Woe to Live On: A Novel Read online

  “Please, Ma, you got to go,” Turner Rawls was pleading.

  Ma Rawls looked at him somewhat berserkly, then waved a hand in his face.

  “We’re goin’, son,” she said. “You best believe we’re goin’. There ain’t no way we’re not goin’.”

  She and the sisters were soon on the porch. We watched as they walked to the militia. There was a pinch of dignity to their stride but a peck of pace to it.

  Once the courtesies were out of the way, the militia sent a hurricane of bullets to batter the house. We stayed low and returned the weather as best we could.

  Holes began to be chewed through the thin planks, and splinters flew about plenty.

  It was not a situation we had wanted for ourselves.

  “We cain’t hold them from here,” Turner Rawls said. He reflected the desperation many of us were beginning to feel—mouth agape, skin paled, features gorged with concern.

  Black John was still cool, as always, but he was well known to be sane only in a peculiar way.

  “Stand fast, boys,” he said. “We’ll kill them yet.”

  Just as he spoke, several mounted men charged the house, tossing torches at the roof. They had a ferocious covering fire but we hit two of the riders, one flopping loose to the ground the lovely way they do when dead.

  Flames could soon be smelled and heard on the roof and side porch. None of us cared at all for the crispy end that portended. Smoke had to be wrestled for a breath of air.

  “We’ll just have to take what chances we have runnin’,” said Coleman Younger.

  “They’ll riddle us down! They’ll riddle us down!” a panicky Hudspeth spoke. “Shit, there ain’t so much as a stump out there for cover.”

  A general pandemonium now broke out. We were all on our stomachs, smoke-blind, trying to find a place to go. Starke Helms and a boy called Lawson crawled under a bed. They were quivering from the odds.

  The flames began licking at us like a mad dog’s tongue through a porch rail.

  Black John stood, then kicked at the bed.

  “Come on, men!” he shouted. “Let’s go get it!”

  “No!” said a voice from beneath the four-poster. I don’t know which man said it. “We’re all gonna die out there! We’ll die certain out there!”

  “This is no time for debate,” Black John howled, then booted out the back door and put his long legs to use. We all followed except for the two men under the bed. Their timidity would cost them.

  We popped shots as we ran, hopeless, desperate cries coming from us. There was no chance to aim and our bullets whizzed off in all haphazard directions. Bill House went down clutching his knee, and the ground was monstrous pecked by the militia fire. Pete Kinney reached back for House only to have his head exploded. Lane, Martin and Woods also fell, maybe not dead but as good as.

  I could run with only so much care and I applied it all to myself.

  Several of us were hurting but moving when we reached the woods. Turner Rawls had a hole in the cheek and much blood running from his mouth. Jack Bull Chiles was unhurt and I gained his side as we scrambled pell-mell down the wooded ravine to our horses.

  We hit the downslope of woods with such energy that some were injured from not being able to dodge trees. It was tricky that way, and I popped my noggin on a sly branch myself. A blood egg grew above my eye and there was some agony.

  Jack Bull put an arm about me and led me to my mount. We were quickly in the saddle, flinging shots at the militia, who were coming into the ravine after us.

  “Split up!” Black John shouted. “We’ll meet at The Place.”

  The Place was McCorkle’s farm, which was designated as such for occasions of just this sort.

  The militia came on the trot down the slope, crowding us. Those of us who would turned and exchanged fire with them, reminding them thusly of the frailty of the human vessel.

  But they came on, bold from the advantage they held. The fighting became close in, as there was no good path for us to flee along. Carbines banged about us and our pistols barked back, horses screamed with panic and a chorus of voices cried, “This way, men!” or “Down there, boy!” or “I got one!”

  As we made our way into the woods, men gained on us. A big Yank on a black horse mis-aimed a round, then began to club his carbine at me, but the branches were so bunched that he was ineffective with his blows. My aching head was a mirage on my shoulders; it was no longer much of an instrument, but I managed to see him and shoot. The ball scored him somewhere. He gasped and gave up on me.

