by J. R. Ayers
“We’ll have a better trip going the other way,” Jack said.
“Maybe, but it won’t be nearly as much fun.”
“I’d like to be there when some of those blue ass Yankees try to mount one of those lovelies,” Jack said.
“You think they’ll take their trade?”
“Sure. As long as they have money to spend.”
“Damn, I’d like to have one more crack at that wide lipped gal. She has special talents.”
“Appeared to me she was wanting her money,” Jack said. “Lucky for you she’s going in the other direction. Otherwise you may very well be singing falsetto.”
The town and the camp were now empty except for the men left behind in the infirmary and a few old granjeros who refused to leave their property behind. Jack feared the Union troops would brutalize the locals who remained in town because of their support for the Confederates, even though most of the residents had mostly ignored the southern troops except when they were taking their money for goods or services rendered.
The leaving was orderly enough, though wet and slow. As the makeshift caravan traveled along the water logged road heading northwest, Jack looked back toward the infirmary and said a silent prayer for the men too close to death to be moved. The priest had remained behind as well offering comfort and absolution to the dying men. They had left a horse for him in hopes that he could make his escape before the Union forces overtook the town.
That night, well after midnight, they stopped to set up a hurried camp to treat and feed the wounded men. Jack found Charlotte Mason on her knees behind a wagon crying into hands still bloody with the blood of dying men. “Nurse Mason?” he said gently. She was startled and embarrassed and she quickly put on a smile that looked as defeated as she no doubt felt.
“Corporal Saylor? Didn’t see you there.”
“How are you ma’am?”
“Tired. Worn out. Sick of the butchery.”
“Are you going to be alright during the withdrawal?”
“I have no other choice,” she said. “There are nine gravely wounded men in those wagons and fourteen more with wounds requiring surgery. We can’t just let them die, or rot.”
“No, I suppose we can’t.”
“Thank you for helping with the medical equipment,” she said. “We’re going to need every bit of that cotton cloth and all the laudanum as well.”
We going to need a lot more than that, Jack thought as he walked away to join Campbell who was standing rear guard.
“Wish we could make a fire to dry our clothes,” Campbell said rubbing his hands together.
“I don’t care about dry clothes, but I could use a good meal,” Jack said.
“And sleep. Don’t forget sleep.”
“I fear it will be a good long time before we get any decent sleep,” Jack said.
“Any I can get will be decent enough.”
A mess attendant came by and told the men that there would be some mush and coffee ready directly. They waited until they were relieved then walked across the road to where a fire burned in an old ammo crate and a kettle of coffee simmered on a bed of coals. The trees at the edge of the road were dripping rain and it was turning cooler in the valley. Campbell and Jack sat around the sputtering fire drinking chickory coffee while the surgeons treated the wounded and the livery hands fed the horses and mules and the soldiers stood as sentries watching the road for any sign of the enemy.
“I think I’d like a retreat better if the sun was shinning,” Campbell said after a while.
“A retreat is no good regardless the weather,” Jack said. “Did you get enough to eat?”
“I’ve had plenty. Now I wish I had a bottle of whiskey. And a thick lipped senorita.”
“We’re on a retreat, Carl,” Jack said. “We’re running like rabbits from the yanks and all you can talk about is whiskey and whores.”
“Better than thinking about all those shot up boys over there in the wagons.”
“I agree. But we have to keep focused. Those blue bellies want to shred us like old newspaper.” Campbell yawned and threw away his coffee.
“I need some sleep.”
Jack said, “Tomorrow, we’ll sleep tomorrow when we’ve put some distance between us and that swollen river.”
“Where do you think we will retreat to?”
“Colonel says Laredo.”
“Laredo? Hope they have a cantina. Or a nurse who likes train rides.”
Chapter 26
They were on the move again as soon as the sun kissed the eastern skyline. It had stopped raining but dark brooding clouds hung on the eastern horizon and all along the southern border of the river now many miles behind them. Colonel Ford’s forward scouts had rejoined the caravan and the columns of troops and wagons and extra horses and mules stretched out along the road for at least a quarter of a mile. They moved slowly but steadily through the thick mud, stopping only briefly to clean the horse’s hooves and clear mud from the wagon spokes. The column stopped as one and everyone lent a hand going from horse to horse and under the wet necks of the mules and between the axles of the ambulances and supply wagons. Orderlies from the medical corps carried full chamber pots and emptied them in the flooded ditches along the side of the road. There wasn’t time to brew coffee so the soldiers chewed on wedges of hardtack and drank water from their canteens.
Colonel Ford ordered his men to rotate as forward patrol and Jack and Corporal Campbell took their turn around mid morning. It began raining again as soon as they were out of sight of the caravan and visibility waned until the view ahead was nothing but a gray-white wall of mist. They rounded a bend in the road and Jack saw a covered wagon rolling down the road toward them. An old man driving a team of spotted ponies pulled rein as he approached Jack and Campbell. “How do,” he said. He had white hair and a white beard and he wore a white hat and a white coat and white trousers and black boots with white tassels. Three Indians girls sat on a bench seat behind him each dressed in buckskin and colorful cotton. “Where you soldier boys headin’?” the man asked with a pronounced draw.
