A FINE LIKENESS
by Sean McLachlan
Copyright © 2011 Sean McLachlan
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.
All rights reserved
Smashwords Edition: November 2011
For Almudena, my wife
And Julián, my son
And
for Edward “Stu” Bailey (1949-2011)
who always enjoyed reading
my books
I wish you could have read this one, my friend
CHAPTER ONE
September 19,
1864
The road between Rocheport and Columbia
Boone County,
Missouri
Jimmy Rawlins gripped his rifle and hoped his friends couldn’t see his hands shake. Peering through the underbrush, he scanned the dirt road’s gentle curve as it disappeared around an outcropping of rock topped by a tall oak. That was the way to Rocheport, the way the supply wagon would come.
He darted a glance to either side to check if everyone was in position, hidden in the thick forest that pressed in on the road like a green wall. Elijah Bogan lay underneath a dense shrub to his left, a pale blonde boy of seventeen with a broken-toothed grin on his face and a Colt six-shooter in his hand. He was close enough that Jimmy could have touched him, but barely a third of his body was visible through the leaves. Jimmy knew Hugh and Albert Milligan lay further away but couldn’t see them at all.
To his right, Morgan Whiteside nestled against a spreading black oak, his dark features set in concentration as he aimed down the double barrels of his shotgun. Past him crouched the Kid, barely a shadow in the dim half-light of the forest.
Morgan looked at Jimmy’s hands and grinned. Jimmy gripped his rifle tighter to stop them shaking as Morgan nudged him and made a startled face, shaking all over like he’d seen a ghost. Jimmy frowned and looked back down the sights of his rifle, squinting as his eyes adjusted to the bright midday glare of the open road.
Calm down, Jimmy told himself. Waiting is the worst part. Think of something nice. See that rock by the bend? Looks like the one you and Eliza used to sit on down by Squaw Creek. Wish I was there now. Quiet, you got your duty. You’re no slouch, not like that Henry Gibbs who’s always sparking Eliza with his fine ways and nice horses. Henry Gibbs never did a damn thing for the South. What’s his business kissing Eliza at the corn shucking? Sh. Quiet now. Don’t get mad. Got to be calm in a fight, not mad.
A thin brown haze smudged the blue sky beyond the bend.
The wagon? Riders too, by the looks of it. If it’s too many don’t risk it. Morgan will call you yellow but he knows you ain’t. Aw, but why do my hands always shake?
An open-topped wagon rattled around the bend, flanked by five riders wearing blue. The riders carried muskets and peered into the underbrush.
Let ‘em get close. The boys will wait for your shot. They respect you. They voted you captain because you’re the toughest (except for Morgan) and the smartest (except for Elijah) and at nineteen you’re the oldest.
Well, nineteen next month.
The driver sat stoop-shouldered in his seat, sweat staining his blue uniform black, a forage cap shading his eyes from the heavy sun. He let the horses have their reins, not bothering to hurry them. The creak of wagon wheels and the soft clop of hooves on dirt grew louder in Jimmy’s ears, as did the rising whir of the cicadas sounding out from the forest. Jimmy aimed for the driver’s head. The sight on his rifle tracked the man’s slow progress along the road. Jimmy’s hands no longer shook.
Just a few more feet. You’re fine. Do it just like last time. But you almost got killed last time. Sh. None of that. Think of something nice. Eliza sitting on that rock and dipping them pretty white legs in Squaw Creek. Eliza and Henry kissing at the corn shucking. That yellow, sneaking son of a… Sh. All serene.
Jimmy squeezed the trigger and a loud crack jabbed his eardrums. Through a gritty plume of smoke he saw blood erupt from the driver’s neck. The man jerked to the side, fell off his seat, and got crushed under the wheel of his own wagon.
“Bushwhackers!” one of the riders shouted.
The forest lit up with the flashes of rifles and pistols. One rider toppled off his saddle with a bullet in his forehead. Morgan leapt to his feet with a rebel yell and set off his shotgun. The blast from the first barrel hit a soldier and his mount. The horse reared, screaming, and Morgan let loose with the second barrel, horse and rider toppling over. Bullets grazed two other horsemen and they flinched in their saddles.
The sole rider who hadn’t been hit raised his rifle and cocked it with his thumb. Jimmy threw down his own rifle and drew a pair of pistols.
Morgan bellowed and ran into the road, blazing away with a revolver at the man about to fire. The rider’s shot went wild as Morgan hit his arm. The soldier ducked in his saddle and yanked on the reins with his good hand, hollering as Morgan shot him in the side. He dug his spurs into his horse’s flanks and galloped down the road. His two comrades sped after him.
Jimmy leapt out into the open and fired at the receding figures. His friends did the same. Once or twice a rider jerked in his seat, but all managed to keep a hold of their mounts and get back around the bend, fleeing for their camp at Rocheport.
“Daaang!” Morgan shouted. “You see them Feds run? They’ll be to California by sundown!”
“They’ll think twice before using this road again,” laughed the Kid as he grabbed the reins of the wagon team and calmed the horses.
The horse Morgan had shot lay on its side pawing the ground, breathing in great gusts as it tried to get up. Jimmy leveled his pistol and approached, a sharp eye on the Union soldier lying slack jawed beside it. Jimmy gave the man a kick. He felt limp, unresisting. The horse made another attempt to rise but slammed back down into the dust, its coat spattered with blood where half a dozen pellets had pierced it.
“Sorry partner,” Jimmy whispered.
He aimed his pistol and closed his eyes. The crack of the shot wasn’t loud enough to drown out the sound of the horse’s head thudding into the dirt.
Jimmy let out the breath he’d been holding and turned around before opening his eyes. He swallowed to steady his voice and called out to a pair of lanky boys who’d emerged from the woods, looking as alike as two halves of a split log.
“Hugh, Albert, fetch your horses and ride down a ways to keep a lookout. Morgan, check that wagon. Kid, you help him. Elijah, what in hell you doing?”
“What I always do,” Elijah said as he waved his hands over the dead body of one of the riders, making strange signs with his fingers. After a moment he pulled a dirty bottle from the inside pocket of his overcoat. He uncorked it and put the opening close to the mouth of the dead man, whispering:
“Come to me, come to me, your immortal soul shall never be free.”
