‘We need a guide to tell us the way to Lawrence,’ snapped the colonel, banging a fist on the pommel of his saddle. ‘Night’s on top of us and I want to attack by the moon while the sons of bitches are sleeping.’
‘Send in a few men and get someone out,’ suggested Frank James.
‘Yeah. That way they won’t know how many of us there are,’ added Younger.
‘Good.’ Quantrill nodded. ‘Cole, take a half dozen of your men and do that. Bring me someone back who can help.’ Staring at Herne. ‘Not a lack-brain like the last one.’
Cole picked Frank, Whitey, Jed and two others to ride on with him, spurring their horses forward across the undulating grassland, until they saw the lights of the farm.
‘Looks like they’re expectin’ trouble,’ commented one of the other Raiders.
‘Live in east Kansas and you get to live with trouble ridin’ hard on your shoulders,’ said Frank James.
‘I never seen nothin’ like that since we was ridin’ with the Pony Express,’ added Whitey Coburn, staring down at the cleared land around the building, and the covered path between house and barns. The heavily shuttered windows with slits for rifles.
‘How’re we goin’ to stop them pickin’ us out of the saddles before we get close?’ asked Cole Younger.
‘One man might do it,’ replied Jed. ‘I’ll go on in alone and try and talk one of them into coming with me.’
‘You know Quantrill will likely kill him?’ said Whitey, his voice low so that others wouldn’t hear.
Jed nodded. ‘Sure. Better one than all.’
Cole Younger hissed through his teeth. ‘Don’t feel partial to goin’ down there under fire. I guess you just got yourself elected, Jed.’
The warning shot came when Herne was still better than two hundred paces off, kicking up dust and whining splinters of stone from fifty yards ahead of him. He held both hands over his head and walked the horse forwards using heels and thighs to keep it moving.
The second shot was a whole lot closer. Sending the stallion skittering sideways, forcing him to grab at the reins. He saw the powder smoke drifting from one of the shutters.
‘Keep movin’, pilgrim!’ shouted a voice.
‘I need to talk to you!’ Herne shouted back.
‘We don’t need to talk to nobody, pilgrim! Just ride on or we’ll pick you out of the saddle clean as a whistle!’
‘You’ll all be dead before sundown if’n you don’t let me ride in!’
There was no answer. Nor were there any more bullets hissing towards him. The weapon probably a Sharps buffalo gun, Herne guessed.
‘Can I come along?’
‘Sure. Better be a good story, son, else you don’t get to ride away.’
Herne glanced over his shoulder, making out the dim shapes of the others, lurking on the edges of a clump of scrubby trees. Then he moved on closer to the house.
‘That’s about close enough, pilgrim. I can hear you good from there!’
‘I’d like it face to face. If’n you got women and children in there if s better they don’t hear all of this.’
A long pause. He figured they were talking over who he might be and what the threat could be that might endanger them. Finally he heard the rattling of heavy bolts and the front door creaked open a few inches.
‘Step down. Keep your hands clear of that hardware you’re sportin’.’
‘I guess I don’t look a damned fool. So don’t treat me like one. Come on out. We don’t have a whole lot of time for this foolishness.’
Finally a man appeared in the dark opening, his face ruddy in the setting sun. He was carrying a Sharps rifle cocked in his hands. Looking cautiously around him he walked across the few yards to stand by Herne’s horse.
‘You’re covered by six guns, son. So take it easy and don’t move suddenly.’
‘You the man hereabouts?’
‘My homestead, boy. My wife’s there. Three sons. Couple of hands too.’
Herne was curious. The man looked forty years of age, and he’d managed to survive in this region when nearly everyone else had gone under or moved to the townships where there was more of a chance of living.
‘You manage to hold out here?’
He nodded. “Sure did. Take a mighty strong force to shift me and they’d take losses. I figure nobody in his right mind’s goin’ to bother for what he can get out of us. But you didn’t come to jaw, did you, son?’
