West Of The War Page 4

The preacher must be frustrated and without a congregation, as his blessing goes on as long as many sermons I’ve heard. Finally, Mrs. O’Mally snaps, “Manley, get over yourself. The foods going cold.”

  He severs a lengthy sentence with a quick amen and the girls start ladling out the soup and passing out a pair of biscuits the size of your palm to each setting. As soon as the light biscuits kiss the table beside our bowls we’re slathering on the butter and dripping them with honey.

  Damn, if it’s not ambrosia, and unlike we were warned, there’s plenty of chunks of pork to go with the potatoes, turnips, and onions. And after we’ve all finished the first bowl, one of the girls returns with a fresh pitcher full and ladles all over again.

  About the time I’m halfway through my second bowl, the cockeyed Dakota boy speaks up, and his comments are directed at Ian and me.

  “You two. You got on military trousers.” He turns to his partner. “Looks to be rebs to me.”

  Ian, a little unusual for him, says nothing and goes on shoveling it in. So I follow his lead and just keep eating. But ol’ crooked eye won’t leave it alone.

  “Is that right, you two a couple of slave beatin’ southern scum suckers?”

  I settle back in my chair and eye him a few seconds before responding. I give him a smile, then ask, "You got a name to go with that mouth of your'n?"

  "I would be Cornel Proust, and this here is my pard, Horst Gauss."

  "Well, well, corny and horse. Old horse there is big enough to eat hay and do his business in the road, and you're ugly enough that you look like horsey has taken his hooves to you more'n once't. But since we are enjoying Mrs. O'Mally's fine table, I'll be waiting until after we've had our fill to meet y'all in the back yard to finish this discussion."

  Both of them sit stiff as posts with mouths so tight you couldn't drive a nail between their lips, but I return to my soup.

  Ian, to my surprise, turns to Mrs. O’Mally, “Ma’am, that was as fine a meal as I’ve had in more’n a year. May the good Lord continue to smile on you and yours. When it comes your time may you be in heaven an hour before the devil knows you've gone to your reward. I’ll be excusing myself, if I may. I am not accustomed to such language and bad manners as these two gents and my traveling mate have displayed.”

  This elicits a chuckle from both the Dakota boys, and a bit of a surprised glance from me. Ian gives Mrs. O'Mally a shallow bow, says "pardon me, ma'am," then rounds the table and reaches up and jerks one of the belts with pistol filled holster off the hat rack. The two Dakota boys have been following his every movement with stupid smiles on their ugly mugs, but they fade at Ian's reach for their weapons and both jump up as he grabs a gun belt, but he doesn’t pull the weapon. Rather he closes the three paces between them and uses the belt and pistol as a bludgeon, knocking the cockeyed one silly with the first blow and dropping him to his knees.

  The other one grabs a spoon up as if it’s a knife, and that makes Ian laugh. He feints with the belt and drives a straight jab into the nose of the larger of the two and he reels backward. Ian drops the belt and goes after him, knocking him senseless with a right and then through the kitchen door with a hard left.

  He's on the kitchen floor, with one of the young serving girls standing over him with a pitcher half full of hot soup. He starts to rise and she dumps the soup on his face. He bawls like a branded calf and rolls to his belly and crawls on all fours for the back door, probably hunting a horse trough in which to cool off.

  But dropping the belt was Ian's mistake, as ol’ cockeye is on the floor and dragging the pistol from the holster.

  I firmly believe that Ian could knock out a mule with that terrible right hand of his, but he can’t get his hammer-hard right to cockeye fast enough, but he can kick and as the boy on the ground is bringing up the pistol, kicks him under the chin hard enough to lift him a foot off the floor.

  Ol' cockeye goes down as if he’s been head-kicked by a mule.

  Ian brushes off his hands and again turns to Mrs. O’Mally. “Ma’am, I’m sorry that had to happen at your fine table. I’m happy nothing seems to have been broken—”

  She interrupts him, “Except a couple of hardheads, boyo. And it seems to me they were in need of the breaking.”

  The preacher is stammering. “I…I…should I…should I go get the town marshal?”

  “I believe not,” Mrs. O’Mally says. “I believe Mister...Mister…what was your name, boyo?”

