The Outlaw Josey Wales (4 page)

The boy opened his eyes. He grinned tightly up at Josey and from behind set teeth he whispered, “Whupped ’em agin, didn’t we, Josey?”

“Yeah,” Josey said softly, “we whupped ’em agin.”

He rolled a blanket and placed it under Jamie’s head and stood facing southward. The posse had disappeared into the closing darkness. Still he watched. After a long time he was rewarded with the flickering of campfires from the woods to the southwest. The posse was encamping for the night.

Had he been alone, Josey would have drifted back toward the Blackwater and with the morning followed the posse south. But Josey had seen mortification wounded men before. It always killed. He figured hundred miles to the Cherokee’s medicine lodge.

Jamie was sitting up, and Josey lifted him onto the mare. They continued southward, passing the lights of the posse’s camp on their right.

Though the sky was dark with clouds Josey calculated midnight when he brought the horses to a halt. Though conscious, Jamie swayed in the saddle, an Josey lashed his feet in the stirrups, bringing the rope under the horse’s belly to secure the boy.

“Jamie,” he said, “the mare’s got a smooth single-foot gait. Nearly smooth as a walk. We got to mat more time. Can ye handle it, boy?”

“I can handle it.” The voice came weak but confident. Josey lifted the roan into a slow, mile-eating canter, and the little mare stayed with him. The undulating prairie slowly changed character … a small, tree-bunched hillock showed here and there. Before dawn they had reached the Grand River. Searching its bank for a ford, Josey picked a well-traveled trail to cross and then pushed on across open ground toward the Osage.

They nooned on the banks of the Osage River. Josey grained the horses from the corn in Jamie’s saddlebags. Now, to the south and east, they could see the foothills of the wild Ozark Mountains with the tangle ravines and uncountable ridges that long had served the outlaw on the run. They were close, but the Osage was too deep and too wide.

Over a tiny flame Josey steamed broth for Jamie. For himself, he wolfed down half-cooked salt pork and corn pone. Jamie rested on the ground; the broth had brought color to his cheeks.

“How we goin’ to cross, Josey?”

“There’s a ferry ’bout five mile down, at Osceola crossing,” Josey answered as he cinched the saddles on the horses.

“How in thunderation we goin’ to git acrost on a ferry?” Jamie asked incredulously.

Josey lifted the boy into the saddle. “Well,” he drawled, “ye jest git on it and ride, I reckin.”

Heavy timber laced with persimmon and stunted cedar bushes shielded them from the clearing. The ferry was secured to pilings on the bank. Back from the river there were two log structures, one of which appeared to be a store. Josey could see the Clinton road snaking north for a half mile until it disappeared over a rolling rise and reappeared in the distance.

Light wood smoke drifted from the chimneys of both the store and the dwelling, but there were no signs of life except an old man seated on a stump near the ferry. Josey watched him for a long time. The old man was weaving a wire fish basket. He looked up constantly from his work to peer back toward the Clinton road.

“Old man acts nervous,” Josey muttered, “and this here would be a likely place.”

Jamie slumped beside him on the mare. “Likely fer… reckin things ain’t right?”

“I’d give a yaller-wheeled red waggin to see on the other side of them cabins,” Josey said… then, “Come on.” With the practiced audacity of the guerrilla, he walked his horse from the brush straight toward the old man.

Chapter 6

For nearly ten years old man Carstairs had run the ferry. He owned it… the store and the house, bought with his own scrimped-up savings, by God. For all of that time old man Carstairs had walked a tightrope. Ferrying Kansas Redleg, Missouri guerrilla, Union Cavalry… once he had even ferried a contingent of Jo Shelby’s famous Confederate riders. He could whistle “Battle Hymn of the Republic” or “Dixie” with equal enthusiasm, depending upon present company. Morning and night these many years, he had berated the old lady, “Them regular army ones ain’t so bad. But them Redlegs and guerrillas is mad dogs … ye hear! Mad dogs! Ye look sidewise at ’em … they’ll kill us all… bum us out.”

With cunning he had survived. Once he had seen Quantrill, Joe Hardin, and Frank James. They and seventy-five guerrillas were dressed in Yankee uniforms. They had questioned him as to his sympathies, but the old man’s crafty eyes had spotted a “guerrilla shirt” under the open blue blouse of one of the men… and he had cursed the Union. He had never seen Bloody Bill or Jesse James… or Josey Wales, and the men that rode-with them, but their reputations transcended Quantrill’s in Missouri.

