Charles nodded and lifted two fingers to his forehead in a salute.
Jabez spent the morning sleeping and the afternoon riding to Westport to see a chemist who mixed a particular type of ague powder from willow bark. By evening he sat on the porch of the American Hotel, tipped back in a chair with his after-dinner cigar in his fingers, watching the parade of wagons and mules lining up on the road to Kansas. Charles’s emigrants were on the move, preparing for the last leg of their journey and an early morning start across the border and onto the short-grass prairies of Kansas.
Groups of hard-eyed men idled about the edges of the caravan, thumbs in belt loops, knives and sidearms prominent. Jabez’s eyes roved up and down the street, searching for any sign of Bigelow or of trouble between the two factions. Charles Robinson, much in evidence, moved along the line of conveyances, talking quietly with each family, exuding an infectious nonchalance toward the hostility around them. Judging by the malignant looks and rude gestures directed toward his tall, thin figure by the rowdies clustered in doorways and porches, he personally represented the northern invasion, the offense being offered by New England and the abolition movement, all that these southerners hated.
As night drew on, Jabez’s disquiet grew into a strong sense of foreboding and intensified., hurried along by low hanging storm clouds and a bank of thunderheads along the western horizon. The atmosphere sparked with electricity, exacerbating the antagonism between the two factions. Emigrants huddled together in small groups, throwing troubled glances toward the townspeople. Some sent their women and children into the relative safety of the American Hotel lobby.
Jabez stood and tossed away the stub of his cigar. He slipped a hand into his coat pocket to reassure himself that his Colt was accessible. He’d taken to carrying it after the encounter with Bigelow’s group on the road from the Atchison meeting. It gave him little comfort—he was, after all, one man against a tidal wave—but it was better than nothing. His thought now was to check on Jupiter, then take a stroll around town.
Gloom shrouded the alley leading to the livery stable; no windows opened on it, and lights from the street did not penetrate. He pushed through the door of the stable and Jupiter, stabled in the third stall from the door, nickered and tossed his head as if he, too, sensed both natural and human storms. Jabez stroked his neck and scratched his ears. “Shh, boy,” he whispered, “nothing to worry about. Not yet, anyway.”
Jupiter snorted and dipped his big head to push against Jabez’s hand. A nervous whinny came from several stalls down. Jabez’s hand stilled, he listened. Nothing. He mentally chastised himself for nerves. Thunder rumbled again, lightning followed at a discreet distance. He dished up a measure of oats from a barrel in the center aisle and poured it into the manger. Jupiter snuffled, bumped against him in gratitude, happy for both the company and the treat, and pushed his nose into the trough. Another horse snorted down the way, a sound of surprise and consternation. Jabez pressed up against the back wall of the stall. Probably the livery man, no need to be jumpy. But something wasn’t right. Now there were footsteps, coming from the far end of the stables. In the light of a hooded lantern, the steps stopped at stalls, searched the corners.
“Clear,” someone hissed. “Wil, over here.” Jabez tracked their movements by the glow of the lantern as it moved toward the front door of the stables. Hand on Jupiter’s shoulder, willing the big gelding to silence, he moved to the front of the stall and peered through the slats. Three men, no, four, huddled at the entrance, silhouetted against the milky grey of the deepening dusk. One lifted his hat, swiped a forearm over his brow.
“All right, boys, this is what we’re going do,” he said. His words were staccato, harsh. “Them boys on the street will follow our lead once we make a move. Jess and Fred are stationed at the edge of town, along by the border.” He pointed to his right. “You, Virgil, and you, Hank, take the south side. Them boys from Independence’ll do what you tell them to do.” He gripped the shoulder of the fourth man. “Harlan, you stick to the north side of the street. If Robinson tries to make for the hotel, get him in the knees.” He settled his hat again. “Leave him for me to finish off.”
It was easy to tell who was speaking. Wil Bigelow’s voice, with its nasal twang, continued.
