Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1954 (10 page)

 
          
Barry
spun around and trotted back around the corner. Grimes and his captors were
still in sight. He followed them, but at enough of a distance to keep from
drawing their attention. They went up
Main Street
, moved through the crowd of passers-by, and
finally turned in at a door where a soldier stood guard with his musket. Barry
came up in turn, and started to go in after them.

 
          
“Do
you have business here?” the soldier demanded.

 
          
“That’s
just what I do have,” snapped Barry, with a fine show of anger. “I’m going to
see if your Yankee officers can jostle peaceable citizens on the streets of
Memphis
and nobody do anything about it.”

 
          
The
soldier smiled scornfully.
“Go right in, bub.
I wish I
could hear Colonel Bradley send you right out again with a flea in your ear. He
has a short way of knocking the horns off squawkers like you.”

 
          
Barry
walked into a narrow hall with a door open to a big office at the end. The
office was full of people, sitting in rows of chairs. Facing them, at a heavy
desk, was a stern, gray-haired officer with eagles on his shoulder straps, and
in front of him stood Grimes between the two men who had brought him.

 
          
As
Barry sat down in a chair next to the door, he had a notion that Grimes glanced
at him from the tail of his eye.

 
          
“Well,
Mr. Anderson, if that’s your name,” the colonel behind the desk was saying,
“all we want to know is what you’re doing in
Memphis
.”

 
          
“I
came here to be married,” replied Grimes in his habitual easy way. “I called on
Miss Rudisell, and we were going to meet my sweetheart when your officers asked
me to come and meet you instead.”

 
          
The
officer at Grimes’ elbow snickered. “We seem to have been hasty, Colonel
Bradley. Marriage is a serious business, but it’s hardly an act of war against
the government.”

 
          
“No,
it isn’t,” agreed Colonel Bradley, thawing a trifle. “We just try to look into
everyone’s affairs these days. Now, Mr. Anderson, since you don’t seem to be
anybody we want—”

 
          
“Wait
a minute, sir!”

 
          
As
the words cracked out like pistol shots, every eye in the room turned toward an
excited old man who had risen from where he sat in the crowd.

 
          
“My
name’s
Thompson,
and I live in
Saint Louis
,” he was calling out as he bustled forward.

 
          
“Just
be patient, Mr. Thompson,” said Colonel Bradley crisply. “I’ll talk to you when
your turn comes.”

 
          
“No,
you’ll talk to me now.” The man called Thompson was at the desk, his lean old
finger pointing at Grimes. “Colonel Bradley, don’t you know who this man is?
He’s Ab Grimes, the rebel mail carrier—I know him well!”

 
          
A
great murmur of excited interest went through the room, and Barry felt his
heart turn cold.

 
          
“He’s
escaped from one prison after another,” Thompson was jabbering. “He was
sentenced to death once. There’s a big reward offered for him, and I claim it!”

 
          
Everyone
started to talk at once. Colonel Bradley struck the desk with a great thump of
his fist.

 
          
“Silence
in this room!” he roared, and everybody stopped talking. Colonel Bradley stared
at Grimes.

 
          
“So
you’re Captain Absalom Grimes?” he inquired harshly.

 
          
“I
told you my name was
Anderson
,” said Grimes.

 
          
“I’ve
frequently heard of Ab Grimes,” went on the colonel, “and if I’ve really caught
him, I’m much gladder than I’d be to talk to this man Keener I’ve been
scrambling around to catch.”

           
Grimes shrugged, as though in mild
protest. “I was planning to be married,” he said again. “I even have some
furniture for my new home. I wish somebody would hunt up the lady I’m going to
marry, and tell her that George Jones knows where my furniture is stored. If
I’m to be detained here, she ought to know about that furniture.”

 
          
“We’ll
see to that later,” said Colonel Bradley. “Take this man into the back office;
I want to question him privately.”

 
          
There
was another stir. Many of the onlookers had risen to their feet, craning their
necks for a look at the man named as Absalom Grimes. In the confusion, Barry slipped
out.

 
          
He
did not slacken his pace until he was knocking at the front door of the
Rudisell home. Inside, the three young ladies heard his story with pale faces.

 
          
“He
meant me to hear what he said about George Jones and the furniture,” finished
Barry. “The furniture means the mail. We’ve got to keep it moving.”

 
          
“What
shall we do?” asked Lucy Glascock.

 
          
“I’ll
fetch that mail here,” said Barry. “Miss Rudisell, you get a carriage ready to
cart it south before anybody finds it.”

 
 
          
Barry
ran out into the street again, and off toward the hotel, mounted the stairs,
and opened the door of Grimes’ room.

 
          
“I’ve
been waiting for you,” said Captain Latimer from where he knelt on the floor.

 
          
One
of the valises was open before him and his hands were full of envelopes
addressed to Confederate soldiers.