“Elijah,” Morgan called out as he rummaged through the wagon, “you are one sick son of a bitch.”
Elijah corked the bottle and stood up, his grin showing a broken front tooth.
“Come say that over here,” he invited.
Morgan mumbled something Jimmy couldn’t catch, lowering his head so the brim of his hat covered his eyes, and continued to search the wagon.
Jimmy shook his head and checked his pistols. Three shots gone from each. He pulled a pair of fully loaded ones from the deep pockets on the sides of his loose shirt and put them in his holsters. He put the used ones in the pockets. No time to reload them now. They needed to get any munitions they could find from the wagon and be gone. Jimmy ran to fetch his rifle as the twins rode out from the brush. Hugh headed down the road in the direction of Rocheport while his brother Albert went the other way toward Columbia.
Jimmy picked up his rifle and wiped a bit of dirt from the stock. It was a Sharps, the finest made, taken off a Kansan he’d killed a few months back. He slipped a cartridge into the breech and slung it over his shoulder as he sauntered back toward the wagon.
“We want their guns, Captain?” the Kid asked.
Jimmy smiled. He liked the Kid. Only fourteen but a fine shot and a fine rider, and the only one who called him “Captain.”
“Naw,” Jimmy replied. “Them Springfields are no good for our type of fighting, and we don’t want these here government nags neither. You keep checking that wagon.”
A second later Morgan let out a whoop and raised a barrel over his head.
“Powder!” he shouted.
“Just one barrel?” Jimmy asked, running over to him.
“Yep, but big enough to blow a blockhouse if we set it right.”
“Good, anything else?”
“Only commissary stores, Captain,” the Kid said.
“No percussion caps?”
“Nope.”
“Hey, Jimmy?” Elijah’s voice came from beneath the wagon.
Jimmy bent down.
“What you skulking down there for?” he asked.
Elijah patted the wagon driver’s corpse on the shoulder. Blood trickled from holes in the soldier’s throat and stomach.
“‘Cause that’s where he is.”
“Quit fooling around and help,” Jimmy said.
Elijah waved the dirty bottle.
“Oh, I’m helping, don’t you worry on that score. But I got a question, Jimmy. I gave him this slug in his belly as he fell, so I got a claim on him despite you plugging him too. But you see, the soul comes out of the mouth, and you done given him another one. Which one should I hold the bottle up to?”
Jimmy grimaced and stood up without answering.
“It’s all right,” Elijah continued. “I’ll hold it up to the hole you made in his throat. It’s closer to the heart. Come to me, come to me, your immortal soul shall never be free.”
Morgan jumped off the wagon, the barrel of gunpowder tucked under his arm. The Kid opened a few more boxes and sacks before turning to Jimmy.
“Nothing else but hardtack and tinned beef here, captain. Grandma Wyatt will cook us up something better than that.”
Elijah crawled out from under the wagon and stood up. He grinned and held the corked bottle in front of Jimmy’s face. Jimmy flinched, then cursed under his breath. He had promised himself he wouldn’t do that.
“That makes nine,” Elijah said. “Only four more to go.”
Before Jimmy could reply a pistol shot rang out in the distance. He spun around. It had come from the direction of Columbia. Everyone drew their guns. Elijah tucked the bottle inside his shirt, drew a pair of pistols, and began to whistle.
Out of the shimmering haze a figure rode into view. In a moment they saw it was Albert. A black line appeared in the distance behind him, seeming to float in the heat rising off the road. It separated into silhouettes and resolved into a column of blue-uniformed riders.
“Into the woods!” Jimmy shouted.
Albert slowed his steed and headed into the underbrush while Jimmy and the rest hurried for the tree line.
The two Union officers in front fired their revolvers. A bullet snapped into the front of the wagon, making the team of horses rear. With a steady hand Jimmy aimed a pistol at the soldiers as the dusty road filled with the roar of gunfire.
CHAPTER TWO
Captain Richard Addison flinched as a bullet whined past his head. He saw the supply wagon sitting in the middle of the road with the bodies of three Union soldiers nearby. The bushwhacker on horseback disappeared into the brush as another one appeared from around the bend up ahead and did likewise. Addison hunched low in his saddle and aimed his revolver at the four bushwhackers on foot by the edge of the road, their features obscured by the clouds of smoke belching from their guns.
One carried a powder keg.
Get him and get them all, Addison thought, and aimed for the keg.
He squeezed off a couple of rounds but missed as the guerrillas ducked into the woods and were swallowed by the greenery.
“Dismount!” he ordered, reining in his horse.
He vaulted from the saddle and drew his saber. Next to him Lieutenant Anthony Bruin bellowed at the twenty men behind them, “Fourth men take the horses, the rest of you fall in!”
Fifteen men hurried into a ragged line and cocked their rifles as five others grabbed the reins of the horses and led them to the rear. Addison gritted his teeth.
Slow, too damned slow.
A bullet cracked out of the woods and buried itself in the shoulder of one of Captain Addison’s men. The private reeled backwards and half a dozen of his comrades ran to hold him.
“Get back in line, you cowards!” Lieutenant Bruin shouted, grabbing one of them with a beefy arm and flinging him forward. “He can take care of himself.”
Addison spun back toward the tree line and raised his saber.
“Forward!”
He advanced at quickstep, moving to the left side of the line as Lieutenant Bruin moved to the right.
“Lively now, lively! No hanging back!” Bruin shouted.
Thin tongues of flame flicked out of the greenery. A soldier thudded onto the road as he got hit in the leg.
“First men, ready, aim, fire!”
Five of the men on the line shot a volley into the woods.
“Forward! Wheel left. I said left!”
The line of Union militia moved into the woods, breaking through the lush wall of leaves and into the dark recesses of the forest. The shadowy forms of the bushwhackers flitted between the trees ahead of them, half obscured by foliage as they retreated up a low hill.
“Second and third men, ready, aim, fire!”
Another volley crashed into the woods, but Addison didn’t see any of the rebels fall.
“Fix bayonets and advance.”
Brush is too damn thick, can’t see fifty feet. Damn, they’re getting away.
