Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1954 Read online

  “I’ll drop you at the next corner—” he began.

  “Halt!” rang a clear voice behind them.

  Grimes whistled sharply, and the buggy leaped forward as the bay broke into a swift trot. Looking back, Barry saw a horseman following. He recognized the sturdy figure in blue.

  “It’s Corporal Karl Batz,” he said.

  “Drive, fast,” commanded Grimes, and thrust the reins back into Barry’s hands. He himself turned halfway around on the seat, his two hands sliding inside his coat. Barry headed them past a row of new houses that marked the edge of town.

  “Halt!” cried Karl again, but Barry snatched the buggy whip and lashed the bay to greater speed. Beyond showed fields, and a wagon road leading westward.

  “Pull up a trifle,” came Grimes’ soft voice.

  As Barry did so, Karl Batz galloped alongside. His right hand poised a big dragoon revolver, muzzle in air.

  “Who are you?” Karl was yelling. “Why didn’t you stop when—”

  A shot cracked suddenly, and Karl gave a gasping cry. Barry almost jumped out of the seat and glanced around, his heart sick.

  Karl still sat in the saddle, unhurt, but the revolver was gone from his hand and he goggled blankly. Grimes, facing Karl, held a vicious-looking pistol in each hand. The muzzle of one of them smoked.

  “I could have drilled you through the head just as easily as I shot that young cannon out of your fist, soldier,” said Grimes, calm as ever. “Now be quiet, and ride along beside us. Push ahead, Barry.”

  In utter silence they traveled a full mile along the road into the country—Barry driving, Karl riding alongside under the threat of Grimes’ pistol. Then: “Halt, everyone,” said Grimes. “Get off that horse, soldier.”

  Karl dismounted. “What happens to me now?” he asked, steadily enough.

  “Nothing, if you don’t act the fool. Pass me the bridle reins. Now, good day to you. Barry, let’s go.”

  Barry drove on. Beside the buggy trotted Karl’s horse, Grimes holding it by the reins. Barry glanced back once.

  “Karl’s just standing and watching us,” he reported.

  “Good. The longer he waits before he walks back to Bowling Green, the longer they’ll take before they get after us. Hand me the buggy whip.”

  Barry passed it over, and Grimes guided the led horse along, then gave it a brisk cut on the flank. It whickered nervously and went bounding away ahead, galloped up the road, and then into a ploughed field. Grimes laughed.

  “Its master will find it heading home some time tonight,” he said. “Meanwhile, youngster, I’m afraid I’ve brought you into trouble with me.” His gray eyes studied Barry. “I’m leaving; they won’t catch me. But these Bowling Green folks who were after me will call you a rebel spy. That soldier knows you, and I’d hate to have him get you into jail because of me.” “Take me with you,” begged Barry.

  “You’d leave your home—”

  “It’s not home,” interrupted Barry. “Not now. Anyway, I’ve been wanting to run off and join my father in the Confederate army.”

  Grimes took the reins. “Your father’s a Confederate soldier? But what would your mother say?”

  “She died when I was a little boy. The only other kin I have is my father’s cousin, Buckalew Mills. He’s the one who was trying to trap you and collect the reward.”

  “I heard you and the judge name him,” nodded Grimes. “So he’s Union and you’re Confederate.”

  “That’s the way it is now,” said Barry, feeling his anger rising. “My father, Jefferson Mills, enlisted with the South in 1861. I was fifteen then, and he left me with Cousin Buck. I can still hear what Cousin Buck said.” He imitated his fat kinsman’s unctuous tones. “ ‘Count on me, Cousin Jeff. You can trust me to care for the poor motherless young ’un like he was my own. You go ahead, fight and win for Southern rights, and we’ll be welcoming you back home like a hero before you know it.’ ”

  Grimes headed the buggy into a rough, narrow track between fields.

  “A man in my line of work makes sure of short cuts like this one,” he remarked. “There’s a side road beyond, and that leads to a main road. While we slide along through these trees and bushes, keep on talking. Your big cousin started out for the Confederacy, and now he wants to catch a Confederate mail runner, eh?”

  “Yes, now that it looks bad for the Confederate States of America,” said Barry warmly. “He used to whoop his loudest for Jefferson Davis and the Stars and Bars, when he was sure Missouri would secede and go with the South. But now, with the Yankees winning, it’s a whole heap different.”

