Spake As a Dragon (36 page)

“
Let me see yer papers,”
said the Union soldier.

As he was reading the discharge the
other soldier yells, “Hey, Tom thar’s another one in this here
wagon with this blackie.”

Both soldiers stood at the rear
tailgate and looked at Sam. Sam stared back. “What’s this uns
story?” Soldier number one said to Luke.

“
Listen fellers, I know
y’all ain’t been in the Army very long. So what I’m fixin’ to say
you might not understand. That’en is my brother Sam, he’s seen more
fightin’ that you two will see together, he got wounded at the
Battle of Fallen Timbers (again Luke was making up fictitious
names), they wuz gonna cut his leg off. I wuz done discharged so I
figured he being only sixteen years old would need that leg and I
also figured they wouldn’t miss him anyway. I slipped him outta the
hospital tent and I’m carrying him to my cousin’s house,” turning
to Catherine, “uh, this here is Catherine, my cousin...”

“
Ma’am,” said the Union
soldiers touching their hats.

“
We’ve been doctoring him
and his leg is about well, but we figured we’d git him back to
north Alabama. The War’s ‘bout over, who’s gonna miss another
sixteen year old kid.”

“
Uh, mister...”

“
Sorry, my name is Private
Buck Thornhill.”

“
You know we, that’s
me...uh, Private Tom Samuels, and this here is Private Ewell Smith,
we both are jest sixteen ourselves and we wouldn’t be here neither
if they hadn’t made us jine up. Get your kin out of here and get
him home. I hope yer right about this War not lasting much longer.
Good luck to you all.”

“
Good luck to you too Tom
and Ewell. Oh, Tom one favor if you can... there is a band of
Conscription soldiers on our trail, dressed up in civilian clothes
riding western style horses with western saddles, the officer in
charge goes by the name Bert Black I’d appreciate it very much if
you wouldn’t mention we’d come through here.”

“
I hate them Conscription
cusses too, don’t you worry we’ll send’em packing in the wrong
direction.”

“
Thanks, Private Samuels.
Git up there hosses,” Luke said slapping the horses with the
reins.

Two weeks later they were in sight of
Lookout Mountain south of Chattanooga.

Luke pulled the wagons into an open
grassy spot next to a small creek to spend the night. The place was
well hidden from anyone traveling the road. “Now we’ve got to be
real careful even tho’ the South was victorious at the battle of
Chickamauga that was back in ’63 since then the Yankees has taken
Chattanooga so we will have to go around the town to get to
Alabama”, he explained as they ate their supper. To by-pass
Chattanooga they would need to skirt the eastern side of the
Tennessee River, slip south down the valley between the ridge on
the east and Lookout Mountain on the West. Once they passed the
battlefield of Chickamauga they could cut west through Lookout
Mountain’s Day’s Gap cross the mountain and then go down the valley
to Fort Payne. Spend a few days there letting their animals rest,
then one last push upon Sand Mountain and within a day or two they
should arrive at Albertville, and home.

Sitting around the campfire, the wind
was blowing slightly from the north, and there was a hint of snow
in the air. “It will feel good to get home,” remarks Luke. “I
haven’t seen my family in such a long time, and I am nothing but
skin, bones and beard, they probably won’t even recognize
me.”

“
Yessir, I’m shore gonna
feast my eyes on Ma and Pa, and baby brother Jefferson. I wuz so
ugly when I left bein’ so ugly now won’t make them no never mind.
They’d know me anywhere.”

“
And you Catherine, and
Sam I can’t wait to introduce you both to my family. They will make
you both feel right at home.”

“
Luke, what do you think
you’re mother will say when she finds out we got married at that
preacher’s house after leaving the farm?”

“
I’ll tell you what she
say, she’ll say, ‘Why Luke Scarburg you’ve done gone and married
the prettiest girl in this whole country’!”

“
Ah, go on Luke, you’re
just pulling my leg,” Catherine said laughing.

