“They started to build a railroad,” Taneyhill was saying, “but only got five miles of track laid before the war stopped construction. So there still is no railroad in this part of the country. Which means freighting business is good, especially since the Yankees control most of the rivers and have blocked the Texas ports in the Gulf of Mexico.”
Amado Chavez y Castaño finished his whiskey, and spoke in Spanish. The captain nodded, told Amado good night, and the big segundo donned his hat, saying, “Buenas noches, Zeb.” The Mexican strode down the steps, turned on Delta Street, and walked back toward town, whistling.
Now alone with the captain, Zeb knew Taneyhill would say something. He knew what it would be about, too.
“You think Ben DeVere’s worth it?” Taneyhill asked.
“Sergeant Major Engstrand thought so.”
“He’s dead. You ain’t. Got a lot of years left. How many battles you ever take part in, Zeb?”
“A couple,” Zeb said.
“Kill anybody?”
Zeb didn’t answer.
“It weighs on a person . . . killin’ a man. You take away his life, but you also take away a good part, the better part, of yours.”
“You ever killed anybody?” Zeb asked.
Bluntly Taneyhill answered, “Five.” He poured the last bit of whiskey from the bottle into his tumbler. “That ain’t countin’ in the war. In war, sometimes, you never know, though I warrant I slayed a few at Corinth before they damned near killed me. Two of the five I’m sure I killed were Comanches. Now, you ask Chas McCampbell.” The captain sipped his whiskey. “Chas’d tell you Indians, especially Comanch’, don’t count, but they were men, fightin’ for their way of life, and I took that away from them. The other three were bandits . . . two on the Sabine River, another down around Travis County, tryin’ to take my wagons, tryin’ to take my life, and the lives of my men. Scum of the earth, white trash, brigands. Now all five of those men . . .” Here he stopped, sniggered, and finished his whiskey. “Men,” he said bitterly. “One of them Comanches wasn’t older than you. But all five of them would have killed me if they’d gotten the chance, and they wouldn’t have lost any sleep. I’m not sorry I killed them. I sure ain’t tradin’ places with them. But I’ll tell you this, Zeb . . . and it’s fact . . . hardly a night goes by that I don’t picture those five men’s faces.” He stood up, and walked to the edge of the porch, leaning against the railing, staring up at the moon. “You think about that, Zeb. You think about if Ben DeVere’s worth killin’.”
The front door opened, and Luansy Taylor stepped out. She had a throw over her shoulders, even though the night remained warm.
The captain turned, waited, but Luansy just stared, not saying anything. Still, Captain Taneyhill knew what she wanted, so he picked up his hat, put it on his head, stuck the empty bottle underneath his arm, and grabbed the glass. “Don’t stay up too late,” he said, and went inside.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Ebenezer. Ebenezer, wake up.”
Ebenezer softly snored in the trundle bed as Zeb shook his shoulder. Zeb had turned up the lamp and kept jostling the runaway slave, whose eyes slowly opened. Shaking his head, he mumbled, “Zeb . . . what . . . what time is it?”
“I don’t know. You awake?”
“Noooo.” It came out as a groan. Ebenezer tried to roll over, tried to put a pillow over his head, but Zeb knocked the pillow away, and shook him harder.
“Ebenezer, I gotta ask you something.”
“Can’t it wait? I’m plumb tuckered out, Zeb. We did a lot of work . . .”
“Ebenezer, what’s it like?” Zeb sank onto the floor, leaned his head against the footboard of the big bed. “Being with a girl, a woman?”
Shadows danced on the wallpaper. The flame in the lamp flickered as a breeze blew through the cracked window.
Grumbling, Ebenezer tossed off the covers, and sat up in the bed. He stared at Zeb. “What are you talking about?”
Zeb shrugged. “You know . . .” was all he managed to get out.
Ebenezer let out a half sigh, half laugh. “Are you in love, Zeb Hogan?”
“I don’t know. She’s staying.”
“Miss Luansy?”
“Uh-huh. She told me tonight. Then she started crying on my shoulder. She said she feared she might never see me again. But she said she had to stay. Couldn’t bring Petey with her, chasing after me, trying to stop me from . . . Well, the captain’s offering her a job, and both of them the chance to get an education. I reckon you know how important it is to read and write.”
