Lost Cause

by J. R. Ayers

“Come on, we have to hurry and catch up,” Jack said. “The ambulance, Nurse Mason, she’s waiting on you.” Nothing but vacant stares and shaking heads. “Well, what are you going to do then?” The older sister pointed to the northwest and said something in her language. “Oh, I see,” Jack said. “You want to go home, right?” He made a sweeping motion with his arm and framed a crude representation of a tent with his hands. The girl nodded and again pointed to the northwest.

  “Alright, I can understand that. But wait for a minute. I’m going to the mess wagon and get you some food.” He cupped his hand and motioned to his mouth. The girls stared at him in stony silence.

  Exasperated, Jack hurried back to the mess wagon and begged and pleaded with the mess sergeant to give him a little bacon and corn meal. The sergeant eventually relented and jack wrapped the provisions in piece of cotton cloth and rushed back to the girls. They had walked two hundred yards back toward the main road and Jack had to sprint to catch up to them.

  “Here, take these,” he said breathing hard. They looked at him with suspicion .and he opened the bundle so they could see the contents inside. They didn’t understand him, but they took the food and started down the road looking back a couple of times as though they were afraid Jack might take back the food. He stood there for a while and watched them go down the road, their skirts dragging in the mud and their shawls wrapped tightly around their shoulders.

  Jack eventually returned to the front of the convoy and informed the captain that the problem was taken care of.

  “Good,” the captain said. “I don’t want you to be picking up any more strays, Corporal Saylor.”

  “That will not be a problem, sir.”

  The convoy was negotiating the muddy road as fast as they could without risking injury to the animals. The sun was trying to push through the lingering clouds but it was often more cloudy than light and by mid morning it was threatening rain again.

  Campbell caught up with Jack and asked about the Indian girls.

  “They were homesick,” Jack said.

  “You mean they just took off walking?”

  “Yep.”

  “Wonder where their people are?”

  “Kickapoos usually range northwest of the Brazos. There’s no telling where that old man bought them at.”

  “He didn’t buy those girls, he stole them somewhere.”

  “I disagree. He wasn’t outfitted to go up against a camp full of Kickapoo braves. No, I say some sorry son-of-a-bitch took them and then sold them to the old man. Some people will do anything for money.”

  “Well, I just hope they make it back home,” Campbell said. “That older one was kind of a looker wasn’t she?”

  “Damn, Carl, is that all you ever think about?”

  “No. I think about food sometimes. And whiskey. And sleep.”

  “Is that musket fire over there?” Jack asked abruptly. Campbell cocked his head and listened for a moment.

  “I think it is.”

  “Probably Ford’s Calvary.”

  “You hope it’s Ford. Could be Yankees shooting at Ford.”

  An hour later they rode up to a creek that had now turned into a raging river. The river was high and the small bridge designed for a creek was now under two feet of brown flowing water. The captain sent two men up the bank in both directions looking for a place for the convoy to cross. A forward scout had found a railway bridge that morning but there was no guarantee that it was structurally sound enough to risk crossing the wagons. One of the scouts returned from the south and said he’d checked the bridge and it appeared to be in good shape. It took thirty minutes to turn the wagons and ambulances and another hour to push across a series of fallow barley fields to the railroad bridge. It was a short iron bridge built with practicality in mind and it did indeed appear to be structurally sound.

  “Wonder why the yanks haven’t blow this up?” Campbell said.

  “I don’t know,” Jack said. “Maybe we ought to hurry across before they show up with a cart full of nitro.” Campbell wasn’t so optimistic.

  “If we had any sense we wouldn’t be here at all,” he muttered.

  The sky had clouded over again and it began to sprinkle rain. The bridge looked solid to the naked eye, but the captain sent a couple of men to walk the center of the rail bed looking for dynamite fuses or tripwires. The men waved all clear and the captain yelled, “One at a time now, the ambulances first, then the supply wagons and then the civilians. Move quickly but carefully. When the last wagon is across, the Calvary can cross, then the infantry.”