  “Hollihan, ma’am. Ian Hollihan.”

  “Of the Cork County Hollihans?” she asks.

  “Some of my folk found their way to Kerry County, but yes, way back, from Cork.”

  She turns to the preacher. “Reverend Manley, we’ll hear no more of this town marshal hogwash. This was just a friendly disagreement. If these ill mannered fellas want to cause trouble after they awaken, I’ll request Mr. Hollihan’s assistance again. He was defending my table and the good nature of my dining room, and that’s that. Agreed gentlemen?” The preacher eyes each of us in turn as we give Mrs. O'Mally a smile, nod, and a "yes, ma'am." I have trouble getting the smile off my face.

  Then she turns back to Ian. “I’d appreciate it if you and Mr. McTavish would retire before these two louts get their senses. I’ll be puttin’ them in a downstairs room so as you won’t cross paths until breakfast. If they cause a fuss, I’ll be puttin’ them out in the street and I have just the coach gun to help with the task. Now, good night to you.”

  “And to you, ma’am.” I say, and Ian follows me out and up to our assigned room.

  As it happens, Ian and I share a bed with two other fellows, the preacher and the drummer, who look askance at Ian as he takes up a third of the bed by himself. I try it for awhile, then say to hell with it and move to the floor, which is fine as I’ve been sleeping on the hard ground for days. Fine, except the chamber pot just under the edge of the bed seemingly hasn’t been emptied since a use or two and the smell would gag a maggot. I finally get up and find myself downstairs in the sitting room where I roll up in a hoop rug and sleep the sleep of the dead until daybreak.

  It’s my plan to awaken long before the two Dakota boys might wander in and find me rolled up and ready to be kicked into a tube of mush.

  Chapter 4

  And I do awaken before the sun.

  I presume the privy is out back and as I need the use of it wander that way. To my surprise, Mr. Cornel Proust and Mr. Horst Gauss are nearby, saddling a couple of good looking tall horses. They are rigged up like drovers, both saddles with hemp lariats tied thereon, both with tall leather wrapped horns for dallying. I hesitate, then say to hell with it and pass within ten feet of them.

  The bigger of the two stops sucking up the latigo and gives me a hard stare. Then snaps, "You got our names, buttercup, but we didn't get yours?"

  I stop, making sure my shirt is propped up over the firearm stuffed into my belt and it's plainly seen. "McTavish, Brad McTavish."

  Both of them have sidearms and long arms in saddle scabbards, but seen to have no desire to reach for either.

  He looks me up and down, then snarls, "I believe I'll be remembering you, McTavish. You heading west, running from the war."

  "My business, Horse Gas."

  "It's Horst. Horst Gauss, and you should remember it." He's talking to me, but glancing up at the big yellow house.

  "Have a good trip, Horse Gas," I say, with a curl of the lip, then I glance up at a second story window and see why the two of them haven't tried to gut shoot me. Ian is leaning out the window between blue shutters, his sidearm in hand.

  Horst turns to me and as he mounts up, says, "You're the one should be worrying about the good or the bad of his travels. Keep your eye out, pilgrim."

  I shrug, and walk on, but I don't enter the privy. More than one fella has been shot through a privy door while his pants was on the floor and he was concerned with his business. Instead I walk on to a corral full of stock and admire a fifteen hand gray mule until the two of them ride out and
I'm sure they're gone.

  I give Ian a wave and get a smart salute in return.

  It's a beautiful mule.

  One of the main reasons I want to make a pass by the home place, in addition to checking on my ma, is the slight chance there'll be a head or two of our stock somewhere nearby.

  In a pasture a half a mile from the house, with belly deep grass and a small branch of the slough for water, pa kept six fine percheron mares, draft stock, for breeding by a Jack he'd brought up from Mexico. Jack, as we'd not so originally named him, was almost thirteen hands, hung like the donkey he was, and could cover the mares. And the mares would throw the strongest mules, normally fifteen or more hands and over a thousand pounds, some of the gelded Johns as heavy as fourteen hundred pounds. The best mule stock in all of Missouri.

