Rifles for Watie (43 page)

He ransacked the house and finally found two dry matches. By that time the wolves had devoured the remains of the hog and were gone. Carefully he gathered dry twigs, grass, and leaves. His hand trembled so badly when he struck the first match that he dropped it on the ground and it went out.

Muttering a prayer, he scratched the last match on a small rock. With a loud crackle, the yellow flame flared up. Exultantly Jeff touched it to the grass. Soon he had a fire going.

With his knife he sliced off a slab of the pink ham. Using two green sticks, he suspended it over the fire. Maddened by the smell of the cooking meat and the hiss of the juice dropping into the flames, he cut off a bite of the half-cooked meat and began to chew it. At first it had no taste; then the saliva came back into his mouth, and he gulped it down.

It felt like a rock in his stomach. He cut himself another piece and gorged it down, too, unable to control himself. He kept cutting up the hams and shoulders, barbecuing them as fast as he could.

For three days Jeff lay around, cooking and eating the ham and recovering enough of his strength to start north again. Each day he practiced walking, touring the abandoned town. On the morning of the fourth day, he set out, a willow stick in his hand, striding northeastward along a wide highway whose dimly marked ruts were all grown over with green Bermuda. He knew it must be the Texas Road. It seemed odd to see the big thoroughfare so silent and deserted. He guessed he walked six miles that morning.

In late afternoon of the following day he passed a small creek. Horse skeletons lay on the ground and broken-down wagons without wheels. The place looked familiar; Jeff recognized Elk Creek, scene of the Battle of Honey Springs in which Bostwick had died.

For the first time since he had left Boggy Depot, he began to think he was going to make it. With every step he took, he felt a little stronger. He couldn't be more than twenty miles from Fort Gibson now. He wondered how the dun was and if they had taken good care of him. He thought of Noah and Bill Earle and Stuart Mitchell and David Gardner and suddenly found himself wanting very much to see them all.

He moved off the broad Texas Road, where he could easily be seen, and began to walk in the brush. Ahead, he could faintly smell willows and water and mud; he knew he was nearing the Arkansas River.

He was walking through a green patch of tamarisk and sand-bar willow when he first heard the baying of the hound. The sound came from far behind him in almost exactly the direction he had been traveling, a long, low, melancholy moaning that swelled into a deep, sobbing roar, filling the air like a hunting horn. The hills and hollows back of Jeff rang with its weird howling.

Terror cramped his stomach muscles. He quickened his stride. He knew it was the Texas bloodhound Fields had gone to Preston after.

He threw away his stick and began running. A feeling of bitterness and disaster surged over him. He was trapped almost at the fort's threshold. The hound would lead the rebels to him long before he reached the river.
This time they've got me sure,
he said to himself.
They may not even bother to take me back to Boggy. This may be my last fifteen minutes on earth.

His breath began to snag in his throat, and he slowed to a fast walk.

Long bars of light from the sinking sun fell across his path. The hound sounded much closer now. It yelped and whimpered eagerly as the trail grew hot and it realized it was close upon the quarry it had been so long pursuing.

Jeff felt the sweat running down his nose, and his tired feet chafing in his broken shoes. The hound was coming faster and faster. Suddenly it broke into a long, full-throated roar of triumph, and he knew it had sighted him.

His skinny ribs heaved like bellows under his torn blouse. Pouring out the last of his fading energy, he ran twenty more faltering steps, then staggered and fell headlong into a small depression. He couldn't get up. Panting in utter exhaustion, he turned over on one elbow and waited for them, his heart thumping wildly.

A thin, continuous patter of racing feet approached over the hard, smooth sand. There was a loud snuffling. Then the tall grass above him swished and parted.

A big liver-colored hound thrust its ugly head through the grass. Its forehead was pitted with long, deep wrinkles wet with perspiration. It had low-hanging jowls and its long ears hung down like cabbage leaves. When it opened its mouth to pant, its long, pink tongue dropped almost to the ground. Bracing itself with its front feet, it regarded Jeff solemnly.

