Rifles for Watie

by Harold Keith

  He was walking through a green patch of tamarisk and sand-bar willow when he first heard the baying of the hound. The sound came from far behind him in almost exactly the direction he had been traveling, a long, low, melancholy moaning that swelled into a deep, sobbing roar, filling the air like a hunting horn. The hills and hollows back of Jeff rang with its weird howling.

  Terror cramped his stomach muscles. He quickened his stride. He knew it was the Texas bloodhound Fields had gone to Preston after.

  He threw away his stick and began running. A feeling of bitterness and disaster surged over him. He was trapped almost at the fort’s threshold. The hound would lead the rebels to him long before he reached the river. This time they’ve got me sure, he said to himself. They may not even bother to take me back to Boggy. This may be my last fifteen minutes on earth.

  His breath began to snag in his throat, and he slowed to a fast walk.

  Long bars of light from the sinking sun fell across his path. The hound sounded much closer now. It yelped and whimpered eagerly as the trail grew hot and it realized it was close upon the quarry it had been so long pursuing.

  Jeff felt the sweat running down his nose, and his tired feet chafing in his broken shoes. The hound was coming faster and faster. Suddenly it broke into a long, full-throated roar of triumph, and he knew it had sighted him.

  His skinny ribs heaved like bellows under his torn blouse. Pouring out the last of his fading energy, he ran twenty more faltering steps, then staggered and fell headlong into a small depression. He couldn’t get up. Panting in utter exhaustion, he turned over on one elbow and waited for them, his heart thumping wildly.

  A thin, continuous patter of racing feet approached over the hard, smooth sand. There was a loud snuffling. Then the tall grass above him swished and parted.

  A big liver-colored hound thrust its ugly head through the grass. Its forehead was pitted with long, deep wrinkles wet with perspiration. It had low-hanging jowls and its long ears hung down like cabbage leaves. When it opened its mouth to pant, its long, pink tongue dropped almost to the ground. Bracing itself with its front feet, it regarded Jeff solemnly.

  Staring at the dog, Jeff felt no horror of it. Its sad face reminded him of an old man, rather than a monster.

  The hound peered at Jeff and then back over its shoulder as if to say to its followers, “He’s here.” But Jeff heard no sounds of approaching horsemen. Apparently the hound had outrun its handlers.

  The closer he looked at it, the more it seemed like any other dog except for its terribly homely face. He felt a flash of hope.

  He had never seen a dog he didn’t like, nor one he couldn’t pet. He crawled to his knees, tottering dizzily. Holding out one hand, he talked kindly to the hideous-looking animal. Its long tail began to wag back and forth, sweeping the sand behind it in a smooth half circle and sending the small twigs flying.

  Jeff got one foot under him and stood weakly.

  The dog walked slowly up and sniffed loudly at Jeff’s clothing, satisfying itself that Jeff was the scent it had been following for miles. He felt the suckling pressure of its nose on his legs and ankles. It sounded as if it had rollers in its nose.

  He reached behind its ears and rubbed its head gently. Its police spirit fading, the hound forgot duty completely. It sat down, permitting him to fondle it at will.

  Jeff examined its collar and saw the name Sully engraved on a tiny brass plate. It was the Texas hound, all right. But where were Fields and the rebels?

  He tottered out of the depression and looked and listened to the south. Although he saw nothing, he could faintly hear cursing and shouts somewhere in the gathering dusk behind him. He didn’t wait to hear more. Reaching into his shirt, he pulled out the last of his barbecued ham and gave it to the hound. The animal sniffed curiously at it, then bolted it down.

  Jeff whistled coaxingly and held out his hand. “Come on, Sully,” he invited, using his most persuasive tones.

  Without hesitation the dog began to follow him. Jeff was elated. As long as he had the bloodhound, its rebel masters were going to have a hard time finding his trail in the dark. He was careful to stay on the grass and out of the soft sand, where his footprints would be easily visible. Plodding along steadily, boy and dog vanished into the river canebrakes. . . .

  Next morning, an hour after sunrise, a squadron of Union cavalry riding patrol five miles below Fort Gibson saw them emerging out of the river mists. The lieutenant in charge, a medium-sized fellow with a big Roman nose, pulled his mount to a stop. Pushing his hat back on his shaggy, blond head, he stared incredulously.

