The older man spoke. “Ma and Clare packed you about a three-day supply of biscuits and fried bacon. T’aint much, but it’ll get you started.”
“Beau, I have something I want to give to you,” Ty said, as he handed him a bill of sale he had written on a scrap of paper showing that Beau had purchased the farm. “I’m a wanted man now, and I’ll never be allowed to return. If you can get this mess straightened out, I want you to have the farm.”
“Okay, Ty. I’ll try to get it recorded in my name, but if you ever return, it’s yours.”
Ty shook hands all around and said, “Thank you, gentlemen, I owe you and your family more than I can ever repay. I’ve written a bill of sale for the horses; it will protect you should anyone ever challenge your right to own them. I’d like Clare to have the black mare. I hope she’ll be pleased. Perhaps our trails will cross again.”
With that, the men turned the wagon east and disappeared into the night. The mountain men had picked a spot well hidden from the road, and Ty could see anyone approaching from either direction. He took inventory. He had his bedroll, his cooking pan, his guns, the supply of cartridges, and he had faithful Ol’ Blaze.
Winter is coming, and I’m going to need an extra blanket. I was here with Father once, and I think there’s a town just ahead where I can pick up supplies. I’ve got to think about where I’m going—I’m being hunted, but I don’t know how much the hunters know about me.
Chapter 5
Ty still had nine of the ten Yankee dollars he had exchanged cartridges for in Georgia. He hadn’t shaved for days. Maybe the beard will disguise me and help hide the scar on my face, but I’ll have to keep it trimmed so I won’t look like someone on the run. There’s plenty of grass for Blaze, and she can get to water, so she’ll be all right.
He ate one of the biscuits, laid out his bedroll under some brush, placed his rifle within easy reach, and sat wondering what he should do. He watched the shadows slowly lengthen into darkness, but before going to sleep, he made the decision to go to Indian Territory, where there was no federal law.
It was still dark when he awoke. He made coffee and drank a cup while eating another biscuit and a slice of bacon. By the time he got Blaze saddled and his things packed, light was showing over the Appalachian Mountains in the distance.
He started down the road and reached the outskirts of town just as the stores were opening. He bought a blanket, a heavy shirt, and a buckskin jacket. It cost him six dollars. Then he bought a sack of oats for Blaze knowing she’d need more than grass, since he was going to ride her all the way to Indian Territory.
No one in town seemed a bit interested in him, but he would feel better after he got back out into the country. His new shirt and jacket hid the wound under his arm; his black felt hat and beard partially hid the scar on his face.
The farms beside the road looked prosperous. Maybe I should get a job and hole up until spring?
He saw two soldiers approaching, so he turned onto a dirt road leading to one of the farms. The soldiers paid him no attention; they rode right on by. After they were out of sight, Ty continued west. Days later, he reached the banks of the Mississippi. Amazed at how big it was, he dismounted and muttered, “Now that’s a big river, but how am I going to get across? It’s too wide for Blaze to swim, and soldiers are sure to be watching the ferries.”
Then he saw a riverboat loaded with animals going downstream. He followed the boat and, as he had hoped, it was tied to a dock in the next town.
Ty waited on the dock until he saw a man—he hoped was the captain—returning. He got in step with him and said, “I need passage for me and my horse. I’m good with animals, and I’ll work for the ride.”
The captain, a man with a kindly face and hair bleached white by the sun, looked Ty over closely, and then nodding his head toward Blaze, asked, “Is that your horse over there?”
Searching the captain’s eyes, Ty replied, “Yeah, that’s my horse.”
“She ain’t stole, is she?”
“I’ve owned her since she was a colt.”
“I don’t see a brand on her.”
“I’m a farm boy. We don’t brand our horses.”
“You’d better brand this one. It can be downright unhealthy, riding an unbranded horse in this part of the country. What’s your name, son?”
“I’m called Ty.”