  “It’s different with quite a few folks who change sides as quick as they change their hats,” agreed Grimes.

  “Cousin Buck goes swelling around our farm the way you’d think it was his now,” went on Barry, “and he sure enough has been getting a man’s work out of me every day, and no pay except rough food and rough clothes.”

  Grimes pulled up at a small stream, and let the bay horse drink.

  “Now you’ve told me what made your cousin a Unionist,” he said, “what makes you a Confederate? The Confederates grow thicker in South Missouri. Up here, most of the folks are solid for the Union.” “Dad’s a Confederate soldier, and I want to be one, too. Not because of slaves—we never owned any—but I’ll fight for liberty.”

  “Yes,” nodded Grimes, tugging the reins to make the bay drink more slowly. “We fight for liberty, the Yankees fight to free the slaves, and maybe both sides feel they’re right. Everybody makes up his own mind.” His tone, as always, was calm and cool and reasonable. “You know how I made up mine? I was a steamboat pilot, and when the North and South started in to chew each other’s manes, they said I had to take a Union loyalty oath. So three of us steam- boaters—Sam Bowen and Sam Clemens and I—all went up to the office, ready to take it. But the officer spoke up snippy-tongued to us, and we squabbled back to him, and then we walked out of there and joined the rebels.”

  “But you did make up your mind, Captain.”

  “Yes, like your father, and like you. When folks like us make up our minds, we don’t change back, do we?”

  Grimes started the horse and they splashed across the stream. Beyond, they gained another road, and then Grimes found a trail more narrow and hidden than the first.

  “I reckon you’d better stick with me for a while,” he said. “The way you talk, if you try to go home now, that Cousin Buckalew of yours will nail your hide to the barn.”

  “He sure will, Captain,” said Barry, feelingly.

  “I’ve a good friend who’ll put us up tonight,” said Grimes, “and tomorrow we’ll be in Troy. After that, on to Saint Louis, picking up more mail on the way. Here,” and with his heel he touched the carpetbag, “is about sixty pounds of mail for Confederate soldiers.”

  “We’re going to Saint Louis?” said Barry. “Isn’t it full of Yankees?”

  “Yes, but it’s full of my friends as well. It’s headquarters for the underground mail route.”

  “If you go south, Captain, I want to go along.”

  “Well . . .” Grimes studied him carefully. “All right. I’ll see you get down into Dixie. But if I help you, you help me. With the mail, I mean.”

  “Any way I can, sir,” said Barry earnestly.

  Grimes smiled in his beard. “You’ve already helped me a lot. You know, Barry, I wouldn’t be surprised if you might not make a jo-darter of a mail runner, if you happened to choose the postal branch of the Confederate service.”

  II. The Underground Mail

  THAT night they stayed with a farmer who fed them fried ham and biscuits and let them sleep in the haymow above the stable. They were gone before sunrise, and next evening reached Troy, where another friend of Grimes gave them more letters and said soldiers watched the roads below town. Again before sunrise of the following day, Grimes turned west toward Montgomery City. All the time, Barry listened eagerly to his new friend’s tales of the underground mail service.

  “My chief helpers are young women,” said Grimes. “They distribute and collect mail for me through the home districts of the Missouri Confederates, all the way to Kansas City and Saint Joseph.”

  “If they were caught—” Barry began.

  “Then they’d be called spies, women or not, as I’ve been called a spy—as you’re probably being called now, up in Bowling Green, and as my partner, Bob Louden, is. Right now he’s gathering mail from Kentucky—we do that for the Kentucky Confederates, as well as for the Missourians.”

  From Montgomery City they doubled back to Saint Charles, just above Saint Louis, gathering mail at every point. Grimes’ carpetbag was crammed until its fastenings creaked. At last, on April 28, after a full week of travel, they drove into Saint Louis and along the cobbled streets to a quiet, two-story house of brick, among maple trees in yellow-green spring leafage.

  A Negro stableman greeted Grimes by name and beckoned them along a gravel drive into a carriage house. There he began to unhitch the bay, while Grimes hoisted out his bag of letters.

