Lords of an Empty Land (4 page)

Basil's eyes filled with fury and the veins on his neck pulsed. He shuffled forward half a step, grunting and swearing.

Douglas put his hand on Basil's shoulder. “That will be all, Sheriff. Thank you for your time. We just wanted to give you the common courtesy of paying you a visit to inform you of our intentions. We'll be on our way.”

Douglas grabbed Basil's arm, feeling his stiff muscles. With some effort, he turned him around, pushing him to the door.

“Now, you boys watch yourselves in the backcountry,” the sheriff said in a deep, earnest voice. He paused to achieve the maximum effect of his words. “I can't guarantee your safety there. I'd suggest doing most of your business around town.”

Douglas continued out the door. The sheriff's words had an arrogant, almost threatening tone. Outside, he squinted as he felt the torrid Southern sun on his cheeks. “I told you we wouldn't get any help here.”

“I already knew that,” Basil replied. “We'll have to flush them out in the open. When they get flushed out, I want to make sure they know who's doing the flushing.”

Douglas looked up at the setting sun and scratched his chin. He turned to a wooden church with dozens of horses and a few carriages tied up outside a few blocks down the street. “It's the Sabbath. Going to step in for the sermon. It will be the last Godly thing I'll see for a while. Guess the sheriff's not religious.”

“Probably just does the morning service.” Basil grinned, grabbing his saddle pommel. He nodded across the street. “I'll be at the saloon.”

“Fill our canteens,” Douglas instructed Huff as he led his horse a hundred paces, where he tied the mare to a hitching post. He stepped up on the portico of the Montgomery Baptist Church, slowly opening the door.

The preacher's voice boomed down on the forty or so individuals bunched together on the pews. “. . . and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.”

Douglas's entry caused most of the congregation to crane their necks to look at the unfamiliar face. Two stands of candles surrounded the pulpit. The gold, flickering light and a maze of colors refracted through the stained-glass windows and fell on the reverend's gray hair and black robe. The cleric appeared sixty-ish, but had a strong, solid body and a graceful face.

As Douglas took a seat at the end of one of the pews, the reverend cast his aged, stern gaze on him briefly. The stare didn't seem holy, but more a harsh, condescending reprimand. An uneasy chill swept up his spine as he looked at the congregation, all now giving their loyal and undivided attention to the holy man.

The preacher raised the Bible high in his right hand. He cocked his head back and yelled in a fiery tone: “Hymn fifteen, ‘Glory be the Father'!”

The congregation stood. The organ erupted. Douglas caught a few more quick, unreceptive stares from the flock. He didn't feel welcome, pious, or sanctified. He shouldn't have come to the service. He thought about leaving, but picked up the leather-bound hymnbook. Being an outsider, even here, gave him an uncomfortable and foreboding feeling as he began to sing. Could he trust anyone? Could he even trust his two soldiers outside? He felt more alone than ever.

The air hung still, filled with the rich aroma of yellow pine, when Douglas, Basil, and Huff rode out of the miserable little village of Calvin around noon the next day. The forgotten settlement consisted of only a disorganized collection of six wooden, ramshackle houses. In the heat of the day, they only saw an elderly woman, with no spare meat on her bones, sitting listlessly on a porch, and two barefoot boys playing on the settlement's only street.

It had been a long, hard morning in the saddle. They had traveled north by east, moving through the rolling pine. As always, the air in this otherworldly, verdant bit of earth hung moist and heavy, lathering horses and humans. The dust burned their eyes. The spiderwebs hung abundant, requiring the lead rider to hold up a stick, else the strands adhered to the body, adding to the misery. They had packed light, only the essentials. For some reason, Douglas's stomach wasn't turning with concern. All this just appeared to be the standard, dull duty in the 4th.