Jed shook his head. ‘Guess not. Fact is, time’s about run out for you, mister—?’
The Sharps lifted and pointed directly at his face. ‘Name’s Martin. William Martin. You better speak fast and dear.’
‘You see me. Back there in the trees you see another half dozen.’
‘Sure. That don’t frighten me none.’
‘Over that hill there’s another four hundred and fifty men.’
‘What?’
Even in the warm light of the sun Herne saw the change in the color of the man’s face. From angry red to frightened white.
‘I’m with Quantrill.’
‘Oh, no! Jesus Christ, son, what can he want with me? I’m nothin’ to him. No trouble. Nothin’ at all. What can he want with me?’
From inside the cabin Jed heard the voice of a woman, sounding worried. ‘Bill! What’s the boy want? Is it trouble?’
The man turned round and called back. ‘No. Nothin’ at all, Ma. Keep that door shut. I’ll be in shortly.’
‘You won’t, Bill,’ said Herne, quietly. ‘You’re to come with me and help us.’
‘Help you!’
‘Sure. You play poker, Bill?’
‘Some. What that’s to do with Bloody Quantrill wantin’ me?’
‘You’re sitting there with a good hand, Bill. Say it’s about three little ladies with an ace for a kicker.’
‘What?’
‘Easy, Bill. And you see the fellow across the table showin’ three kings with maybe more hidden. Now if you done your best and you know it’s not good enough, then what is there to do but fold up easy.’
The sun was sinking fast and the shadows from the hills had spread to the cabin, making it hard for Jed to see the other man’s face.
‘What does he want?’
‘Guide to Lawrence is all.’
‘My God! Quantrill’s goin’ to destroy Lawrence for what Jim Lane and the others done years back! And he wants me to help him. No chance of that, son. And you go tell him that from me.’
Jed had lost patience with the man’s stubborn foolishness and pride.
He leaned out of the saddle and Martin recoiled from the anger in the young boy’s face.
‘That is enough! You damned fool! You think Quantrill cares as much for you as a snake he’d step on? You come with me peaceable and maybe you live. Your folks all get to live, that’s for certain. You refuse and you’ll live long enough to wish for death, seein’ your children spitted on bayonets and your wife staked out and raped by man after man until her blood’s thick in the dirt!!’
‘But—’
‘No damned “buts”. Martin! You Just go get your horse and come with me. Right now! And I mean now and not in a half hour!’
Jed tugged on the reins, making his horse whiney in protest, walking it slowly away from the cabin, not bothering to look back over his shoulder. Not oven caring whether the man came or not. If he did it would be easier and quicker. If he didn’t then that wouldn’t much matter either.
He’d nearly reached the shelter of the trees where the others were waiting when he heard hoofbeats following him. Martin reined in alongside of him, breathing heavily with the rush of leaving.
‘You sure Quantrill won’t hurt me none?’
‘Nothin’s sure, Mr. Martin. Not a damned thing in life,’
“But you said that—’
‘I said that you and all your kin would die ifn you didn’t come with me.’
They rode on in silence, the rest of the Raiders falling in behind them. None of them spoke a
word until they reached the far side of the hill where Quantrill and the remainder of the column were waiting.
Night wrapped them in its cloak, and they rode slowly on towards Lawrence, guided by William Martin. He had also told them that he’d heard a large number of men riding east and south the previous night. Quantrill smiled thinly at that, guessing that this must be the band of Jayhawkers leaving Lawrence undefended. And their leader Jim Lane along with his family.
‘There it is,’ said Martin, close to midnight, after a winding ride along unmarked trails through deep gullies, bringing them to Lawrence by a back route that kept them totally unobserved.
From the top of the rise they could look down on the scattered lights of the township, less than a mile away. Quantrill smiled again and passed the word for the men to rest. That they would attack in two hours.
