South by Southwest

by Johnny D. Boggs

  “Zeb! Zeb! Up here!” Sweazy yelled.

  Zeb could barely hear him, with his ringing ears. Words, noises all sounded like they were coming from a tunnel. He finished loading the Sharps, started running toward Sweazy, who was turning around, screaming. A figure shot ahead, leaped over the wagon tongue, started running up the road. Severo was pulling the mules into the center of the circle. Pruden let out a curse, and cut loose with his revolver.

  “That fool kid!” Sweazy yelled again.

  Out of breath, Zeb looked around and could see Ebenezer running up the road. Running toward Captain Taneyhill, who was pinned underneath his dead horse.

  “He ain’t got no gun!” Sweazy cried as two men rode right for Ebenezer and the captain.

  Zeb raised the Sharps. The closest rider was a colored man, too, but that wasn’t not what Zeb saw. He saw a Rebel soldier, and he recalled the first time he had seen the elephant, back in Georgia.

  * * * * *

  The gray line moved forward, and Sergeant Major Engstrand ordered: “Fire!” Zeb brought up his rifle, drew a bead on a Johnny Reb. Musketry roared around him. A bullet slammed into Private Larson’s throat, and he fell beside Zeb, gagging, blood spurting, him choking, drowning. Zeb glanced at the dying soldier, made himself look away, heard Sergeant Major Engstrand yelling. Zeb tried to find another charging enemy soldier in his sights . . .

  After the fight, after they had driven back the Confederates, Zeb knelt in the trench, cleaning his rifle, and when he stopped, then he started shaking.

  Sergeant Major Engstrand put his hand on Zeb’s shoulder, and whispered, “Tough day, eh, laddie?”

  “Sergeant . . .” Zeb held out the rifle for Engstrand to inspect. “I never fired a shot. Not the whole time.”

  “I know,” he said.

  Zeb figured Engstrand would be furious. Zeb’s inaction could have cost them the battle. He wouldn’t have been surprised had Engstrand ordered Zeb court-martialed, shot for cowardice. Instead, Sergeant Major Engstrand pulled Zeb close.

  “Aye, I know. It’s a hard thing, Zeb, to kill another man. And it should be a hard thing. It should always be hard.”

  * * * * *

  The gray-coat soldier disappeared, and Zeb again saw the black rider, coming down hard for Ebenezer and Captain Taneyhill. Zeb aimed low, the way he had been taught to do by Sergeant Major Engstrand. He squeezed the trigger, stepped aside, calmly reloaded. Both horse and rider went down, the horse rolling up, clambering to its feet, wandering off, the rider lying facedown, shaking his head, dazed, just a few rods behind the captain and Ebenezer.

  As the second rider leaped over the captain’s dead horse—the hoofs of the dun-colored beast almost colliding with Captain Taneyhill’s head—he tugged on the reins, swung around, and brought up a six-shooter. A puff of dust was raised off the horseman’s vest at the same time the stock of the Sharps slammed into his shoulder, and the rider, who looked to be a Mexican, toppled from the saddle as the horse bolted down the pike.

  Zeb was again reloading the Sharps as he watched Ebenezer pull the captain from underneath the dead horse. Taneyhill rose unsteadily, put his good arm around Ebenezer’s shoulder. They staggered forward.

  “Come on, Ebenezer!” Zeb shouted. “For God’s sake, hurry!”

  Yet he knew it was hopeless.

  Other riders galloped out of the brush to intercept them.

  “They’ll never make it,” Sweazy said.

  Zeb thought: And there’s nothing I can do to save them.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Fright gripped Ebenezer, almost paralyzed him.

  More than a dozen riders had cut off Ebenezer and Captain Taneyhill a good forty yards from the wagons. Some of those men aimed rifles at Ebenezer and the captain, while the others cut loose with a cannonade of musketry that kept Zeb, Pruden, Gonzales, Sweazy, and Severo pinned down.

  Ebenezer Chase waited to die. Odd, he thought, I never figured I’d get killed by my own kind. Thought it would be a white man . . .

  Most of the riders were black, although a couple were Mexican. Two of the Negro riders swung off their mounts, one of them shoving a revolver in his sash, barking an order at the prisoners, but Ebenezer couldn’t hear anything above the deafening roar of rifles. Horses danced around nervously, white smoke filled the sky, and the bitter smell of sulphur tore at his nostrils.