Staring at the dog, Jeff felt no horror of it. Its sad face reminded him of an old man, rather than a monster.

The hound peered at Jeff and then back over its shoulder as if to say to its followers, “He's here.” But Jeff heard no sounds of approaching horsemen. Apparently the hound had outrun its handlers.

The closer he looked at it, the more it seemed like any other dog except for its terribly homely face. He felt a flash of hope.

He had never seen a dog he didn't like, nor one he couldn't pet. He crawled to his knees, tottering dizzily. Holding out one hand, he talked kindly to the hideous-looking animal. Its long tail began to wag back and forth, sweeping the sand behind it in a smooth half circle and sending the small twigs flying.

Jeff got one foot under him and stood weakly.

The dog walked slowly up and sniffed loudly at Jeff's clothing, satisfying itself that Jeff was the scent it had been following for miles. He felt the suckling pressure of its nose on his legs and ankles. It sounded as if it had rollers in its nose.

He reached behind its ears and rubbed its head gently. Its police spirit fading, the hound forgot duty completely. It sat down, permitting him to fondle it at will.

Jeff examined its collar and saw the name Sully engraved on a tiny brass plate. It was the Texas hound, all right. But where were Fields and the rebels?

He tottered out of the depression and looked and listened to the south. Although he saw nothing, he could faintly hear cursing and shouts somewhere in the gathering dusk behind him. He didn't wait to hear more. Reaching into his shirt, he pulled out the last of his barbecued ham and gave it to the hound. The animal sniffed curiously at it, then bolted it down.

Jeff whistled coaxingly and held out his hand. “Come on, Sully,” he invited, using his most persuasive tones.

Without hesitation the dog began to follow him. Jeff was elated. As long as he had the bloodhound, its rebel masters were going to have a hard time finding his trail in the dark. He was careful to stay on the grass and out of the soft sand, where his footprints would be easily visible. Plodding along steadily, boy and dog vanished into the river canebrakes. . . .

Next morning, an hour after sunrise, a squadron of Union cavalry riding patrol five miles below Fort Gibson saw them emerging out of the river mists. The lieutenant in charge, a medium-sized fellow with a big Roman nose, pulled his mount to a stop. Pushing his hat back on his shaggy, blond head, he stared incredulously.

“Looks like a man walkin'. But what in Sam Hill's that with him? Mebbe we better go see.”

They came cantering up, and the lieutenant, riding at the head of the column, hoisted his fist, halting the patrol. The boy was all skin and bones and dirt. And where in the world had he found the sad-faced hound that accompanied him?

Jeff saw their blue uniforms with the yellow braid down the side of the trousers. For a moment he feasted his eyes upon them. Pants and blouses all the same color. Sabers and carbines and metal canteens. Every man dressed and equipped alike and riding a thousand-pound horse. No patches, nor ponies, nor shotguns, nor clay jugs. His eyes misted over. They were the prettiest sight he had ever seen in his life.

Wearily he shoved his heels together and saluted. The hound sat down beside him.

“Sir, I'm Private Bussey. I'm just getting back from being fourteen months overdue on a scout. I have some very important information. Please take me to General Blunt at once.”

The lieutenant looked queerly at him. “General Blunt ain't assigned here now. He was transferred back to Kansas a year ago. Colonel Wattles is in charge at the fort. We can take you to him, I reckon.”

When he heard the lieutenant's voice, Jeff's mouth popped open and his bloodshot eyes lighted up with recognition.

“Sir, you're Lieutenant Orff, aren't you? Don't you know me, Lieutenant? Remember stopping the rebel charge with your Spencer that day we were returning from the scout across the Arkansas?”

Orff gaped. “Gosh all fishhooks! It's Bussey!”

He spoke so loudly, the whole patrol heard him. A bay horse turned out of the column. The tall cavalryman astride it rode alongside Jeff.