  We had to stall the mares in a special narrow breeding stall when in season and ready, and had to muzzle ol' Jack as he would teeth-rip the necks and shoulders of the mares while he was planting the seeds of a fine mule. Ma embarrassed me when she took me aside and explained that was no way to treat a female and I told her I had no intention of putting my teeth to a lady...then added...to my wife, should that time ever come.

  Pa was known up and down the river for his mules, trained mostly by Raymond and me, right there on the farm.

  We'd only had our own work and brood stock near the house when the trouble came, all the other market stock having been recently sold at an auction in St. Louis. Four mules, six Percheron mares, Jack, plus four geldings we kept for riding and pulling ma's buggy. We also kept a few hogs, a dozen or more sheep, chickens, and our darkies were allowed to keep a dozen goats.

  And all of them would be prime pickings for either the bluecoats or the butternut boys, should they happen on them. Particularly the draft horses and mules.

  But the fact is, I don’t expect to see a sign of life at McTavish Farm.

  By the time I've finished my privy business and head back for the kitchen door, the sun has turned the eastern sky crimson and a coal oil lamp has been fired up in the kitchen. I enter and see Mrs. O'Mally stoking the fire in the Buck Range.

  "Might I fetch a load of kindling for you, ma'am?" I ask.

  "Obliged. Bin is just left of the steps."

  I bring in an armload and replace what she's taken from a basket next to the range.

  "Coffee's a boiling. Give it a couple," she says as she pours flour in a bowl, then adds a handful of lard.

  I watch her work until she looks up. "Pour us both a cup, boyo. My hands are a little slippery."

  And I do, then ask, "Those two fellas with the loose lips. They from hereabout?"

  "Spoon in a teaspoon of sugar, if you please. ...Them boys come all the way down from Dakota Territory, bringing a load of cattle aboard the Lizzy Ann. They got a pocket full of twenty dollar gold pieces from the sale of them and are horsebacking all the way back, or so they say. They won't be anymore trouble." Then she looks up from kneading her biscuits and gives me a grin. "In fact after the Irish education your friend Ian gave them, I imagine they'll be eager to get on their way."

  "I imagine," I say, and return the smile.

  One of the young helpers sticks her head in the door. "Have you fetched the eggs yet, ma'am?'

  "No, Gretchen, please do, and throw some mash to the birds before you come in."

  "Yes'um," she says, passes through the kitchen, and is shortly followed by Ian.

  "Could I trouble you for a dollop of that coffee, Missus?" Ian asks, and gives me a nod.

  "And good morning to you," Mrs. O'Mally gives him a smile as if he's a returning prodigal son. "Help yourself. Biscuits, syrup, fried eggs and sidepork on the table in twenty minutes, boyo."

  "Could we work up an appetite by chopping some wood?" I ask, and get a smile to equal the one that Ian received.

  In an hour Mrs. O'Mally has a half cord of wood chopped and split, we have bulging bellies from feather weight biscuits, and we're putting shanks mare to good use on our way northeast to McTavish Farm.

  We are well fueled by a fine breakfast and make good time. The riverside road is worn and smooth until we turn west on a rough two track, however I'd much rather be aboard one of the stern wheelers or side wheelers that pass us, moving up the Mississippi much faster than we can walk. Should we ride one downstream we’d come to St. Louis, where the Big Mo meets the Mississippi, and we could catch another ride up her to McTavish Farm, had we the coin.

  After only a dozen miles and a little more than a half day, we come upon a shanty town near the water, where some darkies are drying fish, carp and catfish, on racks over smoking fires. The odors waft our way and my mouth waters. In times past I would stride over and invite myself to lunch, but it’s a new day.

  As we pass, I'm surprised when someone shouts my name. "Masser McTavish."

  I turn and see a man approaching, his dusky complexion, with crevices deep enough to be shadowed and a shock of white hair, makes me gasp. Then I see as he nears one eye’s gone white and know it's Emanuel, father to Raymond and Pearl.

  I can't help myself, but step forward and embrace him, then hold him at arm's length. He seems more frail, smaller, and more bent than I remember.

  "You look fine, old man. Just fine. Is Raymond hereabouts...or Pearl," I ask, then my mouth goes a bit dry and my jaws knot as I remember my father hanging and doing a slow roast near the burning house.

