Stars and Stripes in Peril (29 page)

"Well I'll be damned. We're not going round the Horn after all."

"What then, Captain?"

"Why we are crossing the Atlantic to rendezvous with the rest of the invasion fleet."

"Invasion
where,
sir?" the officer pleaded.

"We are going to invade Ireland—that's where! We are going to get in there and land before the British even have a clue. God, but I would love to see their faces when they find out what we have done!"

"May I tell the crew?"

"By all means. No way that they can tell anyone else now."

After a stunned silence there were shouts of joy and many a rebel yell.

The watch below was woken by the cries, reacted with fear.

"What's happened?"

"Have we been hit?"

The door opened and a sailor poked his head in and shouted.

"It's Ireland we're invading, boys—Mexico was just a ruse! We're going to hit the Brits right in their back yard!"

The ships heeled as their wheels were swung over, their wakes cutting curved arcs in the water as they turned towards the east.

But in Jackson, Mississippi, there was little thought of the distant war between other nations. Here were the victims of the generations-old race war that still divided this nation. The three men on the church porch were still dazed by the suddenness of events. They had carried the dead man off the road and stretched him out on the bare splintered boards of the porch.

"I don't understand. How did this happen?" Reverend Lomax asked.

"They dragged me from ma' bed," Bradford said. "Gonna lynch me 'cause I wouldn't chop cotton. Got a noose, den the shooting..."

"I heard them arrive," L.D. Lewis said. "They weren't keeping it quiet. Guess they wanted the whole countryside to know what they were doing. Putting the Negroes back where they belonged. Right at the bottom of the heap. If they were just shouting, maybe burning a cross, I wouldn't have done anything. But they were going to hang this man right in front of the church. Then burn the church and the Freedmen's Bureau down. When I shouted a warning they just started shooting. All I could do was fire back. Emptied my magazine. They must have thought from all those bullets flying by that there was a whole platoon in here. They hightailed out of here. It's one thing to attack the helpless hiding behind a hood—another thing altogether to stand up to rifle fire. Now we've got to do something about this mess. You're sure about who this nightrider is what got killed?"

"That's him all right. That is Mr. Jefferson Davis. The one who was president of the Confederacy. Maybe we ought to take him into the church, not leave him lying out here."

L.D. was not impressed as he picked the dead man up under the arms and dragged him inside. Then he went back to the street and found the white hood; lifted the corpse's head and pulled it on. "That was the way we found him, that's the way that it's going to be. Now he is just one more of the dead, rightly enough. And so will we be if we don't move fast. Is there a swamp, maybe a river close by?"

"Creek about a half-mile that way, runs into the Pearl River."

"Do you know the way there, Bradford? Can you find it in the dark?"

"Shore enough can," the man mumbled, still stunned by the night's events.

"Good. Then you and I are going to go there, dump this gun and all the ammunition in the deepest spot. You got much family here, Bradford?"

"There's just me and my daddy since..."

"I'm sorry, but he'll just have to get on without you for a good while. That's better than your being hung. The reverend will make your good-byes for you. Later, maybe, you can send for him."

"Ah don't catch yuh meanin'..."

"You and I are leaving here now—and you are not going to come back. You are a dead man in this town the second that you are spotted. We are going to get rid of this gun and the ammunition, and then we are going to keep on going. When I came in on the train I saw a marshaling yard just outside of the city—place where there are lots of tracks and trains. Can you find it in the dark?"

"Shore can."

"Then let's go. Now it's up to you, reverend, to report this to the police. Here is what you want to know happened. You heard firing near your church, woke up, got your gun and came to see what was happening. Everyone was gone. But you found the dead man lying in the road. That's close enough to the truth to jibe with your conscience. You won't be lying—just leaving out some things in order to save Bradford's life. Then, after seeing the dead man, you went inside where you wrote a note saying there had been a killing. Went to the nearest house, woke them up, sent a boy running with it into town. Isn't that what you would do?"

"Yes, that is what I would do. But..."