  “Looks like a man walkin’. But what in Sam Hill’s that with him? Mebbe we better go see.”

  They came cantering up, and the lieutenant, riding at the head of the column, hoisted his fist, halting the patrol. The boy was all skin and bones and dirt. And where in the world had he found the sad-faced hound that accompanied him?

  Jeff saw their blue uniforms with the yellow braid down the side of the trousers. For a moment he feasted his eyes upon them. Pants and blouses all the same color. Sabers and carbines and metal canteens. Every man dressed and equipped alike and riding a thousand-pound horse. No patches, nor ponies, nor shotguns, nor clay jugs. His eyes misted over. They were the prettiest sight he had ever seen in his life.

  Wearily he shoved his heels together and saluted. The hound sat down beside him.

  “Sir, I’m Private Bussey. I’m just getting back from being fourteen months overdue on a scout. I have some very important information. Please take me to General Blunt at once.”

  The lieutenant looked queerly at him. “General Blunt ain’t assigned here now. He was transferred back to Kansas a year ago. Colonel Wattles is in charge at the fort. We can take you to him, I reckon.”

  When he heard the lieutenant’s voice, Jeff’s mouth popped open and his bloodshot eyes lighted up with recognition.

  “Sir, you’re Lieutenant Orff, aren’t you? Don’t you know me, Lieutenant? Remember stopping the rebel charge with your Spencer that day we were returning from the scout across the Arkansas?”

  Orff gaped. “Gosh all fishhooks! It’s Bussey!”

  He spoke so loudly, the whole patrol heard him. A bay horse turned out of the column. The tall cavalryman astride it rode alongside Jeff.

  “Waw!” he growled commandingly to his horse. Climbing off, he picked Jeff up bodily and with a mighty swoop of his wide shoulders, swung him easily into the saddle. Then he mounted behind.

  “Howdy, youngster,” he drawled. “Where ya been all this time?”

  Jeff grabbed at him with both hands and held on weakly.

  “Noah!” he blurted. He had never felt so glad in his life.

  They moved off at a swinging gallop. Jeff craned his neck around, anxiously watching the hound behind him.

  “Noah, don’t let ’em lose my new dog. He wouldn’t dare go back to Texas now. They’d stand him up before a firing squad and shoot him full of holes. Is he coming?”

  Noah looked back over his shoulder.

  “He shore is. Like the heel flies was after him. Runs easy, too. Looks like he could go all day without a drink. He seems to think he’s yore dog, all right. Ugly as galvanized sin, ain’t he? Where’d you take up with something as raunchy-lookin’ as that?”

  Jeff grinned. “It’s a long story,” he said.

  25

  Linn County, Kansas, 1865

  Jeff rode north up the military road. It was a cloudy morning in June, 1865. The war was over, and they were going home.

  It was hard to get used to being out of the army. He had traveled so widely, learned so much, and had so many things happen to him that it seemed he had been gone fifteen years instead of nearly four. He wanted very much to see his family. And he wanted very much to see Kansas, now that peace had finally come.

  They came to the crossing of a small creek spilling noisily across the road. The dun’s ears flattened warily. After last night’s rains everything was fres
h and cool. The road was muddy, and puddles stood in the weed-grown fields. The sky was dappled with big, cottony thunderheads drifting lazily northward, speckling the wet, green earth with great moving shadows.

  Steering with his knees, Jeff urged the dun into the shallow, brown torrent. The horse was in good condition. Blunt’s orders to the grooms at Fort Gibson had been plain on that score after Leemon Jones had faithfully delivered every word of Jeff’s message.

  “Some rain,” said John Chadwick.

  “Regular ole frog-strangler,” said David Gardner.

  “It rained so hard I didn’t know whether it was lightnin’ at the thunder or thunderin’ at the lightnin’,” said Bill Earle.

  Mounted, they followed Jeff into the stream. The four of them had been mustered out. They planned to stay that night with Bill’s Aunt Phoebe, who lived half a mile over the Missouri state line on the road to Neosho. Bill called her his “Confederate aunt” because her slaves had never left her when she offered them their freedom. Her two-story home had been one of the few spared by rival raiders during the war.

  A mourning dove cooed from a roadside elm. Its pensive song seemed a lament for the waste and ruin Jeff saw everywhere.

