Rifles for Watie (12 page)

The north wind held just enough of a sting in it that his short coat felt comfortable. From somewhere back in the quiet timber he heard the splintering thud of an ax. His nose caught the sour, winy odor of a cider press. A sharp pleasure came over him. It was good to get away from the camp, where for three long hours the officers had kept him busy cleaning his quarters and scrubbing his buttons and buckles with a fresh corncob in advance of the brigade commander's weekly inspection visit.

The Missouri woods reminded him of his mother's brilliantly colored rag rug that lay on the split-log floor beside her bed, back in Linn County. The blackjack seedlings seemed aflame in the genial sunshine. The young hickories glowed in livid gold. The oaks couldn't seem to agree on an appropriate color; some wore a subdued foliage of yellow and pale green, others were gay in bronze and bright red. A cardinal flew leisurely out of a tall, coppery sweet gum, and Jeff thought at first it was a falling leaf. Dixie trotted along contentedly at his side.

Soon they came to a rude clearing and Jeff saw a small, unpainted clapboard house with crude leather hinges on the door. Behind the house were several apple trees, heavy with fruit. A small patch of big orange pumpkins lay in a garden nearby.

The red apples looked so tempting that for a moment Jeff hesitated. It would be easy to help himself. Curbing his fierce appetite, he decided to ask first and, walking up a small passageway of pulverized white rock, knocked vigorously on the thin-planked door.

A woman opened it, frowning suspiciously at his blue uniform. With a gnarled hand she raked the black hair out of her eyes. Jeff snatched off his army cap.

“Mam,” said Jeff, twisting the cap in his hands bashfully, “I'm real hungry. Could I have some of those apples yonder?” With his cap, he pointed at the fruit trees nearby. He saw a small boy's white, scrubbed face peering curiously at him from behind the woman's skirts.

“Begone with ye,” the woman snapped, in a tired, strained voice. “Iffen I feed one of ye, ye'd come back tomorrey, an' bring the whole army with you. We ain't got enough fer ourselves.” She started to shut the door.

Jeff stepped back, disappointment in his face. “Mam,” he said politely, “I wouldn't bring the army down on you. And I'll be glad to work for the apples. I was raised on a farm in Kansas. You got any man's work needs to be done around here? Anything you want lifted, any fence to fix?”

Now it was the woman's turn to look surprised. Hopefully Jeff watched her. When she glanced at his blue uniform she scowled. But when she looked into his boyish face, her hard features began to soften and her distrust to fade.

“I reckon it's all right,” she whined, wearily. “Jest help yo'sef to the apples. Ye don't need to work fer 'em. Most soldiers woulda jest taken 'em and not even bothered to knock.”

Relief flooded Jeff, like a warm shaft of sunshine.

“Yes, mam,” he said, “I come pretty near doing that myself, mam, I was so famished.”

She seemed pleased with his honesty and opened the door wider. A small girl with curly yellow hair thrust her head bashfully around the jamb. When Jeff smiled at the children, the boy opened his mouth and smiled back and Jeff saw he had two upper front teeth missing.

“Ye don't look like a soldier nohow,” the woman said. “Ye look more like a schoolboy. Ye orter be home with yer mother.”

“Yes, mam,” grinned Jeff.

That grin must have done something to her, because now she stepped back. “Why don't ye come in?” she invited. “Sit down. We ain't got much ourselves but mebbe we can do better fer ye than jest raw apples.”

She indicated a kitchen table covered with oilcloth. “Sit thar.” She went back into the shed room. Gratefully Jeff stepped inside and sat down.

“Do ye like light bread and apple butter?” she called from somewhere inside the house.

Jeff could feel his mouth puckering with hunger. “I sure do, mam. I'd like it even if it had bugs on it.”

She came back carrying a stone jar of apple butter, part of a round loaf of fresh light bread and a tall blue-glass bottle of cold milk. “It ain't much. But it ain't got no bugs on it. Hep yersef.”

“Yes,
mam.
Thank you, mam.”

With a long, sharp, bone-handled knife, she planed off three slices of the bread. Jeff could smell the fragrant yeast. With an effort he restrained himself.

“Mam,” he said, “may I give my dog some of this? I'll bet she's almost as hungry as me.”

