Woe to Live On: A Novel (6 page)

Big Bob lay down, and it seemed to me that he enjoyed the attention. A sort of smile was on his face. The cut was not deep, more show than go, and Riley knelt down to wash it out with a bowl of water, his young fingers gently cleansing the forgiven slice.

It was an altogether inspiring scene to me. Proof that we shared something, that aloneness would not be our fate. We could forgive; it was a wonderful knowledge. And I was so glad for young Riley, for he had done wrong, but had been given a chance to allay his guilt immediately.

Would that more acts could be allayed that way. And, yes, would that more acts could be forgiven.

I
HAD AN ODD
talent: fine script. I was in much demand because of it. I often wrote letters for the men, and they claimed mine were an improvement on their own. It was a just claim.

Thus, when I was called to Black John’s side and told to take down a note, it was a commonplace to me.

Black John sat drover-style, legs twisted beneath him, near a low fire. Pitt Mackeson and George Clyde were with him. Holt sat behind Clyde a small distance, ever watchful.

“Take this down,” Black John said. His lips had spit dried on them and his eyes were tired and deep-looking. “It is for the
Lexington Union News,
so do it up fine the way you do.”

“Gladly,” I said.

“Dear Citizens,” Black John orated. “Mistakes are most common these days and deadly for it. The Federals are to hang two fine sons of Missouri named William Lloyd and Jim Curtin. They are good men, too brave to accept any injustice. The rule of Federals is one such depravity they would not endure passively. Me neither.

“By a provident cut of the cards four Federals have been
dealt to me. They are Brown, Eustis, Bowden and Stengel. You know them. It is their hope that Lloyd and Curtin are not hanged, as they would provide the sequel to such murders.

“If Lloyd and Curtin are released I will, as a gentleman, release the above-named unfortunates. All are young men with much promise before them, or else a short dance from a stout tree.

“The choice is yours, citizens, make it wisely.”

“Wait a minute,” said Pitt Mackeson. “You need to tell the citizens we’ll come and kill
them,
too.”

“Oh, they
know
that,” Black John said dryly. “It is understood.” Black John chewed his lips for a moment, then added, “Signed, John Ambrose and George Clyde, Commanding, First Kansas Irregulars.”

“That is good,” said Clyde, who was at least an equal to Black John. “And put an extra note on it that says, ‘Where you think we ain’t, we are. Remember it!’ ”

I did so. It was a concise document, scripted in superior fashion. It would make a point well enough, I thought.

“Who will deliver it?” I asked. “There are Federals all over Lexington.”

“We could slip a man in there,” Mackeson suggested. “We have done it before.”

“We have,” said Clyde, “but it is always risky.”

Black John hummed a snatch of a flat-note hymn, lolling his head this way and that in time to the tune, seemingly adrift from us. That was not the case, though.

“Oh, I reckon a citizen could be pressed into service,” he said. “If one can be found.”

“That might be a job,” said I, “for citizens are cautious hereabouts.”

“You got some better idea, Dutchy?” Mackeson asked. “Maybe you would volunteer yourself, eh?”

The notions were ill-defined but looming vaporous in the back half of my mind. Alf Bowden was all that I recognized in them, and I knew that I did not want to see him die. I scarcely was acquainted with the man, but even so slight a knowledge of him urged me to save him. This could be trouble, for some might see my merciful thinking as a traitorous bent.

“There is a way,” I said, “to prove more things than one.” I pointed toward the hog-tied Federals, and they were visible humps in the dim night, outlined against a flat expanse of soft-lighted countryside. “If we send a prisoner it will prove we have prisoners, and also he can attest to our intentions. It seems to me he could get more quickly to town, as well. And time is short. Curtin and Lloyd will be hanged right quick, I would think.”

The hymn was rehummed by Black John, and all eyes present bunched up on me. It was rare that I made suggestions, for some slight suspicion of me worked against their acceptance.

