West Of The War Read online

  We are marched to Springfield, Illinois, with the snow blowing down the back of my neck and my riding boots, purloined from a dead Union cavalry man, worn thin, where I am held for four months. In July of 62 the opposing sides worked out a method of parole, but we are not offered it quickly, and it's more than a year eating gruel and mush before they come to me. I am quick to sign my promise to head west and stay out of the conflict for the duration.

  It is March of 64 when I walk out of Camp Butler with five dollars in silver in my pocket, hair grown to my collar, twenty pounds lighter and ribs showing, a recycled pair of brogans a size too big, and a coat with enough holes to mimic a Swiss cheese…but I am free.

  One of my cellmates is another Irishman whose family originated in Cork, Ireland, as had mine. Ian Hollihan is a big fellow, at least fifteen years my senior, and had served with General Price, but had never gone beyond corporal, having been busted back a half dozen times to private as he is not one to take to kidding, but was one to take to the delivery of knuckles on almost any excuse.

  However, I’d come to like him.

  We stand free men for the first time in months, and have money in our pockets.

  “So, Ian lad, are you off to find some Butternut boys to tie up with?” I ask him as we trudge away from Camp Butler.

  “I’m a man of me word, McTavish, particularly since my word got me set free of that prison slop they called grub and since it’ll keep me from getting my hide tacked to some Union privy wall. Yoursef’?”

  “The word is there’s some gold to be found out Washington and Dakota Territory way, so I’ll be headin’ there…presuming I find what I figure I’ll find at my home place. And I don't figure to find much.”

  He guffaws. “Yeah, lad, I’m sure the trails of Dakota territory are paved with gold. I did my time in California, grubbin’ in the mud and having to break ice for the doin’ of it. I’m thinking I’ll head west and get on with the railroad. Word is they’re soon to be hiring for the Transcontinental. And I’m a gandy dancin’ som’ bitch.”

  “Gandy dancing?”

  “Railroad term. We Irish know how to drive spikes and lay rail.”

  “Well then,” I say with a laugh, “if it’s west your headin’, we can watch each other’s back for a good ways before we part ways.”

  He sticks out his big paw, and we shake, then I add, “But I’ll be having to stop by and pay my respects to the old family place. I still don’t know the fate of my ma, more’n two years now.”

  “Hell, man, that’s two hundred miles due west of here…we otta be heading some north.”

  “Then head out. I gotta go to the home place.”

  He guffaws again. “And I wouldn’t be thinking you fit to travel with if’n you didn’t do just that. Check on your ma, I mean. So I’ll tag along.”

  “The McTavish Farm is next to the river and we might just catch a ride.”

  And with that, we’re off, snow still a foot deep, and the road ankle deep in mud. It will be a stroll of something over two hundred miles before I find the home place, or what’s left of it, if anything. And I pray some of what was left behind is still to be found.

  With the war and all, there seems to be plenty of abandoned and half-burnt places, so we manage to get out of the weather the first three nights. We even scrounge up some turnips and carrots out of one farmer’s root cellar and find a bent up tin pot to cook up a soup. I’d kill for a hand full of salt, but until we come upon a mercantile, that’s a dream.

  Hannibal is just ahead, and if it hasn’t been burned out in the fighting, it’ll have a general store and maybe even some folks needin’ a little work done…of course we’re still wearing butternut trousers with yellow stripes down the outside hem so that may cause some consternation. God only knows what the persuasion of a place is these days.

  We wake that fourth morning of our trek to a flat gray sky, but one devoid of snow or rain, and are blessed by good luck. We’ve lain up in a fine timber barn next to a burned farmhouse. I find an apple crate and make a box trap, finding a few grains of corn among the mouse droppings in the bottom of a crib, and damned if I don’t trap us a fat rooster. He looks old as Methuselah, and is probably twice as tough, so we don’t dare try and roast him or he’d be tough as the rubber on one of Mr. Goodyear’s tents. So I boil him, and boil him, and boil him until meat falls off the bone. It is damn near ten at night afore he is fit to chew, but chew him we do.

