Spake As a Dragon (35 page)

“
We’re with you Luke, what
do you think we should do?” Asked Catherine.

Luke explained winter was coming on,
and Sam wasn’t totally healed from the gunshot to his leg. He
suggested they get four of the horses from the back pasture, turn
the rest loose on the open range; however, Nate, do not bring the
pinto, he would be too easily recognized. Then we will load the two
wagons and begin for Alabama as soon as possible.”

“
But Luke,” said
Catherine, “are we prepared?”

“
Catherine, we are as
ready as we’re ever going to be – if them fellers return before we
get away we will not ever leave if you get my drift. If we get out
of here in a couple of days, I believe we might have as much as a
week’s head start on them – that just might be enough.”

Hobbling on a homemade crutch Sam
calls from the door, “Makes sense Luke, I’m ready, just give me one
of them Spencers and a handful of bullets and I’ll handle rear
guard from the back wagon.”

“
That’s the spirit Sam!
Come on Catherine and Nate, we’re burning daylight. I know we
wanted to go in the spring, but sometimes you just got to play the
hand you’re dealt.”

Chapter
Forty-One

WHAT A
FRIEND....

Malinda is driving the lead wagon and
Sary is driving the second. Sary has to take William’s place.
“Slapping the leather reins, “Gittaup Joe git Red,” Malinda urges
the mules on. They must get away from the Tallulah River, the muddy
river that took the lives of her beloved William and Lizzie. They
have camped on the riverbank for over a month now hoping against
hope that some news would come from someone coming up the river,
news about William and Lizzie, but not a word is heard. In fact, in
over a month no one has even come up the river.

With tears in her eyes, she slapped
the leather reins against the mules flanks again. She must leave
this dreadful place of death! She slows momentarily to glance back,
what an awful place she thinks.
If I have to drive a wagon a
thousand miles to go around, I’ll never cross this cursed body of
water again, this I promise
, thought Malinda.

Behind the lead wagon Isaac was
sitting beside Sary, for miles neither spoke. Finally, “Sary do you
suppose they suffered?” Sary knew whom Isaac was referring, but she
wanted to delay the answer.

“
Who boy, whose you
talkin’ bout?”

“
William and Lizzie, you
know Lizzie couldn’t even swim. Mama had told me and Stephen that
we was goin’ to have to learn her next summer. Don’t guess we are
goin’ to get the chance now. I ‘member how mad me and Stephen got
when Mama told us that, boy I wish I had that to do over
again.”

“
Listen boy,” said Sary,
“don’t do that to yerself, there are gonna been many times in yer
live that you’ll look back and wish that you’d made a different
choice of thangs. God only gives you one chance and remember this
effen you doesn’t ‘member nothin’ else: God knows best, and he
don’t make mistakes – it ain’t made fer you or me to know the
reasons, but believe in yer heart God know what he is doin’, and
most times we never know the why of it all.”

“
Sary, what you say is
hard! Why would God drown William and Lizzie, they ain’t never done
nothing bad to nobody.”

“
Hush, child don’t thank
about it anymore,” and she begins to hum and then softly sing the
old spiritual ‘
What a Friend we Have in Jesus’
:

‘
What a friend we have in
Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear! What a privilege to carry
everything to God in prayer!


Oh, what peace we often
forfeit, Oh, what needless pain we bear,
 all because we do not
carry everything to God in prayer!

Have we trials and
temptations? Is there trouble anywhere? We should never be
discouraged - Take it to the Lord in prayer.

Can we find a friend so faithful, who
will all our sorrows share? Jesus knows our every weakness; Take it
to the Lord in prayer.’

At the second verse Isaac joined in,
they did not sing loud, it was more a prayer that a song. When they
finished Sary looks at Isaac, “Boy, I’m not a smart person like
yore Mammy, but I know one thang, you jest remember that last verse
every time you thank of William and little Lizzie, “
Take it to
the Lord in prayer,”
and every thang will work itself out. Be
strong, not for yerself but for Mizz Malinda, she’s gonna need yer
help.”

