The Congress of Rough Riders

by John Boyne

  Unlike the relationship with my mother, which Isaac was able to come to terms with due to his new role as single parent, I don’t believe he was ever quite able to forget the violence of his youth and the legacy which his father left for him. Also a drinker, Sam passed that trait down to his son, and even the capacity for violence, which certainly existed in Isaac, albeit in a mostly dormant fashion, was a family trait which was brought on display from time to time throughout my own youth. There is violence in every man in my family as far back as I can tell and I often thought that it would end with Isaac until I eventually discovered what anger and grief can make possible in anyone. What they could make possible in me.

  My great-grandfather met his great friend Homer Lee while riding for the Pony Express around the western American states of the 1860s. Lee, who went on to serve in William McKinley’s cabinet in later life as secretary for agriculture, was also a rider for the Pony Express but his life to date had been a lot less colourful than his new friend’s. For one thing, he had never left the state of Kansas and lived with his family on a substantial ranch fifteen miles north of Julesberg. The Lees were a wealthy land-owning family and Homer had been brought up with the kinds of privileges and luxuries which few boys at the time enjoyed. It was through some personal act of rebellion, a need to assert himself as separate from his family, that he joined the Pony Express riders in the first place, and it was seen as a curious step for a boy of such privilege, for to be employed with such an outfit required hard work and discipline, traits not often associated with his type. Mr Lee didn’t challenge his son, however, and allowed him to follow the course that he felt was right for him, believing – correctly as it turned out – that in time Homer would return to the family fold.

  Bill and Homer became in the habit of meeting in the evening times as my great-grandfather was returning to Julesberg after his day’s work and Homer was riding home and settling down on his family’s property for an hour or two with a smoke and a bottle of whisky, pilfered from Mr Lee’s supplies. Homer was a tall lad of nineteen and was known in the town as something of a rascal, having made one of the servants at his house pregnant when he was only sixteen. The girl had been sent away and nothing had been heard of her since and the word was that Homer was a cold character, unfeeling towards others, and it was a rare person who had anything but disdain for him. In truth, the girl had been sent away by Homer’s father and, while he had not been in love, Homer had regretted her loss and throughout his life wondered what had become of mother and child, whether the latter had even been born.

  ‘I was out near Drewshank today,’ Bill told Homer during one of their long summer evening layabouts on the grass of the Lee estate. ‘Delivering to some folks up there and it turned out there’d been a murder there a few nights earlier.’

  ‘A murder?’ said Homer, sitting up and taking notice of something a little out of the ordinary.

  ‘The whole town was up in arms over it. The man who died left a wife and twelve children.’

  ‘Drewshank’s a no-good place anyway,’ said Homer quietly. ‘What’s the point in getting involved with the things they do?’

  ‘I didn’t have any choice,’ said Bill defensively. ‘That’s where I was sent. Why, you been there?’

  ‘I been near there. Heard tell of the place. They had a sheriff once, name of Carter I think, who could put a bullet in a target from one hundred feet away. Did it as a regular treat for the town on Sunday afternoons, I heard. Everyone would come out and watch him and he loved it so he started getting more and more tricksy with his shots. One afternoon he blew the head off some five-year-old girl by accident and on account of that her father took his gun and blew Carter away while he was trying to apologise. Then that man was hung. All took place within a couple of days. I’d stay out of there if I was you. Things have a habit of turning nasty there.’

  Bill frowned. ‘I don’t think this murder had anything to do with that,’ he said after a moment. ‘This had something to do with the confederates, I think.’

  ‘Well that don’t surprise me,’ acknowledged Homer. ‘All those towns along the Kansas–Missouri border are going crazy right now. All fighting each other. Everyone turning up dead all the time. Don’t want to think what’s going to happen to us when the war hits here. You ready to join the army, Bill?

  ‘I guess,’ said Bill. ‘I hope I get my chance, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh you’ll get your chance, there’s no doubt about that. The whole state’s ready to burst into flames any minute. You and me, we’ll be lucky if we live to see Christmas. Come on up the house, there’s someone I want you to meet.’