Ahead lay an ocean of pine-covered and sun-beaten hills, a boundless forest. The hills took on a multitude of green colors, a thousand shades and shapes. Every few miles the range gave way to low-lying, peaceful-seeming hardwood bottoms, usually bisected with a brown stream that had to be forded. Abundant squirrels, turkeys, blackberries, sunflowers, butterflies, and birds singing charming melodies populated the serene hills. The valleys were more foreboding, rife with walnuts, cypresses awash with Spanish moss, and every ill known to mankind: snakes, turtles, wasps, mosquitoes, gnats, ticks, and occasionally alligators.

The army captain hated riding in this land, the lack of space it afforded. A day's ride rarely produced even a glimpse of the terrain. No beautiful vistas existed, only a continuous, ambiguous canopy of green, claustrophobic and frightful. An enemy could ride upon you with little effort—one never saw where he was going until he got there.

As the morning evaporated, Douglas found himself passing the time engrossed in idle conversation with Basil, more so in an attempt to get some sense of the man than articulate thoughts. Each passing burst of dialogue left him more perplexed as to the gunfighter's makeup, and more curious about his temperament. The gunman always kept a watchful eye, constantly giving the deathly still hills a casual inspection, only slightly distracted when required to duck under a pine limb or brush up against a trunk as the road weaved to and fro along the haphazard, rudimentary trail.

Huff had hardly muttered a word all morning, but the ex-slave and Basil exchanged several condescending stares, their disdain mutual, akin to two pit bulls eying each other.

Basil's horse was laden with matériel. Around his waist hung two polished chrome-colored pistols, Colt .44s, and in a scabbard on the right side of his horse hung a rifle with a long optical scope. The two sidearms seemed more a part of Basil, as opposed to accessories. Through the day, Basil's voice had carried little emotion, as if his body was almost dead inside, like he had no soul. This man had long been weaned from optimism; he who didn't fear anything, or at least didn't show fear. Douglas looked him over again. This man surely feared something, if nothing more than time. Time was not on his side. He had to fear the end, its ramifications, whenever it came.

They rode at a slow but deliberate pace. The group had talked to no one all morning. Basil nodded ahead where the trail moved along a high escarpment. “That constable you saw at the riverboat, Elisha Garrett, lives just up here, less than a mile. He's an ex-Confederate raider.”

“White militia?” Douglas inquired.

Basil fashioned a devilish smile. “Who isn't?”

“You know him?” Douglas said.

“No, but remember those two pups back at the sheriff's office, the Dallons? I put a slug of lead in their old man, Dee Dallon. I hear he still has a slight limp. They run with the Garretts.”

“What for?”

“You mean the slug,” Basil uttered without interest, riding ahead. “Just a whore and a bottle of whiskey. What about your other man?”

“In Natchitoches. We'll catch up with him tomorrow. He's lucky. Doesn't know what he's gotten into.” Douglas paused before continuing with a puzzled tone, “You've worked for Colonel James before? Why did he hire you for this?”

Basil scanned the green valley below, chewing on a piece of pine straw. “The men in these hills are professional killers. It takes a man like them to catch them, someone who can think like they do, act like they do.”

Strangely it made sense, in some convoluted way. For sure, Douglas was no novice to bloodletting or the brutal business of the army. He had witnessed it at its worst, firsthand, in the war, where the sight of dead men, sometimes on a vast scale, occurred almost daily.

Basil slowly veered off the trail to the left, into a palmetto thicket. He lit a cigar, took two long puffs, then lifted his field glasses. “There, on that hill. That's where Garrett lives. We'll go see what he has to say. Then take our vittles.” Basil put down his glasses and turned up a small bottle of whiskey. He took two oversized gulps and offered the alcohol to Douglas.

Douglas rebuffed the suggestion, having already made the mistake earlier in the day of tasting the rotgut rye. “How the hell can you drink that nasty sour mash in this heat?” Douglas wiped the perspiration off his forehead with his forearm and scoured the area with his glasses. He saw a small wooden house, a nice barn, and some stables up on the ridge. Behind the structures, a tall hill loomed over the shipshape little farm. To the west, the sun shone, golden, hanging over the horizon in the distance, the only sounds the squeaking of leather and horses' bridles rattling. A rabbit flushed from the bushes, causing Douglas to slightly flinch.

