“Never mind! I don’t want to hear about who you are, or where you come from, or where you’re going. Just get out of here.” Shad took up the pickax and slashed it into the ground near the rock where he had been working.
“Mister.” Davy spoke for the first time. “Whatcha gonna do with all them rocks?”
“I’m gonna build a wall, so people like you,” Shad kept working and pointed in the direction the Keeshaws left, “and them can’t get over it.”
“Around this whole place?” Davy’s gaze circled the area. “That’s gonna take a lot of rocks.”
“Shush, Davy.” Peg put her hand on the little boy’s shoulder. “Mister, we’re sorry Austin stole your chicken.”
“All right, you’re sorry. Now, git.”
“Come on, Peg,” Austin finally spoke. “I told you . . .”
“Mister, we thought . . .” Peg persisted, “. . . maybe if we did some chores . . . you might let us have some eggs.”
“I’m hungry,” Davy said.
“If you’re hungry, go back to Miss Stitch, or whatever her name is, because you’re not getting anything from me.” He dug the pickax into the earth again. “You’ve wasted enough of my time. I got work to do.”
Austin, Peg, and even Davy knew that it was hopeless. There was nothing they could say or do that would reach this man. He was as hard as the rocks he dug out of the ground and as cold and uncaring as the earth in which he dug. The man had made it clear that from him they would get nothing, not an egg to eat, nor even water to drink.
The man on the mule was right. The sign meant what it said: NO TRESPASSING. Not on his property. And there seemed to be another sign, unseen, but there around his body and soul that meant the same thing.
NO TRESPASSING
Private–Do Not Enter
BEWARE! DANGER!
And still, Peg seemed to notice something in his eyes, a look that reminded her of their father and the way he looked at his young children, a warmth and gentleness, but in this man buried like the rocks on his property, hidden by a sign that proclaimed NO TRESPASSING.
Further still, Peg noted somehow that his mouth was severe, but not fierce, his eyes cold but not cruel, his face more tragic than savage.
In their short span of living Peg, Austin, and Davy had suffered misfortune, tragedy. This man had lived much longer and from the look of him had been wracked and battered, pummeled by an avalanche of adversity, but stood alone wanting no one and nothing near him.
Austin took Peg’s hand, then Davy’s. He knew if he were to find food or help of any kind that day it would not be here, not from this man. Austin started to lead his brother and sister back toward the hill and the cave.
Shad Parker had succeeded in dislodging another sizable stone. He grasped it with both his hands and started to roll it over.
It was a terrifying noise, then noises. Frenzied, shrill, skirling, a shattering cacophony. It came from the chicken coop. But even the hogs from the nearby pen scurried and snorted.
The three children shuddered and stopped in their tracks, paralyzed at the sight and sounds. But Shad Parker was racing for the rock where his rifle rested. He grabbed up the Winchester and ran toward the attacker.
The cougar sprang out from the flutter of feathers and fowl, and as the chickens scrambled and screeched in the coop, the animal with a fat hen in his jaws vaulted over the fence and raced away with leaping, supple strides.
Shad Parker swung the Winchester to his shoulder and fired once, twice, three times.
The second and third shots found their mark. The cougar pitched, then dropped. It quivered as it lay until Shad fired again, then it lay motionless.
After the sound of the last shot and at the sight of the lifeless but still bleeding cougar with the mangled chicken just out of its gaping jaw, Davy began to tremble, then sob. He buried his head against Peg’s small belly. Her hands stroked the back of his neck and she swayed slightly in an attempt to soothe and reassure him.
“Don’t cry, Davy. It’s all right. It’s all over. Nothing going to hurt you. Davy . . .”
