West Of The War

by L. J. Martin

  “Well, T. C. Humbree, I’d suggest you hightail it down the road, off of McTavish Farm.”

  Oglesby has held the shotgun, mostly pointing at the ground, but is slowly edging it up.

  “Keep them barrels pointed down, Cyrus, or I’ll have to let the breeze blow through you.”

  He eyes me carefully and drops the muzzles down.

  T. C. doesn’t move, so I suggest again. “Humbree, you deaf, or what. I said move on down the road.”

  He spits again, and looks at Oglesby who says, “Go on, T.C. I’ll handle this.”

  The man heads for the horses, but I correct him. “Humbree, you’re gonna march out of here. Leave the horse where he is.”

  “Do it,” Oglesby snaps, and T.C. trudges off.

  Just as he does, the sorrel blows, nickers, then dips his head down to graze, throwing off my aim.

  Cyrus dives to get behind a pecan trunk, raising the shotgun as he does.

  I’m on one knee, still below the horse’s neck, and fire. The slug takes him on the side and spins him around as a barrel discharges into the branches above. He goes to his back but still has the shotgun in hand.

  The sorrel does not take kindly to the gunfire and spins and gallops away as Cyrus is trying to sit up enough to get a bead on me.

  My second shot takes him about second button down on his linsey woolsey shirt and blows him flat to his back. By the time I get to him to kick the scattergun away, his eyes have rolled up and blood gurgles from his mouth.

  “You bastard,” T. C. shouts and I turn my attention to him.

  “I thought you was leaving dust behind on your way out of here. Give Hortence and Harriet my regards…and tell them no thanks necessary.”

  His eyes grow round as I bring the Colt to bear on him.

  “Run, or join Cyrus on the way to hell,” I shout, and he turns on his heel and moves faster than a big man should be able.

  I look over my shoulder to see Ian galloping after the sorrel, who will be easily caught as he’s slowed to a trot.

  Moving over the gray and the paint, I pull the paint's picket, untie the lead rope, then give him a slap and he trots away. The gray is another matter as he’s a fine looking animal. Two saddles, bridles, and blankets are nearby and I pick the better of them and saddle up and pull his picket and mount up. By the time I’m back at Pearl’s cabin, Ian is trotting up.

  Pearl stands, the muzzles of her shotgun down at the ground.

  She shakes her head. “You done it now. I can’t stay hereabout as that sheriff will hang me sure.”

  “Bring me that lantern from inside,” I say, and she turns and disappears.

  “He weren’t wearing no uniform,” Ian says. “Some might consider that murder, even if it were clearly self-defense. We’d best be getting on up river.”

  “We got a couple of chores. That old boy who ran on outta here has a long ride to get to the sheriff, and a long walk back to the trading post before he can saddle up. We got some time. I got some things to do.”

  Ian shakes his head, undecided. “You get my neck stretched and that will sure as hell put an end to our friendship, friend.”

  I smile. “I imagine it would.”

  Pearl returns and I see she’s without the shotgun. She hands me the lantern.

  I dismount and hand her the reins to the gray. “Where’s the mules and mares?”

  “Out it the back pasture, where you done kept ’em.”

  “Take Ian there and drive them back. Ian and I got to hotfoot it out of here.”

  “You ain’t leaving me here,” she says, and her mouth goes tight.

  “I ain’t taking you upriver, Pearly. You go your own way and we’ll go ours.”

  “You ain’t leavin’ me here, Braden McTavish. They’ll hang me sure for you shootin’ Silas Oglesby down like the cur dog he is.”

  “Was,” I say, and can’t help but smile. “You can go with us until we catch a side wheeler, then you’re on your own. Now take Ian to get the stock.”

  She nods, and mounts the horse, having to hoist the frock up well above her knees to straddle the animal. I can see that Ian is a little taken aback, as am I, by the sight of her shapely and perfectly proportioned limbs.

  “Go,” I say. “We ain’t got all that much time.”

  She whips up the gray as a man would, and Ian, looking a little perplexed, does the same and cantors off four lengths behind.