 
          
BARRY
stumbled in across the threshold and paused for one astounded moment. Then he
threw himself desperately at Captain Latimer, snatching at the open valise.

 
          
There
was a brief, fierce struggle,
then
the tall captain
caught Barry’s wrists in big, wiry hands and tripped him so that he fell on the
bed. Breathless with his run through the town, Barry almost collapsed there.
Latimer sprang to the door, pulled it shut, and turned the key in the lock.
Then he faced Barry.

 
          
“Don’t
go out of your class to fight, youngster,” he warned, not at all angrily. “You
look ready to drop, the way it is. Take it easy.”

 
          
Barry
sat on the edge of the captain’s bed, near its foot, where Latimer had hung his
belt with saber and pistol. He dropped his hands between his knees and gazed
down at the scattered envelopes. Latimer stooped to pick them up.

 
          
“You
remember, I was just about to go and report for duty,” he said. “Then a young
lieutenant from the provost marshal’s office
came
swelling in here, and wanted to see my papers. I convinced him I was all right,
and he apologized—said they were checking up on friends of a man named
Anderson
who was under arrest for carrying mail to
the rebels. When he was gone, I thought I’d better look at my roommate’s
luggage. I found plenty to interest me, and the provost marshal, too.”

 
          
He
tossed the letters back into the valise and shut it again. “My guess,” he said,
“is that our mutual friend Brady Anderson is really Absalom Grimes. Am I
right?”

 
          
Barry
only scowled.

 
          
“I
must be right,” smiled Latimer, “or you’d call me a liar. So Brady Anderson is
Absalom Grimes— I’ve often heard about Grimes, the mail runner. And probably
George Jones isn’t your real name.”

 
          
Barry
shrugged his shoulders. “Why tell you?”

 
          
“I
wonder,” Latimer said, “if you aren’t somebody almost as famous as Grimes
himself—his partner, Bob Louden.”

 
          
Barry
laughed aloud at that. He couldn’t help it. “I take it I’m wrong,” observed
Latimer dryly. “Then I’ll just go on calling you George Jones. You’re a mail
runner, anyway, aren’t you?”

 
          
“What’s
so terrible about mail running?” Barry asked him.

 
          
“Nothing,
really,” said Latimer. “Carrying letters between soldiers and their families is
a kindly service. But it’s technically spy service, George. A spy’s job doesn’t
have much of a future. Know what happens to you if you’re a spy and get
caught?”

 
          
“They
hang you,” replied Barry evenly.

 
          
Latimer
studied him, shook his head slowly, and smiled again. “You’ve got spirit,
youngster. Yes, spies go to the gallows, unless there’s a good reason why they
should be spared. Now, George, you and your friend Grimes aren’t the only ones
in this underground mail service. Why don’t you and I talk about some others
who are in it?”

 
          
Barry
shook his head. “I’ll talk about nothing.” He stole a glance to where Latimer’s
belt hung, with saber and revolver. If he could only get close enough . . .

 
          
“Believe
me, lad,” Latimer went on persuasively, “I’m not getting any joy out of the
trouble you’re in. I’d feel a lot better if you’d agree to help. I told you
today I have a brother just your age. It might have turned out that he’d be in
the same scrape you’re in, and so I’m talking to you the way I’d like some
enemy to talk to him. I’m trying to help you.”

 
          
“I
don’t need any help,” said Barry.

 
          
Latimer
shrugged his shoulders with an air of failure. “Then we’ll just have to bundle
up these letters and take you and them down to the provost’s office.”

 
          
Barry
glanced past him toward the door, and made himself smile as though in joyous
surprise. “Grimes!” he cried. “You’re just in time!”

 
          
Swift
as thought, Latimer leaped to his feet and swung around to stare at the door.
As he did so, Barry flung himself toward the foot of the bed and snatched the
revolver from its open holster. He pulled back the hammer with a loud click.

 
          
“Hands
up!” he commanded sternly. Latimer turned around, and then lifted his long
arms.

 
          
“Be
careful with that gun of mine,” he warned. “I loaded it myself, and the
trigger’s set so that the slightest touch will snap it.”

 
          
“Then
do what I say,” said Barry. He rose and moved clear of the two beds. “Bend down
and pull that other bag out from under the bed.”

 
          
Latimer
obeyed silently.

 
          
“Now,”
went on Barry, “pull the top sheet off that bed and tear up some strips-—good
wide ones.” Latimer did so. Barry motioned with the revolver barrel, and
Latimer threw the strips on the bed.

 
          
“Turn
your back to me and stand with your nose to the wall,” Barry said. “You said
just now you didn’t want me to get hurt. I don’t want to hurt you, either, so
no false moves.”

 
          
As
Latimer moved to the wall, Barry picked up a strip of sheeting and worked a knotted
loop into the end.

