We rode forward into a patch of thick woods about a mile farther up the trail, then cut off it to follow an old logging trail. It was peaceful and quiet, once we drawed away from the shooting. We crossed a creek and come to where the old logging trail picked up again on the other side and tied our horses off there. Fred pulled off his hardware and got his blanket and hunting things out—beads, dried corn, dried yams. Took him several minutes to unstrap them guns, for he was loaded. Once he done that, he give me a squirrel rifle and took one for hisself. “Normally I wouldn’t use this,” he said, “but there’s enough shooting ’round here so it won’t draw no attention, not if we hurry.”
It weren’t dark yet but evening was coming. We walked about a half mile along the creek bank, with Fred showing me the markings and the likes of where a beaver family was busy making a dam. He said, “I’ll cross the creek and work him from the other side. You come up this way, and when he hears you coming, that’ll flush him out, and we’ll just meet yonder near where the creek bends to get him.”
He crept over on the other side and disappeared in the thickets, while I come up on the other side of it. I was about halfway to where we was to meet when I turned and seen a white man standing about five yards off, holding a rifle.
“What you doing with that rifle, missy?” he said.
“Nuthin’, sir,” I said.
“Put it down, then.”
I done like he said, and he come up on me, snatched my rifle from the ground, and, still holding his rifle on me, said, “Where’s your master?”
“Oh, he’s ’cross the creek.”
“Ain’t you got a sir in your mouth, nigger?”
I was out of practice, see. I hadn’t been ’round normal white folks in months, demanding you call ’em sir and what all. The Old Man didn’t allow none of that. But I righted up. I said, “Yes, sir.”
“What’s your marse’s name?”
I couldn’t think of nothing, so I said, “Fred.”
“What?”
“Just Fred.”
“You call your marse Fred or just Fred or Marse Fred or Fred sir?”
Well, that tied me in knots. I should’a named Dutch, but Dutch seemed a long way away, and I was confused.
“Come with me,” he said.
We started off through the woods away from the creek, and I followed on foot. We hadn’t gotten five steps when I heard Fred holler. “Where you going?”
The man stopped and turned. Fred was standing dead in the middle of the creek, his squirrel gun cocked to his face. He was a sight to see, big as he was, frightening to look at with dead intent, and he weren’t no more than ten yards off.
“She belong to you?” the man said.
“That ain’t your business, mister.”
“You Pro Slave or Free State?”
“You say one more thing, and I’mma deaden where you is. Turn her loose and git your foot up that road.”
Well, Fred could’a burned him, but he didn’t. The feller turned me loose and trotted off, still holding my squirrel rifle.
Fred climbed out of the water and said, “Let’s come off this creek and head back toward where the others is. It’s too dangerous out here. There’s another creek on the other side from where they left.”
We went back to where the horses were tied off, mounted, and rode a half hour or so north, this time to a clearing near where another, bigger creek widened out. Fred said, “We can catch a duck or a pheasant or even a hawk here. It’s gonna be dark soon and they’ll be collecting their last vittles of the day. Stay here, Little Onion, and don’t make a sound.” He dismounted and left, still holding his squirrel rifle.
I stuck close to the spot where he left me and watched him move through the woods. He was smooth business out there, quiet as a deer, not a sound come out of him. He didn’t go far. Maybe thirty yards off, I could see his silhouette in the trees, then he spotted something up in a long birch that stretched skyward. He raised his rifle and let a charge go, and a huge bird fell to the earth.
We run up on it and Fred paled. It was a fat, beautiful catch, black, with a long red-and-white stripe on its back, and a strange, long beak. It was a nice bird, plenty meat, about twenty inches long. Wingspan must’ve been nearly a yard. Big as any bird you’d want to eat. “That’s a hell of a hawk,” I said. “Let’s move away from here just in case somebody heard the shot.” I moved to grab it.
“Don’t touch it!” Fred said. He was pale as a ghost. “That ain’t no hawk. That’s a Good Lord Bird. Lord!”
He sat on the ground, just ripped up. “I never saw it clear. I only had one shot. See that?” He held up the squirrel rifle. “Damn thing. Only got one shot. Don’t take much. Man sins without knowing, and sins come without warning, Onion. The Bible says it. ‘He who sins knows not the Lord. He does not know Him.’ You think Jesus knows my heart?”
I growed tired of his mumbling confusion ’bout the Lord. I was hungry. I was supposed to be getting away from the fighting and here I was held up by more of the same. I was irritated. I said, “Stop worrying. The Lord knows your heart.”
“I got to pray,” he said. “That’s what Father would do.”
That wouldn’t do. It was almost dark now, and the others hadn’t caught up to us yet, and I worried that the shot would draw somebody. But there ain’t nothing to tell a white man, or any man, who’s made up his mind to a prayerful thing. Fred set there on his knees and prayed just like the Old Man, fluffering and blubbering to the Lord to come to his favor and this and that. He weren’t nearly as good as his Pa in the praying department, being that he weren’t able to attach one thought to the next. The Old Man’s prayers growed up right before your eyes; they was all connected, like stairways running from one floor to another in a house, whereas Fred’s prayers was more like barrels and clothing chests throwed about a fine sitting room. His prayers shot this way and that, cutting hither and yon, and in this way an hour passed. But it was a precious hour which I’ll tell you about in a minute. After he gived up them various mumblings and jumblings he gently picked up the bird, gived it to me, and said, “Hold it for Pa. He’ll pray on it and favor God to fix the whole thing up righteously.”
I grabbed it, and as I done, we heard horses coming fast on the other side of the creek. Fred snapped over his shoulder, “Hide quick!”
I had just enough time to jump into the thickets holding that bird as several horses splashed across the creek, came straight up the bank, and busted through the thickets and to where Fred was standing. They came straight on him.
There wasn’t nowhere to run, for we had tied our horses a quarter mile off, and they’d come from that very direction, which meant they likely found our mounts anyway. I had just enough time to dive deep into the thickets before they sloshed up the bank and marched up to Fred. He stood there smiling, wearing all his hardware, but his seven-shooters wasn’t drawn. The only gun he had in his hand was that squirrel gun, and it was spent.
They sloshed up the bank right to him quick as you can tell it. There were maybe eight of ’em, redshirts, and riding in the lead of ’em was Rev. Martin, the feller Fred drawed on back at the Old Man’s camp.
Now Fred was thick, but he weren’t an altogether fool. He knowed how to survive in the woods and do lots of outdoor things. But he weren’t a quick thinker, for if he was, he’d’a drawed his heater. But two or three thoughts at once was more than he could handle. Plus he didn’t recognize the Reverend right off. That cost him.
The Reverend was riding with two men on either side of him bearing six-shooters and the rest behind him heavily armed. The Rev hisself wore his two shiny pearl-handled numbers on his belt, which he likely stole off some dead Free Stater, for he hadn’t had them things before.