by Drew McGunn
“Shit!” He ducked. It was stupid, he knew. Although the ball missed him, his reaction was instinctive. The kidnapper spun around, the pistol flying out of his hands. Running Creek stood, his smoking weapon in hand as he approached the fallen bandit.
From the shadow of one of the cabins, a figure flew at the Ranger. Too slow to swing his gun up, Running Creek was bowled over in the collision. His assailant was easily twice the young Cherokee’s age, and even though he had the drop on the young man, Running Creek was fighting back.
As Will approached, there was a muffled gunshot, and the older man rolled off the younger. The Ranger still held his pistol, although the gun and his hand were bloody. The older man clutched at his stomach as Will stood over him. Will recognized the man’s face from wanted poster from California. It was Obadiah Jenkins.
He still had a round in the cylinder. And Will wanted nothing more than to put a bullet in the body of the mastermind of his son’s kidnapping. Instead, he reached out and pulled Running Creek to his feet.
In the distance, he heard the unmistakable sound of a shotgun. He had left Jensen and Lobo to hold off Lamont and his men, but with things growing quiet, he said, “Go help Jensen.”
Will knelt by Jenkins and studied the man who had forced him to cross a continent. He could hear the labored breathing and see the mess of the man’s chest rise and fall. His breathing was shallow and labored. Grinding his teeth in frustration, Will climbed to his feet. He’d get no answers from Jenkins.
Ignoring the flurry of gunshots from the other side of the slave quarters, Will raced toward the cabin Charlie had enter only minutes earlier. He heard sobbing as he stepped across the threshold. Nearly a year older, but he instantly recognized his son’s voice as the youth cursed through the sobbing.
There was a lone candle on a table in the cabin. Wax pooled on the table, as the nub cast a feeble light. But it was enough for Will to see. Charlie sat atop a smaller man, who lay face down. The handle of a kitchen knife protruded from the man’s back. The dead man’s shirt was torn from where the blade had ripped open his skin, and blood soaked the material.
Beneath the body lay another. A black girl, perhaps a couple of years older than Charlie, struggled under the dead weight. She whimpered as she pushed against Williams’ corpse.
Will gripped Charlie’s shoulder, “Son, it’s over. He’s dead.” He helped Charlie to his feet, then rolled the body off the girl. She scooted away from them until her back was against the wall. Purple welts were rising on her throat from where her dead assailant had attempted to choke the life from her.
Will had seen the look in his son’s eyes before. It took him back to before the transference, during his first tour in Iraq. During one of the battles in Fallujah, as his fireteam cleared a house, a member of his team had secured a room when an insurgent stumbled into it from a hallway. The soldier’s rifle jammed when he fired on the intruder. He finally killed the other man with his M9 bayonet after a short but fierce scuffle. When Will pulled his friend from the dead insurgent, he’s eyes were dilated and he moved slowly, as though in a trance. The shock of killing the insurgent wore off, but it took time.
“Come on, Charlie, let’s get out of here.” Will guided his son from the cabin and as soon as they stepped into the firelight, he called out, “There’s a girl in here, she needs help.”
An older slave woman, who had been hiding behind one of the building ran past him, into the cabin.
***
Charlie released his grip on the kitchen knife as he felt Williams shudder beneath him. He looked at his hands, covered in blood. Williams’ blood. The rage of the last few months seeped away as his tormentor gasped his last breath.
As he replayed the previous moments, Charlie hadn’t realized he was standing inside the doorway with the knife in his hand until he saw Williams with his pants around his ankles, and the slave girl’s dress hiked up. When he realized Williams’ hands were throttling the life out of the girl, Charlie had leapt forward, plunging the knife into Williams’ back.
Charlie had wanted to feel his fists smash into Williams’ face and to kick and stomp on him until cried out for mercy. Instead, a knife in the back ended Williams’ life. Instead of rage or fear, there was nothing now except the release of months’ worth of fear and anxiety.
He felt a gentle hand on his shoulder, “Son, it’s over.”
The voice he had longed to hear for months shocked him out of his stupor, and he climbed off the body. He tried to say something, anything. But the words were stuck in his throat.
