Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1954 (3 page)

 
          
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.”

           
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.