Basil sneered. “You worried about something, Captain?” He bumped his mount with his spurs. “Might as well get on with it.”

Five minutes of silent riding found the three men in front of the little white plank-board house. A middle-aged woman walked out onto its porch, a curious look on her face. Basil lifted his hat and waved cordially, but continued to ride past the house.

Douglas glanced ahead to a corral, where a man was shoeing a horse. Behind the man, in the corral, two young foals played on the fresh dirt. Douglas immediately identified the face from that night on the riverbank. The hair on his neck rose a smidgen.

Basil checked his mount, bringing his horse to a stop adjacent to the corral's wood fence.

Douglas nodded to Basil, confirming the man's identity.

“You Elisha Garrett?” Basil said, his voice thick and direct.

The man looked up. “What's it to you?” The constable looked at Douglas, taking notice of his hat and its captain's bars and shiny gold cavalry insignia, two crossing sabers. He made a quick, patronizing appraisal of Huff and the lone chevron proudly displayed on his arm. He then looked down at Huff's army-issue Henry rifle sheathed on his horse. The constable, maybe forty, brawny, and red-skinned, today wore no shirt or hat.

Mr. Garrett bowed back over to continue his work.

“Captain Owens here says he saw you down on the river a few weeks ago, looting the
Anna Bell.
” Basil increased his tone. “Army had a man killed there. That makes it our business. We got to take you in.”

The constable lowered the horse's foot and turned to face Basil, indignation in his movements. “Is that so? I've got four witnesses and the sheriff who can claim I was all the way up in Winnfield that night. Ain't no judge or jury anywhere round here that would take the word of a damned Yank scamp over that. You boys get on down the trail. Stir up some trouble somewhere else.”

A slight jingle came from Basil. Douglas turned to look. He saw the pistol rise. A loud shot punctured the air, booming through the hills. Douglas jerked back, twitching as the constable spun around, dark blood jetting from his chest. A second shot sent the crooked lawman to the worn turf.

Douglas reined in his mount, who had reared. He sat dumbstruck, catching his breath. “What the
hell
you doing? Nobody told you to do that.”

Basil slowly returned his smoking gun to his hip and turned to ride off.

“You don't go shooting anybody until I tell you to, or we get shot at. You understand?” Irritated, Douglas dug his heels into his mount and pulled abreast of Basil. “We're going to give these outlaws justice, in a courtroom. Not vigilante justice or anything else.”

“Can't you hear,” Basil replied, brushing off the rebuke. “He told you, you'd never convict him.”

The woman from the house ran toward the corral, screaming at the three men, her light red cotton skirt bobbing around her in a tangle. Douglas turned back to the corral. The horses stood around the dead man like nothing had happened. “Now we're back to chasing phantoms.”

“Not at all,” Basil retorted. “Kill one out in the open, boldly, that'll flush 'em out for a fight. You won't have to look for them. They'll come find us. Be less bloody and a mite easier in the end.”

Douglas sucked in a long breath, his current situation coldly setting in, the only sound the constable's wife's footsteps. He closed his eyes, replaying the shoot-out. Almost in slow motion, he saw the glinting gun barrel rise, lightning quick. Basil had not fired from the hip, like an amateur, but instead waited until the steady barrel, its bead, covered the wretched soul before efficiently pulling the trigger at the exact instant required. The gun coughing, rocking in his hand, had a sick beauty, symmetry.

“Let's have those vittles,” Basil said. “Over there in the shade.”

The streets of Natchitoches were crowded. Maybe a hundred of the town's thousand residents mingled on Front Street. Late the next day the three soldiers rode into the only major settlement in the area that sat on the safer side of the Red River in the heart of the cotton kingdom. Despite worries of a hostile posse in pursuit, they had seen little on their day's ride back out of the bush.