  “Great,” Jack said. “It’s always us infantry grunts that get the short end of the stick.”

  The convoy crossed without incident with the wagon wheels straddling the rails all the way to the other side. Jack brought up the rear and he looked through the gaps in the ties at the river thirty feet below running fast and muddy and frothy and breathed a sigh of relief that everyone had made it across safely.

  Once on the other side, Jack looked back and saw a blue line moving through the mist a half a mile down the rail bed on the other side of the creek. “Do you see that?” he asked Campbell who was walking beside him looking at his muddy boots.

  “See what?”

  “That blue back there. That’s a squad of Yankee Calvary isn’t it?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid it is,” Campbell said suddenly alert. “Let me go tell the captain.”

  The captain took a look then a second look through his field glasses and said, “Damn!”

  The wedge of blue advanced slowly through the fog moving as one in a single file column.

  “What are going to do, Captain?” Campbell asked. The captain looked back over his shoulder at one of the supply wagons.

  “There are six cases of dynamite in that wagon,” he said. “Saylor you take a few men and pack this end of the bridge with as many sticks of that stuff as you can before they get here. Campbell you go up there and tell that lieutenant in charge of the Calvary that I said to get his men back here, pronto. On the way back, tell them ambulance drivers to keep moving north as fast as they can.”

  “Anything else, sir?” asked Jack.

  “Just do it quickly, Corporal.”

  Chapter 28

  Jack finished wiring the last stick of dynamite to a bridge support and scrambled up the bank to the rail bed. The captain and fifty infantry soldiers including Campbell stood in the middle of the road and watched the Union Calvary advance. They were close enough for Jack to see the faces of the first two rows of soldiers. They were well dressed in Cobalt blouses and sky blue trousers with yellow stripes on the side. Their hats were flapped in the front and topped with plumed white feathers. Their carbines were sheathed in boots tied to high saddles and each man was equipped with a .40 revolver. Their horses trotted in cadence throwing up clods of mud and leaves as they high stepped down the center of the rail bed.

  “Wait until they get right on top of the bridge,” the captain said. He was sitting on a horse watching the approaching column through his field glasses. The lead squad saw the Confederates standing in the middle of the road and began pointing and shouting, although Jack and the other men couldn’t hear what they were saying because of the distance and the noise from the rushing creek.

  “Here they come, boys,” the captain said. “Get ready to light that fuse on my command, Saylor.”

  A few of the Union troops grabbed their carbines and began firing across the bridge. They were not quite in range yet and their projectiles hit harmlessly on the railroad ties or ricocheted into the water below.

  “Now!” the captain yelled. Jack struck a match and lit the lead fuse line and the group of men moved down the road away from the bridge as quickly as they could run. The Union soldiers seemed to sense what was about to happen but they didn’t have time to slow their horses before the dynamite blew and the Confederate side of the bridge disappeared in a billowing crashing smoking effluvium of rock and steel and steam. When some of the dust and the s
moke cleared, Jack saw a gaping steaming hole where the north side of the bridge had once been. A yell went up among the men and Jack shook his fist at the bewildered Union troops across the river.

  “Look at them bastards!” Campbell whooped. “Don’t they look like somebody just took a shit in their hominy grits?”

  “That ought to hold them,” the captain said. “Ain’t nobody getting across that bridge any time soon.”

  They watched the Union soldiers dismount and inspect the bridge laughing every time one of them fired a shot their way. “Go ahead Billy Yank, waste all them rounds!” Campbell yelled waving his arms over his head.

  “That’s enough, Corporal,” the captain said. “Let’s get underway. Those boys aren’t getting across that river now, but no use taking a chance that they might get a shot across. We’ll leave a rear guard and keeping moving on up this rail track.”

  “Where do think those Yankees come from?” Campbell asked Jack after they’d walked down the rail bed a quarter of a mile.

