No Less Than the Journey (5 page)

‘But wouldn’t he have changed his name, in case he came across someone who had known him then?’ Wes, queried.

‘There is no reason why he should,’ Aaron replied, ‘With all that was going on at the time he wouldn’t have expected the report to have ever reached me. Besides, the war has been over for a long time – and the company he’s keeping now wouldn’t care what he’d done in the past.’

Despite the escape of Gottland and the tragic death of Harrison Schuster, Aaron expressed satisfaction with the outcome of the thwarted raid on the
Missouri Belle
.

‘It will put the gang out of action for a very long time,’ he said to Wes, ‘In fact, I’ll be very surprised if we are ever troubled by river pirates on the Mississippi again.’

‘I’m sure you’re right,’ Wes agreed, ‘But I’m disappointed that Gottland wasn’t among those accounted for.’

‘That troubles me too, Wes, but don’t take it to heart, I’ll have a wanted notice put out for him – with a large reward. He’ll be picked up, sooner or later.’

‘I hope you’re right, Aaron, but I don’t believe you’ve heard the last of him.’

CHAPTER 6

Later that same day the
Missouri Belle
berthed at the Mississippi town of Vicksburg. Of great strategic importance during the Civil War, there was still a United States army garrison here and in response to the urgent sounding of the riverboat’s steam whistle and bell it was not long before the commanding officer and a detachment of troops arrived to take charge of Aaron’s prisoners and carry away the bodies of their companions.

When he learned of the desperate fight that had taken place downriver from his headquarters, Colonel Van Kleef, the officer in charge of the garrison, sent off a detail with orders to hunt down any surviving river pirates but, as Aaron told Wes, they would find no one. He had already learned that most of the river pirates had fought as Confederate ‘irregulars’ in the late war.

It was a term that described men who would have been outlaws even in more peaceful times. War had served to hone their skills in the art of evading capture. Heading north and west, they would vanish in the uncharted forests and uplands of neighbouring Arkansas.

When the last of the prisoners had been taken away, Aaron asked Colonel Van Kleef if there was an undertaker in the town
who could provide a suitable coffin for the late Captain Schuster.

Startled, the colonel asked, ‘Are you talking of Captain Harrison Schuster, son of old Silas Schuster who was a Kentucky Senator before choosing the wrong side when the war began?’

‘I know very little about Captain Schuster’s background, except that he was a Confederate officer, and that his family were considerable landowners in Kentucky,’ Aaron replied.

‘They still are,’ said the colonel. ‘The old Senator suffered as much as anyone during the war, losing two of his sons, who fought on opposing sides, and all his slaves too, but he’s tough and is pulling things together again. If there’s any justice he’ll be made the next Governor of Kentucky. He’s a good man, despite his wartime affiliations. I’ve met him a couple of times when he’s passed up and down the river and I admire the man. He will be absolutely devastated by the death of yet another son. It leaves him with just one now, although I believe he has a number of daughters.’

‘Harrison Schuster was a good man too,’ Aaron declared. ‘His help was invaluable in wiping out the river pirates.’

‘Then I suggest that a letter from you to President Grant, referring to the part he played would be a practical memorial for such a man,’ Colonel Van Kleef said. ‘Silas Schuster would dearly love to become a political animal once more in Kentucky – and the United States would regain the services of an honest man … a man who is quite the opposite of a Senator who will be accompanying you with his son on the
Missouri
Belle
upriver as far as Memphis. Senator Connolly of Louisiana uses his office for the benefit only of … Senator Connolly. He’s been in Vicksburg visiting his brother, who happens to be my administrative officer.’

As though suddenly aware that he was talking to a man who was likely to have friends in Washington, Colonel Van
Kleef reverted to the conversation the two men had been having when he had suddenly launched the verbal attack on the reputation of the Louisiana Senator.

‘… but that’s all by the way. I’ll have the undertaker come along to see you right away. I will also telegraph to the officer in charge of the small garrison at Cairo, upriver at the junction with the Ohio River, to say you have Harrison Schuster’s body on board. That will probably be the best place for you to have it unloaded and the army will arrange for it to be carried to the family home near Mayfield with all due ceremony.’