“Laredo,” Jack said. “The Yankees are occupying Brownsville and we’re headed to neutral ground.”
“Hell, Laredo ain’t neutral,” the man said. “Why it’s crawlin’ with rebel boys just like ya’ll.” He saw Campbell eyeing the Indian girls. “They’s Kickapoos,” he said with a toothy grin. “Sisters they are and as virgin as Mary herself.” He put his hand on one of the girl’s thigh and gave a squeeze and the girl stiffened and pushed away the hand. “Hey!” the man said. “relax some, will you!” The girl looked at him with eyes as sharp as a knife blade. The other girls kept their eyes cast downward and pressed their folded hands to their laps.
“What are you doing with those gals, old timer?” Campbell asked.
“Bought ‘em. Twenty dollars a piece. Damn son, what happened to your face?”
One of the other girls looked at Jack and said something in a strange dialect he couldn’t understand. She was thin and dark and looked to be about fourteen. The sister seated beside her never moved an eyelash. She looked perhaps a year younger and was as thin and sunburned as her two siblings.
“So, how does a fellow buy an Indian?” Campbell asked.
“The same way you buy a nigger, you bid on ‘em,” the old man said.
“Well, what are you going to do with them?” asked Jack. The old man turned in the seat and pointed to the eldest of the sisters.
“That one right there is gonna be my cook, that one in the middle is gonna keep my cabin clean as a whistle and that little one there is gonna keep my feet warm on cold nights.”
Campbell looked at Jack and Jack looked at the old man and the girls looked at each other and Jack drew his pistol and pulled back the hammer. “You’re not going another foot with those girls in your wagon,” he said firmly.
“Now hold on here, these squaws is my personal property!” the old man bellowed.
“Let us see a receipt,�
�� Campbell said. He’d produced his own pistol and had moved a little closer to Jack. The man made a show of patting his pockets then put on an obviously contrived frown.
“Hell, I must have lost it in all this rain,” he said his face beginning to pale beneath his hat.
“That’s too bad for you,” Jack said. “If you can’t prove you paid for those girls, which isn’t legal by the way, then you’re going to have to turn them over to Corporal Campbell and me.”
“What are going to do with them?”
“Well, I can say this much, they won’t be doing any cooking, cleaning, or foot warming for starts. Unless they want to, that is. In the mean time, I will turn them over to my Colonel for his disposition.”
“What about my money?”
“Chalk the loss up to greed and stupidity,” Campbell said coldly.
Jack held his pistol on the man while Campbell attempted to coax the girls from the wagon. They recoiled in terror and Campbell tried to soothe them with soft words and the girls clung to each other as if they were drowning.
“Here Carl, take my Colt,” Jack said. “You’re so damn scared up and frightful those girls think you’re some kind of booger or something.”
Jack handed the pistol to Campbell and stepped up on the wagon boot. Using a series of hand gestures he was able to convince the girls that they would be better served to abandon the wagon and go with him. They climbed down and covered themselves with shawls of quilted cotton to protect their bare heads from the rain. Jack turned to the man and said, “Turn this wagon around and go back where you came from. There isn’t anything in Brownsville for you.” The man stared at Jack then glanced down at the wagon seat. “If there’s a firearm under there you’d best leave it be,” Jack said. “Ole’ Carl here’s a fairly decent shot, even in the rain.”
The man hesitated a moment then flicked the horses with the reins and tuned the wagon northward. Jack watched him disappear into the thickening mist before turning to face the shivering girls. “Don’t worry,” he said to the oldest sister. “he won’t bother you again.” He could see she didn’t understand a word he said. Her dark eyes regarded him with suspicion and she pulled the shawl tight around her shoulders.
“What are we going to do now?” Campbell asked.
“Why don’t you stay here and make sure that old knacker doesn’t come back this way,” Jack said. “I’ll escort these girls back to the regiment and turn them over to the colonel.”
“What if he does come back?”
“Shoot him.”
It took some work but Jack finally managed to make the girls understand that they should follow him. They walked through the fog and the rain with Jack leading the way and the girls staying well back tiptoeing through the mud on moccasin clad feet.
Colonel Ford was not happy when Jack finally showed up with the Indian girls. “What am I supposed to do with them?” he asked. The colonel was a rather tall man with whiskers and a prominent limp which he acquired when a mini ball pierced his calf a year earlier.
“I can use them helping with the wounded,” the surgeon major suggested.
“They don’t speak a word of English,” Jack said.
“Doesn’t matter, Nurse Mason can mime what she needs done. It’s either that or you can leave them here for the Yankees.”
“Alright, alright, just so long as they stay out of the way,” the colonel said.
The column moved out and soon caught up with Corporal Campbell. “Did the old man try to double back?” asked Jack
“Haven’t seen hide nor hair. Did the colonel take in the girls?”
“They’re in one of the ambulances with Nurse Mason.”
“Damn shame a man buying girls like that.”
“You don’t seem to have a problem with folks buying black people.”
