Spake As a Dragon (7 page)

“
Mama how old was
Margaret?”

“
Child, I try not to think
about that day, but to answer your question - she was twelve.” She
said, staring but not seeing, and trying unsuccessfully to choke
back the tears. Dabbing her eye with her handkerchief, she
continued, “If she had lived she would be almost twenty-four now –
probably married with children of her own.”

“
But Mama isn’t that her
grave out yonder by the red oak tree.”

“
Yes it is.” Through the
tears, Malinda explained they arrived at this place in Alabama a
couple of weeks later. Once they had a tent put up and water to
drink Robert could not sleep at night. On the morning of the third
day of arrival at Pleasant Grove, he ate breakfast and announced he
was going to return to that spot by the road and God willing he was
going to bring his little girl home. He hitched the mules to the
wagon, threw together a few vittles and a shovel, stepped on the
hub of the wheel and slipped into the wagon seat.

“
Didn’t you try to stop
him Mama?”

“
No, my darling, there are
sometimes a man has to do what he thinks he has to do, and I knew
this was one of those times. I kissed him good-bye and thought I
would never see him again.”

Malinda went on to explain as Robert
was hitting the wagon seat from the left side Uncle Jed had plopped
down on the seat from the right side. Robert looked at Jed and
asked him to stay with the family he would take care of this. Uncle
Jed said to Robert, “Mister Robert, you’s has done told me a many a
time what I can and can’t do, but this here time I ain’t listenin.’
Put them reins to them mules flanks and let’s get goin.’ I’m comin’
and I ain’t takin’ no fer an answer.”

“
Did they go
Mama?”

“
Darling, not only did
Robert and Uncle Jed go back to that place where the robbers killed
Margaret, they brought her body and the engraved headstone back
here in the wagon. Robert and Uncle Jed built her a fine wooden
coffin and we went out to that old oak and gave her a real proper
burial. Your Daddy took that big old family Bible turned to the
Fourth Chapter of I Thessalonians and read once again:

‘
Then we, which are alive
and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to
meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the
Lord.

“
And as we had done
before, we all sang the old spiritual
‘Amazing Grace
.’ When
we finished singing Robert shut the Bible and turning to walk back
to the tent, said to no one in particular, ‘Now daughter you can
finally rest, you are buried here with your family. You are no
longer alone.”

Chapter Nine

SIMEON LAPREE

Before Malinda can continue the
stories of the old days, the sound of horses can be heard coming
from the road toward their house. From the sound, she estimates
there must be at least half a dozen riders or more.

“
You girls stay in the
house. I’m going out on the porch and see who’s coming.” Stepping
onto the porch, she can see a group of horsemen, numbering around
eight or ten approaching at a gallop. From where she stands, she
cannot recognize any of the men.

The leader, riding a handsome, black,
well-fed stallion, stops at the hitching post, tips the brim of his
hat with a gloved finger and says, “Are you Mrs.
Scarburg?”

Malinda isn’t exactly frightened, but
she senses something isn’t right. Most of them wear an assortment
of mixed Yankee and Confederate uniforms, none of which match. All
are heavily armed and it appears they have not been near a bathtub
in quite a while. Shaggy, un-trimmed beards cover the faces of all
but the leader. The leader who has asked her the question is a
grubby, brown-skinned, mean-eyed man, a little on the heavy side,
with a thick black mustache whose ends extend below the lower
jaw.

From head to toe he is dressed in all
black. On his head he wears a sombrero, which sports a rattlesnake
band. His whole outfit is topped off with a pair of black, silver
edged, leather chaps with long flowing fringe. The outside of each
leg is adorned with silver Mexican Pesos. His knee length black
boots look as though they have recently been shined; however, as
black and slick as the boots are they are overshadowed by the
silver, Spanish spurs. Beautifully ornate, hand-carved silver spurs
with large toothed, spinning rowels. Over it all he wears a white
knee length duster, with the collar turned up.