Only this morning he had ferried across two separate posses of horsemen who were searching for Wales and another outlaw. They had said he was in this area and all south Missouri was up in arms. Three thousand dollars! A lot of money… but they could have it… fer the likes of a gunslingin’ killer sich as Wales. That is… unless…

Cavalry would be coming down the road any minute now. Carstairs looked around. It was then he saw the horsemen approaching. They had come out of the brush along the river bank, an alarming fact in itself. But the appearance of the lead horseman was even more alarming to Carstairs. He was astride a huge roan stallion that looked half wild. He approached to within ten feet and stopped. High top boots, fringed buckskin, the man was lean and had an air of wolfish hunger about him. He wore two holstered .44’s, and the guns were tied down. Several days’ growth of black beard stubbled his face below the mustache, and a gray cavalry hat was pulled low over the hardest black eyes old man Carstairs had ever seen. The old man shuddered as from a chill and sat frozen, the fish basket suspended outward in his hands … as though he were offering it as a gift.

“Howdy,” the horseman said easily.

Well, how… howdy,” Carstairs fumbled. He felt numb. He watched, fascinated, as the horseman slid a long knife from his boot top, cut a wad of tobacco-from a twist, and fed it into his mouth.

“Figgered we might give ye a mite of ferryin’ business,” the horseman said slowly past the chew.

“Why shore, shore.” Old man Carstairs stood up.

“But…” the horseman caught him short, in the act of rising, “so’s there won’t be nothin’ mistooken, I’m Josey Wales… and this here’s my partner. We’re jest a hair pushed fer time and we need a tad of things first.”

“Why, Mr. Wales.” Carstairs rose. His lips trembled uncontrollably, so that the forced smile appeared alternately as a sneer and a laugh. Inwardly he cursed his trembling. Dropping the fish basket, he managed to step toward the horse, extending his hand. “My name’s Carstairs, Sim Carstairs. I’ve heard tell of ye, Mr. Wales. Bill Quantrill was a good friend of mine… mighty good friend, we’uns…”

‘Taint a sociable visit, Mr. Carstairs,” Josey said flatly, “who all ye got hereabouts?”

“Why nobody,” Carstairs was eager, “thet is ’cept the old lady there in the house and Lemuel, my hired band. He ain’t right bright, Mr. Wales … runs his mouth and sich … he’s there, in the store.”

“Tell ye what,” Josey said as he pitched five bright double eagles at the feet of Carstairs, “me and you will amble on up to the house and the store. I got a tech of cramp … so I’ll ride. When we git there, ye don’t go inside … but ye step to the door and tell the missus that we got to have CLEAN bandages … lots of ’em. We got to have a boiled-up poultice fer a bullet wound .. and hurry.”

The old man looked askance at Josey, and receiving a nod he quickly gathered the gold coins out of the dust and moved at a half trot toward the house.

Josey turned to Jamie behind him, “You stay here and keep the corners of them buildings under eyes.” He put the roan on the heels of the old man. Stopping the horse at the porch of the log cabin, he listened while Carstairs shouted instructions through the open door of the cabin. Then as the old man turned from the door, “Let’s step over to the store, Mr. Carstairs. Tell yore feller in there we want a half side of bacon, ten pound of beef jerky, and twenty pound of horse grain.”

Carstairs returned with the bags, and Josey had just settled the grain behind his saddle when a tiny white-haired woman stepped through the door of the cabin. She held a pipe in her mouth and extended a clean pillowcase stuffed with the bandages toward Josey.

Moving his horse to the edge of the porch, Josey tipped his hat. “Howdy, ma’am,” he said quietly, and reaching for the pillowcase he placed two twenty-dollar gold coins in her small hand. “I thank ye kindly, ma’am,” he said.

Sharp blue eyes quickened in the wrinkled face. She took the pipe from her mouth. “Ye’ll be Josey Wales, I reckin.”

“Yes, ma’am, I’m Josey Wales.”

“Well,” the old lady held him with her eyes, “them poultices be laced with feather moss and mustard root. Mind ye, drap water on ’em occasional to keep ’em damp.” Then without pause she continued, “Reckin ye know they’re a-goin’ to heel and hide ye to a bam door.”

A faint smile lifted the scar on Josey’s face. “I’ve heard tell of sich talk, ma’am.”

He touched his hat … whirled the roan and followed the old man to the ferry. As they walked their horses aboard the flat, he looked back. She was still standing… and he thought she gave a secret wave of her hand… but she could have pushed a strand of hair back from her face.

