Rifles for Watie (23 page)

“I know one family in Tahlequah,” said Jeff, coming up for air. “Our officers boarded at their house last summer. It was the Levi Washbournes.”

The old woman's face lit up. She pushed a scraggly wisp of gray hair out of her eyes. “Levi Washbournes? Why, I've knowed 'em fer years. They ain't no finer people anywhars than them Washbournes. They owned niggers and treated 'em good, too. They got one boy and three gals, two of 'em married. They're all rebels an' they'll come right out and tell you so, too. Youngest gal, Lucy, went to the academy at Cane Hill until the war started an' the college quit.”

At the mention of Lucy, Jeff jerked his face out of the spring again, listening eagerly. The water ran off his chin and dripped down onto his shirt front.

The old lady ran on like a bubbling mill race. “Lucy thinks the world of her brother Lee. He's with Watie. So's her pappy. Why, soldier boy, I know everybody in Tahlequah. I can borrey coffee an' sugar anywhar's in thet thar town.”

Thoughtfully Jeff filled his canteen and corked it.

“I'll bet Miss Lucy's got rebel beaux swarming all around her, hasn't she, mam?”

“Like flies aroun' a sugar bowl, soldier boy,” the old woman cackled merrily.

Discouraged, Jeff put on his cap and picked up his rifle. He wanted to ask the old woman more about Lucy but he had to catch up with the column. “Thank you, mam, for the drink.”

“Jeepers, don't thank me, soldier boy!” she chuckled gaily. “Water ain't mine. That thar spring b'longs to th' whole Cherokee Indian Nation. Thank John Ross. Or Stand Watie. They's both good men but they can't decide which one is gonna run things. They's been lots o' people killed aroun' here, but this ford is a safe place. Nobody'll bother old Belle. I live too close to the fort. I don't run my store no more. Can't keep it stocked.”

Jeff swung down the Tahlequah road.

“Come back after the war an' see me, soldier boy,” she called after him quaveringly. “I'll have the store goin' then. Come back an' buy a plug o' chewin' tobaccy an' I'll throw in a thousand pounds o' sugar.”

But Jeff didn't hear her. All he could think about was getting to Tahlequah.

He found Tahlequah full of Union soldiers. Besides their own small force, there were several hundred men from Colonel W. A. Phillips' Union Indian brigade camped in tents along the Illinois River, some of them Cherokee mixed-bloods who had defected to the Union side. In spite of the fact their uniforms fitted poorly, they were good soldiers and not at all in sympathy with Stand Watie's rebel Cherokee cavalry. Their mission in the nation was to protect the thousands of Cherokees who had lately revoked their alliance with the Confederacy and come back to the Union side.

When Jeff finally got liberty, it was late in the afternoon. He tried to persuade Noah to come with him, but Noah wanted to go down to the
Cherokee Advocate
office instead. He said he had always had a hankering to see a plant that printed a newspaper in two languages.

“I don't think they can do it,” Noah marveled. “Every time they dropped a form that had both English and Cherokee type in it, it would take six months to sort it out.”

Jeff brushed his buttons and buckles with a corncob and cleaned the mud off his shoes with a sharp twig. He scrubbed his face and combed his hair. Excited and nervous, he walked to the Washbourne home. Would they receive him this time? The tall sycamores were gay with new leaves. The yellow rosebushes that bounded the gray chat walk were pruned back neatly. Jeff heard voices back by the barn. He walked anxiously toward them.

The Washbourne women were standing in the cow lot, looking worried. The same brindle that Lucy had tried vainly to milk was bellowing obstinately. On the opposite side of the lot a new calf staggered unsteadily on its bandy legs.

Jeff saw at once what the trouble was. Brandishing her horns threateningly, the cow wouldn't let her own calf nurse her. Lucy, her girlish figure hidden in a short coat, tugged at a rope around the cow's head. She was trying vainly to lead the cow to its calf.

“Haw! Haw! She's a Union calf. No wonder she won't suck a rebel cow,” taunted a Union Indian soldier who had wandered in from the road.

“Or have nothin' to do with rebel females,” another jeered.

“Why don't ye spoon-feed it?” mocked a third.

Jeff hand-vaulted the rock fence and approached the women. They cowered back against the barn, not recognizing him, afraid of his blue uniform.

