Spake As a Dragon Page 35

  “Sam I am truly sorry to learn of your brother’s death. It seems the more I learn about you and your family the closer we become. In some ways, our friendship is more akin to you and I being brothers more than just my sister-in-law’s brother.”

  “Yes, William I feel the same.”

  POUCHES OF GOLD

  Spring came early that year – the early melting of the snow was no fluke, the weather cleared in late March and by April the sun was beginning to shine each and every day. The creeks up and down the mountains had run full of melted snow for weeks but were now running at normal depths and normal amounts of water flow. It was once again time for Sam and William to venture back into the mountains and return to the gold stream.

  The trip this time, thought William, was pleasant. The days were warm and he did not have to trudge along on those cumbersome snowshoes. Occasionally they would run upon a patch of snow, but the sun had already done its handy work and they could easily travel around it.

  It wasn’t long until they reached the top of the ridge they had found a couple of months earlier, this time the trail was easily visible and wasn’t much of a job walking to the bottom to the creek.

  The first day Sam ventured out into the creek barefoot, all he could do was complain about the cold water. It was cold until he reached down and found his first nugget he then forgot about the coldness of the water. “Hey!” He said to William, who was already shedding his boots and walking into the frigid water.

  “Here’s one!” Yelled William. It was like picking up pecans from underneath a pecan tree. Nuggets lay everywhere. “Sam, did you ever in you life believe such a place existed?” Sam did not even answer he was too busy picking up the shiny golden stones.

  A couple of days in the creek and the two of them had collected two sacks of nuggets. “How much you think we have William?”

  “I don’t know Sam, but if we collect anymore we won’t be able to carry them,” He said laughing. “Let’s pack’er up a get out of here. It’s time to travel up to Pennsylvania and get this gold to Matthew.”

  Sam and William had been on the trail to Gettysburg for five days, had finished their supper and sat talking.

  “Where do you figure we are William?”

  “We’re in West Virginia and I think we are about half way to Gettysburg. We should be there in another four or five days. Why do you ask?”

  Sam explained how he had heard that the western mountains of Virginia did not side with the South on the slavery issue and had broken away from the state of Virginia and formed an independent state. He said he has heard the majority of inhabitants in this section of the state were vehemently anti-South, and hated the plantation owners of coastal Virginia, who owned slaves. Most are un-educated living on rocky scraps of land making and selling moonshine. They never had the need for slaves and hated those who did. He had even heard of murders that had taken place by the ‘hillbillies’ of West Virginia and Sam had the fear they were now in this part of the country.

  “Don’t give it any mind Sam, you have your old Henry rifle and I have my Colt pistol, we will be fine. Come on let’s get some sleep so we can move out early tomorrow – the faster we get out of West Virginia, the better.”

  William and Sam threw their saddle blankets down and pitched their saddles on top to use as pillows. Rolling up in their ponchos, they settled down to get some sleep.

  The fire had dwindled down to an orange glow of hot embers; the horses are hobbled at the edge of their campground. For a moment, the horses stop eating as their ears stand up. The horse’s keen sense of hearing has picked up an unfamiliar sound. Sam and William have a whole string of horses with them. They had gone to the back pasture and rounded up all the outlaw horses that were still on the farm. Originally there had been eight, but Luke, Catherine and Sam had taken two along with them to Alabama. In addition to their two mounts, Sam and William had the remaining six and a burro. They have the intention to trade horses for supplies as they journey toward Gettysburg. They must trade since they have no hard cash except the gold and they do not want anyone to know they have it.

  The string of horses is beginning to get restless. They shuffle around each other, some whinny, others snort, they are nervous. The two young travelers lay on their blankets sound asleep. Sleep on the ground by a campfire for days and days on end caused them to grow insensitive to the nightly noises of the forests and fidgeting of the horses.