  The man who had yelled, a broad-shouldered Negro missing his right ear, cuffed Ebenezer across the cheek with a gloved backhand, felling Ebenezer to his knees. His partner, a Mexican in an embroidered shirt, was busy shoving the captain, belly down, on the Mexican’s horse, then swung up and kicked the chestnut gelding into a lope. Missing Ear jerked Ebenezer to his feet, shouted again. This time Ebenezer heard him.

  “Get on, or I leave you here to feed the ravens!”

  He slammed Ebenezer against the bay horse. Blood spilled out of Ebenezer’s nose and busted lips, and he felt himself being thrown roughly onto the horse like a sack of oats, or perhaps a corpse, which Ebenezer soon expected to become. Missing Ear mounted behind Ebenezer, raked spurs across the bay, and Ebenezer bounced around on the saddle, kept in place only by a firm hand pressing against his back. After rounding the bend in the road and moving through some brush, Ebenezer was flung onto the hard ground. His head ached. He struggled for breath. The sound of the battle slowly died.

  “Ebenezer?”

  It was the captain’s voice. Ebenezer looked up, saw the blue sky, turned to the left, and found Captain Taneyhill sitting up. Blood leaked from wicked cuts on the captain’s forehead and cheek, and his right arm dangled uselessly, his sleeve slick with blood that kept spreading, dripping from a hole in his shoulder, down his arm and off his fingertips. The same place where he’d been wounded at Corinth! Taneyhill’s features revealed incredible pain, but somehow he managed a smile.

  “Reckon I won’t be seein’ any new country, after all.” He bit his lip, shook his head, kept talking. “That was a brave thing you did, Ebenezer . . . runnin’ out to fetch me. Should have looked after yourself, though.”

  “I couldn’t do that, Captain.”

  Taneyhill’s head bobbed. “Well, I’m proud of you.”

  “Shut up!” a voice thundered, and Taneyhill and Ebenezer watched the gathering of horsemen. They came from all directions—blacks, Mexicans, and three white men wearing the dirty blue jackets and the lighter blue pants of the Union soldiers. Foragers. Scavengers. Bushwhackers. Murderers. All the names fit.

  “Emil,” another voice—deeper, more authoritative—sounded behind the wall of mounted ruffians. “You and Carlito keep peppering them with pot shots. Just be careful not to hit those wagons. We’ve already lost a ton of powder.”

  The horses parted, and a giant black man rode through on a prancing white horse. His hair was white, close-cropped, and he sported a big mustache, carried a brace of revolvers on his hips and a big rifle in huge hands. He wore no hat, though a long, yellow scarf hung around his neck against a fancy blue bib-front shirt. Seeing the captain and Ebenezer, he guided the beautiful horse toward the prisoners and pulled on the reins. Two men, one colored, the other Mexican, took the reins as he dismounted while working the lever on a fancy rifle he carried, sending an empty brass cartridge spinning into the air. The man made a beeline for the captain and Ebenezer.

  “Your boys are pretty good shots.” Hard black eyes locked on Captain Taneyhill. “Killed two of my men, wounded four more, and I don’t have that many to spare.”

  “Likely,” the captain said, “you’ll lose more if you don’t skedaddle.”

  The big man laughed, swinging the rifle barrel till it rested maybe an inch from Taneyhill’s nose.

  “That gunpowder won’t do you no good . . . dead.”

  Ebenezer let out a heavy sigh, perhaps even a moan, remembering Captain Taneyhill’s warning that bandits likely knew of the load, and would ambush them long before they ever made it to Mexico. The big Negro leader didn’t even consider Ebenezer, just
kept his rifle trained on Captain Taneyhill.

  The captain didn’t blink, kept right on staring at the big man.

  “Don’t,” Ebenezer said softly, and the big man’s massive head slowly turned.

  “You like being a slave, boy?” he asked.

  “He’s no slave,” Captain Taneyhill said. “I pay him . . .”

  “Shut up!” the white-haired Negro said. “I’m talking to the boy.”

  His voice triggered some dormant memory, and Ebenezer stared up into those eyes, not answering, and felt himself nervously playing with the red button ring on his pinky. As the big man looked closely at Ebenezer’s quilt vest, then at the button ring, the wrinkles around his eyes tightened, and he lowered the rifle.

  “Ebenezer?” he asked.

