Spake As a Dragon

by Larry Hunt

  Chapter Eight

  Alabama or Bust

  After his return from the War of 1812, Robert’s father Thomas re-opened Scarburg Mill. The Mill had been closed since the death of Pappy John, years earlier. During the war, for heroic action, Thomas had received a battlefield promotion and was discharged as a Captain. Captain Thomas, or as he was called back then Captain Tom, operated Scarburg Mill until his death in 1848. From that time to the present, Robert’s brother Isaac carried on the milling tradition. Since the current War started, the Mill was still operating; however, most of the local corn and flour was being impressed for the Southern cause. What the Confederates didn’t purchase with worthless money, the Home Guard confiscated or just plain stole. Sometimes it was small groups of raiding Yankee soldiers coming through the area pillaging what they could carry off.

  Fortunately, Robert left Alabama and made a trip to the Mill a couple of weeks before he left for the army. He had returned with a few large sacks of flour and some bags of cornmeal. That was over a year ago, but Malinda had been frugal, and still had meal and flour even after sharing with her neighbors.

  Today, Malinda is using part of Robert’s flour to bake fresh bread. Mattie Ann gets a whiff of its tantalizing aroma drifting out the kitchen window across the yard to her playhouse. She jumps up and runs to the back door. She has already concocted a reason for coming back into the house – in hopes of getting a slice of the warm, fresh bread. “Mama, tell me some more old tales about Granny Scarburg and when y’all lived in Caroline,” she pleads. As she talks she opens the oven door to check the bread, little Lizzie runs in slamming the kitchen’s screen door.

  “Shut that oven door child, and be careful, don’t you two let my bread fall!” Malinda says to Mattie Ann, “So you want to hear about the old days, huh? All right you two pull up a chair, that bread won’t bake any faster with you watching.”

  She begins with her great-great-grandfather Jacob Ingram and his life in Virginia. She explains how his family moved from a comfortable, civilized life to an unsettled wilderness in South Carolina. Mattie Ann sits with her elbows on the table, her head resting in her hands. She is set to absorb every word. The story of the red-tailed hawk was good; she believed there must be more interesting tales left to tell. Lizzie is more occupied with her shuck doll than hearing stories of the old days.

  “Now I’ve already told you Granny Scarburg was a full-blood Indian, I was told Pocahontas was somehow related to her.”

  “Poco...who?”

  “Later, I’ll tell you about Pocahontas, now I am going to tell about Granny Scarburg. I know she did not want to leave her family in Virginia, but her father said a wife’s duty was to be with her husband.”

  She explained that their father inherited the plantation named Scarlett from Thomas, their grandfather. Malinda told the two girls when Grandfather Thomas died he had close to forty slaves working on Scarlett Plantation. She told the girls their father never approved of owning slaves, and one of the first things he did after taking possession of Scarlett was to officially grant all his slaves freedom. He said God never intended people to be chained, beaten or owned.

  “Your Daddy and I were married the 25th of July in the year 1831. I was seventeen, and your Daddy was just eighteen. Robert was never satisfied at Scarlett. The slaves remained as freedmen, with a working salary, but Robert could not shake off the guilt of the many years bonded men worked to make Scarlett the showplace it was.”

  The bread is removed from the oven as Malinda continues telling Mattie Ann about ‘the old days.’ “After your father and I were married, we had lived on Scarlett for six peaceful years before war erupted with the Indians of south Alabama, southern Georgia, and northern Florida. The Indians were on the warpath against the whites all along the southeastern section of the United States. Robert thought it was his responsibility to join the United States Army and go fight the murdering heathens.

  “I’m sorry girls we never spoke of this, but I believe it is one of the most important things that happened back then.” She told of their father receiving his army discharge in Hall County, Georgia. She further explained how he placed this piece of paper in his saddlebag and began the long horse ride from Georgia to South Carolina. He was on the trail close to a week. Anxious to return home he spent most of the trip in the saddle hesitant to even stop and rest. I don’t believe he would have even stopped to sleep if it had not been for the fact his horse needed rest.

  “I remember the day he returned as if it were yesterday.” Tears began to swell in her eyes as she recalled those times and continued her story to Mattie Ann and Lizzie. “Robert later said he rounded the last bend in the road, nearing the long drive leading to Scarlett’s main house. He knew he should be able to see the big main house sitting upon the hill through the stand of oaks and maples growing near the entrance gate. Glaring intently he could sense something was wrong. Your father could not see our beloved Scarlett.”

