Rifles for Watie (3 page)

“We're two of Cy Gordon's Union Home Guards. We want something to eat,” he said. Emory Bussey stood in his back yard, his legs apart, staring coldly at them.

“That's a lie,” he said boldly. “You're not Union. But I never turn anybody away that's hungry. Go on into the house, and I'll have 'em get you something.”

Jeff caught his breath. He was proud of his father's fearlessness but afraid of what it might bring. With a start, he thought of the family rifle but remembered it was standing unloaded in the corner of the house.

The small man's jaw sagged with surprise. Again he stared at Emory, and this time there was rude cunning in his rough face. The larger man stood silently behind him.

Without a word Jeff's mother and the girls stepped inside to prepare the meal.

Emory said coolly, “Jeff, better go unharness the mules.” Then he turned to the strangers and, with a brief motion of his head, gestured toward the door, indicating they should go inside.

Spurs clanking, the men tied their horses to a small cottonwood tree and strode inside the house, still carrying their guns and wearing their hats. Emory hobbled after them.

Uneasy, Jeff watched them over his shoulder as he walked to the barn. He didn't trust them. Trembling with helplessness, he wished he had the rifle. He feared for his father's life. But obedience was strong within him. His father had told him to unharness the mules.

All the time he worked, his mind was in a turmoil. He wished with all his heart he could think of some way to help. But he was too excited to think. He picked up the mules' halter ropes and tied them to the stalls while they ate.

He was halfway out the barn door when he heard Bess scream and saw her run from the house and climb over the wooden style they had erected so the women could cross the fence. She was crying hysterically.

“They're going to shoot Father!” she gasped.

Jeff looked at her, feeling his body go rigid. He began running toward the house. Bess flung herself upon him, holding him. Although she was only fourteen, she was strong.

“No, Jeff,” she begged. “They'll kill you too.”

Jeff jerked roughly away from her. “I'll follow them even if they crawl into a hole,” he vowed hoarsely. As he passed the barn, he grabbed a small curved haying hook off a wooden peg.

Ring was close on his heels, a low growl in his throat. Jeff burst into the house. His mother and Mary were cowering along the wall.

With a gasp of thankfulness he realized his father was still unharmed. Emory Bussey was sitting in a chair, defiantly facing the two strangers who stood pointing their guns at his breast. Jeff's mother was pleading with them not to shoot him.

“You're under arrest,” the small man growled menacingly. “Come on outdoors.”

Emory Bussey shook his head firmly. He said, “If you want to kill me, you'll have to do it right here in my own house because I'm not going with you.”

Jeff felt his breathing quicken. He gripped the haying hook in his right hand.

“Let him alone!” he warned, with hoarse fierceness. The big bushwhacker swung his musket around, covering Jeff.

The smaller bushwhacker took a threatening step forward. His musket still covered Emory's breast.

“Git up on yer feet!” he ordered, striking Emory roughly on the shoulder with one hand and nodding with his head toward the door.

Emory braced himself in his chair and looked defiantly at them. The two bushwhackers glanced uncertainly at each other, as if debating their next move.

Suddenly hoofbeats clattered in the back yard, rang down the kite-track, and were gone.

Scornfully Emory glared at the Missouri border ruffians. “That's my daughter Bess. She's gone for help. In five minutes' time there'll be a dozen Free State men hot on your trail. I wouldn't give a nickel for your chances.”

Jeff wondered where Bess had summoned the courage to ride one of the wild Bussey mules bareback.

An insane glow burned in the face of the smaller man. Holding his rusty musket at hip level, he pulled the trigger. But there was only a loud metallic snap as the cartridge refused to fire.

Jeff yelled in a strangled voice and hurled the sharp haying hook at the man with all his strength. Struck in the chest, the bushwhacker dropped his gun.

Before he could pick it up, the boy leaped clear across the room and flung himself upon the man, striking him in the face with doubled fists, flooding him with sharp punches. Jeff was the best bare-knuckle fighter in his school, and the spat-spat-spat of his quick blows staggered his adversary.

But now the other bushwhacker came forward. Using his gun barrel as a club, he stepped behind Jeff and swung it viciously downward across the boy's head.
Clonk!
A thousand colored lights exploded in Jeff's skull. With a low groan he collapsed unconscious on the floor. Now the whole Bussey family entered the fight.

Jeff's mother reached for a plate of boiled greens and hurled them at the smaller man. The dish and its contents stained his shirt green and flowed down his rough trousers. Emory Bussey stood and, brandishing a small stool, advanced around the table. Both bushwhackers retreated.

A sudden howl of pain broke from the larger man as Mary, Jeff's twelve-year-old sister, snatched up a pan of hot dishwater from the fireplace and threw it on him. They stumbled out the back door. But their troubles weren't over.

As they emerged from the house, the dog Ring, growling fiercely, fastened his strong teeth onto the seat of the bigger man's trousers.

With a superhuman effort the man got one foot in the stirrup of his excited horse and tried to mount with the ninety-pound dog anchored to his pants. Luckily for him, the cloth ripped noisily and when Ring fell to the ground on his back, both men were able to gain their saddles.

“We'll be back!” the smaller one threatened. “There's thirty men in our band, and they're close by. We'll burn your house down and string you all up by the necks, you Free State scum . . .”

But the rest of his threat was lost as Ring, scrambling to his feet, threw himself so fiercely at the heels of the horses that the frightened animals stampeded down the kite-track with their riders hard-pressed to stay in their saddles. The Busseys could tell by Ring's gradually diminishing cries that the dog chased them nearly a quarter-mile down the road.

