yonder—be a good sign for any more Rebs that might be hidin’ out around here, thinkin’ to steal government property.”

  Moving cautiously behind the buildings, Tanner made his way to the back of the bank building. He dismounted and tied the reins to a porch post. Pulling his carbine from the saddle sling, he checked to make sure it was fully loaded before moving to the corner of the building. On one knee, he peered around the corner in time to see the six Union soldiers lead Jeb’s horse to a tall hickory tree on the other side of the street. Son of a bitch! he thought. They mean to hang him! Even as he thought it, one of the soldiers took a short piece of rope and tied Jeb’s hands behind his back. Another took a longer coil of rope and began fashioning a noose. Thinking out his first move, Tanner tried to quickly assess his situation. That leaves three with rifles trained on Jeb, he thought, for like the men with the ropes, the sergeant’s weapon was still holstered. He had seven shots. Every shot had to count, because there would be no time for reloading.

  There was some doubt in his mind, but he saw no other choice open to him. He was going to fire the Spencer carbine for the very first time. All he had to go on was the rifle’s reputation. He didn’t know if the particular weapon in his hand was going to shoot high, low, or to one side or the other. It’s a helluva time to find out, he worried, but it was at close range. That would improve his odds some, and it figured to be Jeb’s only chance. Resolved to do the best he could, he stepped out from behind the building and moved quickly along the side to a low watering trough opposite the corner.

  Undetected by the lynching party to that point, he lay on his belly and pulled his rifle up beside him. Inching over to the end of the trough, he readied the weapon to fire. He peered around the trough to picture the attack in his mind one final time. The actions of the patrol had attracted the attention of a handful of the town’s citizens, who stood horrified by the blatant execution about to be performed. Three still mounted with rifles on Jeb, he recorded silently, the other two busy with the ropes, and the sergeant with no weapon drawn. He was going to have to be quick.

  He picked the closest mounted soldier as his first target. Just as the soldier with the noose held it up for the sergeant’s approval, Tanner squeezed off the first round. It caught his target squarely between the shoulder blades. The man dropped his rifle and slid off his horse. Knowing it was not yet the moment to rush his shot, Tanner cranked the trigger guard down to eject the spent cartridge and pull another into the chamber. As he had hoped, the hanging party was stunned momentarily, with no idea where the shot had come from. When a second shot rang out, and another soldier fell to the ground, panic overcame the four remaining.

  The lynching became immediately secondary in importance to the three privates. Finding cover outweighed it. They scattered, along with the few spectators that had gathered, to find protection. With no less fondness for his own hide, the burly sergeant wheeled his horse to escape. Then, determined to prevent his prisoner from cheating death, he wheeled his horse back to face Jeb again, pulling his pistol from his holster as he did. Before he could aim it, a third shot from Tanner’s Spencer slammed into his chest, causing him to drop the revolver. Having some confidence in the Spencer’s tendencies then, Tanner put another round neatly in the center of the sergeant’s forehead to make sure he was dead.

  In the midst of the sudden attack, Jeb was as stunned as his captors. With his hands tied behind his back, he was holding on for dear life with his knees, trying to remain in the saddle while the frightened sorrel reacted to the sudden retreat of the other horses. He was saved from possibly coming off the horse by one of the spectators. The man, a blacksmith, ran up to take the sorrel’s reins, and quickly calmed the nervous animal. When the horse was under control, the blacksmith produced a pocketknife and cut Jeb’s bonds. No words were spoken between them, but the look in Jeb’s eyes expressed gratitude to the blacksmith’s satisfaction. Once again, Jeb found himself without a rifle. He dismounted to retrieve one of the weapons lying in the street. He nodded toward the blacksmith. The smithy, understanding, picked up the other rifle and immediately departed to hide it away in his shop. Seeing Tanner standing by the trough then, Jeb led his horse to join him.