“Harlan, Hank, you got the flares? Fire up them wagons once you hear Virgil’s call.” The shadow turned to the doorway. “Virgil, don’t make no move until you hear my whistle. Boys, them Yankees don’t know how to fight worth shit, but shoot if you get opposition.” Bigelow moved back into the darkness of the stable. “It won’t work unless we move together, so for God’s sake don’t move until you hear me.”
A low murmur of assent came from the men clustered around the doorway, then each moved out, shadow by shadow. Bigelow stayed behind; Jabez could see him push each man off with a pat on the back. Bigelow pulled out papers and tobacco, rolled, struck a match and lit up. Jabez watched him take a deep pull and expel a cloud smoke. Without Bigelow, Kansas City might still ignite. But if Bigelow purposefully struck the flint and steel, the town would surely go up like a bonfire, and the conflagration would engulf more than Kansas City. If there were any chance to avoid violence this night, Bigelow had to be silenced.
Jabez thought about the Colt in his pocket. He had never shot a man, and he had no wish to use the weapon now, even though a part of him knew Bigelow’s death may mean the preservation of other, more innocent, lives. And a shot would bring the town down on the stable and set off who knows what chaos.
But he could use it as a club. He dropped his hand to the latch and gently, quietly, under cover of a low rumble of thunder, released it so that the stall gate cracked open on its hinges. Jupiter woofed through his nostrils, and Jabez stroked his nose to quiet him. Bigelow didn’t seem to notice. He dropped his smoke into a water barrel, his back to the stalls, his attention directed toward the center of town. Jabez studied the still, dark figure through the opening in the stall door. Bigelow was probably a dozen yards away. Jabez had no illusions about his ability to overcome a well-muscled man twenty years his junior. He felt about him for something to throw, and his hand hit on the grooming brush he’d left on the edge of the trough. He picked it up and hurled it past Bigelow.
Bigelow jerked, reached for his sidearm, and spun toward the sound. Jabez threw open the stall door and used the butt of his Colt to knock him across the head. Bigelow fell with a low groan and rolled, scrambling for the revolver at his side. Jabez kicked his hands aside and, using the Colt again, struck him above the ear. Bigelow sighed, his eyes rolled up and he was out.
Jabez stood astride the man, breathing hard. “First, do no harm,” he muttered. Then he smiled. He leaned over and pressed a finger against Bigelow’s throat. The pulse was weak, but there—the man was out, but not in danger. Jabez looked about him. No one was the wiser. He hoisted Bigelow into Jupiter’s stall, tied him at the wrists and ankles with a length of lead rope and gagged him with the man’s own kerchief. Within moments, he had Jupiter saddled and Bigelow slung over the saddle horn, not particularly careful to be gentle. Once Bigelow moaned and showed signs of coming to. Jabez, knowing just the spot, pressed his fingers against the man’s throat and he was out again.
Leading Jupiter from the stall, he stopped at the stable doors, checked that the alley was clear and moved into the night, now thick with a steadily falling screen of rain. He walked Jupiter to the rear, where the stables backed up to pastureland and beyond that to meadows and fields east of town. He swung himself into the saddle, hunched over against the rain. If anyone saw him, he trusted to the misty darkness to camouflage the burden flung across his saddle. He checked Bigelow’s breathing, raspy, but steady. He wouldn’t smother.
They cut across fields and meadows, through a woodlot and across a creek, until he came to an area where the rolling countryside began to climb into hillocks, granite outcroppings scattered along a wagon track. He di
smounted, wandered a bit, exploring with his hands in the deep blackness of the storm and by occasional flashes of lightning, until he found what he wanted: a small overhang that offered some protection from the wet. Returning to the horse, he dragged Bigelow off and hauled him by the armpits beneath the overhang. He took out the folding knife he always carried in his pants pocket. Though he hated to lose it, he couldn’t let the man lie here helpless for days. No telling when someone would come by this way. He left the knife close to Bigelow’s hand, checked again to see that the man was still out, and satisfied that it would be a couple hours before he regained consciousness, mounted Jupiter and returned to Kansas City.
