Spake As a Dragon

by Larry Edward Hunt

  “The night went well as did breakfast the next morning. Once we left the cabin and began traveling down the road, your brother William was wiggling and squirming, so was Isaac. Margaret said something was crawling on her. Stephen yelled he was being bitten by something crawling on him too. We were close to a mountain stream and Robert stopped the mules.

  “Your father got down from the wagon and declared, ‘Everyone out! Take off all your clothes, grab a couple bars of that lye soap and jump in the creek and scrub all over, scrub hard. Boys go downstream, girls you go a bit upstream. I’ll build a fire. Mother boil their clothes!’”

  “What was goin’ on Mama? Why did Father want them to take a bath and boil their clothes?”

  “Bedbugs child – we were covered in bedbugs we had gotten from those folks in the cabin. They were fine folks, but they didn’t realize they weren’t living there alone.” Malinda said grinning.

  Malinda returned to the story of their trip from South Carolina. Mattie Ann was holding onto every word, and now even Lizzie was beginning to listen. She explained that after a few more days of driving all day and camping out under the stars at night they were in the hills of Georgia when all of a sudden, two men leaped from the side of the road into the path of their wagons. Both men had bandanas over their faces, wore large black sloth hats and brandished pistols. One fired his pistol into the air.

  The closest bandit yelled, “Give us yer money! All of it or we’s goin’ to kilt you.”

  She explained how Robert had figured the bandits would kill them regardless whether he gave them their money or not, and he wasn’t about to give them anything.

  “All right don’t shoot, it’s right here in this box under the seat. I’ll get it for you.” Bending over as if to retrieve their treasures unknown to the two robbers Robert had a .44 caliber Colt Model 1847 Walker revolver stashed in the box for just such an emergency. It was loaded and ready to fire.

  As he bent down, he quickly reached inside the box, withdrew the .44 and without a blink of the eye fired two rounds. Both struck their mark, the two gunmen fell from the saddle to the ground with a sickening thud. Robert was stepping down from the wagon to check on the two assailants when from the back of the wagon one of the children yelled, “Father, Father! Margaret is hurt!” It quickly became apparent that the shot the robber fired was not into the air but at the wagon. The robber did not intend to shoot anyone; however, the lone bullet struck Margaret. No one noticed she had been shot. She simply lay against the sideboard of the wagon as if asleep.

  “Robert picked her up and placed her on a quilt on the side of the road; however, nothing could be done she had died instantly when the bullet hit her. We buried her a short piece from the trail, on a slight hill, under an oak tree. We believed she would have liked that. Your father used the old family Bible and read a scripture – I will never forget it:

  ‘Then we, which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.’

  “Uncle Jed found a flat rock and carved a headstone. We wrapped her in a swatch of canvas Robert cut from the wagon. I buried her in her favorite dress. The pink one with the flowers embroidered on the collar. Robert wrote the date of Margaret’s death in the margin of the Bible, July 25, 1852, right next to that passage in the Fourth Chapter of I Thessalonians. Twenty-one years to the day that your father and I were married. Since that day eleven years ago Robert and I have never celebrated another wedding anniversary, the joy of our wedding day has been overshadowed by the painful memory of our beautiful Margaret’s death. After the burial Sary led the whole family in singing Amazing Grace; there wasn’t a dry eye among us.

  “We left that awful place continued on to our farm here outside Albertville to this place we now know as Pleasant Grove. The place Margaret thought was so beautiful overlooking the clear, cool waters of Hog Creek.”

  That was over eleven years ago, but it seems as only yesterday.”

  “Mama how old was Margaret?”

  “Child, I try not to think about that day, but to answer your question - she was twelve.” She said, staring but not seeing, and trying unsuccessfully to choke back the tears. Dabbing her eye with her handkerchief, she continued, “If she had lived she would be almost twenty-four now – probably married with children of her own.”

  “But Mama isn’t that her grave out yonder by the red oak tree.”

