No Good Like It Is

by McKendree R Long III

Chapter Eleven

  Stineman was an accomplished seamster. He explained that much of his business in Savannah had been furniture building and repair. He expertly stitched Dobey’s lip and face, while Melton kept putting packed snow on the broken nose, and pouring whiskey in Dobey’s cup.

  “Pour some of this on my eyelid, once I get my eye shut tight,” muttered Dobey.

  “Do what?” Intent on watching the stitching, Melton seemed vexed by the order.

  “That whack on the face may have deranged him somewhat,” offered Trooper Vinson.

  “I don’t rule that out,” said Dobey, “but the whiskey will kill any germs that might have gotten in those cuts.”

  Trooper Robertson piped up. “Can you get sickness from a dead man, Lieutenant? From his blood, I mean?”

  Everyone stopped and stared at Robertson. “Me and Vinnie got blood all over us, putting young Caskey in the wagon. Maybe we had ought to drink some of that whiskey. Sir.”

  “Nice try. You and Vinson get all them buffalo hides there loaded on top of Caskey. Count ‘em,” Melton said. “We got to pay this man for ‘em.”

  “I told you there was twenty-three,” Stineman said, looking up from his sewing.

  “Count ‘em twice.”

  Dobey decided that there was no rush to get the dead boy back to his father. “This cold will keep him from spoiling. Send Vinson and Robertson back down the trail to bring Jones and his men in tonight. We’ll need ‘em to help with the wagon and horses.” Dobey touched the stitches over his eye, and winced, “First thing in the morning, we’ll move camp to the kill site, finish skinning whatever they shot, then head home. Take some meat. It’ll keep too.”

  Melton dispatched the two unhappily sober troopers. “Keep the river on your right side, and stay alert. ‘Specially after you cross that second creek.”

  “For hostiles, Corporal?”

  “No, Jesus, Vinnie, ain’t no sane hostiles gonna be out on a night like this. Just be careful you don’t startle Jones and the others. Might think you’re hostiles. Make some noise after that creek.” Melton hesitated. “Might be I could convince the Lieutenant to let everybody have a little nip afore we put you girls to bed. If you ain’t too slow getting back here.”

  Melton turned back in time to hear the end of Stineman’s plan for dividing the loot.

  “… and since these men have no survivors that we know of, the rule of ‘habeas corpus’ applies. We split their money, and possessions.”

  “‘Habeas corpus’? What money?” Melton perked up.

  “‘Habeas corpus’ means, ‘We have their corpses.’ French, I think,” Stineman said, with some arrogance.

  “Not exactly,” mumbled Dobey, his head splitting with pain.

  “ Anyhow, they got some money which I just paid them.” Stineman laid out a quick plan for cheating Major Caskey and the army while enriching himself, Dobey, and Melton. Dobey stared at him, dumbfounded. He’d heard of the graft among tradesman dealing with the military, but Major Caskey didn’t tolerate it, and so this was his first exposure. He turned to Melton, who was crunching the numbers and waiting for Dobey’s reaction.

  “It’s twenty dollars for saddle-broke horses, sir. Ain’t half of them saddle-broke. Maybe none. Them’s unshod Indian ponies, probably stolen. We ought not to pay over sixteen for ‘em.”

  “Why, those lying bastards. They assured me that all twenty were broken to the saddle. I paid, uh, fifteen for them.” Stineman’s confidence seemed to be slipping away.

  Melton smiled. “All twenty of ‘em? I counted twenty-seven.”

  “Oh. I mean, uh, ohh!”

  The ‘dead’ Mexican, prostrate beside Stineman, ended the discussion by shouting, “Puta!” He sat up and jammed his knife up between Stineman’s legs.

  Dobey, sitting at a table and fiddling with the dead deserter’s sawed-off Navy Colt, instinctively shot the Mexican, knocking him flat. Really dead this time, he was unable to withdraw his knife.

  The trader stumbled back several steps, sat down on the protruding knife, and fainted. Fainting was the only truly fortunate thing to happen to him on that day, which had started so well. He bled out in three minutes, without regaining consciousness. Painlessly, as far as anyone knew.

  ***

  Melton searched the four dead men, and kept their boots and weapons and money, before dragging them outside into the snow.

  “Rest of their clothes was too filthy. And bloody.” He began dividing the money. “We’ll have the boys bury them in the morning, if the ground ain’t frozen. If it is, we’ll tote ‘em off a half mile and leave ‘em in a gully. They’s all four thieves, anyhow.”