Having guided them safely to their destination William Martin was rewarded by having his throat slit and being pushed into a drainage ditch to bleed to death.
Two days later a party of Jayhawkers, suspecting that he had guided the Raiders, attacked his homestead and butchered every living soul there.
Chapter Thirteen
‘Jim Lane is mine!’
Quantrill stood up in the stirrups, the silvery light of the moon gleaming off the drawn saber in his right hand. The rest of the men were spread along the flank of the hill overlooking Lawrence, each with a weapon ready. Some favored a saber like their colonel, but most carried a pistol.
‘If any of you have scores to settle, then so be it! But Lane is mine and I will shoot down any man who kills him for me! That is all. No quarter... no quarter to any man there!! Ride fast and shoot true! Now go!!!’
There was a roar like distant thunder as the guerrillas saw the signal of the cutting blade and heard the command to attack.
Jed and Whitey were alongside each other in the centre of the column, with Frank James next in line and then Cole Younger, close to Quantrill. They began at a fast trot, sweeping down the gentle slope, a cloud of dust swirling about them and hiding their numbers.
Although they had been told to keep silence for as long as possible, there were close to five hundred men in that bloody wave of attackers, all with their nerves stretched taut with the excitement. Most with cocked pistols in their hands.
It was not surprising then that they had covered less than half of the distance towards the lights of the township before a finger slipped on a trigger and the first shot heralding the onslaught rang out.
Followed by a volley of shots as some of the younger and more excitable boys also fired off at the houses, despite the absurd range. Jed was close enough to Quantrill to hear him call out in anger to Cole Younger.
‘Blast them! If I find who shot first I will have him skinned alive!’
But it was too late for any regrets.
Too late for anything as the horses began to stretch out to a full gallop, the earth vibrating under the charge, every man beginning to yell with the excitement that coursed through the blood. Whooping and grinning at his neighbor with idiot pleasure. Herne felt the fire race through his body and yelled with the Test, waving the Tranter in his hand, barely restraining himself from shooting the pistol off wildly.
The moon hung overhead, its silver edges tinged with yellow, throwing the land into sharp relief. Over to the right Jed saw that some of the riders were having trouble with their horses, the animals taking control. There was a scream and one man went down, his cry almost drowning the sharp snap of his horse’s leg breaking. He brought down a half dozen more riders, the bodies tumbling and rolling among the flailing hooves.
But there was no time to check to help a fallen man. All the Raiders were galloping on hell for leather, spurring furiously so that their animal’s flanks ran with blood, its crimson turned stark black in the moonlight.
Then, suddenly, they were in among the first of the buildings, splitting off into smaller groups, the darkness broken by the flash of gunfire, clouds of powder-smoke beginning to drift about them.
From that moment on Jed Herne lost touch with his comrades, and the night and early morning became a series of frantic scenes, punctuated by screams and smoke and bloody death.
Early on he’d charged straight through Lawrence, firing at any man who showed himself, only checking his horse when the clean hills of the prairie appeared in front of him, with no more buildings. As he reined in he looked back at Lawrence, hearing the bedlam of screams and cries, and the crackle of hand-guns. If their information had been correct, then there, would be very few men left in the town and those that were there would have little connection with the Jayhawkers. It shouldn’t prove that difficult for Quantrill to have his vengeance on Jim Lane and also seize the Union gold that was supposed to be stored in the town.
Away to his right he caught a glimpse of a figure on a large farm horse, kicking it furiously in the ribs as he urged it on up the sloping hill away from Lawrence. Herne guessed that it must be someone who’d heard the first sounds of the attack and was grabbing a desperate chance to make it to safety, taking the first animal he could. It even occurred to Jed that it could be Jim Lane himself, and he turned his own mount ready to give chase,
‘Hold there!’
‘What?’
‘Jed, isn’t it?’
It was Quantrill himself, his hat blown from his head, his face already darkened by powder smoke, saber still waving in his right hand.