 
          
“Cross
your wrists behind you, Captain,” he directed.

           
Latimer did so, and Barry slid the
noose around them, pulled tight, and then tied them fast. At another word from
Barry, Latimer lay face down on the bed, and Barry bound his ankles with
another strip.

 
          
“You’re
a cool hand for seventeen,” the captain remarked, with no sign of ill humor.

 
          
“Thanks,”
said Barry. “Now sit up.”

 
          
With
still another strip of sheeting he gagged the captain, then, with the officer’s
belt, strapped Latimer under the arms to the bedpost. The revolver he shoved
into the waistband of his trousers, buttoned his coat over it, and then picked
up the two heavy bags.

 
          
“Goodbye
and good luck,” he said to the bound man on the bed.

 
          
Latimer
actually winked one bright eye at him.

 
          
Barry
unlocked the door and lugged his double weight of mail into the corridor. As he
dragged it toward the stairs, he could hear the muffled thumping of Latimer’s
efforts to struggle free. There was no time to pause and listen. He made his
way downstairs and out the front door. Setting the valises on the curb, he
signaled for a hack and told the driver to take him to the Rudisell home. No
one paid any attention as he slipped into the hack.

 
          
Jennie
Rudisell met him at the door.

 
          
“Lucy
Glascock’s upstairs in her room, and Betty is trying to calm her,” she
reported. “That poor girl’s close to fainting with worry over Captain Grimes.”

 
          
“You
must see that they get safely back to
Missouri
,” Barry replied, “and I’ll go on south with
this mail. I’ll have to move at once, too. Did you get a carriage?”

 
          
“Mollie
Noble and Bertie Smith are coming around with one,” said Jennie Rudisell. “You
can ride out of town with them, and the three of you will look like an ordinary
picnic party. They’ll get you down to Hernando.”

 
          
Before
the sun went down, Barry had successfully passed the sleepy outposts of
Memphis
, and was carrying the mail toward the
Confederate lines.

 
          
After that,
life seemed an endless
prowling adventure, from
Saint Louis
down to
Alabama
,
Tennessee
,
Texas
or
Arkansas
, where gray-jacketed soldiers waited for
the letters he carried. Sometimes he used a buggy and the patient mule
Yonder
for his crosscountry journey. Sometimes he went on
horseback or by boat or train.

 
          
But
the zest and joy of the hare-and-hounds game of mail running had departed from
young Barry Mills, for his daily worry and his nightly dreams were of the
desperate plight of Absalom Grimes.

 
          
Friends
in the grapevine said that Grimes had been confined in Gratiot Street Prison at
Saint
Louis
,
chained hand and foot and under special guard. Again and again Barry went to
look at the massive double-towered stone building where his comrade was held,
speculating on chances to enter the great doors, the barred windows. Later came
more news of Grimes, baleful in the extreme.

 
          
In
March of 1864, while Grant took command of the
Union
armies in Virginia and his red-bearded
lieutenant Sherman led them in the west, a court- martial convicted Absalom
Grimes as a spy, and he was sentenced to hang on July 8.

 
          
Barry
was eighteen years old by then. He might have joined forces with Bob Louden and
tried some desperate plan of delivery; but Louden, too, had fallen into Union
hands while carrying the mail from

 
          
Kentucky
. July came. Robert E. Lee was besieged at
Petersburg in Virginia; a small, desperate Confederate force tried to oppose
Federal invasion of the Shenandoah Valley; the Union scored victories in
Georgia; and news trickled from Gratiot Street Prison that Grimes, in a wild
effort to escape on the eve of his execution, had been shot in the leg and lay
dangerously ill in the prison hospital ward. At almost the same time, an order
from
Washington
had reduced his sentence to imprisonment
for the remainder of the war.

 
          
“He’ll
live,” said Barry hopefully, again in camp with
Shelby
’s men on the
Texas
border. “And he’ll escape before the end of
this war.”

 
          
“If
it ever ends,” observed his father in discouragement. “I hear that Buck Mills is
acting as if he’d always owned that farm of ours in
Pike
County
. Probably he’ll always have it, and we
can’t even go back to
Missouri.
”                                                                                
.

 
          
“We’ll
get another farm somewhere,” said Barry comfortingly.

 
          
“Maybe.
But it won’t be home, will it, son? I get lonesome
for
Missouri
. It’s hard to remember there ever was such
a thing as peace and happiness.”

           
Jeff Mills spoke truth. The end of
September brought more reverses to the South:
Sherman
, at
Atlanta
, was preparing to march through
Georgia
to the sea, while
Sheridan
had already
laid
waste the
Shenandoah
Valley
. Only
Price, raiding up from Texas, and Forrest, plaguing a whole string of armies in
Tennessee, kept the western South from being overrun.