Despite himself, Addison hurried forward, unaware he was leaving his men behind. They had taken advantage of the “fix bayonets” order to stop, not wanting to get too far into the brush with the rebel guerrillas, and no amount of cursing from Lieutenant Bruin would hurry them.
Leaves and vines swatted at Addison’s face as he struggled on, puffing up the slope, the bushwhackers fading to dwindling shadows. Briars scraped his hands and tore at his uniform.
Not forty feet away one of the bushwhackers darted out from behind a tree and froze, as surprised to see Addison as the Union captain was to see him.
Addison pulled up short. Despite the gloom created by the thick canopy, he could see the guerrilla clearly—a youth whose unshaven face showed barely a whisker, with grubby blond hair down to his shoulders. He wore the typical loose “guerrilla shirt,” with pockets big enough to hold pistols and cartridges, its front elaborately embroidered by some sweetheart. Across his back was strapped a Sharps rifle.
But Addison barely noticed these things as he stared at the young man’s face.
That face—angular features, prominent chin with a slight cleft in the middle, round blue eyes looking straight into his, just like…
“Nathan?”
Addison’s voice snapped the guerrilla out of his reverie. He leveled his revolver and fired.
Addison cursed and ducked behind a tree. A moment later a second bullet gouged a furrow through the side of the trunk. Fragments of bark stung Addison’s face.
You fool, that’s not Nathan!
Using the tree as cover, Addison fired back. The youth flinched and ran up the slope. Addison aimed carefully with his last bullet, sighting down the barrel at the guerrilla’s exposed back, pulling the trigger…
…only to hear an ineffectual click.
“Damn government percussion caps,” Addison muttered.
The sound of running feet made him spin around. His men ascended the slope in a ragged line, bayonets fixed.
“It’s about time!” he barked.
“With this lot you’re lucky they’re not still in Columbia,” Lieutenant Bruin grumbled, remembering a moment later to add, “sir.”
“Reload,” the captain ordered. “We don’t want to be drawn into an ambush without having bullets in our guns. Lieutenant, how many shots do you have left in your pistol?”
“Two.”
“I’m out, but no time to reload. Wish we had as many revolvers as those bushwhackers.”
Each soldier tore open a cartridge and poured the powder into the barrel of his rifle, then tamped down a ball and wadding with his ramrod before fixing a percussion cap beneath the lock. Cocking the lock made the gun ready to fire. Addison paced as the men went through the motions. A trained soldier could reload and fire a Springfield rifled musket three times in a minute. With his men it was more like two.
Addison thanked God the guerrillas had run so easily. At this rate they could have filled them with enough lead to give every cabin in Boone County indoor plumbing.
Finally the last click of a cocked lock told him his men were ready.
“Advance,” Addison said in a low voice, “and be quiet about it.”
The men crept uphill. Addison peered through the underbrush, wishing he had a second pistol, or even a musket, anything but a saber. They crested the ridge and came to a flat wooded area that stretched a few dozen yards before sloping down into a deep hollow. Addison motioned his men forward. None too quickly, they followed.
Addison could hear the distant gurgle of a stream at the bottom of the densely wooded ravine. They worked their way down slope, the sound of the water growing louder.
The men spun to the right as half a dozen riders burst from behind a thicket and galloped off into the brush not thirty yards away.
“Fire!”
A dozen muskets thundered at the same moment, the bullets whickering through the forest, tearing leaves and snapping off branches. None of the riders fell. For a brief moment Addison saw the boy with the Sharps rifle riding a beautiful roan mare, and felt a strange relief to see he had survived.
***
The sun glowed red behind the Union militia as they rode into camp just west of the town of Columbia. Captain Addison sat grim in the saddle at the front of the column, his men riding by twos behind him. At the rear came the supply wagon, carrying the dead and wounded.
Addison wondered about his actions. He knew a steamboat had docked at Rocheport and that a supply wagon from it was bringing food and powder, and he knew the wagon had an escort, but a nagging worry in the back of his mind had bothered him all day until he had arranged a detail to go out and meet it.
I should have saved myself the bother, he thought. It was bad luck coming upon them when we did. I got two men wounded for nothing.
But something else troubled him—that guerrilla in the woods.
I must be mad for stopping and staring like that. But he looked so much like him.
The column came to an open field dotted with white tents. By the road stood a timber blockhouse two stories high, equipped with loopholes for guns. Nearby stood a stable and two small cabins, one for his own use and the other a hospital. A ditch and a low earthen embankment surrounded the camp. Two cannon faced the road, their muzzles a pair of malignant eyes covering the western approach to Columbia.
“Lieutenant Bruin, get the wounded to Doctor Long and put Company B’s dead somewhere until we can return them to Rocheport,” Addison ordered.
“Yes, sir.”
As the lieutenant gave orders, a wave of fatigue washed over Addison. His back ached and he tried to rub it without the men seeing. At fifty he felt too old to be galloping around after guerrillas. Five years ago he could ride across the countryside all day without feeling the strain, but the war had aged him.
Addison looked about the camp as he passed through a breach in the embankment. He commanded a hundred men, not nearly enough to guard the road to Columbia, search local houses for weapons and spies, and hunt down bushwhackers like he was supposed to do. As he dismounted, a black man ran up to take his reins, one of the runaways from Arkansas the army had pressed into service.
“You clean him up good, you hear?” Addison patted the horse’s flanks and smiled. Kingmaker came from fine Kentucky stock, sired from his father’s best stallion.
That guerrilla rode one almost as nice. Rode well too, he mused. Taken off some farmer, most likely; no government-issue nag is half as good as mine or his.
Addison shook his head. He needed to stop seeing Nathan in every young stranger’s face.
A skinny, middle-aged man in a baggy lieutenant’s uniform ran up to him.
“Sir! They’ve come!” he said, raising his hands and grinning.
“The pistols?” Addison turned to him eagerly.
“Pistols, sir?” the lieutenant blinked.
“Yes, Lieutenant Pratt, the pistols. I requested pistols from the general.”
“Oh, no, I meant the preserves! Mrs. Thomas promised us some preserves, if you recall, and she sent a boy out with them. They’ll go well with dinner, don’t you think?”