  “In at the back door, Barry,” said he, and they entered the house through a spacious kitchen where a stout, penny-brown woman presided over a big stove. In the hall beyond, a plump, active lady with gray- sprinkled brown hair came smiling toward Grimes, as though to greet a favorite son or brother.

  “Another safe trip!” she cried happily.

  “Barely safe,” Grimes smiled back. “I want you to meet somebody who snatched me out of Yankee fingers at Bowling Green. Mrs. Deborah Wilson, this is Barry Mills. He’s going south with me, and he’ll help get the mail there this trip.”

  Mrs. Wilson looked thoughtfully at Barry. “You know, he’s no great height,” she said slowly, “and just average in build. His face isn’t memorable; you see scores like it—”

  Grimes laughed at Barry’s blank expression.

  “Those are compliments, young ’un,” he insisted. “Mrs. Wilson is deciding whether you might not make a mail runner yourself—permanent, not just for a trip. We need ordinary-lookers, like me, for instance. Someone like Miss Lucy Glascock is too good-looking to slip around unnoticed. The ideal man for my job would look as common as—well, as common as General Grant.”

  “That Yankee scoundrel!” snapped Mrs. Wilson, with what, in someone less ladylike, would have been a snort. Grimes laughed again.

  “He’s doing his best for his side, and we’ll do our best for ours,” he said. “Shall we wash up, Barry? And you’ll need other clothes; you came off without baggage. Here, I owe you this for your help.” He held out several greenbacks. “A new outfit,” he added, “and your cousin will have a hard job tracing you.” “Supper in half an hour,” announced Mrs. Wilson. It was a good supper, served quietly in the kitchen: chicken pie, biscuits, greens, coffee, and pudding.

  “There was never better food than that,” vowed Absalom Grimes at last, napkin at his bearded lips. “I wish the war was over, and everybody North and South sitting down quietly to supper. Now, how many of the ladies have come in?”

  Mrs. Wilson counted on small, plump fingers. “Four,” she said. “Elmyra Parker, Lou Venable, Molly Jamison, and Lizzie Pickering. We’re still waiting for Nellie Wood.”

  “Hope she didn’t get arrested,” said Grimes soberly.

  “The provost marshal at Saint Joseph did question Elmyra Parker,” Mrs. Wilson told him. “When she showed him her saleswoman contract with the Scruggs factory, they wired here to be sure. Mr. Scruggs sent a telegram that she was working for him, and they let her go.”

  Grimes rose. “Could Barry stay here for a few days? I’ll sleep at the Pickerings’, and tomorrow I’ll ask Mrs. Wood for breakfast.”

  “Goodbye, Captain,” said Mrs. Wilson. “Of course Barry can stay here.”

  Grimes thanked her, nodded to Barry, and walked out of the kitchen.

  “Does he really sleep at one house and eat breakfast at another?” Barry asked, and Mrs. Wilson smiled and nodded.

  “Bless you, son, he won’t sleep or eat twice at the same house in succession. And neither would you, if the whole Yankee government was boiling after you.”

  “I know he risks his life every moment,” said Barry, puzzled. “But he doesn’t want to kill anybody, or help anybody else to do any killing.”

  “He’s a Confederate, helping the Confederacy, and he moves behind and through the Union lines in citizen’s clothes,” reminded Mrs. Wilson. “According to military law, that makes him a spy, just as much as if he was trying to murder General Grant or trap the whole Yankee army.”

  “And they’d hang him if they caught him?”

  “Don’t you think he’s ever been caught?” cried his hostess, and her eyes shone with stirring memories. “He was twice in prison here in Saint Louis—once they had the scaffold all built. But he got away each time, and other times he was as close to capture as you are to that sugar bowl.”

  “He didn’t tell me,” said Barry. “I reckon he doesn’t brag.”

  “No, his work gets him out of such habits.” Mrs. Wilson rose, and Barry rose with her. “Now, as the captain says, you need clothes. I’ll write a note to a friend of mine, Mr. Brown. He lives above his store, two streets over. Go see him when the sun sets.”

