No Good Like It Is Read online

  He held out the coin, and when old William didn’t take it, he handed it to Billy, who lit up like fire, and said, “Thankee, sir. Thankee. Ain’t never seen one of these, no sir.”

  William stood, trembling, and said loudly, “No. Give it back, boy. Now!” He turned to Dobey and said, “I know I held out on you to start with, and poor-mouthed myself. But you see we’ve a cow and some pigs hid over the ridge, and we can be as hospitable as the next. The boy don’t know better. He was clubbed by them raiders when he tried to save a pig I’d give him. In the head. Purty bad.”

  Jimmy took the coin back, and said “No offense meant. The meal was sure worth it. Now will you smoke?”

  “None taken. And yes, I will. Cap’n, you too?”

  Dobey smiled. “Y’all go on. I’ll be out after one more biscuit and honey.”

  When they left, he turned to the woman said, “Poor but proud, huh?”

  “Oh, yes. But y’all have sure done him right today.”

  “And Billy’s mom? Where’s she?”

  “Left with one of them Tennessee raiders, next time after they whacked Billy on to the head. Husband dead, an’ said she couldn’t handle a boy that acted like he was touched in the head.”

  “Billy seems just fine to me. He’s sure better off with you-all, than with a mother like that.”

  She shook all over, and nodded, “No kind of mother at-all, she weren’t. And he is sweet, and fine, and gets better and smarter all the time. William dotes on him and tries to teach him, but ain’t neither of us smart anyways.”

  “Well, Mrs. Clark—I think y’all have done real good with Billy. Can you read?”

  “Yessir I do. Read the scripture all the time. Make Billy read, too, and listen.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Well, I’ve got a couple of books on my horse that I want to give Billy. Took ‘em from a Yankee, like most of my things. I’ve read ‘em. And I’m going to give you two Yankee dollars. Hold it,” he put up his hand to stop her protest. “What you do now is, you take these, hide ‘em til we’re gone, and say, ‘Thank you.’”

  She did.

  ***

  They slept well that night, the first time in weeks, aided by a nip of brandy shared with William Clark. The older Clarks slept well too, though Billy was too excited. At dawn, he tip-toed out to the barn to find the Rangers were up already, shirts off, bathing and shaving in a pan of water they took from a rain barrel. Shirts off, but armed.

  The captain was wearing a shoulder holster, and the big man had on his pistol belt, with two revolvers. Billy said, “Morning,” and stared at the muscles and scars. The captain had an obvious broken nose, and a scar up from the edge of his right eye, that made it seem he was always smiling. He wore a thick brown mustache, but when he did smile you could see another scar on his left upper lip. Then there was one on his left forearm, a bad one, and another two on his right side, front and back. The black-haired sergeant was missing a one-inch portion of his right ear as well as the tip of his left middle finger—the whole joint. He had scars on his forehead and jaw, one going into the hair over his right ear, and two long stitch scars—one on his back near the right shoulder, and another around his left rib cage. Billy wondered about their legs.

  “It ain’t Friday,” he said.

  “Ever’day is Friday with the captain,” Jimmy laughed.

  Dobey laughed too, and said, “We try to wash and shave every day, Billy. We don’t always get to. But we smell better, and feel better, and don’t seem to get sick so much.”

  “I’m gonna do it, too, then. I’m gonna be a sojer, like you and my Daddy. Yessir. Y’all want some tea? Granny will make some directly. It he’ps us wake up.”

  Jimmy wiped dry, pulled on his shirt, and said, “You stay and talk to the captain about soldiering, and I’ll make us some coffee instead.”

  Billy said, “We ain’t had coffee in a right good while, I’m sorry to tell you.”

  “We have some today.”

  “Yessir.” Billy turned back to the captain. “You think I can be a sojer too, when I’m older?”

  Dobey looked straight at him. “You’ll make a fine soldier, if you choose. I could see that yesterday, when you went out to the shed to cover your grandpa.”

  “Cover him?”

  “It means to help him, to protect him. You did that, and you didn’t show fear. Weren’t you afraid?”

  “Some. But Pap don’t never tell me to do nothing wrong. Mostly, I just do what he says.”