"No buts. That's all you know and that is all you are going to say. But give us at least a half an hour's lead before you send the note. I want us on a freight train—and as far away from here as we can get—by the time the sun comes up. I'm sorry about what has happened. I didn't mean it to end this way. I came here to protect you folk and I'm afraid that I got you into worse trouble than you ever was before. For that I am truly sorry. But I would rather this nightrider was dead, whoever he is, rather than Bradford here. Now—let's go."

Their running footsteps faded in the darkness. Lomax gave a deep, shuddering sigh. There was big, big trouble coming. He prayed that this would be the end of the killing. He dropped to his knees and prayed out loud as though the sound of his voice might make that wish come true.

His watch was back in the house, so he couldn't be sure of the time. When at least a half an hour had gone by he walked down the dirt road to the Broderick house, and knocked on the door until someone called out.

"Who there?"

"It's me, Reverend Lomax. Open the door will you, Franklin?"

He wrote a note for the sheriff while he told Broderick what had happened. He did not tell him who the nightrider had been. This was bad enough. Their teenage son went running with the note.

"Go to bed," Lomax said. "And get some sleep. It is going to be busy enough around here pretty soon."

He walked slowly back to the church, immersed in thought. No good would come of this night's work—and he was worried for the people of his congregation. As he came close he saw that the church door was open. He was sure that he had closed it. As he walked across the porch L.D. Lewis stepped out. Still carrying the rifle.

"Don't worry for Bradford," he said. "I got him onto a train and he is well gone by now. I told him to get to the next big town and to contact the Freedmen's Bureau. Tell them everything that happened here tonight. They'll take care of him, surely enough."

"But you—you came back!"

"Sure enough did, didn't I?" He laughed a bit as he said it. "No one ever said that I was too bright. But I couldn't let you carry the can. Also—I didn't feel right about asking you to lie. I have the rifle and all. I'll give it to the sheriff."

"They'll kill you!"

"Maybe not. This is supposed to be a country of law. So let us just wait and see how that law works."

It was a long wait. It was well after dawn and the sheriff still had not come.

"Seems that they don't care much around here when their people get shot," L.D. said.

"Oh, dear God," Reverend Lomax said. "That is my fault. In the note, I just said that I was woken up by the sound of gunfire near the church, then found a man shot dead. I never did say that he was white."

"Just as well—they would probably bring a lynch party. Any chance of some coffee while we're waiting?"

"Yes, of course. I am being most inhospitable."

The two women who worked in the Freedmen's Bureau came at eight. The reverend told them what had happened and sent them home. Sheriff Bubba Boyce did not come until after nine. L.D. had taken a chair from the office and was sitting on the porch.

"Who you, boy?" the sheriff asked, scowling down at him and his bluejacket.

"I am Sergeant L.D. Lewis, 29th Connecticut. I work now with the Freedmen's Bureau."

"I hear that you'all had some shooting here last night. Where's Lomax at?" He puffed as he climbed off his horse. His large belly bulged over his gun belt.

Lomax heard the voices and came out of the church.

"Where at is the body?" the sheriff asked.

"Inside. I did not want to leave it in the street."

"Fair enough. Do you know who it is?"

Before the reverend could answer, L.D. broke in.

"Hard to know who it was, sheriff, seeing he was wearing a hood."

The sheriff looked baffled. "Nigger in a hood—" His eyes narrowed as realization hit. He stamped into the church and bent over the body, reached down and pulled the hood off.

"Well I'll be double God-damned!"

He was back an instant later, loosening his gun in its holster as he shouted.

"Do you know who is dead in there on the floor? That is no other than Mr. Jefferson Davis himself, that's who it is! Now what in hell happened here last night?"

"I heard shooting—" Lomax said, but L.D. stopped him with a raised hand.

"I'll tell the sheriff, reverend, since I was here in the church at the time. It was after midnight when I heard the horses. Six mounted men stopped outside, all of them wearing hoods just like the other one in there. They were leading another horse with a Negro in the saddle. He was tied up. They said they were going to hang him and burn the church. They started to, and that's when I called out for them to stop. That's when they began shooting at me. I fired back in self-defense. That one fell off his horse. Another rider was injured, but he left with the others. The Negro ran away. I had never seen him before. That's the way it happened, sheriff."