  “Probably from Brownsville.”

  “But we had a head start on them.”

  “They were Calvary, Carl. We’re slow as molasses with these wagons and ambulances. We were damn lucky to have gotten across that bridge when we did.”

  “Why didn’t Colonel Ford leave some troops behind to stop them?”

  “Probably because we’re on a retreat, Carl. You don’t stop and fight a skirmish when you’re on a retreat. Only if we’re attacked.”

  “Well, pardon me, I ain’t never been on no retreat before.”

  “Nor have I. But, I figure that’s how it goes.”

  They walked along the railroad track for what seemed like miles before turning back across the open fields. They could see acres of brown grass growing on the low hills in the distance. “Damn!” Jack said, pointing toward the hills. “there’s more riders over there.”

  They watched the riders move down the slope of the hill and cut across the field toward the river.

  “Those are Indians,” Campbell said a moment later.”

  “You’re right. Guess we’d better tell the captain.”

  The captain retrieved his field glasses and took a long look at the Indians. There appeared to be nine of them in all, six men and three females. “That’ll be your Kickapoos,” the captain said. “Guess those girls found their people.”

  The Indians saw the convoy crossing over the plain but they made no attempt to acknowledge them. “Should we send out some men, sir?” asked Jack.

  “No, they don’t want us. They were after the girls and it looks like they found what they wanted.”

  The convoy moved west until they picked up the farm road again and proceeded north in hopes of connecting with the main road somewhere up ahead. It was late afternoon and already getting dark when Jack saw the main road to the north where a small copse of cottonwood trees grew on each side of the lane. The captain thought it best to join back up with Colonel Ford’s group on the main road and avoid the secondary roads as much as possible. “Too many other people moving about,” he reasoned. “Besides, we need to alert the colonel that there’s Yankees on our tail.”

  As he finished speaking a shot was fired at them from the cover of the mesquite bushes a hundred yards off the road. The bullet went into the mud of the embankment behind Jack and he instinctively ducked for cover. Another shot came from the thick brush and Jack drew his pistol and the captain barked out orders and four Calvary soldiers took off across the muddy plain carbines at the ready. A brief fire fight ensued then one of the soldiers came trotting back across the field. “One civilian, sir,” he said to the captain. “He wouldn’t surrender his weapon so Baxter had to shoot him.”

  “What did he look like?” asked Jack.

  “Older man.”

  “White hair? White clothing?” The soldier nodded and Campbell said,

  “The Indian girl stealer.”

  “Guess he was mad at us for taking his property,” Jack suggested.

  They walked across the field and joined the other soldiers standing over the old man’s body. They rolled him on his side then turned him over on his back. He lay in the mud panting, bloody bubbles staining his white beard. Jack leaned forward and inspected the hole in his white shirt now pink and frothy from the driving rain mingling with the seeping blood. He’d been hit in the neck and the bullet had traveled upward and come out under his left ear. He died while Jack watched, his watery eyes fluttering rapidly then rolling white as his breath left his body. The captain picked up the old man’s hat and put it over his face. “Guess we’d better bury him,” he said

  They put the old man in the wet ground where he lay along with the old Enfield rifle he used to shoot at them then continued their retreat a little more solemn than before. “We’ll find a place to camp as close to dark as we can,” the captain said. “I’ll send a few men ahead to scout.”

  They moved on and later saw another farmhouse across a barren field. There were many cottonwood and fruit trees around it and several out buildings and a barn stood on a small hill overlooking the house. “We’d better keep a sharp look out this time,” the captain said. “Saylor, you and Campbell go check it out. Take Baxter with you. He appears to be a good shot. I’ll hold the rest of the group here until you give the all clear.”