  I move quickly to the ruins of the house, pick my way through the fallen timbers and blackened boards and furniture to the stone fireplace. I’m pleased to see cobwebs cover the cobbles on the side in which I’m interested. At least in the near past, no one has found what I seek. Now, if it’s just still there. I find the odd square stone I seek and find it stuck tight. That, too, could be good news. I pick up a loose stone that was dislodged by the heat, and strike the square one until I can see it loosen, then cast the hammer stone aside and slip the square one from its place.

  It's still in the leather pouch my daddy had put there, twenty-eight liberty double eagles, five hundred sixty dollars face value, and likely worth more than face as gold is dear, now that no one knows if paper money is worth the paper it’s printed upon.

  I move back to the sorrel and pack my newfound wealth in a saddle bag. Drop to a knee and thank the good Lord and my father for my good fortune, ask him to bless and keep my ma and pa, and move over to where I’ve set the lantern aside.

  Loosening the cap on the reservoir I sprinkle coal oil over the nearest bales of cotton and then break the lantern chimney and light up. The cotton is bound tight so doesn’t flare immediately, but when I’m sure it’s caught I mount up and head out toward the back pasture. I hate to see good cotton destroyed, but not so much as I’d hate to see it help finance the Union.

  I’m not much more than a mile—halfway to the back pasture— before I come upon Ian and Pearl, driving the horses and mules back.

  “Let’s turn them upstream,” I shout.

  “I gots to get some things,” Pearl yells at me.

  “Fine, you go get what you got to get. We’ll be leaving lots of track and be easy to follow.”

  She gives me a look like she wishes she had her shotgun, but gives heels to the gray and moves on around me.

  Now, if we can just get far enough ahead that she can’t catch us, we’ll be on our way to get shed of some of these fine horses and mules, and shed of Pearl.

  It’s just a hair over forty miles from McTavish Farm to Brunswick, and it’s my intention to push the critters straight through. It means we’ll stray from the riverside for most the way, and take some real back trails, but it also means we put some distance between us and the body of Cyrus Oglesby…and be too far, too fast, for Pearl to catch up with us.

  It was my intent to leave the jack behind, but as we’re driving loose stock he’s not to be denied and follows, bellowing his dislike for being away from his familiar pasture. And if you’ve ever heard a big jack bray you understand why I have the urge to drop back and put an ounce of lead between his eyes. But I don’t, he’s sired some fine mules including the four among our bunch.

  At midnight, after I figure we’re about halfway to Brunswick, Ian reins over. “I got to have some coffee and we need to blow and water these animals. Next water, okay?”

  “Suits me,” I say and in less than another half mile we dismount at a little meandering stream lined with good grass.

  In minutes Ian has a pot brewing and as we hunker down on our haunches to await its boil, he asks. “So, what’s this Brunswick all about?”

  “It’s got a ferry, as it’s across the Mo, and it’s got over five hundred river vessels a day tying up there.”

  “And?”

  “And I plan to trade a couple of horses or mules for the fare to get us upriver toward the territories.”

  He nods. “It’s my pleasure to part company at Omaha as I hear they’ll soon be hiring for the Transcontinental.”

  “Good, then I’ll only have to
worry about your fare that far.”

  "I'll be a'leavin' first chance."

  “Hell no. You hang around 'til I can feed you to the buffalo. I need someone to do the light work,” I laugh and he snorts.

  “Then it’s Benton City, Dakota for you?”

  “Fort Benton, Benton City, whatever they call it. That’s as far as the boats go.”

  I can’t begin to tell you how shocked I am when a female voice from out of the darkness asks, “Y’all sharing that coffee.”

  And even more shocked when Pearl walks up, still carrying my old man’s shotgun, and hunkers down beside me.

  “You can see in the dark?” I ask.

  “Like you said, you leave a wide track. A’sides, there’s plenty of moonlight.” She yawns, then asks. “Did y’all plan to camp here awhile?”

  I must be daft, thinking how beautiful this woman is who's carrying a shotgun that could blow me in half if she took a mind to, but it's the last thing I'd tell her...beautiful. Instead, I say, “We’re pulling up for Brunswick soon as we finish this pot.”

  “Thas fine by me,” she says, then adds, “I don’t fancy no old rough hemp rope stretchin’ my neck.”