  “Yes it is.” Through the tears, Malinda explained they arrived at this place in Alabama a couple of weeks later. Once they had a tent put up and water to drink Robert could not sleep at night. On the morning of the third day of arrival at Pleasant Grove, he ate breakfast and announced he was going to return to that spot by the road and God willing he was going to bring his little girl home. He hitched the mules to the wagon, threw together a few vittles and a shovel, stepped on the hub of the wheel and slipped into the wagon seat.

  “Didn’t you try to stop him Mama?”

  “No, my darling, there are sometimes a man has to do what he thinks he has to do, and I knew this was one of those times. I kissed him good-bye and thought I would never see him again.”

  Malinda went on to explain as Robert was hitting the wagon seat from the left side Uncle Jed had plopped down on the seat from the right side. Robert looked at Jed and asked him to stay with the family he would take care of this. Uncle Jed said to Robert, “Mister Robert, you’s has done told me a many a time what I can and can’t do, but this here time I ain’t listenin.’ Put them reins to them mules flanks and let’s get goin.’ I’m comin’ and I ain’t takin’ no fer an answer.”

  “Did they go Mama?”

  “Darling, not only did Robert and Uncle Jed go back to that place where the robbers killed Margaret, they brought her body and the engraved headstone back here in the wagon. Robert and Uncle Jed built her a fine wooden coffin and we went out to that old oak and gave her a real proper burial. Your Daddy took that big old family Bible turned to the Fourth Chapter of I Thessalonians and read once again:

  ‘Then we, which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

  “And as we had done before, we all sang the old spiritual ‘Amazing Grace.’ When we finished singing Robert shut the Bible and turning to walk back to the tent, said to no one in particular, ‘Now daughter you can finally rest, you are buried here with your family. You are no longer alone.”

  Chapter Nine

  SIMEON LAPREE

  Before Malinda can continue the stories of the old days, the sound of horses can be heard coming from the road toward their house. From the sound, she estimates there must be at least half a dozen riders or more.

  “You girls stay in the house. I’m going out on the porch and see who’s coming.” Stepping onto the porch, she can see a group of horsemen, numbering around eight or ten approaching at a gallop. From where she stands, she cannot recognize any of the men.

  The leader, riding a handsome, black, well-fed stallion, stops at the hitching post, tips the brim of his hat with a gloved finger and says, “Are you Mrs. Scarburg?”

  Malinda isn’t exactly frightened, but she senses something isn’t right. Most of them wear an assortment of mixed Yankee and Confederate uniforms, none of which match. All are heavily armed and it appears they have not been near a bathtub in quite a while. Shaggy, un-trimmed beards cover the faces of all but the leader. The leader who has asked her the question is a grubby, brown-skinned, mean-eyed man, a little on the heavy side, with a thick black mustache whose ends extend below the lower jaw.

  From head to toe he is dressed in all black. On his head he wears a sombrero, which sports a rattlesnake band. His whole outfit is topped off with a pair of black, silver edged, leather chaps with long flowing fringe. The outside of each leg is adorned with silver Mexican Pesos. His knee length black boots look as though they have recently been shined; however, as black
and slick as the boots are they are overshadowed by the silver, Spanish spurs. Beautifully ornate, hand-carved silver spurs with large toothed, spinning rowels. Over it all he wears a white knee length duster, with the collar turned up.

  When he speaks, she noticed he had one gold tooth in the front of his mouth and talks with a slight accent. He sits on a beautiful silver inlaid, double hitched, roping saddle. Is it Mexican? For sure it isn’t Army issue. Is he Mexican, Indian or a mix? She cannot tell his nationality.

  Before she has a chance to ponder this question he speaks again, “I asked you a question, I demand you answer me!”

  Malinda, never the one to back down replies, “Who do you think you are? Coming on my land demanding I answer you? I’m not afraid of you, but I will answer - yes I am Malinda Scarburg.”

  “Is it true your husband and two sons are off fighting the War?”

  “Not that it is any of your business, but yes it is true. What do you want?”

  “Shut up woman! I will ask the questions.”