Douglas still felt a little dazed by the shooting the day before. Basil had gunned down a man, be it an outlaw, like an animal. That was completely at odds with all he had been trained and taught. His initial inclination had been to arrest Basil, but that wouldn't have gone far up the ladder. Like many things in the army, begrudgingly, he had to swallow it.

The muddy Natchitoches street rested on the top bank of the Cane River, the town's buildings fronting the water. An early afternoon shower had saturated the ground. Where the sky met the land, heat waves danced against a beautiful rainbow. A few of the town's residents carefully stepped around the abundant mud holes or gathered on the wood walkways fronting the buildings along the road. Douglas passed a congenial nod to several onlookers. Everyone in town knew him, one of only two soldiers in residence here, and the only officer.

Many of the natives remained belligerent to the uniform. But as many or more had decided, reluctantly, the time had come to move on, get back to being Americans and enjoying the fruits of it, ready to heel to the loathed Yanks if it meant things could get back to normal, or at least Douglas thought. But the lines between these cliques were as murky as the waters of the Red River.

Though the populace despised Northerners, they reserved their most visceral hate for the scalawags, the locals who aided the pro-suffrage forces, most for personal gain, or at least according to local lore. This internal strife struck a vehement chord that transcended everything. The blue coat, what it stood for, was also utterly abhorred, but being a soldier provided Douglas a small reprieve from the scorn. He just carried out orders handed down from somewhere else. The Southern society revered its veterans above all else, and Douglas's uniform provided him a little more respect than his fellow carpetbaggers.

“Might could get some cooperation around here,” Basil cracked, “if you bastards hadn't've burned the town during your retreat . . . especially after we kicked your ass.”

The hasty buildings were mostly new or being repaired, their white studs a sign of renewal. Hammers banged away as carpenters worked on the new courthouse across the street. The army had burnt much of Natchitoches after its defeat at Mansfield, as it beat a retreat south. Scattered about town, a half-dozen chimneys poked up, bare, above the remnants of their old support structures. Around him stood the other vestiges of the war: a legless young man hobbling along on crutches and another poor individual with only a stub left for his right arm.

“Think they'll come after us?” Douglas finally asked, pulling back on his reins.

“Yeah, but not in town.”

“Think I'll get a shave.” Douglas pointed to the barbershop across the road.

Basil wheeled his horse around. “Fixin' to head over to the Cotton Palace. That's where I'll be if you need me. You know it?”

“Yeah.” Douglas stepped down from his saddle. He removed his pocket watch from his shirt and opened it. “Huff, post is just down the street. You board there. There's a Mr. Jones just across the street. Turn our horses over to him and get settled. I want to have a word with you and Private O'Neal at five.”

As Basil rode off, Douglas stepped onto the barber's porch, stomping his feet a few times on the planks in an attempt to extract the mud caked to his boots. Inside, only a single customer occupied one of three chairs, but three elderly men sat against the wall yapping on about everyday things.

When Douglas entered, the conversation paused.

“Did I startle you boys?” Douglas said with an amiable tone and small smile. He took a seat in one of the chairs.

“No, no,” one of the old silver-haired barbers said, lifting a large white apron and shaking loose a handful of hair from it. He laid the apron on Douglas's shoulders and fastened it around the captain's neck.

Adhering to his common custom when sitting in confined quarters, Douglas removed his pistol from its holster and set it in his lap, ensuring its visibility to all. “Just a shave, Joe.”

The barber stirred his little cup of cream with a wood spoon. “Paper says you murdered Constable Garrett yesterday in cold blood.”

The room got quieter, all eyes on him and the old, sunbaked barber. “Word travels faster than me. What else the paper say?”

“That the army has hired that damned ruthless Basil Dubose to harass the people.”

