Authors: Paulette Jiles
U
NION
C
ORRESPONDENCE
Patterson, March 13, 1864
To: Brig. Genl. C. B. Fisk, Commanding District of St. Louis:
Sir: General, we are beset here with more Rebels than we can manage. I know our situation. I see it all. I can destroy them if you will give me the means . . .let me have Captain McElroy and his company and I will put down jayhawking and treason in this country or I will make it one desolate waste where no white or black man can stay.
W. T. Leeper, Captain, Commanding Third Missouri State Militia Cavalry
—OR,
CH. XLVI, P.
588
C
ONFEDERATE
C
ORRESPONDENCE
Headquarters Shelby’s Division
Camp Twelve Miles from Patterson, Mo., September 21, 1864
Col. L. A. MacLean, Assistant Adjutant-General:
Colonel: I am this far on the way and am encamped at Captain Leeper’s, U.S. Army, a notorious robber, house-burner and marauder, where I found plenty of forage and beef. The scout I sent out night before last after the Federals that burnt Doniphan, overtook them the next morning, attacked and routed them, losing six men killed and wounded. Federal loss unknown. Killed some Union guerillas today . . .the country passed over has been rough and sterile in the extreme.
Very respectfully, Jo. O. Shelby, Brigadier-General, Commanding Division
—OR,
CH. LIII, P.
948
In no other part of Missouri was the loss of property and life more devastating than in Southeast Missouri. . . .the story of the Patterson family who lived four miles south of Marble Hill is a vivid reminder of the savagery of the war. Here, along what was once the main trail to Zalma, William Patterson, a Confederate officer, his wife and their four young children were murdered, and their bodies, weighted with rocks and thrown into the deep spring on their farm. The family’s house was burned and it was several weeks before the bodies were found.
—
A Guide to Civil War Activities in the Southeast Missouri Region,
BROCHURE DISTRIBUTED BY THE
S
OUTHEAST
M
ISSOURI
R
EGIONAL
P
LANNING AND
E
CONOMIC
D
EVELOPMENT
C
OMMISSION, N.D.
T
HE NEXT MORNING
Adair did not pause to make a fire or breakfast but started out with the horses directly. They went down the wandering trace, downhill, into forests of pine and oak mixed, and here and there at the edges of one of the inexplicable open glades, flowering chestnuts.
At noon of that day the world was overwhelmed with flights of wood doves that came in the millions and weighted down the limbs of the trees calling to one another with such a noise that it almost deafened her. The silky rustle of uncounted wings made it sound as if the woods were afire. All around her their droppings cracked on the leaves on the ground, and once she heard a limb breaking from the weight of a hundred doves who had fluttered down to crowd onto it. It was a storm of doves, the sunlight became dim as it would dim in an eclipse and she rode hard to get away from them. She rode ten miles at a trot before they were clear of them. She and the horses both walked into a wide pool of water in a stream and washed themselves clean.
ADAIR AND HER
horses approached the crossing of the Current River near the place where Jack’s Fork came in, called House’s Ford. She waited until it was late evening and then rode to the edge of the river.
It was a deep river, and dangerous for all the trees it had taken down, rolling their great revolving wheels of roots along the bottoms. The spring rains had taken the bank of the ford away, and it was now a ten-foot bluff on this side, but low on the other. The bottom was clear and appeared to be hard.
Adair would cross now and go on in the night. She would travel in the dark until she was well beyond this crossing, for both armies used it frequently. It was just at sunset. Flights of mourning doves and wild pigeons wheeled in the darkening air.
Dolly went to the sloping bank and stared into the water and its insubstantial reflections.
Adair sat on Whiskey and looked at the broad river and knew this was going to take some doing. It was deep and fast. Dolly snorted angrily for she knew she was going to be asked to cross it, and knew it was unnecessary, for there was very good grass on this side of the river.
They all stood on the bank of red sand; the far shore was a low sandy beach. Great sycamores stood in the bottoms and made shadows on the glittering water. In between the trees she could see Stanger’s Steep going on.
