Hard Way Out of Hell Page 7

  * * * * *

  Four nights later I sneaked my way to the farm near Strother, where Ma was staying with my sister Belle’s family. The night was dark as pitch, but I made my way to the cemetery, and found the headstone over Dick’s grave, and where Baby Alphae had been resting all those years. As the leaves rustled in the wind, I moved the lantern I held around until I located a fresh mound—but no marker.

  “Coleman.”

  I whirled, dropping to a knee, drawing a Navy in my right hand. The yellow light from the lantern illuminated my mother.

  “I knew you’d come tonight.” A shawl covered her shoulders that shifted as she brought the tin can to her mouth and spit snuff into it. “New moon.”

  “It’s nigh midnight, Ma,” I told her, walking slowly toward her. “How long have you been waiting?”

  “Since right after sundown.” She gestured toward the home. “Bob’s yonder, but likely sleeping, if you want to see him.”

  My head shook. “Let him sleep. Bob doesn’t want to see me, anyway.”

  “The rest are in town, or back at their own homes,” she said. “Jim’s settling your pa’s affairs. Caroline up and got hitched to George Clayton. Don’t reckon you knew that, did you?”

  “George is a good man,” I told her.

  “He’s in the barn. Wants to join you and your soldier boys.”

  I put the lantern on the ground, and the .36 in my holster. “They’re not my soldier boys, Ma.”

  “You’ll take George with you.”

  It was not a question, but I nodded. I feared she would say Jim—or worse, Bob —wanted to join the cause now that Pa had been murdered.

  “You know what happened on the Harrisonville pike.” Again, she wasn’t asking.

  “I was there, Ma.”

  She spit before telling something that would haunt me more than anything for all my days. The men we had murdered in that ambush, the prisoners, had been bound for Harrisonville. Yes, they likely had taken part in Walley’s crime, but they had merely been following the captain’s orders. Walley had been held back in the Independence jail, and the soldiers we had killed were going to testify before a military tribunal against Walley. Now there were no witnesses. Word had reached my mother just the day before that Captain Irvin Walley had been freed from the Independence jail, that charges against him had been dismissed.

  And I was to blame.

  “Coleman,” she said, and quoted Ephesians 4:31: “ ‘Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice …’ ”

  I held my breath.

  “ ‘Judge not,’ ” she continued, “ ‘and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.’ ”

  Luke 6:37.

  “Forgiveness is overrated,” I told her.

  “Don’t you dare blaspheme, Thomas Coleman Younger.” Her tough hand pointed past me. “Your father lies there in an unmarked grave. We figured it best so Redlegs wouldn’t come here and desecrate it. Now you’ll listen to me, son, and you’ll obey your tired old mother. You’ve done enough killing already, but you won’t go after Irvin Walley. He shall pay for what he did to your father, and what he drove you to do. God will be his judge. You won’t be his executioner.”

  My head fell. Tears wet my beard.

  “I’m waiting, Coleman,” Ma said.

  “Yes, ma’am.” When I raised my head, Ma wrapped me in her arms.

  “It is better this way, son,” she whispered. I could smell the snuff on her breath. “And any time you feel that need for revenge in your heart, your head … you think about this. After what you did to those bluecoats the other day, Walley is going to spend the rest of his days living in fear, looking over his shoulder, worried sick that you might be there, ready to send him to hell. That’s the kind of revenge he deserves. He won’t have a life to speak of any more. He’ll be scared until he’s burning in the fiery pit.”

  I walked her back to the porch, stopped, and kissed her forehead. “Give everyone my love,” I told her, and headed to the barn to find George Clayton.

  “Ride with God!” Ma called after me.

  That was one thing I could not do, for I rode with Quantrill.

  Chapter Eleven

  Manassas … Shiloh … Fredericksburg … Chickamauga … Gettysburg … Those are the battles you read about, even today all these years since the last cannon fell silent. Nobody outside of Missouri recollects Lone Jack, and I guess it doesn’t really compare to any big to-dos back East. Yet Lone Jack was probably the only real battle in which I took part.

