Wildwood Boys

by James Carlos Blake

  “Listen, Joey, I really don’t believe I need any more round-the-clock looking after,” he said.

  “I believe you do,” she said, and wriggled more snugly against him. “And if you say the first word about what Annette and Hazel might think, I swear I’ll take a chamber pot to your skull. I’ll give you a head wound to brag about.”

  Their hands found their way under each other’s nightclothes. After a time he whispered, “If there’s really a hell, I’m for sure going to it.”

  “Me too,” she said, chuckling low and stroking him lightly. “I’ll be right there beside you shoveling that old brimstone.”

  “No,” he said. “You’re a child and can be forgiven but—hey! Dammit girl!”

  She’d given him a mean squeeze. “I’m not a child,” she hissed.

  “Quit! All right, then. I just meant you’re young enough yet to be forgiven. But I’m old enough I’m supposed to know better.”

  “Well, I’m glad you don’t,” she said. And kissed him on the ear, her low laughter full of happy mischief.

  She checked his head wound again the next morning and said it was scabbing up nice. Hazel gave him an old hat of her father’s which she’d cut the band on so it would fit over his bandages. His arm felt so much better he refused the sling. After lunch he said he wanted to go out to the stable and see how Edgar Allan was faring, and she said she’d go with him.

  The sky was thickening with tall gray clouds and the trees wavered in a light wind. As they were crossing the grounds, Josephine stopped short and said, “Oh Lord, Billy, it’s the damn dogs!” Coming at a run from the other side of the property were three large hounds, coming fast and without barking. They belonged to Jimmy Vaughn but had lost all discipline since he’d gone away. The Vaughn girls told Bill they were always at rooting up the gardens and digging under the henhouse fence to kill chickens for sport and eat the eggs. Two weeks ago a foolish tramp had trespassed onto the property and the dogs came around the house and ran him down before he could get back to the gate. They rent him variously and bloody and might have killed him if Black Josh hadn’t come running and beaten them away with a hoe. They were superior watchdogs, Annette Vaughn said, but they were too wild anymore, and she thought she would have to tell Finley to shoot them.

  Bill Anderson stood his ground and watched them come as Josephine hastily armed herself with a stick. The dogs were almost on them, all snarls and bared teeth, and then they saw Bill’s eyes and drew up so short they nearly went tumbling. They were even larger than they’d seemed at a distance, the biggest looked to outweigh Josephine—but now they whimpered and turned in tight circles, then sat with their heads hanging and rolled their eyes up for quick glances at Bill but could not hold his stare.

  “Sweet baby Jesus,” Josephine said, and couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Look at me,” Bill said softly. The dogs whimpered again but looked up. For a moment his gaze was hard, and the dogs’ ears seemed to droop even lower. And then Bill abruptly grinned and said, “All right, then,” and the dogs heaved up on all fours and wagged their tails in a blur and grinned back at him.

  “What in the world did you tell them?” Josie said.

  “Nothing but the truth,” Bill said. “If they don’t quit acting like worthless eggsuckers, they’re done for. I guess they’ll do better from now on.” The dogs flapped their tails and smiled.

  “By the way,” Bill said, “that big one’s Boo, and that’s Foot, and that’s Ned. You can ask the Vaughns if you don’t believe me.”

  She shook her head and tossed aside the stick and said she didn’t need to ask anydamnbody. She hugged him at the waist and they went on toward the stable, the big dogs jauntily following.

  He had always been fast to heal and in a few days more he was shed of his bandages. The arm was still sore but working well, and though it was yet a snug fit, he could wear his own hat. Now he and Josephine were going for long walks in the morning and then again in the afternoon. They fished with handlines for catfish and perch in a creek in the deeper woods, then contested at skipping stones on the water. They gathered raspberries off the bushes, shook walnuts off the trees. They played hide-and-seek in the underbrush, and Josephine couldn’t understand how Bill was always able to find her so easily, no matter how well she’d hidden herself—and then finally realized he was using the dogs to track her and then telling them to get out of sight so she wouldn’t know. When she accused him of cheating, he tried to deny it and to look offended, but he couldn’t keep a straight face and finally confessed.

