Читать книгу Confederate Money - Paul Varnes - Страница 10

The first time I saw Henry he was scrambling up the west bank of the Suwannee River looking like a drowned rat. Running for cover, he jumped behind the same big live oak that I had been sitting against while watching for a deer or hog. We sat for most of a minute looking at each other without speaking. Him being buck naked, I tried to keep looking him in the eyes. If it hadn’t been a serious situation, I would have broken out laughing. At the time I didn’t realize what an impact a man only one year my senior would have on my life. It was to be even more than that of my pa, who was killed in the war.

Henry said, “They were trying to kill me.” Just like I didn’t know.

We sat behind that live oak for almost fifteen minutes with them ranting and raving on the other side of the river the whole time. They didn’t know I was there and I saw no reason to tell them. Henry told me a little of his story then. After deciding they weren’t going to cross the river, he told me more as we hauled it for the house. Given the scars on his shoulder and head, and the situation in which we met, it wasn’t hard to believe him.

I gave him my coat to tie around his waist by the sleeves to make a skirt. That’s one reason I remember it was pretty cold on October 22, 1861. Though he must have been near freezing, he didn’t say a word about it. That’s the way Henry always was under extreme conditions.

Leaving Henry in the woods, I went in the house to get him a pair of pants. I told Ma a little of the story before I brought him in. She listened to the story without expression, other than her eyes taking on a twinkle.

Ma took to Henry right off. She started mothering him like an old hen with only one chick. Don’t you know the first thing she did was to take the cover from over the food on the table and make him eat? Although he had eaten two hours before, he didn’t say a word about it.

Henry had a natural way of getting along with women. I don’t know if it was his size, good looks, big shoulders, smooth way with words, or the way he respected them, but the girls, old and young, were sure cow-eyed about him. My oldest sister Lilly was no exception. Ma wasn’t either. Ma commented later that if she had been four or five years younger she would have staked a claim. Henry didn’t chase after the girls though. Being the last of the kids at home, and being raised alone, I guess he was a little shy at first. Lilly was thunderstruck the minute Henry walked in the door. Wherever she went, and whatever she was doing, she kept looking at him. Though not yet fifteen, she looked seventeen. All the boys for twenty miles around were panting over her like a pack of hot hounds after a fox chase. Lilly was the spitting image of Ma, but was eighteen years younger.

We didn’t have a big family. In addition to Lilly, I also had a younger brother and sister, and one who died as a baby. Pa went off to the war when it first started. We already had a letter saying he had been killed.

As he finished a plate of food, Ma gave Henry a piece of pie.

After taking one bite, he said, “That’s the best pie I ever stuck a fork in.”

Lilly had made those pies and I thought she was going to melt down like butter on a hot biscuit. The strange thing was that Ma took it as a bigger compliment. But then she was the one who taught Lilly to make pies. I’m telling you Henry could do no wrong around women. Not that I’m complaining, over the years I got close to more women by just standing around him than most men do from trying.

Ma insisted on Henry having a second piece of pie, which was a little strange. She always told us kids that one piece of pie or cake was enough. I took advantage of the situation by getting a piece for myself. When no one even noticed me get the pie, I decided I was going to stick to Henry, figuring that as long as there were womenfolk around neither of us would go hungry.

After eating, Henry sat there and told us lots of the story.

Finishing the story, he turned to Ma and said, “I’ve got to be going and get my mule and things back. It would be helpful if you would let me borrow a butcher knife, or an ax, to use as a weapon. I promise to bring it back.”

I could see Ma was going to tell him he couldn’t go, but she didn’t. Lilly looked horrified when Henry said he was going, but she didn’t speak. She hadn’t said much since he set foot in the house. She had never before been that quiet in her life, except in church.

Suddenly the expression on Ma’s face changed and she said, “You’ll take Ben’s shotgun.” That’s me of course, Ben. “Ben, you’ll take the rifle and go with him.”

Once she made the decision she scurried around and got everything ready. I couldn’t believe it then and I can’t believe it now. There she was sending her own boy off with a stranger to possibly shoot someone.

When we started out the door Henry put the sauce on the goose’s tail. Without saying a word he picked up Ma’s hand, kissed the back of it, and walked off. As we vanished into the woods she was still standing in the doorway with her hand out in front of her just like he left it.

What everyone should have been doing was laughing at that overgrown barefoot boy who was wearing my pants that were five inches too short, and my shirt that was so tight he couldn’t get even one button buttoned. His shoulders and arms were exceptionally big from using an axe and grubbing hoe. Standing six feet tall and weighing 180 pounds, at almost eighteen years old, Henry was almost as big as his natural pa had been.