  The two young men walked slowly up the hill towards the Lee mansion. Bill had never been invited inside before but he had always wanted to go in. It was a large plantation-style ranch, although this was a union family, not a confederate one. They held no slaves, only free men, but Bill noticed that those men were plentiful and did not look much happier just because they were getting the best part of a dollar every week and the word ‘freedom’ assigned to them. Homer took his wealth for granted; he had the privilege of being able to lead a dissolute and thoughtless youth, secure in the knowledge that he would never have to work for a living if he chose not to. As Bill entered the enormous white stone door of their mansion, he tried to compose himself and behave as if this world was one with which he was quite familiar. Afraid that he was staring around too much, he looked down at his feet instead and was drawn to the fact that of the two boys, Pony Express riders both, only one of them had a clean pair of boots with silver stirrups at their side.

  ‘This way,’ said Homer, leading his friend up the main stairway and through a small hallway which led to a pair of glass-tiled doors. He strode towards them confidently, a landowner in waiting. ‘Come on,’ he said, pausing for only a moment as he looked around and saw Bill standing nervously a few feet behind him. My great-grandfather could hear voices coming from within that room and was unsure about joining them. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Bill, suddenly wishing he was elsewhere, his natural enthusiasm and sense of adventure deserting him for once. ‘I was just … Do you think I should be in here?’

  ‘You’re my guest, ain’t you?’ asked Homer, hesitating for a moment before going back to Bill and putting an arm around his shoulder. He smiled at him, his white teeth gleaming, his skin brown and clear. Everything about him, Bill thought, testified to his easy upbringing. Not only did he have money, breeding and intelligence, the bastard was handsome too. ‘Don’t worry,’ he added. ‘I just want you to meet someone, that’s all.’

  He swung the doors open and stepped inside, taking Bill with him. Two men were sitting by the large, open fire, debating vigorously. A bottle of bourbon sat between them and the room was misty with cigar smoke. One of them, the man on the left, Bill recognised as Homer’s father, Stanton Lee. They had never actually met but Bill had seen him from time to time wandering around the estate or riding in of an evening while he was sitting talking to Homer. The other man was a stranger to him.

  ‘Father,’ said Homer in a raised voice when it became clear that neither man was going to stop speaking and acknowledge them. ‘There’s someone I want to introduce you to.’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Stanton Lee, looking around irritably and squinting through the smoke. He was a fat, red man, mostly bald but what hair he had on the sides of his head he had grown long and they hung around his face like a curtain on either side. His voice had a strong Southern inflection and he looked as if standing would take some effort. Bill stood to his full height and stared right back at him.

  ‘This is Bill Cody,’ said Homer, pulling him forward. ‘You’ve not met my father, have you Bill?’ he added and my great-grandfather shook his head. He stepped forward and shook Stanton Lee’s hand.

  ‘Pleased to meet you, sir,’ he said. ‘I think maybe we’ve seen each other around and about.’

  ‘Around and about where?�
� asked Stanton. ‘Do we frequent the same gaming tables or is it in the local whorehouse that we run into each other of an evening?’

  Bill stared at him, open mouthed, unsure what the correct response to such a question was. Stanton sucked on his cigar noisily and although he stared right back, he didn’t seem to require an answer. Homer felt nothing of the awkwardness of the moment and took two glasses from the sideboard before sitting down on the sofa and indicating that Bill should join him. ‘Over here,’ he said, pointing at the second man, ‘is a friend of my father’s. The reason we came in here,’ he added to the two older men, ‘was because my friend Bill here has recently returned from Drewshank—’

  ‘Lord save us,’ muttered Stanton Lee, shaking his head as if even the name of the town was like a curse on them.

  ‘Bill seemed to feel that there was trouble brewing down there. A murder of some sort the night before last. I thought maybe we should bring it to your attention, seeing as you like to be kept informed of troubles before they happen.’

  ‘Seems to me the trouble’s already happened,’ said the second man in an even tone of voice ‘On account of the murder having already taken place, that is. This is something of a … what do you call it … closing the barn door after the eh … after the …’ He clicked his fingers several times in quick succession as he tried to remember the phrase.