  Looking back over his shoulder to be sure that what he was about to declare was accurate, Jeb grinned broadly and exclaimed, “I don’t think them other three are gonna stop till they get to the Potomac.” Tanner nodded agreement in reply. “Partner,” Jeb announced, “I knew I could count on you.” In truth, he had not been certain, but he would be from that moment forward. “That was a fine piece of work you did back there. Those boys were aimin’ to send me to hell to see my daddy. Yessir, a fine piece of shootin’.”

  “I expect we’d best be on our way before we run into another patrol,” Tanner replied and turned to fetch his horse.

  When he rounded the back corner of the bank, he discovered a committee of three men standing by his horse, waiting to greet him. Two of the faces were familiar. One was the storekeeper, the second was the blacksmith, the third was a dark-haired stranger with only one arm. Startled, Tanner stopped in his tracks and quickly brought his carbine up, ready to fire.

  “Hold on, son,” the store owner said. “We’re on the same side.” When Tanner stood silent, eyeing the three cautiously, the store owner continued, pausing only to nod to Jeb when he appeared around the corner. “My name’s Horace Stanley. This here’s Bob Wilson,” he said, nodding toward the blacksmith. “We thought you oughta talk to Leland Forrest here,” he continued, referring to the man standing beside him.

  Not waiting for questions from Tanner and Jeb, Forrest took it from there. “Horace told me I should talk to you boys, and from what I just saw, I think he was right.” With long black shoulder-length hair and a full beard streaked with gray, the man introduced as Leland Forrest resembled a fire-and-brimstone preacher, wearing a black frock coat, the left sleeve pinned up just above the elbow.

  Tanner exchanged a puzzled glance with Jeb before asking, “What about?”

  “Horace says you’re aiming to join Lee at Richmond,” Forrest replied. He received a slight nod in return. “Well, fighting men like yourselves might do the South a helluva lot more good right here in the valley. Lee’s holed up in the trenches around Richmond and Petersburg. He can’t go anywhere. Grant’s got him treed, and if the Yankees succeed in cutting the South Side Railroad, Lee won’t have any supply line. He’ll likely have to evacuate Richmond. You two fellows won’t make much of a difference there, but you could make a helluva difference right here.”

  “Doin’ what?” Jeb interjected.

  Forrest favored him with a smile. “Fighting Yankees,” he replied. “We’ve organized a company of men to harass the Union detachments that have followed General Sheridan into the valley. I won’t lie to you. We’re mostly made up of older men and those wounded in the war, like myself. But we’re eighteen in number—you two would make it an even twenty—and we’re all from right around these parts. So we know the country, where to strike and where to hide. We could
sure use you two.”

  Tanner didn’t know what to say for a few moments. He looked at Jeb, but Jeb was looking to him to respond. Not sure what his feelings about the proposition were, he said, “We’re still in the army. It’s our duty to report back.”

  “Sure it is,” Forrest said. “And I understand that. And I admire your stand on your responsibility. But what I’m trying to say is that you will be doing the South a lot more good in a unit where you can hit and run, give the enemy fits, and in the long run delay their siege of Richmond because they’ll have to deal with us here.”

  Tanner glanced again at Jeb, and received a wide grin in response. The rangy redhead looked to be receptive to the notion. Tanner had to admit the proposition had merit. Indeed, it might offer an opportunity to contribute more to the Southern cause than to fade back into the ranks of an infantry regiment. “Hell, why not?” he finally decided. He and Jeb were immediately greeted with wide smiles and handshakes.

  “We’re mighty glad to have you boys,” Horace Stanley said after Tanner and Jeb introduced themselves.

  “It ain’t possible for me to ride with Leland, what with the store and family and all, but I help in any way I can with supplies and whatnot. Bob helps out the same way. He’s got a family to look after, too.”

  Leland Forrest spoke up again. “I expect we’d best get you fellows outta town right now. There’s bound to be a Yankee patrol back here as soon as one of those three that ran off can find somebody to report to.” After shaking hands briefly with Stanley and Wilson, he motioned for Tanner and Jeb to follow him. “My horse is tied up behind Bob’s forge. Follow me, and we’ll head up to our camp.”