  Pulling on the reins, “Whoa Black Magic, whoa!” His beautiful black stallion was motionless as he stood in the stirrups trying to get a better look. He realized, indeed, something was wrong – the house was gone! Spurring Black Magic he galloped up the drive to the charred ruins of what once had been the pride of the Scarburg family.

  “Dismounting, the children and I ran to greet him. He was astonished.”

  “What...what has happened?” He asked.

  “My father and mother, Granny and Uncle Willie are dead! I said.

  “I told him about a month ago an Indian raiding party came through wanting food. Granny Scarburg met them in the front yard, but after a heated conversation with them, something she said apparently upset them. It may have been the fact that she was Cherokee, and those Indians were Shawnee. Neither tribe had love for the other. As Granny turned to walk back to the house one of the warriors pulled an arrow from his quiver, placed it in his bow and swiftly released the deadly projectile toward her.

  “The sharp-tipped, arrow struck Granny in her back. My father and mother ran to her defense, but they were too late Granny had been killed, and the Indians then killed my father and mother also.

  “The Indians went on a rampage, storming into the main house, grabbing what they could and smashing the rest. They set the house ablaze, mounted their ponies and rode off. Fortunately, they did not hurt any more of the family. The only other death was to Scarlett’s overseer, a trusted black man we called Uncle Willie. While trying to guard the doorway to prevent the marauding band from entering the main house, the leader of the Indian warparty killed him also.”

  She tells the two girls how Robert was gone to the Indian War only three months when he came riding home – a hero. He admits to Malinda that he had never fired a shot at any Indian. He said he saw a few, but they were friendly, and they were only interested in trading. At one time he had a marauding Indian in the sights of his rifle, but thought this savage was just another man. A man just like himself with perhaps a family too, he could not do him any harm. He let him escape unharmed. He said later it was discovered the Indian was, in fact, a scout for the Americans and was of vital importance to the Army. Your father was given a medal for exercising judgment rather than merely exacting revenge on the scout. He said it was one of the few times a soldier was given a medal for not killing an enemy combatant.

  Malinda explained she had saved only a few things from the main house before it was entirely consumed by the fire.

  The only thing Robert asked about was the Bible, “The Bible! Did you save Father’s Bible,” your father kept asking?

  “It’s strange – your father was never a deeply religious man, but it seemed he valued that Bible more than anything he owned. She continued, “Sometimes late at night I would see him thumbing through its old pages – not reading you understand, searching as if he were looking for something.”

  Malinda continued with her story. She told the girls that their father attempted to rebuild Scarlett, but he was never able to retur
n it to its former splendor. After returning from the Indian Wars, as Malinda said before, their father was not happy living at Scarlett. He yearned to get rid of the ‘farm’ and find someplace where the stench of slavery had not permeated, and the memories of the past could be forgotten.

  In 1850, he got his wish; the Congress of the United States passed an Act granting unsettled land in Alabama to the Indian War veterans. The amount of land granted was eighty acres. Eighty acres weren’t much, but it would belong to him. Scarlett was ‘his,’ it had been willed to him, but he wanted something he could truly call his own. He wanted to be a pioneer just like his forefather had been before him. He was the son of a plantation owner, educated in the finest schools back east, but he had always stood in his family’s shadow. Now he hungered to build his own reputation from the ground up.

  In the spring of 1852, he went to the county courthouse to apply for his allotment of eighty acres of bounty land in Alabama. While there, he discovered Congress had passed another Act granting the veterans an additional eighty acres of land. Now he could obtain one hundred and sixty acres or one-quarter of a section. The land allotments were granted to him; and within two months he had given a Power of Attorney and turned over the running of Scarlett to his brother Isaac. He always believed the plantation should have been divided equally between himself and his brother; however, he was hesitant to give Scarlett to Isaac outright since he was afraid our pilgrimage to Alabama might result in failure. We might have to return to Scarlett. He kept the property title to Scarlett, but allowed Isaac to live there. Scarlett and Scarburg Mill were Isaacs to run as he saw fit.”

  “Our wagons were loaded and ready to begin the long, arduous trip to Alabama.” She tells Mattie Ann and Lizzie the family left South Carolina on the 4th of July 1852 – Independence Day. ‘Yes,’ Robert thought, ‘Independence Day!’