  ‘After the horse has fled,’ said Homer. ‘Yes, I know. I just thought we should mention it to you anyway. Senator, may I introduce Bill Cody to you. He’s a Pony Express rider like me. Wants to join the army someday, he says. Wants to fight in a war.’

  The man raised an eyebrow and extended a hand to Bill. Shaking it was like taking hold of the innards of a recently gutted fish. The fingers were long and waxy, as if he had died some weeks previously, and the shake was weak and effeminate. ‘Only a fool wants to fight in a war,’ he muttered. ‘Jim Lane,’ he added after a moment through his thin lips. ‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Cody.’

  ‘And you sir,’ said Bill, wondering whether he could wipe his hand on the seat beside him without it appearing too obvious. ‘You’ve been to Drewshank too then?’

  ‘Not in some time,’ said Lane. ‘Although I may be there, or thereabouts, quite soon.’

  ‘We’re going to wipe those confederate bastards off the face of the earth,’ said Stanton suddenly, leaning forward and pointing his finger at the two boys. ‘You know what we just heard they’ve done now? They only went down into—’

  Before he could finish his sentence, Lane had placed a hand on Stanton’s arm, tapping it twice quickly to indicate that these were not matters for open discussion as yet and certainly not in front of a couple of greenbacks like Homer and Bill.

  ‘Senator Lane represented Kansas for some years,’ said Homer, to fill a quiet moment. ‘He’s not in the senate now but he keeps himself … busy, politically speaking.’ Bill nodded his head quickly. He knew of Senator Lane, for he had been the Kansan senator throughout Bill’s own childhood, but he had not made the connection at first. He had a reputation of fierce loyalty to the union and he was not a man who minced his words, having brought himself to the point of censure on several occasions while serving in the Capitol. Since his retirement from public office, he had returned to the state of his birth but he had not stepped away from active duties as he moved from the acceptable face of the senate to the more dangerous world of hands-on warfare.

  ‘The senator,’ continued Homer, ‘leads a group of jayhawkers down near the—’

  ‘That is not a word which we use to describe ourselves, young man,’ said Lane in a loud, brusque voice. ‘And I’ll thank you not to use it in my presence. We are union men, that is all. That’s a good enough term for me.’

  ‘He leads a group of union men,’ Homer corrected himself with a slightly disrespectful tone in his voice, ‘who are waging war along the state borders at the moment. The confederates are afraid of them,’ he added in a proud tone of voice.

  ‘The confederates are not afraid of us,’ said Lane quietly, looking across at Stanton Lee, who nodded in agreement with that sentiment. ‘They are too strong in their beliefs to waste time fearing their enemies. The enemy is there to attack, not to have emotional feelings towards.’

  Homer nodded and looked a little disappointed. He was trying to show support for both his father and the senator but appeared to be failing on both counts. Now it was his turn to wonder whether he should make a hasty retreat. Before thinking of a way, however, the senator asked a question of him.

  ‘What’s a fellow like you doing riding around in the Pony Express anyway?’ he asked Homer, ignoring Bill as if the job was just about menial enough for a fellow like him. ‘Why aren’t you fighting for your beliefs too? Ain’t an army uniform fancy enough for you?’ he asked, glancing up and down at the boy’s Pony Express outfit with disdain.

  ‘My son has very few beliefs, I’m afraid,’ said Stanton Lee, affecting a tone of mock self-pity. ‘He finds the hardships of riding his pony around the countryside all day just about as much as he can handle, what with having to concentrate on his drinking and womanising so much.’

  ‘It’s a worthwhile job,’ protested Homer, keeping his voice civil, knowing that he would be wrong to embarrass his father in front of a man like Senator Lane. ‘Somebody has to do it.’

  ‘Well this Bill Cody fellow can do it, can’t he?’ said Lane. ‘So why don’t you come with me tonight, eh? We could do with lads like you. You’re fit and healthy, ain’t you?’

  ‘This Bill Cody fellow,’ echoed Homer through gritted teeth, ‘is the reason why I came in here in the first place. He’s the one who wants to see more action. He’s the one who wants to join the war, not me. I thought you might like to meet him for that very reason.’