It was dangerous to cross a river sidesaddle and so she took the saddle from Whiskey and put it on Dolly, for the gray mare to carry across. Adair took off the big brass-colored twill dress and stuffed it in her carpet sack, and made sure the carpet sack and pack and all were secure on the sidesaddle. She would cross in her chemise, for the great yards of skirts would tangle and drown her for sure. She tied her shoes round her neck. She got up on Whiskey by jumping across his back on her stomach and then righting herself.
Whiskey, go on, she said. If you go Dolly will go.
The gray mare with her black eyes stood at the ten-foot-high bluff. She hesitated. She saw no reason to plunge into this mysterious water. The tops of the sycamores and oaks on the other side were still tipped red with the last light and so were reflected on the fast black water. To
Dolly it seemed that these were evil illuminations below the surface. Where the Underwater Panther housed herself and in slow watery strokes trod the currents.
Adair broke off a stick of cane. She took hold of Dolly’s lead-rope and rode Whiskey to the edge and pulled hard. Whiskey was eager to get into the river but Adair did not want to leave Dolly hesitating on the bank. The chemise rode up to her thighs and its insubstantial lawn was no more than a dirty gray film over her body and it was tearing in several places, so worn it was. She smashed the cane crop down on Dolly’s haunches and yelled
Go on!
Dolly wavered back and forth, back and forth, and so Adair struck Whiskey with the cane. Whiskey sat back on his hocks and slid down halfway, bringing down with him an avalanche of dirt and rocks. Then sprang into the dark water in a long leap. This snatched Dolly’s lead rope out of her hand with a skinning rip.
It seemed they were in the air for long moments. They fell through the air of dusk and sank into the water. It was so cold Adair cried out and then went under.
It was very dark under the water. Whiskey was surging upward so violently that his mane was torn out of her hands and she was swept away. Adair fought for the surface. She burst out into the air and saw she was being flung downstream faster than she thought. She clawed at the water as if it were a ladder or a stair but it dissolved beneath her and she went under again. She was swept onto Dolly, and the gray mare’s thrashing front hoof struck Adair in the forearm with such force Adair thought she felt it break but then she had hold of the sidesaddle and clung to it with both arms. The shoes were swept from around her neck and went down the current and were forever lost.
Dolly fought toward the far bank as if she were some great engine, steadily, mechanically. Fountains of water marked her passage and at a slant she roared up out of the shallow water, onto the low sandy beach, and stood. Adair let go of the saddle and dropped down on the sand.
Dolly shook herself so that she seemed surrounded by a fine mist. Then Whiskey came trotting up.
Adair was gasping for air. She pulled on her wet stockings. They were all on the other side and alive. The trees of the bottoms were swagged with grapevines and darkness was developing in their shadows. Then Dolly lifted her head and saw Stanger’s Steep going on in the last of the day’s light, and began to trot down it, into the tunnel where the trees overhung the ancient trace.
Wait! said Adair. But Dolly did not like being on this dark shore, so near to the dominion of the Underwater Panther, and the night growing blind and sinister all around them. She trotted down the old trace at a good speed to get past the heavy woods of the bottoms and into some upland before full midnight was on them.
Whiskey fell in behind her and Adair ran between them, her chemise sticking to her wet and cold, but she could not stop them. The horses pulled on past her and were now independent of her, for their needs were their own and none of hers. At last she stopped running and walked. She walked and listened to their diminishing hoofbeats. Dolly gone with the grip and everything she possessed on her back. They were gone into the wilderness of Shannon County and she was in nothing but her chemise and her stockings. She could hear them far down the road begin to gallop, then they were gone entirely.
ADAIR WALKED FOR
several miles because she could do nothing else. Soon enough the road came up out of the bottoms and climbed switchbacking to a ridge and there the night wind blew through her threadbare chemise with a severe bite. Stars stood out in their millions.
Well, I have cut quite a figure as a lady of high degree here in the world, haven’t I? But in some way it was amazing that here she was nearly naked and afoot in the night in the most remote wilderness of the Ozark mountains and wondered if ever such a thing had happened before. She was perishing of the cold. The wind seemed to come down
from the great cold spaces of the stars themselves. She kept on walking.
