Wreaths of Glory Page 4

  “Some of Doc Jennison’s men,” Cally said. “Called themselves ‘volunteer citizen scouts’ and …”

  “Kansas trash,” his mother said, which was as close as Persis Durant ever came to profanity.

  “They raided Independence first,” Cally said. “Broke into a shop there, stole a bunch of red Moroccan sheepskin leather, which they made into leggings. Redlegs.”

  Alistair had trouble getting his point across. “But they had no right.”

  “Yankees give them the right,” Cally said, and her eyes had hardened more than Alistair’s. “Right to steal, plunder. It don’t make no never mind to any bluecoat. They pillage and torment, and say it’s all for the good of the Union.”

  “But …”

  “Kansas trash,” his mother repeated.

  “Took that crock of honey,” Roberta said again. “Full it was, too. Didn’t even get a chance to taste it on a biscuit.”

  He sank into his chair. “When did this happen?”

  “Three nights back,” his father said. “Oh, I reported it to the sheriff, sent word to Confederate and Union authorities, even posted a letter to this Senator James Henry Lane out of Lawrence, Kansas. He seems to be in charge of some Kansas Brigade. Lot of good any of it’ll do.”

  Alistair tested the other name, the one Cally had mentioned. “Doc Jennison.”

  “I heard them mention Six Mile House,” Cally said. “Some place in Kansas. Appears to be the place they operate out of.”

  “A den of thieves,” his mother said.

  He tried to carve that into his brain. Doc Jennison. Redlegs. Six Mile House. Lawrence. James Henry Lane. Kansas Brigade.

  “War’s come to Missouri, Son,” Able Durant said softly. “But it won’t be like that battle down Springfield way. Won’t be nothing of the kind. It’ll be just like the border wars with John Brown and John Reid. Border ruffians and …”

  “Kansas trash,” his mother cut in.

  “It’ll be worser than that,” Cally said. “Mark my words, it’ll be worser than those border wars ever was.”

  He stared at the peas. Which was all he could do. His appetite had vanished.

  “Don’t go off your feed,” his father said after a lengthy silence. “You’ve lost enough weight. And all we’re out is some good horses, a blind mule, a few pigs, and honey. That can all be replaced. No, this is a joyful time. Reason to celebrate.”

  “Can we go to the barn raising?” Roberta asked. “Tomorrow night?”

  “That’s a crackerjack idea,” Able Gideon said. “Be good for us all.”

  * * * * *

  A few Mormons still lived in Clay County, and, if you looked hard enough, you could fine some Presbyterians and Methodists, but Baptists were thicker than June bugs on a windowsill in summer. Most of them, however, weren’t hard-shell. In fact, Alistair would call them backsliders. As long as it wasn’t Sunday, most didn’t object to a quart of London porter or jug of corn liquor. Nor did they mind dancing.

  Best way, they’d say, to break in a new barn.

  His first dance had been at a barn raising the day after he’d returned home, and now, in early October, he found himself at another. This time, however, they were building a new barn for Jared McBride. Redlegs had burned down his barn three nights earlier.

  Since coming home, Alistair had caught only smatterings of war news. Pap Price had won a couple more victories, at Big Dry Wood Creek and at Lexington, but whisperings suggested that the Rebels couldn’t hold the state. Certainly there were enough Federal troops all around western Missouri to make that sound more gospel than gossip. Most reports centered on raids: Kansas redlegs burning out farms; Missouri partisans ambushing small patrols here and there. Just a minute earlier, he had heard Hobart Kennedy ask his father: “Have you heard about Osceola?”

  That had grabbed Alistair’s attention, but before he heard anything else, Lucy Cobb had lured him away.

  Alistair had finished doing the “Amelia’s Waltz,” and was leading Lucy to the punch bowls as most of the folks got ready for the “Reel of Springfield.” His father and Mr. Hobart had disappeared in the crowd, but he happened to see Lucy’s brother, Tommy, filling a tin cup. He’d wanted to needle Tommy since lighting home.

  “Hey, Tommy,” Alistair said, finding a handkerchief to mop his sweaty face.

  Tommy turned. His stringy corn-silk hair had been freshly shorn, and he sported the beginnings of a mustache. He also carried a pistol in his waistband. Missouri sure had changed. Tommy looked all grown up, and he wasn’t the only one heeled at this barn dance.