Abruptly the lyricless hymn halted, and Black John said, “It is a good idea. There are some fine touches to it.” He grasped my shoulder and gave me a squeeze. “You should speak up more, Roedel, for you are not near as dumb as you let on.”

“Aw,” I said.

Black John pushed up from the ground. Even his posture
was foreboding, as it was so stiff and straight. He was a man you could do nothing with but follow.

“Fetch some straw,” he said. “We’ll have the Federals do a drawing. Short straw travels.”

This long-straw, short-straw method of pressing fate to make a decision was judged the fairest by boys and men. Many small choices had been made in this fashion: who will haul the water when ice is on the windows; who will ask the stout girl to dance so her comely friend will be available. But this decision was a larger one, yet the method employed was exactly the same.

Saving Alf Bowden was only slightly likely.

The Federals were brought into the light of a campfire. Their faces were so fraught with fears and hopes that it was uncharitable to watch them. They gave off an odor of close living and nervous secretions. It was a mess.

Arch Clay held the straws. It would not have been impossible for him to leave all the straws long, as sparing any Federal disgusted him. He leaned over the choosers, shading the straws with his free hand, a grin on his face.

“Pick your futures, boys,” he said.

Bowden chose first. His hand trembled and he nearly drew two straws, but Arch clamped his fingers and only one slid out. It did not look especially short, either.

One of the prisoners, Stengel, was a foreigner pretty much. He was one of those worm-browed, dark Dutchmen with strong shoulders and bulbous cheeks. He pulled his straw coolly, and I knew the game was up, for it was winningly short and no mistaking it.

The game was completed with two more selections, but it was just exercise. Stengel would be the courier.

“Jacob,” said Alf Bowden pitifully. “Jacob.”

“This man,” Black John said, resting a hand on top of Stengel’s head, “will carry the letter to Lexington.” He then patted the Dutchman’s skull and said, “You are fortunate.”

“Ja,”
replied Stengel, peering into the ground between his knees.

Desperate Samaritanism consumed me. I nudged at Stengel with my boot. He looked up. My face felt twisted and hot atop my neck, and my lips, I knew, had flexed into a sneer.

“ ‘
Ja! Ja!
’ ” I said angrily. “This Dutch boater can’t hardly talk American.” I gestured at Black John. “How is he to present our case?”

Black John shrugged.

“As best he can,” he replied.

“Lloyd and Curtin are lost if he is our courier.” I looked about me to see how my theatrics were being received. “ ‘
Ja, ja
’—hell, they’ll not believe him for a minute.”

“He is right,” Pitt Mackeson said. For once his hatchet face looked on me fairly. “A goddamn lop-eared Dutchman—why it don’t make sense to free him.”

Black John slowly spoke. “Well, that is all well and good. But he won the draw.”

Near me stood Jack Bull Chiles. His face had an empty expression, but his lips were ever so thinly curling up as if a grin hid in ambush behind them. I thought he nodded to me as though we had a secret. I could never conceal much from him.

“Straw pulling is just a game,” I said. “Lives are at stake
here.” I strode over to Alf Bowden, who was hunkered on the ground, and slapped his face. He grunted and turned away, so I leaned over and slapped him again. “Why, this man would present our case better than a lop-eared immigrant—you know it’s so!”

Black John seemed to get taller. “You are not ready to be telling me what I know, Roedel. I will do that—always.” His eyes burned into me and he did not speak for a nervous amount of time. “But I see your point. Send the American.”

With that he turned and walked away, as did most of the men. Bowden began to whimper at my boots and I feared he might lick them.

“Get up,” I said. I lifted his head by jerking a lock of hair. “Get up, you’ve got travel ahead of you.”

Huge disappointment was at work on Stengel. He growled and tried to grapple with me, saying Dutch insults as he did so. I curled a crooked-armed punch that hooked him in the face. His nose went down and blood flooded his chin. This took the fight out of him but he still grumbled.

