Woe to Live On: A Novel (2 page)

“We care nothing for the war,” the Dutchman said. He had lost his hysterics for the moment and seemed nearly sensible. I respected that, but fitted the noose with thirteen coils around his neck. “We are for Utah Territory. Utah. This is not a war in Utah, we learn.”

“This war is everywhere,” I said.

“I am no Negro-stealer. I am barrel maker.”

“You are Union.”

“
Nein.
I am for Utah Territory.”

I gave the long end of the rope to Mackeson, as I knew he wanted it. He threw it high up over a cottonwood branch, then tied it to the trunk.

Jack Bull Chiles was standing between Mackeson and the water; and as he was my near brother, raised on the same bit of earth, he hustled the Dutchman toward the wagon for me. Some of the other boys joined him, and they lifted the center of attention to the seat of the wagon, startling the team, and setting off screeches of metal on wood, mules and women.

I stepped back from the wagon’s path, then turned to Black John.

“He says he is not a Union man,” I told him. I was flat with my voice, giving the comment no more weight than a remark on the weather. “He was codded by our costumes.”

“Sure he says that,” Mackeson said. “Dutchman don’t mean ‘fool.’ ”

“Now he says he is sympathetic to our cause, does he?” Black John said. He was remounted and others were following suit. “Well, he should’ve hung by his convictions rather than live by the lie.” Black John swelled himself with a heavy breath, then nodded to Mackeson. “He’s just a goddamn Dutchman anyhow, and I don’t much care.”

Mackeson winked meanly at Schnellenberger, then stepped past him and slapped the mules on the rump.

The immigrant swung, and not summer-evening peaceful, but frantic.

“One less Dutchman,” Coleman Younger said.

They all watched me, as they always did when wrong-hearted Dutchmen were converted by us. They were watching me even as they faced away, or giggled. Such an audience compelled me to act, so I mounted my big bay slowly, elaborately cool about the affair.

The woman was grieved beyond utterance, her eyes wide and her mouth open and trembling, as if she would scream but could not. The little girl was curled in behind
Mutter’s
big skirts, whimpering.

The boy I watched, as I’d pegged him for smart. With his hands hanging limp at his sides he walked beneath his father’s dancing boots, then gave a cry and made a move to loosen the rope about the cottonwood trunk. He was close to fourteen and still foreign to his toes.

I gave no warning but the cocking of my Navy Colt and booked the boy passage with his father. He did not turn, and the ball tore him between the blades. His death was instant.

My face was profound, I hoped, when I faced Black John.

“Pups make hounds,” I said. “And there are hounds enough.”

Black John nodded, then said solemnly, “Jake Roedel, you are a rare Dutchman.”

Pitt Mackeson glared at me wrinkle-nosed, as if I were something hogs had vomited.

“Did you see that?” he asked. “Shot the boy in the back! Couldn’t shoot him face-to-face. Goddamn Dutchman! Why’d you back-shoot him?”

“I am tender toward boys,” I said. “But I would put a ball in your face, Mackeson, should affairs so dictate.”

There was a silence that gave off steam, then Black John repeated himself on the sort of Dutchman I was and we rode away in the silence of the family’s pain.

Jack Bull sidled his blue-black mount next to mine and we rode together. My near brother had a squared forehead and a narrow chin and manly brown eyes atop an uncrushed nose. The effect was pleasing to most folks. His dark hair had length, and his long, lean body was capable of quickness, but only after careful thought.

“You want to watch that man,” he said quietly.

I was positioned so that Pitt Mackeson’s sweat-targeted blades were ever visible to me. He seemed to know it and took great interest in what he had just ridden past.

“I believe I can,” I said. “He needs hurting.”

“Aw,” Jack Bull said. “You expect too much of him. He is dumb and mean and snaky, but he is a good Yankee-killer.” Jack Bull had, by virtue of the station to which he’d been born, an air of educated understanding about him. “You must admit that he is a fine Yankee-killer.”