“That’s different. That’s commerce.”
“It’s still buying and selling people.”
“I’m not having this argument with you again, Saylor.”
“Good. All I can say is a retreat in the pouring rain is no place for three virgins, even if they are savages.”
The rain began to slacken just before noon and Jack saw the road of their retreat stretched out far ahead of the infantry and the convoy of wagons and livestock. During the night a few stragglers from Brownsville had joined the column with two-wheel carts loaded with their household belongings. The items included small chests with drawers, and turkeys and chickens and ducks tied to the sides of the carts and ruddy faced children and burros following along behind the men as they drove the heavy carts through the clinging mire. Others, mostly women, walked alongside the carts keeping as far from the deep ruts as possible. A few dogs trotted through the mud keeping close to the carts as they moved along. The ditches by the side of the road were high with muddy water and beyond the trees lining the road the drenched fields of wheat and cotton looked like silver blankets in the glow of the ineffectual sun.
Jack walked ahead of the wagons and carts looking for a place where they could travel across the open plain if the water continued to rise in the road. The rain was not falling as heavily and Jack thought it might clear up to the north. Smaller roads branched off to the east and the northeast cutting between two fields of autumn wheat. The farming roads were not quite as water logged as the main thoroughfare and Jack thought it would be better if the wagons and carts left the main road for the less traveled smaller lanes. He hurried back to find Colonel Ford. After consulting with the captain and the surgeon major, Ford agreed it would be better than staying on the flooded main road. He told the captain to take some men and escort the ambulances and supply wagons and the civilian carts to the farm road veering off to the north. “If it leads too far to the east send a messenger back and we’ll adjust our plan,” Colonel Ford said.
Jack and Corporal Campbell were selected to accompany the wagons and they fell in behind one of the ambulances as the convoy turned off the main road.
“How are you feeling, Carl?” asked Jack when they had settled into a comfortable pace.
“Fine. And you?”
“Fine. But I’m wet, and hungry.”
“They ought to stop soon so we can eat. How’s your shoulder, Jack?”
“Fine.”
Jack looked up ahead where he could see through the bare branches of the post oaks lining the road on both sides. They followed the ambulance along the narrow road until they saw a farmhouse in the distance. The captain put out the word that they would be stopping for a meal and to rest the animals.
The convoy stopped in the farmyard and drivers and surgeons and nurses and orderlies and civilians climbed down to stretch their legs. The farm house was old and large with a garden gone to seed in the back and stock pens along the east side with broken rails scattered on the ground like sheaths of straw. There was plenty of manure on the ground inside the corrals but no sign of the animals that had produced it. A covered well stood in the middle of the front yard and orderlies and some of the civilian men went about drawing buckets of water for the horses and mules.
After a quick check, the farmhouse was pronounced deserted by one of Colonel Ford’s sergeants. The house was on a slight rise overlooking the plain beyond the fence line. Jack could see out over the country side and saw the road snaking through the brown fields and the line of defoliated trees along the main road a mile and a half away. The Indian girls had climbed out of one of the ambulances and stood looking at the house, the well, and the neutered gardens behind the house. One of the soldiers came out of the house with a silver water pitcher in his hand. “Put it back,” the captain said. “We’re not here to plunder these people.” The soldier backtracked and retuned a moment later empty handed.
“How’s about getting a bite to eat, sir?” Campbell asked the captain.
“Sure, go ahead and eat something. Don’t take long, though.” Jack was still looking down the farm road toward the horizon.
“Do you think this road is leading to Laredo?” he
asked.
“I’m sending some Calvary ahead to find out,” the captain said.
“All right then, let’s eat,” Campbell said rushing off to help the mess orderlies with the supplies.
Jack and the captain went into the farmhouse together. It was a spacious structure and dark, and obviously long abandoned.
“Wonder who cleaned them out, us or the yanks?” the captain mused. “We should go, there’s nothing for us here. We’ll have the mess cooks whip us up something and then we’ll head on out.”
They ate biscuits and salt pork and canned peaches and then started off down the narrow farm road. Jack looked back at the farmhouse with a twinge of regret. It was a fine, sturdy house and the outbuildings and barns looked in good shape, although there wasn’t so much as a chicken in sight anywhere in the back lots. Whoever had owned the farm had simply picked up and left taking their livestock, canned goods, and any fresh vegetables from the garden with them. Either that, or the Army had raided the place and taken everything not nailed down. Jack did not want to think about the possibility that it may have been his own Army that had perpetrated such a heinous act.
Chapter 27
They had only traveled a hundred feet when the surgeon major caught up with the captain’s horse. “Those Indian girls won’t get back in the ambulance,” he said pointing to the rear of the convoy.
“What do you mean they won’t get in?”
“They just won’t. They’re just standing there in the middle of the road like stones. What do you want me to do?” The captain looked at Jack and said,
“You brought them here, you take care of it.” Then he spurred his horse and rode away toward the front of the column.
Jack worked his way back until he found the girls walking down the road. He made a motion with his hands that they should follow him but they only stared back at him with blank unreadable eyes and the oldest shook her head.