  Jack and his crew started across the field toward the farmhouse with weapons at the ready. There was a wagon path bisecting the field leading from the main road toward the barn and the three men cautiously moved toward it. Jack had no way of knowing if someone was hiding in the nearby trees or possibly inside the house itself. All the trees were dripping rain and the gutter troughs on the sides of the house were full to overflowing. The men approached a fence that separated the fields from the remainder of the property and climbed over one at a time Then they moved on to the front of the house and stopped in the shadow of a huge trellis of ivy covering the entire south side of the house. Jack could see that the front door was standing wide open and he motioned for Campbell and Baxter to follow him and they hurried to the door and went inside. It was very dark inside the house; all the drapes were drawn and the shutters closed up tight. Jack went back to the kitchen while Baxter went upstairs and Campbell headed for the rooms in the rear of the house. Inside the kitchen there was a large Dutch oven hanging over a fire pit in a big open hearth. Jack looked inside hoping to find something palatable but the ashes were long cold and whatever had been in the pot had boiled dry.

  “Anything to eat in here?” Campbell asked.

  “Don’t see anything. Nothing in the bedrooms?”

  “Empty. They even took the bed clothes.”

  Baxter came into the kitchen and said, “Nothing up there but some old clothes and newspapers.” Jack took a slow look around the kitchen and frowned.

  “You two check in here and see if you can find anything to eat,” he said. “I’ll go out to the barn and take a look. Maybe there’s a chicken or some eggs or something we can use.”

  The inside of the barn was dry and pleasant compared to the damp air outside. There were no animals in the barn, save a mouse or two, and the mangers were empty of straw and the tack room bare. Not even an old worn bridle hung from the empty wooden pegs. Jack heard the rain on the roof and smelled the hay and the dried manure and the subtle undertone of saddle leather. The large double back doors looked out on the fields toward the northern skyline. It was a rather large barn and Jack figured it was an excellent hiding place for anyone who might wish them ill will, though so far he hadn’t perceived the slightest hint of a threat.

  The hay smelled good and a memory took Jack away to a time when he was young and he’d lain in the hay in a barn on the Nueces River and plugged starlings with a sling shot as they perched in the loft louvers high up the wall of the barn. But now wasn’t the time for sentimental reflections of the past. With one last look around, he left the barn and walked back to the front of the house.

  Campbell and Baxter were waiting for
him and they headed back to the convoy. Jack told the captain that there was nothing of interest at the farm and the order was give to move on.

  They headed out traveling until well after dark and finally Colonel Ford gave the order to stop for the night. Jack found a spot in a grove of mulberry bushes and sat on the damp grass wondering why he was still alive. Thoughts of the old kidnapper of girls came to mind and he shook his head in disillusionment. The man’s killing had come so suddenly and, in Jack’s view, so unnecessarily. He found himself wondering why someone would go up against such impossible odds. Was the man so agitated over the loss of the girls that he would forfeit his very life trying to get even, or did he have other motives, such as a fierce loyalty to the Union? There was no clear answer to the rhetorical question and just thinking about it gave Jack a raging headache.

  Quite unexpectedly, Marie Hayes came to mind and he found himself on the verge of tears wondering how she was doing. Had she survived the induced miscarriage without much discomfort? Was she well? Did she ever think of him?

  The night was terribly dark and the rain beat a steady cadence on the wagon tops and a cold mist clung to the base of the barren trees. Jack could clearly see the troops standing guard duty behind the wagons with their rifles held aloft and their faces wet with rain and their shoulders hunched against the evening chill.

  He dozed on occasion and dreamed and sometime before dawn he woke feeling achy and empty, almost as if he had been suspended in a dark arid place with no concept of time or space. Images of Marie Hayes had shaped his dreams, her ethereal voice soft and enticing like the song of a siren intent on consuming his soul. The old man who would buy children was there in his dreams as well, bloody and bloated and dead with eyes shaped like twenty dollar gold pieces and teeth full of chunks of fine brown flesh.

  “You alright, Saylor?” Campbell asked. He was squatting on his heels holding a tin cup of coffee in his hand like a delicate flower. Jack shook his head and sat up.