Sheriff Boyce's hand was still on his revolver, his voice was empty of any warmth. "Where's the gun at, boy?"

"Inside. Shall I get it?"

"No. Just point it out to me."

He let L.D. go first. Followed him inside to the back room. L.D. pointed and Boyce grabbed up the rifle. Checked that there was a cartridge in the breech, then pointed it at L.D. "You're coming with me. To jail."

L.D. turned to Lomax and said, "Would you mind coming with us, reverend? After we get to jail I would appreciate it if you would send a telegram to the Freedmen's Bureau, telling them what happened here."

They walked side by side down the dusty street. The sheriff followed on his horse, the rifle pointed down at them.

THE SECRET REVEALED

The seaport was ringed with defenses. Don Ambrosio O'Higgins knew that because in the past weeks he had laboriously worked his way completely around Salina Cruz. When he, and his Indian guide, Ignacio, had probed the gun positions and rifle pits to the north of the fishing village they had found no chink in the armor, no weak spot that might be attacked. In desperation they had gone to an Indian fishing village on the Pacific shore and had paid Yankee silver for one of the dugouts. Then, on a dark night, they had rowed out to sea to clear the harbor mouth, risking disaster as they rode the big Pacific rollers. They had made a successful landing on the shore south of the port, and a nocturnal investigation of the defenses proved them to be equal—if not superior—to the defenses north of the seaport. Exhausted and depressed O'Higgins made his way back to their starting point. They were pulling the dugout ashore when Ignacio touched his finger to O'Higgins's lips and pulled him down quietly into the shelter of the jungle undergrowth. His whispered voice was barely audible.

"Enemy under the trees. I smell them."

The British were getting bolder now that they were secure behind their impregnable positions, and were beginning to send out patrols at night.

"Gurkhas?" O'Higgins breathed the question. He and his Indians had great respect for the little men from Nepal who were as good as—or even better than—they were in the jungle.

"No. The others. Not the
blancos."

They must be Sepoys, or from another native Indian regiment.

"What should we do?"

"Follow me. We will then go around them, ahead of them—ambush them when they come back down the trail." They both had breech-loading, repeating rifles. Twenty shots fired from the darkness would kill the first men and send the rest panicking back into the jungle. They had done it before.

Ignacio was at home in the jungle. He led the way down unseen trails, occasionally taking O'Higgins's hand to place it on a branch he had pulled aside so they could pass.

"Good here," he finally said, levering a cartridge into the breech of his gun. He rested it on the forked crotch of a tree, the thick trunk sheltering his body. "They come soon from there." The wave of his hand unseen in the night.

The insects hummed in the darkness and O'Higgins fought to remain motionless under their relentless attack. When he had almost despaired of the ambush he heard the enemy soldiers approaching. The breaking of a twig: the brushing of leaves pushed aside. He held his fire, waiting for Ignacio to shoot first. He actually saw them, moving shapes in the darkness, the pale lapels of their uniforms.

Ignacio's gun went off by his ear and he began firing as fast as he could. Load and fire, load and fire. There were screams of pain, cries of terror. A single shot was fired in reply, then the enemy was retreating nosily back through the jungle. Ignacio handed O'Higgins his heated rifle, pulled free his machete and slipped forward. They did not take prisoners.

In a minute he was back carrying an epaulette from one the soldiers. He wiped his machete on it and handed it to O'Higgins; they would use it to identify the regiment.

"Five dead. Rest gone," he said with professional satisfaction. He turned and O'Higgins followed him back to their encampment by a fresh-water stream. It was after dawn when they approached it; Ignacio stopped and raised his head, sniffing the air.

"Horses. And my people." He moved quickly ahead, calling out in the dialect of his village. He was answered by a friendly shout as he went forward to join the circle of men around the fire. He joined them, squatting on his heels as they did, sipping from the
aguardiente
gourd they passed him. A saddled horse was quietly chewing at the undergrowth, its rider seated on a log close by. It was Porfirio Diáz.