  They hiked nearly two miles through the forest to a clearing Finley told them about, a perfect place for target shooting. Josephine had been enthralled by the Navy Colt since the first time she slipped one of them from Bill’s holsters hanging on the bedside chair and couldn’t believe its lightness, its smaller grip that so much better fit her hand than the monstrous Walker. When she fired the Navy for the first time and discovered its greater accuracy and easier kick, nothing would do but that she have one for herself.

  “Let me have one, Billy. You got two!”

  He affected uncertainty. “Well…I don’t know if I can do that, girl. These guns are awful special to me.”

  “So am I awful special to you. Please, Billy? Let me have one?”

  “They’re hard to come by, you know, and worth an awful lot.”

  “They worth as much as a sweet sister who loves you better than anything in the whole wide world?” She hugged herself to him, fairly purring, pressing her lean belly against him and stroking his neck, rising on her toes and pulling his head down to blow softly at his ear. Her ludicrous simulation of a Kansas City siren—as she’d heard the type described—made him laugh out loud.

  But when they returned to the house she had a Navy Colt to put under her pillow and she returned the big Walker to him.

  During his recuperation at the Vaughn place he learned that Hazel and Annette were in their own way serving Quantrill as valuably as was their brother. Each time the girls went to Kansas City for certain staples and other supplies, they also bought sizable quantities of ball ammunition and boxes of percussion caps, tins of black powder and packets of cartridge paper—bought it all with pursefuls of bushwhacker money. They knew which dealers were Quantrill associates or, just as well, had no allegiance except to profit and would sell the girls whatever they wanted, no questions asked. They knew which days of the week and which hours of the day were the busiest and therefore the best for smuggling their contraband through the heart of the city streets and down the Westport Road to home, there to stockpile the munitions components in a cellar storeroom.

  The Vaughn house also served as the weekly meetingplace for the Westport Sewing Circle, a dozen or so women who all had a son, brother, husband or sweetheart riding with Quantrill. When the women came together on meeting days, they went down to the storeroom and sat themselves at several long tables and spent the day making cartridges. The Anderson girls had been admitted to the club the day after their arrival and all three had swiftly proved expert at fashioning ready charges.

  The first time Bill went to the cellar with his sisters he was amazed by the high stacks of powder cans, the dozens of boxes of caps and balls. The room was illuminated by a pair of oil lanterns at every table, each lantern screwed down solidly to the tabletop and covered with a securely latched wire cage over the lampglass to protect against accidental upset. Not a person in the room was unaware of what would happen if even a few grains of powder were ignited, and they were as careful of the lamps as of rattlesnakes.

  While some of the women made cartridges and stored them in ammunition pouches, others were charging spare cylinders for the bushwhackers’ revolvers. All revolvers of the day were cap-and-ball models, and the standard method of loading one was a lengthy process of charging the cylinder’s six chambers in turn—measuring an amount of powder into the chamber, then placing a ball in it, then seating the ball snugly with the loading lever pinned under the gun barrel
, then fitting the chamber with a percussion cap. The process was of course faster with ready-made cartridges containing both bullet and powder—and far faster still when a revolver’s emptied cylinder could simply be replaced with a fully charged one.

  Josephine sat on a bench at a table and patted the place beside her for Bill to sit. The table held open cans of black powder, boxes of .36-and .44-caliber balls, a tin of grease, packets of cartridge paper, mounds of thread, a supply of smooth sticks called formers—each six inches long and with a diameter equal to a particular caliber—and a scattering of small thimbles of varying sizes, each size equivalent to the measure of powder for a specific cartridge.

  “First off,” Josie said, “we form a case and choke it.” She took up a former marked “36” and rolled a patch of paper around it, shaping it into a casing and leaving a slight overlap at the end of the stick. She twisted the overlap and sealed it with a piece of thread. She slid the choked case off the stick and picked up a .36-caliber ball, greased it lightly and dropped it into the casing, then secured the ball in place with another strip of thread. Now she dipped a thimble marked “36” into a can of black powder, shook away the excess until the thimbleload was level, expertly poured the charge into the casing, and then neatly twisted and crimped the end of the paper to seal the cartridge. She handed it to Bill and said, “For your Navy Colt, sir.”