The captain sighed.
“Report, lieutenant.”
“Report, sir?”
“You did take a detachment to Obediah Miller’s farm to look for weapons, did you not?”
“Oh, yes sir. Terribly rude gentleman, sir. Said all sorts of scandalous things about our regiment, but we found no weapons.”
“Too bad, I’d love to get some solid evidence against him.”
“Well, he did use profanity, sir.”
“Did he declare support for the Confederacy?”
“Not that I recall, sir.”
“Then we can’t throw him into prison. Better luck next time.”
“We did have good luck, sir.”
“How so?”
“The preserves, sir.”
Addison stormed off toward his cabin in search of a nap and some privacy. On his way he passed another of the escaped slaves stirring a big cauldron from which rose an acrid odor. He recognized Rufus, an older buck who seemed to be a bit of a leader among the contrabands in these parts. Addison didn’t understand why they all deferred to him; he looked as scruffy as the rest.
Addison peered into the cauldron.
“Good God, Rufus. Salt pork again?”
“Yes cap’n, your favorite.”
“And don’t tell me you’re cooking beans with this.”
“All right, cap’n, I won’t tell you I’m cooking beans with this. Want me to break out some hard tack?”
“No, the men have suffered enough for one day,” Addison grumbled. “Why can’t you cook something else for a change?”
“I cook what they give me.”
Addison frowned, not liking his tone, then shook his head and walked to his cabin. Not even the Negroes showed him respect.
He had barely sat down at his desk when he heard a knock at the door.
“Come in,” he groaned.
Lieutenant Pratt entered holding a pile of papers.
“Your mail, sir. A message from General Brown, a letter from your wife, and I added a copy of today’s Columbia Mirror. You’re in it again, sir.”
“Thank you, lieutenant. That will be all.”
Addison smiled as the lieutenant closed the door behind him. Good old Tom Chandress writing him up again. He put the letters to one side and opened the newspaper. He hesitated, then picked up the message from the general. Best to get that over with first.
“To Captain Richard Addison, Cmdr Co. A, 90th Enrolled Missouri Militia
Sir,
I received your query of the 10th inst. regarding a supply of revolvers for your men. While I agree they would be most efficacious in fighting the guerrilla menace plaguing our district, I am afraid that we do not have the funds to equip every militia with side arms. The new Springfields you received last winter will have to suffice. Let me remind you that it is because of the great number of bushwhackers in your part of the state that you were issued with these rifled muskets, most militia being armed with the older Enfield or Austrian models. We have provided you with the best firearms available, and I know that you will do your duty to the best of your ability.
Regarding my previous message of Wednesday inst., our scouts in northern Arkansas have indeed confirmed that General Sterling Price has moved across the Arkansas River with a large rebel force. His intentions and numbers are at this time unclear, but it appears he is heading for Missouri. As Price is in constant communication with many of the worst bushwhacker bands, you may expect increased activity in this and surrounding districts.
I am, sir, your most obd’t servant,
Brigadier General Egbert Brown, Commander, District of Central Missouri”
Addison tossed the letter onto his desk. What was he supposed to do, chase gun-toting, beardless youths around the woods with a saber? Had General Brown ever seen one of these bushwhackers? They all carried four pistols at least, supplied by sympathizers or stolen from Unionist civilians, and could get two dozen shots off for each one his men could. Addison picked up his pen, dipped it in an inkwell, and drafted a reply.
“To Brigadier General Egbert Brown, Commander, District of Central Missouri
Sir,
Today at about two o’clock in the afternoon a supply wagon from Co. B, 90th Enrolled Missouri Militia, headquartered in Rocheport, was sent toward my position from that place, guarded by six men. They were attacked by bushwhackers not four miles west of my position on the Rocheport-Columbia road. Three men of Co. B were killed and the others driven off. I was leading a patrol out to meet the wagon and came upon the bushwhackers as they were in the process of looting it. We scattered them, driving them into the woods. Two of my men suffered wounds in this fight. The rebels’ losses were…”
Addison paused, pen poised over the paper.
“…unclear as the bushwhackers are in the habit of removing their dead and wounded from the field.
I must stress once again that my men are sorely outgunned by these rebel outlaws. If we had been equipped with just one pistol each, I am confident that we would have killed or captured the entire band. I feel duty bound to most humbly repeat my request for more appropriate weapons with which to fight this menace.
I am, sir, your most obd’t servant,
Captain Richard Addison, Cmdr Co. A, 90th Enrolled Missouri Militia”
That unpleasant duty finished, the captain eyed his wife’s letter sitting on his desk, and picked up the newspaper. The headline read, “Further Proof of the Depravity of the Notorious Bushwhackers!!!”
Under it was a sketch of what appeared to be a two-headed eagle, the heads on elongated necks looking to the left and right. It had a bulbous body and was trampling several tiny people who screamed from disfigured faces as its claws dug into their backs. The caption read,
“This is a sketch from life of a figurine, about five inches tall, discovered on the body of a bushwhacker killed in Howard County, in a skirmish near the western boundary of Boone County. A grotesque travesty of our proud national symbol, this two-headed eagle and its screaming lost souls is nothing more than a bestial, barbaric shame upon our fair land. The rebels have added idolatry and devil worship to their long list of crimes. When will a cleansing hand wipe this pestiferous scourge from our great state?”
Addison shook his head and leafed through the paper. It didn’t take long to find the mention of him.
“Rumors have reached this paper of a new advance by the rebel General Sterling Price upon our state. Residents of Columbia need not fear. Even if his rebel horde reached these parts, and that is so unlikely that one might rather wish for it to rain frogs, he would meet a warm reception from our very own Captain Richard Addison. While only one of many company commanders in our district, his ability and gentlemanly nature shine forth like a diamond among the gold of the Missouri militia. For who can forget his great victory in the first month of the current conflict, the crushing blow he gave the rebels on the very threshold of Columbia, at the Battle of Three Creeks? When, with brilliant leadership worthy of Grant or Sherman, he captured a large rebel force, inflicted heavy losses on them, captured a huge cache of most deadly weaponry, and ended secessionist recruitment in this part of the county for several months? This writer had the honor of serving beside him on that glorious day, and a no more fearless, ferocious, finer man has graced a uniform since the age of Alexander and Achilles. Loyal Unionists may sleep soundly knowing Captain Addison is on the watch, and they may show their gratitude by patronizing Addison’s Dry Goods Emporium, located at the corner of 8th St. and Broadway.”