  Melton poured Dobey some whiskey. “I sent word I’d let the boys have a taste of this when they get in here.”

  “You giving away a dead man’s liquor?”

  “Ain’t his no more, Lieutenant. Habeas corpus.” Melton poured himself some and sat down. “You know my time’s up, less than a month?”

  “I heard it was soon.”

  “Here’s what I’m thinking. There’s almost four hundred dollars here. We’ll split that, for starts. Then there’s this place, all the stuff in it.”

  “Inventory.”

  “Yessir. Inventory, and them twenty-seven ponies, and Stineman’s wagon and mules. Somebody’s got to run this place. I want to try it.”

  “You? But …”

  “Yessir. Hear me out. I’ll stay here and run it for now. You go tell the major that I want to finish my time here. Tell him I worked out a deal with Stineman.”

  “Corporal Melton, I won’t lie to Major Caskey.”

  “Sir, I’ll go put a silver dollar in that dead sumbitch’s pants right now. Just tell the major I bought him out.” When Dobey hesitated, Melton pushed on. “If the major says I got to come in, I will, but I really want to try this. Being a storekeeper, I mean.”

  “Hell, Jimmy, by the time we get back and tell him, and he sends somebody back out here to get you, your time’s up anyhow.”

  Melton smiled. “Yessir. Now, on this other stuff: we’re halves on it all. You pay me sixteen dollar a head for half the ponies, with the major’s money, and pay yourself for the other half. You take the odd one. Same deal for the buffalo hides.”

  “You take the odd one.” Dobey was starting to feel generous.

  “Yessir. Now on the rest of it, I need to buy you out, ‘less you’re gonna resign and come run it with me. Can you?”

  Dobey shook his head. “Don’t know as I’d want to, but they wouldn’t release me for that, anyhow. And I’ve got years still to go on my hitch.”

  “All right. Well, I guess the inventory was about two hundred, so I owe you another hundred for that. That fair?”

  Dobey nodded, astounded by his sudden wealth. “I’d like to keep this cut-down Colt and shoulder holster.”

  “Yessir. You done right well with that. And I’d like to wait a while to pay you that last hundred, see how things go here. Maybe in the spring?”

  “Of course, Jimmy. I wouldn’t have thought of any of this. Of course. What about your things?”

  “You better take all that back with you. Major Caskey will have to account for it. Yessir. Take it. Horse, guns, sword, saddle and harness. Lemme keep my uniform, though. Tell the major to take it from my last month’s pay. Say I didn’t have nothing fit to wear.”

  Dobey smiled. “Well, you can afford it now. But you keep your horse. I’ll give the major the odd one.”

  “And we better go search young Caskey’s body. You can take whatever he has back to his daddy. We don’t do that, my boys’ll have it all ‘fore daybreak. And you ought to wear his sling and carbine for the trip home. Ain’t no good to him. Hang his pistol and gunbelt on your pommel, too.”

  Tom Caskey’s pockets were empty. They removed his weapons, and were starting to place the hides back on top of his body, when he murmured, “Thanks. I’m cold.”

  ***

  Kerrey’s bullet had hit Tom Caskey’s carbine ba
rrel, knocking it into his forehead. Slowed considerably, somewhat flattened, it had then passed through his carbine sling and thumped him soundly in the chest, over the heart. It had barely broken the skin, but gave him an egg-sized bruise. It was now in his pocket, along with his once-missing stash of three dollars and seventy-five cents, pocketknife, and a silver comb.

  “The double-whack, head and chest, knocked his little butt out cold,” explained Vinson, to the rest of his squad around the fire. “All that blood came from his forehead. I swear he won’t breathing when we put him in the wagon.”

  “God’s pure truth,” added Robertson. “We’d never of tooken his stuff, had we knowed he won’t finished.”

  “You gave it back fast enough, once you seen him.”

  “That I did, Shaun Patrick. My own heart stopped for a moment,” Robertson shuddered, as the others laughed. “He stood to hug me, but I thought it was his ghost coming after my thieving ass.”

  “Aye,” said Patrick, turning to the others. “Me own brother Brian was there and seen it, so he did. Old Vic here and Vinnie pulled out them treasures so fast, they dropped ‘em all. And Vic says, ‘We wasn’t gonna keep it.’” Patrick paused, choking with laughter. “What was you gonna do, Vic, give it to the poor?”