  William and Tom Henry hear the commotion in the front yard and comes running from the rear of the house leaps upon the porch next to their mother and declares, “Is everything all right, Mama?” William directing his attention to the boss man, “Sir, you best not talk to my mother like that!”

  “Well now,” the man replied. “What do we have here?”

  “Y’all get off my property!” Malinda snapped.

  “Listen, woman do you know who you are talking to?”

  “Not only do I not know who you are – I don’t care, now git!”

  From underneath the large black sombrero his eyes narrow, as if squinting, he loudly asks, “I am Simeon LaPree...does that name mean anything?” Before Malinda can answer he continues, “I am Captain Simeon LaPree, head of the Home Guard.” Waving his arm, “these are a few of my men.”

  From the barn loft Isaac, Stephen, Uncle Jed and Jefferson watch the confrontation in the yard. Isaac swears right then and there he will not leave the house again without his father’s double-barreled shotgun. He and Stephen are totally unarmed and cannot offer any assistance to their mother from this group of murderous men. All they can do is cower behind the barn wall and watch.

  LaPree continues, “I understand you have some cornmeal and flour? In the name of the Confederate States of America, I demand you turn this over to us! Give the food to us immediately!”

  “Demand? Demand? Who are you to demand? That is our food! I have already supplied a husband and two sons to your Confederate States of America, I’ll not supply you anything more.”

  “Excuse me. I did not mean ‘give,’ the Confederacy is more than willing to pay for the food.”

  “Pay? Pay me with what? That worthless Confederate money?”

  Mattie Ann and Lizzie sit on the parlor floor, listening unobserved from underneath an open window and hears every word spoken. Mattie slips from her hiding place and quickly tiptoe to the kitchen’s meal and flour box. She removes the last sack of flour and what is left of the cornmeal. She wonders what to do with it now? Looking around the kitchen, she can see no place that will make a good hiding spot.

  It is summer and the fireplace is not being used. She pushes the flour sack and cornmeal bags up into the chimney, arranges everything around the hearth as thought nothing had been disturbed. After a check of the kitchen, to make sure everything is in order, she returns to Lizzie still scared and hiding underneath the window.

  Simeon LaPree is, in fact, a mixed race, his father was Cajun of French decent and his mother a black, prostitute slave girl from the French Quarter in New Orleans. LaPree hated the name – ‘half-breed,’ half white and half black. However, what makes him despise his station in life is the fact that half-breeds are condemned in the antebellum South more than blacks. They do not fit the white world and the black folks will not accept them either.

  LaPree left New Orleans in his teens. He ran away from home and pretended for a while that he was Indian; sometimes he would tell folks he was Mexican. Whatever the story, he grew up mean and resentful. Resentful of all whites, blacks, Indians and even Mexicans too. He tried hard to cover it up, but he could not erase all his Louisiana dialect, he still retained a hint of it. He hated the Cajuns too. It did not matter to him he hated all equally. He migrated into Alabama early in the 1850s working his way up the Mississippi and then down the Tennessee River as a deck hand on the steamboat ‘Natchez,’ finally arriving at Ditto’s Landing, Alabama. He would not have left his steamboat life at a remote river port in north Alabama if it had not been for the trouble he had gotten into while traveling up the Tennessee. During a dispute in a card game, he beat a fellow deckhand on the large paddle wheeler to within an inch of his life. The tobacco-chewing, ever-cussing, always-wary riverboat captain thought it best to be rid of him – he physically kicked him off his boat just south of Huntsville, Alabama.

  LaPree found work as a roustabout on the docks in the daytime and cheated at cards at night. It wasn’t much of a life, but for the time being it would do; however, the war was coming and he was about the right age for conscription. Important military dignitaries traveled up and down the river, sometimes getting on or off paddle wheelers at the wharfs. He could not take the chance that they would see him, and his age would have him marching off to some battle that he had no interest in fighting. He left Ditto’s Landing and moved farther east and south arriving in the sleepy little town of Albertville, Alabama. Albertville had a railroad, but there was nothing of military interest in or near this remote crossroad settlement – it was a perfect place for him to lay low until the War’s end.