  We fought alongside regular Confederate troops. Our brethren in gray needed new recruits after the big fight down in Arkansas at Elkhorn Tavern, where Tom Brown, my dear friend and brother to Lizzie, fell with mortal wounds. A new colonel named Jo Shelby came along, hoping to sign up as many Missouri fighters for his “Iron Brigade” as he could.

  Quantrill and George Todd decided that fighting with the regular troops would be good for us, and might make the Yanks think of us as soldiers and not just cutthroats. So we rode with bona fide Confederate soldiers.

  Our army, maybe eight hundred in all, had camped on the outskirts of Lone Jack, a little burg in Jackson County east of Strother. Most of us bushwhackers had a good laugh at all of the tomfoolery the boys in gray did, but secretly I admired all that discipline, the pageantry and pomp, and how they marched in order.

  I wondered how they would fight. The next day, I found out. They learned how we did, too.

  As we charged past soldiers in gray uniforms, pinned down by lethal grapeshot and musketry, we heard their shouts, saw their hats raise in salute.

  “Hurray ! Hurray for Quantrill!” they shouted.

  George Todd didn’t care much for that, since he was leading the charge and Quantrill was nowhere to be seen.

  Yet this is what I remember to this day about that affair. We rode upon a bluebelly command and hit those Yanks hard. Before five minutes had passed, survivors had taken cover behind their dead horses, firing single-shot rifles in our direction.

  “Surrender!” George Todd yelled.

  “Like hell we will,” came an answer.

  They fired a volley, and we answered with a charge before they could reload, wheeled our horses around, and stopped, exchanging our empty revolvers for others with six beans in the wheel.

  “Surrender!” Captain Todd screamed again.

  “And be butchered?” They fired again.

  This time we rode the rest of them down. I swung off my horse, raised my Colt, and killed one fool who was swinging his musket at me. Then I hurried to a bluebelly colonel, crawling toward a saber one of his officers had dropped. My boot crushed his right hand as he reached for the hilt, and he rolled over. Blood leaked from two holes in his shoulder, his nose, and a nasty cut over his left ear.

  “You’re my prisoner,” I told him.

  “Like hell,” he said. “You bushwhackers take no prisoners.”

  I took God’s name in vain and pressed my boot harder against his hand. “Is that why you got your whole command killed? You thought we’d murder you?”

  I lifted the colonel up, and shoved him to my horse. “In the saddle,” I ordered.

  He couldn’t make it. I had to boost him onto the horse and lead him to a house I knew had been converted into a hospital by gray-coat sawbones.

  As I was leaving the colonel in the house, a boy came in. He was one of ours, though I did not know his name. Aiming a pistol, he said he would turn all these prisoners into good Yankees. My fist slammed him against the wall in the foyer, and I jerked the pistol from his grip, then booted him out the door. Finding George Clayton, pale-faced but steady, I tossed him the pistol.

  “Guard this house,” I told Duck’s husband. “If any man tries to shoot a wound
ed enemy, kill him.”

  * * * * *

  The bluebellies retreated to Lexington, but we were gone in a day or two as more Yanks had been spotted. Leaving Jo Shelby’s troops, Quantrill must have decided that we fought better alone than with other troops. Besides, Jo Shelby did not let his men rob or scalp the dead. East of Strother, I found our camp and heard a timid voice call my name.

  Looking up, I spotted a man wearing a Yankee uniform. He had fled during the battle, or maybe had gotten lost, or had been captured by one of our boys who wanted a manservant until he grew tired of the novelty. You see, Parson, sometimes we did take prisoners. To barter with. Hold as hostages. Or toy with until we murdered them.

  I walked to the circle of prisoners, most of them squatting, shivering despite the heat, knowing their fate. The one who had called my name stood, but his skin had turned considerably pale and his eyes were red from crying.

  “Stephen,” I said in a dry whisper. “Stephen Elkins.”

  His smile showed hope. “You remember me.”

  Well, you didn’t forget a schoolmaster as fine as Stephen Elkins had been. He wasn’t so fine on this evening, though. “Cole,” he said as tears poured down his cheeks, “you have to tell Quantrill not to kill me. You have to, Cole. For God’s sake, please help me.”