  Of course we are unarmed, so at quite a disadvantage when we step out of the barn just after daybreak and are confronted by five riders in a semicircle. All of them have long guns and they are cocked and leveled at our midsections.

  “You boys deserters?” one of them growls. He is out front a little and seems the leader. Red hair sticks out from under his wide brimmed hat, which sports a turkey or eagle feather. By the mishmash of uniforms, I presume they favor the south.

  “You want that long gun stuffed up yer butt,” Ian growls even deeper.

  The old boy who is doing the talking smiles, showing a missing tooth. “You take offense at the suggestion? Being as how we’re five and you’re two, and we are totin’ long guns and sidearms, I’d say you got lots of mouth on you, big fella.”

  “You damn right I do, and I bite like a swamp gator—”

  Ian starts to step forward but I lay a rough hand on his shoulder. “You been a long time wanting a slab of beefsteak, and if that ol’ boy puts a hole in your gut you won’t enjoy it much.”

  Ian pulls up. I swing my gaze from man to man and realize two of them are wearing well-worn butternut trousers, just as Ian and I do—thus, it's the south they favor.

  So I speak up, and lie as I think the truth might get us swinging from the nearest branch. “I’m Captain Braden McTavish, just paroled out of Camp Butler, on our way to find a unit to join up with. You fellas jayhawkers or redleggers or what?”

  “Not your business, Captain. You’re not gonna get far on shank’s mare. In fact them brogans look like they got about another mile in them.”

  “My last horse was shot out from under me and I was knocked silly at Iuka thanks to a Bluebelly cannon and I woke up with wrists tied having to listen to the crowing of some Yankee no accounts…who crowed even louder than you. However, if you’re worried about my having to hoof it, you fellas could spare a couple of those crowbaits you’re forking and ride double. In fact, it seems I'm in command here.”

  He laughs and shakes his head. “Not likely, Captain. You might outrank us, if you are who you say you are, but that don’t cut it out here.”

  “Then why don’t you just ride on and let us go about our business.”

  He studies me for a minute. “Your business damn sure better be finding some rebs to join up with. If not, I’d be obliged to hang you from that hickory over there.”

  “How about leaving us a firearm. The next bunch of hooligans we come across might not be wearing reb uniforms, such as yours are.”

  He studies me a moment more. Then he turns to a man on his flank. “Portman, you got those two Army Colts we took off that last bunch we put under?”

  “I do,” the man says, but he has daggers coming out of his narrow eyes.

  “Give ‘em up, and the powder and shot. We can spare it.”

  He’s grumbling like a bear with his leg in a trap, but he dismounts and digs into his saddlebags and comes up with the weapons.

  The leader dismounts and grabs them, and walks over and hands them to us, barrel first. “My name is Whittle, Sergeant Jeb Whittle, and you owe me, captain.”

  “Sure as Grant’s a butt-ugly son-of-a-bitch, I owe you, Whittle. I’ll not forget this.”

  He mounts back up as both of us stuff the revolvers in our belts. He gives me a hard look. “Find some good ol’ boys and get back in the fray. It ain’t going too well, if’n you ain’t heard.”

  “We don’t know what’s true and what’s a damn lie in the camp. You fellas stay safe out there in the woods.”

  Whi
ttle tips his hat, and spins his horse and they move away at a trot, that becomes a cantor as soon as they’re out of the farmyard.

  I turn to Ian. “Glad you didn’t try and stuff that rifle where the sun don’t shine.”

  “Yeah, me too,” he says, and gives me a sheepish grin.

  And we start picking ’em up and layin’ ’em down. I figure we’re a half day from Hannibal, which was four thousand strong, at least at the start of the war. And I plan to walk right in, just like I’m welcome.

  Chapter 3

  Hannibal is the eastern terminal of the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railway, which would take us due west as far as the Kansas line and the Missouri River, if we had the money and if I didn’t feel I had to make my way to the home place—but I do. So after we pay a visit to Hannibal, it’s set out southwest to the McTavish farm. If there is such a place any longer.