  His ‘slick’ card-playing career coupled with his skill with his fists qualified him eminently as the bouncer in the roughest saloon in town. One night he met his match when he tried to oust a cotton farmer the size of a small mule, and about as tough and ornery. He could not beat the farmer in a fair fight so he employed a pair of brass knuckles and a blackjack. He beat the overgrown redneck to death. Until the circuit-riding judge arrived in town, the sheriff placed LaPree under arrest and lodged him in the Marshall county jail at Guntersville, Alabama.

  The local Confederate Conscription Officer heard of LaPree’s last exploit and made a visit to the jail. LaPree told the Captain he was Spanish, and hailed from Louisiana. The Conscription Officer bought LaPree’s story, actually he didn’t care about his nationality; he had a job for LaPree. A rough job that demanded a rough man: Captain of the Home Guard.

  LaPree saw this as two strokes of good luck. First he would be deferred from active military service, even if he were discovered to be an American, and second there was an excellent chance to make some good, if not dishonest, money. With this job, he could rob the citizens under the guise of the law and not be prosecuted. The Home Guard’s duties including finding and returning deserters, searching for draft dodgers and seeking out men between the age of sixteen to sixty to conscript into the Army of the Confederacy. Most of the time, the boys and men the Home Guard found were reluctant to return to their previous military units or were determined not to enter the service of the State of Alabama altogether. This was where the skills of Simeon LaPree came into play. He and his gang of legal thieves and ruffians were to ‘gently’ persuade those men and boys to see the error of their ways, and change their minds.

  “Why ain’t you boys in the army?”

  William and Tom Henry do not reply.

  “Tell me boys...your ages, or I will beat it out of you?” At the same time cracking his menacing, eight-foot, bullwhip.

  Malinda quickly answers, “William is going on twenty-one and Thomas Henry is thirteen.”

  “Well now,” LaPree grinned, twisting the end of his mustache.

  “I’ve already got three men in the Army, William is home to work the farm, and Thomas Henry is not old enough...”

  “Now we’re gettin’ sommers...” he said glaring at the two boys, “I’ll deal with you two later.” He turns his attention back to Malin
da, “now take me to the flour and cornmeal. I’m done through talkin’ with...”

  “I tell you we don’t have any extra food!”

  Captain LaPree dismounts; stomps up the walk toward the porch all the time slapping his pant leg with his braided, leather bullwhip. Pushing Malinda aside he does not bother to turn the handle on the door – he kicks the door open.

  Mattie Ann and Lizzie scream and run to their mother’s side. She kneels and pulls them close, “Don’t be frightened everything is going to be fine,” gently stroking their heads. “He will be gone in a while.”

  “Who else is in the house?” LaPree demands as he enters the kitchen. He sees Sary cowered in the corner. “Well, what we got here – how many of these slaves you got?”

  Malinda answers, “None! I don’t own any slaves – Sary is a free woman. She did work for a small salary and found before the War, now she just works for found. I can’t pay her anything.”

  Sary jumps to her feet and gets right in LaPree’s face, “Git out of mys kitchen you carpetbagger, git yerself and yer trash out of the Misses house I say!”

  Pushing Sary aside, he begins throwing dishes and pans about the kitchen yelling, “Where is the flour and meal?”

  Seeing that delaying the inevitable any longer is useless Malinda speaks to LaPree, “The flour and meal are kept in the flour box,” pointing, “over in the corner.” Sarcastically she adds, “Why don’t you help yourselves.”

  Following behind LaPree, Malinda watches as he opens the lid to the box. “What the blazes?” The Captain steps back, turns and screams, “it’s empty!”

  Malinda is as surprised as LaPree. Stunned she replies, “I was trying to tell you we have no food. Now get out of my house!”

  “Well, I might not get any food, but I’m not leaving empty handed – that son of yours will make a fine soldier.”