Lost Cause

by J. R. Ayers

  The cabin smelled of coffee and freshly baked bread and burnt lantern oil. A woman sat in the corner of the cabin watching Jack with eyes as faded and void of substance as her blue apron. “Hello,” Jack said. She nodded curtly.

  “Suppose you’re wantin’ to eat too,” she said, speaking very slowly.

  “If you can spare something,” Jack said.

  “Them other soldiers ate up all the bacon and two pans of biscuits. I reckon I can make you some gravy from the drippings. I got some canned pears too, and they’s plenty of coffee in the pot yonder.”

  “That would be fine,” Jack said helping himself to a seat at a small table in the kitchen.

  The woman went about pouring bacon grease into a cast iron frying pan and mixing it with flour. Jack sat silently watching her work fascinated by the length and color of her hair. She had a strong, sturdy frame and long tapered fingers that gripped the pan as if she was well accustomed to handling cooking equipment. A bonnet made of blue flannel covered most of the strawberry hair spilling over her shoulders in long curly locks.

  “Your head’s bleedin’,” she said casually.”

  “Yeah, had a little Indian trouble.” She turned to look at Jack briefly and then went back to her stirring.

  “Indians, huh? I figured it was them Yankees who rode by here the other day who did it.”

  “No ma’am, it was Kickapoos. Guess we strayed too close to their community.”

  “You with them rebels who stopped this morning?”

  “Of a sort, yes. But I got separated from them. There’s a convoy of wagons and ambulances headed this way too. They’re somewhere south of here I think.”

  “I hope they ain’t hungry, ‘cause I’m plum out of provisions a tryin’ to feed one army or the other.”

  “They have their own found. They may have to replenish their water, but they shouldn’t impose too badly.”

  “You’re well spoken for a country boy.”

  “Books. I read a lot as a young man.”

  “You’re still a young man,” she said. “I’m thirty-two. You can’t be no more than twenty-five if you’re even that.

  “Twenty-three in six months, ma’am.”

  “She stirred water and coffee into the pan and added a little salt and black pepper. Then she poured the gravy into a wooden bowl and set it before Jack along with a spoon and a large mug of black coffee. Jack sipped the coffee, taking note of the absence of chickory, and nodded his approval. “You ain’t tasted the gravy yet,” she said twisting off the lid of a jar of preserved pears. Jack tasted the gravy and suppressed a frown then tasted again.

  “It’s fine, ma’am,” he said.

  “You’re a fine liar, mister. . .”

  “Saylor, Jack Saylor.”

  “As in them fellers who sail the ships?”

  “No. it’s spelled with a Y.”

  ”Oh.”

  “Everyone thinks the same thing, so. . .”

  “How’s your gravy, Mr. Saylor?”

  “It’s fine. I was very hungry. I appreciate you making it for me.”

  “Wish I had something better,” she said. “I think you’ll find these pears a little more appetizin’, I put cinnamon in ‘em when I canned them last fall.”

  Jack ate the whole jar and drank three cups of coffee. When he was prepared to leave, the woman gave him another jar of pears and said, “You want me to clean that cut on your head before you go? I got some liniment and a little grain alcohol.”

  He sat quietly while she washed his head with a wet cloth. Then she applied some sort of ointment to the wound that smelled of rosemary and covered the area with a paste made of baking soda and water. Jack thanked her for everything and offered to pay and she said no and Jack stood to leave and she said,

  “Do you have a wife, Jack Saylor?”

  “No.”

  “A sweetheart then?” Jack hesitated only briefly before saying,

  “No, nothing like that, ma’am.”

  “My name’s Beryl. You really ain’t a bad lookin’ man. Ain’t had one myself since my mister died fightin’ at Cold Harbor a couple of years back. Maybe we should pair up and get to know each other and see what happens. What do say, you willing?” Jack stood in awkward silence unsure of how to respond to the blunt question. Finally he shrugged and said,

  “If I was of a mind to take up with a woman I expect you’d do just fine ma’am, but—”

  “I got a real nice bed mattress. Stuffed it myself.”