When Jeff awakened, he was lying on a hard dirt floor. Wrinkling his nose, he thought he smelled smoked bacon. It was a nice smell, salty and pungent. He could hear water dripping faintly onto a metal pan. The sound was familiar and he finally recognized it. It was cold water from the spring striking the pan covering the cream crock. Then Jeff knew he was in the smokehouse. His mother kept her milk and butter there. Sighing, he relaxed. It was dark and cool on the smokehouse floor.

Opening his eyes, he saw the whole family clustered anxiously around him. His mother was bathing his face with cold water from the spring. His father's arm was under his neck as, with another cold cloth, he made a compress for the long red welt across Jeff's scalp.

“Ugh!” Jeff groaned. “Water's running down inside my ear.” Relieved to hear his voice, the Bussey family began to laugh and chatter.

Jeff thought he heard horses whinnying and pawing the ground outside. When he could focus his eyes better, he looked around and saw not only his own family, but also a couple of Free State neighbors standing in the background, rifles in their hands. Bess had summoned them with her plucky ride.

He grinned weakly at her. “Thanks, Sis,” he mumbled. “You did even better than Paul Revere. He didn't have to ride no mule.”

Taking a long breath, the boy sat up and looked at his father, his face serious and determined.

“Pa,” Jeff said, earnestly, “the Missourians aren't going to let us alone. I'm sick and tired of their meanness—stealing our horses from Bess and Mary—trying to kill you in your own home—belting me over the head with a gun. We've got to organize and fight 'em or give 'em the whole country. And I'm tired of fighting 'em with just a hay sickle. Pa, I want to go to Fort Leavenworth tomorrow and join the volunteers.”

Emory Bussey looked fondly at his son. His eyes blurred, and he stared dully out the smokehouse door at the log home they had built with their own hands and the fields they had broken and planted at such hard labor. This was reality to him. All he had in the world was here. His farm, his family, and his son. Especially his son.

Emory swallowed hard. He much preferred going to war himself. Then he dropped his eyes helplessly to his crippled foot.

“All right, son. I'll write out my consent. You shall go tomorrow.”

Quietly Jeff's mother began to sob. Rising, she stumbled toward the door, dabbing at her eyes with her apron. It was hard to give up one's first-born. Jeff had come into the world back in Kentucky when she was a girl-wife of seventeen. With him to care for, life on the new Kansas farm hadn't been so lonely when Emory was gone all day working in the field. With all the tenderness a mother could muster, she had fed, bathed, and cared for Jeff, loving his bright, cheerful ways, nursing him through his boyhood diseases, teaching him the Biblical precepts of decency and kindness. And now he was to be wrenched from her.

“Don't cry, Mama,” Jeff said, embarrassed at her tears in front of the neighbors. “I won't be gone long. This war's just a breakfast spell. I don't want it to end before I get there.”

Bess moved quietly to her mother's side, put her arms around her and tried to comfort her as they walked together to the house.

  
3

Fort Leavenworth

Jeff walked briskly up the wagon road toward Fort Leavenworth. It was early in the morning and much of the dewy trail still lay in shadow. Beneath his dusty brogans the road was like a treadmill holding him back. It seemed to him he kept passing the same clumps of sumac and hearing the same crickets chirping from the bluestem. He was bursting to get to the fort.

Soon the land became lower and flatter and rockier. Ahead of him Jeff saw the Chadwick farm with its small log barn, its lean-to smithy and the smoke from its breakfast fire coiling from the small rock chimney of the two-room slab-sided cabin where the family lived.

Big John Chadwick was standing by the family woodpile, his arms full of small blackjack logs. His black hair was awry.

Jeff waved at him, hoping John wouldn't delay him by wanting to stop and talk. But John stared with amazement at the light bandage running over Jeff's head and under his chin.

“What's that—toothache?”

Jeff laughed. “Bushwhackers,” he corrected. “Two of them raided us last night. Big one busted me over the head with the barrel of his musket.”

John whistled in astonishment. Still carrying his armful of wood, he walked alongside Jeff, staring with fascination at the bandage. “Don't it hurt?” he asked.

“Naw,” laughed Jeff. “My head's hard. He's lucky he didn't bust his gun barrel.”

“How's all your folks? Anybody get hurt?” Shaking his head, Jeff related the whole incident. He concluded by telling John he was on his way to Fort Leavenworth to enlist.

John puckered his mouth to whistle a second time, then closed it as an idea came to him. Excited, he began to blink his china-blue eyes.

Cautiously he looked back over his shoulder at his home. “Believe I'll go with you, Jeff. I was going to enlist at Sugar Mound anyhow, but I'd rather go with you.”

Jeff was glad to have company. Then his face clouded. “Yes, but how about your folks? Aren't you going to tell them?”

John squared his chin defiantly. “They'll know I've gone to the army when I don't bring back the wood. We've been fussing about it for the last six weeks. Pa says he'll tan me if I ask him again. So I'll jest go without askin' him. He don't need me here nohow. He's got my two brothers to help him lay by the crops. I'm eighteen year old now an' I want to see the world. I'm agoin'!” And dropping the armful of wood on the chip-strewn ground at his feet, he brushed the shavings off his shirt and joined Jeff on the military road.

They walked half a mile. The rising sun began to warm them a little. The road became crooked and rocky. Soon they passed the humble home of David Gardner, whose place was located in a woodsy area near the stone quarry. David lived with his mother and three smaller brothers and sisters. His father had died three years earlier from typhoid. Their lot was hard.

David was hoeing the runtish corn that grew so reluctantly in the flinty soil. He was freckled and red-haired save for his heavy eyebrows, which were white as corn silk.

David stared too at the light bandage plainly visible under Jeff's chin.

“Goshallmighty, Jeff. What happened?” he asked, leaning on his hoe.

“Bushwhackers,” Jeff replied. “Two of them raided us last night. Big one hit me over the head with his musket.” He was eager to be on his way.