Lords of an Empty Land (10 page)

At the end of a two-acre pecan orchard, the stately priest said a few words from his leather-bound bible as the small congregation, almost twenty people all dressed in black, stood around the wooden coffin. To the west, the late-day sun burned down through a cloudless, clear Louisiana sky. Ten tombstones filled the little Butler cemetery. Behind it, the Butler mansion, two stories of red brick fronted with a porch and tall, cylindrical columns, stood grand, but worn. Off in the distance, behind the house a few hundred yards, stood the now abandoned slave cabins. At the other end of the small grove, a flock of blackbirds, thousands in number, darted between the trees squawking all kinds of frenzied calls. The unruly racket hovering over the funeral seemed to mimic what lay out of sight.

A bereaved Hannah sat adjacent to the coffin, in a chair, crying into a lace handkerchief. She had said a few words that constituted a eulogy. Her mother and sister, in New Orleans, had probably not even gotten word of the recent events. The judge had few friends or family in town. A dozen of the town's influential citizens stood in attendance, about half Northerners, and three leaders from the black community. The judge was lucky; at least he had a funeral. Private O'Neal would never be afforded as much, his body likely never to reappear.

Two days had passed since the army patrol had made it back to Natchitoches. Despite lengthy investigations at both sites where Douglas and his party had engaged the bandits, they had found not even a trace of blood. Back in town, Douglas had tried to disguise the judge's death as natural, but the local papers had gotten a whiff of the real events, probably from the bandits, and ran a story that suggested someone had killed the judge, likely in self-defense as he had tried to administer some personal justice. The news had traumatized the residents, leaving Douglas unsure of how they felt. Most were simply awestruck at the series of events. In town, he only got reticent stares.

Douglas smelled the fresh dirt of the grave as the preacher consummated the service with a psalm. “Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

Those in attendance reverently walked by the casket, passing condolences to Hannah. Douglas turned away, still shaken and completely at a loss for his subsequent course of action. In the last week he had lost considerable ground to his foes. He felt a soft touch on his shoulder and turned to see Cyrus Carter, the Freedmen's Bureau's onetime agent in the parish.

The Indianan and decorated ex-Union officer now owned a hardware store in town, selling goods to the freed slaves and other sharecroppers. His business had been so successful, he had recently brought his brother down and purchased an abandoned plantation. He planned to bring the rest of his family down the following spring. In his late forties, his hair had now grayed over his aging face. He carried a tired charisma and honest blue eyes to go with his slim, lanky frame. Notwithstanding his appearance to the contrary, Cyrus was a warrior, every ounce of his body and soul dedicated to espousing Northern doctrine. He was one of the few in the area who fought and pursued the region's forces of darkness, often at gunpoint. It was no secret that these same elements had him on a short list of people to root out of Louisiana, one way or the other.

“You have to do something about this,” Cyrus said. “We can't just let these ex-Confederates hold sway over everyone.”

“I plan to,” Douglas replied. “But not until I'm ready. I sent a telegraph to headquarters today. The army won't be pleased with all of this. I'll likely get some more troops, but we have to do this right. I may finally get the army on our side. I've been thinking this over. For the first time, some of the guerrillas have crossed the line. If we're smart, we can use this to get some of our other enemies, the political bosses, the ones we've been chasing for years. We need to catch a few alive, put them on trial. We might get them to turn on each other. If nothing else, get their deeds out in the open. That will send a powerful message, make them fear more occupation, especially under the new Grant administration. There's plenty of people who benefit from Northern rule, they're just too scared to come out in the open in support of it. We've got to let them know the current situation will not be tolerated, and we'll not just win the battle, but the war.”

“I've got an uneasy feeling in my gut,” Cyrus said. “That all sounds hypothetical. A sword for a sword is all that I've ever seen work here, all they heel to, but I'll ride with you. You know that. These bastards don't scare me.” Cyrus's voice got somber and serious. He put a hand to his chin and deliberated for a few seconds. “There's a planter, across the river in the delta, Hiram Vaughn. Why don't you go see him? I hear he may be sympathetic to your cause.”