“
Yes ’em”

“
In less than a weeks
time, we gonna be at Scarlett, or Mizz Malinda says what’s left of
it, you be the man of the family now, so be strong fer yore Mammy,
help her and don’t give her yer exter burdens. And remember too,
Christmas is a comin’. Remember the good, not the bad.”

“
Yes Sary, I’m sure goin’
to try.”

Chapter
Forty-Two

PRIVATE JACK
THOMASON

The meager rations Robert has endured
the past couple of months are beginning to take their toll. The
Death Squad, which had twelve men when Robert was allowed to join,
was now down to just five of the original bunch. For a while,
Robert was able to get scraps from the cook, with whom he had
developed a relationship through Sergeant Belue, but now Belue was
gone and so was the cook. He would slip Robert a few remains of
potato skins, or remnants of meat bones, but as scanty as they were
at least Robert and his band of gravediggers had ‘something’ to
boil over the pot in their tent occasionally. Now even this is
gone.

The weather is miserable, rain, snow,
and seemingly, wet and windy all the time. Christmas is getting
closer, but the enthusiasm demonstrated last year that the War
would be quickly over next year was missing this year. This year
famine, disease and death overshadow last year’s
eagerness.

The spirit of Christmas, if there ever
was any in this place, was absent this year. No one even spoke of
Christmas no hint of a tree and just an occasional talk that the
War was ending. The only thing, for sure, that
was
ending
was the lives of the prisoners, and these were plentiful these cold
winter days.

Robert sat in his tent, not only
decimated in body but also dejected in spirit. It seemed all hope
was lost. “Mind if I sit?” Looked around he recognized Private Jack
Thomason, the man who first had offered him a bed in the Burial
Squad tent.

“
Sure Jack, please,”
Robert said moving over to give Jack a place to sit on his
bunk.

“
Robert, you look down and
out. Let’s not give up. I know its rough, but we can take
it.”

“
Jack, every since you and
I met, you seem like a person hiding something, am I
wrong?”

“
Robert, you and I have
become friends since you arrived in this tent, and I guess I am not
what I seem.” Looking around to see if anyone was close enough to
hear, “My name is not Jack Thomason I am actually William Mayo,
Captain William Mayo of the Union Army’s Surgeon General’s Medical
Staff. Yes, that’s right I am not a prisoner, I was sent here to
investigate Commandant Colonel Francis C. Adams and his reported
abuse of prisoners of war and the conditions at this facility. I
am, in fact, a medical doctor. You Sergeant Scarburg I commend for
your humanity and love of your fellow man, be they Confederate or
Union.”

“
What! You are a Union
Captain and a doctor? Well, I never, I hope your report will show
how badly these men have been treated. And you have seen how they
have been dying faster than we can dig holes and bury
them.”

“
Sergeant Scarburg, what I
am about to tell you is in the strictest of secrecy. The War is
about over – it cannot last more than a few more months. At the
present time, General Grant has General Lee surrounded at a place
called Petersburg, Virginia. General Lee cannot hold out much
longer, the siege has been going on for over a year now. I am
telling you this Robert since I know you have given up hope of ever
going home, please Robert, I beg you, do all you can to hold on.
Hold on, and you will get home and see your family.”

“
Thank you Captain for
telling me this – I feel better already.”

“
Robert that is the last
time to refer to me as Captain remember I am Private Jack Thomason.
Robert, in one of my last dispatches I recommended your name be
submitted for exchange. Even if the War does not end soon, maybe
you will be exchanged and sent back South. And do not worry,
Commandant Adams will eventually be court-martialed for his crimes
against humanity here at Point Lookout.”

“
Thank you Sir, thanks,
and may I ask if you get out of this place you might someday post a
note to my family and tell them of my circumstances. Send it to
Scarlettsville, South Carolina, surely someone there will get the
letter to them if any of my family are still alive.”

