The Reverend gathered his rifle and things, got on his horse, and hit off without a word. Peabody and two others followed. They rode north out the campgrounds, the way the Captain told ’em to do.
The Old Man, Ottawa Jones the Indian, and the Jew Weiner stood together and watched Reverend Martin and his men leave.
“You ought to duck-hunt that Reverend in his back while you got the chance,” Weiner said. “He won’t be out of sight five minutes before he turns south and heads to Dutch’s Crossing. He’ll hoot and holler to Dutch loud as he can.”
“Let him holler,” the Old Man said. “I want everyone to know what I aim to do.”
But he made a mistake letting the Reverend go that day, and it would cost him down the line.
4.
Massacre
The Old Man’s plan to attack Osawatomie got delayed, like most things he done, and we spent the next few days wandering the county, stealing from Pro Slavers so we could eat. The Old Man was always broke and delayed in everything. For one thing, he had a lot of men to feed, twelve in all. That’s a lot. I sometimes reckon that Old John Brown wouldn’t have started no trouble at all if he didn’t have to feed so many people all the time. Even at home he had twelve children there, not to mention his wife and various neighbors who throwed in with him, from what I’m told. That’s a lot to feed. That’ll make anyone mad at anything. Weiner fed us at his trade store in Kinniwick. But after two days, his wife was done with the slavery fight and throwed us out. “We’ll be slaves ourselves once this is done,” she growled.
Them first few days of wandering the territory gived me time to get a read on things. From the Old Man’s side of things, new atrocities was occurring all up and down Kansas Territory, the business in Congress being the last straw. From his point of view, the Yank settlers was being plundered regular by the Kickapoo Rangers, the Ranting Rockheads, the Border Ruffians, Captain Pate’s Sharpshooters, and a number of such bloodthirsty, low-down drunks and demon outfits bent on killing off abolitionists or anyone being suspected of being one. Many of them types was personal favorites of mine, truth be told, for I growed up at Dutch’s and knowed many a rebel. To them the Old Man’s Yanks was nothing more than a bunch of high-siddity squatters, peddlers, and carpetbaggers who came west stealing property with no idea ’bout how things was, plus the Yanks wasn’t fighting fair, being that they got free guns and supplies from back east which they used against the poor plainsmen. Nobody asked the Negro what he thunk about the whole business, by the way, nor the Indian, when I think of it, for neither of their thoughts didn’t count, even though most of the squabbling was about them on the outside, for at bottom the whole business was about land and money, something nobody who was squabbling seemed to ever get enough of.
I weren’t thinking them thoughts back then, of course. I wanted to get back to Dutch’s. I had an aunt and uncle back there, and while I weren’t close to them, anything seemed better than starving. That’s the thing about working under Old John Brown, and if I’m tellin’ a lie I hope I drop down a corpse after I tell it: I was starving fooling with him. I was never hungry when I was a slave. Only when I got free was I eating out of garbage barrels. Plus, being a girl involved too much work. I spent my days running around, fetching this or that for these young skinflints, washing their clothes, combing their hair. Most of ’em didn’t know their heads from their arses and liked having a little girl to do this and that for ’em. It was all, “Fetch me some water, Onion,” and “Grab that gunnysack and bring it yonder,” and “Wash this shirt in the creek for me, Onion,” and “Heat me some water, dearie.” Being free weren’t worth shit. Out of all of ’em, only the Old Man didn’t demand girl chores, and that’s mostly ’cause he was too busy praying.
I was done in with that crap and almost relieved when he announced after a few days, “We is attacking tonight.”
“You ain’t gonna tell us where it is?” Owen grumbled.
“Just sharpen your broadswords.”
Well, that kind of talk goes down fine when you giving orders to a Negro. But them men was white, and there was some grousing from them about not knowing exactly what they was supposed to attack and so forth. The Old Man’s army was brand new, I found that out. They hadn’t been in a war before, none of ’em, not even the Old Man. The hell-raisin’ they’d done was mostly stealing food and supplies. But now the game turned serious, and he still wouldn’t tell ’em where they was going to fight. He ignored ’em when they asked. He never gived out his plans to nobody in all the years I knowed him. Then, on the other hand, looking back, maybe he didn’t know his own self, for he was prone to stop on his horse in the middle of the afternoon, cup his hand to his ear, and say, “Shh. I’m getting messages from our Great Redeemer Who stoppeth time itself on our behalf.” He’d set several minutes, setting on his horse with his eyes closed, meditating, before movin’ on.
After he announced the attack for the night, the men spent the day sharpening their broadswords on stones and getting ready. I spent the day looking for a chance to run off, but Fred was on me. He kept me busy tending the fire and learning to sharpen broadswords and clean rifles. He wouldn’t give me two minutes on my own and kept me close to him. Fred was a good teacher in them things but a pain in the neck, for he had adopted me, and it pleased him to see his little girl catch on so quickly riding a horse and ignoring the mosquitoes and being so adaptable, he said, “almost like a boy.” The dress itched me something terrible, but as the days wore into the cold nights, it growed right warm and comfortable. And I ought to say it here—I ain’t proud to report it—it also kept me from the fight. Somebody was gonna get their head blowed off, and I had no interest in that business.
Afternoon turned to dusk, and the Old Man announced, “The hour is near, men.” No sooner did he say it when, one by one, the men begun to peel off and make excuses to quit. This one had to tend to his livestock. That one had to cut crops. That one had a sick child at home, another had to run home to fetch his gun, and so on. Even Ottawa Jones begged off at the last second, promising to meet us later.
The Old Man let them go with a shrug. “I’d rather have five dedicated, trained fighters than an army of frightened ninnies,” he scoffed. “Why, take Little Onion here. A girl and a Negro besides, tending to her duties like a man. That,” he pointed out proudly to Fred and Owen, “is dedication.”
By evening, the company of twelve had whittled down to eight, not counting yours truly, and the pep had gone out of them that stayed. There was a new color to the thing now, for it growed serious, and hunger struck again. The Old Man hardly ever ate, so his needs for food wasn’t great. But them others was dying of hunger, as was yours truly. Seemed like the closer the hour came to mounting the attack, the hungrier I got, till midnight rolled past, and the hunger changed to fear, and I forgot all about being hungry.
Well into the wee hours, the Old Man gathered what was left of the Pottawatomie Rifles ’round him to pray—I’d say on average he prayed about twice an hour, not counting meals and including the times when he went to the privy, for which he uttered a shortie even before he ducked into the woods to remove his body’s impurities. They gathered ’round him, and the old man rousted it up. I can’t recollect all what he said—the terrible barbarity that followed stayed in my mind much longer—though I do recall standing in my bare feet while the Old Man called on the spirit of Jesus with an extra long spell of Old Testament and New Testament workings, hollering about the Book of John and so forth. He barked and prayed and howled at God forward and backward a solid forty-five minutes, till Owen called out, “Pa, we got to roll. It’ll be light in three hours.”