  For the first time, Lane turned his attentions to my great-grandfather and he studied him up and down carefully. Bill stayed silent; he felt slightly irritated that his friend had failed to inform him of his intentions before offering him up to a potentially fatal new employment. However, that was balanced with his excitement about joining the jayhawkers. Even if it was a term that the senator did not like to employ, it was common currency among people of the neighbouring states and those of one mind with the jayhawkers saw them as heroes and adventurers all. The Pony Express had been fine, but this was something else. This was what he had been dreaming of: war. A chance to prove himself.

  ‘You want to come fight with us, boy?’ asked Lane and Bill nodded enthusiastically.

  ‘Surely,’ he said. ‘I know all about what the jayhawk – what you union men do, I mean.’

  ‘You’re of a mind with us then?’

  ‘I am. And I’ve killed before. I killed an Indian when I was a boy.’

  Lane laughed bitterly and shook his head. ‘Well for Christ’s sake don’t say it like it’s a badge of honour,’ he said. He paused and thought about it for a moment. ‘You got family around here?’ he asked. ‘People who might object to me taking you away to certain death?’

  ‘None at all,’ came the reply. ‘My family are all out in Iowa. Least I think they are as I haven’t seen them in a couple of years now.’

  ‘Well, very few of my boys have,’ said Lane sadly before nodding his head quickly and enthusiastically. ‘All right then. You want to come fight with us, you’re welcome to. You’re welcome, I say,’ he repeated, smiling briefly for the first time and shaking Bill’s hand again, an unpleasant experience. ‘It will be something to have two fine lads like you fighting alongside us. We’ll show them Missouri devils a thing or two, am I right?’

  Homer had been grinning away like a Cheshire cat while Lane had been warming to Bill but the smile disappeared from his face now quickly. ‘Two?’ he asked. ‘No, I think you’ve got it wrong, Senator. I was just bringing Bill in to introduce him to you. I thought you might have a place for him. But I’m happy where I am right now, thanks very much.’

  ‘With the Pony Express?’ asked Lane with disdain. ‘When there’
s a war to be fought? What kind of yellow son of a bitch are you anyway?’ His words were insulting but the tone he used made them sound on the right side of good humoured so that Homer would be unable to take offence.

  ‘Seems to me it could be the making of you, boy,’ said Stanton Lee, blowing huge rings of cigar smoke towards his son so that it seemed as if the matter was already settled. ‘What do you say, Bill? Would you be willing to have a brother-in-arms fighting alongside you down there on the borders?’

  Bill opened his mouth and looked from father to son with uncertainty. He could hardly say no, but he did not want to drag his friend into a situation which he did not want to be part of. Instead he decided to assume that the question had been rhetorical and sat back and said nothing instead. Homer Lee looked miserable. This interview had not gone at all according to plan.

  ‘Well that’s settled then,’ said Senator Lane, slapping a hand down on the side of the chair and coming alive at last, as if his whole day had been only geared towards the recruitment of fresh jayhawkers. ‘Your father here has kindly offered me a bed for the night but we’ll be leaving at the crack of dawn for Lawrence. So you boys better get off and get some rest now. From now on you’ll be taking your orders from me.’

  They stood up and shook hands with the two men. Closing the door behind them, Bill grabbed his friend’s arm enthusiastically but was disappointed to observe how pale Homer’s face was.

  ‘You all right?’ he asked, and the older boy nodded slowly.

  ‘That’ll teach me,’ he said, his voice low and unhappy. ‘Try finding a way out of this now.’

  ‘I don’t want a way out of it,’ said Bill, his voice betraying his excitement. ‘What’s wrong with you anyway? Don’t you want to fight?’

  ‘I don’t have a problem with fighting,’ explained Homer. ‘Dying don’t seem like such a good deal though.’ Bill frowned, unsure how to answer his friend but he didn’t receive an opportunity for the older boy walked away towards his room. ‘The senator’s right,’ he said as he disappeared out of sight. ‘We’d better get some sleep if we’re to go fight a war tomorrow.’