  ““Three freed slaves wanted to go with us. Sary, as you girls know is a roly-poly, no nonsense, kick butt and take names type black woman who is practically a member of our family definitely wanted to come with us. No girls I take that back, she IS a member of our family. She was with me for the births of all you children. During your births, I would shut my eyes and see her beautiful, black face with her red kerchief tied about her head holding my hand saying, ‘Hold on there honeychild, it’s all be over in jest a minute.’ She told me if more children were to come she was going to be right with me, too. Sary was married to Uncle Jed.”

  She explains how Jed inherited the honorary name Uncle Jed after he took over the day-to-day operations of Scarlett following the death of Willie – he and his son Jefferson were coming to Alabama too. Jed and Sary’s only daughter Sarah had died a year earlier from the fever. Nathaniel, Jed and Sary’s older son, had moved his wife Elsa and ten-year-old son Nate Junior to a farm in North Carolina. Nate was conscripted by a scouting party of Yankee soldiers and put to work performing labor duty with the Union Army. She said she had heard that Nate’s wife and son had been killed in a battle that had taken place on their farm, so Jed and Sary figured nothing was left for them in South Carolina. They too would begin a new life in Alabama. Uncle Dave and Ora Lee were appointed as overseers after we left.

  “Where was me and Lizzie Mama?”

  “Well, child, you two would not be born until we got settled in Alabama, and yes, Sary was here with me too. Just like she promised, and thank God she still is.

  “I remember the morning we left Scarlett. I was happy and sad at the same time. I wish you could have seen us, Father driving one wagon, Jefferson another and Uncle Jed bringing up the rear. I can still hear Father: ‘‘All right, come on everyone get on the wagons. Let me count off you children, Luke, Matthew, Margaret, William, Isaac, Stephen Ingram, and there you are Tom Henry. That is all the children Mother, let’s get going to our new home in Alabama.’.’

  “Father was almost correct, but that wasn’t all of my children. It had slipped his mind about sister Cecelia June, my oldest by birth had already married Lester Smith in the summer of ‘49. Cecelia and Lester were staying in South Carolina. Then there was my darling little boy Paul - I walked over to the cemetery out under the trees close to the big house; I wanted to say good-bye. He was my second; he had died a long time before you two came along. I just had to say good-bye one last time.

  “Robert had estimated the journey to take about five or six weeks. The first couple of days went by without anything happening out of the ordinary; on the third day, we were looking for a place to pitch camp for the night. It was getting close to sundown when we happened upon a cabin. The folks came out and greeted us; we talked, and they wanted us to stay the night with them. They would not take no for an answer. The woman of the cabin even invited Uncle Jed, Sary and Jefferson to stay. Back in those days it wasn’t customary for white folks to ask black folks into their houses. The people in the house welcomed us all but said they were embarrassed that all they had for supper and breakfast was some bacon and cornpone. We gave the family a large, cured ham, some homemade molasses, coffee, and flour. You both should have seen the smile on their faces; it had been a while since they had eaten so well.

  “The night went well as did breakfast the next morning. Once we left the cabin and began traveling down the road, your brother William was wiggling and squirming, so was Isaac. Margaret said something was crawling on her. Stephen Ingram yelled he was being bitten by something sneaking around in his britches too. We were close to a mountain stream, and Robert stopped the wagons.

  “He got down from the wagon and declared, ‘Everyone out! Take off all your clothes, grab a couple bars of that lye soap and jump in the creek and scrub all over, rub hard. Boys go downstream, girls you go a bit upstream. I’ll build a fire. Mother you boil everyone’s clothes!’”

  “What was goin’ on Mama? Why did Father want them to take a bath and boil their clothes?”

  “Bedbugs child – we were covered in bedbugs we had gotten from those folks in the cabin. They were fine folks, but they didn’t realize they weren’t living there alone.” Malinda said grinning.

  Malinda returned to the story of their trip from South Carolina. Mattie Ann was holding onto every word, and hearing the word ‘bugs’ even Lizzie was beginning to listen. After a week or so, Malinda said, they were in the mountains of northern Georgia. One day, suddenly, two men on horseback leaped from the side of the road into the path of their wagons. Both men had bandanas over their faces, wore large, black sloth hats and brandished pistols. One fired his pistol into the air.

  The closest bandit yelled, “Give us yer money! All of it or we’s goin’ to kilt you.”