“Well, get your horse loaded, Ty, and get her outta sight. Yankee soldiers have been looking for a young man riding a mare. They say the man they’re looking for is fast with a gun, and that he’s a real bad hombre. You don’t look like a killer to me. They’ve already checked my boat, and I don’t think they’ll check it again. You’re working for me now, so get aboard, and we’ll be shoving off.”
Ty led Blaze aboard. She didn’t like being on the boat, but she settled down after he placed her in a stall and gave her a bag of oats.
“Follow me,” the captain said. “Looks like you haven’t been fed for a while.” When they reached the wheelhouse, the captain pulled on a rope hanging from the overhead. A black man, tall and lanky, with white curly hair, stepped in.
“Bring this young man a plate of hot food. He’s going to be working for us for a while. When he finishes eating, tuck him away in one of the lower bunks.”
“Yeah, Captain. Y’all want me to relieve you after I gets him tucked in?”
“No, Mo. I’ll tend the wheel until midnight. We’ve got a full moon, and I want to get as far south as we can, while we can still see.”
Mo led Ty to a small compartment near the stern of the boat and said, “This’ns yors.”
The room was small, but it had two portholes for ventilation and the bunk looked comfortable. There was a bucket with a rope attached sitting on the deck near the door. Ty asked Mo, “Can I use that bucket to draw water from the river for a bath?"
“That’s what it’s for,” Mo said as he was leaving, “and there’s a towel hanging on the bulkhead.”
Ty washed himself down. His wounds were almost healed, but he cleaned around them carefully, then dried on the towel and climbed into the bunk. This bunk is the nearest thing to a bed I’ve been in for a long time. He lay down and was asleep almost instantly. When he awoke, the moon was hanging low over the river; its light rippled as it reflected across the water. Ty hesitated for a moment remembering what his father had said about light rippling off water . . . . He shook his head sadly, dressed, and went to the wheelhouse. Mo was at the wheel.
“What time is it, Mo? I don’t want to disturb the captain, but if you think it’ll be all right, I’ll start feeding the animals.”
“It’ll be morning soon, and feeding the animals won’t bother him. There’s hay in the cargo hold next to the stalls.”
“After they’ve eaten, I’ll clean up the deck. What do you do with the waste? Do you throw it into the river?”
“Some haulers do, but my captain don’t. He don’t want to pollute the river. Just stack it on the rear deck, and we’ll give it to a farmer jes’ down the river. He uses it for fertilizer. We’ll put into his dock sometime before noon.”
“How long have you been slaving on this boat?” Ty asked.
“I ain’t no slave,” Mo replied defensively. “Captain bought me at a slave auction awright, but that was more’n twenty years ago. He set me free the same day he bought me and offered me a job on this boat. He pays me the same wage white men gets for doing the same kinda work. I comes and goes as I want. Captain holds papers showing that he bought me, but he does that for my protection—just in case somebody thinks I might be a runaway.”
“Don’t you want to get married and have a family?”
“Why would I wanna go and do a fool thing like that? I got women all up and down this river. Where would I go to raise a family, anyway?”
“Maybe somewhere up North?”
“That’s no solution. They talks good up North, but they treat me jes’ as bad up there as they do down here. I’d rather be down here where I k
nows what to espek.”
“Doesn’t anybody ever ask you where you get your money?”
“Sometimes they does. I jes’ tell them that I’m buyin’ stuff for the captain. Most people don’t care where I got the money, jes’ so long I got it.”
“How do you know the price of things?”
“I don’t normally tell folks this, but the captain taught me to do readin’, writin’, and ‘rithmetic. I do it better’n some white folks.”
Ty smiled and said, “I’ll go take care of the animals.”
“By the time you get that done, Captain will be awake, and we’ll have breakfast,” Mo said.
Ty tended to the animals, cleaned the stalls, and then checked on Blaze. She was doing fine. She was happy to see him. He gave her hay and a bucket of fresh water, petted her, and rubbed her down. When he returned to the wheelhouse, the captain was at the wheel.
“How’d you sleep?” the captain asked.