Douglas thought over the proposition briefly. He didn't like it. “I'm not sure that's a good idea. Until I get it sorted out, I don't trust anybody around here.”

“I want you to go see Senator Dunn, tomorrow evening. See if he can help. I've already arranged it, six in the evening. I've told him you'll be there.”

 

 

Late that night Douglas lay in Hannah's bed, eyes wide open and unable to sleep. In her state of grieving, she had completely given herself to him, completely abandoning her concerns for place, protocol, and setting. The two had made passionate love for almost an hour. Their first intimate experience had been more intoxicating, more soothing than he had ever imagined, relaxing his tense psyche into something more like a young boy's, but he had been unable to sleep, the recent events reinitiating his gruesome nightmares from the war that besieged his nights. Combining everything, his mood raced up and down, from bliss to torment.

He looked at Hannah, asleep on her side beside him, her soft frame slowly rising and falling with her long breaths. He looked up at the tall ceilings, at least twelve feet high. Like most of the affluent houses, it was wonderfully airy. If Hannah's father hadn't rolled over in his grave yet, he surely now reeled as the Yankee soldier lay unclothed, unwed, with his daughter in his house. He hoped the killing of Judge Butler had put Hannah firmly and openly in his camp.

Douglas's worries refused to free his mind, allow him to slip into peaceful sleep. Above all the murders, the guilty going free, he feared failure the most. He had rarely failed at anything he put his heart into, but failures in the army were the worst kind, public failures, known by all: his superiors, his subordinates, often even made public through a demotion or transfer, or leaked to the newspapers.

In the last few weeks he had killed two of the clan, but two of his men had also died. Those may have been acceptable losses in the war, but not here where his enemies outnumbered him thirty, possibly fifty to one, if not more. Worse, his domain had gotten more lawless and dangerous in these past few weeks. His authority and control over the masses would not survive much more of this.

He lifted the mosquito netting hanging over the large double bed and walked into the house's living room. On the wall, a painting of Colonel Butler, in his dress grays and cased by a wood frame, looked down on him. Outside, through a window, the insects droned around the century-old estate. He looked down the long line of tall oaks and magnolias abutting the house's gravel drive, fantastically lit by the half-moon and starlight. From the window, he saw the impressive buildings of the plantation: blacksmith's shop, barn and corral, scales, and large mess hall, now all but dormant. He felt lonely, he and Hannah alone within these aged pine walls, and he walked back into the bedroom.

“Come back to bed,” Hannah whispered.

Douglas turned to see the sheets stirring, Hannah leaning up. He walked back to her and sat on the bed. Just her waking caused the room to come alive with her radiance. The starlight, filtering through the window, lit her firm, white anatomy. “I figured you were too exhausted to wake.”

Hannah grabbed his hand. “You look so troubled. I'm here for you now.”

“What are your sister and mother doing in New Orleans?”

“Business.” Hannah sat up in bed, leaning against the headboard. “They've found someone to buy half the plantation. Enough to pay off the debts. The sharecropping hasn't earned anything the last two years. Since the war, we've had nothing but floods, droughts, an endless invasion of caterpillars, cholera, and yellow fever . . . this land's cursed. The price of cotton is sky high, but there's nobody to loan money, only a line of Northern capitalists buying in cheap. It's terrible.”

Douglas felt Hannah's hand as she reached over and touched his chest. He got the feeling that she had a hunger for affection, a soul mate, someone to confide in, a hunger that matched his own needs.

“Sister and Mother are also having a meeting with a man, someone who knows farming, an ex-planter. They're going to hire him to run the half of the farm we keep. My sister and mother are dreadful at it, and negotiating with the freedmen. Supposedly, this man has gotten several other fallow farms profitable since the war. Now, what's got you so worried?”

“Everything. I haven't done much to bring these animals to justice. They could storm in here right now and kill both of us. Ride off into the night. Nothing would ever come of it. There wouldn't even be a trial. They'd throw us in the Cane River and be done with us.”