  “I’m sure you’re a nice woman. . .”

  “Am I? Am I nice?”

  “Sure you are.”

  “In these ragged clothes? Look at the holes in my dress. Look at this sorry excuse of a bonnet. Nice? Nice? How would you know anyway, you’re just a Johnny Reb without enough sense to stay clear of Indian trouble. Goodbye to you Mr. Jack Saylor, I wish you the best of luck!”

  She held the door for him and stood on the porch watching him until he was well down the road. Jack was perplexed by her strange behavior, but he had a full stomach and his head wound felt much better, so he didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about her peculiarities, though a feather bed would have felt wonderful on his sore body and he hadn’t been intimate with a woman since Marie Hayes, so the thought of seeing what Beryl was packing under those long shapeless skirts was an enticing thought indeed. But so was the thought of finding help for Carl Campbell. So he continued on down the road walking a little faster now that had some food in his stomach.

  An hour later he ran into the lead wagon of Colonel Ford’s retreat convoy. They were glad to see him and understandably concerned when he told his tale about the Indian attack. Colonel Ford dispatched forty Calvary troops to go find Campbell and eliminate the Indian threat. Jack tried to convince him to spare the girls but the colonel’s orders were to neutralize anyone who got in the way no matter the age or gender.

  Jack was sent to one of the ambulances for medical attention and Nurse Mason met him by the back door. She sat him on a small bench and took a look at his head wound.

  “I’m glad you’re back,” she said. “And safe.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Have you eaten anything?”

  “Some gravy. And pears.”

  “You look thin. How did you get this wound?”

  “An arrow.”

  “Stone, or iron?”

  “Stone,”

  “Good, less chance of infection.”

  She dressed the wound and Jack thanked her and she gave him a hug and he walked away to find the colonel.

  “I should have gone with them,” Jack said. Colonel Ford was sitting on the ground eating a wedge of cheese and studying a map folded over his knees.

  “You’re wounded, Corporal, you need to stand down and get something to eat. Get your strength back. My men will find Corporal Campbell.”

  “I just hope he’s still alive.”

  “That goes with out saying. Look, Corporal, this isn’t an emotional thing we’re dealing with here. I just lost a lot of good men, men every bit as capable as Corporal Campbell. All our men have worth and we mourn their passing. But, the bottom line is we all have to be willing to give our lives for our government and our country. We all took an oath. It’s nothing more complicated or emotional than that.”

  Jack had always wondered how officers thought as compared to enlisted men and Colonel Ford’s little soliloquy had just shed some light on at least one aspect of their thought process. Jack had no doubt that the man had feelings of regret when his men were killed, but he did doubt whether the regret was a simple human response to death, or much like a business man feeling regret for having lost one of the numbers from his inventory list.

  Sensing the conversation was over, Jack excused himself and went to find something to eat. The gravy he’d had earlier was tasteless and lay in his gut like a stone. He needed something with meat in it and plentiful enough to cover over the knot of grease and flour balled up in his stomach. He found a mess
cook and after sharing his harrowing experience with the Indians, convinced the man that he, being a hero of sorts, was due a nice bacon and egg supper. He got the bacon, and a half a dozen biscuits, but the eggs that had survived the jostling and bouncing of the creek crossing had all been consumed earlier that morning.

  Jack was enjoying his meal when the Calvary troop returned with Carl Campbell. There were three dead soldiers tied over their saddles and six wounded suffering everything from bumps and bruises to life threatening arrow and lance wounds.

  Jack left his supper and went to help Campbell down from his horse. He was as pale as flour and his leg was swollen to twice the normal size. He was dehydrated and weak and hurting but he was alive. They spirited him off to an ambulance and Jack followed close behind concerned about his good friend.

