Woe to Live On - By Daniel Woodrell Page 0,2

Why’d you back-shoot him?”

“I am tender toward boys,” I said. “But I would put a ball in your face, Mackeson, should affairs so dictate.”

There was a silence that gave off steam, then Black John repeated himself on the sort of Dutchman I was and we rode away in the silence of the family’s pain.

Jack Bull sidled his blue-black mount next to mine and we rode together. My near brother had a squared forehead and a narrow chin and manly brown eyes atop an uncrushed nose. The effect was pleasing to most folks. His dark hair had length, and his long, lean body was capable of quickness, but only after careful thought.

“You want to watch that man,” he said quietly.

I was positioned so that Pitt Mackeson’s sweat-targeted blades were ever visible to me. He seemed to know it and took great interest in what he had just ridden past.

“I believe I can,” I said. “He needs hurting.”

“Aw,” Jack Bull said. “You expect too much of him. He is dumb and mean and snaky, but he is a good Yankee-killer.” Jack Bull had, by virtue of the station to which he’d been born, an air of educated understanding about him. “You must admit that he is a fine Yankee-killer.”

“He is a good killer, Jack Bull. And this season he kills Yankees.”

“Comrades can be made of less,” he responded. “Keep it in mind.”

I had many comrades who were made of nothing but the same. I saw the truth of it and would not squawk that they were not made of more.

Our course took us into the bottoms of the Blackwater River. The land was moist there, and the roads were heavy. We were unmilitary in our formation but watchful of everything.

Near on to noon we came to a small farm and halted. We scanned the scene and saw nothing of threat in it.

“Some of you boys go make us known,” Black John commanded. Cave Wyatt, Riley Crawford, Bill House and Silas Mills rode directly to the door and hailed the inhabitants.

An old woman soon came onto the porch. Her dress was gray and thick and smudged, and her boots carried mud.

“Who is it?” she asked.

Most of the country men in this county were loyal to the South and necessary to us, so rough tactics were held back until sympathy had a chance to win.

“Why, we are southern men,” Cave said. “And hungry.”

“You don’t look like southern men,” the old woman said back. “How do I know?”

Riley Crawford was from this county, and being not over sixteen he had a trustworthy face. Jayhawkers had tortured his father with devilish rope tricks and, thus left fatherless, Riley had grown into a killer young.

He spoke. “Woman, my name is Crawford. One of the Six-Point Creek Crawfords—do you know me?”

The woman stomped the mud from her boots on the planks of the porch, then nodded.

“I knew the father,” she said. “Him and plenty more. Come on and eat as what we have.”

We went into the yard and dismounted. The nips of whiskey had built us all appetites, so we were lazy about posting pickets. This was often the case.

We numbered twenty-one men. The woman, who had the name of Clark, was kept hopping. She brought us trays of biscuits and molasses, coffee and milk.

I went to the kitchen to assist her, as I had no vanity about cooking work.

“Are you alone here?” I asked her.

Her face was round and pleasant, but aged by the times. Skin sagged at her throat, yet there was tightness about the eyes.

“Yes,” she said. Then, jolted by the thought of her lie, “No. My man is at Arkansas with Shelby. My son is in the barn.”

“Is he grown?”

“He was,” she said. “He gave up a leg at Wilson’s Creek. I keep him hid away.” She grabbed a biscuit tray and turned from me. “Jayhawkers have been about here. They would kill him.”

“He should come with us.”

“No,” she said, and shook her head. “He won’t fight. He is done with that.”

In the front room I ate with the men, all squatted about the floor. Our many pistols scraped the floorboards and made sitting thus a skill, but no complaints were ever made of that.

I hunkered next to Jack Bull as usual, and Arch Clay, Bill House and Cave, who looked at me from his plate and said, “You are an interestin’ foreigner, Jake.”

“Why is that?” I asked amiably, as Cave often had me on with jokes.

He wiped a molasses drool from his brown