“He is a good killer, Jack Bull. And this season he kills Yankees.”

“Comrades can be made of less,” he responded. “Keep it in mind.”

I had many comrades who were made of nothing but the same. I saw the truth of it and would not squawk that they were not made of more.

Our course took us into the bottoms of the Blackwater River. The land was moist there, and the roads were heavy.
We were unmilitary in our formation but watchful of everything.

Near on to noon we came to a small farm and halted. We scanned the scene and saw nothing of threat in it.

“Some of you boys go make us known,” Black John commanded. Cave Wyatt, Riley Crawford, Bill House and Silas Mills rode directly to the door and hailed the inhabitants.

An old woman soon came onto the porch. Her dress was gray and thick and smudged, and her boots carried mud.

“Who is it?” she asked.

Most of the country men in this county were loyal to the South and necessary to us, so rough tactics were held back until sympathy had a chance to win.

“Why, we are southern men,” Cave said. “And hungry.”

“You don’t look like southern men,” the old woman said back. “How do I know?”

Riley Crawford was from this county, and being not over sixteen he had a trustworthy face. Jayhawkers had tortured his father with devilish rope tricks and, thus left fatherless, Riley had grown into a killer young.

He spoke. “Woman, my name is Crawford. One of the Six-Point Creek Crawfords—do you know me?”

The woman stomped the mud from her boots on the planks of the porch, then nodded.

“I knew the father,” she said. “Him and plenty more. Come on and eat as what we have.”

We went into the yard and dismounted. The nips of whiskey had built us all appetites, so we were lazy about posting pickets. This was often the case.

We numbered twenty-one men. The woman, who had the name of Clark, was kept hopping. She brought us trays of biscuits and molasses, coffee and milk.

I went to the kitchen to assist her, as I had no vanity about cooking work.

“Are you alone here?” I asked her.

Her face was round and pleasant, but aged by the times. Skin sagged at her throat, yet there was tightness about the eyes.

“Yes,” she said. Then, jolted by the thought of her lie, “No. My man is at Arkansas with Shelby. My son is in the barn.”

“Is he grown?”

“He was,” she said. “He gave up a leg at Wilson’s Creek. I keep him hid away.” She grabbed a biscuit tray and turned from me. “Jayhawkers have been about here. They would kill him.”

“He should come with us.”

“No,” she said, and shook her head. “He won’t fight. He is done with that.”

In the front room I ate with the men, all squatted about the floor. Our many pistols scraped the floorboards and made sitting thus a skill, but no complaints were ever made of that.

I hunkered next to Jack Bull as usual, and Arch Clay, Bill House and Cave, who looked at me from his plate and said, “You are an interestin’ foreigner, Jake.”

“Why is that?” I asked amiably, as Cave often had me on with jokes.

He wiped a molasses drool from his brown beard and
answered, “Because you are loyal to here and not there. Uncommon.”

My eyes met Jack Bull’s, then he shrugged and ate on, looking down.

Soon I had eaten my fill. I tapped Jack Bull on the arm and bid him come with me.

“Where?”

“The barn. There is a son hiding out in the barn.”

The barn had been part burned down, and only one half stood strongly. Some hay was put by there, but little else.

“Halloo inside,” Jack Bull called as we entered. “We are friends, Clark. Show yourself.”

From our backs came some sniggering in a thin tone that was eerie. We turned toward it and instinct had our hands on our pistols.

The sniggering continued while we saw from where it came. A smallish man lay on a hay pile behind the door, a shotgun at his side. The roof half that was gone from flame let in plenty of light. But there was an unwell scent to the room.

“Bushwhackers,” Clark said between sniggers. “I could’ve killed you both.” His hand tapped the shotgun. “But it ain’t even loaded.”

“No need of that,” I said. “We are friends.”

“You s’pose so, do you?” Clark asked. “I don’t.”

His left leg was absent from near the hip down. A red neckerchief was tied to the stump. He looked a hard ride beyond Grim.