  Once his horse was retrieved, Forrest led them along a creek that backed the blacksmith shop, then entered a hole in the thick wild hedge that lined the bank to a hidden trail leading down to a deep ravine. “From now on,” he explained to his new recruits, “if you have to come to town, this is the safest way to come.”

  The one-armed leader of the valley raiders had not lied when he told Tanner and Jeb that the group was made up of old men and cripples. The first time they rode with the gang, they could not help but question their decision to join up. More than half of the eighteen were gray-haired men, some already suffering with nature’s afflictions of age. The balance of the gang was made up of veterans of the war, sent home because of wounds too severe to remain in the active army. But Tanner found that all were experienced hunters, and at home in the heavily wooded hills of the Shenandoah. So Tanner and Jeb rode on more than a dozen raids on Union supply wagons and rear-action work details, causing little more than minor irritation during the next month. In between raids, they camped in the mountains, and lived mostly off the wild game plentiful there. Many times Tanner thought about going home for a short visit. Their range of operation was seldom more than a single day’s journey from his home in Alleghany County, but the need to protect the secrecy of their little group kept him from risking a visit. Finally, on one of the sorties, an attack on a Union woodcutting detail, Leland Forrest was mortally wounded while leading the charge. That loss seemed to sap the desire from most of the elderly members of the gang, and with that added to the disappointing news that Lee had been forced to evacuate Richmond, the little unit began to unravel. Tanner and Jeb were thinking they had already stayed too long. “I’m thinkin’ more and more about sayin’ good-bye to this sorry war and headin’ on out west,” Jeb announced one evening while watching a pitiful little rabbit’s carcass roast over the fire. Tanner didn’t answer, but looked up from cleaning his Spencer carbine to give Jeb his attention. “Hell,” Jeb continued, “what good are we doin’ here, anyway? Our little raidin’ parties don’t amount to a bucket of piss in the Atlantic Ocean.”

  Tanner laid his rifle aside and looked around him at the ragtag camp. After Leland’s death, the soul of most of the older men seemed to have died with him, and already several of the original party had offered weak apologies and left for home. Those remaining, mostly men wounded in the war before joining Leland’s raiders, tended to look to Tanner and Jeb for guidance. Thinking now of Jeb’s comments, Tanner understood the reasoning behind them. There was no Union unit of any importance left to fight in the valley. The last sortie they had ridden on took them almost forty miles toward Charlottesville to attack a train depot. When they got there, they found that the information they had received was inaccurate. They found no company of Union soldiers, and no supply depot. They were left with a long, hungry ride back to their camp in the hills. It was hard to disagree with Jeb’s assessment of the group’s value to the cause.

  “I expect you may be right,” Tanner finally responded. “There’s not much use in tryin’ to keep this up. I’ve been thinkin’ a lot about goin’ home, myself.”

  They didn’t take it any further than that for the time being, primarily because, deep down, neither man liked the idea of quitting. A few days later, the decision became moot with a visit from Horace Stanley.

  It was the eleventh of April when Horace made his way up to their camp with the sorrowful news that Lee had surrendered two days before at the little town of Appomattox Court House.

  The war was over. It was difficult to believe after so many years of fighting that it was time for every soldier to go home. Tanner and Jeb sat before their campfire late into the night talking about their plans.

  “Why don’t you come on back to Kansas with me?” Jeb suggested. “We’ll push on west of there, head up to Montana, up to them goldfields maybe.” Reacting to the noncommittal expression on Tanner’s face, he added, “I’ve got a grubstake stashed at home if that’s concernin’ you. Whaddaya say, Tanner? You know Virginia ain’t gonna be no place to live with all the Union army and regulators takin’ over everything.”

