Mississippi Raider (4 page)

“
Don’t
I
always
bear
everything
you tell me in mind?” Belle challenged.

“
Just
so long’s how it’s something you
wants
to take heed of,” the elderly woman
replied dryly, but once again grew serious. “Only this time, honey,
I want you to do it.”

“
I
will,” the girl promised, and as she had rarely seen or heard her
former nurse and present mentor behave in such a grave manner,
meant what she said.

Even as Belle was making the promise,
suddenly sounds originating from outside at ground level came
through the window of the room that she had opened on arriving as
an aid to keeping it cool.

Going by what she heard and deduced, the
girl felt certain that the noises boded nothing good.

Having been sleeping on the
front porch as usual, first one and then the other of
Belle
’s
bluetick coonhounds, which were trained to hunt solely for raccoon
and opossum, began to give the kind of quizzical barking that
always greeted people on arrival. However, this comparatively
friendly behavior was followed by the roaring growls that precluded
the attitude of
merely announcing the coming of visitors. She knew such a
reaction was unlikely to take place if the followers of the hunt
were coming, particularly as Joe Lassiter—who was well known to
Bugle and Blue, having bred and trained them as a birthday present
for her—would be with them.

Even as the girl exchanged a glance with
Auntie Mattie and concluded that the same thoughts were assailing
both of them, there was an even greater cause for the alarm both
were experiencing.

Two shots sounded, and in the wake of each,
one and then the other of the blueticks gave screaming yelps
indicative of having sustained a very serious—perhaps even
fatal—injury.

Before Belle could reach the
window to look out and investigate the reason for her
hounds
’
being shot, there were shouts uttered by numerous masculine voices
and the sound of running feet drawing rapidly closer.

Because of what had preceded the latest
development, the girl realized the speakers were definitely hostile
in their reason for paying the visit.

Next came a crashing that implied that the
front entrance to the mansion had been burst open.

The latest extremely worrying
noise was followed by a yell of alarm that Belle and Auntie Mattie
identified as coming from the latter
’s husband, who was the butler and
majordomo for the Boyd family.

F
or all their often-stated hatred of all
wealthy slave-owning Southrons, it had never been the intention of
Alfred Tollinger and George Barmain to be part of the mob of
riffraff they were accompanying through the darkness toward the
mansion of Vincent Boyd’s Baton Royale plantation.

The pair, who were unwittingly
to create a most bitter and deadly efficient foe for the federal
armed forces and authorities throughout the years of the War soon
to come—and a most loyal servant for the United States when the
hostilities were brought to an end—had spent a considerable amount
of the money they had been grudgingly supplied with to cover their
expenses before leaving Washington, D.C., on entertaining the group
they were with in a most unsavory riverside tavern while inveigling
them into making an attack on the Boyds
’ mansion.

Lacking knowledge of the area, Tollinger and
Barmain had been directed to the tavern by a less-than-prominent
businessman of the local community who had never made known to any
of his neighbors his adherence to the political beliefs they
practiced. Although they had been assured by him before setting out
on their assignment that they would find there men who would be of
the greatest use when they reached their objective, he had
declined—on the grounds that urgent matters elsewhere demanded his
immediate attention—to take any active part in what they intended
to do.

However, when the pair arrived,
they discovered that the place to which they had been sent offered
them the support they would need, even though it was not a kind
they would have selected had they been allowed to make a selection.
Neither support for the cause being extolled by them—being either
completely indifferent or totally opposed to doing anything that
might help cause all slaves in the South to be set free—nor the
sharing of their
“liberal” pretensions over other issues had caused the
support to be forthcoming. Rather, with the exception of a trio of
exceptionally villainous-looking men from the vicinity who claimed
they had a personal grudge to settle and carried along the means to
bring it about, the rest were solely motivated by the prospect of
acquiring the loot taken from the reputedly very wealthy Boyd
family, who owned the property.

Unfortunately for the pair, when the promise
of support was given, they had been informed in no uncertain terms
that they were to go along. Guessing that a refusal would cause a
refusal of the others to participate and might even cause painful
repercussions upon them, or at least the loss of the money they had
been incautious enough to let be seen while paying for the drinks.
Even with those considerations having to be taken into account,
they would have lacked the courage to concur if they had not
possessed the means to use the dose of cocaine apiece that was
needed to give an additional boost to the marijuana cigarettes they
smoked as an aid to retaining their self-confidence, which was
never strong unless under the influence of narcotics.

For all their having been chosen by men whom
it would have been most ill-advised of them to refuse—although
compelled would be a more apt description for the means employed to
make them go—to carry out the task of arousing anti-Secessionist
feelings in Baton Bayou Parish, as the State of Louisiana called
what would have been counties elsewhere in the United States, and
the surrounding districts, the pair were far from being imposing
specimens of manhood likely to inspire support or reliance in their
capability of being leaders of men.

Like many of their background
and upbringing, the pair had been born into an affluent middle
class-middle management stratum of society. From their early
childhood, they had been sheltered from anything that might put
them into competition with others and imbued with a false sense of
personal brilliance capable of taking them to the top of whatever
they might deign to attempt. Having met while attending a college
already becoming noted for its emphasis upon
“liberal” rather than purely
educational instruction, they had formed the kind of close
relationship that had led Martha Jonias to refer to them as
“unfortunates” after the fashion of the day. On graduating, they
had quickly discovered themselves unable to obtain the sort of
lucrative employment they had felt was high enough to meet their
lofty ideas of their respective worth. Instead of seeking something
more in keeping with their abilities, if such could have been
found, they had drifted into the fringes of the entertainment
industry without achieving any greater success. However, this had
led them into active participation in the policies advocated by
others of their ilk. This had led to them being sent upon a mission
to Louisiana that, sensing it might entail taking risks and put
them in danger, they would have preferred to avoid.