“Mam, have you tried salting its back?” Jeff asked kindly, taking off his cap.

Mrs. Adair gave a little gasp of surprise. “Why, it's the little Kansas soldier who milked the cow for Lucy,” she said. The other sister came forward shyly, and they introduced Jeff to their mother.

Mrs. Washbourne was large and motherly and, like all of them, carried herself with dignity and poise.

Heels dug into the soft dirt of the cow lot, Lucy had been pulling the rope with all her strength but hadn't moved the obstinate cow an inch. She looked hot and angry and very determined. A wisp of her soft black hair had fallen into her face. Blowing it aside, she peered at Jeff. Recognizing him, she let the rope slacken.

“Good evening, mam,” Jeff said politely. Even in a cow lot, Lucy Washbourne's beauty was breath-fetching.

With a startled little nod, she acknowledged his greeting. Jeff's heart pumped wildly.

Pulses singing with pleasure, he turned to Mrs. Adair. “Mam, if you'll fetch me a cup of table salt, I'll show you how to make the cow take her calf.”

In another moment he had the salt and rubbed it on the calf's back. Thereupon the cow came forward and, mooing gently, began to lick it. Soon the calf was nudging at its mother's swollen udder. The Washbournes looked at Jeff as though he were a magician. Jeff laughed.

“Corn, mam. Any Kansas farm boy knows how to do that.”

“So yer from Kansas,” snarled one of the soldiers, climbing over the fence and coming forward truculently. “Then how come yer consortin' with these bum-blistered Secesh wimmen? Which side ye on in this war, anyhow?” His hard eyes glared belligerently beneath his blue cap. Big and beefy, with bearded cheeks, he was obviously irked because Jeff had spoiled their rough badgering of the women.

Jeff felt prickles of anger running up and down his spine. Who did this stupid fool think he was?

“Why don't you go off on down the road and let these people be? I don't want any trouble with you.”

The big soldier sneered. He had a red face and coal-black hair. Obviously he had some Indian blood, probably Cherokee. Jeff could smell liquor on him.

“Of course ye don't want trouble with me, you little bugger,” he mocked. “Yer dad-gasted right, yer don't! What ye hangin' round these rebel wimmen fer?” A cunning gleam came into his eye. “Yer sweet on the youngest 'un, ain't ye?” He moved closer, glaring at Jeff with his black bloodshot eyes and sticking out his long chin.

Jeff's patience snapped. Leaping into action, he swung with all his strength, hitting the out-thrust chin with a short right-handed punch that cracked like a bull whip.

The man reeled but didn't go down. Feeling a savage and unfamiliar exhilaration, Jeff sprang after him, fisting him furiously, punching him so fast with both hands that the staccato spat of his fists sounded like a barber stropping a razor. The fellow's surprised, florid features began to redden and bleed. He went down limply in the dry cow dung, batting his eyes and shaking his head groggily.

Suddenly Jeff felt his arms pinioned powerfully from behind. One of the other soldiers, a drunken, black-headed fellow, had slipped up on him.

“No ye don't, me bucko!” he snarled triumphantly, blowing whisky fumes in Jeff's face. “Come on, Chilly! Bash in his purty face whiles I holds him! Shell out his purty white teeth!”

The third soldier obediently doubled his horny hands into fists and charged. Jeff heard Lucy scream, “Stop it! You'll hurt him!” He struggled vainly to free himself. This one didn't look so drunk. Probably more dangerous than the others. He stopped struggling and waited.

Kicking out suddenly, he buried his right foot in the oncoming stomach.
Whoosh!
With a sharp exhalation, the fellow tumbled to his knees, sobbing for the breath that had been driven out of him. Grasping his belly with both hands, he groveled in the dirt, making queer, strangling noises in his throat. Two down. One to go.

Jeff was astonished to feel the soldier holding his arms spring spasmodically into the air.

“Aa-gh!” A hoarse yell of pain escaped him.

Surprised, he twisted free, spun round and nailed the man with a punch high on the cheekbone, dazing him. Pouring out the last of his youthful strength, he drove him reeling backward with a flurry of sharp, fast hitting that spread him helplessly against the barn door.

Lucy, a pitchfork in her hands, jabbed again at the man's blue trousers. The fellow yelled in fright and, dodging desperately, escaped the sharp tines by inches.