  “That’s a good thing, Billy. You’ll be fine. And you read every book you can. I did. We were poor, and my daddy was killed too. I did read a lot, though, and got to go to a good school.”

  “Did niggers kill your daddy too?”

  “No, Billy. Kiowa Indians killed my daddy. They were fighting each other. Like the black soldiers your daddy was fighting with, he was trying to kill them, but someone killed him first. Probably not a black man that killed your daddy, though. I was there. Most of the men in the 22nd Tennessee that died were killed by white soldiers, snipers, good rifle shots.”

  Billy frowned, but seemed to take it in.

  “Anyhow, we won that day, and most of the men inside that Fort Pillow were killed. More’n likely, the man who shot your daddy was killed too.”

  “You think so? I hope so. I miss my daddy. I was nine years old when he left, but I remember him good, and Pap tells me about him.”

  “Your Pap is a good man. You ask him about the soldier life. It ain’t all bad, but it mostly is.”

  “Why do you do it, then?”

  “It’s all I know, Billy. I don’t know anything else.”

  ***

  In the cabin, William Clark was having his first real coffee in two years. He nodded to Dobey as he got a cup and said, “Your sargint tole me y’all was at Fort Pillow.”

  “We were. I was just telling Billy about it.”

  “He tole me more’n that. Said a lot of them niggers was drunk, and wouldn’t quit fighting you boys.”

  “True. And some of our boys were drunk too. But a lot of Yankees, white and black, that did quit, surrendered, hands up, wounded, laying on the ground, they were killed too.”

  “The sargint here says not ever’ body was killing the prisoners. That you and him and others, mostly Texans, was trying to stop it. Even ol’ Forrest hisself.”

  “Yes. Probably less than 200 men out of 3,000 that were doing the killing, but they killed over 200 men who had quit.”

  Jimmy added, “The captain shot one drunken mean son of a bitch who shot two wounded contraband in the hospital. I’m sorry, Miz Clark. But that son of a bitch had a friend who come at the captain’s back with a knife, and I killed him. I’m sorry again.”

  Mrs. Clark nodded as if she heard that language every day, but she blushed blood red.

  “It wasn’t like a whole bunch of good men just went bad,” said Dobey. “They were less than a tenth of us. They were mean or drunk or both, but there are always men like that. Not just soldiers. You must have seen some in Texas.”

  William nodded. “Yep. I said we din’t shoot no Messican prisoners, but they was some men shooting Messicans in the lake. They couldn’t swim, and they couldn’t come out. Ol’ Sam had to slap some of our’n with his sword to stop ‘em. I hit one Tennessee man with the flat of my hatchet to stop him. That’s why they made me a corporal.”

  ***

  Mr. Clark begged them to stay. When they passed on the invitation, his wife gave them a sack of cornbread, fatback, and sliced ham. Both men slipped Billy a few coins, pulled on their ponchos, and rode west in a drizzling rain.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  There were other encounters over the next ten days, some as friendly as the Clarks, some cautious, some not so friendly. On a glorious spring morning, they came out of a thick oak forest to find mist rising over a millpond, the mirror image of the millhouse captured on the surface.

  “This could be Paradise,” Dobey said.

  “Yup. Fish ju
st waiting for us. Fried bream for breakfast?”

  Crossing a dam at the foot of the pond, they saw men moving from the mill house to cut them off: four men with long guns in civilian clothes on foot, and a fat man in a gray uniform on a mule.

  Jimmy asked, “Make a run for it?”

  Dobey knew he didn’t want to. “No, let’s just beat them to the far end of this dike, and lemme talk to ‘em. I hate to backtrack.”

  Jimmy grunted approval, unslung the shotgun, and followed his captain at a trot. At the far end, Dobey reined in and faced the struggling rag-tag band, while Jimmy cocked the shotgun and tied the pack horse to a branch.

  The fat rider, who wore a red sash with a pistol and sword, shouted, “Halt, there. Halt, I say.”

  He brought his mule up sharply to wait for his four men: two scrawny older men and two boys, one of them fat. They closed up, gasping from their seventy-five yard run. They carried three muskets and one shotgun.