Although the empty pain threatened to overwhelm, Charlie clung to his father, scalding tears streaking his face.
“Merciful God, I feared I’d never find you, Son.”
The words were a balm. His pa had crossed thousands of miles to rescue him. As he wiped at his tears, Charlie became aware of the banging of guns. “Did you get them all?”
His father nodded. “Yeah. Jenkins and the rest of his men are dead.”
He followed his father into the firelight. The cooking fire had spread. Flames were licking their way up the side of one of the cabins. There were a few bodies on the ground, but most of the slaves were nowhere to be seen.
His pa knelt beside slave. A gaping wound had disfigured his face. Travis swore as he climbed to his feet. “I guess we’ll not be taking him with us, after all.
Travis turned to Charlie and said, “He told us where to find you, son. I’d told him we’d take him away. He must have been hit by a stray bullet.”
Charlie stared at the dead slave. He’d known very little about him other than he was a skilled carpenter.
From out of the gloom, he saw one of the Rangers he recognized from the Alamo garrison, from what seemed a lifetime ago, prodding a middle-aged man before him. Jason Lamont bled from a gash above his eye. Blood seeped from between his fingers where he held his right arm. His lips were twisted in a grimace as he looked around the slave quarters.
“Who the hell do you think you are?”
His pa stepped forward and struck him square in the face, “I’m the man who holds your life in his hands.” He stepped back and waved toward the ground behind him. “Jenkins and his group of murderers are dead. Why shouldn’t you join them?”
Lamont spat on the ground between them. “To hell with you, Travis. I’ve heard about your abolitionist ways out in Texas. You’d destroy everything we’ve built if given half a chance.”
Charlie had heard his pa say as much in the privacy of their home on more than one occasion. Now, Lamont was met with silence.
“If you’re smart, you’ll tell your man to release me. My men will return with the sheriff, and I suspect he’ll have more than a few words for you about killing my guests.”
The sound of his pa’s harsh laughter echoed off the nearby cabins, “Aiding and abetting murderers and kidnappers? Normally, I’d take you up on that, but we’re done here.”
He pulled his pistol from its holster and shot Lamont in the knee. The planter collapsed, cursing at his pa.
Travis said, “You deserve to die for helping Jenkins. But I’m feeling merciful. Maybe the sheriff will get here before your slaves realize you’re helpless and alone. Maybe he won’t.”
As his pa turned and walked away, Charlie had to hurry to catch up. Part of him wanted to go back and finish what Travis had started. Lamont deserved to die. But as Pa receded into the shadows, Charlie, without a backward glance, followed.
Along the bank of the Saluda River, a boat was staked to the shoreline. Two men, Mexican by their appearance, were already in the boat. One was wrapping a bandage around the other’s head. As Charlie climbed into the skiff, a voice called out, “Mister Charlie!”
Poking through the cattails was Cuffey. “Take me with you, please.”
The slave had scrapes and cuts along both his arms and his homespun shirt was torn. He stepped into the shallows, next to the boat, “I seen what your pa done to Marse Jason. When the sheriff come, there
’s gonna be hell for us to pay.”
Charlie glanced at his pa, who gave a curt nod. With hands still stained with Williams’ blood, he helped the slave into the boat, as it was pushed away from the shoreline. The men dipped their oars into the water and rowed to freedom.
Chapter 14
9 December 1843
Her hands were cold as she pulled the wet clothes from the wooden bucket’s soapy water. Although the sun was shining, the biting north wind cut through her woolen dress. She grabbed the wet clothes and took them to a flat wooden platform, where she spread the material using a wooden rolling pin to squeeze out the water.
“Becky, you nearly done? Dinner will be ready soon.” Elizabeth Crockett stood in the doorway, blocking Liza, who was trying to move through her legs. Approaching two years of age, the toddler was confident she could skootch by her grandmother if she just pushed hard enough.
Without missing a beat, Elizabeth used the spoon in her hand and landed it on the backside of her granddaughter.
