by L. J. Martin
This time he doesn't hesitate. "Makes it right in my head...you do what your ma and da said to do, and what the law dictates. The good book says honor your mother and father…your ma and da. That’s good enough for me."
I think on the right and wrong of it for awhile longer as we stride west, then decide I’d best keep my mind on the task at hand, on the trail, and on any who might want to bushwhack a couple of old boys in butternut.
There is a good chance I’ll be leaving all this behind me, Missouri, the war, the nigras, and all that went with it. And to be truthful, I hope to never look back.
We pass an uneventful afternoon and find a deep dark thicket to hole up, don’t bother with a fire as we’re down to a few Lucifer’s, don’t have an ember box, and the night is warm enough. The bread and venison jerky is plenty and we even manage to save a little to get us started in the morning.
And morning finds us wet, not a real rain, but a cold fall drizzle that portends of the winter to come. The leaves are going golden and it won’t be long before the forest offers little real cover. We’ve managed to keep our powder, but not ourselves. If this keeps up we’ll have to find a way to get ourselves some winter clothes, even if we have to steal them. I’ve never filched so much as a piece of hard candy or even a cookie from my ma’s kitchen, and don’t like thinking on it.
But the hell of it is, an empty gut that’s flappin’ again your backbone has no conscience.
Late in the day my stomach is keeping my mind occupied, when I flinch at the sound of gunfire, then realize there are no balls whizzing around me…but it’s close. Too damn close.
“Whatcha think?” Ian says from right next to my shoulder.
“Other side of these dogwoods…over a dozen or more on each side by the sound of it.”
The dogwoods are on our left, south, and there is a creek bed across a meadow on the right. Moving quickly, we jump a snaking split-rail fence that zig zags, separating road and meadow grass pasture. The sound of gunfire seems to be growing closer, so we pick ‘em up and lay ‘em down, at a dead run for the willow lined creek.
I bust brush, charge on through and find myself knee-deep in the crick, then crash through the willows on the far side, Ian close on my heels.
And come face to face with two bluebelly boys tending a picket line of a dozen or more mounts.
Chapter 5
Both Union boys scramble for a pair of long guns leaning on a tree stump.
“Don’t do it, boys,” I yell. “We’re just a’passin’ through.” But to no avail as the first one reaches the rifles and I can see he is intent on doing us harm.
No choice. I pull the Colt and put one in his brisket. The other hasn’t quite reached the stump and seeing his fellow blown to his back, coughing and rolling in pain, blood blossoming on his shirt front, spins and throws up his arms.
“I got me four children waitin’ back home,” he shouts, his eyes so wide I can see the whites around his pupils.
“If you saddle two of those crowbaits, quick as a snake, you can likely go home to them whelps someday,” I shout.
He spins on his heels and runs for a stack of McClellan’s and in no time has the stock bridled and is pulling latigo on the second one.
“Where’s your boys?” I ask.
“Over thataway. They done snuck up on a rebel camp and are having at it.”
“Now, run like hell, just the way we came.” I point, and he takes no convincing, disappearing into the willows and through the creek.
We grab up the two rifles, shove them in the saddle boots, mount, and whip the critters away the opposite direction from the way he’s said the skirmish is underway.
We don’t pull rein for at least two miles until the sorrel I am riding and the chestnut Ian straddles are lathered and blowing hard.
We have now cut a day off’n our trip to McTavish Farm, and if we can find a river boat captain who’ll ignore the U.S. brands on the rumps of our newly acquired stock, what we get for them will go aways toward our passage up the Big Muddy.
We put another twenty miles between us and what must be some angry Union boys, before we pull up on the banks of the Missouri, maybe ten miles upstream from McTavish Farm. We stake the horses out—happy to note that each has a picket pin and rope on the saddle, as well as a canteen, cap and ball box, and rifle boot. To add to our comfort, each saddle is backed by a rolled blanket and an oil cloth to shed water. We are living in luxury.