  She explained how Robert had figured the bandits would kill them regardless whether he gave them their money or not, but he wasn’t about to give them anything.

  “All right don’t shoot anymore,” Father said, “the money is right here in this box under the seat. I’ll get it for you. Bending over as if to retrieve their treasures, unknown to the two robbers, Robert,” she said, “had a .44 caliber Colt revolver stashed in the box for just such an emergency. It was loaded and ready to fire.”

  She continued her story, “He quickly reached inside the box, withdrew the .44 and without a blink of an eye fired two rounds. Both struck their mark; the two gunmen fell from their saddles to the ground with a sickening thud.”

  She explained Robert was stepping down from the wagon to check on the two assailants when from the back of the wagon one of the children yelled, “Father, Father! Margaret is hurt!” It quickly became apparent that the shot the robber fired was not in the air but at the wagon. The robber did not intend to shoot anyone; however, the lone bullet struck Margaret. No one noticed she was shot. She simply lay against the sideboard of the wagon as if asleep.

  “Robert picked her up and placed her on a quilt on the side of the road; however, nothing could be done she had died instantly when the bullet hit her. We buried her a short piece from the trail, on a slight hill, under an oak tree. We believed
she would have liked that. Father used the big, old family Bible and read a scripture – I will never forget it:

  “Then we, which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” (1 Thess 4:17)

  “Uncle Jed found a flat rock and carved a headstone. We wrapped her in a swatch of canvas Robert cut from the wagon. I buried her in her favorite dress. The pink one with the flowers embroidered on the collar. Robert wrote the date of Margaret’s death in the margin of the Bible, July 25, 1852, right next to that passage in 1st Thessalonians. It had been twenty-one years to the day that Robert and I married. Since that day eleven years ago Robert and I have never celebrated another wedding anniversary, the joy of our wedding day is overshadowed by the painful memory of our beautiful Margaret’s death. After the burial Sary led the whole family in singing Amazing Grace; there wasn’t a dry eye among us.

  “We left that awful place and continued on to our farm outside Albertville to this place we now know as Rock Springs. The place Margaret would have thought was so beautiful overlooking the clear, cool waters of Hog Creek. That was over eleven years ago, but it seems as only yesterday.”

  “Mama how old was Margaret?”

  “Child, I try not to think about that day, but to answer your question: she was twelve,” she said, staring, but not seeing, and trying unsuccessfully to choke back the tears. Dabbing her eye with her handkerchief, she continues, “If she had lived she would be almost twenty-four now – probably married with children of her own.”

  “But Mama isn’t that her grave out yonder by the red oak tree.”

  “Yes it is child.” Through the tears, Malinda explained they arrived at this place in Alabama a few weeks later. Once they had a tent put up and water to drink Robert could not sleep at night. The morning of the third day of arrival at Rock Springs, he ate breakfast and announced he was going to return to that spot by the road, and God willing he was going to bring his little girl home. He hitched the mules to the wagon, threw together a few vittles and a shovel, stepped on the hub of the wheel and slipped onto the wagon seat.

  “Didn’t you try to stop him Mama?”

  “No, my darling, there are times a man has to do what he thinks he has to do, and I knew this was one of those times. I kissed him good-bye and thought I would never see him again.”

  Malinda went on to explain as Robert was hitting the wagon seat from the left side Uncle Jed had plopped down on the seat from the right side. Robert looked at Jed and asked him to stay with the family he would take care of this. Uncle Jed said to Robert, “Mister Robert, youse has done told me a many a time what I can and can’t do, but this here time I ain’t listenin.’ Put them reins to them mules flanks and let’s get goin.’ I’m comin’, and I ain’t takin’ no fer an answer.”

  “Did they go Mama?”

  “Darling, not only did Robert and Uncle Jed go back to that terrible place where the robbers killed my sweet little Margaret, they brought her body and the engraved headstone back here in the wagon. Robert and Uncle Jed built her a fine wooden coffin, and we went out to that old oak and gave her a real proper burial. Father again took his big old family Bible and read:

  “When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1Cor 15:54-57)

  “And as we had done before, we all sang the old spiritual ‘Amazing Grace.’ When we finished singing Robert shut the Bible and turning to walk back to the tent, said to no one in particular, ‘Now daughter you can finally rest, you are buried here with your family. You are no longer alone.”