21
May 1856
The odor of smoke hung heavy in the spring air, reaching Jabez a mile or two east of Lawrence, Kansas, on the road from Franklin. The rumors rife in Franklin were apparently true, the acrid breeze out of the west told the tale. Lawrence had burned. Jupiter whinnied and balked at the scent, but Jabez kept him on a tight reign and nudged him forward. As he approached the outskirts of the village, he spotted smoke from breakfast campfires to the southwest, across the prairie in the direction of the Wakarusa River, but Lawrence stank of burned buildings, the smell of destruction.
A lovely May morning hid behind the gray pall that hung over the prairie. Jabez found himself once again in Kansas, summoned this time not by Atchison but by a Congressional committee which had traveled to the troubled territory to determine who should bear the blame for the turmoil of the past eighteen months. Last December, fifteen hundred Missouri hotbloods encamped south of Lawrence, capital of the free-soil movement. Atchison, almost certainly egging on the ruffians behind the scenes, summoned Jabez to serve as intermediary. The Congressmen, aware of Jabez’s role, commanded his appearance at the hearings. But by the time he reached Franklin in late May, the committee had decamped in the face of a new Missouri horde which moved into position south of Lawrence, leaving Jabez with a wasted trip and a close-up canvass of the aftermath of the attack.
The high road fed into the village’s main street. He passed a dry-goods shop, its plate glass window shattered, shards of glass scattered on the boardwalk and glinting in the dust of the road. A bolt of muslin lay trampled in the mud alongside a horse trough, canned goods and broken crockery cluttered the roadway. Ahead, a split wooden sign reading Kansas State Free Press swung by a single nail amidst blackened timbers and tilting walls. Newsprint fluttered in the breeze, type was embedded in the road underfoot. A woman in black jabbed at the boardwalk with a ragged broom, tears dampening her cheeks. Every building on Main Street showed the effects of the previous day’s looting: cracked windows, spoilt goods, stove-in barrels, broken glassware. The office of the Herald of Freedom had suffered the same fate as its competitor.
Jabez halted Jupiter in the town square and leaned on the saddle horn. The remains of the Free-State Hotel crouched on the square’s north side, concrete walls blackened and flaking, soot and cinders floating from shattered windows. Roof timbers filled the lobby, ruined furnishings smoldered. Just five months before, he had shuttled back and forth from the Wakarusa River to the third floor of this building, carrying messages between the governor and the free-state leaders. Charles Robinson and his colleagues labored in an upper room, struggling to reach a peaceful agreement with their enemies. In December they succeeded. In May, they lost. Their headquarters now were rubble, the town itself eerily silent, an occasional curtain lifting in the breeze, nothing but the cawing of the crows disturbing the hush.
Jabez dismounted and threw the reins over a broken porch rail. A cannon, a six-pounder, squatted in the street, aimed at the door of the ruined hotel. He ran his hand across the still-warm barrel. He recognized it as one of a pair owned by the Eldridge brothers, proprietors of the hotel, once displayed with pride at the hotel’s entrance. He squinted down the street against the flash of morning sun off a jagged piece of tin plate, wondering about casualties. He carried his medical bag, as always. Or maybe the free-staters had cut and run, and no one got hurt. He hoped so. Even without deaths, the destruction of Lawrence would most likely ignite the country. Dead and wounded, even worse, women and children caught in the cross-fire would ensure a brutal reaction.
He caught sight of a shadow inside the broken doors of Brooks’ haberdashery, a face in an upper window. A stocky, bushy-bearded old man rounded the corner of the gutted bank building, hooked his thumbs in a sagging waistband, and stared at Jabez. A jay screeched once, then quieted, the breeze rustled papers and new leaves along the street. He swung into the saddle, intending to talk to the old man by the bank and heard the jingle of harness, the creak of leather, the blowing of horses. It came from the direction of Blanton’s Bridge to the south, toward the Wakarusa. A steady, deep thrumming signaled the movement of dozens of animals, and a column of mounted men appeared, rounding the base of Mount Oread. Jabez watched the lead riders advance into the center of town. The old man at the bank froze. Even from a distance, Jabez marked the contemptuous tilt of his head, the hostile set of his shoulders.