  CHARLEY HART

  One morning the Vaughns invited the Anderson girls to accompany them to Kansas City to get supplies and they excitedly accepted. Not until they’d gone did it occur to Bill that the Vaughns might intend to instruct his sisters in the arts of smuggling. He thought about catching up to their wagon and safeguarding them through the day, but when he shared the idea with Finley, the man smiled and shook his head.

  “I used to argue with them girls they ought have a man along,” Finley said, “but they won’t hear of an escort. They say a man only attracts the wrong kind of Yank attention to them. I reckon they’re right. They anyhow seem to know what they’re doing, don’t they? I’ll wager there’s nobody, woman or man, has snuck more powder and ball out of K.C. than them.”

  Finley’s assurance did not fully ease Bill’s misgiving but he decided against going after them. To occupy himself he saddled Edgar Allan and rode with the dogs out to the woodland clearing to practice with the Navy. The sun was high and hot and a thin haze of yellow dust hung over the grass. Honeybees hovered at the wildflowers.

  He’d been shooting for half an hour when the dogs suddenly jumped to their feet where they’d been lying under an oak. Their napes roached and they growled deep and stared hard into the dense woods on the far side of the clearing. A rider emerged from the trees, putting his roan horse forward at a walk. Bill had just reloaded the Colt and held it loosely by his leg. Not until the man came into the brighter light away from the high trees did Bill see he was wearing Federal blue.

  The dogs were growling and pacing from side to side—and then the big Boo dog went streaking out toward the approaching horseman. The other dogs stood fast. The rider reined up as Boo closed in, barking and harrying the horse from one side and then the other. The horse stood under tight rein and seemed altogether indifferent. The rider regarded Boo as if considering his degree of nuisance. Then the reins abruptly slackened and the horse struck like a snake—clamping its teeth in the dog’s hide and snatching him up and slinging him through the air. The Boo dog lit in a yelping tumble and scrabbled to his feet, legs splayed. He shook his head—perhaps to clear it, perhaps to rid it of any foolish notion to try another attack—and then made his limping way back to Bill.

  The fur on Boo’s back was dark with blood where he had been bitten and his eyes were largely white. The other dogs smelled his blood and fear and whimpered lowly. “I don’t blame you all,” Bill said. “That’s a killer.”

  The bluecoat had put the horse forward again and the dogs growled and drew back as he closed to within a few yards of Bill.

  “I should have hallooed you and told you to keep those curs off Charley,” the bluecoat said. “The last dog that tried to bite him got his head kicked open. I’d say yours is lucky he can still walk.”

  “I’d say he’s probably not feeling all that lucky,” Bill said.

  The big roan had a crooked yellow blaze on its face. The animal blew hard and stamped the ground and regarded Bill with fierce amber eyes. Bill had never known a horse to snatch up a dog and throw it. The bluecoat carried a holstered Army Colt and a smaller Navy tucked into his belt. He wore a black Kossuth hat with one side of the brim pinned up and a bright U.S. Cavalry badge of crossed swords fixed to the front of the crown. His shoulder straps showed captain’s bars. He was lean and youthful, cleanshaven but for a sparse mustache. Lank brown hair hung from under his hat.

  Bill Anderson did not for a moment suspect that the Yankee was alone. “I’m surprised that horse ain’t killed you and ate you,” he said. “Hope you didn’t pay a whole lot for him.” He was squinting so the Fed might not see his eyes scouting the woods beyond for sign of the other soldiers.

  “Oh, the price was right,” the captain said. He patted the animal’s neck. “Got him from a man in Independence who’d been bit by him once too often and was ready to shoot him for stewmeat. He’s pretty good with me, though.” His eyes cut over to Edgar Allan where the black grazed under the hickory he was tethered to. “I used to have a black myself. Real pretty mare. Only had one eye but she could run like a scalded dog and she was brave as a lion.”