  The farms get smaller and the farm houses closer together as we near Hannibal, and the few field hands, both white and darky, give us a hard look, but none wave us over for a chat as we stomp along a two track that serves for a road. And it gets wider and more worn as we near the river, and see Hannibal’s several three and four story buildings on the far side.

  Crossing is the next problem as we’ll not be welcome on the ferry as we don’t have the two bits to spare that they charge for a single passenger. Damn highbinders.

  However, there’s a darky just a few paces below the river landing, and he’s loading up a skiff with a burlap sack, which I would think is headed across the river, so I trot on down and give him a smile.

  “Where you off to, friend?” I ask.

  He gives me a funny look, probably because I’ve called him friend, checking me from brogan to hat and lingering on the butternut trousers, then asks, “Well, sur, I’m fixin’ to row across and take this here sack of turnips to market.”

  “We’d be obliged—” I start, but he stops me short.

  “I’m a freeman, don’t ya know.”

  “Never thought you for anything but,” I say, and give him the smile again.

  “Cost you a quarter dollar to ride the ferry, don’t ya know.”

  “I’m sure it does. How about a dime for the two of us.”

  “Nickel for you, dime for the big fella,” he says, and I’m wondering if he hasn’t done a spell working with a Jewish tinker.

  I hesitate, so he shrugs, and says. “A dime for both, but you gotta take a turn at the oars.”

  “Done,” I say, and stick out a hand.

  He hesitates, but then shakes with a hand as rough as his burlap bag.

  The river is no easy task as it’s a half mile wide and flowing fairly strong. In order to make a landing at Hannibal, we have to keep the bow pointed mostly upstream, and row like hell. We trade off three times during the crossing and at that it’s more than a half hour before we dig the bow into Missouri mud.

  He’s a fair man, and offers us each a couple of turnips, which we gnaw gratefully when not tending the oars.

  It’s been more’n a year since I’ve felt good Missouri soil under my feet.

  With the war going on, Hannibal’s streets are full of horsebackers, drays and beer wagons and the like, and far worse—Union troops—and all seem to be heading our way, down to the Mississippi and the barges and side wheelers docked there.

  We don’t favor the main streets, and slip to the side, working our way among some smaller businesses and homes.

  As we leave the main part of town, I notice a woodyard a hundred paces away, and it seems busy with a half dozen fellas stacking cord wood, so I turn back to Ian, “Are you up to trying to put a few dollars in our polk?”

  “Did Saint Pat run the snakes outta beautiful Ireland?”

  “I take it that’s a yes.”

  “That be a yes, lad.”

  I find the straw boss, the only fellow standing with his hands on hips, and sidle up next to him. “You looking for a couple of fellows who grew up with ax in hand.”

  He eyes me up and down a little skeptically, then looks at big Ian a little more favorably, then back to me. “I’ll pay you forty cents a cord.”

  “And you provide the axes and a crosscut.”

  “Yep, you break a handle and it’ll cost you a cord of wood.”

  “I guess six bits a cord would be out of the question?”

  “That’s what I get, delivered riverside, so, yes, from here to the moon out of the question. A cord fetches four or five dollars a thousand miles upriver, if you can get there and keep from getting scalped. You’ll find the tools over in that shed.”

  “There a stone there?” I ask.

  “They done been sharpened. Take two axes apiece. If you’re worth a damn, you’ll dull one before lunchtime. Take a handcart and about a quarter mile up that trail,” he points into a stand of trees, “you’ll find where we’re cutting. You’ll haul your own loads back here to the yard. I’ll be loanin’ you a hand cart for the haulin’.”

  “You’ll pay at the end of the day?” I ask.

  “Yep. Anything less than a half cord gets held over to the next day.”

  By lunch time we’d both discovered how soft your hands could get when all you had to do was walk a prison yard, not to speak of how your back and shoulders had forgotten hard work. But by lunch, we had a cord apiece. We delivered our loads then went back out without eating.

  Another cord each took us almost to dark. The wood seemed harder and each hour to fill the carts seemed longer, but we delivered, and as promised, the straw boss paid up.