‘There—’ began Jed, starting to point towards the fleeing man with his Tranter, but Quantrill interrupted him with a shout
‘Back into the town, Jed, and pick off all you see. We’ll make these bastards pay our price for what they have done.’
‘But, colonel. There goes—’
The sleepy eyes were full open, a ring of white clearly visible around the dark pupil.
‘I don’t give a damn for one poor farmer. Let the son of a bitch go, Jed. We have bigger and fatter fish to catch and cook.’
‘It might be Lane, colonel,’ shouted Herne, but Quantrill was already spurring away back towards the town, where the first flickering light of a fire was showing red and mean and hungry.
Jed shrugged his broad shoulders and began to follow the colonel, letting the man, whoever he was, escape,
It wasn’t until two hours later, when the first bloody confusion had begun to abate, that Quantrill found out who the man on the ambling farm-horse had been. And he threw his sword to the dirt in blind rage when he was told that it had, indeed, been Jim Lane.
Woken by those first shouts and shots, his nerves always ready for an attack, Lane had leaped from a window of his house and taken the first mount he could find, kicking it on away from his house and family, wearing only his underclothes.
But it was a hollow victory for the Jayhawkers leader, as the guerrillas burned his house to the ground and his deserted wife and children paid an awful price for his escape.
The lust for revenge and killing grew amid the smoke and fire. It was quickly obvious to Jed that Quantrill’s story of the treasure of the Union Army being hidden in Lawrence was simply a lie to persuade his men to follow him on the raid. And discovering there was precious little gold or silver, the Raiders began a riot of savagery that had no equal during that long War.
There had been lists made of the Jayhawkers leaders, but in the first hour or so they were completely forgotten, and any man found alive was swiftly butchered. Fathers were dragged from their homes and shot to pieces under a hail of pistol fire, while wives and children looked on helpless.
But that was only the beginning.
The beginning of a night that would live forever in the memory of Jedediah Herne and would cause the name of Quantrill and his Raiders to be scorned forever in the minds of all right-thinking people.
And it was only just beginning.
Jed saw the first of the looters breaking in through the window of one of the stores. He cantered past, glancing up at the second floor curtains, looking for the flut
tering that would reveal someone hiding behind them ready to snipe at the attackers.
The leader of the looters was the man named Red, and he was stuffing money into the pockets of his long coat, laughing and calling out to the others. A bottle of whiskey stood by his feet, its neck broken off.
The store was on fire, with flames already licking up at the shingled roof. An elderly woman came staggering out of the broken door, her night-clothes streaming smoke behind her. She tried to claw at Red, either for help or out of hatred, but it made no difference. Without stopping pushing banknotes into his pocket he shoved her contemptuously in the chest with the flat of his other hand, back into the fire. Herne could hear her screaming as her hair flared into a torch of flames’ When she made a last, desperate attempt for life, Red drew his pistol and shot her through the chest, the impact of the thirty-six caliber bullet kicking her back into the blazing building.
She never came out again.
With the looting came the drinking.
And with the drinking, the killings grew worse.
Not just men.
Women and children.
Anyone.
Herne saw a woman running towards him, arms stretched out in a gesture of appeal. Wide-set brown eyes, opened so far that it seemed impossible for them to remain in their sockets.: The hem of her dress was burning, and her bare feet were blistered and scorched.
It was odd how images locked themselves into his memory.
The bare feet. The brown eyes. A small scar on the woman’s right cheek. Her hand reaching up to where he sat his horse, fingers brushing his leg, the mouth open to plead for help.
Then her body flying backwards as if it had been tugged on invisible strings, blood jetting from her throat where the bullet had taken her. Jed looked round and saw Frank James grinning at him, waving a smoking pistol
‘Just got her in timer Frank had yelled. ‘She’d have killed you.’
Then he vanished again, while Jed thought of the look in the eyes, and the cry for aid that was never uttered.
Carnage and horror.
Massacre! Page 11