  “Hey, Alistair.” Tommy offered a good-natured grin.

  “I look pretty good for a dead man, don’t I?”

  “What you talkin’ about?”

  He didn’t get to answer because four bluecoats walked into the barn. The fiddling stopped. Mr. Jared McBride—it was his barn that had just been put up—stepped out from the throng of dancers and said: “No Yankees were invited to this dance, Capt’n, especially from your … ahem … brigade, sir.”

  The captain, a short, squat man with a flowing mustache and beard, bowed mockingly. “I need no invitation, sir, when I seek bushwhacking vermin for ambushing a Union patrol at a farm near Independence.”

  “If it’s vermin you seek, you’ll find ’em at Six Mile House in Wyandotte County, Capt’n,” someone said.

  “Or Lawrence,” another voice added.

  The Yankee captain smoothed his mustache. He announced in a warning voice: “There is a cowardly ruffian in these parts who appears to be in command. We believe he is called Quantrill. ’Tis him that we seek. No one else, ladies and gentleman.”

  At the mention of Quantrill’s name, Alistair spilled punch all over his clean shirt, absent-mindedly handed the half-full cup to Lucy, and took a step closer to the Yankees, just to make sure he’d heard correctly.

  “Are you Quantrill?” the Yankee asked.

  It took a while before the question registered. “No.”

  The other bluecoats chuckled. “I didn’t expect,” the captain said, “this yellow bushwhacker to be so noble. Who are you then?”

  “Me?” He felt awkward, realizing that every eye in the barn had lighted on him. “Me? Nobody. I mean, I’m Alistair Durant.”

  “A hayseed’s name if ever I heard one,” a pockmarked private said, and spit tobacco juice onto a platter of fried chicken.

  The captain kept walking, not stopping till he was almost standing on the toes of Alistair’s boots. He smelled of whiskey. His eyes were bloodshot, and when he opened his mouth, Alistair saw a mix of gold fillings, empty spaces, and rotting teeth.

  “But you know of this Quantrill, don’t you?”

  Before Alistair could deny anything, the Yankee went on: “Come now, boy. Your eyes have betrayed you. This villain rides with some of Morgan Walker’s boys, and other Secesh vermin. Come now, you know of Quantrill. You probably ride with him and all that Rebel trash.”

  “I got paroled,” Alistair said weakly. “After Wilson’s Creek. I don’t ride with anybody.”

  “He can’t,” a familiar voice added. “Since y’all done stole all our horses!”

  Cally stepped beside him. That’s when Alistair looked down, and saw the man’s kersey pants stuck into leggings made of Moroccan sheepskin leather.

  “Well,” the captain said, “a bushwhacking hussy with a big mouth. The boys and me know how to teach trollops a lesson or two.”

  He started to reach for her, but never made it.

  Something snapped inside him. Alistair grabbed the bluecoat’s arm, jerked him forward and down while bringing up his own knee. He meant to smash his face, but only caught the blow-hard’s chin. In the corner of his eye, he saw Tommy Cobb—no, it was Lucy—throwing the tin cup at the other redlegs. Tommy had filled his hand with something else, a little Sharps pistol, whic
h flooded the barn with smoke and, for such a small weapon, a deafening explosion.

  That stopped the other Yankees from moving. Alistair focused on the captain, who was crawling away while reaching for the revolver on his hip. The clasp of his holster was fastened. Alistair moved deliberately, lifted his leg, and brought the heel of his boot down hard on the redleg’s left hand. He heard the bones crunch, heard the Yankee scream, then Alistair kicked him in the face. Blood spurted. Someone laughed. Another shrieked in terror.

  The last time Alistair had tangled with anyone had been with Mr. Richard McCoy’s son, Dill, seven, eight years ago. They hadn’t even thrown a punch, just wrestled till Mr. McCoy separated them and made them shake hands. He couldn’t recall what had led to that brawl, and, afterward, he had cried on his mother’s shoulder, feeling sick about it all. This was different. Alistair felt nothing.

  The captain fell on his back, his eyes rolling into the back of his head, and Alistair reached down, unfastened the holster, drew the Remington revolver. Only it wasn’t Alistair moving. It had to be someone else. He felt as if he were watching himself in a dream. He heard the Remington’s hammer come to full cock. Saw the barrel pointed at the Yank’s bloody face.