‘I’m much obliged,’ said Aaron, grasping the other man’s hand, ‘… and I’ll write that letter to the President.’

When the
Missouri Belle
left Vicksburg behind, the men who had taken part in the fight against the river pirates were treated as heroes – and none more so than Aaron, who shrugged off the adulation.

Replying to Wes, who had commented on Aaron’s popularity after one female passenger had come to their table in the dining saloon with effusive words of praise, Aaron said, ‘If you haven’t learned it already, you’ll come to realize folk are fickle, Wes. Today’s hero is just as likely to be tomorrow’s scapegoat. It’s best to ignore both praise and scorn and be true to the things you believe in. When it comes right down to it, you’re the one who’s got to live with yourself.’

‘That’s the sort of thing my pa would say to me,’ Wes said. ‘He was very much his own man too.’

‘Is he still alive?’ Aaron asked. Apart from Wes’s early disclosure that his father had been a gamekeeper, he had said very little about his family.

Wes shook his head, ‘Neither pa, nor my ma. When she caught pneumonia and died, he went to stay with his sister in a small fishing village just as cholera arrived there. They were both buried with little more than a month between them.’

‘Is that why you left to come to America?’

Wes shrugged, ‘Partly, but it wasn’t the only reason. The mines had fallen on hard times and there was nothing to keep me in Cornwall. A brother of ma’s, who I’d once worked with, and who is my only close relative now, had come out here to a place called Harmony, in Missouri, and written to say there was no shortage of work for a good Cornish miner. I thought I’d give it a try.’

‘There are easier ways to earn a living than burrowing underground like some varmint,’ Aaron said.

Wes laughed, ‘Such as going around looking for men like river pirates and getting shot at? You call that an easy occupation?’

‘I’d say more men are killed underground in the mines than in enforcing the law, Wes.’

‘That’s only because there are a lot more miners than marshals,’ Wes pointed out. ‘A careful miner might live to a good age.’

Aaron shrugged, ‘Only if the men he works with are just as careful. You might say it’s not too different for a lawman – but we won’t argue about it. If ever you change your mind I’ll be happy to take you on as a deputy.’

‘Where will I find you?’ Wes asked, ‘Will you be going back up north now you’ve dealt with the river pirates?’

Aaron shook his head, ‘That was just a sideshow, something I was asked to look at as I was passing this way. I’m on my way to the Territories. There’s a shortage of law out that way, with few local sheriffs or town marshals to get on top of it.’

‘And that’s supposed to be safer than mining?’ Wes said, quizzically. ‘No thanks, Aaron, I’ll stick with what I know best.’

As more and more people drew up chairs to the table and engaged the US Marshal in conversation, Wes made his
excuses and left the crowded and noisy saloon. Making his way outside, he paused for a few moments, breathing in the warm but fresher air than that in the smoke-filled room he had just left. Then he headed towards the front of the vessel, where the long wooden gangway that had been the scene of so much bloodshed, stretched out at an angle of forty-five degrees, beyond the blunt bow of the steamboat.

It was dark now but from a wing of the pilot house perched atop the vessel’s superstructure, the beam from a powerful acetylene lantern probed the sluggish and muddy waters as the river pilot expertly negotiated the twists and turns of the mighty waterway artery that carried life and commerce to and from the young heart of America.

It was cooler out here, but not a great deal quieter. The windows of the saloon had been thrown open to allow at least some of the heat and cigar smoke to escape, but these twin discomforts were pursued by a hubbub of talk, laughter and discordant piano music.

Wes pushed all such sounds into the background as he mulled over the happenings of what had been an extremely traumatic day.

He was surprised that the fact he had taken the lives of fellow men did not trouble his conscience at all. In fact, it affected him less than the occasion when, as a boy, he had accompanied his gamekeeper father on an expedition to kill a fox that had slaughtered chickens on one of the estate farms.

On the contrary, he admitted to feeling a certain satisfaction at seeing the bodies of the river pirates laid out in a double row on the deck of the riverboat – and this did trouble him.

Wes had been brought up to believe that human life was sacred, yet here he was gloating over the killing of so many men – albeit men to whom human life was cheap.