  This particular night it would have been especially helpful if they were not such sound sleepers. The noise the horses had picked up were riders walking their horses through the woods toward Sam and William’s campfire. There were five of them. They had been in the midst of the camp before either Sam or William realized it. They all were riding western quarter horses with Mexican saddles. They all appeared mangy and dirty, but the Colt six-shooters strapped to their legs were clean, freshly oiled and recently used. “Hey, you two wake up! Y’all got company!” The leader said stepping from his horse and walking toward the coffee pot sitting next to the campfire.

  William and Sam are awake now. Throwing back their ponchos to get to their firearms is a mistake. Sam, sleeping closest to the fire tries to bring his Henry rifle up, but the leader smashes his .45 across Sam’s head knocking him to the ground. “Wait a minute! I know you!” Said the gun-wielding bandit.

  William is now helping Sam upon his feet, a flood of blood flows from a cut over Sam’s eye, “What do you want mister? We’re just traveling through and ain’t bothering nobody.”

  “First off this here one,” pointing with his pistol at Sam, “I seed him the day Bert Black got kilt. He was with a woman and another man. Seems like I ‘member you alls was headin’ to Alabama.”

  “Nah, you must be wrong mister, why would we be up here in West Virginia if we was headed to Alabama,” replied William?

  “Shut yer mouth! I ain’t talkin’ to you.” Pointing at Sam, “It’s this one that was with them when they kilt Bert.”

  William again answered, “What is it you want mister? We ain’t got any money and we don’t know no Bert.”

  “No, what y’all are is liars. I see Charlie’s pinto pony over there in that string of horses, and y’all tellin’ me you don’t know Bert Black. I’m Bill Jackson and I’m old Bert’s best friend and I know bushwhackers when I see ‘em.”

  Sam says, “Mister Jackson I don’t know nothing about Bert Black nor that feller Charlie’s pinto. These horses were running free on a deserted farm and pasture. We figured they weren’t no use to whoever’s place it was. We figured the owners musta got themselves killed in the War.”

  “As I said, you’re a liar! You asked to know what we wanted, well I’m fixin’ to tell you – first off we’re taking that string of horses and second off we’re fixin’ to shoot you right here and now. Lucky look through them there saddle bags of theirs and see if there is anything else we might need.”

  Rumbling through one of the saddle bags, Lucky finds the two sacks of gold and holds them up for the others to see, “Looky here what I done found – these young hayseeds was holding out on us!”

  The outlaw leader Jackson pulls his six-shooter from his holster, “Gold huh? And besides lying yer thieves too boot!” He said pulling the hammer back and fired without aiming, ‘Kaboom,’ ‘Kaboom,’ the noise from the old Colt .44 was deafening as it reverberated through the trees.

  The first lead slug catches William just above the heart; the second bullet punches a forty-four-caliber hole right over Sam’s right eye. William is spun to his left, he reaches out one last time trying to grasp his friend Sam’s hand, but Sam collapsed where he stood. Both, with warm blood spewing from their wounds, fall with an agonizing thud upon the cold ground – dead!

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  “NATE, IS IT REALLY YOU?”

  “Matthew, come sit down and eat your supper.” Matt pulled up a chair across from Mark and began to eat. “Matt I have to tell you a couple of things – first you being a Southern boy
and all, I wasn’t too happy to see you when Kim and Kelley brought you to my home. I barely tolerated her marriage to you, but Son and I mean that in the most humble way because I think of you as a son now. I now know you to be a fine Christian man, a devoted husband and without your help hundreds of young men would not be able to walk today. You’re coming here was just a God-send, and I want to take this opportunity to thank you and apologize for anything I have said or done earlier that might have besmirched your name.”

  “No Sir, it is I who should be thanking you. Without you, Kim, and Kelly I would not be alive today – for you all I am thankful.”

  “Thank you Matt, but now to the sad part – our work on the artificial limbs is over. The money is exhausted, and I cannot come up with anymore. I have mortgaged my house and land and have no way to even pay back the notes. I’m afraid we will be thrown out onto the street when the notes come due. I’ve even gone as far as pawning all my work tools.”

  “But Mark there are dozens of soldiers still on the waiting list! What are they to do?”