  My horse, Old Fog, a trusty beast, somehow followed Jack Bull’s blue-black Valiant. Gunfire and cries and murders went on, but we made it to a field of dry stumps and scrub oak. We covered some ground, you might say—quickly.

  When distance enough had been achieved, some objectivity reentered our thoughts and we halted to see who we were and how bad off.

  Jack Bull Chiles was still unhurt, Riley Crawford’s foot was bloodied but he said it was trivial, my head was not quite real but I lived, and Babe Hudspeth had a significant gash in his forehead. Turner Rawls looked anxious from blood loss but he was a sturdy-made man.

  This, then, was our group.

  “Where is my brother?” young Hudspeth asked. The crimson flow ran in a rivulet down the bridge of his nose, encircling, but not entering, his eyes. “Did you see my brother?”

  “Bock Yawn,” Turner told him. Some teeth had been pulled rudely by the round through his cheek, and air escaped from two holes now so that his words were low-note riddles rather than precise. “Woof im. Alibe.”

  Staring across the field through which we had passed, Jack Bull kept watch for pursuit. There seemed to be none.

  “That was sure enough hot,” he said, his voice an octave or two more jaunty than I felt. “I think I killed a runt. They left us hurting—that’s certain.”

  The agony of my head and forlorn finger had me in a state that could be called fearless. Safety was not in my thoughts, but relief was, and death seemed at that moment to be a remedy, although it was one I would wait for others to dose out.

  The blood egg on my brow throbbed and throbbed as if it might crack open to reveal a condor.

  “Goddamn murderin’ militia!” Riley Crawford said. “I’ll kill ten men for this wound and a thousand if I’m crippled!”

  Hudspeth had dismounted and was rubbing mud on his gash. Turner was in the saddle but slumped over. I was more or less the same.

  “We’d best be on the move,” Jack Bull said.

  When Hudspeth was remounted, we followed my near brother. He chose good routes and by evening we were at a farm pond somewhere deep in Lafayette County, moaning a bit, but mostly somber, wondering how many of our dinner companions would share our meals no more.

  3

  ANIGHT’S REST WENT a long way toward curing me. But the loss of my finger made me cry. Tears just ran over my face. I don’t know why. The digit was not of much consequence to my life, but I guess I had been more fond of the useless little thing than I knew. The pain was there but steady, and my head was a kind of caricature I would live with.

  Food was our main requirement. At a small house well off any roads, we stopped. Riley Crawford went forward to test the trustworthiness of his youthful visage once more. An old man with a shiny skull came slyly around the side of the house. He carried a shotgun, then put it on Riley but went lackadaisical when their eyes met.

  “What do you want, you secesh bastard?”

  “Food, sir.”

  “Eat dirt,” the stingy grouch spoke.

  “Please don’t shoot me,” Riley responded. He did an excellent mimic of a pitiful waif. “I am but a boy far from home.”

  The old man stared and stared, then shook his head.

  “I’ll not feed you, but I’ll not shoot you either. Now get on out of here.”

  “That is too kind of you,” Riley said. His pistol flushed up from his holster faster than a grouse and he pegged the old tightwad twice in the
head. The old man never saw what happened to him, but went down, bloody and extinct, victimized by a dull perspective on youths.

  We entered the man’s home quickly. It was but a shack; you would not have thought it worth dying over. Out the back window I observed an old granny deer-hopping across a field, her youthful bounce somehow regained. I made no mention of it.

  We filled burlap bags with such provisions as we found. No coffee, but some hardtack, back bacon and pickled corn.

  To linger would have been to overtest the fates, so we set fire to the dry wood of the house, and rode on to picnic in some more idyllic spot.

  Hog paths became our highway. We stuck to backwoods routes and eased toward McCorkle’s. It was several miles distant. There was a shyness to our passing, for Turner was poorly and confrontations of no appeal to us.

  All we sought was the safety of our comrades.

  Jack Bull and I conversed as we traveled.

  “This is fine land,” I said.