Douglas put his fist to his mouth and cleared his throat. “Surely you boys don't believe everything in that Democratic daily. I was going to bring in Garrett for killing Sergeant Simmons. I wanted to try him.” Douglas paused a second. “When Garrett threw down on us, Basil shot him dead . . . self-defense.” Douglas squirmed a bit at the lie, but he was very familiar with the rhetoric and propaganda of the anti-Northern papers, all that existed in the area. They daily slanted the army and the Republican government's work as nothing short of the devil's deeds and exploitation of the trampled Southern people. He lifted his head as the barber worked the brush around his chin, the cool, wet cream refreshing.

“Paper also says we got a new judge coming in,” the barber continued, his words quick and jittery. “John Butler's brother, damn turncoat.”

Douglas looked at the other five men in the shop. “All coming down from the new general. Going to bring all the ex-Confederate criminals hampering commerce around here to justice. Be good for business, for everybody. Then maybe I can go back home where you all want me to go. And I want to go. Done had two army runners and a sergeant killed. You boys know that can't be tolerated. Not in any army. Bobby Lee wouldn't put up with that. Nor would anybody else.”

Despite his gaze falling on each of the men individually, Douglas's lecture drew no response. Almost regretfully, he continued to prod the old-timers with a jolly tone. “Clean me up good. The vile Yankees are having a big fiesta tonight. I don't want to disappoint. There'll be some young ladies there. A sight more talkative and interesting than you old hags. I've been on the dusty trail for three days, and I can't even prod you to heckle me. I thought you Rebs were a feisty bunch. I'm going to have to find a new barber just to have somebody to quibble with.”

 

 

The sun had just set. Maybe thirty minutes of twilight remained. Overhead, the Spanish moss, elegant oaks, and cypresses began to blend in with the graying sky. Ahead, on the banks of the Cane River, lay what remained of Natchitoches, Louisiana's oldest town, its gaslights reflecting off the water in a wonderful golden waltz. Along the river's high bank, the architecture stood admirable, French and Spanish. The buildings were mostly square and fronted with second-story balconies cased with wrought-iron rails looking over majestic courtyards. The city still had an antique, tasteful veneer. Most of the landed gentry in the delta maintained homes here before the war, the rich gathering here for their opulent balls or the annual meet held at the local horse-racing track. As opposed to the strictly Protestant churches in the wilderness, Natchitoches also hosted Catholic houses of worship.

The Cane River itself was a reminder of the turbulent land. Only thirty years prior, this had been the Red River before it had moved a few miles away, its wandering path cutting off the picturesque city from the world. Still, the region's wealth, or what remained of it, displayed itself here.

Outfitted in his freshly cleaned dress uniform and immaculately polished boots, Douglas rode on toward downtown and the four-story Natchitoches Hotel, his gold waist sash bobbing with his mount's strides. A tad of bliss oozed from his soul as he looked ahead to the small crowd congregating outside the hotel. This was somewhere he should feel a little more at home, accepted, not shunned by unfriendly eyes. The earth beneath his horse's feet appeared so beautiful, serene, but this was a lonely land, especially for Northerners.

Douglas had few friends. Worse yet, his profession courted solitude. He rarely fraternized with the ranks and only a few officers lived within two days' ride. There were Northerners around, and Southern sympathizers. They would be in attendance at tonight's gala. But he didn't care for their company. Most were opportunists, here to plunder in the wake of war.

He had been here so long he had grown numb, hardened to the world and the privation, suffering, and death in this repository of misery. Even his nightmares of the Rebellion and terrifying memories of exploding shells, excruciating screams from the field hospitals, piles of decaying flesh, faceless men hanging from a rope along an unknown trail, or just the daily sight of starving children had started to wane. Almost in a dehumanizing way, his stomach now rarely got nauseated at the sight of blood. He had even lost his sense of home; his images of the placid Ohio fields and charming towns had become only decaying memories.