Addison chuckled. Dear old Tom. If only their “glorious day” at Three Creeks had been a sign of things to come. Yes, Tom had been there with him, and the whole affair happened down at Three Creeks, but those were the only truthful things in the entire article.
It had been in May 1861, three years and a lifetime ago. The previous month rebels had fired on Fort Sumter, and in Columbia secessionists drilled on the grassy quad of the state university, led by Moses Gibson, his and Tom’s old schoolteacher. The man was past seventy, but could still stir up a firestorm of rhetoric and shoot a musket with the best of them. Addison had been in charge of the Columbia militia back then and took care to avoid any confrontation, partly because he didn’t want any blood on the streets and partly because some of his best friends had joined Gibson. News had just come that rebels had seized the Federal arsenal at Liberty in western Missouri, and, worried his old schoolteacher might try the same with the town militia’s meager store of old muskets and rusty sabers, he had put the men under arms and had them camp in his own pasture just half a mile outside Columbia. They even wheeled out the little old cannon from in front of the courthouse, a relic of the war of 1812 that they fired once a year during the Fourth of July celebrations.
On the night of May 10, Tom had come to his home. He always lurked around the telegraph office to get news for his paper, and he’d just gotten word that the Missouri State Guard at St. Louis had been surrounded and captured by General Lyon and charged with insurrection against the government. Lyon claimed the guardsmen planned to take the Federal armory in the city, so he went out with several regiments of Unionist militia, German immigrants mostly, surrounded the State Guard camp, and forced them to surrender without firing a shot. On the way back into town a rebel mob started throwing rocks, the Germans panicked and fired into the crowd, and St. Louis plunged into a night of rioting. The telegraph message had been vague about casualties, but they included some of the German militia and many civilians.
Addison had been thunderstruck. Governor Jackson was a secessionist and would surely use this as an excuse to get his way in the General Assembly. Secession, the question on every Missourian’s mind since Lincoln’s election, had just been decided on the streets of St. Louis.
Tom was ecstatic.
“Now we can clean up this state, Richard,” the editor said, slamming his fist into his palm as he paced the length of Addison’s front parlor. “Get every God-damned secech traitor thrown right into the calaboose. Make this state livable for decent folk, patriots. Why, if my grandpa were alive today he’d have done exactly what Lyon did. Grandpa didn’t fight alongside Washington at Brandywine and Yorktown to have the country break up after only eighty years.”
The next day Moses Gibson and his men disappeared.
It didn’t take long to find them. A hunter spotted them camped down at Three Creeks, a little valley a few miles from Columbia next to an old Indian cave. The hunter said he had overheard them talking about attacking Columbia.
“We got him now!” Tom cheered. “We know that area better than he does. Remember how we used to go fishing down there when we were supposed to be at his schoolhouse? We got caned for that once if I remember aright. Well, let’s go down there and cane him!”
Addison had his doubts. Most of Columbia’s twenty thousand residents supported the Union, and he couldn’t believe Gibson would be so bold as to march on the city. Still, the majority of the farmers in Boone County and the rest of central Missouri were for secession, and if Gibson got enough recruits…
A visit from the mayor, a dapper little man who couldn’t stop waving his arms in the air and sweating enough to stain his new suit from collar to pant leg, convinced Addison that he had to go after Gibson. He held out until the mayor gave him an explicit order in front of witnesses. Addison didn’t want this responsibility on himself.
So, after rounding up his men, inducting a beaming Tom Chandress into the militia as acting sergeant (“Bless you Richard, you are a true friend and a true patriot”), and hiding the cannon under a haystack, they set out before dawn.
It was unseasonably cold; Addison remembered that clearly. Even after all the winter marches and sentry duties in drenching rains in the following three years, he still remembered that march into his first battle as the coldest he’d ever felt.
Behind him came sixty men, armed with every musket in Columbia’s armory, totaling twenty. The rest carried shotguns, squirrel guns, and a few hunting rifles. One old-timer marched proudly along bearing a flintlock that had seen service in the Indian Wars. Tom strode in front next to Addison, a pistol and a hatchet stuck in his belt.
By sunup they were approaching Three Creeks. Leaving the road and cutting a half mile through the trees, they got to where the land dropped off sheer, the woods stretching out like a lush green carpet before them. A faint path led down the cliff toward the Indian cave and the creeks. Addison knew the way well. As boys they’d all been down there and explored the cave, adding their names and those of their sweethearts to the pictures of deer the Indians had painted.
The silence of the early morning woods, cut only by the lone call of a sparrow, unnerved him. Addison didn’t understand why Gibson hadn’t put out sentries. Perhaps he didn’t think anyone knew where he was. The Columbia militia, who had joked and bragged all the way here to hide their nervousness, fell silent.
Not knowing what else to do, Addison led his men down the path. They tried to be as quiet as they could, but in the half light men kept tripping over roots or snapping twigs, equipment jangling, the old farmer with the flintlock coughing, until Addison felt like Hannibal trying to sneak into Rome with a herd of elephants. To his enduring surprise, they all got to the bottom without getting shot at.
“Do you think they’ve departed?” he asked Tom in a whisper.
“I don’t know. The cave is just another half mile. Let’s proceed on,” the editor replied, hatchet in one hand and pistol in another.
Addison spread his men out in two ranks and marched forward. The lines wavered and broke as they struggled through the underbrush, and twice he had to stop and form them up again. Keeping formation through the woods while marching into battle turned out to be a bit more difficult than keeping formation on the town square on the Fourth of July.
Firelight glimmered through the brush up ahead. Addison motioned his men to halt and cock their muskets. Pulling his own revolver and drawing his saber, he waved them forward.
They had barely made it two steps before a cry came from up ahead,
“The militia!”
They heard a chorus of shouts and the sound of running feet.
“Advance!” Addison bellowed, trying to make his voice heard as Tom blazed away at the greenery.
