The soldier turned around and rode back to his company in a hurry. After a day, the federals rode off, tumbling through the deep snowdrifts and long ridges of the prairie. “A wise move,” the Old Man murmured, watching them leave through his peering glass. “They knows I have friends in high places.”
“Where?” snorted Owen.
“Our most high God, son, whose call you’d do well to heed yourself.”
Owen shrugged and didn’t pay him no mind. He and his brothers was used to the Old Man’s proclamations. Most weren’t nearly as religious as their Pa. In fact, when the Old Man was out of earshot, his sons gived full lip service to quitting the slave-fighting game altogether and returning to their homesteads. A couple of ’em, Jason and John, had already went and done it; they had enough living on the prairie the two years I was gone and quit and gone home, back to upstate New York, and most of his original crew from Kansas went home or was deadened. But he still had four sons with him, Watson, Oliver, Salmon, and Owen, plus he’d picked up some new men in his travels, and these fellers weren’t like his earlier crew, which was mostly Kansas farmers, homesteaders, and Indians. This new batch of fellers was young gunfighters, rough adventurers, teachers and scholars, serious business, and would shoot the hair off your head. The most serious of ’em was Kagi, a smooth-faced drummer out of Nebraska City who’d come to Pikesville with Owen. Kagi fought at Black Jack with the Old Man, but I hadn’t seen him there, being that my head was in the sand at the time. He was a schoolteacher by trade, and carried lectures and readings in a rolled-up paper bunch in his pocket, which he referred to from time to time. He seemed temperate enough, but he was wanted in Tecumseh for pulling out his Colt and throwing enough lead at a Pro Slavery judge to knock his face off and put the feller to sleep forever. The judge shot Kagi in the heart before Kagi deadened him. Kagi claimed the judge’s ball was stopped from piercing his heart by a notebook he carried in his breast pocket. He kept that ragged notebook on his person for the rest of his life, which it turned out weren’t very long. Next to him was John Cook, Richard Hinton, Richard Realf, a colored named Richard Richardson, and Aaron Stevens. The last was a tall, hulking grouse, a bad-tempered feller, well over six hands tall, dangerous business, always spoiling for a fight. He weren’t religious in the least. These fellers weren’t like the Old Man’s earlier crew of farmers fighting for their land. They didn’t smoke nor drink nor chew tobacco. They mostly read books and argued about politics and spiritual matters. The Old Man referred to ’em as “Mister This” and “Mister That,” and had the aim of converting ’em to the Holy Word. He overthrowed ’em with God every chance he got, saying, “Mister So and So, you’re doing the devil’s work making light of God’s salvation,” but they’d become used to ignoring him on that affair. Slavery was the question. That’s what bonded ’em. And they wasn’t fooling.
They followed him like sheep, though. Smart as they was, nary a one of ’em challenged him on his orders or even knowed where we was going from day to day. The Old Man was stone-cold silent on his plans, and they trusted his word. Only thing he allowed was, “We going east, men. We are going east to fight the war against slavery.”
Well, there is a lot of east. And there is a lot of slavery. And it is one thing to say you is gonna fight slavery and ride east to do it and take the war all the way to Africa and so forth. It is another to keep riding day after day in the cold to do it.
We drug and slung along one hundred fifty miles toward Tabor, Iowa—it took two months—freeing coloreds as we went. Tabor was free country in them days, but it was winter and tough going, in twelve degree weather, on a trail caked with six inches of ice, and the Old Man praying over burnt squirrel and old johnnycake the whole time. Luckily we had stolen a bunch of booty from Pikesville and a few slave owners along the way: ammo, guns, two Conestoga wagons, four horses, two mules, one ox, bedding, frying pans, tins, some trousers and hats, coats, even a sewing table and apple barrel, but game on the prairie in winter is scarce, and we was plumb out of food in no time, so we traded with whomever we come across as we plodded along, and survived that way. In that manner I was also able to secret me a pair of trousers and a hat and underwear with nobody giving a hoot’s notice, for it was too cold to care what a person wore out there. By the time we hit Tabor, Iowa, we was exhausted and hungry—except for the Captain, who sprang up every morning bright as a bird, ready to go. It seemed like he didn’t need sleep. And food didn’t interest him in the least, ’specially anything revolving around butter. He’d quit the living game altogether if it meant eating butter. Something about that delicacy just throwed him. But if it was turtle soup or roasted bear, why, he’d rustle through a pigsty in his drawers in the dead of winter just to get a whiff of that kind of game. He was queer that way. An outdoor man to the limit.
He was all but enthusiastic the moment we hit town, which was strangely quiet when we plodded into the village square. He looked about and breathed deeply. “I am thankful we is in abolitionist territory,” he crowed as he sat atop his horse, gazing about. “Even the air seems clearer. Freedom lives here, men. We are home. We shall rest here through the winter months.”
We stood there for an hour and that town stayed quiet as a mouse fart. Not a door opened. Not a shutter moved. The town folks was panicked. They wouldn’t have nothing to do with us. After a while we was so cold we knocked on doors looking for shelter, but no homestead nor tavern wanted us. “Murderer,” a woman chirped, slamming the door. “Crazy old man,” said another. “Keep out.” One man told him, “I am against slavery, Captain, but I’m against killing. You and your men can’t stay here.” It went like that all through town. Tabor was free country in them days, and he was known to every abolitionist east of Missouri, but they was just stone chickenhearted about the whole business. Course the Old Man was hot, too, a wanted man with a price on his head. Every newspaper in the country crowed about how he knocked a few heads off back in Kansas Territory, so I guess that made ’em shy, too.
We went to just about every door in town, a parade of freezing, ragged men, beaten mules and starving horses, and when the last was slammed in his face, the Old Man was irritated but not downtrodden. “Talk, talk, talk,” he muttered. “All the Christian can do is talk. And that, men,” he said, as he stood in the middle of the deserted town, wiping the snow off his whiskers, “is our true battle. Your basic slave needs freedom, not talk. The Negro has listened to talk of moral suasion for two hundred years. We can’t wait. Did Toussaint-Louverture, wait for the French in Haiti? Did Spartacus wait on the Roman government? Did Garibaldi wait on the Genovese?”
Owen said, “I am sure they are good people of whom you speak, Father. But it is cold out here.”
“We ought to be like David of old,” the Old Man grumbled, “living off the grace and nurturing of our King of Kings, who provides for all our needs and wants. I myself am not cold. But for your sakes I do have a few friends left in this world.” He ordered the men to saddle up again and led us out to a few farmers in nearby Pee Dee who agreed to take us on—after the Old Man sold them most of his horses and wagons and made arrangements for us to help them shuck corn and tend their homesteads through the rest of the winter months. There was some grumbling, but the men was grateful to have food and shelter.
Soon as that was arranged, the Old Man announced, “I has sold the wagons and our supplies for a purpose. I needs a train ticket to go back east. I will leave you here, men, in comparative warmth and safety, whilst I travel to Boston alone to seek out funds in the name of our Redeemer. For we needs to eat, and our fight requires money, of which there is plenty back east, which I will fetch from our many supporters there.” They agreed, for a warm place to sleep was golden and we was exhausted, whereas the Old Man was kicking like a Texas mule.