Ty replied, “I slept well, thank you, sir. That’s the first bed I’ve slept in for a long time.”
Mo came in with their breakfast of ham and eggs. While they were eating, the captain said, “We’ve heard that you’re good with your guns. Would you give us a demonstration?”
“Sure, who do you want me to shoot?” Ty joked.
Captain smiled this time. He pointed downriver and asked, “Can you hit that old dead snag sticking up outta the river with your rifle?”
Without getting up from the table, Ty drew and fired his pistol. The tip of the stick splintered away into the water.
“That’s amazing!” Captain exclaimed. “I didn’t think you could do it with a rifle, but to do it with a pistol from a sitting position is remarkable. What can you do with your rifle?”
The pistol shot had startled a flock of ducks, and they were flying just off the water about a hundred yards away. Ty asked,
“Would you like duck for dinner?” Without waiting for a reply, he picked up his Spencer and fired twice. Two ducks dropped into the river. Then he said, “If you’ve got a net, I’ll pick them outta the water.”
Both Captain and Mo were so stunned by what they saw that they couldn’t reply. Mo pointed to a net on the end of a pole hanging from the overhead. Ty took the net and picked up the ducks. They had been shot through the head.
Mo said, “Well, Captain, I ain’t nevah seen nothin’ like that befo.”
“I’ve seen a lot of men compete in shooting contests, but that’s the best shooting I’ve ever seen,” Captain agreed. “Son, you ain’t no killer. If you were, you wouldn’t be avoiding the ones chasing you. You’d just lay back and pick them off. Now, why are you running?”
“When my father didn’t return from the war,” Ty answered, “I went looking for him and found him dying in north Georgia. After I buried him, I went home. When I got home, I found that carpetbaggers had killed my mother and sister and stole our farm. We shot it out. They lost. I got shot up pretty bad and would have died, except some mountain people nursed me back to health. The militia came looking for me, so I had to run. I’m trying to get to Indian Territory.”
“Well, you can’t go through Missouri. There’s a command of Red Legs scouring that area, looking for the remnants of Quantrill’s raiders. Those soldiers are called Red Legs because they wear red-leg wrappings. Quantrill’s men weren’t granted amnesty, and they’re outlaws by presidential decree. As outlaws, they can’t work and they can’t go home, so they’re forming into bands, robbing banks and railroads to make a living. You don’t want to get involved in that mess.”
“Then, how do I get to Indian Territory?” Ty asked.
“The best way is to continue down the Mississippi to Louisiana,” Captain replied, “ride west through Louisiana to the Red River, follow the Red west. Stay on the Texas side, until you get past Arkansas, then turn north into Indian Territory. You could follow the Arkansas River, but Union soldiers are patrolling every inch of it. It would be best if you stayed on board until we get to Louisiana . . . .We’ve got to get ready; the farmer’s dock where we discharge the animal waste is around the next bend.”
Ty followed Mo thinking he could help with the docking, but Mo had been doing this for twenty years and didn’t need any help.
The farmer came to help unload. He took one look at Ty and said to the captain, “I hear that there’s a Major Pothman and a troop of Union soldiers downstream. They’re boarding every boat, looking for a young man riding a blaze-faced mare. They say he’s a killer.”
“Captain,” Ty said, “I’ll get my horse and get off here. We’re on the west side of the Mississippi, and I’ll be able to take it from here. I sure don’t want to get you into trouble. Thanks for your help.” Ty walked Blaze down the gangplank onto the dock.
The farmer said, “Hold on a minute, son. My wife will give you a supply of cornmeal, coffee, bacon, and salt. That should make camping a little more comfortable. We lost our boy in that war.”
Ty accepted the food and thanked them, shook hands all around, and rode south. After a few days, he came to a town and asked, “What state am I in?”
“You’re in a state of confusion." The person answered with a chuckle. "Nah, I’m jes kidding; you’re in Louisiana.”
