had been hung, then quartered and tossed onto the River Road to nourish varmints. The quartering was meant to disturb us, and in at least one case, it worked.
“They hung our comrades,” Black John said. “And ripped them to fragments.” He slapped iron on Stengel’s face and Stengel hunched over so as to take the raps on the head. Black John looked down on the Federal, then opened both hands and began to squeeze Stengel’s head. His feely search had him all about the Federal noggin for some seconds, caressing and patting, then he stepped back. His face exhibited the pleasure of discovery. “Your skull,” he said somberly, “will make a European palace for our worms, eh?”
“Uh, uh, uh,” went Stengel.
One of the other Federals began to puff in the jowls and burp. He did it rapid-fire and Black John turned to him.
“Don’t you agree, Yank?” Black John inquired. He then did the melon test on Stengel’s head again. “A palace for worms, eh?”
Burping frights racked the Federal but finally he mastered them enough to speak.
“Yes, sir, yes, sir, yes, sir, yes, sir…”
Black John reared back and kissed Stengel hard in the face with his pistol. The nose went different ways, and Dutchy spluttered for breath through a tide of blood.
The other Federal saw this and changed his litany.
“Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no…”
The scene was not good. A pink spray of misery spittled on the wind. The prisoners were doomed but trifled with. All common sense dictated that they must die, but better deaths could be arranged in my mind. It was all too near to what I expected for myself.
“Here is what your people said,” George Clyde called out. He unfolded a wad of newspaper and held it flat to read from. “ ‘War is loss, but capitulation is devastation. Good men will die until all bad ones have. William Lloyd and James Curtin were proven to be worse than bad can cover. They have perished. Their deaths illustrate our resolve. I have no doubt that the disloyal terrorists have already murdered our soldiers. I have much experience of these vermin. To negotiate would have been foolish. Therefore it was not done. Thomas B. Hovland, Commanding First Iowa.’ ” Clyde rattled the paper ceremoniously, then folded it back into a pocket square. “You should have better chosen your comrades, boys. To save our own, we would do anything.”
Black John raised himself to a stern posture and spit twice. He then said, “Have at them, boys, and make it memorable. We want them to be mementos of our resolve.”
Pitt Mackeson and Turner Rawls, whose jaw was still several colors and swollen, joined Arch Clay in administering slow disaster to the prisoners. I did not want to watch, but I did not want to be seen turning away. Howard Sayles, Josiah Perry and several other men did leave the festivities, but they made no comment as they lumbered away.
I was saved by Black John calling to me.
“Roedel, come here to me.”
He stood on a small rise of earth overseeing the action, pacing this way and that, a white froth scabbing at the corners of his mouth. “Take down this note!”
“Certainly, Black John. Let me fetch my implements.” I very quickly did so, then squatted on the dirt near his feet. “I am ready.”
“Good, good,” he said. His eyes were of a pale gray hue and had no bottom to them. “I have three sisters, Roedel. Have you any? They are as good as you could expect them to be. I kill for them. They are women and can’t fight. I can. The world knows I can. And I do. I do fight. Hard. I am awful but right. Never doubt it.” He nudged my knee with the pointed toe of a boot. “Do you doubt it?”
“No. No, I never doubt it. I believe.”
“Do you believe in me, or our cause?”
“I believe in me and you and our cause.”
“Be leery of where you place your faith,” Black John said. The oaths and laments, the cracks and smacks, the prayers and punishments went on below the small rise. We both looked there. “This is a time of infinitely shaded cruelty, Roedel. It cannot be otherwise. I have victory in mind.” Suddenly he whirled and leaned over me. His countenance had a wrathful cast, and spit flew from his lips like a nasty rain. “Take this down! ‘Citizens, you have stood by for murder. Another of your mistakes, which you have made plenty