In the midst of the child’s squalls, Becky smiled. “Just a few more minutes. I want to get these hanging on the line before dinner.”
The door closed, muffling the sound of her daughter. Things could have been worse. When she and her family had arrived, Don Garza hired her to handle his household’s laundry. Word traveled fast around West Liberty, and in less than a week, she had as much work washing clothes as she could manage.
Becky was swapping out a shirt on the board when she heard a high-pitched voice in Spanish, “Señora Travis, Don Garza sent me for his laundry.”
Becky wiped her hands and turned around. A Tejano child stood on the porch of her house, swinging his arms in wide arcs, trying to stay warm. She spared a smile for the boy. As she gathered Garza’s clean laundry, the boy said “Did you see the train? There was a couple of cars full of soldiers getting off.”
As she handed him a bundle, he continued, “There was a whole company of men from Gulf Farms getting off the train. Don Garza said the rest of the men ought to be returning before Christmas.”
She handed him the second bundle. He said, “Won’t that be a wonderful Christmas gift for all the families in town?”
Laden down, the boy moved away, toward Garza’s hacienda. As Becky watched him leave, she leaned against the porch and grabbed at her arms, shivering.
The idea the army’s reserves were being demobilized should have filled her with joy. It meant an official end to Texas’ war in Mexico. Instead, she felt a tear slide down her cheek. It was hot against her icy skin. She missed Will; her war wouldn’t be over until he returned with Charlie.
After saying a prayer for her husband and stepson, she finished the laundry before going inside.
“Becky, do we have any more sugar?” Elizabeth said from the corner of the one-room house that served as their kitchen.
“No, ma. A pound was thirty-five cents. That’s highway robbery.”
Elizabeth grunted as she stirred the pot, “I can’t bake my Christmas cakes without something sweet. What about molasses?”
“Sixty cents for a gallon.”
The spoon rattled in the pot as Elizabeth said, “I thought we’d won the war. What with prices three or four times more expensive than before, how are we supposed to eat.”
Becky hid her smile as Liza pretended to be her grandma, stomping across the floor, while babbling. “It could be worse. At least flour and cornmeal are close to the same price as before. It’s not like we’re going to starve.”
From her place on the floor, Liza stomped and twirled, squealing, “Not starve!”
Both women forgot about the high cost of luxury items as they laughed at the toddler.
***
“We’ll be getting underway in an hour, sir.” Captain Thompson said as they sat in the captain’s cabin. He glanced at Charlie, who had taken the chair next to Will’s. “I confess, I wondered if you were on a fool’s errand, General, but damned if you don’t show up with your son and prove me wrong.”
“Let me know when you’re putting this boat through the Bolivar Roads, then I’ll consider celebrating.” The Bolivar Roads, named in honor of the South American liberator, was the narrow channel separating Galveston from a peninsula with the same name.
“With any luck, I’ll have y’all home before…”
Will heard a shout from the ship’s deck and a moment later the heavy pounding of shoes racing along the narrow hallway belowdecks. A midshipman stood at the door to the Captain’s cabin, “Beg your pardon, Captain, but a boat’s hailing us.”
Will followed the captain topside where he saw a small dinghy bobbing in the water. On the little boat, a man stood in the bow, balancing against the low gunwales. “United States Marshal TJ Condy, permission to board the Nueces?”
Several more men were crowded into the small boat. Captain Thompson glanced at Will, “It seems you may have been right, General. I can’t refuse them permission.” He turned to the midshipman and said, “Get them onboard and send for Lieutenant Porter.”
Will and Charlie joined Captain Thompson on deck, aft from the ship’s wheel. Cuffey was in the ship’s infirmary. A well-dressed man came up the ship’s ladder. He waited by the gangway until another man crawled up beside him.
The Nueces’ midshipman escorted them aft. “Captain Thompson,” his youthful voice cracked, “United States Marshal Condy and Sheriff’s deputy Alfred Brown to see you, sir.”
The marshal looked more like a clerk than a lawman, but Brown looked like the stereotypical southern lawman minus the badge. He wore a brace of caplock pistols on his hips and a shotgun slung over his shoulder.