Within moments they came to a clearing. To their right trickled a little stream. To their left loomed the cliff, undercut by the cave mouth. Below the overhang and on the bare rock in front of the cave were about forty men in various states of undress. Some struggled to untangle themselves from their blankets. Others squatted by campfires, food falling from amazed mouths. Old man Gibson ran around camp like a chicken with his head cut off, waving a musket and trying to get the few men with guns in their hands into line.
“Surrender!” Addison demanded.
“Ready!” Gibson shouted. Half a dozen guns leveled in Addison’s direction. A few more rebels hurried to load.
“Ready, aim, fire!” Addison shouted the words in rapid succession.
The militia’s ragged volley thundered in his ears. Addison emptied his pistol into the throng.
Every rebel holding a gun dropped it and threw their hands in the air. Moses Gibson fell to his knees, weeping but unhurt.
And thus ended of the Battle of Three Creeks.
The “heavy losses” Tom Chandress bragged about in his newspaper the next day, and at least a dozen times in the years to follow, had totaled exactly three. The militia’s lone volley had gone high, but Addison had shot off the tip of one man’s finger, some buckshot had grazed the shoulder of another, and a third rebel, blinded with fear, had bolted for the woods only to trip over a bubbling pot of soup and scald himself.
The “huge cache of most deadly weaponry” they had seized totaled ten squirrel guns, two shotguns, five antiquated muskets, a pistol with no ammunition, and a corn scythe.
But Addison’s reputation had been made. Sales at his dry goods store went through the roof, people talked of his running for mayor, and the Federal army offered him a commission, an honor he politely declined. He’d never been a gambling man and he didn’t want to gamble with his life. But as the state became infested with guerrillas, killing Union men even if they had never taken up arms, he knew he couldn’t avoid his duty. When the government formed the Enrolled Missouri Militia to protect local areas, he had applied for an officer’s position and been given the rank of captain.
Addison put down the newspaper. If only the war had stayed so easy. A year of battles came next, General Lyon killed at Wilson’s Creek, thousands more dead or maimed, and the Confederates pushed into Arkansas. Governor Jackson and the rebellious Missouri state legislature fled all the way to Texas and a new, loyalist government took their place in Jefferson City. But it hadn’t ended there. Missouri hadn’t seen a Confederate army worthy of the name for two years now, but bushwhackers hid behind every tree. They even occupied small towns every now and then. And now it looked like Sterling Price, who had led the Missouri rebel army right from the beginning, was on his way back.
Addison tossed the paper onto the desk, put his feet up, and closed his eyes. Sleep didn’t find him, however. Something nagged at the back of his mind. Ah, yes, the letter from Mary. He opened his eyes and looked at it resting on the worn wood of his desk, her jagged handwriting scrawled across the envelope. He got up, went to the door, and opened it.
The sun hung low in the west, refining the humid air to a golden haze. Soldiers strolled around the camp tending to their work in as relaxed a fashion as they could get away with. Those off duty lazed in their tents or around campfires, playing cards and drinking.
Almost time for evening parade, he thought, but not yet.
He looked around to see if he could catch sight of Lieutenants Bruin and Pratt. Maybe they had something to report, but they were nowhere to be seen. He could check on old Doc Long about the wounded, but no, he was probably still working on them. Best not to disturb him. Reluctantly he closed the door, lit an oil lamp to cheer the fading light filtering in from the open window, sat down heavily, and reached for the letter.
CHAPTER THREE
Jimmy Rawlins hunched low in the saddle as branches swept over him. He kept his roan mare trotting at a good pace, horse and rider both accustomed to passing through thick woodland. He spared a look at the tear in his shirt on his left arm just below the shoulder. Some blood welled out of the wound beneath, but he could tell it was just a graze.
“That militia captain give that to you?” Morgan asked, riding alongside him.
They were alone, his band having split into twos to confuse any pursuit.
“Sure did. That fellow had some sand chasing us into the brush like that,” Jimmy replied.
“Took a few plugs at me too. I do believe he was aiming for this here powder,” Morgan said, patting the barrel tied behind his saddle. “Good thing he isn’t as good a shot as me, otherwise we’d have all been blown to smithereens.”
“He had me to rights,” Jimmy said. “I came out from behind a tree and there he was. Held his fire, though. Thought I was somebody named Nathan.”
“Well, you set him straight on that score. Too bad you didn’t get him.”
Jimmy didn’t reply. For some reason he couldn’t figure out, he felt a little relieved he’d missed that captain. Perhaps it was because the Federal mistook him for someone else. It didn’t seem right to kill a man when he thinks he’s facing a friend. And that look in his eyes was so anxious, so desperate, it almost made him feel sorry. He’d never felt sorry for a bluecoat before.
He put that thought away. This was war. He’d kill that Yankee next time, if there was a next time. A bigger relief was that the Yank had only winged him. Eliza might not like him anymore if he came home with only one arm.
They came to a shallow stream and let their horses drink. Both bushwhackers dismounted and bent down beside their horses, slurping up the water in grateful gulps.
“Been a long time since I felt a September this hot,” Morgan said, fanning his face with his hat before dipping it in the stream and squishing it back on his head.
“Won’t last,” Jimmy replied. “Once the leaves fall we’ll have to figure out where to winter.”
“Shoulda figured you’d hightail it out before the Yanks’ll have a clear shot at you!” Morgan laughed.
“Like you’d ride around Missouri when the brush is bare!”
“Hell no, I’m gonna ride down to Galveston and stay warm with some Texan gal.”
“Texas ain’t a bad idea. Lot of other bands winter down there. Too bad I can’t take Eliza with us,” Jimmy said.
“Her Pa would ride right after you,” Morgan laughed as he saddled up. “And he’s a sight better shot than that Yank captain.”