  My gut soured. “Stephen,” I said truthfully, “Quantrill keeps his own counsel. He might not kill you. But, most likely, he will.”

  I walked away toward Frank James, who offered me a cup of coffee. I shook my head and kept walking to Quantrill, who stood over his plunder from Lone Jack—two bronze cannon—asking men if anyone knew how to work artillery. I don’t think we ever fired either of those little Howitzers.

  “Captain Younger,” Quantrill said. His smile stretched across his face. “A glorious day for our cause.” He stepped away from the shining artillery and moved to his desk, where he poured brandy into a snifter for himself and a splash into a tin cup for me. Hell, we even toasted.

  Since he was in such high spirits, I decided to push my luck. “Sir, there’s a prisoner over yonder that I think was taken by accident.”

  He took a quick sip of the brandy while studying the circle of condemned souls. “All the men I see wear Yankee blue,” he commented as he swirled the liquor in his fancy crystal glass.

  “Yes, sir, but one of them … well, his father and brother fight for the Confederacy.” That was a damned lie. “He was left behind to tend to his poor, sick mother.” I was stretching things mighty thin. “He was on his way to visit his girl in Cass County.”

  Quantrill finished his brandy, and set the empty snifter on the desk. “Who is he? Really.”

  “My old schoolteacher,” I answered. “And I think we’ve put the fear of God in him, sir. He won’t fight us anymore.”

  “Hell’s fire, Cole, I once taught school myself.” As he started back toward the cannon, he whispered: “I put him in your custody, Captain, but, know this … the others want to kill him, and no death sentence shall I commute, so you had better do what you do best. Think fast.”

  Drawing the Colt, I approached the circle of prisoners. Nearby, Little Archie Clement honed his massive Bowie knife on a whetstone, Bill Anderson stared through me with those bone-chilling eyes, while a few others played mumblety-peg with Black Jack Chinn’s jackknife. “Get up,” I told Stephen Elkins, who was leaning against the trunk of a toppled tree, rubbing both eyes with his fists.

  “You were right, by the way,” I told Elkins. “A man in these parts can’t straddle a fence.”

  My old schoolmaster’s lips trembled when he saw the revolver aimed at his chest, yet he obeyed, stumbling weakly toward me.

  Frowning, a few of the men rose, but I shoved the barrel against Elkins’ spine and pushed him into the woods. Luckily, no one followed me, for we had plenty of prisoners to butcher. Elkins pushed his way through vines and brush, and two hundred long, brutal, sweaty yards later, he emerged from the thicket, standing on the high banks of a ditch. Beyond the ditch a road stretched north to south.

  Mouth still trembling, Stephen Elkins turned to face me, but he showed himself to be a man. He did not fall to his knees, nor did he grovel, beg for mercy, or sob. I think he had cried himself out, and was now resolved to die as a brave man should.

  “Cole …”

  He flinched when I pulled the trigger, and toppled backward into the ditch. When I stepped forward, I holstered the Colt.

  Stunned beyond comprehension, Elkins blinked. He wet his lips, pushed himself up slightly among the weeds, rotting leaves, and sticks filling the ditch, and stared up at me. “What …” he finally managed to say, “shall I do now?”

  “See that road?” I said. “I know what I would do.”

  I left him there, and returned to our camp.

  * * * * *

  Frank James beckoned me over when I emerged from that dark thicket, and this time I took that cup of coffee he held out to me.

  “Bud,” he said, and pointed at some puny teen in duck trousers and a muslin shirt sitting next to him, “meet my kid brother.”

  “I ain’t no kid,” the boy snapped.

  “You ain’t fifteen,” Frank said, smiling. “I told you about him,” Frank reminded me. “Got whipped by bluebellies … but he has sand. I’ll give him that much. Didn’t tell the Yanks a thing.” He looked back down at the blue-eyed boy. “Sand he has. But he’s sure lacking in brains.”

  I didn’t offer my hand to the teen to shake. Instead, I sipped coffee and asked Frank: “What brings him here?”