Shad Parker lowered the rifle. In St. Louis he had made the right choice picking the new Winchester ’66 as the weapon he would take to Texas. Until then he had favored the seven-shot Spencer. The Spencer was larger in caliber—.50 against the Winchester’s. 44—but it had a lower velocity and a shorter range. The rifle he now held in his hand was the first true Winchester, trim, easily carried, and accurate. And the Winchester held seventeen cartridges. This was the most cartridges Shad had spent except in target practice after he first bought the weapon. He doubted that the Spencer would have done this job.
Still carrying the rifle, Shad walked toward the chicken coop and stopped just outside the fence. Austin watched for a moment, then came up and stopped a short distance away from Shad’s right side. Peg and Davy followed.
“Damn,” said Shad as he surveyed the destruction. Half a dozen chickens lay dead, in addition to the one the cougar left with. At least Rebel was still alive, although less proud and arrogant than he had previously appeared. Shad turned and looked at the three children. Davy’s eyes were wet but he had stopped sobbing.
“You’re a good shot, mister,” Austin said.
Shad said nothing.
“Mister, you can’t eat all them chickens.” Austin pointed to the carnage. “We’ll clean up the place if you give us one.”
Without answering, Shad turned and walked toward the cabin. The three children watched as he opened the door and went inside, leaving the door open.
“What’s he gonna do?” Peg wondered.
“No tellin’.” Austin shrugged.
“Peg,” Davy said. “I’m scared. I think we ought to leave. Austin, let’s go.”
“I thought you were hungry.”
“I am, but I’m scared, too.”
“Be quiet a minute, Davy.”
“Austin?” Peg asked. “You think we should start cleaning things up?”
Austin shrugged again and kept looking toward the cabin. It wasn’t long before Shad came out, still carrying the rifle, but with the other hand holding a long, sharp flensing knife.
The three children looked at one another uneasily. Davy looked the uneasiest of the three as Shad came closer.
“Mister,” Austin took a step forward, “what you gonna do?”
“I’m gonna skin that cougar.”
The answer came as a relief to Austin, Peg, and Davy.
“Can we take a chicken?” Austin asked. “If we clean the place up?”
“You can take one,” Shad answered sharply, “if you just get the hell out of here, and stay out.” He walked toward the carcass.
“Can I watch?” Davy hollered after him.
“No!”
Shad came to a stop close to the dead animal, hoisted its forepaw with the tip of his boot, then allowed the paw to fall to the ground with a finality.
This cougar was about as big as they got, close to eight feet long, but obviously undernourished. The cougar, also known in various regions as mountain lion, catamount, and panther, usually favored the high country and generally preyed on deer, horses, and cattle. And usually he was a night creature except when he got hungry enough. The skin was reddish-brown with lighter underparts. Shad set the Winchester down nearby and went about the bloody work.
Austin watched for a couple of minutes, so did Davy, but Peg turned her eyes away as Shad’s knife sliced the skin of the predator. Shad never looked up from his labor.
“I’ll fetch the fattest one and we’ll get outta here.” Austin started for the chicken coop.
“Austin.” Peg touched his arm.
“What?”
“I think we ought to help clean things up.”
Austin paused, looked at the chicken coop, then back at his sister.
“Austin? Don’t you think we should?”
* * *
“Godalmighty,” Tom said as the Keeshaws stopped at Dirty Creek on their way back
from the Davis farm, “if that don’t beat all!”
“If what don’t beat all?” Deek’s animal lapped at the cold, dirty water from the creek.
“That sodbuster back there, Davis.”
“What about him?”
“Six kids, and it looked to me like the missus had one in the oven, either that or she’s gone to fat.”
“So?”
“So the whole herd of ’em in that two-room shack, and him callin’ it their ‘home’ and sayin’ that they’d decided to stay and make their future here in this part of the world.”
“So?”
“So, some future. Hell, I thought we was bad off before the war back in Clay County, but those damn fools don’t have no more chance than a quail with one wing.”
“Looked to me,” Bart grinned, “like she was a good-lookin’ woman about three kids back. She’s gone to pot, all right. The whole lot of ’em is pathetic.”
