Spake As a Dragon

by Larry Edward Hunt

Two weeks later they were in sight of Lookout Mountain south of Chattanooga.

  Luke pulled the wagons into an open grassy spot next to a small creek to spend the night. The place was well hidden from anyone traveling the road. “Now we’ve got to be real careful even tho’ the South was victorious at the battle of Chickamauga that was back in ’63 since then the Yankees has taken Chattanooga so we will have to go around the town to get to Alabama”, he explained as they ate their supper. To by-pass Chattanooga they would need to skirt the eastern side of the Tennessee River, slip south down the valley between the ridge on the east and Lookout Mountain on the West. Once they passed the battlefield of Chickamauga they could cut west through Lookout Mountain’s Day’s Gap cross the mountain and then go down the valley to Fort Payne. Spend a few days there letting their animals rest, then one last push upon Sand Mountain and within a day or two they should arrive at Albertville, and home.

  Sitting around the campfire, the wind was blowing slightly from the north, and there was a hint of snow in the air. “It will feel good to get home,” remarks Luke. “I haven’t seen my family in such a long time, and I am nothing but skin, bones and beard, they probably won’t even recognize me.”

  “Yessir, I’m shore gonna feast my eyes on Ma and Pa, and baby brother Jefferson. I wuz so ugly when I left bein’ so ugly now won’t make them no never mind. They’d know me anywhere.”

  “And you Catherine, and Sam I can’t wait to introduce you both to my family. They will make you both feel right at home.”

  “Luke, what do you think you’re mother will say when she finds out we got married at that preacher’s house after leaving the farm?”

  “I’ll tell you what she say, she’ll say, ‘Why Luke Scarburg you’ve done gone and married the prettiest girl in this whole country’!”

  “Ah, go on Luke, you’re just pulling my leg,” Catherine said laughing.

  From the ridge northeast of Chattanooga, they can see the whole city spread out in the valley below and the campfires of the hundreds of Union soldiers camped on the east side of the Tennessee. Luke made mention that the lights reminded him of the candles on a Christmas tree. “Did you know tonight is Christmas Eve?” The merriment of the evening grew somber at the utterance of Christmas. Each could remember back to their last Christmas, Luke and Nate having fun in the cave with the mailman and Old Bill; Catherine and Sam at home with their father and mother.

  “Catherine let’s not make Christmas a sad occasion, we are all just beginning a new life, come on tell Nate and me what you and Sam did for Christmas last year.”

  For a moment Catherine did not want to participate in Luke’s trip down memory lane, then consented, “Of course Mother and Father were there Christmas Eve. Mother baked my favorite tea-cake cookies and Sam made snow cream...”

  “Whoa, Sam did what?” Asked Luke. “What in the world is snow cream?”

  “Now Luke Scarburg don’t tell me you have never eaten snow cream. It is just a mixture of snow, milk, vanilla flavoring and sugar, but we had no sugar and used honey instead. It is superb.”

  “I suppose it doesn’t snow enough in Alabama for us to have figured that one out, but you’re right, it does sound good.”

  “All right Luke, the next snowfall I will personally see to it that you have your own bowl of snow cream.”

  “Hold on,” chimed in Nate, “What about me?”

  “A bowl of snow cream for you too Nate,” laughed Catherine.

  The therapy of talking about Christmas seems to help Catherine and especially Sam. Just getting it out of their system seems to release some of the pent-up hurt they are carrying with them. “That was good, let’s all try to get some sleep and we’ll be off at first light in the morning,” Sam said, throwing his bedroll down near the fire.

  It is after midnight, probably closer to three a.m. when a snap of a twig is heard. From the back of the wagon Kentuck throats a faint growl. His eyes open, but he does not move. Sam hears his dog too. Someone or something is moving outside the wagon!

  Luke and Nate are bedded down next to the fire, which is now only glowing embers. Catherine sleeps under the wagon. The fire does not cast enough light to illuminate the crouched figure slipping into their midst. There is; however, enough moonlight to see the dark shape is that of a man holding a pistol in his hand.