They walked their horses within the stream’s flow for half a mile before splashing onto the opposite bank and urging them into a trot. They made good progress as the forest slowly darkened into a long, late-summer twilight. Jimmy breathed in the warm, humid air, filled with the forest’s smells, and relaxed for the first time since they had set up the ambush. Hidden birds twittered from high branches. Squirrels scampered up trunks of oak and beech, reminding Jimmy of the hunting trips he and his father used to go on. After five miles the woods opened up into prairie. For a full minute Jimmy and Morgan peered out from the cover of the trees, watching for any movement before skirting the prairie’s edge, careful to remain within the shadows of the forest. Soon they came to a cow path that took them to a little valley. A frame cabin and barn stood at the center of a large wheat field. Several cows grazed nearby.
Jimmy studied what he knew to be the kitchen window. A lamp sat in the center of the windowsill, the signal that it was safe to approach.
They brought their horses into the barn and found Hugh, Al, Elijah, and the Kid all busy currying their mounts.
“Hey slowpokes,” Hugh smiled. “Hurry up and get settled. Grandma Wyatt’s got dinner ready.”
The mention of food made Jimmy’s stomach rumble, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten since breakfast, but he suppressed his hunger for a few more minutes and gave his horse a careful brushing, patting her sides and talking to her.
“Careful,” Morgan teased, “Eliza might get jealous.”
“Hush up,” Jimmy said, “Charger here deserves a good currying. She’s got me out of more than one scrape.”
The others stood around impatiently until he finished and threw down some hay and oats in the stall.
He turned to his friends and smiled.
“Last one there does the dishes,” he said.
They spilled out of the barn in a laughing mob and raced across the yard. Morgan made it to the porch first with Jimmy right at his heels. Hugh made it last.
“Now who’s the slowpoke?” Jimmy laughed at him over his shoulder.
A tiny old woman stood at the door to greet them, her grey hair pinned in a bun. Her face bore the deep lines of a long life of farm work, but her back remained unbent and her grey eyes gazed at them with open affection. The smell of fresh baked bread wafted out of the house around her.
“Good to see you, boys! Getting into trouble I hope?”
“Yes ma’am,” Jimmy smiled as he cut Morgan off and climbed up the stairs at the head of his band. “Bushwhacked a supply wagon. Killed three and run the rest off.”
The old woman touched the silver cross that hung from a thin chain around her neck.
“May the good Lord have mercy on their sinning souls. Now come on in and get something to eat.”
The six young guerrillas trooped in.
“But not before you wash up!” she shouted after them.
“I’ll set the table, Grandma Wyatt!” the Kid said, skipping to the kitchen.
“Bobby,” the old woman addressed him by name, “you come right back here and wash those filthy hands of yours. What would the militia say if they smelled gunpowder on my silverware?”
“Nothing except, ‘thanks for the silverware, it will look fine in our mess hall’,” the Kid said, walking over to a large washtub and dipping his hands in.
Morgan stood next to him, splashing water on his face. Grandma Wyatt came up to him holding a bar of soap.
“No, do it right. You’re always the dirtiest of the lot. Take off your shirt and scrub down.”
“But Grandma…” Morgan protested.
“I raised three boys; you think you’re going to show me something I never saw before? Now strip off that filthy shirt. It needs mending anyhow.”
Morgan started removing his shirt. The old woman grew impatient and yanked it off, grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, and plunged his head into the water. He pulled away, water splashing onto the wooden floor.
“Augh! It’s cold.”
“That’s ‘cause you’re late. It was hot an hour ago,” Grandma Wyatt said, regaining her hold on his neck and scrubbing away with the soap.
“Ow! Careful!”
“Don’t forget to get behind his ears, grandma,” Jimmy said, “Scrounge around ‘em good!”
“Hush. You’ll get your turn,” she replied, and thrust Morgan’s head beneath the water a second time.
The widow’s eyes went wide as she spotted the blood on Jimmy’s arm.
“You’re hurt!” she cried, letting go of Morgan.
“It’s nothing,” Jimmy said as Morgan took the opportunity to slip away.
“Nothing? As filthy as you boys get you’ll lose that arm before Sunday. Now strip down and let me clean it.”
“It’s fine,” Jimmy protested.
The old woman pulled his shirt off, pushed him down into a chair, and knelt beside him.
The bullet had nicked the curve of his arm just below the bulge of his shoulder, making a lozenge-shaped furrow like a bloody mouth barely an inch long. Ms. Wyatt pressed above and below the wound with her thumb and forefinger and the mouth widened. Jimmy bit on his lip to keep from grimacing. The bleeding didn’t quicken much and no bone showed underneath.
“You’re lucky, this ain’t bad at all,” she said.
“Just like I told you,” Jimmy replied.
Wyatt got up and went to a cabinet next to the hearth. The Kid was stoking the fire and its golden light bathed the room.
“Now comes the fun part,” Morgan chuckled as he rocked back and forth on the hind legs of his chair, his shadow widening and shortening crazily across the far corner of the room.
The widow opened the cabinet and pulled out a bottle of alcohol, some cotton balls, and a roll of bandages. She walked back to Jimmy, soaked one of the balls, and dabbed it on the wound. Jimmy’s muscles tensed. Morgan hissed.
“Oooo, that’s gotta sting something fierce. You go right ahead and cry if you need to, Jimmy. I promise not to tell Eliza.”
Hugh and Albert guffawed as they cleaned themselves at the washtub.
“Please put on a Union uniform so I can shoot you,” Jimmy said to Morgan, wincing as Grandma Wyatt put some more cotton on the wound and wound a strip of bandage around his arm to make it stay.
“Aw, you’d just run,” Morgan replied.
“I’ll give you some extra cotton and bandages,” the widow said as she fixed Jimmy with a look. “You change those dressings twice a week, you hear?”
“Oh all, right Grandma Wyatt, but it ain’t nothing,” Jimmy replied.
“I’ll fix that shirt of yours after dinner,” the old woman said, “now go get a blanket so you don’t catch your death of cold.”
Once everyone was fully scrubbed and dried, the guerrilla band sat down at a long oak table.
“Who’s going to say grace?” Wyatt asked.
“I will, Grandma!” the Kid said, perking up in his seat.
“That’s fine. And Elijah, you say it right along with him or you don’t get a bite. Remember what I told you last time about people who don’t say their prayers.”
Elijah smiled, showing his broken front tooth.
“I’m always saying prayers, Grandma.”
