sand and some vague beasty knowledge that we required all of it right then. We ran them hard all afternoon, and the Jayhawkers fell back but stayed in sight until dark.
In the night we made a big loop to the south, then swung west, west to our comrades.
That day had been too near a thing.
15
ALL THAT SEASON they were driven to us. Woeful widows with hung husbands and squalling babes. White-haired grannies with toothless mouths and fierce feelings. Hard-faced farm boys who would now apprentice themselves to the study of revenge.
They had been run from their homes, burned out, turned out, and set adrift to die. Western Missouri had a pitiful legion of raggedy citizens.
“Look at them,” Cave Wyatt said. “The damned Yankees will starve the children to sadden the fighters. It is a mean game.”
And it was, and we were its counterpart.
It was in that same terrible month of July that the Federals arrested Black John’s sisters. They were imprisoned in the upstairs of a liquor supply house at Kansas City.
Black John became frantic to exact a price for this breach of the rules. He ranted and preached blue peril, and threatened to do wonders to entire armies.
One morning I watched Black John holding a hand mirror while combing his hair. He peered at his reflection and said, “How do you do, Black John?” Then smiled, and answered himself, “Damned fine, Mr. Ambrose, damned fine.”
For a while we went back to wearing Yankee blue uniforms. They were easy to come by. The trick of it was so simple, but it worked peachy. Twenty or thirty of us would ride up to a scout of Federals and George Clyde would say, “How is rebel hunting today, lieutenant?” and before an answer could be uttered or suspicions raised on closer inspection, we would cut open on them point-blank and pass them through to the next world. The treachery of it was not too noble, but it was a rare day when it failed.
I had not seen Sue Lee for a few months. I knew she had gone to Henry County and was living with the kin of Howard Sayles. I thought often of her but had little news until Howard approached me in camp and said, “That Sue Lee gal is with child, Roedel.”
His expression was somewhat stern.
“She is?” I said. “I didn’t know it.”
“Well, now you do, damn it.” Howard spit and glowered at me. “You better go marry her, boy. It ain’t right not to.”
“Me?” I said. “No, not me. I don’t got to marry nobody.”
“Is that right?” Howard Sayles was thirty or even older, and the youthful manners of his comrades often served to annoy him. “You’re that kind of man, eh, Dutchy?”
I reckon my face sterned up some, too, and I said, “I will take care of her, Sayles. And you have said about all the rough things to me you had better.”
This man smirked at me.
“Is she your woman of light love, Dutchy? ’Cause we don’t want the scandal of it on our names down home. That gal needs a husband and quick.”
“It’ll be took care of somehow,” I said. “When it can be.”
He softened upon hearing that.
“That’s all I ask,” he said. “I know now ain’t the right time. Hell, we all do things.” He gave me a playful punch on the shoulder. “Everybody likes her real good, you know. I don’t want you to believe otherwise.”
“I never did.”
Later that night I told Holt of Sue Lee’s predicament. He pursed his plump lips, and gazed down, weighted by heavy thought.
“Could be you ought to,” he said finally. “I’ve thunk it from several sides, and could be she’d make you a fine wife.”
“But there is one thing we ain’t mentioning here,” I said. “It might be she don’t want to marry me. That is, even if I did want to marry her, she might not.”
I could not tell whether he thought me a pessimist or a lame-brain, but it was plain he figured I was something slow.
“Now, how could that be?” he asked.
At this time George Clyde ambled over, hauling a tin of beans, and stood near us. He had a curious attitude on his face.
“You two sure got to be pals, didn’t you?” he said. He looked at both of us, and I wondered if he had come to feel like the spare wheel. “Ever since winter you two boys have been clapping your gums together regular as crones.”
I told him about Sue Lee. He