  The intruder quietly tiptoes over to Luke’s bedroll. Luke is wrapped in a blanket with his old black slouch hat covering his head and face. The assailant bends over and sticks his six-shooter between Luke’s hat and blanket – what would have been his neck if Luke had been sleeping in his bedroll. He wasn’t there!

  Luke steps from the bushes grab the infiltrator by the hair of his head and thrusts his ten-inch, razor sharp, Bowie knife against the man’s jugular vein. At the same time, Nate rolls from his blanket brandishing the old reliable Colt .44. Sam pokes his head from the rear of the wagon slamming a shell into the Spencer he swiftly raises it to his shoulder ready to fire.

  The sneak thief has four accomplices, who quickly drop their sidearms to the ground, throw their arms into the air and yell, “Don’t shoot, we surrender!”

  Luke kicks a couple of logs onto the fire and pushes his attacker close to get a good look at him. “Well, well,” said Luke, “Look what we have here ambusher Bert Black and his merry men! Sam, you and Nate keep these others covered, if they move shoot’em. Catherine, get in the wagon with Sam.”

  Luke lowers the knife from Black’s neck, turns him so they can speak face-to-face, “Drop your .45! You sure have been following us for a long time, what’s your game?”

  “I knew from the start you warn’t no hick as you pretend. I saw right off you knowed more about my brother than you let on. You killed him, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah, I’m afraid you’re right about that Mr. Black. Just as I’m afraid the same is going to happen to you now!”

  Just as Luke was finishing, Bert grabs Luke’s knife hand and they begin to fight. Bert’s men start to reach for their shooting irons, but Nate steps between them and the fight, cocking his hammer on the .44, they freeze in their tracks. “Let’em be,” said Nate.

  Bert and Luke wrestle and claw at one another. Blows are exchanged. At one point it seems Bert has the upper hand and at others it is Luke who is winning. Black Bert picks up a handful of dirt, throws it into Luke’s eyes then knocks him thru the campfire to the ground. Luke has no sooner fallen when Bert pounces on him with a large, razor sharp, skinning knife, a loud sigh is heard, both men fall limp, blood is flowing profusely from beneath the two onto the grass and dirt...has Bert’s knife found its mark in Luke’s chest?

  Nate, Sam and Catherine are frozen with fright they hold their breath afraid to breathe.

  Finally, Luke struggling pushes Bert off of him. Luke’s chest is soaked in blood! However, at second look they see the knife blade is buried deep within Bert’s chest he is the one stabbed, he is stone cold dead.

  Luke turns to the remaining four men – “Where’s the rest of your ornery bunch? There were ten of you when you came to the farm.”

  The closest outlaw answers, “Two got killed when we was up on the mountain and the others at a Union roadblock outside of Knoxville. We ran into a couple of scrappy Union guards that wouldn’t let us pass.”

  Luke questioned, “What happened to the guards?”

  “We had wounded one in the shoulder before a big bunch of Yankees showed up, the other one didn’t get a scratch. We had a pretty good fight, but three of our boys got it.”

  “Your leader Bert Black is lying here on the ground dead, what are your intentions now?”

  “Listen mister, Bert kept promising we’d git rich if we followed him. We had done realized he was lying, he jest wanted revenge on you for killing his brother. If you let us go, we promise we’ll be headin’ back to Texas and you won’t see us again. That we will promise.”

  Luke looked long and hard at the four, he could see one of them was just a kid. Should he just kill the
m then and there and get it over with, or let them go?

  “All right, I’ve made up my mind. Nate get the shovels out of the wagon.”

  “Please mister, please don’t kill us! And make us dig our own graves too!”

  “Oh, shut up! You’re gonna bury your leader Bert, then I’m letting you all go when you get finished. Nate empty their six-shooters and remove all the cartridges from their pistol belts and give their guns back to’em. They will probably need’em, it’s a long ride to Texas.” As the men began digging the grave, Luke reached down and un-buckled the silver spurs from Bert’s boots, “You don’t think Bert would mind if he gave me his spurs, do you? Oh, by the way, I think he would want me to have his fancy boots too,” he said slipping the boots from the dead man’s feet.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  HOME SWEET HOME