  “I know, it saddens me too, but without funds it is impossible to buy supplies that we need. Even if we could, somehow, come up with some money we need additional workers and there is no money to hire them either. If we had money and more workers we could outfit dozens of soldiers with the means to walk, work and live a normal live somewhat. We will just have to leave it in the hands of God – if it is His will then, He will provide a way.

  “With no means to raise money and the mortgage note coming due in the next few months Matt your mother Malinda offered us a place to stay, if we ever needed one. I believe we need one right now – I have just enough money to get us to South Carolina. Until God decides to provide a way to help us, I suggest, we load the wagon and go stay at Scarlettsville until times get better. What do you think?”

  “Mark, I knew we were in dire straits with the artificial legs, but I did not realize how much you had invested – your home, your land and your tools. If we need to go to South Carolina, by all means I am with you.”

  Suddenly there is a pounding on the front door and they can hear a man yelling, “What is he saying?” Asked Matt.

  Pushing his chair away from the table Mark stood saying, “Don’t know, but I’m going to find out!”

  Opening the door was Laredo, Laredo Lawson. He was the collector for Mark’s mortgages. A year earlier, Private Laredo was being hung for killing his sergeant, but when the hangman sprung the trap, the rope broke. His commanding officer commuted his sentence to life in prison, but Laredo Lawson, now known as ‘Lucky’ Laredo Lawson escaped and was hiding out in this small out of the way town of Gettysburg.

  RETURN HOME

  Luke and Nate had worked their way back south from City Point, Virginia. They had found out from C. J. Cox, who had been in prison with Robert that Robert left City Point heading to Norfolk and then to Charleston, South Carolina. Luke had made a decision their best course of action was to head back home and now they had traveled the length of Virginia and found themselves in the middle of North Carolina.

  “How much further Luke do you thank it’ll be before we gets to my place?”

  “Nate, in about ten miles we gonna come to Raleigh. Then we are gonna head southwest to your place, should be there day after tomorrow.”

  “Lands sake, you don’t mean it – day after tomorrow.”

  Night found them southwest of Raleigh making camp on the Cape Fear River. “In the morning I’ll find us someone that will ferry us across this river Nate, it is too wide for us to try to swim the horses across, besides it’s just May and that water has got to be pretty cold. If we can get across pretty fast tomorrow and we push hard all day, we should be pretty close to your farm by dark. It’s between Monroe and Rockingham, right?”

  “Shore ‘nuff Nate ‘bout five miles west out of Rockingham. I’s got me a good bottomland farm on the Pee Dee River. So rich you’s can poke a stick in the ground and it’ll grow leaves. Good rich bottom land Luke.”

  Luke was pretty accurate in his estimation of how far they could travel. At sundown, they were on the eastern side of the Pee Dee. Nate’s farm was on the western side. “Luke if’en you was to squint yer eyes and peer purty hard you can almost see my farm from here. It right over th...there...” Nate said pointing.

  “What’s wrong Nate? What did you see?”

  “Luke, there’s a light comin’ from where my house used to be. They said them Union cannons blowed my house away...something jest ain’t right Luke, something ain’t right...”

  “Calm down Nate, get hold of yourself, we’ll get this all straighten out tomorrow. You are probably not looking at the right spot – remember it’s been a long time since you have been home.”

  The sun was barely up when Luke awoke to a noise. He looks toward the river’s edge and Nate is urging his horse into the current. Nate’s intent is to swim the river to his farm – he fears something is wrong and he is not waiting any longer to find out what it is.

  “Hold on Nate, give me a minute to saddle up, I’m coming with you!”

  The Pee Dee River is not very wide, and certainly not deep, so swimming the horses across was not difficult at all. Coming up on the western bank Nate dismounted from his horse and got the first good look at his homestead. “What? He exclaimed. “This can’t be right!”

  From the bushes a gun barrel protruded and a voice demanded, “Hold it right there mister or I’m aimin’ to shoot you dead where yer stand.”

