Rifles for Watie (33 page)

Later a lieutenant began dispatching guard patrols in all directions. As Jeff rode out with his, he asked the man next to him about the cook.

“Who, Heifer? He's a loner. Sleeps outdoors on the ground, even in winter. Says sleepin' inside smothers him. Everybody likes him but nobody wants to be close pals with him. It's the way he talks and the way he looks, I guess. Heifer's so ugly that the flies won't light on him. They say he had a son of his own, once, a handsome-looking boy. Heifer worked hard to get money to send the boy back East to school. But the boy was ashamed of his pa's ugliness and never came back home or had anything to do with Heifer afterward. Heifer hails from Texas. Used to cook for some big cattle spreads there.”

The patrol dropped Jeff off near a weather-beaten church. Alongside it was a small graveyard, whose wooden monuments, gray with age, leaned crazily this way and that. All around, like somber guards, stood several old oaks. It was quiet and peaceful.

After staking out the dun, he lay on his back in the graveyard grass, worrying about the battle to be fought the next day. Would he be ordered to fire upon his own troops while riding with the forces of the South? He resolved not to fire directly at his comrades.

Above him in one of the big oaks, a mockingbird was splitting his throat. As he sang, he threw himself angrily into the blue sky, wings fluttering, then stood suddenly on his head in the air and flew back down to the same branch, scolding and fussing. Jeff wondered idly what the bird was upset about.

It was hot. For want of anything better to do, he read the inscription carved on the wooden face of the monument nearest him.

It said “Sarah McDivitt. Born June 2, 1788. Died Nov. 6, 1854.” There was a verse under it too, a wistful little verse that seemed to express all humanity's sad yearning not to be forgotten completely after death. Jeff got up on his knees so he could read it better. It said,

“As you are, so once was I.

As I am you soon will be.

When these words you see,

Remember me.”

Jeff wondered who Sarah McDivitt was and how old she had been when she chose the pensive lines for her gravestone.

The church reminded him of the deserted chapel he and Lucy had visited two days before. With a stab of longing, he thought of her, and then of her abrupt, “I like you, Jeff Bussey. But I warn you: I'm still a rebel—to the backbone.” He wished the war would be over tomorrow.

Several hours passed. He was so sleepy that he almost dozed off. Finally he heard something coming down the road.

It was a husky young Negro driving a small herd of red cows ahead of him. They moved very slowly, the cows grazing as they walked.

“Howdy,” Jeff said as they passed in front of him.

Startled, the Negro boy jumped. Then he saw Jeff and looked with wonder at his horse, and at the pistol in his belt.

“You a soljuh?”

Jeff nodded. “Why do they always build their graveyards next to the churches in this country?” he asked.

The Negro boy looked solemn. He was wearing a gray homespun shirt, striped trousers, and had a sweat rag tied around his bare head. He was barefoot. Jeff wondered how he could stand walking on the sharp rocks.

“So the dead folks can heah the organ music an' the singin' on Sundays, I reckon,” he said simply.

Jeff stood and pointed to the church. “What's the name of it?”

“Hancock Mission,” replied the Negro, slowly and proudly. “They built it fifteen years befo' I was borned. They sho' did do somethin' when they built it. It stands theah in the woods apointin' its spire up towards heaven. Evah time I passes it, I feels kinda reverent-like. I always sings somethin' religious when I drives the cows by.”

“Have you ever been in it?”

“Naw suh. It's jes' for white folks an' Indians.”

They fell silent. A warm wind gently stirred the long graveyard grass. A flock of green parakeets circled a nearby field with shrill cries, searching for cockleburrs. The old church dozed peacefully in the warm sunlight.

“You're a big, strong-looking fellow. Why aren't you in the Southern army?” Jeff asked.

The Negro boy looked at him strangely. “The South don' want slaves in theah armies,” he said. He added, proudly, “We's too valuable. We's property.”

Jeff's mouth fell open. He hadn't realized that.

“Are you a slave?”

The Negro nodded soberly. He looked at Jeff with narrowing eyes. “How come you nevah knowed slaves can't get in the army? Wheah you from?”

“Kansas,” said Jeff boldly. He decided that if the rebels ever did question him at length, he would be safer giving his own name and home than trying to fabricate false ones.