After getting out of sight of Ma, we switched weapons. I preferred the shotgun and Henry preferred a rifle. Also, my shotgun hadn’t been modified to use percussion caps. It still had to be primed with powder before the flint was struck. Henry had never used one like that. The rifle was also an old one but it had been modified to use percussion caps. Pa had taken the newer rifle to war with him.

Being upstream from Bud’s gang, we headed straight for the river. I had a dugout beached there and it would be easier crossing in it. Also, they wouldn’t see us cross that far upriver and around a bend.

Once across the river we eased up to where we had last seen Bud’s gang, but they were gone. Their tracks led toward Fort White, fifteen miles to the east. Dark was settling in and we were moving pretty fast on their trail when it came to me that they were going to Sam’s place. Sam’s is a two-room store and bar that Sam also lives in. They were headed straight for it.

I told Henry about Sam’s as we walked. There wasn’t much to tell. It was three more miles east of us. A big front room had store-type goods in one end and a bar with four stools across the other. The bar end is closest to the door. The other room serves as a house for Sam. In order to keep the place as busy as possible, Sam is known to keep a woman around when he can.

Henry asked, “Does Sam keep any dogs around the place?”

I said, “There has never been one when I was there. But it’s been over a year since I last went there with Pa.”

He put me in front to lead and didn’t say another word.

When we got to Sam’s, Smokey and three horses were tied up at the hitching rail.

Henry said, “You stay here.”

Squatting down in the dark, I waited.

He was back in five minutes, and said, “All three of them are here. There’s also a big ugly man behind the bar. Red’s in the back room with a woman.”

“The man behind the bar is Sam,” I said.

“You wait here and don’t start anything until I say,” Henry said.

“Why don’t we just get the mule and go?” I asked. I was thinking, Me start something, not likely.

Henry said, “They have my ten dollars and have eaten my chickens. They also have my weapons inside.”

Since I could see there would be no reasoning with him, I hunkered down in the dark to wait. I was still wondering why Ma had volunteered me for this.

Back in ten minutes, Henry said, “They’re all in the front room now except the woman. We’re going in the front door. I’ll go in first and take Bud. He’s at the far end of the bar. You step in behind me and cover Hawkface and Red, but keep your gun on Red’s belly. He’s the crazy one.”

He paused for a moment, put his hand on my shoulder, and asked, “Can you do this? Can you shoot Red if he moves?”

Feeling his hand on my shoulder, I had a warm feeling and my confidence was building. It was suddenly like he was a big brother.

I said, “Yes. Ma told me to. I can do what’s needed.”

Henry bit the percussion cap tight around the nipple of his rifle before he stepped through the door. I thought the cap might explode in his mouth but it didn’t. He then walked straight through the door to Bud, who turned as Henry came in. Henry’s left hand was on the rifle barrel and his right hand was on the rifle stock. He didn’t even have a finger on the trigger.

While seeing all this, I had my eyes focused on Hawkface and Red. My twelve-gauge, on full cock, was pointed at Red’s belly as I heard myself say, “If you want to live, don’t move.” My voice was much stronger and more powerful than any words I had ever heard out of me.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Bud reach for a pistol that was lying on the bar and Henry bring the butt of his rifle up under Bud’s jaw. Everything was a blur to me as Bud fell to the floor like a sack of potatoes. Then Red started talking real fast and reached for a rifle.

As I had been instructed, I pulled the trigger but the gun didn’t go off. One problem with old guns that have to be primed with powder is that sometimes the priming powder sputters for a few seconds before the gun goes off. Sometimes it doesn’t go off at all. There I was holding a sputtering gun on Red and him getting his rifle. I was praying my shotgun would fire.

At a glance Henry saw what was happening. He pulled down his rifle from having hit Bud in the jaw, and shot Red in the side of the head. Somehow in those moments I remembered Henry biting down on the percussion cap before we came inside. If he hadn’t, the cap would have come off the nipple when he hit Bud, and the rifle wouldn’t have fired when he shot Red. Henry had planned the whole thing.

I was still holding a twelve-gauge with a sputtering primer. Since Hawkface was also moving into action, I pulled the shotgun around toward him. As luck would have it, the shotgun went off when I lined it up on Hawkface. That ended the altercation except for Sam, who had reached under the bar.

Having picked up the pistol Bud had been reaching for, Henry leveled it on Sam, but spoke to me, “We can do this legal, or we can kill them all and walk out. What do you say, Ben?”

I heard myself say, still in that authoritative voice, “It don’t matter to me. Let’s let Sam decide.”