No doubt his father would have understood his feelings,
having spent fifteen years in the army before being invalided from the service at the early age of thirty because of a wound sustained during service in Africa.

The wound had prevented Curnow senior from taking underground work when he returned to the Bodmin moor mining area, where he had been born and had worked as a boy. However, because of his skill as an army sharpshooter he was offered work as a gamekeeper at Trebartha, a large estate bordering the moor and had soon married and settled down happily.

Wes grew up to share his father’s prowess with long-barrelled weapons, but there was mining in his blood from both sides of the family and he chose to work on one of the moor’s copper mines.

He soon considered himself to be a highly skilled ‘hard-rock’ miner and looked forward to a career which would ultimately lead to him becoming a respected mine captain.

Unfortunately, mining was a fickle business, copper mining in particular being at the mercy of a great many pressures originating outside the industry. When, in the early 1870’s a nationwide financial collapse coincided with a slump in the price of copper, many mines were forced out of business. Before long, the mine where Wes worked became one of them.

He might have hoped to be able to emulate his father and become an assistant gamekeeper on the estate where he had worked, but the estate owner had been a heavy investor in the mines on Bodmin moor. Although unlikely to be bankrupted, he was feeling the pinch and there was a surfeit of unemployed men seeking work. The wages he offered to Wes proved unacceptable, so Wes looked elsewhere.

A great many out-of-work miners were leaving Cornwall – leaving England – and seeking new lives in far off places that were no more than a name to most of them: Australia, South
Africa, Chile, Peru, Mexico – and the United States of America.

There had been a growing exodus of miners from Cornwall to all these places over the years and it was a letter from Wes’s uncle which fired his imagination. It told of the good life to be had in the lead mine communities of South East Missouri where new machinery meant mines were able to go deeper underground, creating work for experienced hard-rock miners.

The letter writer painted a glowing picture of the wages that could be earned and the standard of life that was enjoyed, declaring there to be unlimited prospects for a man who possessed a sound knowledge of mining and a willingness to work hard.

After thinking the matter over for some time, Wes decided he would leave Cornwall and begin a new life in far off Missouri.

He set off on his great adventure with a considerable advantage over most of his fellow emigrating miners. They were for the most part married men who had left behind any money they possessed to provide a meagre existence for their families until such time as they could send them more, or until they felt secure enough to call for their loved ones to come and join them in the new land.

Wes had no such commitments and during the good years of copper mining had managed to save money. He would not be leaving Cornwall through desperate necessity, but with a sense of adventure and looking forward to the opportunity to better himself.

‘What are you doing out here, Wes, feeling troubled about what went on this morning?’

Lola not only brought the tang of the smoke-filled saloon with her, but had been adding to it with the slim cheroot she held between two fingers.

‘No,’ Wes admitted. ‘I feel I should be, but if I am troubled at all it’s because some of the men we were fighting succeeded in escaping … Gottland in particular. I would be much happier knowing he was about to receive all he deserves.’

Taking up a position beside Wes and resting her arms on the top safety rail, Lola took a drag on the cheroot. Then, breathing out smoke with her words, she said, ‘With sentiments like that, Aaron will make a lawman of you yet.’

Wes shook his head, ‘I’m a miner, Lola, not a fighting man.’

‘Tell that to the men licking their wounds in the military prison at Vicksburg,’ Lola retorted. ‘Aaron says you’re a natural gunfighter. He won’t be happy until he’s pinned a deputy marshal’s badge on your chest.’

‘Then you’re going to have to get used to him being unhappy,’ Wes replied, ‘I’m heading for the Missouri mines and a place called Harmony.’

‘We’ll see,’ Lola commented, enigmatically. Then, changing the subject, she said, ‘There’s plenty of time to get bored before you leave the
Missouri Belle
. Would you like me to introduce you to Anabelita?’

‘Anabelita? Who is she?’

‘She’s a croupier, like me. The small, black-haired girl. She’s half-Mexican too – and has taken a shine to you.’

He knew who she was talking about. Black-haired and strikingly beautiful, Anabelita was a girl who would attract attention wherever she happened to be. The most influential and well-to-do passengers on board the
Missouri Belle
were to be found at her gambling table whenever the saloon was open for business.