  One of the wounded soldiers was telling his lieutenant the details of the rescue mission. “Those Indians fought hard, but we finally managed to kill all of them.”

  “Were there some young girls there?” Jack interjected.

  “Yep. And they fought just as hard as the braves. We had to kill them too. They didn’t give us any choice.”

  “What about the men that were with Campbell and me?”

  “All dead. We buried them beside the road. Not much point in bringing them back here, not in the shape they were in. One man’s head was cut nearly off.”

  Jack turned to Campbell and asked, “How you doing, Carl?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Don’t talk about it if you don’t want to.”

  “Aw, well, I don’t remember much after you left. I was out for a while and then I heard a lot of shooting and yelling and then those Calvary boys came and got me.” Campbell lay back on a makeshift examination table smoking a cigar someone had given him. A surgeon approached the table with a large scalpel in his hand and said,

  “I’m getting ready to remove that arrowhead. Anyone who doesn’t need to be here should not be.”

  Jack didn’t have to be told twice.

  He needed a new uniform blouse and shirt and he found them in a supply wagon. The shirt was very baggy and the blouse was a little tight but he made them work. He also selected a new hat, though he had to remove the captain insignia above the front bill lest he be accused of impersonating an officer.

  He sat in the shade of a jack pine tree and waited for Campbell’s surgery to conclude. The new hat felt very tight around his head and the new clothes felt very dry against his skin. Some of the civilian children walked by the tree he was sitting under. They avoided looking at him and were very careful not to speak until they were well past him then whispered around cupped hands. Jack didn’t feel insulted, but he did feel a little sad. Under different circumstances he would have scolded the insolent little brats. But circumstances had been turned upside down as of late and nothing seemed worth getting angry over anymore.

  Corporal Campbell survived his surgery but he was bed ridden in one of the wagons. Jack went to see him the next day. “Damn, you look terrible, Carl.”

  “Matches the way I feel.”

  “Does it hurt much?”

  “You remember how your shoulder felt, don’t you?”

  “Say no more. We’ll be in Laredo in the morning. I hear they have a hospital there. We’ll get you fixed up in no time.”

  “Great, another hospital.”

  Campbell was quiet for a time, thinking. Then he said, “That sure was awful them other boys losing their lives. I feel kind of responsible.”

  “It wasn’t your doing,” Jack said. “We all run a risk. It comes with the job.”

  “Yeah, I reckon. Still. . .”

  “Let’s just concentrate on getting you well.”

  Jack left Campbell fretting and went to find Nurse Mason. She was sitting on the side of the road cleaning surgical equipment with a cotton cloth. She looked very tired and dejected and quite small. “Hello, Nurse Mason.”

  She looked up and smiled wanly. “Hello, Corporal Saylor.”

  “I’ve just left Carl. He seems rather down.”

  “Wouldn’t you be?”

  Jack thought about how he’d felt after his shoulder surgery; the feeling of deadness and profound sadness. “Carl has a strong constitution,” he said. “I’ll lay odds on him recovering just fine.”

  Nurse Mason stood to her feet and placed her hands on her hips and stretched her back groaning softly from the effort. “I hope we get to Laredo soon, she said “I’m sick of traveling in these dirty wet wagons.”

  “The scouts say we’ll be there about mid morning tomorrow. Do you know if they have a hospital in town?”

  “Yes, they had two before the war.”

  “Good, these men can get some care in a proper place.”

  “How was Marie when last you saw her?” the nurse asked. Jack was taken off guard by the question and he had to take a moment to steady himself before answering.

  “She was fine, Nurse Mason, just fine.”

  “That’s so. . . cryptic. What do you mean, fine?”

  “She was well. She seemed fine.”

  “How did she like the hospital there in Corpus Christi?’

  “Fine.”

  “My goodness, Corporal Saylor, you are a hard man to have a conversation with.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I was just wondering how her spirits were. She was very fond of you. That’s why she begged for the transfer. Was she terribly hurt when you were dispatched back to Brownsville?”

