And There I’ll Be a Soldier Page 3

  “I do take offense,” his father said. “It is three in the morning, an unfit hour for Christians to come calling.”

  “I care not. I will search your house, sir.”

  “Hurry!” This time, it was Bessy who spoke.

  He pulled his shirt over his nightshirt, pulled the hat on his head, and grabbed boots and pants, not bothering to put them on. The socks he had misplaced in the dark. His mother and sister didn’t give him time. They led him not to the back door, but the west-facing window.

  “They are certain to have someone at the back door,” his mother explained, “but I dare say they might not have noticed this window.”

  “I can’t fit through that.”

  “Do it! And, confound it, be quick.”

  Bessy must have opened the window, because he felt the breeze. Caleb reached up, pulled himself through the tight opening. He remembered the greased pig contest at the Independence Day celebration two years back, and wished someone had swabbed his body with bacon grease. Twisting his shoulders, grimacing, he felt his skin tear. The boots dropped to the earth, along with his pants. He dangled, felt his mother and sister pushing him, shoving him. His pants ripped. Then, he landed on his head, flipped over, and lay spread-eagled in the darkness.

  Above him, someone pulled the window shut.

  It was a new moon. In the depth of blackness, he rose, rubbing the top of his head, hearing the snorts of horses from the front of the house, the rising voices of men.

  God, he prayed, don’t let them harm my family.

  Crouching, he ran.

  He didn’t need to see. Sixteen years on this farm, he knew how to find his way to the chicken coop, the barn, the pigpens, the big elm tree in the front yard where he used to push Bessy in a rope swing. He cut a wide arc around the front of the house, pausing beside one of the smaller trees to catch his breath. He could see the torches the Confederate ranging militiamen held, and could make out the shadowy outline of his father on the porch. Another musket spat flame, and he jumped, almost cried out in terror.

  “I know not which you Methodists are better at,” his father said, “shooting off your muskets or shooting off your mouths.”

  “The next ball goes into your stomach.” Captain Crane’s voice displayed an icy venom.

  Caleb looked around to the back of the house. Something glowed red near the privy. Cigar. And another. His mother had been right.

  The front door squeaked, and a candle appeared.

  “Let them in, Nicholas,” his mother said. “They can see for themselves that Caleb is not home. Shall I put some coffee on, gentlemen?”

  He hadn’t realized that he had been holding his breath. Now he ran, hoping he didn’t happen to step on a snake, rat, or ’coon. The stench greeted him, and he slowed, hearing the grunts of sows, the screeches of piglets. He put his foot on the bottom rail, started to climb over the fence into the filth.

  “My clothes!”

  Caleb froze. His boots and pants. He’d left them by the window, and his hat had fallen off. If Benedict Crane’s Secesh found those …

  He started back down, but, as he turned, torches glowed from that side of the house.

  An oath escaped his lips, and he dropped into the muck. A sow rasped angrily, but he ignored her. Blindly he slogged through the filth, and tripped over a Duroc pig, splashing into the manure as the pig ran screaming for its mother.

  “Over yonder!” a voice cried out. “I hears somethin’!”

  Caleb swore again, and crawled. He found the pile of hay he had forked inside the pen that evening, and burrowed his way inside, pulling the scratchy hay around him, and sinking deeper into the wretchedness.

  Holding his breath once more, Caleb peered through the Strands of hay. He could make out the flames from two torches, no three, could see the Durocs running back and forth, screaming. One torch rose higher, and moved left, then right. Another torch poked through the rails, lower, making a slow sweep just above the ground.

  “This reeks,” a voice said.

  “Smells better’n you, Vern.”

  Someone laughed.

  “C’mon,” the first voice said. “Ain’t nobody in his right mind be hidin’ in there.”

  Caleb wanted to let out a sigh of relief, but feared they would hear him. Unmoving, he watched the torches grow smaller.

  How long he stayed, he didn’t know. Probably minutes, but it seemed an eternity.

  Someone called from the house. “We should burn them out, Captain! And kill every last one of their pigs.”

  Caleb ground his teeth, and clenched his hands in the mud, forming fists that left both arms shaking.