“
Hand me your coffee cup
Robert,” as Robert complied the Captain pulled a metal flask from
his jacket pocket and poured Robert a drink of bourbon. The Captain
bumped his flask against Robert’s cup, “Sir, if it is within my
ability to do so you’re request will be carried out. Merry
Christmas Robert, may this be the last one you will ever have to
spend in prison.”

Chapter
Forty-Three

FIRST ALABAMA
CALVARY

Luke was driving the lead wagon, Nate
driving the rear. The two extra horses were tied to the back of
Nate’s tailgate. Sam was riding in the back, just like he said with
a big old Spencer cradled in his arm. Kentucky Lead and four of his
offspring rode in the wagon with Sam. As they went out the gate,
they turned right to head down the mountain Luke pulled on his
horse’s reins and yelled, Whoa!” Catherine was riding in the seat
next to him. He wanted to give her one last look at her home before
leaving. Old Kentuck stood in the rear of Nate’s wagon, head
sticking out looking forlornly at the home he had known all his
life.

“
Let’s go,” Catherine said
turning back to face the road ahead, “home is in Alabama
now.”

In one of the outlaw’s pocket, Luke
found a set of discharge papers showing Buck Thornhill had been a
Private in the Union Army and recently discharged. Before leaving
the farm Luke found his old blue Union shirt and blue pants. He
tucked Buck’s papers into his pocket. Luke knew east Tennessee, the
direction in which they would be traveling was heavily pro-Union,
so posing as Buck, a discharged Union soldier, might get them
through to Knoxville and then later down to Alabama. East Tennessee
was mountainous land, very little cotton farming was done in those
hills. Moonshine and white lightening yes, but slaves no, not in
this economy; therefore, they did not believe in fighting for, what
they called, the rich man’s war.

Luke, yelling back to Nate, “Nate,
tell Sam to stay sharp. Bert and his outlaws will be coming it’s
just a matter of time. I just hope we can stay ahead of
them.

A week passed un-eventful. As they
neared the outskirts of Knoxville, Luke said to Catherine, “Keep a
good look-out, somewhere along this road we are apt to run into a
detachment of Union soldiers. The Yankees took Knoxville about a
year ago; we just have to pray we can fool them into thinking I am
the Yankee Private Buck Thornhill.”

The two wagons travel down the dirt
road another couple of miles. Up ahead they see a juncture of three
roads. One road turns left or to the north the other turns right to
the south, and the third continues straight ahead due east to
Knoxville. “Those Texas fellers are following somewhere behind,
when they get to this crossroads Buck will have to decide whether
to go straight or turn, since he doesn’t know we are headed south,
he has two out of three changes to make the wrong choice. Luke
states, “Luckily, no sentries are posted to tell him south is the
way we are traveling.”

About a mile farther south on the road
that skirted around the western side of Knoxville their luck did
run out – standing in the middle of the road are two Yankees with
Springfield .58 caliber muzzle loading muskets held at port arms,
ordering the wagons to halt.

The first soldier, who doesn’t appear
to be much older than Sam approaches Luke, “You there soldier,
what’s your business?”

“
Uh, I was with the 1st
Alabama Cavalry and got discharged and heading home.”

“
What you mean
1
^st
Alabama! They’s Confeds!”

“
Where you been boy? The
1
^st
has been in action with the Union forces since you
were jest a pup, we’ve fought in most all the major battles for the
North. How many have you been in you young
whippersnapper?”

Embarrassed the kid answered the
question with another question, “Who’s the 1
^st
been
attached to?”

“
We wuz with the
16
^th
Corps of the Union Army of Tennessee,” Luke said
just making up some unit. He knew the discharge papers had blood
covering Buck Thornhill’s unit designation. “We wuz commanded by
Major General John Logan.” Luke had heard that name before but did
not have an iota of information where or who the general commanded.
He was just taking a chance the young soldier did not know
either.