Soon the moon came up and this caused several startled songbirds to whistle. A mockingbird ran through its warbling and erratic music. The three-quarter moon shone through the trees slantways as it rose, as if a giant lantern had been lit somewhere in the woods. White boulders and stands of limestone shone among the oaks and she was as pale as they. Another mile along she saw a house in a small clearing beside the road. There was no smell of woodsmoke, nor of horse manure, nor yet any dogs arising to bark, nor any noise or light.
Adair stood in the faint trace of Stanger’s Steep within the moon shade of a massive white oak and regarded the house. It was of log but sided over, the windows shuttered, the morning glory and trumpet vine thick over the front veranda. Because of this she thought surely it was deserted. Adair held herself tight for the relief of warmth she got from her own arms. Whippoorwills started up suddenly and so close she jumped. They began their demented, repetitive song and would go on all night.
She sat down on the bark fragments and acorns under the white oak listening to the sounds of the night. She sat with her knees drawn up and her arms clutched over her breasts. She would have to go on hunting them tomorrow, surely they would stop at the first good stand of grass and graze for the day.
Back in the woods raccoons began to argue among themselves, they were swearing and cursing at one another in loud voices. Then she heard wolves, but they seemed to be several mountains away. It made her hair stand on end. Adair prayed that they would stay several mountains away. Their voices carried such great distances so as to silence everything else. Adair listened. They were the lords of the night and all speech of animals fell silent when they sang. Their crazed sopranos made all creatures hold their lives close and in silence. The raccoons stopped in midsentence.
Adair stared at the house; she wanted to go in. She wanted to sleep under a roof for a night or two nights. She decided not to. She could
not sleep for the chill, but her head dropped forward on her knees and she began to dream of her cousin Lucinda Newnan, that she came visiting from Tennessee but there was a snowstorm, and the kindling was wet, and they could not get the fire started. Adair said that they should burn the tablecloth and Lucinda said that was the stupidest idea she had ever heard. Adair said, Shut the door, it’s wide open, and look at the snow coming in. Lucinda said, I will go outside and see if there is not some shavings in the barn, and Adair heard her footsteps crunching in the dry grass.
She was indeed hearing footsteps shushing in the grass. And so feral and wary had Adair become that she woke immediately and did not lift her head for the white flash her face would make in the night. Only very slowly and just enough to peek over her forearms.
A man had come out of the house. He was walking in the weed-grown yard. The moon shone on him and he was entirely naked. He looked around himself in every direction and in one hand he held a large revolver. The man’s body was as pale as a mushroom. He took his private parts in one hand and began to piss and did so for a long time. His eyes roved from the forest behind the house to the road to the weedy grasses of the clearing. One side to the other and back again.
He must have heard her horses go by. He would be very alert. A soldier of either side or a refugee or a spy. Adair waiting, sitting unmoving in a state of simple and uncomplicated terror for him to see her. His body was long and thin, he was clean-shaven as an egg, a V of tan at his neck like a bib. Adair could not stop looking at his naked body. His sex was hidden in its dark frame of hair, his thighs were long and lashed with whipcord muscles.
He finished and stood a few moments longer, watching. The moon showed the broken rail fence as plain as at sunrise. Adair eased her face down again to give him no more to look at than the vague white of her chemise, which might well be taken as a stand of limestone. She heard his dry footsteps again, whispering back into the house and inside,
across the floor. There was a flash of light from between the shutters; it glowed out of their missing slats.
Oh Lord he is going to sit up all night in there, Adair thought. She sat perfectly still in her own near nakedness for as long a time as she could. Lord help me out of this, she thought. There is no one else here on earth to do so. I can expect aid from no quarter but from Thee. Curse this man. Make him deaf. Make him fall over dead.
At last the moon slid behind the trees on the other side, sinking with its astonished face into the shifting leaves. And the light inside the abandoned cabin went out.