  “I’m Captain Jones, Alabama Home Guard, and we’re checking you over as possible deserters. They’s five of us, well-armed, an’ we mean business. Throw down your guns and git down. Now, or we’ll shoot.” He stared at Melton’s shotgun, and at the two calm men facing him. He twitched. Just a little.

  “I’m Captain Walls of the Texas Rangers. This is my sergeant major. We’ve written orders, and we don’t want to fight with Home Guard just doing their job…”

  “But if one of you starts to point a gun at us, I’ll kill him,” Jimmy Melton interrupted. He glared at the fat man, and added, “I won’t stand for no lard-ass make-believe officer yelling at my captain, neither.”

  The fat man’s face betrayed his greed and fear. He thought, they seem unafraid, but Jesus—that pack horse, with its unknown treasures, those boots, saddles, guns. In a smaller voice, he said, “We’re five against two, and I have more men coming. This is my district—you’re under my orders here . . .”

  Dobey read his face, and said, “Why don’t you move your, uh, steed off to your right, away from your men, Captain Jones, and I’ll let you read my orders, and we can all get on with our business. Your men should be careful about what my sergeant said. He’s serious.” Dobey nudged his horse left, away from Melton.

  Jones kicked his mule nearer to Dobey, who leaned out to hand over his orders, left-handed. His right elbow rested on the high pommel, hand inside his jacket.

  The old man with the shotgun muttered, “We oughtn’t to put up with this shit.” The fat boy piped up, addressing the pompous officer, “Yeah, Daddy, we can take

  them.”

  At that point, Jones shouted, “You’re under arrest.” He tried to grab Dobey’s left wrist, and draw his pistol at the same time. Dobey drew the short Colt and shot him quickly in the stomach, and then carefully in the face. The mule bucked away, but Jones stayed in the saddle, screaming. Dobey immediately swung to fire at the men on foot. Jimmy killed the man with the shotgun the moment of Dobey’s first shot. As Dobey swung over, Jimmy blasted the other old man and two buckshot hit the skinny boy beside him, who yelled and dropped his musket.

  Dobey fired at the fat boy three times fast, hitting him twice in the stomach, then shot the skinny one as he tried to pick up his musket. Empty, Dobey drew another Colt left handed, and fired again at each of the young men.

  The fat boy, holding his stomach and moaning, “No, no, no,” stumbled to the lake and fell face down in the shallows. The other one, an arm smashed and streaming blood, dragging one leg and his musket, tried to shuffle back to the millhouse.

  Jimmy dismounted after his second shot and assured himself that the two older men were finished, then jogged after the fleeing boy and yelled, “Hey!” When the boy turned, Jimmy shot him, and the blast knocked him off his feet and into a crumpled bloody ball.

  When that one stopped jerking, Jimmy walked to the water’s edge and faced the fat boy, now sitting up, somewhat recovered by the cold water, but still keening, “No, no.” Jimmy cocked the shotgun again.

  “Gonna rob us, and kill us, wasn’t you,” said Jimmy, and shot him in the chest point-blank. Despite the boy’s size, the 10-gauge buck and ball load knocked him flat on his back in the water. One spasm and he was still.

  ***

  Captain Jones’ mule ran about fifty yards before calming and finding a patch of grass. The fat man finally slid from the saddle and sat against the mule’s leg, holding the reins with one hand, and his stomach with the other. Dobey’s second shot had entered his right cheek under the eye and exited behind his right ear.

  As Dobey rode over to him, the fat man could only stare from his left eye. Jones couldn’t talk; for some reason his tongue was thick and was sticking out. He seemed to have dropped his pistol. He was deafened, his head and stomach hurt like hell, and he couldn’t feel his legs. He felt deeply stupid. Damn, he thought, this regular army asshole is probably going to arrest me and take me to the courthouse. Damnation. I hope my boy doesn’t witness this. He’ll not let me live it down.

  Dobey leaned down close, and shot him in the forehead. The mule bucked again, and the self-appointed Captain Jones rolled onto his side, stone dead.

  ***

  Dobey rode back, dismounted, picked up the orders he’d dropped, and stuffed them back in his saddle bag. A low cloud of gunsmoke drifted over the pond. Jimmy was reloading the Colt shotgun. He was still breathing hard.