  Then he heard Cally saying: “He ain’t worth it, Brother. You kill him, you’ll just make things harder on the McBrides, and they seen hardships enough as it is.”

  No dream. He felt sick to his gut. Thought he might throw up all over that miserable redleg. The barrel lowered, and he glanced at Cally, then at Lucy, finally at the other ashen-faced Yanks now cornered by at least a dozen Clay County farmers.

  He caught bits of conversation. Mr. McBride telling one of the Yankees that if Quantrill were such a coward, how come he had gone to the Independence constable after some fracas near town, telling the squire that Quantrill admitted he was in charge, and that the two men the Yanks had jailed had nothing to do with the little set-to with jayhawkers. Richard McCoy saying that Quantrill and his men had saved farmers from redlegs. Someone offered three cheers for Captain Quantrill. Another sang out huzzahs for Alistair Durant and Tommy Cobb.

  Tommy Cobb stood at his side, taking the Remington from his hand, easing down the barrel, then handing back the heavy revolver. “Welcome home,” he said.

  Alistair’s head shook. He heard his sister saying: “Things ain’t like they used to was.”

  Chapter Five

  A tick couldn’t have slipped into their hideout.

  Say anything you wanted to about Clay County, or much of western Missouri, but in those parts, a thicket was a thicket. Dense, coarse, hilly, practically impregnable. The sun’s rays barely made it into the small clearing where Alistair Durant and Tommy Cobb had been forced to hide. A body had to know how to dodge the briars and brambles, or where to crawl under them, and which deer trail wouldn’t dead-end, to reach the little clearing, and then have enough sense to find the way back out.

  The weather had turned cool, and it had rained so hard last night, water still dripped off the branches and reddening leaves. Hearing the sound of boots splashing in water, Tommy Cobb drew and cocked the Remington taken off that redleg at the McBrides’ place, while Alistair unsheathed a Bowie knife. Both crouched in the shadows.

  “Tommy!” a voice called out. “Alistair. It’s us.”

  Letting out a hoarse breath, Alistair slid the big knife back into his boot, and came out of his hiding place. A minute later, Lucy Cobb crawled under a rotting elm, pushing a basket of food in front of her. Next came Cally. Tommy went straight for the basket, grinning, while Alistair helped his sister and Lucy to their feet. A third figure suddenly appeared, and Alistair reached for the knife as Tommy dropped the basket and leveled the .44.

  “It’s all right,” Cally said. “He’s with us. Says he knows you, and I reckon he does. We questioned him enough.”

  The face of a man looked up. Beard stubble darkened his face, but those green eyes remained brilliant.

  “’Mornin’, Alvin,” Beans Kimbrough said.

  * * * * *

  Like wolves, they tore into corn pone with molasses, cold salt pork, washing down the grub with bitter and cold coffee. Wiping their hands on their filthy pants legs. The hideout reeked, and when Alistair looked at the two girls and Beans, he felt shamed. They lived like animals. Acted like animals.

  “You ain’t told me how come you’re here,” he said to Beans. Ain’t. Alistair shook his head. He was at it again. His mother had insisted that one of her children get proper schooling, when the farm and horses could spare it, so the wife of the Baptist minister over at New Hope had made sure Alistair learned to read and write, do his ciphers, and speak properly, not like some Missouri ruffian. That lady had even gotten Alistair interested in Shakespeare. He could speak like a gentleman, too, even though it had caused him considerable pain at church, at gatherings, and at the regular subscription school. Come to think of it, that’s what had started his row with Dill McCoy all those years back.

  “Talk fancy for us, Alistair,” Dill had said, and when the other kids had laughed, Alistair had lit into him.

  Beans Kimbrough’s face hardened. “You didn’t hear?”

  Tommy Cobb dunked a hunk of pone into his coffee. “Hear what?” he managed to say before filling his mouth.

  “About Osceola?”

  Alistair glanced at his sister, who bowed her head.

  “They burned it down.”

  “Burned what?” Tommy asked. “Who …?”

  “Burned Osceola. Nothing left but ashes. Jim Lane’s Kansas banditti.”

  “Redlegs?” Alistair asked.