Douglas tied up his horse and entered the opulent hotel. In the foyer, the white marble floor sparkled marvelously. Around him, the hand-carved mahogany and fine leather furniture announced affluence. The band in the ballroom played a popular eastern tune. He strode toward the music.

Several hundred people stood in the giant room, the region's tight society of unionists, all dressed in their finest attire. A waiter offered Douglas a glass of champagne from a tray covered with fine, polished silver. He accepted the drink and studied the crowd, catching bits of several conversations over the background hiss of merry patrons, busy babbling away, reinforcing each other's social status. The party had the ambiance of frontier gaiety.

But Douglas was here to see only one person, Hannah Butler. He sipped the champagne and scanned the room until he saw her beside her uncle, alluring, radiating. She was superior to any woman he had seen in rural Louisiana, a perfect example of Southern beauty, grace, and sophistication.

After a few seconds, she flashed her gleaming, penetrating blue eyes at him. Douglas formally and dramatically took off his hat, pressing it against his chest, and bowed as he continued to stare at Hannah's long, light-red hair, gorgeous pale skin, and tall, delicate frame silhouetted with her plentiful curves, covered with a long blue dress that matched her eyes. He then approached.

“Uncle, you remember Captain Owens?” Hannah said with a confident, spunky smile.

In his late fifties, Hannah's uncle had gray hair and a flat, serious face, with firm, square angles. Extremely robust for his age, he wore a suit stitched of fine wool and maintained a dignified, stately bearng.

Douglas extended a hand to the man, presenting a firm handshake and steady glance. “Good to see you, Judge Butler. Glad you've been sent here. This place needs some justice.”

“I will do my best.” The judge nodded in a proper fashion before walking off. “I'll leave you two alone for a few minutes.”

“It's been a few days since I've seen you,” Douglas said. “I'm delighted your uncle is here. You, your sister, and mother now have some family in town. Is he staying with you on your father's plantation?”

“Yes.”

“Excellent, that will make my courting less of a chore. I'll be able to drop in on official business.”

Hannah giggled, crinkling her nose. “Captain Owens, I do enjoy your company. Educated gentlemen are rare around here since the war, but you should learn to be a little more subtle. You tried to kiss me in broad daylight one day. Despite your unsympathetic government's attempts to tear down our social order, I
am
a Southern lady. And the army
did
burn down most of the town. What would people think of me kissing you?”

“Are my intentions regarded unfavorably?” Douglas smiled. “It's been rumored that I'm quite a gentleman. I thought you told me you were putting the past behind, and that you felt everyone else needed to also.”

Hannah laughed again. “You could be useful.” She stared into his eyes with sincerity, her long lashes fluttering up and down. “It is true that I have enjoyed our walks and picnics. I stay cooped up too much. It's boring. Any entertainment beckons me. But there are proper ways to court a Southern lady.”

Douglas turned to look at the well-heeled crowd, the fine room and fixtures, all a world away from the deadly trail he traipsed every day just across the river. He looked back at Hannah, feminine splendor at its finest. “Would you like to dance?”

“No, I'm not here to celebrate, and most of these people are not my friends. I only came because my uncle asked me to accompany him. I'd like to go home.”

“Well, you shouldn't ride home alone, after dark. Why not let a young, healthy cavalry officer escort you? That would be squarely within my professional duties.”

“I hardly think it's necessary, but if you insist. It will make my uncle happy and allow him to stay a while. But you'll have to go when we get to the house. You know how my sister feels about Yankee soldiers.”

“Terrific, let us go then.” Douglas extended his elbow to Hannah.

“As you wish.” Hannah placed her hand on his forearm. “I will let Uncle know you will escort me home.”

 

 

The sounds of night filled the air: insects incessantly popping and buzzing, crickets chirping. Douglas rode along, Hannah beside him on a tall bay gelding, her long dress covering her saddle. The two had already traveled more than half the six miles to the Butler Plantation. The thirty minutes had passed delightfully as they conversed.