As Bowden was being cut totally loose of rope, I felt someone come stand behind me. I thought it was Jack Bull but, no, I faced about and it was Holt, the nigger.

“I am on to you, Roedel,” he said softly, then walked backward, keeping his gaze fixed on me.

“Get too much on to me and I’ll throw you off, Holt,” I said. “A nigger is meaningless to me.”

Even in the night I could see it—he actually smiled.

This was curious conversation with points that were uncertain, and disturbing. But then, what was not?

The letter was wrapped in oil paper and given to Alf Bowden. We put him astride a gimpy horse. Now that he was saved, his fright was lessened. He looked on me with less desperation and more anger.

“Do your best,” I told him. “Show some sand or these men will die because you didn’t.”

He did not reply, but set off in the deep dark, picking his way toward Lexington. There had been no sign of thanks in him at all.

Gratitude is such an infant’s expectation, always, but it is one I only slowly outgrew. He might have said something.

Salt pork and oatcakes fueled the next day. The boys sat in comfortable clusters, oiling pistols and limbering jawbones. George Clyde, who had been born in Dundee, Scotland, acted as a Plato or Socrates might have, staggering us with questions.

“If a six-teated dog runs ten miles an hour shittin’ splinters, how swift need she be to shit a rockin’ chair?”

The answers were various, speculative and joyous. A scientific facet was revealed in Gus Vaughn, who said the dog must probably be swimming to shit a rocking chair whole, though she might drop it in pieces while napping after eating a possum belly.

“Boys,” Clyde said when the first query had been exhausted. “What I most want to know in the world is this: who thought up bagpipes anyhow? It is a grave issue if you’ve ever heard one played.”

The day went by with these stumpers, and it was as good a way as any to pass the time. There was turmoil in us. If Lloyd and Curtin were murdered, we would have bitter tasks ahead of us, and soon. Silliness provided a sweet and momentary refuge.

In that one day the Federals made up for all the bedtime prayers they had ever skipped. There was a ceaseless babble of holy hopes and galloping confessions coming from them.

We could not tolerate Federals, for they oppressed us in our fight for freedom. Many of them were not Missouri men, or even Kansans, but killer dupes from up the country two or more states away. Their presence freed maniac Jayhawkers to ravage about the countryside, taking all of value back to Kansas with them.

Jayhawkers said they raided to free slaves, but mostly they freed horseflesh from riders, furniture from houses, cattle from pastures, precious jewelry from family troves and wives from husbands. Sometimes they had so much plunder niggers were needed to haul it, so they took a few along. This, they said, made them abolitionists.

They were dangerous sneak-murderers, the Jayhawkers were. They had killed hundreds of us one or two by the time, but never faced us in open battle. They kept to the woods and followed the Federals, striking hard when the odds were trivial.

In this they were much like us—but terrible.

The hours of the night taunted me by passing slowly, ever so slowly, and dull. Sleep outran me and I had little to do but
squat beneath green-leaved branches and paw over things in my head. Killing and war were nothing I had expected in life. Before shots became the answers to the grand debate, I was common and fortunate. Asa Chiles, a good American, had been fond of me and Jack Bull, my near brother. Citizens had not darkly speculated against my character.

Now they did. Woof and warp had hit the border. Blood had been let, a reasonable share of it by me. The Dutch boy was a tragedy of necessity lest I be the actor in a more severe scene. Some would hold this against me. My good reputation had no doubt been splattered lately as certain of my deeds became known. But I was not so paltry a specimen that a bit of sullying would defeat me. If all meals were pecan pie, you’d yearn for a cold potato.

Jack Bull, my comfort and cause, roused from his blanket beside me. As I looked at his fine American face, I hoped it would always be this way—him and me and little else.

“You are brooding,” he said. “Dutchmen brood too much. Break yourself of that.”

“You brood, too, Jack Bull.”

He sat up with his legs before him, elbows atop his knees. His slouch hat was shoved back on his crown. Long curls of hair nuzzled at his neck.