From the ridge northeast of
Chattanooga, they can see the whole city spread out in the valley
below and the campfires of the hundreds of Union soldiers camped on
the east side of the Tennessee. Luke made mention that the lights
reminded him of the candles on a Christmas tree. “Did you know
tonight is Christmas Eve?” The merriment of the evening grew somber
at the utterance of Christmas. Each could remember back to their
last Christmas, Luke and Nate having fun in the cave with the
mailman and Old Bill; Catherine and Sam at home with their father
and mother.

“
Catherine let’s not make
Christmas a sad occasion, we are all just beginning a new life,
come on tell Nate and me what you and Sam did for Christmas last
year.”

For a moment Catherine did not want to
participate in Luke’s trip down memory lane, then consented, “Of
course Mother and Father were there Christmas Eve. Mother baked my
favorite tea-cake cookies and Sam made snow cream...”

“
Whoa, Sam did what?”
Asked Luke. “What in the world is snow cream?”

“
Now Luke Scarburg don’t
tell me you have never eaten snow cream. It is just a mixture of
snow, milk, vanilla flavoring and sugar, but we had no sugar and
used honey instead. It is superb.”

“
I suppose it doesn’t snow
enough in Alabama for us to have figured that one out, but you’re
right, it does sound good.”

“
All right Luke, the next
snowfall I will personally see to it that you have your own bowl of
snow cream.”

“
Hold on,” chimed in Nate,
“What about me?”

“
A bowl of snow cream for
you too Nate,” laughed Catherine.

The therapy of talking about Christmas
seems to help Catherine and especially Sam. Just getting it out of
their system seems to release some of the pent-up hurt they are
carrying with them. “That was good, let’s all try to get some sleep
and we’ll be off at first light in the morning,” Sam said, throwing
his bedroll down near the fire.

It is after midnight, probably closer
to three a.m. when a snap of a twig is heard. From the back of the
wagon Kentuck throats a faint growl. His eyes open, but he does not
move. Sam hears his dog too. Someone or something is moving outside
the wagon!

Luke and Nate are bedded down next to
the fire, which is now only glowing embers. Catherine sleeps under
the wagon. The fire does not cast enough light to illuminate the
crouched figure slipping into their midst. There is; however,
enough moonlight to see the dark shape is that of a man holding a
pistol in his hand.

The intruder quietly tiptoes over to
Luke’s bedroll. Luke is wrapped in a blanket with his old black
slouch hat covering his head and face. The assailant bends over and
sticks his six-shooter between Luke’s hat and blanket – what would
have been his neck if Luke had been sleeping in his bedroll. He
wasn’t there!

Luke steps from the bushes grab the
infiltrator by the hair of his head and thrusts his ten-inch, razor
sharp, Bowie knife against the man’s jugular vein. At the same
time, Nate rolls from his blanket brandishing the old reliable Colt
.44. Sam pokes his head from the rear of the wagon slamming a shell
into the Spencer he swiftly raises it to his shoulder ready to
fire.

The sneak thief has four accomplices,
who quickly drop their sidearms to the ground, throw their arms
into the air and yell, “Don’t shoot, we surrender!”

Luke kicks a couple of logs onto the
fire and pushes his attacker close to get a good look at him.
“Well, well,” said Luke, “Look what we have here ambusher Bert
Black and his merry men! Sam, you and Nate keep these others
covered, if they move shoot’em. Catherine, get in the wagon with
Sam.”

Luke lowers the knife from Black’s
neck, turns him so they can speak face-to-face, “Drop your .45! You
sure have been following us for a long time, what’s your
game?”

“
I knew from the start you
warn’t no hick as you pretend. I saw right off you knowed more
about my brother than you let on. You killed him, didn’t
you?”

“
Yeah, I’m afraid you’re
right about that Mr. Black. Just as I’m afraid the same is going to
happen to you now!”

Just as Luke was finishing, Bert grabs
Luke’s knife hand and they begin to fight. Bert’s men start to
reach for their shooting irons, but Nate steps between them and the
fight, cocking his hammer on the .44, they freeze in their tracks.
“Let’em be,” said Nate.