  The little party of Scarburgs including Sary had been on the trail from Alabama to South Carolina for months. A trip that should only take a few weeks has now stretched into months. They had ridden through rains, hail, sleet, snow, flooded rivers and had suffered horribly, but now as Malinda said gently to the mules, “Giddy up Joe, come on Red,” she was coming up the road to Scarlett. Her mind drifted back to that day in 1837, almost twenty-seven years earlier, when Robert told of coming down this very road returning from the Indian Wars. She can still hear his description:

  He said he rounded the last bend in the road, nearing the long drive leading to Scarlett’s main house. He knew he should be able to see the house sitting upon the hill through the stand of oaks and maples growing near the entrance gate. The main house should have been a reflection in the lily pond beside the road from the gate to the main house. Glaring intently he could sense something was wrong. He could not see our house. The only things seen were the porch columns and the four red brick chimneys.”

  A sense of Déjà Vu enveloped her as she neared the last bend in the road nearing the drive leading to Scarlett. She stopped her wagon and sat quietly looking and still seeing, in her mind’s eye, the beautiful six white Greek columns of the porch; the four red brick chimneys two on each end of the house; the balcony that overhung the two massive oak front doors and the golden chandelier that hung suspended on a twenty foot chain from the second floor adorning the main entrance.

  Now all she could see was the blackened remains of the once grand Scarlett Plantation, and the four red brick chimneys. Standing once as giant bookends to the beauty of this plantation, now they were only large tombstones emphasizing the bleak, graveyard appearance that Scarlett had become.

  She could stand it no longer, “Gitta up,” she said to the mules as she turned into the long drive leading up to the once magnificent place they called home. She let the mules led the way up the road. Her eyes were filled with tears seeing the awful sight before her. Near the main house the driveway divides and another path leads to the guesthouse, she turns to the right heading in its direction. Her mules come to a stop. Standing in front of her are some children! Whose children are these, she wonders? Wiping the tears from her eyes, she can now see them plainly. No! No! This cannot be true!

  “Mama, Mama,” hollers Lizzie as she runs down the path toward Malinda. “Mama,” hollers William, running close behind Lizzie. Lizzie and William run up to the wagon, Malinda is faint, she believes she is going to fall from the wagon.

  Stephen jumps from the wagon, “William, Lizzie is it really you? You did not drown?”

  Sary is up on the wagon beside Malinda wetting her face with a handkerchief. The shock of seeing William and Lizzie is just too much for Malinda. In a moment or so, she regains her composure, “William, Lizzie come here my darlings let me touch you.”

  Standing off to one side is Levi and Ora Lee watching the glorious reunion. While Malinda, William, Lizzie and the rest of the family rejoice, Sary speaks to Ora Lee, “Lands sakes woman, what in the world is this? Can you explain?”

  Ora Lee tells how Lizzie fell into the river and could not swim. William jumped in to help. Both were swept downstream in the swollen river. William clung to a tree branch as it floated for miles down the Tallulah River. Eventually, it floated close enough to shore to allow William to get upon the dry riverbank. He was disheartened thinking sister Elizabeth had drowned. Within minutes from the river William heard, “Here William, I’m here!” It was Lizzie, alive, she had been floating on the large wooden Bible box she had under her arm. She never let go. Fortunately they came ashore at the place where the Saluda River empties into the Tallulah River. The Mink Creek, where Scarburg Mill is located empties into the Saluda. Luck was with William and Lizzie they hitched a ride that very afternoon with a riverboat man who was on his way with a barge full of corn headed to the Scarburg Mill to get it ground into cornmeal – William and Lizzie had the comforts of floating almost to Scarlett. Leaving the Tallulah, up the Saluda, from the Saluda into Mink Creek and Scarlettsville. They had been at Scarlett for over a month now.

  Levi and Ora Lee announces, “Everyone come on up to the guesthouse. You folks are home now!”

  Chapter Forty-Five

  THE WAR IS OVER

  Spring was finally arriving in 1865. Robert has waited day after day to hear his name called as Captain Michael Thomas had promised. Robert thought as he lay on his bunk, the Captain did not promise I would be exchanged, he only said he put in a recommendation that my name be added to the exchange list. Anything could have happened to prevent that from taking place.