  “I . . .” Ebenezer shook his head. It couldn’t be, but the voice was his. Back at Hall Plantation in South Carolina, Uncle Cain had always kept his head shaved, and Ebenezer had never seen him with a mustache, certainly had never seen him wearing heavy Dragoon revolvers in fancy tooled holsters and carrying a repeating rifle. Ebenezer looked at the Negro’s left hand, saw the two missing fingers, the ones he had lost to a snapping turtle while noodling for catfish.

  “Uncle Cain?” he said.

  Quickly Cain Riddell tossed the rifle to a wiry Negro standing a few feet away, reached down, and jerked Ebenezer up and into a tight hug. Almost as quickly, he shoved Ebenezer an arm’s distance away, eying him up and down, grinning widely. “What is you doing in Texas, boy? How’d you . . . ?” His eyes brightened even more, and he shook his head. “Tempie and Lizzie. You comes for them, eh?”

  His head dropped. “They’re dead, Uncle Cain.” The words were barely audible.

  “Dead?” Cain’s voice boomed like thunder.

  “Died of yellow fever in Dallas . . .” Ebenezer’s voice wavered. “In October.” He shook his head. “I came for them.” He looked his uncle in the eye. “Remember you told me about that white couple on Lynches River . . . Tres Hudgens and his wife? I run off, found them. Run off with a soldier who’d escaped from the prison camp in Florence. He’s . . .” Ebenezer decided not to tell Cain that Zeb Hogan was with the captain’s wagons. “Wanted to get to Lizzie, to see my baby again, but . . .” His head fell once more.

  “You come more than a thousand miles to find your wife and daughter,” Uncle Cain said, marveling over the statement. Suddenly he roared, “Do you hear that, men? This here is Ebenezer Chase. He run off from Hall Plantation, same as me. This boy was like a son to me. And now, here we are. This is Providence’s doing, boys. We’ll celebrate once we’ve finished our business here.”

  Not one of his men said anything. They just stared. Off in the near distance, Ebenezer heard the muffled reports of rifles. Uncle Cain’s sharpshooters were doing his bidding, keeping Zeb and the others pinned down.

  “Uncle Cain,” he blurted out, “Captain Taneyhill here . . . he’s a good man. Saved my life. Please don’t hurt him. Or his ’skinners. Please stop what you’re doing. The war’s over. The captain . . . He’s . . .”

  Uncle Cain did the strangest thing. He laughed, pulled Ebenezer close to his chest, almost crushed Ebenezer’s back with those strong arms. “Boy, did Major Hall tell you Tempie and your wife were dead?” Like he hadn’t even heard Ebenezer’s pleas to spare the captain.

  At first, Ebenezer could only nod. Finally he said, “His wife died, too.”

  “His wife . . . sure . . . and good riddance. But not Tempie, not Lizzie. I freed them, Ebenezer. They’s in my camp a few miles south of Phantom Hill. Major Hall, he lied to you, boy. That’s just like that conniving, miserable white stinking son-of . . .”

  “Cain!”

  Cain Riddell turned toward one of the men in the blue coats, a tall man with a red goatee and the left side of his face blackened and disfigured from gunpowder that had gotten underneath the skin. “Smoke from them two wagons we blew up is bound to draw attention,” the man said. “If we’re gonna get the rest of that load, we better start working on it.”

  Uncle Cain extended his arms, and the Negro holding his rifle tossed it back to him. Cain caught it, and held it out for Ebenezer’s inspection. “Ever seen one of these, Ebenezer?”

  He shook his head. Cain’s words had left Ebenezer in shock. Question after question raced through his mind. Could Tempie and Lizzie still be alive? Can I trust Uncle Cain? Is he right? Why would Major Hall have lied? Was it, as his Uncle Cain had said, Providence that he had met him more than a thousand miles from South Carolina? Ebenezer remembered that time in Louisiana, when he had spied Prescott’s wagon, bound for Dallas. Fate . . . divine intervention . . . just plain luck? The hand of God? Or the devil’s bidding? Tempie . . . Lizzie . . . alive?

  No, he couldn’t believe what his uncle had said, couldn’t even believe that he, Ebenezer Chase, was here, in Texas, talking to him. Couldn’t quite fathom what he’d become. An outlaw. A renegade. Yet Ebenezer started to remember other things that he had heard at Major Hall’s house in Dallas. Most of the slaves had run off after hearing of Lee’s surrender, the major had said. But what else? Slowly the words sounded in his brain: Another nefarious scoundrel, a colored brigand, absconded with several, promising them freedom. The local constabulary and some rangers have been pursuing them . . .

