Wildwood Boys (48 page)

He drew her closer and said it was all right, to go on back to
sleep. They lay in silence for a time before he said

“I know that,” she said.
,
“I don’t want to
leave you.”

 

They lay awake for a long time but said no more, only held each
other close and felt the beating of their hearts.

One night she asked if the men he’d sent after Ned shouldn’t have
returned with him by now. He said the rascals might’ve made the
acquaintance of some affectionate Missouri girls and decided to wait
out the winter as near to them as they could. Ike might even have
found the girl whose picture he’d fallen in love with, and she might
have introduced Ned and Val to friends of hers—although Val likely
would have gone back to stay with his wife.

“After all, why spend the winter in a bushwhacker camp—in
Texas or anywhere else—if you could spend it in close company with
a girl?” Bill said. “Or even better, with your wife?”

Bush waggled her brow and said, “Like somebody we know?”
Bill made a face of mock innocence and put both hands to his
chest in a gesture of “Who, me?”—and she broke out laughing and
fell on him with her hands to his throat, affecting to choke him, saying, “I swear I’m going to wring that thoughtless boy’s neck just like
this!”

Breaches and recognitions

 

Thus did the months of their winter pass by.

 

Through the winter, Jim and Butch made frequent visits, and they
always brought tidings and news.

The problems between the guerrillas and the residents of Sherman had grown worse. The bushwhackers resented the townfolk’s
seeming lack of gratitude for their defense of them against the Yankee nation. They were bitter about the constant protests to Quantrill
and General McCulloch, mostly about misdeeds the bushwhackers
saw as harmless fun. They were outraged by price gougings for
everything from blacksmithing to supplies to restaurant meals to
saloon whiskey. When the girls at the Purple Moon tried to raise
their prices too, George Todd and Dave Pool said they would tie
every one of the bitches to a bed and burn the place down before any
of their men would pay a penny more to get laid. The girls had said
nothing more of a price increase.

For their part, the good citizens complained of the bushwhackers’ increasingly brute misconduct, of their nightly drunken howlings
and terrorizing of the town. They had no respect for private property. They held shooting contests and horse races in the streets, and
they bullied and sometimes thrashed any man who made objection.

To try to occupy the guerrillas and keep them out of Sherman for
a time, General McCulloch had ordered Quantrill to go in hunt of
Confederate deserters, whose number had been increasing through
the winter. Quantrill had replied that he’d be proud to take on the
mission but could not begin right away because most of his men
were suffering from the flu. McCulloch was suspicious, but there
wasn’t much he could say except for Quantrill to get started as soon
as possible. When Quantrill told the men about the exchange of messages with McCulloch, they all laughed and affected to have bad
coughs.

“He wasn’t about to make the company go hunting deserters,”
Butch Berry said. “He knows the boys don’t fault any fella who takes
leave of the regular army and all its rules and regulations. Hell,
there’s a couple of dozen deserters in the company.”

Jim said there was more to it than that. Quantrill knew how popular George Todd had become with the men, especially the younger
and wilder ones, and he was doing all he could to keep himself in
favor with them too.

“True enough,” Butch said. “The trouble is, there’s lately been
more townfolk complaints about robberies and bullyings and such.
And Todd’s been letting the boys get away with it. If Quantrill puts a
stop to it, a lot of the boys’ll get blackassed. If he doesn’t make them
quit, he’ll look like he’s scared of standing up to Todd.”

“

And
McCulloch will really come down hard on him,” Jim said.
“He’s got a problem is what he’s got,” Butch said.

 

“I’m real sorry to hear it,” Bill said with a smile.

The sun arced higher every day. The frozen creek cracked open, then
broke apart in the forming current. The snow thinned, lingered in
patches, then was gone for good. The hard ground commenced giving way to mud. The air softened. The trees put forth their first
leaves. Bill regarded the burgeoning greenery and could not help
thinking that it would soon enough grow its way up to Missouri.

On a late and chilly afternoon of red sunlight filtering through
the new leaves, Jim Anderson and Butch Berry arrived at the cabin
with urgent news. Quantrill had arrested one of his own men, Payne
Jones, for the murder of a Confederate officer, a major related to Ben
Christian, the hotel owner and Quantrill’s close friend.