  “It is. It is,” he answered. “When untroubled. Which it has never been.”

  “It may someday be,” I said, for I was yet an immigrant in a few ways, optimism being one.

  “Nah. Nah, we are not made that way. If the Lord called a barn dance, I would halt the old Fiddler and draw Him into conversation. I would ask Him what is in store for us. His answer would surely be the common one—‘Why, trouble, my son. As usual.’ ”

  Bleakness had never been Jack Bull’s way, but experience was instructing him thus.

  “It is not the what,” I said, “but the why that I would ask Him of.”

  This set Jack Bull to chuckling, as if I were a fool or a subtle wit.

  “That is asking too much,” he said. “Way too much. Of Him or anyone else.”

  It was a fine region, though. The water was clear and clean and generally nearby. The hills pleased the eye but were not steep enough to daunt one. The dirt was deep and rich, with a scent you would admire in a gravy, and the meadows had a lushness that made you yearn to be a grazing beast. Game was abundant to the point of pestiness, and the forests provided all the building materials an empire could require.

  It was altogether a land I was thankful to be in.

  That is, but for the trouble.

  Distancing ourselves from the turmoil replenished our swagger. We became more usual as the day aged. Except for Turner Rawls, whose distress was spellbinding to him.

  There was little we could do to comfort him, but we kept him in the saddle and moving.

  When we were yet some miles short of our destination, the day turned surly on us. A black puddle of storm rallied on the horizon. The wind picked up and on its breeze we smelled bad tidings. A storm was but a storm, but out of doors it was miserable.

  We watched it charge down on us.

  Babe Hudspeth spoke up with a suggestion.

  “I believe, if I ain’t lost, that one mile over we’ll find Mr. Daily’s house. I’ve stopped there before. I know I ain’t lost. It’s over there. He is a southern man and generous.”

  As we paused to think this over, Turner launched into some sort of speech, but his pronunciation was now so double-holed and half scabbed that only a scholar could unscramble it. By his gestures it seemed that he was saying he was entirely in favor of visiting Mr. Daily.

  So there we went.

  After some initial caution Daily admitted us to his home. He had a farm that might have been prosperous once but now was little more than a weeded-over hideout. Working in the fields was too dangerous when so many bad people were about.

  “You are welcome,” Daily said. He was a fair chunk of man with cropped gray hair and bowed legs. He had a wife edging around and two daughters who were still in the tyke stage. “Who have you boys worked on lately? I heard Sweet Springs was shot up some.”

  “We were in on that,” Jack Bull said. “They will remember us for it, too.”

  “Aha,” went Daily. He seemed proud of us. “I was told you killed Schmidt and Veale and Ogilvy—is it so?”

  Jack Bull shrugged and turned to me.

  “Did we?” he asked. “I know we killed some men. I know that.”

  “Schmidt was one,” I said. “He was the runner.” Dutch deaths always etched clear in my memory. “And it seems that the men Cave Wyatt tended to were Veale and Ogilvy.”

  “Wyatt,” said Daily. “Yes, Cave Wyatt. That’s a good family over there. The Wyatts.” He nodded several times. “A fine family.”

  Riley’s foot was not wounded much, really, so he put our horses in the barn. Turner had already laid himself out on the floor and was having fevery dreams while the rest of us men watched the heavens crack down on weak limbs and loosely laid fence rails. Frail buds were whisked into a mangle by the wind. It was a dark, scouring, wet and majestic eruption, and it made one feel tiny and squashable.

  The universe sometimes makes war seem a mere chigger in comparison, but that is in no way soothing to one who has the itch.

  Our host saw to it that we were fed. It was not much, squirrel with biscuits and thin pan gravy. Nonetheless we ate it all and deluged Mrs. Daily with compliments.

  She was a nervous, unjoyful woman, though, and did not seem to believe us or care. Perhaps joy did not come her way much of late, as the Happy Train of Life had long been derailed in these parts.