Another damn rainy day. We’re camped by a two acre pond and it’s being dimpled by rain. The sky lays flat and pewter gray. It’s even darker to the west, the direction that should take us to McTavish Farm by noon, and the occasional crack of lightening is beyond. By the count of seconds I’d say it’s over ten miles to the heart of the storm, so with any luck we’ll miss it.
We are flat out of grub and carry few coins but, God willing, we’ll come upon someone to whom a thin dime is more valuable than some jerky or root vegetables.
The two geldings have grazed well and watered to their hearts content, and don’t in the least seem to mind carrying butternut boys rather than bluebellys.
I’ve been pushing harder than usual as today will be the day I find out what’s happening at McTavish Farm…and to be truthful, I have a hollow in my gut beyond that of mere hunger.
We pass a field of corn that’s been picked but the stalks still stand. So I turn in the saddle to see Ian dozing.
“Hey, slacker, how about we take a gander in that field and see if’n we can find some leavings?”
He raises his head. “What say?”
“Let’s check the corn field for whatever?”
He follows as I rein off the two track and tie my sorrel to the split rail, and wander among the stalks. As I suspected, there’s a few withered ears, most with only a few kernels and some badly bug eaten…but we’re happy to share. With a half hours work we’ve gnawed enough to carry us through the morning.
In another two miles of plodding, we come to the biggest impediment to our immediate goal of the farm, and that’s the Big Mo. She’s about a quarter mile across and running strong enough, even in this harvest time, to threaten life and limb to them hoping to swim. And Ian has already claimed that a quarter foot in deep water, much less a quarter mile, is too much for his feeble skills.
“There once was a ferry near Arrow Rock, five miles or so upriver if’n we’re where I think we are.”
“How much coin you got left?” he asks.
“I got two bits, and you?”
“Quarter and a dime. You think that’ll do?”
“It used to be half a dollar for a man and horse, or six bits for a wagon plus a dime each for driver and each passenger…but we gotta cross so we gotta make some kind of a deal…if’n it’s still there.”
In a little over an hour we see the ferry in the distance. It’s a small one, just wide and long enough to handle a farm wagon and four up, and as the side wheelers run up and down the river, is free of any lines. There’s a man on the tiller and two strong negras on oars on each side. If it operates as it used to, there are two stations on the far or west side. They cross to the downriver station, then a pair of mules on the far side drags the ferry upriver to the second on that side, and they row back.
It’s over an hour wait for us as the flatboat is heading across when we arrive. I’m surprised to see there are no mules and it’s the man on the tiller and two negras who tow the boat at least a quarter mile against the stream before they can launch for the return trip.
As they’re tying up, I approach the barrel chested white fella on the tiller, who seems the boss of the affair.
“What’s the toll, friend?” I ask.
He gives me a glare from under thick eyebrows, then snarls, “If you fellas are deserters, there ain’t enough coin in Missouri to use this ferry.”
I give him a tight smile. “Then since we ain’t, what’s the toll?”
“Still a half dollar for man and horse. So a dollar will do.”
He furrows his brow, then inquires, “Don’t I know you.”
“McTavish, my daddy was Rut McTavish from up the river a couple of miles, but on the far side.”
“Well, sir, welcome home. Glad to see you ain’t shot to hell.”
“A dollar is a fair toll, sir—.”
“Max Halfcox,” he says, and extends his hand. “I knew your pa well and am sorry for your trouble.”
I shake with him. “As I said, a dollar is a fair toll, but we’ve only got sixty cents between us. We’ve been keeping the bluebellys company over at Camp Butler in Springfield. They don’t send you out with much.”
Again he eyes me up and down. “Them are U.S. brands and McClellan saddles?”
“And you see we’re wearing butternut trousers, what’s left of ’em. We got paroled from Camp Butler and we paroled these critters from a Union troop on our way here.”
He smiles at that. “I’ll tell you what, as the damn Yanks appropriated my mules, if you and the big fella and your two crowbaits will help my nigras with the rowing and the towing upstream, I’ll haul you over for two bits each.”