  “It’s a Henry repeater,” Uncle Cain was saying. “Shoots a .44-caliber rimfire. Sixteen shots. All you gots to do is work this lever.” He did, sending another brass cartridge, this one unfired, arcing into the air and into the dust behind him. “Aim, and pull the trigger. The Rebs said the Henry could be loaded on Sunday and shot all week, ain’t that right, Tanner?”

  The scarred white man grunted something.

  Just as quickly Uncle Cain Riddell tossed the rifle to Ebenezer, who almost dropped it. The rifle was heavy, awkward, a silver plate attached to the brown stock, the brass frame reflecting the sunlight, the long, black barrel warm from being fired. Fired, most likely, at the captain, Ebenezer’s friends, and Ebenezer himself. His arms started shaking. A few of the outlaws put their hands on their guns, some of them watching Ebenezer, others eyeing Cain Riddell with suspicion.

  Riddell laughed again. “Keep this man covered, Ebenezer.” Riddell pointed a huge finger at Captain Taneyhill. “If he moves, kill him. Just point that Henry at his head, and squeeze the trigger.” His stare hardened. “You thinks you can do that, boy?”

  The rifle felt like an anvil in Ebenezer’s arms. He tried to shake his head.

  “White men owned you all your life, Ebenezer,” Riddell said. “They sold your wife, your daughter, took them away from you. You don’t owe that man”—he practically spit on Captain Taneyhill—“nothing!”

  Ebenezer’s knees started to buckle.

  “This will be over soon, Ebenezer,” Riddell said. “Then I’ll takes you to see your wife, your daughter.” Smiling. “She’s a tigress, that baby of yourn. How long has it been since you’ve seen her?”

  His lips parted, but yet Ebenezer couldn’t say anything.

  “I’ve freed slaves, Ebenezer. Made men out of them. We’ll sells this powder to the Comanches. They hate the white man as much as I do. We’ll be rich, Ebenezer. You can buy your wife and daughter all the things they should have had to begin with. We’ll ride away from here free, Ebenezer. Free!”

  “Or you can die with your boss man,” Tanner said with a sneer.

  “Shut up, Tanner,” Riddell said. His right hand rested on Ebenezer’s shoulder, giving that reassuring squeeze the old man had always given Ebenezer and other young slaves back on the plantation. “You’s free, Ebenezer. Do what you will.”

  With that, he turned, walked away, leaving Ebenezer with the Henry rifle and Captain Taneyhill.

  Slowly Ebenezer turned the barrel toward the captain, but couldn’t look at him, at least not in the eyes.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “Here comes somebody,” Sweazy said.

  Zeb pulled back the Sharps’ hammer, drawing a be
ad on one of the bold-as-brass riders easing down the road.

  “Do not shoot, Zeb,” Gonzales whispered. “They carry a flag of truce.”

  “I see it.” Zeb didn’t, however, lower the barrel, or the hammer.

  The sun, low in the west and behind the riders, made it hard to make out any of the riders, yet finally it became clear that the lead rider was Captain Taneyhill. As they drew near, Zeb could tell that the captain looked as if he had been trampled. Three men rode behind Taneyhill, and all the horses stopped about twenty-five yards from the wagons.

  Slowly Taneyhill slipped off the saddle. His right arm looked broken, bloody. One black man dismounted, also, pointing a fancy rifle at the captain’s head.

  “Madre mía,” Gonzales said. “That is . . . Ebenezer Chase.”

  “Demonio,” Severo whispered.

  This time, Zeb lowered the rifle. His stomach felt queasy. It couldn’t be, but yes, there they were. Captain Taneyhill stood in the center of the road, with Ebenezer at his side, training a Henry rifle at the captain’s head. Another rider, a burly black man with white hair, no hat, and a walrus mustache, held a rifle with a white bandanna tied to the barrel, and rode forward a few rods.

  “We gots your boss!” His voice boomed with authority. “You wants him back. We wants what’s left of your wagons. Let’s trade.”

  Sweazy’s voice startled Zeb. “Send Captain Taneyhill in. We’ll let you have the wagons.”

  The black man on the white horse cackled. “No, I don’t think I trust you. Y’all just hightail it back toward Belknap. We’ll take the wagons, send your captain along after you.”

  “How could we trust you?” Sweazy asked.

  The man laughed. “Gentlemen, please . . . ask anybody about Cain Riddell, and they’ll tell you that I’m an honorable man.”

  “Yeah!” Sweazy yelled. “I’ve heard all about Cain Riddell. Blackheart. Black bas—”