  “I won’t bury these sorry bastards. Do you wanna hide the bodies, Cap’n? Take the mule, drag ‘em in those trees?”

  “I don’t think so, Jimmy. Let’s just leave ‘em. They’re so shot up, folks might think twenty men shot ‘em down. Maybe won’t chase us; at least make ‘em real cautious.” Dobey fought to calm himself too.

  “They better be, if they anything like this bunch.”

  “You don’t think we better put some distance on us, ‘fore we reload?”

  “No, Cap’n. I think we likely to run into some ‘nother group, after all this noise. We better be ready.”

  “Yeah, makes sense. You’re right proud of that new shotgun now, aren’t you?” As they talked and reloaded, they kept scanning in all directions. Dobey pulled the loaded Navy Colt from his pommel holster and exchanged the loaded and primed cylinder with the empty one in his hide-away pistol; putting it back in his shoulder holster, he then reloaded the pommel gun and his other belt pistol with paper cartridges from his saddle bag.

  “Gun’s jus’ fine,” said Jimmy. “Kicks like a mule, and the side-spray is bad, like mos’ revolvers, but I like it. Wisht I’d had it that time we caught those Yankees in the box. We had Colt revolving carbines in the ol’ 2nd Dragoons before this war, an’ I learned to handle them then. They ain’t bad.”

  “Hell, ‘A’ Company, 3d Regiment, has fought with ‘em through most of this war. I’m surprised you didn’t find you one sooner.”

  “They fine in a short fight, such as we jus’ had, but if you got to dismount and fight all afternoon—an’ how many times we done that?—you better off with a Sharps. I can get off twenny, twenny-five shots with a Sharps ‘fore I can do ten with a revolver. Jus’ too slow to reload, as you can see.” Finished first, Jimmy nodded at Dobey’s second pistol, still not reloaded, and said, “I’ll water the horses while you finish.”

  Eight minutes later, they rode on. Jimmy looked back. “Sure wanted to fish that millpond. Some damn paradise.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  They rode carefully and steadily, if not hard, for the rest of that day and half of the next. For most of that time, it rained—steadily, if not hard. They camped under a large rock overhang, deep enough for the horses too, and had a fire. With the rain, they were not too worried about being pursued or seen, so they ate hot food and, considering that they were wet, tired, and nervous, they slept well.

  But about noon of the second day after the “gunfight in paradise,” as Dobey called it later, the rain stopped, the clouds broke, and a hot sun soon had them steaming. The main road veered north, and a small lane continu
ed westerly, through some untended farmland into a patch of pines on a hill.

  “What do you think, Cap’n?”

  “I know we’re s’posed to stay on the main road, but we’re also s’posed to be heading west. Let’s see what we can see from that hill, other side of those trees. You smell smoke?”

  “Mebbe. Yeah, I think mebbe so. This little road’s been used by a cart or wagon, since the rain. Turned north, onto that main road.” Melton stood in the saddle and looked around.

  Dobey kicked his horse into a walk. “We’ll spread out.” They rode into the pines, staying on opposite sides of the cart path. On the far side of the pines, the path dropped into a small valley, crossed a creek and led up to a substantial farm house, two stories, with a porch and multiple chimneys. Smoke was coming from a fire in the back yard, where a woman stirred a large kettle.

  There were stables, a barn, other outbuildings, an honest-to-God pump and a small pond.

  “Looks peaceful enough, don’t it?” asked Dobey. Jimmy was scanning the valley with his telescope.

  “Just don’t say one damn word ‘bout no ‘paradise.’ Don’t need another one of those, any time soon. Let’s stay spread and go in slow.”

  As they approached it became apparent that the main house, while not grand, was large and probably not more than forty years old. The barn appeared to be much older. At any rate, there had been a home, or homes, here for a very long time; the house was bracketed by three massive oak trees, and they had obviously been planted there, perhaps one hundred and fifty years earlier. As they rode closer they saw the stump of a fourth oak in the back yard. It had been sawed flat, to become a large table.

  A dog began barking, and a woman came into the doorway. “You young fellers lost? Or do we know you, maybe?”