“I’m obliged, Mr. Halfcox. We’ll do more’n our share.”
We’re another three quarters of an hour before we wave goodbye to Halfcox and his flatboat, and mount up. I half want to visit the trading post, but it’s over a half mile below the lower ferry dock and I’m eager to see the farm.
The trail swings inland a little and we come to a rise where I’m looking down on McTavish Farm, and I’m a bit taken aback to see what appears to be over a hundred acres of cotton, just picked, and the same amount of corn stalks still standing. Someone has been working the place.
We plod on down to the cluster of burned out buildings, flanking a half dozen slave cabins.
A hundred yards before we get to the home place, I rein up.
Two well carved wooden grave markers are nicely placed at the head of two grave mounds, and they’ve been cared for. I dismount and read,
Rutherford Jefferson
McTavish
1816 – 1861
Loved Father and Husband
And the second,
Annamae McTavish
1818 – 1862
Beloved Mother and Wife
If I had a hat on, I’d snatch it off. But I slowly dismount and kneel between the graves of my mother and father. The name Alfred P. Doolan is burned in my brain, and his mottled face, red hair, and gray streaked beard has come to me in nightmares and I can now see it as plain as day as I close my eyes to pray for my too-soon departed parents.
He, and Pearl, are the reason my parents are under the sod. I wonder who the kind soul was who put them there, who has tended the graves since, as the mounds are weedless and some flowers, now dry, lean against the wooden markers.
Ian has reined away, kindly giving me space, and I appreciate it as tears streak my cheeks.
Then I hear him say quietly. “There’s folks down among those trees…pecans it looks to be.”
I look up, but my gaze doesn’t go to the orchard, but rather to one of the six slave quarters still standing, and the woman who stands in a doorway of the nearest one. Even at a hundred generous paces, I recognize Pearl, and catch my breath, audibly gasping.
Chapter 6
I rise from kneeling at my parents grave, catch the saddle horn and a stirrup, and swing up into the saddle, never taking my eyes off her. Gigging the sorrel into a quick walk, I move directly at her.
She’s shading her eyes with a hand, then from only forty paces, I can see the recognition flood her face. She doesn’t come running, which would have surprised me, but rather drops back into the darkness of the cabin.
I dismount and move to the open door.
“What be your intention?” rings out from inside. Pearl’s voice, slightly lower than I remember.
“What was the cause of my mother’s death?” I ask as my eyes grow accustomed to the darkness.
“She got the cough, the winter after the trouble. Her lungs filled up and she went. I done sent for a doctor, but he was off to the war somewheres.”
“Who buried them?”
“Who you think. I was de only one hereabouts.”
“Who carved the markers?”
“Who you think. I done tol’ you I was de only one hereabouts.”
“I should whip you raw—”
“I wouldn’t be trying it, Masser Brad.” She steps forward and I can see she’s holding pa’s old shotgun, both barrels cocked.
I’m struck dumb, and stand silent for a long moment. Even in a simple gray sackcloth frock, Pearl is even more beautiful than I remember. The light is filtering in through a burlap window covering and gives her coffee colored face a warm wash.
Finally, I get my wits about me. “I hate you for getting my pa hung, but I’m obliged to you for burying them proper.”
“I cared for your mama for over a year. She done lost her mind with the trouble. I see’d her run off into the woods, while them Union sons-a-bitches were cleaning out the place and hanging your daddy. But I fetched her back here after they done left. I made her bed in my little house here. I had to feed her and walk her to the privy and listen to her wail and moan for more’n a year.”
“Your fault, Pearly,” I say.
“Maybe so, but all I done was say the truth of it. And I let my own folks go off without me so I could care for Mama McTavish.”
That, too, shuts me up for a moment.
Finally, I turn and look out at the pecans, where two men, who are too far away to recognize, are standing eying us. Two horses are staked, grazing, at the edge of the trees. A fine looking gray and a swayback paint.