  I knew she was tough for a woman, but I had no idea how tough. In fact, it’s obvious she’s tough as she is pretty. I guess she’ll be with us at least as far as a paddle wheeler. Word is there is more than one boat fixin’ to make a run at the river all the way to Fort Benton, and it’s damn sure easier than saddle sores or a mud wagon.

  Dawn finds us only three or four miles from Brunswick, or so I figure. So I rein up again, by a trickle of water and some fine grass for the stock, and we make another fire.

  Pearl moves away as I’m heating the coffee pot and returns leading the gray. She has a bedroll packed with some personals and a satchel tied behind the saddle along with a rolled up horse pack that will fit one of our mules, a boot that fits alongside that accommodates the shotgun, and a couple of jugs hanging from the horn tied on with thongs.

  She drops the saddle and gear from the gray, not asking for a bit of help, then removes the satchel and comes to where my fire is taking the cold from the morning. The first thing she removes is a pair of trousers and hands them to me.

  “These was your daddy’s. Might be best you get shed of them what makes you look to be a rebel.”

  And she’s right. I slip behind a bush and change, then stow my butternut with the yellow stripe away.

  She removes a slab of bacon, a small skillet, a skinning knife, and a chunk of hard bread from the satchel, cuts six generous slices, and goes to frying. Soon, we’re munching bacon and sopping hard bread in the hot grease. It’s all a fine compliment to my meager attempt at a breakfast of the mud I call coffee.

  Wanting to leave her behind may just have been a foolish mistake.

  She cleans and repacks our implements while Ian and I lay back.

  “What’s the plan?” Ian asks, his hands behind his neck as he leans on a log. I’m flat in the grass, admiring the morning sun, thinking how fine it would be to close my eyes for a few minutes.

  “I figure we’ll find a spot to leave you, Pearl, and the stock across the river from Brunswick. I’ll take the ferry over and see what the attitude of the place is, and if’n there’s a boat headed upriver.”

  “You got the funds for the ferry?” he asks.

  And I confess, “I had some hid out at the farm, and dug up some coin while you and Pearl was fetchin’ the stock.” I don’t mention it’s over a year’s wages for a working man.

  “The hell you say,” he says, eying me a little suspiciously.

  “Yeah, I say. We got enough to stay fed for a while.”

  “I guess you didn’t trust me to help with that chore?” he says, with a little snap to his voice.

  “It was a one man job. Wasn’t like it was so much I couldn’t carry it.” I laugh.

  “How much?” he asks.

  “Enough for us to eat a while. And you know I’ll share.”

  He shrugs. “That’s a fine thing,” he says, and I can’t determine if he’s sincere or sarcastic. And he closes his eyes.

  It’s the first time since we left Illinois I’ve had an offsetting feeling about my companion, Ian. And it doesn’t sit well with me.

  Still, I join him in closing my eyes.

  I awaken to the sun high in the sky, noon or a little later. Pearl is nearby where our saddles are stowed and is pulling her shotgun from the boot. I watch as she moves over to me, and seeing my eyes open, says in a low voice, as Ian is still sleeping, “I heared some turkey talk out in the woods, and got some personal business out there. I be back. Don’t y’all get light footed while I be gone. I gots welts on my…my bottom side…from a’chasing you all last night.”

  I have to smile at that, and ask, “I’ll be happy to rub a little bacon grease on them welts.”

  “You and most the nice Christian folks I met most my life. You just snooze away, Mister McTavish. I’ll be comin’ back right soon.”

  I’m feeling properly chastised as she picks her way across the little trickle of water and disappears into the woods, the shotgun comfortably over her shoulder.

  I’m not so taken aback, however, that I can’t slip back into dreamland, and do.

  My sleep is rudely awakened by the muzzle of a cold gun barrel pressed to my forehead.

  Chapter 7

  I’m staring into the bloodshot watery eyes of a face I remember from my distant past. Sheriff Oscar Scroggins of Marshal County, Missouri. He’s a hard man to mistake, with a full shock of gray hair shooting out from his head over pointed lobe-less ears that, long with age, would shame a mule. His bulbous nose testifies to his enjoyment and overindulgence in corn liquor. His voice comes from deep in his belly and passes through some narrowing of his windpipe that makes it somewhat higher than a large man should be burdened with.