  “Mister Pruitt,” Captain Benedict Crane told the Putnam County miller’s son. “We are good Christian soldiers and citizens of the Confederate state of Missouri. We do not wage war on civilians. We are not Kansas trash, boy. Remember that.”

  Horses hoofs clopped on the ground. The Keytesville commander spoke again to Caleb’s father. “But your son, Mister Cole, is someone we consider a traitor and a conspirator and a braggart and a brigand. We will not trifle with the likes of him, so he had better find a home in Iowa. Do you understand, sir?”

  He imagined he could hear his father spit tobacco juice as a reply.

  “Missus Cole. Ma’am. I bid you good night.”

  The ground shook as the rangers rode into the blackness. Letting out a deep breath, Caleb unclenched his fists, filled his lungs, and gagged. He almost vomited as he pushed his way out of the hay pile, and stood, scooping off globs of muck as he fumbled through the darkness until he reached the fence rails.

  He could see the candle approaching, could hear his mother’s sobs, and his sister’s prayers.

  * * * * *

  “Never thought the war would come to us.” A heavy sigh escaped his father’s throat as he fumbled with the cork and took a pull from the brown jug.

  “You brought it to us, Caleb,” his sister snapped. “This is your fault. I swear, Brother, the next time you’re …”

  “I tell you what I’m not going to do!” His voice rocked the room, and his mother stepped back, her eyes filled with fear. Bessy flinched, fearing he might strike her. His father set the jug on the table, and waited. “I’m never going to hide in a lake of crap …”—his mother gasped, his sister’s eyes widened, but Caleb didn’t care—“from the doggery like just paid us a visit. Never again, by thunder!”

  He had cleaned up as best he could, found the clothes he had dropped by the window, had dressed, and now sat at the table with his parents and sister. His mother recovered to pour coffee, and slide the jug away from his father.

  “I’m joining the Army. The Union Army!”

  “Caleb …” His mother sounded so tired.

  “You’re too young to go about soldiering,” Bessy chimed in.

  “No.” His father’s head bobbed, surprising Caleb. “Caleb’s right. He sure can’t stay here. Those Rebs might come back. That’s why I told those men you’d gone up to Iowa. In case they ride up that way. You pack up some extra clothes. Bessy, fetch my long rifle and horn. Caleb, you know how to get to Milan?”

  Milan? That was down in Sullivan County, south of Unionville. He’d never been outside of Putnam County.

  “Head southeast, cross the creek, and right beyond Garner’s farm you’ll come to the road. Just follow that south and it’ll take you directly to Milan. About twenty miles or thereabouts. Don’t stop. And if you see strangers on the road, you hide, Son, you hide, till you’re certain they’re not Rebels.”

  His father sipped coffee. Bessy handed Caleb the Kentucky rifle, and put the powder horn and shot pouch by a coffee cup on the table.

  “Jacob Clark,” his father went on, “has been forming a company of soldiers betwixt Milan and Unionville. I served with Jacob in the Mexican War, and he’s a good man. Good s
oldier. The Union runs through his blood. You find Jacob. Tell him you’re my son.”

  His mother had started crying. Lordy, so had Bessy. Caleb just sat there, struck dumb, couldn’t even move. The rifle in his right hand, the stock butted on the floor, felt like a reaper. His father pushed the coffee cup away, and reached again for the jug of corn liquor.

  It was still dark when Caleb stepped outside, carrying the rifle in his arms, a gourd canteen strung over his left shoulder, and spare drawers, socks, and an extra shirt in a haversack that his mother had filled also with biscuits, cheese, and a jar of apples.

  “Southeast,” his father said, pointing. “Cross the creek, and you’ll be on Garner’s farm. When you hit the road, head south to Milan. Jacob L. Clark. Tell him you’re my son.” He held out his hand, and Caleb shook it. It must have been the poor light, because he could have sworn he saw tears streaming down his father’s face.

  His mother kissed him gently on the cheek, and straightened his hat. “Goodness,” she said, “I should have packed you a razor.”

  He touched his face, but felt no whiskers.

  “The Bible!” his mother shouted. “You should take it.”

  “No, Ma,” he said. “It’s too heavy. And you’ll need it the next time the Reverend McLintock comes through.”