Sam said, “Boys, I’ll do whatever it takes. Let’s do it the clean way. There’s a shotgun under the bar. I’ll feel better if one of you comes around and gets it.”

As I went around the bar to get the shotgun, the woman came out of the back room screaming. I thought she was going to have a stroke.

His voice cold enough to freeze hot water, Henry said, “Shut up and sit on that stool,”

She sat, but kept on sniveling.

Henry said to Sam, “Step outside and look at those horses.”

When they returned, Sam was saying, “The three of them rode up on those horses. They were leading the mule. The Bar-S brand belongs to a little planter north of here. I don’t have any idea about the Flying W. It’s not from around here. The slick horse, the unbranded one, could be from anywhere. I’ve seen those men before but don’t know much about them.”

After going through Bud’s and his friends’ pockets, Henry said, “I only find six dollars and forty cents. They had a ten dollar gold piece that belonged to me.”

“It’s in the drawer. Take it and go,” Sam said.

Henry said, “No. You two worked for your pay. These three owe me three dollars and sixty cents, and for the chickens and eggs. Until someone claims them, and proves ownership, I’m taking these men’s outfits and weapons as payment. I’m also going to write out the story just as it happened and all four of us are going to sign it.”

Sam got pen, ink, and paper and Henry started writing. Starting with them taking his things at the river, Henry wrote the story three times. The writing took a full hour.

During the writing the woman quit sniveling and began to come on to us. She wanted fifty cents to go in the back room. Henry wasn’t having any of it. To tell the truth she began to look good to me, and I started thinking about it, but I didn’t have fifty cents.

Henry took some things from the pack on the mule and showed them to Sam. Sam believed the story after seeing the books with Henry’s name in them and the clothes, which fit him.

We left one paper with Sam, along with instructions that he was to fetch the sheriff before cleaning up the place and was to give the sheriff the paper. Henry also explained to Sam that he better do it right or, when we came back through the area, we would stuff his body in a gator hole.

Ma was awake and reading the Bible when we came riding in near midnight. Lilly was also awake. Having eyes only for Henry, I don’t think Lilly was aware of me walking in the door.

I told the story, but didn’t tell about the woman. Though it was in the paper Henry had written, and Ma would know, Lilly didn’t need to know at the time. Ma then said a prayer. She didn’t beat it to death. She just said a few words of thanks for us being safe. We all held hands while Ma said the words. Lilly held on to Henry’s hands a few seconds longer than to mine. Ma pretended not to notice. I didn’t care what either of them did, Henry was my man and I was already planning on going to Pensacola.

We heard later that Bud died from infection in his jaw a few days after the set-to. His jaw was so broken up, and he was so addled, that he never said another word after Henry hit him with the rifle butt. It was also said that the sheriff was satisfied with what Sam and the woman told him. He never even came to talk to us.

A second copy of Henry’s paper was left with Ma, along with the Bar-S mare and the extra guns we didn’t need. No one ever claimed the guns or the horses. Ma inquired and found out that Bud had actually traded legal for the Bar-S mare. Lilly’s still riding that mare. No record was ever found of the other horses.

Ma talked Henry into staying and resting for several days before we left for Pensacola. I don’t know what he was resting from. He looked rested enough to me by late the next morning when we both finally got up.

Lilly persuaded Henry to teach her something about riding every day while we were still at the house. Though they were never gone for more than a couple of hours on any day, Lilly quickly became a very confident rider. Henry and I also talked about the stuff in Henry’s medical book every day. He was proud of that book.

For those few days I mostly sat in front of the house and cleaned our weapons and saddles, and waited for the right time to announce that I was going to Pensacola. I also started reading that medical book of Henry’s. Being a slower reader than Henry, I had to read twice as long as him and had to ask him how to say some words. It turned out that some of the words were just the names of joints, parts, or muscles of animals or people. They’re all about the same. Having cut up lots of hogs and deer, I knew those parts. Anatomy was simple once you knew how to say the words. Ma encouraged me to sit and read.

One thing of note happened that made all of them feel I would be safe going off with Henry. Ma had a hen that hatched off some chicks. A big red hawk soon started hanging around and stealing one of those chicks every day or two. As most women do, Ma keeps a snuff can full of arsenic for just such an occasion. When one of the chicks died, she stuffed some arsenic up its rectum and laid it on a horse pen post. Within an hour the hawk swooped in and snatched that chick off the post. Having reloaded his .45 caliber Hawken, which I had just cleaned, Henry was standing at the corner of the house and saw the hawk. Not knowing Ma had poisoned the chick to kill the hawk, he threw up and shot the hawk going away at sixty yards. He killed it dead as a stump. Even though I had to clean the rifle again, I was smiling about that shot.