  “Redlegs? I don’t know nothin’ about no redlegs. No, jayhawkers. Kansas rapscallions. They called ’emselves a Union army, but they were thieves. Arsonists. Murderers.” Tears welled in his eyes. An eternity passed before he regained enough composure to continue.

  “We’d heard Lane was raidin’ towns. I told Pa we should maybe prepare … hide our money and stuff … but he said he had nothing to fear. Just like him. So on the twenty-third last, we hear shots. Didn’t have much of an army to defend us, so the Rebs retreated, and in rode Lane and his men. Frightenin’ lookin’ cuss, Lane is. I was runnin’ to see what was causin’ all the ruction, and, I mean to tell you, what I see gives me a fright. And I don’t frighten easily, mind you. Torches. Just comin’ down off cemetery ridge. Must’ve been hundreds of ’em. And those boys are howlin’ like Injuns. I knowed then we was in trouble. Big trouble. I starts to run, but gets captured by a couple of Kansans. I’m thinkin’ they’ll just shoot me dead … but Lane orders ’em to help with the cannon. And they start shellin’ the courthouse. Then buildings. After they’ve stole what they can get out of ’em.

  “We figured all they’d do was steal. Maybe rob the bank. Free some of our darkies. And, sure, they done that. But then they gathered a dozen men. Lane yells out … ‘We must burn out leprosy or cholera or any disease, and treason is such a disease.’ He says these men are bein’ tried for treason. He lines ’em up on the square, and shoots ’em down like dogs. Lane just didn’t bark that order. He fired his revolver till it was empty. Killed nine. Must’ve thought the other three was dead, too. And just left ’em there, settin’ all the businesses on the square afire.”

  Another long silence.

  Then: “You remember Reginald and Dilly? Our two slaves? Last I saw of them, they were in the back of a wagon loaded down with our piano, curtains, and things they’d gathered from one of the churches.” His short laugh held no humor. “Looked as scared as my mother.

  “You see, by then Lane’s men had found whiskey. Bunch of the barrels got staved in, others dumped into the river. Lot of the liquor spilled onto the streets, and you should’ve seen those Kansans. Lappin’ up that liquor in the street like cur dogs. Fillin’ their canteens. Others found jugs and bottles in the saloons. Started drinkin’ till half of ’em or better was drunker t
han skunks. They went from home to home, robbin’, and … and … and …” He shuddered, wet his lips, and looked at Alistair. “I could use some liquor.”

  “I’m sorry,” Alistair said. “We don’t have anything stronger than day-old, cold coffee.”

  “They burn your home?” Tommy asked.

  “They burned everything. By the time they left that night, there wasn’t hardly nothin’ left.” Beans shook his head, staring at his muddy boots. “I hear Jim Lane yell that Osceola is a den of Secessionists and slaveholders and must be purged. But …” Again his head shook. “But that ain’t true. You met Pa. You saw what he was like. He was a Union man. Slaveholder, sure, but there ain’t nothin’ wrong with that. Yet he wouldn’t never leave the Union.”

  “My pa’s the same way,” Alistair said.

  “They killed him,” Beans said hollowly.

  “What?” Alistair dropped his coffee cup. “But …”

  “They didn’t care. Oh, he wasn’t shot for treason. They killed him when he blocked the door of the mercantile. Said he tried to shoot ’em, but Pa hadn’t fired a gun in a ’coon’s age. Dragged him back into the buildin’, and when they was done pillagin’, they burned it to the ground, too. With Pa inside.”

  Alistair heard a sniff, turned to find Lucy dabbing her eyes with the hems of her skirt, saw Cally’s head bowed, her hands clasped as in prayer. He looked over at Tommy Cobb, but could not read his face.

  “I’m sorry, Beans,” Alistair said.

  “Never … figured Pa would … die … on me.” Beans’ voice cracked. He shuddered, wiped his face, and looked around. “Some place you got here, Alistair.” For once, Beans hadn’t butchered Alistair’s name.

  “What brings you to Clay County?” Alistair asked, trying to change the subject, though he thought he knew.

  “Got word from my Uncle Morgan Walker that some boys ’round here have been makin’ things miserable for the Yankees. I aim to see Jim Lane dead. Might be you’ve heard of these partisans.”