  ***

  In the morning, they clinked and clattered away. Dobey looked back, and Melton saluted, then waved. The vision would stick with Dobey for some time: the cabin, framed by snow-covered evergreens; Jimmy’s horse and cow snorting white vapor in the cold; the mist of light snow falling while Jimmy stood in the open doorway, the fireplace bright behind him. Dobey waved back, and Melton stepped inside and closed the door. Dobey wondered if he’d ever see him again.

  He’d never felt so lonely.

  Chapter Twelve

  The second of June, 1861, was a typical glorious spring day for the region, which meant unpredictable. It had snowed ten days earlier. It was now raining hard, with gusting winds. And it was still a little cold.

  Major Caskey let Dobey keep his pants and boots, and let him buy his gloves and cape and hat. He bought a horse and saddle in Fort Gibson. That little storekeeper’s Colt was under his left arm, and a brand new Colt Navy hung on his pommel.

  Black Bob Morrison had resigned too, and left the day before for Georgia. A cousin back there, a politician, had promised him a regiment. Dobey was heading for Texas with no such expectations, no prospects whatsoever.

  Major Caskey decided to send McDowell’s old section with Dobey to Vamoosa. McDowell was troop sergeant now, replacing Melton, and Corporal Jeff Jones was now the section leader. Their mission, supposedly, was to buy as many horses as Melton had, and to try to talk him into re-enlisting.

  Of course their real mission was to escort Dobey there, on his way to Texas. Caskey was a little emotional. “Probably get lost, by yourself. Dumb-assed Rebel. Keep your head down. Maybe see you again, when this is over, a year or so. Tell Melton thanks for saving my boy. Take you further, but you bastards are attacking us already.”

  Dobey tried to thank him, but couldn’t speak.

  And now they rode, south and west, miserable. Dobey’s replacement, one Lieutenant Pendleton, was nominally in charge.

  ***

  The rain slowed to a drizzle as they rode up to the station. Dobey started to hail, but Melton stepped into the doorway, covering them with a sawed-off ten gauge double. “State your business. And if it’s looking for deserters, you can just ride on.”

  “Jesus, Corporal, you got a beard. You gonna take on twenty men?” Jones kept one hand on his pommel, and lifted his hat.

  “Hell, that you, Jones? Losing some hair, ain’t you?”

  “Look who I brung you.” Jones nodded at Dobey.

  Melton squinted. Dobey had grown a mustache over the winter. “Lieutenant?”

  “Not no more, he ain’t.” Jones’ head bobbed as he grinned. “Tole us just to call him ‘Dobey’ now. Din’t you, Lieutenant?”

  Inside, two nervous civilians sat by the fireplace, backs to the wall, carbines over their laps.

  Melton started to pour drinks for Dobey, Jones and Pendleton. “Can we do this, sir?” Pendleton addressed Dobey.

  Dobey smiled. “You’re in charge. If it were me, I’d say yes.”

  “You listen to him, Lieutenant Pinkleton. Ol’ Dobey will steer you right. Yes sir.” Jones took a drink, glared back at the civilians, and whispered to Melton, “They’s just like two rabbits, ready to bolt. Deserters, you think?”

  “If they is, it ain’t no business of yours in my store. See, I told them they was safe here. Which means they’s safer than you, as I got no agreement with you here, whatsoever.”

  “Hell, them ladies don’t faze me none. I ain’t scared of you, Melton, but we ain’t got no mission as to deserters. Has we, Lieutenant Pinkelton?”

  “It’s Pendleton, Corporal Jones. I’ve told you that over and over again. And I don’t know the protocol here.” He was more nervous than the civilians.

  “You’re here to buy horses. Have a friendly drink on a cool day, and buy horses,” Dobey said calmly. “And then ride back, soon as you can, before a big Texas volunteer cavalry unit takes you prisoner.”

  Pendleton nodded, and licked his lips.

  “And there ain’t no horses for you, Lieutenant. Lieutenant Walls sent me a letter, and I just been waiting for him to get here. We’re taking the horses and everything I can pack into that wagon, and we’re heading for Texas, with our two new friends over there. Closing the store.” Melton poured another round.

  ***

  They crossed the Canadian at dawn, and found Jeff Jones waiting a half-mile south.