  As twilight dropped upon Saint Louis, Barry reached Brown’s store. He climbed stairs, knocked at a door, and was greeted by a secret-faced old man who read Mrs. Wilson’s note, then beckoned Barry in and led him down a back stairway. With no more than half a dozen words, Mr. Brown rummaged around to provide Barry with shirts, underwear, shoes, a cravat, and a suit of stout brown homespun and a broad-brimmed hat.

  “Remember me to a certain captain-man,” said he as he let Barry out again. “Tell him to come see me again when things are—quieter.”

  Back at Mrs. Wilson’s, Barry donned his new clothes. His hostess looked at him calculatingly.

  “Your hair needs cutting,” she pronounced. “Let me call Joe from the stable.”

  The dark servant who had unhitched Grimes’ horse came, listened to his mistress’ instructions, and studied Barry’s dark, shaggy mop.

  “I can fix him,” he said, and seated Barry on a kitchen chair. With comb and scissors, he arranged and clipped for fully half an hour. Finally he said, “Look, young sir,” and offered a hand mirror.

  Joe’s skilful barbering had wrought a decided change. He had cropped the sides carefully, shaped the hair at the temples to form thick locks like side- whiskers, and combed the long top hair back from the brow. Barry looked neater, older—almost another person.

  “You must be tired now,” said Mrs. Wilson. “I’ll give you a bed in the garret, away from any unexpected callers looking for a runaway boy like you.” She took a candle and conducted him to a cot up under brown rafters. Gratefully Barry lay down, and was almost instantly asleep.

  The next day and the next, he found himself with nothing to do. Finally he begged Mrs. Wilson to let him venture into the back yard. He split wood and helped Joe mend harness. On his third night he had just gone to sleep, when he wakened in the dark to feel a hand on his arm.

  “Who’s that?” he demanded sharply, pulling free. “Quiet, Barry,” said the soft voice of Absalom Grimes. “Get dressed and come downstairs. We’re planning our campaign in the cellar.”

  At once Barry hastened into his new clothes and followed Grimes down in the dark, groping along the stair rail. Barry slid his feet gingerly from step to step, but his companion moved through the blackness with the smooth sureness of a prowling cat. From the kitchen they descended into gloom even deeper, along stone steps, and then Grimes rapped at a door deep in the earth. It opened, and they walked into a lamp-lighted chamber with rough stone walls.

  Half a dozen women sat around a table of yellow pine, on which were a coffee pot, cups, and plates of hot biscuits and honey. Mrs. Wilson presided as though in her drawing room, while Grimes introduced Barry around a circle of pleasant-faced, neatly dressed young ladies.

  “They’re our couriers,” Grimes explained. “They take mail out to Missouri towns, and fetch back answers here to Saint Louis, our distributing point.”

  “They do?” said Barry, and they all laughed at his stare. To him they looked more like a group at a sewing bee than operatives of an underground mail service.

  “I’ve made a decision,” said Grimes to the whole cellarful. “We must stop for a while.”

  “Stop the mail service?” cried a rosy girl named Molly Jamison.

  “For a full month,” insisted Grimes firmly. “They almost put you in jail, Miss Molly, and Miss Elmyra there, too. And I told you all what a close shave I had at Bowling Green, up in Pike County. They’re watching, so let’s let ’em watch for a while without anything to see. Today’s the first of May. We won’t operate again until the first of June.”

  “But these letters—” and Miss Molly gestured toward a side table, stacked high with sheafs and bundles of envelopes.

  “They’ll go through,” promised Grimes, “but not now. Bob Louden is in Kentucky, getting a mail like this in Louisville, to bring down to the Kentucky troops. Now listen, please, while I explain our action to come.”

  Silently they heard his plan. The ladies present were to pretend complete neutrality during the month, keeping in touch with Mrs. Wilson, who meanwhile would write the new decision to Bob Louden in Louisville. Grimes would let the search for himself die down, then go to Kentucky to meet Louden and the mail gathered there. In two weeks the letters from Missouri would be brought to him at Memphis by steamboat.

  “And that’s where you come in,” said Grimes to Barry. “Our boat from Saint Louis down to Memphis is the Graham, and it’s run by old friends from Hannibal. Bart Bowen is the captain, his brother Sam is the pilot, and their sister Amanda will be aboard when the Graham docks here. You’ll work your passage south by helping her carry this big freight of mail—it’s more than double what she could tote around.”