The way Jim and Butch had heard the story, Payne Jones had
played in a high-stakes poker game in the hotel one night and the
major came out the big winner. Two days after that the officer was
found dead on the south bank of the Red River, shot a bunch of
times and robbed of his money, his eyes eaten by the crows. Everyone figured river bandits had done him in, but a few days later
Quantrill found a letter under his door from a bushwhacker named
Phillips who confessed to helping Payne Jones do the killing. Phillips
claimed that when the major left the hotel to go back to his camp, he
and Jones had caught up to him at the river and shot him and took
his purse. But Jones reneged on his promise to split the money and
kept the larger share for himself because the robbery had been his
idea. So Phillips wrote the confession and left it for Quantrill and
sneaked away in the night. The letter said that the major’s purse had
a white star stitched on it and one of its points was missing, and if
Quantrill searched Payne Jones’ possibles he’d likely find it.

Quantrill went to Jones’ barrack and told him to lay his possibles
out on his bunk. And there the purse was. Jones said he’d never seen
it before, that somebody else must have put it there. But John
Koger—one of Quantrill’s cadre of “old men” who’d been riding
with him from the first, and whom nobody had ever known for a
liar—told Jones he was sorry, but he had to say he’d seen him with
the purse the night before. Oh yeah, Jones said,

now
he remembered—his sister had given him the purse for a present. Quantrill
called him a lying and thieving murderer and placed him under
arrest. He sent word to McCulloch that he was transferring the
major’s killer to him for justice. He assigned three men to take Payne
to the general’s camp in Fannin County and hand him over.

“You say the major was kin to Ben Christian?” Bill Anderson
said.

 

“His father-in-law,” Jim said.

 

“That’s the second damn time Quantrill’s put Christian ahead of
his own men,” Bill said.

 

“True enough,” Butch Berry said. “But listen to this. Before the
three guards set out with Payne, some of the boys saw Todd talking
with them. And guess what? Not Payne nor the guards ever did show
up at McCulloch’s camp.”

 

“Flat disappeared, the four,” Jim said.

 

Bill smiled. “I’ll bet they disappeared to Missouri. And I’ll bet the
general had a few things to say to Quantrill.”

 

“He thought Quantrill had let them go and was lying to him,”
Jim said. “Said he was
this close,
by God, to bringing him up on
every damn charge he could think of.”

 

“Quantrill must’ve been a little blackassed himself,” Bill said.
His smile widened. “Did he have the balls, I wonder, to ask Todd if
he knew anything about those long-gone rascals?”

 

“Truth to tell, he did,” Butch said. “And George said he had no
idea what became of those men. Told Quantrill he’d be willing to
take a party out in search of them if he wanted, but Quantrill said
never mind. They say he was giving George a ‘you’re a damn liar’
look, and George was giving him one back like ‘I dare you to say so.’
I tell you, it’s got real raspy between those two.”

 

“What Quantrill did then,” Jim said, “was call the whole company together and give a speech about how any man among us who
robbed or killed southern folk or rebel soldiers was no guerrilla but
only a damned bandit, and he’d have no bandits in his command.
Said he’d no longer stand by any man in the company who committed crimes against the townsfolk or on Confederate soldiers. He said
any man who didn’t like it could mount up and leave. He was looking right at George Todd when he said it, but Todd just smiled like he
was listening to a funny story.”

 

“He said that?” Bill said. “He’ll side with townfolk and the regular army over his own men?”

 

“Nobody left camp, either,” Jim said. “Not even Todd.”

 

“Well, somebody’s leaving it now,” Bill said. He asked Jim to
stay with Bush and told Butch to come with him.

The smoke of campfires and barrack stovestacks rose thin and pale
blue over the camp. It was the first time he’d been there since the day
before his wedding. When his men spied him come loping toward
their barrack they raised a terrific cheer that drew the attention of
the other guerrillas. Archie Clement stood at the fore of Bill’s bunch
to greet him, smiling wide. “It’s fine to see you, Captain,” he said.

