Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1954 (7 page)

 
          
“Be
carefree,” warned Grimes. “They aren’t paying any attention.”

 
          
“I’m
not afraid,” said Barry, and again, as in
Memphis
, was amazed to find that he wasn’t.

 
          
Skiffs,
launches and other small craft moved back and forth from the ships to the two
shores. Grimes and Barry paddled their way among these. Once or twice an oarsman
shouted a friendly greeting. Not once did anyone seem to eye them with
suspicion. All morning they crawled northward, above the gunboats, then above
the transports. At last they nosed into the mouth of the
Yazoo
.

 
          
Weary,
hungry, they sought a narrow inlet and there beached and overturned the dugout.
They unfastened the mail boxes and loaded them into the boat. With less
obstruction against the water, and less of a current to fight, they made good
time up river until
noon
. By
one o’clock
they were at the log jam below Haines’
Bluff, where pickets challenged them, then recognized them.

 
          
“You’re
back safe!” cried Captain Henry, hurrying to greet them. “I never expected
you’d make it. Now, what’s your wish?”

 
          
“Food
first,” said Grimes, mopping his sweaty face. “Then transportation back to
Yazoo
City
.”

           
“You can get both aboard the
Dew Drop
; she’s about to take off,” said
Henry. “We’ll keep your dug- out for you.”

 
          
At Yazoo City
the two mail runners left
the steamer to get their luggage from the hotel. At the front door, Grimes was
met by a man who whooped like a joyous Indian and caught him in bear-hugging
arms. Slapping the stranger’s back with a vigorous hand, Grimes beckoned Barry
with a jerk of his head. “Barry, meet another partner—Bob Louden.”

 
          
“I’ve
heard of Barry Mills,” announced Bob Louden, reaching out a big hand. “That’s
all I’ve heard in
Memphis
—the young fellow going south with Ab Grimes, who shapes up like a
better mail runner than any of us.”

 
          
Bob
Louden looked as tall and hard as an ash pole, with a spry grace about him for
all his big hands and feet. He had large black eyes that snapped with laughter,
and good-humored lines on his smooth-shaven cheeks. Grimes looked from him to
Barry, grinning.

 
          
“Bob
would be twice the mail runner he is if he wasn’t so big and pop-eyed,” Grimes
joked. “Folks remember him. He’s like a fox; he has to move fast and double
back quick to get away from all the hounds. You and I are the mice; we slip in
and out without being noticed.
Not much, anyway.”

 
          
Bob
Louden helped them carry their luggage to the
Dew Drop
, listening to Grimes’ tale of the expedition from
Bowling Green
and the running of the
Vicksburg
blockade. As he left them at the gangplank,
he straightened up suddenly, as though with resolution.

 
          
“If
you did it, I’ll do it,” he vowed. “I’ve got mail for the Kentuckians inside
Vicksburg
, and I’ll float it in there. You two head
for Senatobia, not Hernando. Hernando’s seeing some fighting, so I had
Yonder
and the buggy pulled down to Senatobia.”

           
“Thanks,” said Grimes, grasping his
friend’s hand. “You take our dugout for your
Vicksburg
trip. Good luck, and remember us to the
boys inside.”

 
          
The
steamboat carried Grimes and Barry to
Grenada
, and there they took a train northward to
Senatobia, where they found
Yonder
snugly stabled by a
friend of the mail runners. Dressed in shabby country clothes, they drove
north, making a circuit of Hernando and
Memphis
, to reach Colonel Selby’s home. The colonel
and his daughter made them welcome in their parlor.

 
          
“What’s
the plan to take our mail to
Saint Louis
?” asked Grimes.

 
          
“The
Platte
River
will stop here on signal,” Miss Emma told
him. “Captain Postal sent word that he’ll be along any day, and that Miss Annie
Baker will be aboard.”

 
          
“Then
Barry will take charge,” announced Grimes. “I’m heading back to
Mississippi
.”

 
          
“Why?”
asked Barry.

 
          
“I
talked to officers at
Yazoo
City
, and they need me for a special piloting
job there. Can you handle the mail?”

 
          
“I
think so, Captain.”

 
          
“And
so do I,” said Grimes heartily. “Take it to
Saint Louis
, and see that it’s distributed through Mrs.
Wilson. Come back with more—or send it, perhaps. Here, I’ll write out an
address for you. Frank Keaton, who builds boats beside the
Memphis
wharfs, and helps us sometimes. I’ll meet
you here, or in
Memphis
—”

 
          
He
finished writing Frank Keaton’s address, and handed it to Barry.

 
          
“I’ll
meet you somewhere,” he promised. “I don’t know where or when, but we’ll keep
the mail moving.
 