"Humor is always better than hate," Ty answered with a smile, and then rode west into the hills and noticed tracks of two horses going in the same direction. Good, there are other horses going the same way; that’ll make it harder for anyone to follow me. After following the tracks for about two hours, Ty rode upon a knoll and looked back. He saw four Union soldiers coming fast. Ty had food and water and was in a good position to defend, so he dismounted, wrapped the reins of Blaze’s bridle around a branch of a tree, and watched from behind a boulder.
He saw the troopers plainly and could have picked off a couple of them, but he didn’t want to shoot anyone who wasn’t shooting at him. He watched as they rode by. They didn’t even slow down. They’re not after me; they’re after someone else—maybe the men ahead of me whose horses left the tracks I’ve been following?
Minutes later, rifle shots rang out. Crack! Crack! Crack!
The gunfire came from around the bend. The soldiers must have caught up with the men they were looking for.
Ty crossed the draw so he could see who was doing the shooting. When he reached the top of the knoll, he saw two men wearing Confederate caps standing on a bluff overlooking a stream. They each removed a sack from what looked like a cargo box and threw the sacks into the stream below. The four Union soldiers had the two Confederates trapped. Ty watched the Confederates drag the cargo box into a crevice between two boulders. The box appeared to be heavy; it took both of them to drag it. After they got the box securely hidden, they hurriedly covered it with rocks.
The Union soldiers were firing from a vantage point on a ridge above the bluff and Ty watched one of the men in gray take a bullet. The wounded man tried to get behind a boulder so that the attackers couldn’t see him, but after only a short struggle, he slumped over and lay still. The remaining Confederate was now outnumbered four to one.
I could be next. Ty cut down on the Union soldiers and dropped two of them. The shots took the attackers by surprise, and they turned to see who was firing. When they looked, they exposed themselves to the man in gray—he popped a bullet into one of them, and the other one shot the Confederate. Ty ended the battle by shooting the Union soldier, then sat and watched to see what else might develop. The Confederate moved! He wasn’t dead. Ty didn’t want to leave Blaze alone, so he rode her to see if he could help the wounded man.
The four Union soldiers were dead. The man in gray had a shaggy beard and appeared to be about forty. The Yankee’s bullet had caught him in the chest. Without a doctor, there was no hope. Ty gave him water and tried to make him comfortable.
“Why were they shooting at you? Didn’t they know that the war is over?” Ty asked.
“Yeah, they knew. They were after what my partner and I had. We were in a group of six Confe
derate soldiers that had gone to California to bring back a shipment of gold. The gold was supposed to be used to buy supplies for the Confederate Army, but before we got back, the Yankees found out what we were doing and sent a troop to stop us. The Yankees killed all of us except me and my partner. We took what we could carry in our saddlebags and hid the rest. By the time we got to the first Confederate fort, the war was over. We told our commanding officer that the Yankees got the gold. Then we gave what we had to our families without telling them where we got it. That left us as the last people on earth who knew about the gold. We waited until we thought it would be safe, and we were returning to get the rest of it.
“We got it, and everything was going just fine, but we didn’t count on the last four Yankees in the troop. It looks like they had the same idea. They waited for us to return for the gold and then followed us. I think you know the rest. That makes you the only man alive who knows about the gold.”
“Why did you throw two bags into the river?” Ty asked.
“They had us cornered and outnumbered.” The Confederate coughed as he tried to explain. “We thought that if we threw a couple of bags into the river, then jump in after them, we might escape. My partner wanted to hide the cargo before we jumped. That was a mistake. I’m glad you’re going to get it. I sure didn’t want them Yankees to get it.”
“Maybe I can get you to a doctor,” Ty offered.
“Son, it’s a two-day ride to the nearest settlement. I’ve seen many men wounded like this before, and I wouldn’t last out the night. I appreciate the thought and thanks for coming to our aid. Now, what are you going to do with the gold?”
“I don’t know. Carpetbaggers killed my family. I killed them, and now I’m on the run. Can I do anything for you?”
“I sure could use a drink of whisky,” the soldier said.
Man Called Ty Page 4