At the head of the column rode two giants, both on sleek well-kept stallions. Jabez recognized Albert Boone sitting tall. The other was David Atchison, slumping from what Jabez speculated was a hang-over. The two led their victorious men toward the ferry on the Kaw River north of town and the road home to Missouri. Behind them, three twelve-pounders and two six-pound cannon rumbled, pulled by big Missouri mules. Jabez recognized John Stringfellow and his brother the general, followed by Kickapoo Rangers and territorial militia, some sporting fixed bayonets. But the bulk of the troops consisted of ragged, insolent, jeering rowdies, men tagged “border ruffians” by the northern newspapers, recruited across the south for no other purpose than to cause mayhem.
Alongside these troops rode a familiar figure, pale eyes peering out from under a broken hat brim, lank yellow hair to his shoulders. Bigelow looked to left and right and caught sight of Jabez. He reined in the piebald horse he rode, causing the animal behind him to shy and snort, and wheeled out of the column. Jabez returned the intensity of his look from a block away. Bigelow put a hand on his sidearm, slid it part way out of its holster. Jabez held up both hands in an almost mocking gesture, signaling he was unarmed, though the Colt lay heavy in his pocket. Bigelow shoved his gun back into the holster, sent him a long look, then turned his horse and moved along with the column.
Townspeople appeared at windows, doors, on street corners. The mounted men directed the odd jibe or insult toward them, but the citizens of Lawrence remained silent, watching their attackers move through town and down to the river bank, where the ferry began the tedious job of moving men, horses and cannon across the river. Jabez inquired about casualties, and finding that the free-state forces had abandoned the town to destruction by the proslavers without argument, turned Jupiter east and headed back to Franklin.
Franklin, three miles south and east of Lawrence and held by the slave faction, took pride in its raw and joyful untidiness, its random stores and homes, its muddy streets. It boasted a single hotel, part brothel, part rooming house, which provided a place to stay for those who could not bring themselves to put up at the Free-State Hotel in Lawrence. Jabez had paid extra to keep his room and ensure he wouldn’t return to find a half dozen roommates lodged with him. His foresight proved warranted. When he reached the town, he found the upper ranks of the proslave army in possession, all looking for a bed and dinner, most of them already three sheets to the wind.
Jabez had no interest in conversation or association with any of them; he planned to order a steak and make off with it to his room, settle in for the night, and leave for home at first light. But it was not to be, and before he made his escape he was accosted by the leader of the victorious army, the former Senator himself.
Atchison appeared to have recovered from the effects of drink and to be ready to begin another round. His large face flushed and split by a merry grin, the big
man waved a whiskey bottle in Jabez’s direction. “Well met, friend,” he said, plumping himself down in the only other chair at Jabez’s table. “I should have known you’d be where the action is.” He signaled the serving girl for another glass and poured himself and Jabez a generous amount. “And where were you stationed for the event? Did you see them run?” He lifted his glass in a toast while Jabez left his drink on the table. “We brought Southern Rights to Lawrence with a vengeance, we did, and the scoundrels ran like rabbits. Did you see it?” He downed his drink.
“I didn’t,” Jabez said. “I arrived only this morning. I saw the aftermath.”
“You saw what we can do, then, eh?” Atchison puffed himself up. “It was the happiest day of my life! We made them bow to the law, eh?” He poured another shot. Behind him, a door banged open and a rotund serving woman bawled something unintelligible.
“Whether they’re obeying the law or simply avoiding cannon fire and muskets may still be a question,” Jabez said. “They will answer you, I’ll stake my horse on it.”
“Well, sir, you may be right.” Atchison’s words were slurring now. He smiled sloppily and tapped a tattoo on the scarred table. “Them rogues’ll sure as hell come up with something to pester us with. They don’t give up easy.” He poured yet another shot.
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