Read Online Wildwood Boys by James Carlos Blake - Free Book Online Page A

a dozen men
     
and that town just full of Yankee soldiers,” Ike said. “He took a ball
     
in the leg and they shot his horse from under him and still he got
     
away. Now that’s a fact. A month later he had near sixty men in his
     
company.”
     
“For a fact he’s raided into Kansas, ” Jim said. “Rode into
     
Aubrey and shot up the place and stripped it clean and then took
     
breakfast before he rode out again.”
     
“I bet he didn’t ask for hardboiled eggs,” Butch said. “He
     
already got him two goodsize ones.”
     
“I’ve heard tell the Feds three or four times got him surrounded
     
and were sure they had him and he gave them the slip every time,”
     
Ike said. “He and his boys have made off into the wildwood afoot as
     
often as ahorse but they got away just the same.”
     
“They ain’t about to catch him,” Butch said, “not out in the
     
bush, and not with all them farmers helping to hide him and his
     
boys. Feeding them, keeping them posted on where the Feds are.”
“They’re paying for it, though, them folks helping him,” Will
     
Anderson said. “The goddam Feds are coming down harder on them
     
all the time.”
     
“Momma believes Aunt Sally and Uncle Angus are maybe helping him,” Jim said. “Aunt Sally doesn’t come right out and say it, but
     
I guess she’s got to be careful what she puts in a letter. Can’t know
     
for sure who might read it sometime.”
     
“Those Parchmans be damn fools to mix with bushwhackers,”
     
Will Anderson said.
     
“The harder the Feds come down on them who help Quantrill,
     
the more run off to join him,” Butch said. “Hell, they’re singing
     
songs about him.”
     
“You all know he was a teacher?” Ike said. “They say he can
     
speak in Latin. He can give a big long speech of Shakespeare as easy
     
as you can sing ‘Sweet Betsy From Pike.’ ”
     
“I know it,” Jim said. “But I never knew a teacher who can shoot
     
like they say he can. They say he can throw up four bottles at once
and pull his pistols and bust all four before they hit the ground. I’d
     
say that’s some shooting.”
     
“ I’d say it’s no damn wonder he’s captain of that bunch of long
     
riders,” Butch said. “I mean, hell, the smartest, the best shot. Can
     
ride like a damn Comanche they say.”
     
“He’s been a regular soldier too,” Ike Berry said. “Before he
     
become a bushwhacker. He was at Wilson’s Creek with Pap Price. At
     
Lexington too. They say he handled himself real admirable in both
     
of them bad fights.”
     
“Bad is the least thing those battles were,” Jim said. “Wilson’s
     
Creek always did sound like windblown hell the way I’ve heard it.”
Bill Anderson stood up and stretched hugely and gave a great
     
yawn. He looked down at Raven who sat up and fixed his eyes on
     
him. “I believe you are correct,” he said to the black dog. He smiled
     
around at the others and said, “Raven says all you boys sound like
     
you found religion .”
     
For a moment they simply stared at Bill looming over them tall
     
and lean in the thin yellow light from the porch window and then
     
they all looked to the Raven dog that sat openmouthed with a dog
     
grin. And then Will Anderson let out a great guffaw—and then they
     
were all of them laughing and making jokes about a religion called
     
the Sacred Church of Quantrill.
    A few evenings later when the Berrys made their next visit and while
the sky was yet daylit Bill Anderson left the porch and went around
behind the house and then returned with two empty bottles in one
hand and two in the other. He was wearing his Navies on his belt.
    He stood well away from the porch so they all might have clear
witness. He flung up his arms and all four bottles sailed high in the
air and he drew the revolvers and there was a quick sequence of pistol cracks echoed by bursts of glass and no bottle did hit the ground