“I’m not that good at it.”
“Better’n me. I always figured it was just a waste of time. What good was it to read? Write? I could shoot better, or at least as good as anyone in the 16th Wisconsin Infantry. I could march. I made it all the way to Jefferson, Texas, from the Florence Stockade. My folks never held no faith in schooling. Said it was a waste of time. We was so poor, and I was so stupid, I didn’t know no better. Now, I think my ma and pa kept me and James out of school ’cause they didn’t want us to be better than they was. That’s how they looked at it, I think.”
“That ain’t . . . that isn’t right,” Ebenezer said. “Parents should want their children to be better than they were. That’s what I want for my little Tempie. I’d like her to know what it feels like to be free, to always have been free. She’s too young to ever know she was born into slavery. That’s . . .”
Silence. They watched the shadows.
Zeb laughed, and looked at Ebenezer. “Don’t think we ever talked like this. On our journey, I mean.”
Ebenezer smiled. “Half the time we were arguing.”
“Or fighting.”
The slave nodded. “Or that.”
Zeb rubbed his jaw. “You punch pretty good.”
Ebenezer laughed.
Silence. The shadows kept dancing.
“I said I could teach you,” Ebenezer said at last. “Your letters and all.”
“I remember.”
“Or . . . well . . . I bet Captain Taneyhill, he’d send you to that subscription school, too. Smart as you are, brave as you are, you’d be reading and writing in no time, Zeb.”
“I can’t. I got to find . . . got to finish . . .” Zeb’s head shook. “It’s my duty. It’s about my honor.”
For the first time since Zeb had known him, Ebenezer Chase cursed. Climbing out of the trundle bed, turning, staring down at Zeb, Ebenezer cussed Zeb for a fool. Ebenezer’s shadow was a giant against the wall. “Duty! Honor!” Ebenezer spit out those words angrily. “They’re nothing but words to you, Zeb. You don’t even know what they mean.”
Zeb met his stare, but could say nothing.
“Captain Taneyhill’s a good man. He’s given you a job, pays you good money. You got a girl who loves you, though . . . Lord help me . . . I don’t know what she sees in you. And you’re gonna throw all that away. For what? To kill a man. To kill yourself in the process.”
No longer could Zeb watch those glaring eyes, so he focused on his brogans. Criminy, ain’t even my shoes. They was Luansy’s pa’s. The wind rustled through the trees, and he heard Ebenezer’s heavy breathing and, through the walls, over in the next room, Luansy Taylor’s soft sobs. He could picture her crying into her pillow, trying not to wake little Petey. His stomach twisted. Just a couple of hours ago, they had been sitting on the front-porch swing, her head on his shoulder, his arm around her. Zeb was telling Luansy that everything would be all right, that he’d come back, after he found Ben DeVere in Franklin, that he had to see this thing through, that he had come too far, that he wouldn’t hold it against her if she never wanted to see him again, but he just couldn’t quit. Sergeant Major Engstrand had been like a father to him.
Luansy had just sat there, the swing barely moving, shaking her head, saying: “Of course, I’ll wait for you, Zeb. I’ll wait forever . . .”
What if Captain Taneyhill’s right? Zeb found himself wondering. What if I get killed, long be
fore I ever catch up to Ben DeVere? What if Ben DeVere kills me? Or what if the law don’t see things the way I do? What if I shoot down Ben DeVere, but the law hangs me for murder?
He could envision Luansy Taylor wearing black for the rest of her life, waiting on Zeb Hogan . . . forever . . .
His mind raced back to the Florence Stockade, and he pictured old Dave Gardenhire telling him: You’re about as mule-headed a boy as I’ve ever known. Gardenhire had been right. Zeb knew that. He also knew he couldn’t quit. He found his resolve, and looked at Ebenezer Chase, and told him the same thing he had told Captain Taneyhill, the same he had just told Luansy. “This is something I gotta do.”
With another curse, Ebenezer stormed out of the bedroom, slamming the door shut, stomping out to the front porch, leaving Zeb alone with those shadows dancing against the wall.
* * * * *
Two days later, the Taneyhill train pulled out of Jefferson. Zeb never knew leaving could be so hard. He had never regretted pulling up stakes and lighting out from Madison, leaving behind his mother and father, but walking out of the captain’s house that morning, shaking hands with little Petey, and hugging and kissing Luansy before they walked down to the warehouses with Ebenezer tore at his heart, left his insides numb.
