The Old Man’s men was outgunned and his boys fell back farther to the ridge, the creek right at their backs now, no place else to back up. There was a line of timber at the riverbank there, and he shouted quickly to his fellers to mount a line, which they did, just as the rebels charged the riverbank again.
I don’t know how they held it. The Old Man was stubborn. The Free Staters was badly outnumbered, but they held on until a second party of rebels flanked them from the rear, on the same side of the stream. A few of the Old Man’s team turned ’round to fight them off while the Old Man held his boys on the line, urging his men on. “Hold men. Steady. Aim low. Don’t waste ammunition.” He walked up and down the line shouting directions as bullets and cannon shot tore the leaves and limbs off the trees ’round him.
Finally, behind him, the Free Staters trying to hold off the rebels in that direction quit and run for it across the river, eating lead the whole way, and several of them breathed their last in the river. It was just too many enemy. The Old Man was cut off from a clean retreat now, taking fire from two sides, with the cannon blasting grape at him and rebels closing from the other way, with the creek behind him. He weren’t going to make it. He was defeated, but he wouldn’t give in. He held his men there.
The Missourians, cussing and hollering, quit for a minute to move their cannon closer, and took some lead from the Old Man’s men. But they got it mounted up again within fifty yards or so of the Old Man’s line and blowed a big hole in the line, sending several of his men into the water. Only then did he give up. He was done. He hollered, “Back across the river!” The men gladly did it, scrambling fast, but not him. He stood, big as you want, firing and reloading until the last man got out the tree line, hit the bank, and waded across. Owen was the last to go, and when he was at the riverbank and seen his Pa weren’t there, he turned back, hollering, “Come, Father!”
The Old Man knowed he was defeated, but couldn’t stand it. He squeezed off one more blast from his seven-shooter, turned to run, and as he did, a cannon volley whipped through the tree line and got him. He was hit square in the back and went down like a rag doll, knocked clean off the ridge and back into the bank. He rolled off the ridge down to the river’s edge and didn’t move. He was done.
Dead.
He weren’t dead, though, only stunned, for that ball had spent itself before it got to him. It plunked a hole in his coat and pierced the skin of his back and lost juice right as it got to him. The Old Man’s skin was thicker than a mule’s ass, and while that ball drawed blood, it didn’t go deep. He jumped up quick as you can tell it, but the sight of him falling off that ridge toward the water drawed a cheer from the Missourians at the top of the bank who smelled red meat but couldn’t see him at the water’s edge, and several jumped down to the bank after him, only to find the Old Man waiting with that seven-shooter which was still dry and loaded. He busted a cap into the face of the first man, cracked the skull of the second man with the butt of that thing—that gun is heavy as the dickens—and sent a third to his Maker with his broadsword just as easy as you please. A fourth feller ran down toward him, and when the poor bastard got over the ridge and seen the Old Man still living, he tried to stop hisself and scramble back to safety. But Owen had scrambled back to the bank to help his Pa and busted a shot at him and blowed out his spark.
It was just them two going at it close, and the sight of them two fighting off rebels attacking ’em from all sides now caused a round of cursing and swearing from the Free Staters who made it to the other side of the river, and they blowed several rounds into the rest of the charging Missourians, who was at the top of the ridge near the tree line. The rebels scattered and fell back. This gived the Old Man and Owen time to get across the river.
I had never seen the Old Man retreat before. He seemed a queer figure there in the river, in a broad straw hat and linen duster, his coattails flung out behind him, arms outspread on the water, as he waded over, a revolver held high in each hand. He climbed onto the opposite bank, out of range of the rebels now, mounted atop his horse, and scrambled his horse up the bank to where I was, followed by the other men, all of ’em joining me on the knoll.
From that knoll you could see Osawatomie clear, the town blazing brightly in the afternoon sun, every house burning to the ground, and every Free Stater stupid enough to hang ’round and try to put out the fire eating his house getting shot to shit by Reverend Martin and his men, who were drunk, laughing and whooping it up. They defeated the Old Man and hollered it all across Osawatomie, several shouting that he was dead and claiming to be the one who done it, whooping that they’d burned his house to the ground, which they’d done.
Most of the other Free Staters who survived had taken the tall timber once they got across the creek to our side. Only the Old Man and his sons remained on our side, watching the rebels celebrate: Jason, John, Salmon, the two younger ones Watson and Oliver, who had joined us, Owen course, all of ’em atop their mounts, staring angrily at the town, for their houses was burning up, too.
But the Old Man didn’t look at it once. When he reached the knoll, he slowly paced his horse back to Frederick and got off it. The rest followed him over.
Fred was where we left him, his little cap atop his head, the Good Lord Bird atop his chest. The Old Man stood over him.
“I should’a come out of hiding to help him,” I said, “but I don’t know how to shoot.”
“And shoot you should not,” the Old Man said. “For you is a girl soon to be a woman. You was a friend to Fred. He was fond of you. And for that I am grateful to you, Little Onion.”
But he might as well have been talking to a hole in the ground, for even as he spoke, his mind was somewhere else. He knelt over Fred. He looked at him several minutes, and for a moment, the old gray eyes softened and it seemed like a thousand years had washed over the Old Man’s face. He sighed, gently pulled Fred’s cap off his head, pulled a feather off the Good Lord Bird, and rose. He turned and stared at the town grimly, burning in the afternoon sun. He could see it plain, the smoke spiraling up, the Free Staters fleeing, the rebels firing at them, whooping and hollering.
“God sees it,” he said.
Jason came up to him. “Father, let’s bury Frederick and let the federals have the fight. They’ll be here soon enough. I don’t want to fight no more. My brothers and me, we had enough. We’re decided on it.”
The Old Man was silent. He fingered Fred’s cap and eyed his sons.
“Is that how you want it, Owen?”
Owen, setting atop his horse, looked away.
“And Salmon. And John?”
Six of his sons was there: Salmon, John, Jason, Owen, and the young ones, Watson and Oliver, plus their kin, the Thompson brothers, two of them. They all looked down. They was spent. Not a one of ’em spoke up. Didn’t say a word.
“Take Little Onion with you,” he said. He tossed Fred’s cap into his saddlebag and made ready to get on his horse.
“We’ve done enough for the cause, Father,” Jason said. “Stay with us and help us rebuild. The federals will find Rev. Martin. They’d catch him and put him in jail, try him for Fred’s killing.”
The Old Man ignored him and mounted his horse, then stared out at the land before him. He seemed to be someplace else in his head. “This is beautiful country,” he said. He hold out the feather from the Good Lord Bird. “And this is this beautiful omen that Frederick left behind. It’s a sign from God.” He stuck it in his weathered, beaten straw cap. It stuck straight up in the air. He looked ludicrous.