“Those ain’t prayers, they’re blasphemies, and you’ll have a hot time in the hereafter if you don’t mend your ways. Now say it along with Bobby.”
The Kid led them in grace, Elijah mumbling along with him. After they finished, Jimmy saw Elijah put his hands under the table and make an X with his trigger fingers.
Grandma Wyatt brought out split pea soup, bacon, corn bread, and a jug of cider. The boys wiped each plate clean before she had time to return from the kitchen with the next one.
It wasn’t long before they’d scoured the table and Hugh went off to do the washing while the rest cleaned and reloaded their weapons before sitting back in their chairs, half asleep.
Hugh finished up in the kitchen and came into the front room to clean his pistol.
“You got any percussion caps, Jimmy? I’m fresh out after this reload,” he asked.
“Just half a hundred. Here, I’ll divvy them up,” Jimmy replied, reaching into one of his pockets and taking out a nearly empty box.
“Shoot,” Morgan said. “If we don’t get some more pretty soon we’re going to have to throw rocks at them Yankees.”
Jimmy shrugged.
“Ain’t nobody to supply us. Most patriots either joined up, got arrested, or run out of the country.”
“Why don’t you take some from the Federals?” the old woman asked as she sewed a patch over the bloodstain on Jimmy’s shirt.
“The caps they use for their rifles ain’t the right size,” Jimmy replied. “Don’t know what we’ll do. We need to bushwhack an officer.”
Morgan snorted.
“None of them stray from camp without a whole troop along,” he said.
“That’s ‘cause half the people in the county would string them up as soon as say good morning,” Grandma Wyatt said, not looking up from her sewing. “Wish I had something to give you boys, but my sons took all the guns when they went to fight for General Hood in Tennessee.”
Grandma Wyatt finished with Jimmy’s shirt. She held it up and admired the embroidery.
“It’s funny how bushwhackers gussy themselves up like this,” she said.
“Got to look our best when killing Yankees,” Morgan said.
“Eliza did mine,” Jimmy said, smiling and looking into the fire that crackled in the hearth.
“Told him it was bulletproof,” Morgan laughed. “That’s the only way he’s got the sand to stand up to the enemy.”
Jimmy picked his hat off the back of the chair and smacked him with it.
“Hey! You’re lucky I don’t fight wounded rebels,” Morgan said, slapping away the hat with a smile. “‘Course I had half a dozen fine, fine girls just falling over themselves to do mine, and so I said, ‘Ladies, I can only fit one shirt on me and none in my saddlebags, being as they have to carry other important items of war, so y’all gonna to have to compete for the honor. And here’s the winner,”—Morgan spread his arms wide and puffed out his chest. His black shirt was set off with gold trim on the cuffs and hem. Green vines with gold leaves scrolled down each side of the low cut in front, a red rose at the bottom near his heart.
“It’s a mighty nice bit of work,” Grandma Wyatt nodded.
“Done by Becky Likens,” Morgan said. “Not the finest girl I ever kissed but dang if she ain’t handy with a needle and thread.”
Jimmy shook his head and wiped down the barrel of one of his pistols with a rag. The most annoying thing about Morgan’s story was that it was all true.
Don’t matter, Jimmy thought as he looked at his own butternut shirt with its uneven scrollwork and trim done in thick green thread. Eliza’s a better girl than Becky or any of those giggling sillies and Morgan knows it too.
“Our sisters done ours,” Hugh said as he sat next to his brother and filled the chambers of his revolver with powder and shot.
“My Ma did mine,” the Kid said.
Jimmy’s eyes passed over their finely embroidered shirts and he gritted his teeth. Why couldn’t Eliza be handier with that sort of thing?
Smart, though. Nobody in Greene County as smart as her, nor as pretty.
“Well,” Morgan rolled on, “I’m not surprised your kinfolk did yours. They did a good job, mind you, but y’all not paying proper respects to the ladyfolk in our district. Now the Kid here is excused for not having fully reached his majority, but you two…”
“Why don’t you have your shirt decorated, Elijah?” the widow Wyatt asked softly.
The young man sat a little away from the others, half his pale face shining in the firelight, the other half in deep shadow. He gave an almost imperceptible shrug.
“I could do yours if you’d like,” the old woman went on.
Elijah stuck out his chin and said in a level voice, “I have no use for fripperies.”
A long, low call came from out of the night. The old woman’s eyes narrowed, her fingers clenching her needle. The guerrillas drew their revolvers.
“Keep quiet while I go see who it is,” she said.
She got up from her chair, crept to the door, and opened it a crack.
“It’s Lazarus Grimes,” she whispered before calling out, “What you want this time of night?”
“Good ole Lazarus,” Elijah grinned. “Maybe he’s got something for us.”
Jimmy nodded. The old man was the most well-connected Confederate sympathizer in the area. Jimmy got up and walked to the door. Peering over Grandma Wyatt’s shoulder, he saw Grimes standing at the edge of the yard by the gate to the picket fence, a hunched, wiry figure holding the reins of a mule. The light from the crescent moon shone on his bald scalp and glittered in his eyes.
“May I come onto your property?” he called to Grandma Wyatt.
“If you must,” she replied.
He gave a low chuckle, tied his mule to the fence, and walked to the front door.
“Hello there, Jimmy,” he nodded to the guerrilla.
“Hello Mr. Grimes, aren’t you scared to be out at night? There’s patrols on every path.”
“Lazarus, boy, call me Lazarus, and I don’t have nothing to fear in the night.”
The newcomer turned to the old woman. She hadn’t moved from the doorway.
“Ain’t you going to invite me in, neighbor?”
After a pause she said, “Why don’t you come on in, Lazarus?” and opened the door to let him pass.
“Thank you,” he bowed as his eyes scanned the room. “Thank you kindly. Well, all the boys are here I see! Rawlins’ Rangers back from another triumphant bushwhack.”
“You heard about that?” Elijah asked.
“Hello there, Elijah, good to see you again. Course I heard. Nothing happens in these parts without me knowing. You got three and the three who skedaddled back to Rocheport are all shot up. One’s not expected to live the night.”
“Too bad he didn’t die instanter,” Elijah said, pulling his dirty bottle out from his coat, “then I’d have ten instead of nine.”