“Well,” Deek said, “that’s their lookout. Good thing they didn’t want to sell. Saves us the trouble of dickering about the price.”
“Yeah.” Bart checked his timepiece. “Imagine us livin’ on that patch of hell.”
“Boys, all we got to imagine is those good times and señoritas waiting down south.”
“Suppose one of them other sodbusters is anxious to sell out?” Tom grinned. “Then what do we do?”
“Let me worry about that.”
“Deek, do we have to see any more of those people on that map today?” Bart put the watch back into his pocket.
“Hell, no. Save some for tomorrow. I think we’ve done an honest day’s work, don’t you, boys?”
“Yeahbo,” Bart agreed. “’Sides, I’m close to four bucks ahead on that poker game.”
“Yeah, well, first we’ll pay Mr. Bush a visit and let him know about our talk with his friend Davis . . .”
“Say, Deek,” Bart poked his tongue through the gap between his teeth and licked his lips, “you think you’re ever gonna catch up with that there Yellow Rose?”
“Oh, I’ll catch up with her, all right, and when I do, I’ll give her somethin’ to remember me by. Let’s go.”
They moved their horses out of the shallow stream and headed east.
“I’m getting pretty damn hungry.” Tom said.
“Me, too.” Bart patted his gut. “We got to pass by ol’ Mr. No Trespassin’—maybe he’ll invite us in for a bite to eat.”
“Not likely,” Deek said.
* * *
Shad Parker paid no attention to what the children were doing. He had finished skinning the cougar; its pelt was stretched out to dry.
He had vowed to kill nothing unless it was absolutely unavoidable. Maybe he could have avoided killing the cougar, but if the animal got away with preying on Shad Parker’s possessions once, then he’d be back. Firing a couple of shots past the predator might discourage him for a time, but when he got hungry enough, he’d muster up his courage and come back for more. This way he’d never come back.
Shad thought of all those he had killed during the war, Bluebellies, his comrades called them then, and worse. They, too, were looked upon as predators who came to kill and destroy. Shad never owned a slave, nor cared to. Neither had his father and grandfather before him. The Parkers had always done their own work, or hired others to help them, but always paid top wages and expected fair measure in return.
Still, when the war began, it was impossible to remain neutral and subscribe to the policy of whichever side won—particularly in the Shenandoah Valley. It was one thing to live in the West, hundreds, even thousands of miles away from the clashing armies and await the outcome, it was another matter in the Shenandoah Valley. The valley was a battlefield and no one stayed neutral in a battlefield.
To the armies of both North and South the Shenandoah was a strategic position, a vital link that meant conquest or defeat, a position that had to be taken and held, even if it meant destroying it in the taking and keeping. The fact that it had been haven and home to hundreds, thousands, for generations was inconsequential. The farms, orchards, homes, and the families who worked and lived there were expendable. If it had been expedient for the Southern forces to destroy it, they would have done so. The Shenandoah would have been just another Confederate casualty in the “cause” as had been the city of Atlanta. Both sides contributed to the destruction of that site. There, railroads and factories were dynamited by Hood’s troops as they withdrew from their positions so they would not fall to the advancing Union armies and be used to help that advance. And Sherman’s hordes utterly destroyed what was left.
There were no factories and railroad networks in the Shenandoah. There, it was the possession of the land itself that was vital as a strategic passageway.
Both sides fought for that possession, but it was the Northerners, the Bluebellies, who were the predators. It was they who had to be stopped and turned away.
And Shad Parker had no choice, except to try to stop them. At first it seemed that might be possible, and if any one man could convert that possibility to reality, that man was Jubal Anderson Early. But if any one man could prevent him from doing so, that man was Philip Henry Sheridan. And unfortunately for the South, Sheridan made the ride that would be talked about, then written about, so long as classes in warfare were studied and taught. Shad Parker was there when it happened.