  “Got ol’ Lieutenant Pinky drunk as a skunk. Some of the boys, too. They won’t be fit to ride for a half a day, no how. Damn girls.” He handed Sharps carbines to Melton and Dobey. “Doubt they’d chase us, even was they sober.”

  Dobey and Melton stared at the guns.

  “I seen y’all was gonna pack them old Hall carbines. These’ll be some better. I borrowed them from the heavy sleepers. Nice new Navy Colt from Miss Pinky, too.” He patted the addition to his own arsenal. “Bunch of ammo for them Sharps on Pinky’s horse, there in them trees.”

  Melton laughed, and Dobey said, “Thank you. We’ll pay you for them. Fifteen dollars apiece?” Melton had paid him the hundred he’d owed for ‘inventory’ and so Dobey was flush. He handed Jones six five-dollar gold coins. “And how is Pinky, ah, Pendleton to get back to Fort Gibson? Walk?”

  “I ‘spect he’ll ride with his new friend, Private Bishop. I think I heard Bishop teaching Pinky the ways of the West, out in the bushes last night.”

  ***

  Melton’s ‘new friends,’ Harvey and McConegly, had deserted from Fort Leavenworth two weeks earlier. They were well mounted and equipped, compliments of the U.S. Army, with Colt revolving carbines, five shooters, .56 caliber, and two Remington revolvers each.

  Harvey’s family had written that a Colonel Terry was raising a regiment of cavalry back home, to be called the Rangers. In fact, many of the men were former Texas Rangers, the state constabulary that policed the Texas frontier. They had a reputation for being hard, independent fighters.

  Melton plied the two men with food and drink to wait and take him and Dobey with them. While he waited, Melton sawed off two shotguns, for himself and Dobey, and put shoulder straps on them. These street sweepers now hung off their pommels.

  Colonel Ben Terry would be happy to see them. But it was a long, long ride to Houston. And it would be a long, long time before they passed near Vamoosa again.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Can you believe how we complained about that ride to Houston?” Lieutenant Harvey stared out the window, as the train finally pulled into Bowling Green, Kentucky.

  “Let me see. Do you mean that long, safe, uneventful one—the one with no Indians, nice people willing to feed us, no real schedule—is that the one?” First Sergeant McConegly had an innocent, sardonic sense of humo
r. “Five short delightful months ago?”

  “Seems like five years,” put in Dobey.

  “Could ‘a just come straight here from Vamoosa,” said Corporal Melton. “Would ‘a been a shorter ride. Could ‘a spent the summer drinking Kentucky whiskey. It’s famous good, I hear.”

  Lieutenant Harvey was morose. “Vamoosa? Me and Mac had rid three hundred miles from Leavenworth before we got to your damn little store in Vamoosa, then three hundred on to Houston, at least. Then more than three hundred by train and wading to New Orleans, and then what? Another seven hundred miles, eating train smoke, up to here? Ain’t we sort of across the river from where we started?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “All right, Mister West Point know-it-all. Don’t forget you’s just a dumb-ass private here, while I have been voted a officer and a gentleman.” Harvey finally grinned.

  Dobey smiled back. Harvey and McConegly were from Fort Bend County, where the Eighth Texas Volunteer Cavalry Regiment was formed. As former regular cavalry non-coms, they were given leadership positions as soon as they got to Houston.

  Dobey, Melton, and Jones, however, were just outsiders who’d selected a fine unit to join. Their years of service counted for naught, so far. Melton was a corporal only because he beat the hell out of the scoundrel originally put in charge of his section, and that fine fellow deserted.

  The beating was justified and, witnessed by the whole section, kept anyone from wanting to testify against Melton. Nor did they want to be in charge of him, so First Sergeant McConegly happily gave him the section. Melton also had a small line of credit, since he’d brought in some extra horses, guns, and ammo.

  Dobey’s training in “that Yankee school in New York,” actually made him suspect in the ranks, and resented among some of the non-regular officers. Harvey and McConegly spent time with him on the trail, though, and heard about him from Melton and Jones; as a result, certain higher-ups were watching him.

  In the meantime, he was given a job in ‘C’ Company, Eighth Texas, that he was perfectly suited for. He was educated, organized, intelligent, brave, fast on his feet, a scarred veteran, tough, disciplined, witty, thoughtful and energetic. He was thoroughly cognizant of cavalry, infantry, and artillery tactics, knew how to employ sappers to design and destroy fortifications, and knew the written thoughts of all the great military leaders of history. He was made company clerk. Hell, he could write.