  All the way north from Fort Gibson he had been shocked by the destruction. When they had hiked down the same road as infantry with Weer in ’62, the Cherokee farms had been prosperous and well-kept herds of cattle and droves of hogs grazed on the rich tribal pasturage. But now everything was changed.

  Fire-blackened chimneys thrust themselves, gray and stark, against the June sky. To Jeff, they seemed like gravestones marking the spots where happy families had once lived. He remembered the fine orchards, the radiant lawns, the white-washed plank fences, and the broad valleys filled with tasseling corn he had seen three years before.

  Houses, barns, outbuildings, corrals—all had been burned. The splendid shade trees were now lifeless stumps. Fences were torn down, wells had caved in, farming tools had been carried off, every hoof and horn swept away. The fields were dense with weeds growing higher than the corn ever had.

  Occasionally they passed places where a house still stood, lonely and eyeless, its windows and doors gone, and the frames and sills torn out. Sometimes they saw the former owners had returned and were camped in the yard, bravely beginning the long, slow rehabilitation of their property.

  Jeff watched with pity their rude efforts to work the soil with crudely sharpened sticks or with a solitary horse or plow that would pass as a loan over an entire neighborhood for a whole season. The Union Cherokee soldiers hadn’t been mustered out until May 31, too late to plant corn.

  Even Colonel Phillips had resigned his commission. In a short speech to his men, he had thanked them for their bravery and their loyalty. “God bless you all,” he had concluded. “I am now going home and help Nellie peel peaches.”

  Jeff thought of the rebel Cherokee families down on Red River. The war was over for them, too, but he knew they couldn’t return to their ravaged homes in the Cherokee country until the peace treaty had been made. And that might take months.

  Sighing, he wondered if the Jackmans’ big home near Briartown had been burned? He hoped not. His association with the rebels had taught him a tolerance and sympathy for the defeated side that he would keep all his life. He thought the South had been wrong to start the war, but now that it was over and the Union restored, he didn’t want to see the rebels punished unreasonably. He hoped the country would be united again, bigger and stronger than ever, North and South.

  Just before sundown they turned off the road and trotted down a long cedar lane to the home of Bill’s Aunt Phoebe. It was the finest home Jeff had seen since he had left the Jackmans.

  A Negro man met them at the main gate. He was carrying a pair of shears, several large towels, and a big, square bar of homemade lye soap. He looked with fear at their weapons and their blue uniforms.

  “Mistus say ah’m to take y’all gennelmens to the springhouse fo a bath an’ clean-up. Then yo to come to de house fo suppah.”

  Bill blushed, looking around apologetically at the others. “Aunt Phoebe’s cranky about dirt and graybacks. She means all right, but she was born with her hands on her hips.”

  Jeff didn’t mind. As usual, he was hungry enough to eat his own saddle blanket. He noticed that Aunt Phoebe’s phobia for cleanliness included her servants. The Negro’s curly hair was slicked down neatly, his black shoes were shined, and his clothing was neat. He smelled nice and clean. Lots cleaner than they smelled after their long ride in the sticky heat, he knew. They dismounted.

  The Negro’s eyes bugged whitely when he saw the fiercelooking bloodhound standing gravely beside Jeff.

  “Is dat de houn dat chased one ob yo gennelmans all de way fum Red Rivah to de fote?”

  They all laughed. The story of Jeff’s long flight on foot from the Watie headquarters and of the renowned Texas bloodhound had been told hundreds of times all up and down the Texas Road.

  “He don’ look lak no bloodhoun’. He too ugly.”

  Bill Earle turned toward the dog. “Sure he’s a bloodhound, ain’t you, Sully? Bleed for the man, Sully.”

  But the hound seemed to know he was being teased. Staring at them with his mournful eyes, he stood closer to Jeff. Jeff reached down and stroked his long ears.

  The Negro led them into the springhouse, a large room of blackjack logs that had been built over a live spring in the floor. It was cool there. The clear, cold water bubbled out of a short length of hickory log that had been bored by an extension auger to make a pipe. The place was almost nice enough to live in. The walls were stained a grayish white. There were chairs, a table, and a large cabinet built from sassafras saplings. Everything was scrupulously clean.