  “But …”

  “I’ll get a Bible, Ma. I promise.”

  She kissed him again, choking back sobs, and hurried inside.

  He shook his father’s hand again, and his sister said: “I’ll tell Maryanne.”

  “Thanks.” His legs would not move. “I’ll write. Let you know where I am.”

  His father’s head bobbed. Bessy sniffled.

  Past his father and sister, he saw his mother inside the house, collapsed in the chair, her head lying on the table, her body shuddering, though he could not hear her cries.

  It remained dark, but he could see the skies lightening into a rich gray in the east. He had best get moving, at least be off the farm and past the creek before dawn broke. There was a fair to middling chance the Keytesville Methodist Rangers might be patrolling the road to Milan.

  “Good bye, Son,” his father said. “God be with you.”

  Somehow, he managed to turn, put one long leg out in front of him, then the next. He did not look back. He heard nothing. Even the Poland Chinas remained quiet as Caleb walked past the pens and left the Cole farm.

  Chapter Four

  August 23, 1861

  Galveston, Texas

  Wearily, eyes still filled with sleep, they filed out of the warehouse that still smelled of cotton and into the dawn, tasting the morning mist and salt air on tongues parched from baking inside the musky, wooden furnace that night. Matt Bryson carried the Mississippi rifle his father had fired with distinction while fighting Mexicans alongside Jefferson Davis at Buena Vista. Gibb Gideon toted a shotgun. Sam Houston Jr. shouldered a fancy British-made Enfield rifle musket. Harry Cravey lugged an axe. All Ryan McCalla had, for now, was his violin, which he sawed as he fell into the line forming on the shell-paved street.

  “Can’t you play something else?” someone mumbled.

  Others offered more profane comments.

  Despite promises, the Bayland Guards had no uniforms. Well, Sam Houston Jr. wore one: fancy black boots, blue trousers, and a tailored, gray shell jacket with brass buttons stamped with Texas stars. Captain Smith donned the uniform from his Republic of Texas years, and some volunteers—including an old coot named Mills—had moth-eaten uniforms from the Mexican War. Currently the guards had to provide their own weapons, too. They had no cannon. Neither fife, drum, nor bugle, so Ryan had been ordered to supply the music. It came with a promotion. Much to Matt Bryson’s disgust, he was now Corporal Ryan McCalla.

  Finishing “Old Dan Tucker,” Ryan stepped into line beside Little Sam Houston. Next to Houston, Matt offered his own rude comment about McCalla’s fiddling.

  Quietly a giant of a man stepped into line beside Ryan, and Sam Jr. sucked in a lungful of breath. Before Ryan could chance a glance at the newcomer, Captain Smith bellowed: “Attention!” Straightening his shoulders, bringing bow and violin to his sides, Ryan stared ahead.

  They had been mustered into the Bayland Guards on the thirteenth—the fifty-sixth birthday of Captain Ashbel Smith—and had drilled first at Smith’s Evergreen plantation before moving to Galveston Island, finding their billets in a warehouse. Once filled with Texas cotton, the wooden building now housed seventy-two privates, four sergeants, and four corporals. They slept on bedrolls rolled out on the floor. Captain Smith and his three lieutenants fared better, sleeping, the story around the warehouse went, in four-poster beds in a nearby mansion. Well, Harry Cravey didn’t sleep on the warehouse floor, either. He would start out atop his bedroll between Gibb and Little Sam, but, before long, he’d stand up, announce that he was going home, and he’d walk out. Just like that.

  “You’re going to land in the stocks or hang by your thumbs, Harry,” Sam Jr. would warn him, but Harry never listened. At twenty-two, Harry was older than any of the others, excepting thirty-one-year-old Gibb Gideon, but he never acted that way. Behind his back, Matt called him Baby Cravey. Harry’s mother had a home on the island, and that’s where Harry would sleep. And eat breakfast. Yet every morning, before Ryan’s violin began to wail, Harry would be back, refreshed and ready for another day of drills. He brought home-cooked food, too, so Ryan prayed Harry Cravey never heard Matt Bryson’s insults.