When he speaks, she noticed he had one
gold tooth in the front of his mouth and talks with a slight
accent. He sits on a beautiful silver inlaid, double hitched,
roping saddle. Is it Mexican? For sure it isn’t Army issue. Is he
Mexican, Indian or a mix? She cannot tell his
nationality.

Before she has a chance to ponder this
question he speaks again, “I asked you a question, I demand you
answer me!”

Malinda, never the one to back down
replies, “Who do you think you are? Coming on my land demanding I
answer you? I’m not afraid of you, but I will answer - yes I am
Malinda Scarburg.”

“
Is it true your husband
and two sons are off fighting the War?”

“
Not that it is any of
your business, but yes it is true. What do you want?”

“
Shut up woman! I will ask
the questions.”

William and Tom Henry hear the
commotion in the front yard and comes running from the rear of the
house leaps upon the porch next to their mother and declares, “Is
everything all right, Mama?” William directing his attention to the
boss man, “Sir, you best not talk to my mother like
that!”

“
Well now,” the man
replied. “What do we have here?”

“
Y’all get off my
property!” Malinda snapped.

“
Listen, woman do you know
who you are talking to?”

“
Not only do I not know
who you are – I don’t care, now git!”

From underneath the large black
sombrero his eyes narrow, as if squinting, he loudly asks, “I am
Simeon LaPree...does that name mean anything?” Before Malinda can
answer he continues, “I am
Captain
Simeon LaPree, head of
the Home Guard.” Waving his arm, “these are a few of my
men.”

From the barn loft Isaac, Stephen,
Uncle Jed and Jefferson watch the confrontation in the yard. Isaac
swears right then and there he will not leave the house again
without his father’s double-barreled shotgun. He and Stephen are
totally unarmed and cannot offer any assistance to their mother
from this group of murderous men. All they can do is cower behind
the barn wall and watch.

LaPree continues, “I understand you
have some cornmeal and flour? In the name of the Confederate States
of America, I demand you turn this over to us! Give the food to us
immediately!”

“
Demand? Demand? Who are
you to
demand
? That is our food! I have already supplied a
husband and two sons to your Confederate States of America, I’ll
not supply you anything more.”

“
Excuse me. I did not mean
‘give,’ the Confederacy is more than willing to pay for the
food.”

“
Pay? Pay me with what?
That worthless Confederate money?”

Mattie Ann and Lizzie sit on the
parlor floor, listening unobserved from underneath an open window
and hears every word spoken. Mattie slips from her hiding place and
quickly tiptoe to the kitchen’s meal and flour box. She removes the
last sack of flour and what is left of the cornmeal. She wonders
what to do with it now? Looking around the kitchen, she can see no
place that will make a good hiding spot.

It is summer and the fireplace is not
being used. She pushes the flour sack and cornmeal bags up into the
chimney, arranges everything around the hearth as thought nothing
had been disturbed. After a check of the kitchen, to make sure
everything is in order, she returns to Lizzie still scared and
hiding underneath the window.

Simeon LaPree is, in fact, a mixed
race, his father was Cajun of French decent and his mother a black,
prostitute slave girl from the French Quarter in New Orleans.
LaPree hated the name – ‘half-breed,’ half white and half black.
However, what makes him despise his station in life is the fact
that half-breeds are condemned in the antebellum South more than
blacks. They do not fit the white world and the black folks will
not accept them either.