“Doubtful they would storm the house of a Confederate hero like my father. And you might shoot back. If word got out, it wouldn't be good for them.”

“That's it, only a dead man's honor is protecting me.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I got a warrant issued for Francis Garrett. He'll be on a poster on every Federal building for two hundred miles. I've also asked for more troops. Don't know if I'll get them. If I do, it will probably be several weeks before they arrive.”

Hannah sat up straight and some color returned to her face. “What do you mean, you don't know if you'll get them? They killed a Federal judge and a soldier, not to mention they burned down the courthouse.”

“We don't know that they burned the courthouse. And nobody knows who killed the judge. In a practical matter, there aren't that many troops in the state, barely enough to police the cities. This isn't the only place where transgressions occur. There's less than a thousand Union soldiers in Louisiana, down from almost ten thousand the year after the war.”

“Didn't President Grant get elected supporting the Republican Reconstruction platform? He knows the problems here. Phil Sheridan was the military general of Louisiana just a few years ago.”

Douglas sighed a long breath. “There's no new troops coming south, not large numbers or new divisions. The country's tired of war, sending its treasure and sons to sort out this vile land, and so is Congress. Even the Northern press is tired of barking the same old tune. The call now is to reunite the Union and move on. They've all but decided to just let all this be handled locally, by the states, without Federal intervention. It's sad, but true. The North thinks they've done enough. Even so, I may get some additional troops, probably from New Orleans. General Mower's not going to tolerate the shooting of a judge, under any circumstances. Probably get a new judge, too. We'll see. I've sent for some more resources, money. We will sort this out, subjugate these outlaws, I have no doubt, but we have to do it with fortitude, resilience, and the resources we have now.”

“How's your pistol man, Basil, working out?”

“All right. Does pretty much what I tell him and is very competent at gun work, though he shoots the hell out of everything and asks questions later. He's really strange in away. Doesn't seem to care for anything, just what he's paid for. Very empty inside. Spends his time sinning. Wrong or right doesn't matter to him. He's almost like a ghost. I've tried to understand him, but maybe there's nothing to understand.”

Hannah massaged Douglas's shoulders. “And your black soldier?”

“Similar in a way. Good soldier. But just the opposite within. Brewing with a disgust at the old order and keen to right it.” Douglas paused. “Maybe I can initiate some infighting, turn the bandits against themselves. It would help if I could get the local papers on my side.” Douglas brushed the back of his hand across Hannah's cheek and smiled. “That young man that owns the local paper is one of your admirers who can't stand your fondness for me.” Douglas put his arms around Hannah, pulling her close in a warm embrace.

Hannah smiled playfully. “You didn't expect courting a good woman such as I would be without sacrifice, did you?”

Douglas lay down on his side. He cleared his throat. “Is it true that you have a brother and sister by two of your father's slave girls?”

“Yes,” Hannah said, remaining still and not looking at Douglas. “My family has plenty of its own sins. This land wasn't as tranquil and heavenly as many believe.”

“What happened to them?”

“Father sent them all away, mothers and children. Nobody knows where. Mother made sure of that.”

“Ever wonder about them—want to meet them?”

“I wondered where they went at the time, but no, I don't want them back.” Hannah's voice carried no emotion. “My family has suffered enough. It would bring disgrace on us. I know some Northerners would look down on that, but I can't help it. It's the way I feel. Doesn't really matter. It would be almost impossible to find them. Who knows if they even survived the war? Maybe they'll show up here one day.”

Douglas turned onto his back. The grand estate around him made him feel small and out of place. Certainly, it once brimmed with life and activity. How much Hannah had lost. Her once pampered and lavish lifestyle of society balls had vanished forever. She hadn't created the world around her. She had only been born into it. He realized that unlike his family, the Northerners, she had lost much, much more than they had. The war had not been a transient interlude, but a permanent ordeal. He stroked her hair a few times. “You know a man named Hiram Vaughn?”