  It grew dark and soon was bedtime but Daily seemed fond of our company. Turner drank milk and dreamed hot, mumbly dramas by turns, while we all sat about being windy. The tykes slept off away from us, and when the mother was gone Daily pulled out a jug of good cheer.

  We began to pass it and blow harder at one another. Daily told how he had once been to New Orleans and met a woman there who hadn’t a hair left on her; she had shaved herself complete. There was a peeled appleness to her. This fascinated him and he spoke of it as you would of a dog that sang, and well.

  “That is disgusting,” Babe Hudspeth said, although he laughed. “But why would she do it, anyhow?”

  Jack Bull once again exhibited his education.

  “Why, to set one whore apart from another, Babe. It is a harlot’s brand of showmanship.”

  Daily bobbed his head and drank. “It is a damned fine show, too. I could see it again and still be interested.”

  I reckon we laughed at this, for Mrs. Daily came in and snatched up the jug. She had plenty of hair herself and it was in glum disarray.

  “I will not have you gettin’ drunk in my home,” she said. “I am a Baptist and drunkenness is not something I will tolerate.”

  This embarrassed Daily. He slumped for a moment, then stood and snatched back the jug. “I am not drunk,” he told her. “I am entertaining our company.”

  She put her hands on her hips in that wet-hen way they have.

  “You are drunk, Claude. It is ever so plain to me that you are drunk.”

  “Nah,” he bleated. He bent and set the jug in the middle of the floor. “Nah, I’m not drunk, Sal. I’m barely happy and not drunk at all—could a drunk man do this?”

  Several feet of bare planking surrounded the jug, and Daily began to dance on the open floor. He jigged closer and closer to the jug, kicking at it, his toes whiskering past, big feet thwoking down, raising dust, demonstrating his sober control. As the dance went on he stamped as near to the offending spirits as a second skin would have been. His boots banged out a steady cadence. There was more spring in him than expected. The whole house rocked.

  Mrs. Daily watched him. Her expression was nowhere near one of approval.

  Finally Daily was flushed and satisfied and ended the jig with a tight, proud whirl. “Does that prove it? I never nudged it.”

  “You shame me,” she said. “Only a drunk man would dance around that way.”

  This stunned him.

  “Aw!” he went. He then lifted the jug and handed it to me.

  I inspected the gift, then said, “It is uncracked, totally.”

  There was a pause and the woman used it to leave us again. But her
purpose had been served. We passed the good cheer around one more circuit, then called it a night. We didn’t want to sour a marriage by bad example.

  Me and the boys rolled up on the floor but Daily would not go to bed. He hemmed and hawed fiercely for a while then went onto the front porch, with the jug, alone, and may well have drunk it all in his sulk.

  It stymied me. I just didn’t understand how it worked with a man and a woman. There was so much mystery involved. I hoped there could be a way around it.

  In the morning every stream was high and the road was deep in cumbersome mud. We slopped through, all splattered and cranky. Our mood was foul and not unusual.

  Gay birds perched about on wet, black branches, tweeting out their childish lullabies. Despite the muck, the day had a fresh feel to it. The sky was washed clean of clouds and the sun followed us like a smiley drummer peddling cures at half price.

  But we were foul and not having any.

  Poor Turner Rawls was swollen in the jaw, bloated up severely. He was alert but in constant pain. He would not complain, but as his horse clumsy-footed along he groaned pretty regular.

  My finger root ached and ached still, but I had grown accustomed to it. In honest fact I was fond of the nubbiny wound, for I thought it might heal into something glamorous.

  I felt a bond with these men. Where they would go so would I, where they fought I was dangerous and where they died I was sad.

  I did not have it in me to ask for more. If my coffin is built longer than five feet and a half, the undertaker is posting me to Kingdom in my high-crowned slouch hat. For I am not large, but I have never felt too small to be of use. If I was handsome then, it was a secret, but I prided myself on looking good enough in tight spots.

  McCorkle’s farm came into view before morning had expired. Pickets challenged us and we answered correctly.

  “Who are you?”

  “Messengers of Good Work.”