He had a job to do. Needed to keep telling himself that.
First was getting to Dallas.
* * * * *
Three days out of Jefferson, they came to a dogtrot cabin tucked in a little clearing about fifty yards off the Dallas road. A woman in a homespun dress raced out of the front door, waving a white rag over her head, hollering something insensible. Captain Taneyhill and Amado spurred their horses and rode down the trail to meet her. Zeb stayed by the lead wagon and kept the Sharps rifle ready, looking in the woods, trying to spot any ambushers. After a brief conversation, the woman’s shoulders sagged, and she turned and hurried back to her cabin, while the captain and Amado rode back to the train.
“What’d she want?” Sweazy asked from atop his pole mule.
The captain shook his head. “She thought we were Yankees. She was begging us not to burn down her home.”
They rode on.
“That’s crazy,” Pruden said and spat out a river of tobacco juice.
“No, it ain’t,” Zeb said, but only Ebenezer heard, and Ebenezer kept quiet. He knew what Zeb was thinking. They had seen Columbia, Atlanta, Meridian. Pruden hadn’t.
They rode on.
* * * * *
No bandits waylaid them. They hardly saw anyone else during those two long weeks to Dallas. They pulled into the city, which had a population of about two thousand—most of those, Zeb guessed, rough-looking gents idling outside of the grog shops—and headed straight for warehouses along the Trinity River.
Ebenezer didn’t want to be unloading the wagons, but he didn’t complain, didn’t shirk his duty, just went right on sweating and straining. Zeb wondered if he would be so patient once they reached Franklin, when he got as close to Ben DeVere as Ebenezer was to his family. After a couple hours of back-breaking work, Captain Taneyhill rode his big bay gelding into the warehouse.
“Ebenezer!” he called.
Ebenezer finished helping Zeb and Gonzales lift a McCormick’s Reliable self-raking reaper out of the wagon and onto the dirt. Slowly the black teen looked up at the captain.
“Come along,” the captain said, “I’ve found where Clyde Hall lives. You might as well come, too, Zeb.”
* * * * *
From Commerce Street, they left the warehouse, Zeb and the captain riding slowly and Ebenezer walking behind. Three blocks up, they turned left onto Jefferson Street, went down past Main and Elm. Ebenezer kept calling off the street names from the signs on the corners, like he was trying to remember how to get to wherever they were going. At Calhoun Street, they turned right and rode up a few more blocks before the captain reined in and swung down off his horse in front of a big white house.
To Zeb, it looked to be built of solid marble, with fine columns lining the front porch.
They tied their horses to a hitching post out front as a buggy rode down the street, then walked up a stone path to the house, climbed the steps. When the captain turned a white porcelain knob, a bell rang somewhere inside the house. After a long while, they heard footsteps, and finally the door swung open.
Ebenezer expected a Negro to open the door, knowing that Major Clyde Hall had many slaves, but it was a dumpy-looking man in a plaid sack suit, cravat undone, shirt front darkened with sweat, with a half-empty tumbler of whiskey in his right hand who opened the door. He peered at his visitors through bloodshot eyes.
“Well,” the man said, straightening and running his free hand through what remained of the hair on his head. “Mister Livingston Taneyhill, what brings you to my humble abode?”
“Hello, Clyde.”
“That’s Major Hall to you, sir,” Hall said stiffly.
The captain just laughed. “Major. And I’m only a captain.”
“That’s right, sir. I outrank you.”
“Yeah, but the funny thing is the boys of Harris County elected me captain when we joined up to fight. You named yourself major, and never even got close to a Yank.”
Hall drained his glass. “If you wish to conduct business, Taneyhill, I have an office on Pacific Avenue. How’d you find where I live?”
“I asked. And this isn’t about freighting. I bring news. Well, Ebenezer, here . . . he does.”
Ebenezer shuffled his feet. “Good afternoon, Major, sir.”
“What do you want, boy?”
“Well, sir, we met up with Mister Prescott in Mississippi. We traveled with him a spell.”
The glass almost slipped out of Hall’s hand. “Where is Charles Prescott? Where is the wagon of . . . ?”