  “He wants to ride with us,” he said with a laugh.

  The boy’s hair was sandy, and he told us he had lost his hat while looking for us. He had not found us. Andy Blunt had found him and, seeing some family resemblance that I did not, pulled the boy onto the back of his horse and brought him to our camp. Frank’s brother had not met his growth potential yet, and he would shoot up over the next couple of years. I finally decided to shake his hand, admiring his grip when I did. The grip of a hardworking Missouri youth.

  “Go back to Ma,” Frank advised him, which made the boy pout. “With the doc still mending from that hurt the Redlegs put on him, she’ll need you.”

  The kid drew back as if to punch his brother, but stopped when Quantrill stepped up.

  “So this boy wishes to join our brotherhood?” Quantrill asked. “I like a boy with gumption,” he added, shaking his head as he chuckled. “But I prefer one with size. I doubt you could hold a Navy Colt.”

  “I could hold two,” the boy said. “And I will.”

  “When you can do that, boy, come back to find me. Now do as your brother says, return to your mother, your father …”

  “Stepfather!” the boy sang out in anger.

  “Return to your family farm.” This time Quantrill spoke with finality.

  “Here.” Frank put a long arm around his brother’s shoulders, and steered him toward the woods. “I’ll get you back to the main road. You walk this whole way?”

  “Had a mule,” the boy said with a sniffle, “but he run off on me ten miles back.”

  Often I have wondered why we did not accept Jesse James right then. Boys his age rode with us. Black Jack Chinn and others were even younger. I would like to think that Frank did not wish his baby brother to become the killer Frank had … that we all had become.

  Jesse James walked out of my life that day, but, Lord help me, he would return.

  Chapter Twelve

  Winter came, and many of our men drifted into Arkansas to scout with Jo Shelby’s boys, or just enjoy the baths at Eureka Springs. Others found camp in Texas. Some returned home, and a few set up camps on the Sni-A-Bar or made their winter homes in caves. The latter became my fate, as John Jarrette left me in charge of taking care of our wounded.

  Few campaigns came about during the winter. For one reason, we reli
ed on our horses—like Indians—and needed good grass to keep those mounts carrying us out of harm’s way. Oh, there were fights here and there—a big battle, which I missed, took place at Prairie Grove on the western edge of Arkansas, and Quantrill killed some Union men in Olathe and Shawneetown on a quick raid into Kansas.

  Anyway, I found myself playing nursemaid to mayhap a dozen of our boys too incapacitated from Yankee bullets to ride south. Three times I had to play gravedigger, swinging pickax and shovel till my muscles screamed in agony as I tried to claw away enough frozen dirt to bury our valiant dead.

  While I was doing this, Reason Judy buried two of his boys. A resident of Cass County, Judy was one of the few men from that area to back the Yankees. He had even fought at Lone Jack, before he got discharged with some injury he had dreamed up. His two sons, James and John, had fought alongside him. So when two bushwhackers found James Judy on a road near Paola, they killed him. A month or two later, John Judy was shot dead.

  I had nothing to do with either, but no one could convince Reason—a man more misnamed I never met—that I was innocent. He swore out a complaint, and got me posted for the murder of his first son. Judy and other Yankee zealots then saw to it that a reward of $1,000 was put on my head, dead or alive. For forty years, that absurd charge haunted me. I could not ride through Cass County without looking over my shoulder, but the real pain, thanks to Reason Judy, would be inflicted on my loved ones.

  Yankees hounded Ma so much in Harrisonville that she had to move the family to our farmhouse in Jackson County. There wasn’t much left to protect in town by then anyway. Redlegs had plundered everything out of our store and livery, and with Pa having gone to glory, no one could resupply what had been stolen from us. Besides, my family had been reduced to starvation rations by the coming of 1863.

  * * * * *

  … All persons who shall knowingly harbor, conceal, aid, or abet by furnishing food, clothing, information, protection, or assistance whatsoever, to any emissary, Confederate officer or soldier, partisan ranger, bushwhacker, robber, or thief, shall be promptly executed by the first commissioned officer into whose hands he or they may be delivered …