  “No, ma’am, she seemed fine.”

  “Fine. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll take these fine instruments back to the fine ambulance,” She walked away leaving Jack scratching his head wondering what he had said wrong.

  Chapter 32

  The convoy arrived in Laredo around ten in the morning. The ambulances were directed to a hospital on Taylor Street and the supply wagons to Camp Crawford just outside town near Chacon Creek. There was a small contingent of troops at the camp commanded by a lieutenant named Broder. Colonel Ford convened a meeting of the officers while the enlisted men including Jack set about expanding the camp to accommodate the newly arrived infantry and what was left of the Calvary. They set up tents and dug latrine pits and strung rope remudas for the horses and, most importantly, erected a large canvas tent for the mess crew.

  Jack staked out a six man tent near the mess tent and convinced the other four men to save one cot for Campbell when he was well enough to leave the hospital. The men were from Sibley’s command and had been in Laredo for two months to help keep the roads open so cotton wagons could cross the border into Mexico. So far, the men said, there hadn’t been any trouble, but rumors were going around that Union troops were on their way up from Brownsville to burn the 500 hundred bales of cotton stored near San Augustin Plaza.

  “We never should have retreated from Brownsville,” Jack said in response to the news.

  “We heard ya’ll was way out numbered,” one of the soldiers said.

  “About two to one. Still, we should have stayed and fought.

  “I hope they do come,” another man said. “They killed my brother down at Sabine Pass last fall. I’m itchin’ to take my vengeance.”

  They talked about the war for a while and their homes and their families then lunch was ready and they all piled into the mess tent for beans and flour tortillas and a thick sauce made of tomatoes and hot green chilies. Jack was on his second bowl when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned and saw the smiling face of the young priest from Brownsville.

  “Padre! Damn it’s good to see you.”

  “Hello, Jack. You’re looking. . .adequate.”

  “Sit down, Padre, please have a seat. It’s good to see you. How long have you been here?”

  “Just got in last night. There were Union soldiers on the road. But the horse you gave me was very surefooted. I just stayed behind the trees until I passed them.”

  “Did they take the town?” The priest nodded and removed his hat.

/>   “About two hundred strong as best I could tell. They were very cruel to the people too. Their surgeon didn’t even try to treat the wounded we left behind. There was nothing I could do for them, so I left before they came for me.”

  “I’m glad you did, Padre,” Jack said. “I missed talking with you.”

  “How is your friend, Campbell?”

  “He was wounded again. But he’s recuperating in the hospital.”

  “Good, good. You seem to have some injuries of your own.”

  “Have some food, Padre and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  The priest went to work on a bowl of beans and Jack filled him in on the details of the Indian attack. When he was finished, the priest said,

  “It is a shame we have to fight two enemies at once.”

  “The Kickapoos didn’t invite us into their territory,” Jack said. “It was that old slaver that stirred them up. If he hadn’t bought those girls, then maybe—”

  “Now you have a problem with the buying of people?” the priest interjected.

  “Something just didn’t sit right about buying those girls.”

  “Why is that?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I’m used to seeing blacks sold at auction. I never considered that others could be marketed as well.”

  “Gives you food for thought now doesn’t it, Jack?” the priest said tapping the bowl with his spoon. Jack grinned broadly at the pun and gave the priest’s shoulder a gentle squeeze.

  “I’m so glad you’re back. Now I have someone to straighten out my thinking.” Then his smile faded and he pushed aside his empty bowl. “You know, Padre, I’m not Catholic, right?” The priest nodded and Jack said, “Would it still be alright if I confessed something to you? I mean, that’s what Catholics do, right?” Confess to a priest, I mean?”

  “Yes, Jack, I could hear your confession. But if you’re not familiar with our traditions, I fear that it won’t do any good.”

  “What traditions?”

  “Penance, Our Father, Hail Mary, some of our most sacred rituals.”