“Get the outfit set to ride,” Bill said. “We’re moving to our own
camp.”

 

The Anderson men whooped at the news and hastened to make
ready, strapping on gunbelts, gathering bedrolls and saddles, heading
loudly for the corrals.

 

And here came Quantrill out of his hut and strolling toward him.
Behind him came George Todd, Dave Pool, and Dick Yeager. Bill and
Butch sat their horses and watched them come.

 

“Well now, William T.,” Quantrill said, “I was thinking to ask
you into my house for a drink in celebration of this rare honor, but it
would appear you’re not staying long enough to step down off your
horse. Quo vadis?”

 

“So you won’t stand by a man of the company against a damn
regular or even a townsman?” Bill said.

 

“Ah, my address to the men,” Quantrill said, giving Butch Berry
a quick glance. “More precisely, what I said was I won’t have bandits
in my command.”

 

Bill swept his hand at the gathered guerrillas and said, “Are these
men of your command?”

 

Quantrill looked around as if to be sure which men Bill meant.
“Aye.”

 

“And not a man of them an outlaw?”

 

Quantrill smiled. “You’re a clever disputant, William T., and
there’s no denying it. However, there is a distinction between outlaw
and bandit. A guerrilla who robs and kills Unionists may be declared
an outlaw by Unionists, but he is no bandit unless he also robs and
kills men of the South. It’s a matter of circumstance, you see. No
man is a bandit until circumstance proves him so.”

 

“Circumstance be damned,” Bill said. “A captain stands by his
men.”

 

“You’re being willful,” Quantrill said. “A wise leader always
regards circumstance. A man shouldn’t grip so tightly to a principle
that he can’t unhand it when circumstance voids it of worth. It’s like
trying to save a sinking ship by holding tighter to the tiller.”

 

“You’re full of shit,” Bill Anderson said.

 

Todd looked close to open laughter. Most of the others stood
smiling as well.

 

Arch Clement rode up and said, “The boys are ready, Captain
Bill.”

 

“You disappoint me, William T.,” Quantrill said.

 

“Oh damn,” Bill said. “I pray Lord Jesus will forgive me.” And
he led his men away.

He encamped them a quarter-mile into the wildwood flanking the
cabin, and he named the company the Kansas First Guerrillas.
Kansas had not only been his own home for more than ten years, but
also the home of a number of his men, and he regarded the name as
a fitting defiance of the notion that the state belonged entirely to
Yankees. A courier brought congratulations from General McCulloch for his break with Quantrill.

He stood on the porch that night, Bush’s arms around him and
her head resting on his shoulder, and could see the light of the company fires far back among the trees. Holding to her in the chilly
darkness, breathing the scent of her hair, feeling the warmth of her
flank against him, the soft press of her breast on his arm, he knew he
would have to leave her.

A captain stands by his men, circumstance be damned.
The instant he’d said it to Quantrill he’d known he believed it
above all things on earth. As he stared at the fires burning in the
wildwood camp, he reflected that not a man of them had ever questioned if he would be leading them back to Missouri. They’d never
had a doubt of who he was.

 

Even as he held Bush close, he already missed her terribly and felt
his loneliness twisting hard in his chest.

 

She raised her head from his shoulder and kissed his cheek and
hugged him more tightly. As if she’d heard his thoughts, she said
softly, “Don’t feel so low about it, boy. It’s what you have to do.”

 

He gawked at her.

 

“I always figured you’d go back because of Joey,” she said. “It
grieved me because I didn’t see how you can measure revenge for her.
How many do you have to kill? For how long? For as long as there’s
the war? For as long as you live? How can it ever be made even? But
what—”

 

“I don’t
know,
” Bill said. “I don’t know how long or how many
or even if—”

 

“I wasn’t finished,” she said. “What I know now is, even if they
hadn’t ever done a thing to her, you’d
still
go back.” She stroked his
beard. “One day I just knew it. I suddenly felt it and knew it was true
and it damn near made me cry. I thought of every argument I could
raise to keep you from going before I finally realized I not only
couldn’t, I shouldn’t even try. I love you, Bill. I love who you are and
I’d be the rankest fool to try to argue you into being somebody
other.”