 
          
ON
THE following day, after Grimes had left, the
Platte River
sounded her whistle to signal that she was stopping
for Colonel Selby’s flag at the wharf. Barry hurried out in time to see the gig
moving toward him, and shortly afterward he was aboard the steamer, shaking
hands with heavy-set, brick-faced Captain Postal.

 
          
“And
allow me to present you to Miss Annie Baker,” said the captain.

 
          
Miss
Annie Baker was a queenly creature with auburn hair and darkly glowing eyes.
She carried a gay parasol above her plumed bonnet, and her crinoline was
elaborately flounced and pleated. But she was businesslike for all that.

 
          
“
Saint Louis
is busy with spies and sentinels looking
for mail runners,” she told Barry. “Watch for trouble on the dock there.”

 
          
“I’ll
watch,” he promised.

 
          
When
time came to dock, he dressed in the old clothes he had worn when he left
Bowling Green. He stood at the rail with Annie Baker and looked at the wharfs,
seemingly full of soldiers.

 
          
“Go
ahead,” he whispered to her. “Just pretend I’m a deck hand.”

 
          
He
loaded himself with her luggage and his—a piece under each arm, another in each
hand. Miss Annie Baker walked royally down the gangplank, and Barry staggered
after her with his cargo of bags.

 
          
Nobody
even glanced at him, though several soldiers looked more than briefly at Annie
Baker. He followed her across the wharf, and she signalled to a hack with her
parasol.

 
          
“Put
my things in this carriage,” she directed Barry. “Mind you have everything,
now.”

           
He loaded in her carpetbag and his
own, filled chiefly with mail. “Thank you,” she said loftily. “This is for your
trouble.”

 
          
As
she thrust a greenback into his hand, she leaned over and whispered, “
there’s
Mrs. Wilson’s Joe.” Then she stepped into the hack
the driver held for her. Barry watched her roll away, and then glanced around.
Behind the fine of public hacks were drawn up several other carriages. He
recognized the closed rig in which Joe, Mrs. Wilson’s trusted dark retainer,
had brought him to board the
Graham
.
He strolled toward it.

 
          
“Go
’round behind and get in,” bade Joe in an undertone from where he sat holding
the reins. Barry moved past the rear wheels, looked quickly to be sure nobody
watched, then ducked into the carriage like a lizard into a hole.

 
          
It
was like a homecoming to walk into the
Wilson
kitchen, to see the smiling,
chocolate-brown cook, and, in a moment, his hostess.

 
          
“Welcome
back!” she greeted him. “Annie Baker has already brought the mail, and I’ve
carried it down cellar. Captain Grimes—is he—”

 
          
“He
stayed down south on a special mission,” said Barry. “I’m in the mail service
now, and I’ll try to do his work for him here.”

 
          
That
night there was a meeting in the cellar, of the same ladies Barry had seen
there before. He told of the
Vicksburg
adventure, while gasps of wonder and
admiration greeted his story.

 
          
“Ab
Grimes is beyond description for bravery,” vowed Elmyra Parker when he had
finished, “and Barry Mills isn’t far behind him. Now, let’s start the
distribution.”

 
          
The
ladies bore off various parcels of letters, and Barry slept that night in the
familiar attic.

 
          
As
Barry waited idly for mail that June, there seemed to be idleness for the two
great lines of armies arrayed against each other all the way across the land. In
far
Virginia
, after
Chancellorsville
, there were only rumors of movement by
Robert E. Lee’s gray divisions. In the central South were countermarchings and
no battles. In the
Mississippi
valley, attention was on the siege of
Vicksburg
. And across the river, in
Arkansas
, the picture of stalemate was complete—the
Confederates under Sterling Price held
Little Rock
, while Union armies under Curtis and Blunt
offered no menace.

           
Barry heard, too, from
Pike
County
. Lucy Glascock visited Mrs. Wilson and
brought word from Judge Westfall. Buckalew Mills was still demanding that Barry
be traced and captured, but the sheriff had shrugged off such appeals, saying
that he had more important work to do. Buckalew was working himself now, on the
farm he had appropriated from his absent cousin, Jefferson Mills.

 
          
Toward
the end of the month, the ladies of the underground mail brought back bundles
of letters. Barry put them in a package which he addressed to Frank Keaton, the
friendly boat-builder of whom Absalom Grimes had spoken. He followed this
package aboard the
Graham
and sailed
down river among a deck load of Union soldiers and civilian laborers.

 
          
On
July 5 he landed at
Memphis
and sought Keaton’s boat shop. A soft-spoken word identified him to
Keaton, who sent him upstairs to a room fitted as sleeping quarters. In a few
moments a man walked in, wearing homespun shirt and jeans pants, carrying on
his shoulder the balelike parcel of letters.