  As I count up the nickels and dimes the straw boss dropped in my palm, I asked, “Is there a rooming house on this side of town?”

  “There is, Mrs. O’Mally’s, a room to share and all the soup and biscuits you can stuff down…don’t let her charge you more than two bits apiece. Soup’s generally light on the meat, but it’ll fill you up. And it’s less than a quarter mile back the way you came. Yellow two story with blue shutters.”

  “Obliged,” I say, and give him a wave and turn to head out.

  “We got more work tomorrow,” he calls after me.

  “Appreciate it, but we’re on the road.”

  “If you’re heading west, be careful. There’s a Union regiment out there somewhere, and I’d bet they’d be happy to see you two coming.”

  “Thanks, we’ll keep our eyes open.”

  As he heads back, Ian speaks up. “Damn if that wasn’t a whole lot like work.”

  “Damn if it wasn’t,” I agree, rubbing my sore back as I do.

  Mrs. O’Mally looks as if she’s cleaned up, for many years, all the leftovers from the eight places at her table. But she has rosy cheeks, an Irish accent, and only a slightly forced smile.

  After settling on four bits for the two of us, Ian and I are first at the trough and take chairs across from each other. The table is set with bowls and spoons only, but with jars of honey and plates of fresh sweet butter down the middle. On either end rests a large pitcher of buttermilk.

  Six more boarders filter in.

  One—probably a drummer or banker—with a celluloid collar that his neck bulges over, stringy hair pointing every direction under his bowler hat, and string tie, takes a ladder back chair. For a moment, as the chair moans, I fear it might be crushed to the floor. I hope there’s a generous laundry tub full of soup in the kitchen as this boy looks like he might require one all to himself. It’s funny how fat folks look to have pig eyes. I guess fat settles around eye sockets as well. He looks friendly enough, which doesn’t go for the next two to wander in.

  Two rough looking fellas in stirrup-heeled boots, linsey-woolsey shirts, and well worn canvas trousers hang their wide-brimmed drover hats but don’t bother removing their holster belts and sidearms as they take seats, nor do they bother giving the rest of us so much as a nod or a snarl. They have hung their wide brimmed hats on the rack provided, so they are not completely lacking in manners. However, the smaller of the two has a crooked eye which makes it difficult to t
ell which way he’s looking. It's cocked sideways and up a little as if he's lookin' for forgiveness from heaven above. Both of them have scarred and calloused hands, and although the second one is wide chested with a generous girth, enough that his belt buckle is eyeballing the floor, neither of them appear to have an extra ounce of fat. It's funny how some fellas with big bellies can look, and be, powerful.

  Another follows them. A tall skinny fella wearing a suit coat looking two sizes too large takes the head of the table and announces, “I’m Howard Tolliver, nice to meet y’all.”

  Ian, the drummer, and I give him a nod, however the linsey woolsey boys are whispering to each other and don’t so much as look up.

  The next is a man of the cloth, with a backward collar and a gold chain and cross. He appears to be a man of seven decades, with gray hair and a matching Van Dyke goatee, nicely trimmed. He and the drummer are the only ones at the table who appear to have shaved this week.

  I’m just a wee bit surprised when Mrs. O’Mally exits the kitchen and takes the last seat, as I figured she’d be hard at work in the kitchen and serving.

  But right behind her comes two fine looking young lasses about my age, one with a large white pitcher, with ladle handle sticking out, balanced on a hip. The other carries a platter of biscuits, still steaming from the oven.

  Mrs. O’Mally makes no bones about who’s running the show. Her first verbal shot is at the drummer, “Mr. Ragsnovich, please remove your hat at the table. You two gentlemen from out Dakota way, hang your belts and firearms on the hat rack please. This is not a firing range nor a battleground. And no one touch those spoons until preacher Manley has finished grace.”

  “Thank you, Margaret,” the preacher says, as the two linsey woolsey boys get up and hang their firearms as ordered, but they eyeball her as if she were something stuck to their boots. As both Ian and I have our Colts stuffed into our belts and under untucked shirts, we escape her wrath…however uncomfortable the revolvers may be.