“Isn't that wheah Mistah Aberham Linkum lives?”

“No. He was born in Illinois. But now that he's President, he lives in Washington. Why? What do you know about Lincoln?”

The Negro boy smiled, and a rapturous look came into his dark eyes. “I know mo' bout him than anybody. All the slaves talks about him all the time. We loves ouah mastahs but we all want to be free some day.”

He spoke so guilelessly that Jeff was impressed. It was an odd speech for anybody to make in rebel-held country. He supposed the community was so isolated that no military force had ever passed through it before.

Jeff picked up a small rock and tossed it at a nearby gravestone. “If you were at Fort Gibson, you'd be free right now. In the Northern army there's a battalion of Negro soldiers from Kansas. They're all free. They wear blue uniforms, just like the white soldiers. And they're good fighters, too.”

An eager light came into the young Negro's eyes. “I been to Fote Gibson. I knows a short way to get theah without goin' up the Texas Road. Two years ago I helped drive a herd of cows to Fote Gibson fo' my mastah. While we was theah I saw one of them big cannon guns. How fah will one o' them things shoot?”

“Oh, if it's big enough, about two miles, I guess.”

The Negro rolled his eyes in awe. “Um! Um! A man could run all day an' still get killed.”

Laughing, Jeff brushed the grass off his pants. “What's your name?”

“Leemon Jones. I b'longs to Mastah Saul Hibbs, a Chickasaw Injun farmer. I lives half a mile down the road theah.”

Jeff looked at the sun. It was about time for him to be relieved. He mounted the dun and, lifting his hand in farewell to the Negro, jogged off down the road.

As he swung along, he thought that if he ever got in trouble, real bad trouble, he might find an ally in Leemon Jones. He bet he could have made Leemon's eyes stick out like marbles if he had told him he had once heard Abraham Lincoln make a speech.

At daybreak next morning, Jeff saddled, mounted and, joining hundreds of hard-faced Watie riders, rode twenty miles north to Elk Creek, where Cooper's rebel battleline was being formed on both sides of the Texas Road. In the timber north of the creek, they dismounted and, building log barricades, awaited the onslaught of Blunt's Union army.

Jeff could hear cannon fire north of him and he knew that the Union artillery commanded by Hopkins and Smith had gone to work on the rebel artillery. He couldn't help feeling excited and uneasy. He had never gone to battle under such strange circumstances. Horrified at the possibility of fighting his friends, he had to stay and try to get the information Blunt wanted. Besides, if he left now it would draw suspicion on Bostwick. Keeping his eyes open, he had a good view of the rebel preparations for the battle.

Cooper's army consisted mainly of Texans and Indians. Jeff saw the Texas cavalry riding their little mustangs into position in the rebel center. They were mostly blond men, who controlled their mounts with chain bits and thrust their booted feet into big, wooden ox-yoke stirrups. Cooper posted on his left two Creek regiments commanded by Colonel D. N. McIntosh. His right wing was composed of Watie's First and Second Cherokee regiments of which Jeff was now a part.

Jeff was most surprised of all when he saw Cooper's reserve, a regiment of Choctaws and Chickasaws. Before he saw them, he could hear the jingling of the little bells and rattles they wore on their arms and in their horses' bridles.

Then they appeared through the trees, mounted on their small ponies. Their faces were painted orange and green. Although they looked active and sinewy in their buckskin hunting shirts and leggings, Jeff was amazed to see that their weapons consisted only of obsolete Indian rifles, knives and tomahawks. They were whooping and yelling shrilly as though to keep up their courage in spite of their incredible lack of fire power.

A crackle of musket fire broke out ahead, and the Watie men began to unsling their weapons, mostly shotguns and oneshot Southern Enfields with brass mountings.

In plain hearing of nearly everybody in the detail, Fields, the bossy rebel sergeant, ordered Jeff to the rear. “Yore too young for the front line,” he said, curtly. “We fight dismounted with every fo'th man holdin' fo' hosses in the rear. Today you'll stay in the rear and be a hoss-holder.” He thrust his reins into Jeff's hand.

“Yes, sir,” said Jeff, saluting.

He took the reins, secretly pleased that he wouldn't have to oppose his own side in battle. Bostwick wasn't so lucky.