LaPree left New Orleans in his teens.
He ran away from home and pretended for a while that he was Indian;
sometimes he would tell folks he was Mexican. Whatever the story,
he grew up mean and resentful. Resentful of all whites, blacks,
Indians and even Mexicans too. He tried hard to cover it up, but he
could not erase all his Louisiana dialect, he still retained a hint
of it. He hated the Cajuns too. It did not matter to him he hated
all equally. He migrated into Alabama early in the 1850s working
his way up the Mississippi and then down the Tennessee River as a
deck hand on the steamboat ‘
Natchez
,’ finally arriving at
Ditto’s Landing, Alabama. He would not have left his steamboat life
at a remote river port in north Alabama if it had not been for the
trouble he had gotten into while traveling up the Tennessee. During
a dispute in a card game, he beat a fellow deckhand on the large
paddle wheeler to within an inch of his life. The tobacco-chewing,
ever-cussing, always-wary riverboat captain thought it best to be
rid of him – he physically kicked him off his boat just south of
Huntsville, Alabama.

LaPree found work as a roustabout on
the docks in the daytime and cheated at cards at night. It wasn’t
much of a life, but for the time being it would do; however, the
war was coming and he was about the right age for conscription.
Important military dignitaries traveled up and down the river,
sometimes getting on or off paddle wheelers at the wharfs. He could
not take the chance that they would see him, and his age would have
him marching off to some battle that he had no interest in
fighting. He left Ditto’s Landing and moved farther east and south
arriving in the sleepy little town of Albertville, Alabama.
Albertville had a railroad, but there was nothing of military
interest in or near this remote crossroad settlement – it was a
perfect place for him to lay low until the War’s end.

His ‘slick’ card-playing career
coupled with his skill with his fists qualified him eminently as
the bouncer in the roughest saloon in town. One night he met his
match when he tried to oust a cotton farmer the size of a small
mule, and about as tough and ornery. He could not beat the farmer
in a fair fight so he employed a pair of brass knuckles and a
blackjack. He beat the overgrown redneck to death. Until the
circuit-riding judge arrived in town, the sheriff placed LaPree
under arrest and lodged him in the Marshall county jail at
Guntersville, Alabama.

The local Confederate Conscription
Officer heard of LaPree’s last exploit and made a visit to the
jail. LaPree told the Captain he was Spanish, and hailed from
Louisiana. The Conscription Officer bought LaPree’s story, actually
he didn’t care about his nationality; he had a job for LaPree. A
rough job that demanded a rough man: Captain of the Home
Guard.

LaPree saw this as two strokes of good
luck. First he would be deferred from active military service, even
if he were discovered to be an American, and second there was an
excellent chance to make some good, if not dishonest, money. With
this job, he could rob the citizens under the guise of the law and
not be prosecuted. The Home Guard’s duties including finding and
returning deserters, searching for draft dodgers and seeking out
men between the age of sixteen to sixty to conscript into the Army
of the Confederacy. Most of the time, the boys and men the Home
Guard found were reluctant to return to their previous military
units or were determined not to enter the service of the State of
Alabama altogether. This was where the skills of Simeon LaPree came
into play. He and his gang of legal thieves and ruffians were to
‘gently’ persuade those men and boys to see the error of their
ways, and change their minds.

“
Why ain’t you boys in the
army?”

William and Tom Henry do not
reply.

“
Tell me boys...your ages,
or I will beat it out of you?” At the same time cracking his
menacing, eight-foot, bullwhip.

Malinda quickly answers, “William is
going on twenty-one and Thomas Henry is thirteen.”

“
Well now,” LaPree
grinned, twisting the end of his mustache.

“
I’ve already got three
men in the Army, William is home to work the farm, and Thomas Henry
is not old enough...”

“
Now we’re gettin’
sommers...” he said glaring at the two boys, “I’ll deal with you
two later.” He turns his attention back to Malinda, “now take me to
the flour and cornmeal. I’m done through talkin’
with...”

“
I tell you we don’t have
any extra food!”

Captain LaPree dismounts; stomps up
the walk toward the porch all the time slapping his pant leg with
his braided, leather bullwhip. Pushing Malinda aside he does not
bother to turn the handle on the door – he kicks the door
open.

Mattie Ann and Lizzie scream and run
to their mother’s side. She kneels and pulls them close, “Don’t be
frightened everything is going to be fine,” gently stroking their
heads. “He will be gone in a while.”