The woman said, “You jist go ahead, now, and eat yore vittles. I'll feed yore dog.”

“Yes, mam,” Jeff said. “Thank you, mam.”

Overjoyed at his good fortune, he ate ravenously while the two children, fingers in mouth, stared shyly at him.

“My name's McComas,” the woman said, returning and sitting at the other side of the table. “We're lucky to hev any food at all these days. One army or t'other's on us all the time.”

“We get rations,” Jeff explained between bites, “but they aren't much. Just a little bacon and corn meal and coffee.”

“Ye talk different than us,” the woman said. “Where'bouts was ye raised?”

“In Linn County, Kansas, mam, close to the Missouri border,” Jeff said. “My mother was a schoolteacher back in Kentucky before she got married. She taught all of us our speech.” He told them all about his home, his family, and the bushwhackers.

The woman's eyes grew hard at the mention of the bushwhackers. “There's bushwhackers in both no'th an' south,” she said, smoothing her faded gray apron over her knee. “I got a sister livin' near Neosho, close to the Kansas border. They was raided twict by Montgomery's Jayhawkers from Kansas an' got cleaned out both times. Bushwhackers, no matter which side they's on, is the lowest critters on God's green earth.”

“Yes, mam,” agreed Jeff. With the back of his hand he wiped the bread crumbs off his mouth. Feeling full for the first time in weeks, he arose to go.

“Mam, are you sure you haven't got some chores or something I could help you with around here? I've a little time before I have to go back.”

Appreciative, she showed him an ax and several long blackjack logs piled together in the yard. Taking off his coat, Jeff picked up the ax and began to swing it in the crisp fall air. He enjoyed the exercise. He hadn't used an ax since he had left home. Soon he had cut enough wood to keep the fireplace going several days. He carried part of it inside for her, stacking it neatly on the hearth.

She thanked him, wiping her rough hands on her apron. “Thet'll last us a week. My man's in the army. It's hard to keep going without him.”

“Mam,” said Jeff, just before he left, “could I take a blouseful of those apples back to my messmates in camp? I'd take the ones on the ground. And I wouldn't tell them where I got them. They're hungry, too.”

She gave him an old tow sack. Jeff filled it with windfalls.

As he and Dixie walked away, he looked back and saw them all three standing in the doorway watching him. He waved. The boy and the girl waved back.

Back at camp, Jeff's bunk mates bit hungrily into the apples.

“You're the best rustler in the whole outfit,” Bill Earle praised, bearded cheek full, and chewing noisily. “After this, we'll send you out to do all our foragin'. You're so small and boyish, the farm wives all take pity on you.”

Next afternoon, Captain Clardy assembled the company and asked for ten volunteers for what he called “important duty.” Still one battle behind everybody else and eager for any kind of action, Jeff stepped promptly forward two steps. As he did so, he heard Noah Babbitt whisper urgently “No, youngster, no.” But it was too late.

Others volunteered until soon a detail was formed. As it marched down the pike, Spruce Baird, the sergeant in command, told them they were on their way to visit the homes of rebel soldiers who had violated their paroles by returning to the Confederate army. Captured at Wilson's Creek, they had promised under oath that they would stay out of the fighting until the war ended.

“It's a tough duty,” the little sergeant bellowed in his heavy, coarse voice that utterly belied his small frame. “We're ordered to punish their families.”

Jeff blinked. “Sir,” he asked, uneasily, “how do we punish them?”

Baird cleared his throat noisily. “We confiscate their livestock an' their property an' take the stuff back to camp with us.”

Jeff was appalled. He brushed a horsefly from his ear. Surely the government, President Lincoln's government, didn't rob the innocent and the helpless. “But, sir, if the men are gone away to war, won't the women and children need all the worse what we're going to take away from them?”

“Aye,” growled Sergeant Baird, nodding, “that they will. An' now, youngster, lay off askin' your searchin' questions. Orders is orders. I don't like 'em no better than you. But I don't make 'em. All I do is enforce 'em.” He kicked savagely at a rock in the road and added, “It's a tough duty.”

It was, indeed. Before the hard day ended, Jeff wished a score of times that he was back in camp. Some of the Confederate women accepted the confiscation coolly. Others wept, pleading for their cows and for their children's pets. Some became angry and cursed like men as Jeff and the soldiers rounded up cows, calves, horses, sheep and hogs and drove them down the road ahead of them toward Rolla.