While costly when new, the three-piece
dark-colored suits of the latest Eastern mode, white shirts with
celluloid collars, and Hersome gaiter boots worn by Tollinger and
Barmain were now grubby and unkempt—more through neglect than
because of wear under harsh conditions.

Sporting a derby hat no more clean than his
person and the rest of his attire, Tollinger was about six feet
tall and skinny in build. Although he believed he possessed great
charm, there was an air of ordinariness about him that did nothing
to assist his aims to reach great heights with as little effort on
his part as possible. He had a gaunt, sallow face with hollow
cheeks and thick, sneering lips, giving an added petulance to his
large mouth, and his sunken eyes did nothing to lessen the
expression.

Having on a flat cap of a style
rarely seen anywhere near the Mississippi River and hardly ever
west of it, Barmain had a porcine cast of features only a fond
mother would have called good-looking. Nor were they improved by
his having a drooping straggly black walrus mustache and unkempt
greasy long hair. Some three inches shorter than his companion, he
had a portly and obviously flabby build that caused him to perspire
for the slightest reason. This left him permanently with a stale
stench that, although he regarded it as giving him a oneness with
the
“little
people” for whom he professed great concern over the way they were
downtrodden by the higher levels of society—while always speaking
of them when in the presence of his own kind—was likely to be
considered unpleasant to the nostrils of anybody with a delicate
stomach.

Despite having been brought to a state of
drunkenness in which they were willing to engage in the enterprise
proposed by the two Easterners, having covered the distance on foot
from the tavern to their destination, all of the riffraff had
sobered sufficiently by the time they reached the front gates of
the grounds around the mansion to move quietly along the
gravel-covered path toward the front of the large and well-lit main
building in the hope of taking their intended victims completely by
surprise.

Before the hoped-for surprise
could be achieved, the two bluetick coonhounds had detected and
given notice of the men
’s coming. To make matters worse, the aggression
being shown by the two large and obviously fierce animals after
having started to bark warned they would not be frightened away
with any means quiet enough to avoid detection by the occupants.
Before the attack could be put into effect, instead of trying to
find quieter means, a couple of hard cases ended the threat by
shooting the approaching hounds with their pistols.

“
Come
on, men!” Tollinger yelled, his New England accent high-pitched by
the excitement induced from having taken, for the second time that
night, what a later generation would call a “fix” by “mainlining”
under the pretense of answering the call of nature in the bushes
shortly before the mansion came into view. “Unless Boyd’s come back
from hunting, there’ll only be his wife and daughter at
home.”

“
And
their niggers won’t lift a hand to help them,” Bar-main
supplemented, his voice having a similar accent and sounding even
less masculine. Also “high” as a result of duplicating his close
friend’s action after using a similar excuse, he continued in a
wild scream, “Kill the Southern scum!”

Having made the comments and exhortation,
each drawing the Smith & Wesson No. 1 First Model revolvers
with which he was supplied before leaving for Louisiana, the pair
started toward the house at a run. If they had had greater
experience than was obtained from the limited acquaintance they had
had with such devices, they would have been less confident in the
guns as a means of offense or defense. Despite the rimfire
cartridges being only .22 in caliber, they were impressed by the
knowledge that each had no fewer than seven shots available before
there would be any need to reload and doing so was a far simpler,
more rapid, process than when handling a percussion-fired,
generally six-shot revolver. Without being aware of the
disadvantages from their enforced type of armament, having no great
amount of courage even when under the influence of the narcotics,
they controlled the rate of their advance to ensure that there were
several of the hard cases ahead of them.

Passing the dead hounds, the leading men—a
burly pair armed with Colt Model of 1848 Dragoon revolvers—lowered
their shoulders to charge at the front door. Although this gained
the access that was required, it had not been necessary. Vincent
Boyd never kept the front entrance to his home locked. Nor, until
that moment, had their ever been any need for him to do so.
Crossing the threshold, they were confronted by a clearly startled
small, chubby, and immaculately attired Negro. Before Tobias Jonias
could do more than give the cry of alarm that was heard by his wife
and Belle Boyd upstairs, he was sent sprawling unconscious to the
floor by a blow from the barrel of the heavy revolver in the hand
of the taller of the leading intruders.

Bellowing in delight at having
obtained access to the premises with such ease, the other
two
“liberals” and remaining hard cases swarmed after the first
pair. While Tollinger and Barmain were accompanied by some of them
in following their inadvertent leaders up the wide stairs leading
to the upper floor of the building, the rest scattered through the
rooms on the ground floor in search of loot to plunder.

~*~

Thankful for having loaded the pair of
Manton dueling pistols before going to take the bath, as she had
occasionally added small sums by betting on her ability to use them
with skill to the satisfactory allowance received weekly from her
father—the winning being more important and enjoyable than the
actual money involved—Belle Boyd cocked back each hammer on taking
them in turn from their box without waiting to discover what threat
might be posed by the commotion downstairs. Holding them ready for
use, she darted across the room and went through its door.