“Waw!” he growled commandingly to his horse. Climbing off, he picked Jeff up bodily and with a mighty swoop of his wide shoulders, swung him easily into the saddle. Then he mounted behind.

“Howdy, youngster,” he drawled. “Where ya been all this time?”

Jeff grabbed at him with both hands and held on weakly.

“Noah!” he blurted. He had never felt so glad in his life.

They moved off at a swinging gallop. Jeff craned his neck around, anxiously watching the hound behind him.

“Noah, don't let 'em lose my new dog. He wouldn't dare go back to Texas now. They'd stand him up before a firing squad and shoot him full of holes. Is he coming?”

Noah looked back over his shoulder.

“He shore is. Like the heel flies was after him. Runs easy, too. Looks like he could go all day without a drink. He seems to think he's yore dog, all right. Ugly as galvanized sin, ain't he? Where'd you take up with something as raunchy-lookin' as that?”

Jeff grinned. “It's a long story,” he said.

  
25

Linn County, Kansas, 1865

Jeff rode north up the military road. It was a cloudy morning in June, 1865. The war was over, and they were going home.

It was hard to get used to being out of the army. He had traveled so widely, learned so much, and had so many things happen to him that it seemed he had been gone fifteen years instead of nearly four. He wanted very much to see his family. And he wanted very much to see Kansas, now that peace had finally come.

They came to the crossing of a small creek spilling noisily across the road. The dun's ears flattened warily. After last night's rains everything was fresh and cool. The road was muddy, and puddles stood in the weed-grown fields. The sky was dappled with big, cottony thunderheads drifting lazily northward, speckling the wet, green earth with great moving shadows.

Steering with his knees, Jeff urged the dun into the shallow, brown torrent. The horse was in good condition. Blunt's orders to the grooms at Fort Gibson had been plain on that score after Leemon Jones had faithfully delivered every word of Jeff's message.

“Some rain,” said John Chadwick.

“Regular ole frog-strangler,” said David Gardner.

“It rained so hard I didn't know whether it was lightnin' at the thunder or thunderin' at the lightnin',” said Bill Earle.

Mounted, they followed Jeff into the stream. The four of them had been mustered out. They planned to stay that night with Bill's Aunt Phoebe, who lived half a mile over the Missouri state line on the road to Neosho. Bill called her his “Confederate aunt” because her slaves had never left her when she offered them their freedom. Her two-story home had been one of the few spared by rival raiders during the war.

A mourning dove cooed from a roadside elm. Its pensive song seemed a lament for the waste and ruin Jeff saw everywhere.

All the way north from Fort Gibson he had been shocked by the destruction. When they had hiked down the same road as infantry with Weer in '62, the Cherokee farms had been prosperous and well-kept herds of cattle and droves of hogs grazed on the rich tribal pasturage. But now everything was changed.

Fire-blackened chimneys thrust themselves, gray and stark, against the June sky. To Jeff, they seemed like gravestones marking the spots where happy families had once lived. He remembered the fine orchards, the radiant lawns, the white-washed plank fences, and the broad valleys filled with tasseling corn he had seen three years before.

Houses, barns, outbuildings, corrals—all had been burned. The splendid shade trees were now lifeless stumps. Fences were torn down, wells had caved in, farming tools had been carried off, every hoof and horn swept away. The fields were dense with weeds growing higher than the corn ever had.

Occasionally they passed places where a house still stood, lonely and eyeless, its windows and doors gone, and the frames and sills torn out. Sometimes they saw the former owners had returned and were camped in the yard, bravely beginning the long, slow rehabilitation of their property.

Jeff watched with pity their rude efforts to work the soil with crudely sharpened sticks or with a solitary horse or plow that would pass as a loan over an entire neighborhood for a whole season. The Union Cherokee soldiers hadn't been mustered out until May 31, too late to plant corn.