  His is almost a squeak. “You just lay there like a slug under a rock, McTavish. You and your fellow here are on your way back to Marshal County to be hung up like the rotten murderers you are.”

  I have to clear my throat, dry from a hard sleep, as he straightens up and backs away just out of reach. Then I ask, “Murderers? Since when is a fellow defending himself a murderer?”

  There are three with him. One is the guy, I guess mistakenly, I sent hot footing it away from McTavish Farm just before I traded shots with Oglesby…T. C. Humbree. Only this time he’s armed, carrying a fine Sharps rifle. The other two, reined up a distance away, I’ve never laid eyes upon, but they, too are well heeled with both sidearms and long arms. And all have their weapons aimed our way. They remain mounted, while Humbree is walking our way, a crooked grin on his wide face. One of the mounted deputies is obese, the other is missing half an arm. Both, obviously, were not qualified to take up arms in the war.

  “Self defense,” Scroggins snorts. “Not like I heared it. Y’all get on your feet so we can get you bound up and saddled up for a short meeting with Judge Harrington before I string you up.”

  “You heard it wrong, Sheriff. Oglesby was stealing my pecans and had a double barrel scattergun…in fact he fired a barrel my way. And I returned fire.”

  “Item one, McTavish. They were his pecans as he, and I, bought them fair and square, along with the rest of McTavish Farm, from the county at auction. Item two, you see, I was his partner. So you shot a man who was harvesting his nuts and mine and you’re a gonna hang for it. Item three, we hang horse thieves, even if you wasn’t a murdering som’bitch. Now, get on your feet and turn your back to me.”

  I can see there’s no talking my way out of this, so both Ian and I get our feet under us, and I know we're both thinking of a way out. Before I can fully stand, a blast from back behind me causes me to leap aside and I nearly lose my footing. I can feel the buckshot pass close by me and Scroggins is blown backward, dropping his sidearm at my feet as he goes down. Ian dives behind the log he’s been resting upon and I drop to my belly while snatching up Scroggins’s
sidearm.

  All three of his deputies have swung their guns to the forest, looking for the shooter. My shot takes Humbree in the thigh and he screams as he collapses, slinging the Sharps aside, far enough to be out of easy reach.

  The shotgun roars again, I guess aimed at the two mounted deputies, but they are a bit out of range and are fighting their mounts, who seem to dislike the discharge of arms. I fire at the nearest, the fat one, but at seventy-five feet I miss. I guess the sound of a chunk of lead passing near, and the peppering of buckshot from fifty or more yards, is enough to take the fight out of him and he gives heels to his mount and, followed closely by his pard, they pound away back toward Arrow Rock. By the look of them I don’t imagine they’ll stop until their horses collapse under them. I’d guess they were deputized merely for this adventure and are not experienced lawmen.

  I turn my attention back to Humbree and see he’s crawling to retrieve his Sharps. I move quickly and have my foot on it as he tries to grab it up.

  “I guess I should have shot you dead back at the pecans,” I say.

  “Just doing my good citizen,” he says, his voice low and pained. “Fact is, you likely killed me as this leg is broke bad and bleeding.”

  "You did your good deed, bringin' me this fine rifle. I'll put it to good use."

  I look over my shoulder and see Pearl, looking very apprehensive as she's just killed a man, a white man, and a lawman at that. She's biting a bottom lip. Her shotgun is still smoking slightly and hangs loosely at her side as she walks out of the woods. While she approaches, I go to Hunbree's horse and retrieve his bullet molds, cases, powder, and a handful of finished shells from a possibles bag hanging on his saddle horn.

  Pearl’s already done plenty, but I’m used to asking. “Pearl, could you tend to Mr. Humbree, please. It seems his hind leg is leaking.”

  She nods and in seconds is pulling his belt off and binding the leg with it, then she walks to her satchel and takes out needle and thread. She turns to me, the bottom lip she's been biting is now quivering. “I don’t think his leg dun be broke. I think you got nothing but meat, and outside de bone at dat. He be fine if’n it don’t go green.”