  “Why’d you get rid of her?” Bill said. He could think of no reason for Yankee cavalry to be in this part of the woods except they suspected the Vaughn property for a guerrilla station.

  “Somebody shot her,” the captain said. He seemed amused with this game of showing himself alone while his men hid in the trees.

  “Name’s Hart,” the bluecoat said. “Captain Charley Hart. May I inquire after yours, sir?”

  “Anderson,” Bill said. “William T. Gave your horse your own name, hey?”

  The bluecoat smiled. “Vanity. Damnable fault.”

  “Don’t often see anybody this far off the main road,” Bill said. He was glad for the ready Colt in his hand.

  “Guess you don’t,” Hart said. “But then if you go seeking after bushwhackers, you have to go where the bushwhackers are said to be.” He cast a slow look around. “You wouldn’t happen to know of any bushwhackers hiding out nearabouts, would you?”

  Bill shook his head. “Surely don’t.”

  Hart appraised him from hat to boot toes. “I’ve been hunting guerrillas the best part of a year and I’ve come to have a sense about them. I can tell a bushwhacker just by looking at him.” He leaned out from the saddle and spat. Then fixed Bill with a direct look. “And I have to say…my sense tells me you’re not one.”

  Bill affected an amused chuckle, releasing a held breath. “Well, you got a good sense there, because I ain’t.”

  “When I heard shooting over here I thought it might be bushwhackers waylaying innocents.”

  “Nope—just me waylaying knotholes.”

  Hart looked at the tree twenty yards away whose several knots had been serving as Bill’s targets. One of the knots was big as a dinner plate, the others about the size of saucers—and all of them now battered to pulpy splintery depressions in the tree trunk. “It would appear you’re a marksman, William T.”

  “I sometimes hit what I aim at,” Bill said.

  Hart smiled. “I wonder now, would you be interested in some quick sport before I take my leave?” He pointed at a persimmon tree a few yards to the side of the oak. “A dollar, even odds, says you miss one before I do.” He drew the Navy and held it uncocked on his thigh. “Six shots to a turn. What say you?” The man’s mien was entirely amiable.

  Bill turned to regard the persimmon tree and give himself a moment to consider things. If he agreed to the match, he’d soon enough be standing there with an empty gun. If he refused, he’d rouse the Yank’s suspicions. Then he
realized the folly of his reasoning. If they wanted to kill him they could have done it already. Marks-men in the trees surely had their sights on him this minute and were just waiting for the captain’s signal. But the captain hadn’t given it. Most likely the man simply fancied himself a deadeye and wanted to show off for his hidden troopers.

  “Silver dollar,” Bill said, turning back to the Yankee. “No paper.”

  “It’s a bet,” Hart said, and grinned wide. He gestured for Bill to shoot first.

  Bill squared himself and cocked the Navy. The orange persimmons were easy enough to see but much smaller targets than the oak knots. A persimmon vanished off the tree with each of his first five shots, the flat reports absorbing into the dense woods and the high indifferent sky. But his sixth round left a visible portion of fruit on the stem. Bill looked at Hart and asked if it was a hit or a miss. Hart asked what he wanted to call it. “Half a hit,” Bill said, and the bluecoat laughed and said that was all right with him.

  Hart didn’t even dismount. He leveled the Navy and fired six rounds just as fast as he could cock and shoot and six persimmons vanished from their stems entirely. He smiled down on Bill from under the rising pall of gunsmoke and said, “That’s one silver dollar somebody owes me.”

  Bill dug out a dollar and handed it up to him. Hart slipped the coin into his jacket and tucked the emptied Navy back in his belt.

  Bill flicked the burnt primer from the Navy’s chambers and blew out the residue ash of the cartridge paper. He took several cartridges from his coat pocket and was about to begin reloading when he heard the double-cock of a revolver hammer. He looked up to see the Army Colt pointed squarely at his face and Hart glowering behind it.

  “Thought you had me fooled, didn’t you, bushwhacker?” Eyes, voice, everything of Hart now exuding malice.