“Who’s that in the pecans?”
“That there’s a rotten bastard and his helper, that be who.”
I smile as I’ve never heard Pearl swear. “What rotten bastard?”
“Cyrus som’bitch Oglesby, from the trading post.”
“What the hell is that abolitionist doing in our pecans?”
“That’s his corn crop and them bales over yonder is his cotton. He done growed it all on McTavish Farm.”
I can feel the heat creep up my backbone. No one at McTavish Farm ever had any respect for Oglesby. He was known to beat his daughters—Hortence and Harriet—and one of them in her majority. And one thing my daddy taught me a man can’t abide is a man who’d take his hand to a woman…then I flush at the thought, remembering I’d sworn to horsewhip Pearl should I ever see her again, and here she is, standing in front of me, in the flesh. And there’s no question she’s all woman, if a negra. Confusing.
So I put the memory away to think on at a later time, and turn back to her. “So you think he’s a som’bitch?”
“He done be worse. He let me and your ma live here, but he took liberties wit me, and he hurt me bad. If he hadn’t had the law out here with him when he first come, I would’a give him both barrels…but I’d hang for sure. I believe he’s in cahoots with that fat sheriff, Scroggins.”
Again, I had to think on that. Her words were spat at me, and I felt like I had to backhand my face clean, like I’d walked through cobwebs. So again, I changed the subject.
“Any of the McTavish stock still about?”
“Oglesby done got them all. Four good mules, the mares, and ol’ Jack. But I knows where he has them grazin’.”
This time the heat runs all the way to the back of my neck.
Ian walks over and tips his hat to Pearl, then turns to me. “I seen that look on you a’fore. What are you thinkin’?”
“I’m thinking of having a talk with an old neighbor who it seems has over-reached a mite.”
I move to the sorrel and mount up. Ian starts to do the same but I stop him. “Stay here with Pearl, if you would. I won’t be long.”
“That look about you says trouble, Brad.”
“Maybe, but it’s my trouble. I don’t want it to get smeared on you.”
“I’ll ride along.”
“No, si
r. You’ll stay here and watch over Pearly.”
He shrugs. “They’s two of them.”
“I’ll be back,” I say, and rein away toward the pecans, where the two of them are standing, watching. As I near I can see a shotgun leaning on a near pecan tree trunk, and a half dozen stuffed burlap bags scattered about which I presume are full of nuts.
Oglesby is the taller of the two, but his man is thick through the chest and is holding a long pole, but he appears otherwise unarmed. Oglesby moves over and picks up the shotgun as I near.
Oglesby spits a long stream of chaw as I get close, holding the shotgun casually. “Well, I’ll be damned, if it ain’t Braden McTavish. I figured the Union boys would’a skinned you and tacked your hide to the wall by now.”
I tip my hat and give him a phony smile as I rein up. “Come to pay my respects,” I say, and dismount with the horse between him and me. Out of their sight behind the sorrel I slip the Colt from my belt and move just far enough in front of the horse that I can see him over the animal’s neck, and can bring the revolver to bear on him under. I’d hate the sorrel to take a load of buckshot, but better him than me.
“That,” he says, staring at the revolver’s muzzle, “ain’t very respectful.”
“I don’t mind you working the land while I been gone, Cyrus, but I’m back. Thank you for harvesting my crop of pecans…but we’ll take over from here on. By the way, where’s my stock.”
“Out in the same old pasture, McTavish, but they ain’t your stock and these ain’t your nuts.”
“How’s that?” I ask, and my jaw knots.
“Nobody paid the taxes and when I did it all became mine. So you can ride on, off’n my land…off’n Oglesby Farm.”
I have to use all my self control not to gut shoot him with that remark.
But I merely smile. “What’s your man’s name?” I ask, my voice as friendly as I can make it, under the circumstance.
“I’m T. C. Humbree, not that it’s your business,” he says, then he, too, spits a mouthful of chaw to the ground, then backhands the remnants from his mustache.