 
          
“Where
shall I put this?” he inquired.

 
          
“On
the table yonder,” said Barry, and the man slouched across and deposited his
burden. Then he turned back, disclosing a brown beard and merry eyes.

 
          
“Shut
the door,” said Absalom Grimes. “You did fine without me.”

 
          
Barry
pushed the door shut, and the next moment was shaking hands warmly with his
comrade.

 
          
“I’m
not here for a reunion only,” said Grimes at last, sitting on the table beside
the bundle of letters. “You’ve done well alone so far. How would you like to
move the mail the rest of the way to
Vicksburg
?”

 
          
“You
mean, without you?”

 
          
“Without
me, yes,” said Grimes. “I’ve something else to do, something big. No, no
questions. It’s not only big, it’s dangerous.”

 
          
“Take
me along,” begged Barry, but Grimes shook his head.

 
          
“Can’t
think of anybody who’d be better in a tight place, Barry, but I can’t risk both
of us. In fact, I wouldn’t have taken this job if I hadn’t known you could do
the mail work if something happened to me.” He gestured away another question.
“I’ll do my work, you do yours. I’ll help start you. Yonder and the buggy are
waiting to take you out of
Memphis
. Better go by way of Senatobia. When you get to
Yazoo
City
, wait for Bob Louden. He got in and out of
Vicksburg
the way we did, and should be about due for
another trip. The two of you can work your way in together.” He paused, and
eyed Barry thoughtfully. “For that matter, maybe I’ll see you both in
Vicksburg
. We might even have a good dinner together
there.”

 
          
“In
Vicksburg
?” echoed Barry. “They must be really short
on food, by now.”

 
          
“Maybe
now, but maybe not later,” said Grimes cryptically. “Now, suppose we change the
subject. Your father’s with
Shelby
’s cavalry in
Arkansas
, didn’t you say?”

 
          
“Yes,
he is.”

 
          
“No
mail has gone there for quite a while. Part of what you’ll take as far as
Yazoo
City
is for
Shelby
’s command. After a trip to
Vicksburg
, maybe you’d like to take
Shelby
’s mail and visit your father.”

 
          
“I’ll
say!” said Barry eagerly.

 
          
“All
right, but the
Vicksburg
trip comes first.” Grimes left, and Barry slept that night above the
boat shop. He wakened at dawn, to a storm of shouting and cheering outside,
punctuated by the reports of guns.

           
A Fourth of July
celebration?
But that would have been day before yesterday. He dressed
and hurried downstairs.

 
          
Both
soldiers and civilians jammed the wharf, and every man of them was leaping,
dancing, waving his hat or cap, yelling his contribution to a sky-shaking
chorus of noise. Barry stared uncomprehendingly. Frank Keaton, also coming out
of the shop, pointed silently to a steamer just coming in to the wharf.

 
          
Along
its railing fluttered a great length of canvas, painted in big black letters:

 
          
VICKSBURG
SURRENDERED JULY 4!

 
          
Barry
felt like a stuffed doll, with the sawdust leaking out. He sat down on a bench.
Someone came and sat beside him.

 
          
“Too
late,” murmured Absalom Grimes wretchedly.
“Too late.”

 
          
“Yes,”
Barry agreed dolefully.

 
          
“Everything
was fixed,” Grimes told him. “The steamer
Luminary
,
at the dock south of here, is loaded to the guards with supplies and
ammunition. The pilot and chief mate are Southerners. I’d put two dozen men
aboard as deck hands and passengers. We were going to pull out tonight,
overpower the armed guard, and run the blockade, pretending to be a Yankee
transport. We hoped to dock in
Vicksburg
with food and powder for that hungry
garrison.” He bowed his head in his hands.

 
          
Before
noon
, more bad news came. The papers carried
word of a tremendous battle at
Gettysburg
,
Pennsylvania
, where Lee’s army had been fought to a standstill and had been forced
to fall back to
Virginia
. And at Port Hudson, Arkansas, the Confederates had attacked, and
there, too, they had been repulsed.

 
          
“The
Union
holds the
Mississippi
now,” said Grimes, as they read the papers
in the upstairs room. “Well, Barry, at least every Yankee in
Memphis
is celebrating. We can get our mail out of
town without much trouble, and head for whatever’s left of the Confederacy
below here.”

 
          
It
was as easy as Grimes foresaw. In the old buggy drawn by
Yonder
the mule, they rolled out of town. A sentry at the city limits stopped them,
but when he heard of
Vicksburg
’s surrender he was so joyously amazed that he did not bother to ask for
a pass or to search their rig. On they went, and late at night reached
Coldwater Creek, where they met a party of scouting Confederate cavalry.