Bert and Luke wrestle and claw at one
another. Blows are exchanged. At one point it seems Bert has the
upper hand and at others it is Luke who is winning. Black Bert
picks up a handful of dirt, throws it into Luke’s eyes then knocks
him thru the campfire to the ground. Luke has no sooner fallen when
Bert pounces on him with a large, razor sharp, skinning knife, a
loud sigh is heard, both men fall limp, blood is flowing profusely
from beneath the two onto the grass and dirt...has Bert’s knife
found its mark in Luke’s chest?

Nate, Sam and Catherine are frozen
with fright they hold their breath afraid to breathe.

Finally, Luke struggling pushes Bert
off of him. Luke’s chest is soaked in blood! However, at second
look they see the knife blade is buried deep within Bert’s chest he
is the one stabbed, he is stone cold dead.

Luke turns to the remaining four men –
“Where’s the rest of your ornery bunch? There were ten of you when
you came to the farm.”

The closest outlaw answers, “Two got
killed when we was up on the mountain and the others at a Union
roadblock outside of Knoxville. We ran into a couple of scrappy
Union guards that wouldn’t let us pass.”

Luke questioned, “What happened to the
guards?”

“
We had wounded one in the
shoulder before a big bunch of Yankees showed up, the other one
didn’t get a scratch. We had a pretty good fight, but three of our
boys got it.”

“
Your leader Bert Black is
lying here on the ground dead, what are your intentions
now?”

“
Listen mister, Bert kept
promising we’d git rich if we followed him. We had done realized he
was lying, he jest wanted revenge on you for killing his brother.
If you let us go, we promise we’ll be headin’ back to Texas and you
won’t see us again. That we will promise.”

Luke looked long and hard at the four,
he could see one of them was just a kid. Should he just kill them
then and there and get it over with, or let them go?

“
All right, I’ve made up
my mind. Nate get the shovels out of the wagon.”

“
Please mister, please
don’t kill us! And make us dig our own graves too!”

“
Oh, shut up! You’re gonna
bury your leader Bert, then I’m letting you all go when you get
finished. Nate empty their six-shooters and remove all the
cartridges from their pistol belts and give their guns back to’em.
They will probably need’em, it’s a long ride to Texas.” As the men
began digging the grave, Luke reached down and un-buckled the
silver spurs from Bert’s boots, “You don’t think Bert would mind if
he gave me his spurs, do you? Oh, by the way, I think he would want
me to have his fancy boots too,” he said slipping the boots from
the dead man’s feet.

Chapter
Forty-Four

HOME SWEET HOME

The little party of Scarburgs
including Sary had been on the trail from Alabama to South Carolina
for months. A trip that should only take a few weeks has now
stretched into months. They had ridden through rains, hail, sleet,
snow, flooded rivers and had suffered horribly, but now as Malinda
said gently to the mules, “Giddy up Joe, come on Red,” she was
coming up the road to Scarlett. Her mind drifted back to that day
in 1837, almost twenty-seven years earlier, when Robert told of
coming down this very road returning from the Indian Wars. She can
still hear his description:

He said he rounded the
last bend in the road, nearing the long drive leading to Scarlett’s
main house. He knew he should be able to see the house sitting upon
the hill through the stand of oaks and maples growing near the
entrance gate. The main house should have been a reflection in the
lily pond beside the road from the gate to the main house. Glaring
intently he could sense something was wrong. He could not see our
house. The only things seen were the porch columns and the four red
brick chimneys.”

A sense of Déjà Vu enveloped her as
she neared the last bend in the road nearing the drive leading to
Scarlett. She stopped her wagon and sat quietly looking and still
seeing, in her mind’s eye, the beautiful six white Greek columns of
the porch; the four red brick chimneys two on each end of the
house; the balcony that overhung the two massive oak front doors
and the golden chandelier that hung suspended on a twenty foot
chain from the second floor adorning the main entrance.

Now all she could see was the
blackened remains of the once grand Scarlett Plantation, and the
four red brick chimneys. Standing once as giant bookends to the
beauty of this plantation, now they were only large tombstones
emphasizing the bleak, graveyard appearance that Scarlett had
become.