“Only one more place,” barked the sergeant gruffly. “Let's come up on it through the woods so's they won't see us comin'.” Leaving the road, they cut into the timber. The sergeant had sent all the livestock back to camp by five of the men. Only Jeff and three others remained with him. It was just turning dusk.

After they walked half a mile, a small house loomed ahead. They could smell the smoke from its fireplace chimney. Breaking ranks, they hand-vaulted a rail fence and approached the place from a path through the woods. Ahead of them, Jeff heard the familiar sound of milk spurting against the bottom of an empty metal bucket and knew somebody had started the milking.

As he flipped up the back of his collar, he saw several apple trees and then a small field of pumpkins, their orange faces pale and eerie in the twilight.

Cold fear gripped him. The McComas place!

They surprised Mrs. McComas milking a black and white spotted cow in the barn. Startled, she gave a squeal of fright and rose clumsily, spilling part of the milk on the ground and on the threadbare coat she was wearing. Alarmed, the cow plunged to one side.

Baird hauled out his paper and, clearing his throat huskily, read the confiscation summons. When the unhappy woman saw Jeff among the soldiers, she was furious.

“This is what a body gits fer goin' soft an' feedin' a Yankee swine.” She spat at him, bitterly. “Ye brought 'em here, jist liken I said ye would.”

She turned wildly on the sergeant. “Sure, my man's a rebel! What's wrong with thet? So is the husbands of thousan's of other wimmen all over Missouri. Sure, he broke his parole! He couldn't bear standin' round doin' nothin' when his state was bein' invaded by a passel of furriners.”

Panicked by the noise, the cow started to lumber out the door. Jeff ducked quickly and picked up the frazzled fragment of rope that was fastened around the beast's neck.

“Ho, bossy!” he commanded gently.

“Take her on back to camp,” Baird ordered, motioning with his hands toward the road.

Jeff's face fell. “Yes, sir,” he said, wishing the sergeant had given the task to somebody else.

He looked imploringly at Mrs. McComas. “Mam, please believe me. I didn't have nothin' to do with bringin' 'em here.” He pointed to the other soldiers. “Ask 'em, mam. None of us likes this kind of duty.”

The woman scourged him with an angry look.

“Liar!” she said, clawing the black hair out of her eyes. “Yankee liar!” Scornfully she turned on Baird. “Ye'r a brave crew, th' lot o' yer. Took five of ye to capture one woman's cow.”

Sheepishly they marched the cow back to the camp at Rolla and put her in the corral with the other confiscated animals. As he fastened the gate's catch, the little sergeant took off his cap and shook his shaggy black head with disgust. “It's a tough duty,” he croaked for the tenth time and dismissed them.

Bitterness in his heart, Jeff returned to his winter quarters, a shelter tent superimposed on a hickory log base. It was heated by a stick and clay fireplace. Four bunks, two built above and two below, extended from wall to wall in the rear. In the foreground was a table constructed ingeniously from an inverted hardtack case mounted on legs. A sign hung over the door. Printed in Bill Earle's rude scrawl, it said “The Astor House.”

Noah Babbitt looked up from his seat on the fireplace where he was writing letters off a shingle on his knee. “How'd it go, youngster?”

Jeff hung his head. Slumping to a seat on one of the lower bunks, he stared at the earthen floor, covered with yellow straw. “I feel low down as a snake,” he said and told Noah and the others all about it.

“Don't volunteer like that for extra duty,” Noah warned, looking up soberly from his shingle. “Far as that's concerned, don't ever volunteer for nothin'! I tried to warn you, but you moved too fast for me.”

Miserable, Jeff kept shaking his head. “That cow was all the livestock they had,” he said. “Now those children won't have any milk to drink.” He was thinking of the tall blue-glass bottle of cold milk he had drained back in the McComas kitchen.

John Chadwick whistled incredulously. “You mean, this is the same family that sent us the apples?”

Jeff nodded, glumly.

Bill Earle, squatted on his heels, shook his brown head in bafflement. “War's hard,” he said, philosophically. “I wished they was something we could do about it. But they ain't nothin' we can do. Not a gol darned thing.”