  Nate thought he recognized the voice, but he could not remember from where exactly. “Be easy with your trigger finger there friend, we’re not come to do you no harm. Do I know you?”

  For a second or two there was almost total silence. The only sound was water dripping from the wet gear on the horses. “Step forward mister, the sun is at your back and I can’t make out your face.”

  It hit Nate like the specter had fired his weapon, it was what Nate would later call a ‘revolution.’ This revelation that had come to Nate was the voice! He recognized that voice, “Son! It that you, Nate Junior? It’s me Son, your Pa!”

  Cautiously from the brambles and foliage along the Pee Dee emerged a youngster holding a double barrel shotgun. He still had it pointed at Nate as he said, “Pa? Pa? Is that you?”

  “Yes, boy, it is me, your Pa – I have returned!”

  Without waiting, Nate Junior dropped the shotgun to the ground and began to run toward the small weathered barn about a hundred yards distance. “Ma! Come quick Ma! Ma! Ma!”

  The hayloft door of the barn opened, “Lands sake boy, what’s all this hollering about?”

  Nate Junior could not speak; he just turned back toward the river and pointed.

  Elsa, Nate’s wife, could not speak either. She continued to wipe her hands on the white apron she was wearing although her hands had been dried moments earlier. Softly she spoke, almost in a whisper, “Nate? Nate, is it really you?”

  She realized the tall, black fellow standing soaking wet at the edge of her yard was indeed her husband. He was so thin and his face had the haggard look of war, but she could tell it really was her man Nate!

  The embrace the three of them had standing there in the yard brought tears to Luke’s eyes. He was watching true happiness, and just to think, he said to himself, I didn’t want to take this detour to Nate’s farm.

  Later as the four of them sat eating breakfast Elsa told of the battle, which to Nate and Luke was just a small skirmish between a foraging party of the Union and a squad of scouts from the Rebs. The Yanks did; however, have a small cannon with them. They only fired two shots and one hit the small smoke house, which sat between the house and the barn and the second demolished the house. She said she and Nate Jr. were out in the field some distance away and the smoke house contained a fresh deer that had just been slaughtered. She supposed the story of her and Nate Junior’s untimely death must have come from the mess that cannon ball made with that deer meat; however, she could not explain ho
w Luke’s uncle Isaac found out about the ‘battle.’

  After all the explanations they had a big laugh and Luke repeated the axiom, ‘Don’t believe anything you hear and only half of what you see’. “Amen, to that,” replied Nate. Elsa explained she did not post a letter to Luke since she had no idea where he was, and Nate responded that he did not write because he thought they were both dead.

  Elsa explained that the deer had been the last of their food. Since that time, she and Nate Jr. had been barely surviving making a place to live in the loft of the barn. Nate hunted rabbits and squirrels until they exhausted all the shotgun powder, since then they have trapped, raised a small parcel of corn from corn kernels that she had picked up from the spot where the Yankees corralled their horses. They still cooked in the house’s fireplace eating mostly fish they caught in the river. She said she and Nate had eaten so much fish she though Nate Junior was sprouting gills. “Nate, the war has been over for a year and things are not getting any better, what are we to do?”

  “Well, I’ll be, so it was that ole fireplace fire that I saw from ‘cross the river.”

  “Yes Luke don’t know what we’d done our cooking on without it.”

  “I’ll tell you what – Luke and me have been all the way up in Virginny looking for Robert, his pa. We got wind of him but never did actually find him. We was headin’ back to Scarlettsville since all the family is gathered there. No, not my Pa and brother Jefferson, both of them died down in Alabama, but the rest, including Ma are at Scarlett. I’m thankin’ all of us together have a better chance there than trying to make a go of it on our own tryin’ to live here. Right now the carperbaggers and scalawags is runnin’ everything.”

  “Elsa,” said Luke, “let’s all go back to Scarlett, the big house is gone, but the guest house and the barn are still there so is the Mill. We’ll have enough menfolk to raise food and run the Mill and if we need to we’ll build more houses. Whether white or black we are all family and together no one can beat us, not even this awful War.”