  The last couple of months had taken its toll on Robert’s health. His only friend now was T.J. Wells, Robert never knew what the T.J. stood for he was simply known as TJ. TJ had been with Robert at Gettysburg, just in another outfit. Had it not been for TJ, Robert would not have survived as long as he had already. Robert was too weak to even walk to the mess house to get what meager rations were being served. TJ would, somehow, get him a piece of meat or a slice of bread occasionally, not much, but enough to keep him alive.

  News was flowing into Point Lookout like a river. Each day is more talk of the War ending. General Grant still has General Lee besieged at Petersburg, Virginia, but recent news indicates that General Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia has slipped away from Petersburg on the night of April 2-3 and is headed west, followed closely by General Grant’s Army of the Potomac.

  All the prisoners in the prison know a final battle is coming; it is just a matter of when and where. Lee’s army is starving, most have no shoes, their supply of ammunition is almost exhausted. To General Lee, surrender is the only course of action left. On 9 April the General said, “There is nothing left for me to do, but to go and see General Grant and I would rather die a thousand deaths."

  At 4 pm on the afternoon of 9 April 1865, General Robert E. Lee meets General Ulysses S. Grant at the home of Wilmer Mclean at a small crossroads known simply as Appomattox Courthouse and surrenders the Army of Northern Virginia – for all practical purposes the War of the Rebellion, or as it is best known the Civil War, is finally over. One correspond standing in the yard of the Mclean house remarked, “Strange, the War started in Wilmer Mclean’s yard at the 1st Battle of Bull Run in 1861. He moves to get his family away from war and the War ends in his yard in Virginia in 1985!”

  News of the surrender did not reach Point Lookout until the afternoon of 10 April 1865. TJ bolts into the tent, “Robert, you must hear the news! Bobby Lee has surrendered his self and his Army of Northern Virginny. Yeah, you heard right he surrendered sommers west of Petersburg, Virginny, at a place called Appomattox, you ever heared of it? No? Me neither.”

  Robert weakly asked what did TJ think is going to happen now? TJ responds by saying the talk is the prisoners are to be taken by steamer down to Norfolk, Virginia and set free.

  “TJ for two years now I have posted letters to my family in Alabama. As to date, I have never received a reply, as far as I know they might not even be alive. I had two sons, Luke and Matthew with me at Gettysburg, I’ve never found out what happened to them. I know the War is over
, but even if I get carried to the steamer, I will not survive. Can you do me one last favor – write a letter to my brother Isaac Scarburg in care of the Scarburg Mill at Scarlettsville, South Carolina. At the very least, my family can know of my final demise.”

  “Robert, my friend, if I can find some paper and pen, I assure you I will post a letter to your brother, but hang in there my friend, you ain’t gonna die!”

  Point Lookout is in a scurry for the following weeks, most of the Negro guards have run off afraid of retaliation by the prisoners, in fact, for the past couple of weeks there have been no guards on the walls at all, but where are the inmates to go? Most were in rags; all were barefoot, ribs you can count, beards and hair that have not been trimmed in months. They look like dead men walking, in fact, a lot of them were just that, walking dead men. Robert, unfortunately, was one of them.

  TJ has not forgotten his promise to Robert, he found a pen, but he cannot find writing paper. One afternoon, TJ has an inspiration. The prison is overrun by worthless Confederate money, shin-plasters as the men call the currency. Why not use them to write a note to Robert’s brother. On the white backs of a couple of ten-dollar Confed’ bills, TJ pens a brief note to Isaac.

  As he walks along Pennsylvania Avenue heading toward the office where mail is delivered, he is shoving the two ten-dollar shin-plasters into an envelope. A couple of malcontents see what TJ is doing. To them he is sending good Union greenbacks home. They are going to have none of that, one of the ruffians approaches TJ, “What’s yer doin’ my good man, sendin’ yer sweetie yer savings, huh?”

  “My what? Savings? Well no, there’s no funds in this post I am making.”

  “Well, We’ll jest have to see fer ourselves, won’t we there,” the provocateur at his back said as he grabs the envelope. TJ makes and effort to grab it back, but the man in front hoists a knife and plunges it into his heart, killing TJ instantly.