  Tanner smiled and shook his head. It was going to be hard to part with Jeb. The two had become as close as friends could get in the short time since Tanner had found Jeb in the blown-out stump hole. “I swear, Jeb, I’d be tempted to take you up on that, but I’ve got a little gal waitin’ for me back in Alleghany County. And I promised her I’d be back.” He was being truthful when he said he was tempted, for he had always been fascinated by reports of the big sky country. But he could not deny the longing in his heart for Ellie.

  Jeb grunted his disappointment, then said, “Why, hell, go on back and marry her, and bring her with you.”

  Tanner paused to picture Eleanor Marshall’s likely response to such a proposition. She would probably not relish the idea of leaving the comfort of her father’s expansive house to take to the gold prospector’s trail. The thought caused Tanner to chuckle. He and Ellie had known from their school days that they would marry and Tanner would take over the management of her father’s many acres. The thought of her now caused an aching in his heart to see her. He pictured her face on the day he’d left, tears streaming down her cheeks to drop softly upon her lace bodice.

  “I reckon I’d best go back home, Jeb. I’m gonna be expected to help run her daddy’s farm now that he’s gettin’ on in years. I’ve got my own land to look after, too, my father’s place. We’ll need both my brothers and me to run both places.”

  Jeb grinned, disappointed. “Hell, I don’t blame you, partner. It sounds like you’ve got it all set up for you. I wish I had a little gal waitin’ for me to come back.”

  There was limited conversation between the two friends as each man prepared to depart the secluded ravine in the mountains above Waynesboro. It had been a meager camp due to scant supplies, but it had never been discovered by the Union patrols sent out to put a stop to the harassing raids. Jeb, usually talkative, was strangely silent on this crisp morning. Tanner understood. Men who fought wars together came to depend upon each other. Parting company now, after the battles they had survived, made each man feel as if his back was suddenly vulnerable. When both saddle packs and bedrolls were secured, the two partners turned to shake hands.

  “You’d best be careful about showing that U.S. brand on
that horse,” Jeb cautioned with a slow grin.

  “I aim to,” Tanner replied. “I’m figurin’ on stayin’ off the main roads. I can find my way home through the mountains.” He gave Jeb a light slap on the back, and teased, “That horse is in for some sufferin’, since you’ve got nobody to talk to all the way back to Kansas. What was the name of that town?”

  “Mound City,” Jeb said. “It’s a short piece above Fort Scott, not far over the Missouri line, if you change your mind.”

  “I ain’t likely to,” Tanner replied. “I guess I’m too partial to Virginia.” Once again his mind focused on Ellie, and he knew right then he would never see Kansas.

  “That little gal’s got you hog-tied right enough,” Jeb said, a grin spreading across his ruddy face. He put a foot in the stirrup then and grabbed the saddle horn. “Take care of yourself, Tanner,” he said as he climbed aboard the sorrel and turned the animal’s head toward the west.

  “You as well,” Tanner replied. He watched Jeb’s back for a few moments before stepping up in the saddle. With parting words for a few members of the raiders still packing up to leave, he made his way through the abandoned camp, up toward the top of the ravine. Pausing at the crest of the hill, he glanced back briefly before striking a course across the mountain ridge to the southwest.

  Chapter 3

  The big gray gelding followed the deer trail down the western slope of the mountain, moving along without any direction from Tanner. The game trail was one Tanner was quite familiar with, having followed it on many occasions when hunting. He looked around him, taking in the forest that had yielded more than a few bucks and does in the years since he and his brothers first started sneaking his father’s rifle from the pegs over the fireplace. He was trying to determine if anything looked different since he had gone away to war. It didn’t. As far as he had been able to tell, the war had not touched much of the county. Still, he was anxious to see his father’s house to make sure it had suffered no damage. I wonder if Travis is home yet, he thought. His older brother had gone off to war a few weeks before him. Last he heard of him he was with Lee’s army in Richmond. It was left to his younger brother, Trenton, to stay home to help his father manage the farm.