Condy dipped his head to the ship’s captain, “See you’re getting ready to head out, so we’re mighty thankful for your time. Deputy Brown arrived on the train this afternoon from Richland district. Says that he’s tracking an escaped slave from one of the plantations in the Midlands.”
Thompson frowned, “Odd place to come searching, don’t you think Marshal?”
Brown stepped forward and spat a stream of tobacco juice over the railing, “I got my reasons for wanting to check the ships in port before they sail away.” His eyes slid toward Charlie.
Condy caught the motion and let his eyes rest on the boy, too. After a long pause, he said, “Well, bless my soul. It seems that you’ve managed to track down General Travis’ missing son, and here in South Carolina no less. I guess all those notices from Washington for me and my deputies to keep an eye out for the boy had some truth behind them.”
Brown tore his eyes from the boy and shifted his glare between the captain and the marshal. “The boy don’t interest me none. Just want to search the ship and make sure no escaped slaves are on board.”
Will wondered how much the deputy knew about the raid. He stepped in front of Charlie and offered his hand to the marshal, “William Travis, sir. I wish I’d have made your acquaintance a few days ago. Turns out my companions and I had the good fortune of tracking the murdering and thieving renegades who kidnapped my son to their hiding hole in Deputy Brown’s district.”
When Condy turned to the deputy, Brown shook his head, “That shit don’t concern me. Just looking for runaways.”
Will’s lip twitched. He turned to Condy, “I doubt Deputy Brown bothered telling you that we found my son on one of the plantations on the Saluda River. The men who captured him were hiding in plain sight in the slaves’ quarters. When we showed up the slaves ran one way, and my son’s kidnappers ran the other.”
Will might have been standing on a Texian flagged ship, but he wasn’t going to admit to killing them in front of a US Marshal.
Condy turned on Brown, “That would have been worth passing along, don’t you think? How many slaves have run off that plantation?”
Brown stepped back, surprised at the other man’s tone, “Hell, I don’t know. I was told to get my ass over to Charleston and see if any Texians were in town. That there was a slave with them.”
Will nearly enjoy
ed watching the Marshal stare down the deputy. With a prolonged sigh, Condy turned back to Will and Captain Thompson. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen any slaves hereabouts?”
Both men shook their heads.
Condy turned to leave, “Come on, maybe we can get you back to Columbia, and you can make yourself useful finding runaways.”
Brown cursed, “I want to search the ship. They’re lying. Damned if there ain’t any slaves onboard.”
Condy reached the ship’s ladder, “Search yourself if they let you. Unless you can part the Red Sea or walk on water, you’re on your own for a ride back to shore.”
Fuming and swearing, Brown followed the marshal over the ship’s side.
Once the boat pulled away, Captain Thompson turned to Will and with a wink, raised his voice, “Hoist the anchor! Next stop, Galveston.”
***
The dolphin leapt into the air in front of the Nueces, splashing back into the water of Bolivar Roads. Charlie leaned over the gunwales and pointed, “Look, Pa. There’s a whole family of them!”
His pa laughed and leaned against the side of the ship, “They’re called a pod. Magnificent creatures.”
More of the dolphins leapt from the water, racing ahead of the steamship. “Why do they do that?”
Travis shrugged, “Who knows, maybe they’re bored. Racing against the ship has got to be more fun than searching for their next meal.”
Charlie hadn’t felt as free since the night he slipped out of the house so many months before. The cold northern breeze bit at his cheeks, turning them a bright, rosy red. His pa had already ignored the dolphins at play before the ship. He’s seen Travis wear that expression during the ten-day voyage home.
“Merry Christmas, Pa. I can hardly wait to see Liza, David, and Becky. I bet they’ll plant wet kisses on us.”
His pa turned away from the bow and tousled his red hair, “I imagine they will. And, yes, it’s going to be a very Merry Christmas. The whole family will be together in just a few days.”
From the narrow channel to the port of Galveston was but a distance of a few miles, and they were soon standing near ship’s pilot as he edged the Nueces toward her berth alongside one of Galveston’s docks.