Old man Carstairs felt bold enough to grumble as he walked the couple cable from bow to stern on the ferry. “Usually have Lem here to help. This here is heavy work fer one old man.”

But he moved the ferry on out across the river. To die north a distinct rumble of thunder rolled across the darkening clouds. As the current caught the ferry they moved more swiftly on a downward angle; and half an hour later, Josey was leading the horses onto the opposite bank and into the trees.

It was Jamie who saw them first. His shout startled Carstairs, who was resting against a piling, and made Josey whirl in his tracks. Jamie was pointing back across the river. There, from the bank they had just left, was a large body of Union Cavalry, blue uniforms standing out against the horizon. They were waving their arms frantically.

Josey grinned, “Well, I’ll be a sucking hound.” Jamie laughed… coughed and laughed again, “Whupped ’em agin, Josey,” he said jubilantly… “We whupped ’em agin.”

Carstairs didn’t share in the enthusiasm. He scrambled up the bank to Josey. “They’re hollerin’ fer me to come over… I got to go… I cain’t hold up.” A gleam touched his eyes… “but I’ll hold up ’til ya’ll are out of sight… even longer. I’ll make do somethin’s wrong. You fellers git goin’, quick.”

Josey nodded and headed the horses up through the trees. Only a short distance, and undergrowth blocked their view of the river. Here he halted the horses.

“Thet feller ain’t goin’ to hold up thet ferry… he’s goin’ to bring that cavalry over,” Jamie said.

Josey looked up at the lowering clouds. “I know,” he said, “wants hisself a piece of the reeward.” He brought the horses about… back to the river.

Carstairs had already moved the ferry from the bank. Walking the cable at a half trot, he was making rapid time toward midstream. Across the river a blue-clad knot of men were pulling on the ferry’s cable.

Josey dismounted. From a saddlebag he pulled nose bags for the horses, poured grain into them, and fastened them over the mouths of the horses. The big roan stomped his hooves in satisfaction. Jamie watched the ferry as it neared the opposite bank… the shouts of the men came faintly to their ears as fully half of the cavalry present boarded the ferry.

“They’re comin’,” Jamie said.

Josey was busying himself checking the hooves of the munching horses, lifting first one and then another foot. “From the tracks, t’other side, I’d cal’clate forty, fifty hosses was brought acrost this mornin’,” he said, “and they’re ahead of us. Reckin we need to space a little time ’twixt them and us.”

Jamie watched the ferry moving toward them. Soldiers were walking the cable. “ ’Pears to me we’re goin’ to be needin’ a little space behint us too,” he said bleakly.

Josey straightened to look. The ferry was almost to midstream, and as they watched, the current began to catch, pulling the cable in a taut curve. Josey slid the .56 Sharps from the saddle boot.

“Hold Big Red,” he said as he handed the horse’s reins to Jamie. For a long time he sighted down the barrel … then … BOOM! The heavy rifle reverberated in echo across the river. All activity stopped on the ferry. The men stood motionless, frozen in motion. The cable parted from the pilings with a snap of telegraphic zing of sound. For a moment the ferry in the middle of the river floated motionless, suspended. Slowly it began to swing downstream. Faster and faster, as the current picked up its load of men and horses. Now there was shouting … men dashed first to one end and then the other in confusion. Two horses jumped over the side and swam about in a circle.

“Godalmighty!” Jamie breathed.

The confused tangle of shouting men and pitching horses was carried at locomotive speed… farther and farther… until they disappeared around the trees of the river bend.

“That there,” Josey grinned, “is called a Missouri boat ride.”

Still they waited, letting the horses finish the grain. Across river they saw a mad dash of blue cavalrymen head south down the river bank.

From the Osage Josey turned the horses southwest along the banks of the Sac River. Across the Sac was more open prairie, but on their left was the comforting wilderness of the Ozarks. Once, in late afternoon, they sighted a large body of horsemen heading southwest, across the river, and they held their horses until the drumming hoofbeats had died in the distance. North of Stockton they forded the Sac, and nightfall caught them on the banks of Horse Creek, north of Jericho Springs.

Josey guided the horses up a shallow spring that fed the creek, into a tangled ravine. One mile, two, he traveled, halting only when the ravine narrowed to a thin slash in the side of the mountain. High above them trees whipped in a fierce wind, but here there was a calmness broken only by the gurgling of water over rocks.