“You were at Wilson’s Creek,” I said. “Who with?”

“Why, General Price,” Clark said. He had blue eyes. “The fat glory-hound rebel himself.”

Jack Bull hunkered down and pointed at the stump. “Didn’t see that one coming, eh?”

This set Clark to sniggering again with such force that it ended in coughs. Breathing was a tussle. His face reddened.

“I saw it comin’. I see
everything
. Don’t think I don’t. I saw it rollin’ past little piles of kindlin’ stuff that I once knew by name. I watched it roll right up to me.”

Jack Bull laughed and spit, then courteously calmed. “You weren’t
too
quick with both legs, were you?”

“I was plenty quick.” Clark stopped with the mirth and looked dour. “Don’t you believe I wasn’t. But nature borned me smart and that changes things.”

In that war one-eyed, one-eared, two-stumped warriors were not uncommon, so Clark’s pathetic qualities failed to be as touching as he supposed.

“General Price is a good man,” I said. “Would you have us fetch you something to eat?”

“I have a mother for that,” Clark said. “I don’t eat anyway. I’m tryin’ somethin’ different.”

Jack Bull still squatted, staring at the air where the leg once grew, chewing a straw end as he contemplated something. Soon he pointed a finger at the stump and slowly spoke: “Now, tell me this, Clark. If you were plenty quick and saw it coming, how could you not avoid the cannonball?”

Clark tossed his head back deeper in the hay, and gazed up at the sun through the half roof.

“It looked like good luck. There was arms in trees and
rebels dropped in sections all about.” He breathed whistly, like a sick bird might sing. “We never been well off here. Never. We never even owned so much as a single spavined nigger. Oh, mister—there was neighbors gone to Kingdom all around me.”

“Wilson’s Creek
was
a hot one, wasn’t it?” Jack Bull said. He then looked at me. “Arch and Cole were in it. They describe it like that. Hot.”

“Yes,” I said. Then, “But, Clark—your leg.”

“Aw,” he said and part pulled himself up. “I wanted my foot broke so I could head home. The damned little cannonball was goin’ slower’n a fevered rabbit. Do you respect me? I was there, and I put my foot out just hopin’ for a bone to snap.”

“Why, you are a fool,” I said. “A cannonball will rip your leg right—”

“Ho, ho, ho,” went Clark, then followed it up with more of those eerie sniggers. The sound wafted eloquently about the barn and required no accompaniment of further conversation.

Experience had prepared me for all manner of ridiculous misfortune befalling a man. Gopher holes killed governors and tick bites emptied neighborhoods. But this man Clark’s misfortune had been to be who he was and think himself smart in the wrong era for delusions.

“Well, now,” Jack Bull said as he stood, no longer interested. “Perilous times do not make us all stronger. It is sad to see.”

I stared down at Clark, a cripple by bad choice, and felt certain he would not last long, as death offers so many opportunities to nitwits.

“You will be killed,” I said to him. “Jayhawkers or militia, someone or the other will stop here and kill you.”

“Aw, they been here already and burned the barn. I wouldn’t even move to put it out. Ma done it.” He lay down again, his memories no doubt on the attack back behind his blank face. “As likely you boys will kill me. I don’t much care.”

This comment exhausted Jack Bull’s forbearance, as he had seen too many good men pass over the river who did not care for the trip.

“You want to die, do you?” Jack Bull’s voice was taut and his expression was unlovely. He could be mean. I knew this. “Perhaps you would choose to die now.” He pulled a pistol and held it aimed down. “I have considerable experience in the killing line, Clark. I could do you a fair job of it, this minute.”

Clark pondered this with wretched concentration showing in his face, then said, “No. No. Ma has her heart set on me livin’.”

“Are you sure of that?” Jack Bull asked. “I am here and now and loaded.”

After a few more of those sick songbird breaths, Clark said, “I don’t believe so. I think I’ll wait on it.”

Jack Bull slowly holstered his pistol and we walked to the door. There he paused and turned to Clark.