  “Well, well, well.” Captain Smith stopped in front of Ryan’s line. He was a small man, gray-streaked hair thinning on top, but his salt-and-pepper mustache and goatee thick and well groomed. His face had been bronzed by the Texas sun, and he sported a prominent nose, but it was his eyes that stood out. They blazed with an intensity, and his voice was powerful, a stunning contrast to his diminutiveness. Ryan had not been able to catch a trace of any Connecticut accent. Then again, he didn’t really know what a Connecticut Yankee was supposed to sound like.

  The old doctor moved closer and, instead of saluting, gave a slight bow to the man standing beside Ryan. “Are you not too hoary and impuissant for military service, Mister President?”

  Ryan’s mouth dropped open. He wanted to look at the leviathan towering just inches from him, but dared not incur Dr.—er, Captain—Smith’s wrath. After all that drilling, Ryan was just becoming comfortable with being at attention, and he had seen how sergeants and officers humiliated the Bayland Guards who didn’t, or couldn’t, come to terms with all this discipline.

  “I can,” the big man said in a deep drawl, “at least stand at the right of the line and be counted, sir.”

  “Indeed.” Captain Smith bowed again. “Yet I find your presence here rather odd, given your feelings toward our cause.”

  “My feelings toward my son,” the legendary Sam Houston said, “have not changed, Captain Smith. Nor, sir, will they ever.”

  Captain Smith’s eyes gleamed. “Well spoken, my old friend. Sam, it would honor me and my men if you would inspect the troops with me this fine morning.”

  “Ashbel,” Sam Houston said, “fine comrade, the honor would be mine.”

  He was old, pushing seventy years, white hair receding, and his face shockingly gaunt on his massive six-foot-six frame. He sure didn’t look like a legend—black coat disheveled, cravat loose, tan-and-blue checked vest unbuttoned, and one woolen pant leg stuck halfway inside his boot top, the other covering the uppers. He walked with a gold-handled mahogany cane, grimacing with every step. Ryan McCalla, however, couldn’t stop staring at the Texas celebrity.

  “I thought your pa was a Union man,” Matt Bryson whispered.

  “He is,” Little Sam said softly.

  “You heard what he said,” Gibb Gideon said. “He’s here for Little Sam.”

  “He had this uniform made for me,” Sam Jr. whispered. “But he said … ‘I c
ondemn your cause,’”—lowering his voice into a scratchy bass tremolo—“‘but I shall not have anyone saddle my views on your back.’”

  “Bayland Guards! Eyes right!” There was nothing hoary or impuissant about Sam Houston’s voice.

  “Do you see Louis T. Wigfall?” the old soldier and statesman thundered.

  “No!” Ryan couldn’t hear his own reply from the yells of his fellow soldiers.

  He began: “Who is Louis …?”—but Houston’s next command cut off the question.

  “Eyes left!”

  Still at attention, he looked in that direction.

  “Do you see Williamson S. Oldham?”

  Answering as one, the Bayland Guards shouted: “No!”

  Ryan had heard of Williamson S. Oldham. He recalled his father talking about him with admiration, and knew him to be one of those fire-eating Secessionists from some town up north. In fact, he thought he had heard that Texas Secessionists had sent Oldham to Arkansas, where he had helped lead that state to join the Confederacy, as well.

  “Eyes front!”

  He looked ahead, found Sam Houston dwarfing Captain Smith and every other officer standing underneath the Bonnie Blue Flag. “Do you see either of them in front?”

  “No!” Ryan roared with the others.

  Sam Houston smiled. “No,” he said flatly. “Nor will you.”

  The Bayland Guards applauded and cheered. Ryan cringed. They were still supposed to be at attention, but Captain Smith didn’t seem to mind. With a wide grin, the short doctor extended his hand to Sam Houston.

  “Who is Louis T. Wigfall?” Ryan asked at the same time Harry Cravey inquired about Williamson S. Oldham.

  “They’re both fire-eaters,” Gibb Gideon answered.

  “Wigfall called my father a coward and a traitor,” Little Sam said. “He’s a senator now, and the biggest blow-hard this side of the Red River.”

  “Your father’s no coward,” Gibb said.