“He ran back home, Major, sir . . . when he learned that General Lee had surrendered. Afterwards, bandits waylaid us somewheres in Louisiana. If it wasn’t for Capt’n Taneyhill here, sir, we’d never have made it.”
Major Hall considered Ebenezer for a moment. “The wagon?” he asked.
“Bandits . . . scavengers . . . attacked us. Stole our horses, went through the wagon. Burned it. And they killed . . .” Ebenezer couldn’t finish.
Clyde Hall muttered an oath. “That worthless, cowardly little Prescott.” His eyes found Taneyhill, but quickly returned to Ebenezer. “Wait a confounded minute. I know you. You’re my sister-in-law’s houseboy, her pet darky.”
Ebenezer cleared his throat. “I’m looking for Lizzie and Tempie, sir.”
The major, well in his cups, didn’t appear to have heard. “No, I can’t believe Oliver would have sold you,” he mumbled to himself more than to Ebenezer.
Ebenezer’s fists clenched so tightly, his arms began to shake.
“You have his wife and daughter,” Captain Taneyhill said. “I’d like to buy them from you.”
Hall’s mouth fell open, and he looked at the three uninvited guests. After a minute, he laughed. “You?” He snorted. “Falling off your Abolitionist wagon, Livingston?”
“I never was an Abolitionist, Clyde. I just never saw any point in owning another man, woman, or child.”
“You fought on the wrong side, my friend.”
“At least I fought.”
Hall bristled, if only for a moment, before he stepped inside the door, waving his guests to follow. The house lay in shambles, though not from the kind of ruin Zeb and Ebenezer had seen in other cities. This was just dirty, stinking, dusty.
Drunkenly Hall staggered to the parlor, grabbed a decanter, filled his glass, spilling a healthy dose, and collapsed in a chair by a floor-to-ceiling window. “I am drunk,” Clyde Hall announced, although the trio already knew that. “I have been drunk since I learned of Appomattox Courthouse.”
“Lizzie Chase,” Captain Taneyhill reminded him. “And her daughter, Tempie. Where are they?”
“Confound it, man, do you see any charcoals here? A few of them ran off when they learned Lee ha
d surrendered. Another nefarious scoundrel, a colored brigand, absconded with several . . . promising them freedom. The local constabulary and some rangers have been pursuing them. I told Undersheriff Stricklyn that he could bring my slaves back dead, for all I care. Even with Lincoln assassinated, the South . . . it is finished.”
“Where’s my wife and child?” Ebenezer shouted, and he stepped forward, ready to thrash the drunkard. He probably would have, had Zeb not grabbed him from behind, pinning back his arms. Ebenezer grimaced, his ribs aching, but Zeb didn’t let go, wouldn’t let Ebenezer strike a white man, not a rich one like Clyde Hall, not in a city that had hanged and whipped a bunch of slaves just five years back. Ebenezer might have been hurting, but he refused to give up. He didn’t stop until Captain Taneyhill told him to. Only then did Zeb let go.
“That’s right,” Hall said, as if he remembered. “You were mighty upset when Oliver sold me that little baby. Yes, now I remember. Lizzie was a handsome woman. Could keep a man cozy a night.”
Zeb grabbed Ebenezer again. This time Ebenezer didn’t listen to the captain’s orders, or Zeb’s pleas. Finally Captain Taneyhill had to push Ebenezer against the wall. A map fell off its hanger, slipping to the floor. Hall just laughed.
“Where are they?” Ebenezer roared.
Taneyhill held Ebenezer’s left arm with his one good arm. Zeb used both hands to grip Ebenezer’s right.
“Where’s my wife? Where’s my child?”
Hall finished his whiskey, and shook his head. He was still laughing when he answered. “Boy, they’re both dead.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Once, back at Hall Plantation in Florence County on a September afternoon, Ebenezer had fallen off a wagon out by the tobacco barn, landing on his back so hard that all the air had left his lungs. He had gasped, trying to get oxygen, staring up at the panicked faces of the slaves standing over him, none of them knowing what to do. Another time, a jenny named Eleanor had slammed a hoof into his back when he wasn’t looking, and the pain became so intense that he wanted to cry out, but couldn’t. He had just stood there at the corral, mouth open, waiting to scream.
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