  They stripped. With his shears, the Negro clipped each head carefully for lice. Then they bathed with the lye soap, toweled themselves, and donned clean gray cotton drawers, blouses, pants, and socks. Jeff felt clean and strange in the borrowed garments. Another Negro fed and rubbed down their horses and gave Jeff some beef for Sully. Missing his blue blouse, Jeff looked out the window and saw the first Negro hold it up and stare at the three yellow stripes on the shoulder before hanging it on a stone fence to air.

  Jeff was going home a sergeant. He had found the promotion waiting for him the day he rode back to the fort. Blunt had seen to it personally after Leemon Jones arrived. As he stuffed his borrowed blouse into his pants, Jeff thought about how he had joined up at sixteen, wanting to be a soldier, to see battle and savor adventure.

  Well, he had got what he wanted and more. Although he was barely twenty he had served the Union as an infantryman, cavalryman and scout, with two hours as an impromptu artilleryman at the Battle of Prairie Grove thrown in. And during his service with the South, he had been both a cavalryman and a teamster. He had lain ill several months in a rebel home, narrowly escaped a rebel firing squad, had nearly starved to death, been trailed one hundred miles by a bloodhound and fallen head over heels in love. Few men in either army had lived the war so fully.

  Bill’s aunt, tall and austere, met them at the door. Jeff had never seen a more meticulous woman. Nothing had a chance to be out of place in her parlor. If you laid something down, she picked up after you in your presence. She sent a Negro girl out onto the Bermuda lawn with a dustpan to scoop up the quid of tobacco John Chadwick had spat out.

  But she set a good table. After supper they went into the parlor.

  There Aunt Phoebe thawed a little. Bill sang several religious hymns while she accompanied him on an organ. She pumped with her foot and fingered the keys with long, flowing gestures of her hands and wrists.

  One of the songs was “Amazing Grace” and with a stab of melancholy, Jeff’s thoughts went back to Boggy Depot, and he heard Heifer humming the same tune in his broken, sobbing voice as he pounded out his steaks with the butt of his double-barreled pistol.

  When they changed back into their own clothing next morning and got ready to leave,
Bill elected to stay behind and rest up a week before going on to his home in northern Kansas.

  Jeff thanked Aunt Phoebe. Then he shook hands with Bill, feeling kind of foolish. Bill promised to come and visit the Bussey homestead after he got settled.

  “What are you going to do when you get home, go back to school at Bluemont?” Jeff asked.

  “Heck no! I’m gonna git me a rockin’ chair an’ sit in it an’ rest. After I rest about six months I might even rock a little. You goin’ to school, Jeff?”

  Jeff nodded. “I hear they’re opening the new university next year at Lawrence. That’s where I’m heading. It’s only about sixty miles from home.”

  He put his foot in the stirrup and swung up on the dun’s back. The bloodhound got up from where he had been lying on the grass and looked at Jeff with doleful expectancy. Jeff glanced once more at Bill and raised his hand.

  As they rode off down the cedar kite track, Jeff swallowed a couple of times. It was hard to leave a comrade you had eaten with, bunked with, and fought with so long. It reminded Jeff of his parting with Noah. Noah had gotten his discharge in May and returned to his home in Illinois.

  With a lump in his throat, Jeff had taken Noah by the hand and thanked him for all he had done. He told Noah that he would never forget him and made him promise to stop at Sugar Mound and see him the first time he came through Kansas on one of his long hikes as a tramp printer.

  “I’ll come by an’ see you, youngster. But I won’t be walkin’.” Noah pointed over his shoulder. Jeff saw the bay bridled and saddled and tied to a cannon wheel. “Old Cold Jaw here is gonna be my locomotion from now on. Now that I’ve finally learned how to stay on him, he’s so gentle, I can stake him to a hairpin.” Noah had bought the bay from the government the same way Jeff had purchased the dun, for seventy-five dollars taken out of his pay.

  Jeff had found Leemon Jones, too, when he got back to the fort. The Negro boy had decided to stay in the North and join the First Kansas Colored Infantry, a Union Negro regiment trained at Baxter Springs, Kansas. He had seen some hard fighting and been shot through the shoulder during a skirmish at a hay camp near Flat Rock. When the war ended, he intended to homestead a farm somewhere in Kansas and bring his old mother to live with him.