Clambering hurriedly over the fence, he began to run clumsily up the road. His two friends staggered after him. Lucy shot Jeff a look of such pity and concern that he was flabbergasted with surprise and joy. He looked with wonder at the gentle-born rebel girl who had come to his aid.

“Thanks, mam. I reckon—they'd have worked me over good—if you hadn't used that pitchfork.” He blew on his skinned knuckles, cooling them.

Recovering her composure, Lucy slipped back into her mood of proud aloofness.

“You deserved my assistance,” she said, matter-of-factly. “You were helping us with the cow when your own soldiers attacked you. I would try to help anybody beset by three such ruffians under those circumstances.”

She calmly leaned the fork against the barn, its sharp tines downward. Bitterly Jeff felt almost as if she had plunged them into his heart.

Why did she call them his soldiers? He had never seen them before. He wanted to remind her that they had been
her
soldiers. At least until they had deserted the Confederacy and, with their colonel John Drew, had come over to the Union in a body.

But he didn't. Leaning over, he brushed the wrinkles out of his pants. He smoothed his coat and ran his fingers through his mussed hair. He was still panting in big gulps.

The women, who with the start of the fighting had retreated to the house, came forward timidly. They looked at Jeff with new respect, as though wondering how one so young could fight so well.

“We're grateful to you, sir,” Mrs. Adair said, “for helping us with the calf. We're sorry if we've involved you with our troubles. This is the third time this week those men have stopped and annoyed us. How do you feel?”

“All right, I guess, mam, although my knuckles feel driven up into my wrists.” He was getting his breath back.

“I don't believe we've ever asked what your name is,” said the young woman called Liz.

“It's Bussey, mam. Jefferson Davis Bussey.” Seeing Lucy's eyes go bright with surprise, Jeff told them how his father had fought with the Confederate president at Buena Vista seventeen years earlier.

Mrs. Washbourne gave a little gasp of motherly solicitude. “Your cheek is bleeding. Won't you let me dress it for you?” She spoke gently. Her voice was low and melodious, like Lucy's.

“And you've ripped two buttons off your coat,” Liz added. “While mother fixes up your cheek, Lucy can sew on your buttons. She sews better than anbody else in the family.”

Lucy colored and looked provoked. But she went obediently into the house, and Jeff guessed she had gone after her needle and thread.

At the front porch there was a moment of awkward hesitation. The three older women looked uncertainly at one another, as though debating the propriety of asking an enemy soldier into their home. Then Mrs. Washbourne laughed, a low, musical laugh.

“Won't you come in, Mr. Bussey?” she invited pleasantly. “We won't let Lucy bite you. Naturally we all feel pretty strongly about the war. My husband and also the husbands of my two daughters here are all in the Cherokee Mounted Rifles with Colonel Watie. So is my son Lee.” She spoke slowly and deliberately, selecting her words with care.

Jeff liked her. He liked her honesty, too. He said, “Thank you, mam.”

He followed them inside the house, seeing again the rich carpet on the floors, the paneled walls, the glow of china. He thought of his own modest log home back in Linn County and wished that this home wasn't so big and elegant and tastefully furnished.

Mrs. Washbourne seated him on a stool in the kitchen while she washed his cut with soap and water and dressed it with arnica salve. Then she led him to the parlor.

Lucy, skirts rustling, entered the room with her sewing basket. There was a tiny silver thimble on her middle finger. Immediately Jeff felt the tension between them.

Without speaking, he took off his blue coat and handed it to her. As his fingers touched hers, a shiver of pleasure shot up his arm. He looked at her, but she sat down silently on a settee. He sank uninvited into a chair opposite her. The other women went about their tasks in other parts of the house.

While she was busy selecting her thread, the large white Persian cat padded in silently and rubbed against Jeff's legs. He reached down and stroked its back.

“Where's your dog, Mr. Bussey?” Lucy asked with a cool politeness that Jeff found maddening. She peered at him over the needle's eye and then threaded it swiftly.

“Mam, I tied her to a tent pole back in camp. I didn't want her to fight your cat.”

The corners of Lucy's small, oval mouth seemed to want to turn upward in a smile but with an effort she stifled it. She said primly, “I believe you told me last summer that she was a Confederate dog.”

“That's right, mam,” said Jeff and he told her about finding Dixie at Wilson's Creek. Although she tried not to show it, he knew she was listening carefully.