The Missourian was drafted for duty on the firing line but he seemed to be taking it well. As he trudged off to the front, his boots clumping awkwardly in the underbrush, he winked at Jeff and reaching behind him, patted his canteen, still one-half full of cold Union coffee.

A shower of rain fell about an hour before the battle began, rendering the rebel powder, obtained from Mexico, useless. In the damp weather it became pastelike and would not ignite. Jeff heard some Creek soldiers complaining because even when they built fires, they could not dry out their wet musket caps.

When the Northern bombshells, screeching through the trees overhead, began exploding with a roar, setting the grass and brush afire, it took all of Jeff's strength to hold the four saddled horses he had been entrusted with. Soon, rebel after rebel began to pass him, running from the front.

Jeff kept his own eyes and ears open, making cautious inquiries about both Steele's and Cabell's troops. All he could learn was that while both were on their way to the battle, neither had arrived. Blunt's timing had been superb.

The firing ahead of him redoubled and seemed to be coming closer. The two Watie regiments were being driven back. Now he could smell the smoke from the black powder. He wrapped the four sets of bridle reins more tightly about one hand. Soon the rebel Cherokees began to appear, grabbing their reins from the horse-holders, mounting and spurring southward, away from the battle. Two of them claimed their horses from Jeff.

“Their bombshells shoot twice—over there and over here,” one gasped in protest.

“Where's Fields?” Jeff shouted, as they swung into the saddle.

“He's comin' yonder,” they yelled and rode off, whipping their mounts with a frenzy.

Watching them, Jeff laughed bitterly. Although he was just a horse-holder, he aimed to be the best dad-gummed horse-holder in the rebel cavalry. He didn't like the sassy sergeant's crack about his youth. Vaulting onto the dun's back, he waited.

The figure of a man burst from the trees, crashing through the underbrush and sweetbrier. His shoulder was bleeding, and one arm hung limp. His hat was gone, exposing his red hair. It was Fields. Jeff knew the Federal troops must be close behind him.

Leaning down, Jeff handed him his reins. But the horse was plunging excitedly and, with one arm paralyzed, Fields had trouble mounting. Jeff saw he wasn't going to make it. Federal bullets were bouncing along the ground, like tiny frogs around a millpond.

Jeff got off the dun to help, but Fields' horse jerked loose and galloped wildly into the woods. Cursing, the rebel sergeant ran a few stumbling steps in pursuit, then gave up.

“Here, Sergeant!” Jeff led the dun up to him. “He'll ride double. I'll boost you into the saddle, then I'll crawl on behind.”

Panting hoarsely, Fields stared at Jeff with fierce, pain-glazed eyes, and for a moment Jeff thought he meant to refuse. Then he put one foot in the stirrup and grasped the pommel of the saddle with one hand. Jeff put his shoulder under Field's rump and shoved him upward. Then he leaped on behind.

“Here, Sergeant, you take the reins. I'll need both hands to hang on.” After standing around all morning, the dun wanted to run, even with a double load.

It was a wild ride. Legs flopping crazily, Jeff clung with both hands to the cantle of the saddle. With every stride, the sergeant's shoulder wound was irritated, and he alternately cursed and groaned.

After they encountered the Texas Road, their progress was easier. They began to overtake and pass other Watie men. Soon a horse with an empty saddle was commandeered and Fields put upon it. They kept going.

The skies were still cloudy and the air sticky and close. Inside his shirt Jeff could feel sweat running down his stomach and ribs. His shirt was torn and the bare skin low on his right side smarted where the bull briers had clawed him. The Watie men rode silently, shame and discouragement in their faces.

Once they stopped at a well to hold a gourd dipper of water to Fields' hot lips and to smear post-oak bark ooze on his wound.

“How do yuh feel, Sam?” somebody asked.

Fields snarled savagely, “What do yo' care how I feel? Yore no doctor. Yo' wouldn't know what to do if I did tell you how I feel.”

Doggedly they resumed their flight. Others had been wounded, too, but there were no doctors to minister to them, either. They just bore the pain and kept riding.

They came to a low, sandy spot in the big road. Jeff could see the tall swamp grass and smell the stagnant water.

Up ahead somebody began to curse.

“Gallinippers!” he yelled, pulling up his coat collar. Jeff soon found out what gallinippers were.