  "Ain't seen them since the trouble at the farm," he says, but I get the distinct impression he's not telling all he knows. “I did hear Raymond took to flight and headed west.”

  "And my ma? What of my ma?"

  "I don' know, Masser Brad."

  "I guess it ain't masser no more, old man. It's just you and I and a new time, unless the south proves the victor. Then we'll take it up again, should the law say it's right."

  I can see a flair of fire in his eyes, and he says, through clinched teeth. "Ain't never been right, masser, just been the way it be."

  I chew on that for a minute, knowing he could be right. "That ain’t truly what this war is all about, but that’s a discussion for another time. We got to move on, old man. You give Raymond my regards and tell him…should you ever see him again…now that pa's gone, he'll always have a place to put his feet by my fire."

  "Ain't no hurry up to leave," he says. "We got a whole tub fulla mud bugs and we gonna boil 'em up. You welcome to pitch in, should you care to."

  I turn to Ian who's been standing back watching this exchange. "You want to suck some tails, pardner."

  He laughs. "What the hell are you two talking on...mud bugs, suckin' tail?"

  "Crawdads. Crayfish. My old...old uncle here, Emanuel, has invited us to lunch."

  "Suits me if it suits you," he says, and we climb a small bank away from the riverside road to the loosely constructed ramshackle village of log and bark houses, and planks and other trash picked up on the river bank. Half of Emanuel’s door is a Black Widow whisky sign, turned on edge.

  Emanuel tells me of his wife's passing; his wife, Annamae, who many times was like a mother to me. She patched up my skinned knees and even chastised me when I did wrong, even more than my own ma. And I could not help but feel my eyes go wet when I hear of her drowning while hiding from a troop of southern boys. Damn, if this war ain't confusing.

  As we sit and are each served a large bowl of boiled crayfish and are given a cup of peach wine almost strong enough to be brandy—a specialty of old Emanuel's, as I remember—memories of times past flood my mind. I've sat to many a meal with Emanuel and his wife Annamae, and his children Pearl and Ray, but this time I realize it's different. I'm a guest in his house...he's not a servant, a slave, in mine. He seems to take no notice of the difference, but it continues to niggle at me. Here my family has owned him and his family since long before I could toddle. He was like an old uncle to me, yet he was also chattel, to be bought and sold should it have to be done. He was…he is…like family to me, yet he is not, and he knew the both of it and I gues
s so did I.

  Things are the same, yet things are so different.

  We finish and I rise from the table, made of driftwood planks picked up on the riverbank, and I offer my hand. He takes it, covers my hand with the other one, and gives me a sad smile. "You stay well, young Braden. You always think on the fact yer daddy was a fair man, and your mama nursed us like we was her own chillin…no matter what comes of this here trouble."

  "Yes, sir," I say, "and you stay well, old uncle. That was a fine meal and we thank you."

  He rises from his bench and crosses the room to a makeshift pie safe with wet burlap covering its contents. Reaching inside he takes out a half loaf of hard bread and a generous handful of jerky then wraps them in a rag and returns, handing them to me.

  “That’ll get y’all a ways,” he says.

  “Obliged. I owe you.”

  It's probably the last time I'll see him, and it's likely I'll never see Pearl or Raymond again, and maybe that's for the best.

  It's another three and a half days, or more, walk to Arrow Rock then on a couple of miles on to McTavish Farm, so we set out again.

  After an hour, Ian sidles up to me. "You ain't said nary a word since those folks shared lunch with us."

  "Just thinking on this war, on the right and wrong of it, on the fact I technically own that man just fed us and a few more in that camp, and the right and wrong of that."

  “Well, sir, that Army thing…it’s all just a pay day to me, a horse to ride, and the company of some fine lads. But you was raised up here amongst all this and I can understand the wonder of it.”

  He paces me, quiet for a while, then shrugs as he offers, "You know you do what you know to do and you know to do what your ma and da say to do, if you are an obedient son and you damn well owe that to them what brought you into this world and fed you and put clothes on you and taught you to read, write, and cipher and love the Lord. And if all that ain't right, I guess it ain't your fault.” Then he nods his head and says with some finality. “You do what you know and what you done been taught."

  I nod, but ask, "So, does that make it right?"