Phil Sheridan with forty-five thousand men had invaded the Shenandoah Valley with orders from U. S. Grant to follow Jubal Early and his army to the death and to peel the land.
The surprise attack succeeded in driving back and disorganizing the Union troops. When word of the rout reached Sheridan he sprang on his strong, coal-black horse, Rienzi, and rode full speed into the center of his disorderly, retreating forces. Astride his tired and lathered horse he drew his sword from its scabbard.
“Goddamn you!” he shouted, and waved his sword, “turn and fight! Follow me!”
The retreat stopped dead. The men began to chant “Sheridan! Sheridan! Sheridan!” Caps were thrown to the tops of the scattering oaks.
“Don’t cheer me! Goddamn you! Fight! We’ll lick them out of their boots!”
And lick them the Bluebellies did. And Shad Parker was one of those who had been licked. But he lived.
By then Shad Parker had a bellyful of killing, and what he had known in his heart from the beginning was confirmed. The Confederacy was doomed. Still he kept on fighting and killing, haunted by the ghost battalions that had fallen on both sides, until the bitter end. But never did Shad Parker think that the end would be as bitter as it turned out.
He piled more dirt on the mound and patted it with the shovel.
“Why you doing that?”
Shad snapped up from his work and memories, turned, and faced the smallest of the three children who stood nearby watching him. He went back to patting the mound.
“Why did you bury it?” Davy pointed to the heap of earth.
Shad Parker had forgotten about the young squatters.
“Huh?” Davy persisted.
“Don’t want buzzards hanging around,” Shad replied after a pause, “or anybody else, either.”
“I know that people get buried when they die.”
Shad gave no response.
“My mommy and daddy are buried.”
The man with the shovel wanted to hear no more about it. He wiped the cold sweat from his brow and whacked the spade against the cougar’s grave.
“They got the fever and . . .”
“Quit yapping!”
That startled the boy into silence. Shad slammed down the shovel, picked up the Winchester, and walked away, leaving Davy by the gravesite.
He moved in the direction of the cabin, but stopped and looked toward the chicken coop, where Austin and Peg were still cleaning things up. Shad noted that neither sister nor brother was afraid of work, nor were they squeamish in handling the ravaged poultry. They had retrieved the stray chickens, set the six that were dead in a straight line agains
t the fence, repaired the area, and generally set things right—better than before. It was almost as if they were working in their own backyard.
Shad Parker didn’t want them to get any such notion. He didn’t want them to take advantage of the cougar’s attack by using it as a way to ease themselves onto his property or his privacy. The youngest one had left the mound where the cougar lay buried, walked over to the chicken coop, and looked at Shad while his brother and sister continued working.
“All right, you three,” Shad hollered out, “that’s enough.”
“We’ll be through in just a few minutes.” Peg looked up but her brother kept working.
“You’re through now.”
“But, mister, what do you want us to do with . . .” But Peg saw that the man was neither watching nor listening to her. He had turned and was facing the three riders. Deek Keeshaw waved as they pulled up.
“Hello again.”
Shad Parker did not wave back nor speak.
“On our way back to town.”
Still nothing.
“We found the place, all right. Had a nice visit. Mr. Davis got himself quite a family.” By now it was evident that this was going to be a one-sided conversation. Deek glanced from Shad Parker over to the three children by the chicken coop, who looked very much at home. “Fine-looking family you got there.”
The Keeshaws rode on toward Gilead.
Deek’s last remark had been too much for Shad Parker to endure. When the riders were out of earshot Shad looked directly at Austin.
“Take your damned chicken and get outta here!” He turned and walked into the cabin, this time slamming the door behind him.
Chapter 15
Amos Bush’s chair was vacant.
Deek Keeshaw was the first to enter the bank, followed by his brothers, as usual, in the order of their births. Bart closed the door.
Deek ambled a few steps toward the big desk then looked back, past the teller’s cage toward the rear of the room.
The Christmas Trespassers Page 10