The second one came early on the evening of the next day.
Another day of sweltering heat and choking dust as the long column wound its way along the back-trails of the border lands, heading westwards. Through a land virtually deserted by man.
August the twentieth. The raid was planned for the early hours of the next morning and Quantrill had called a halt a little after the middle of the day, ordering all of his section commanders to inspect the arms and equipment of their men.
‘How much further, Cole?’ said Whitey, stretched out under the shade of a tall sycamore, spinning the chamber of his pistol.
‘Don’t rightly know. Fact is, I don’t believe there’s anyone with the column knows how we’re gettin’ in to Lawrence tonight. Might need us a guide.’
‘Like the boy,’ said Herne, quietly’
‘Now, Jed. What’s in the past is over. Best look for what’s “comin’ towards you.’
CI guess you’re right, Cole. I’ve done some killin’, and likely to do some more. But I don’t take easy to folks murderin’ others that can’t hit a lick back. It’s not the way.’
‘That’s true enough, Jed,’ said Frank James, wiping sweat from his forehead with a blue bandana. ‘But there comes a time to everyone when it’s him or you. And if the him’s a blind man with a wife and fifteen kids then that’s his bad luck. Time’ll come to us all to face that moment.’
‘Yeah. Knowin’ it don’t make me like it none, Frank. Not at all.
‘Hell!’ laughed Cole Younger. ‘Frank there’s livin’ proof of makin’ the best. Know that Jesse don’t like his name that much? Well, ask Frank there what his real given name is.’
‘Lay off it, Cole.’
‘Come on, Frank. You’re just jealous on account of me bein’ a higher officer than you and bein’ damn near an exact year younger.’
‘I’m not!’
Jed was interested. ‘Come on, Frank. You changed your name?’
Breathing hard and looking angrily across at the grinning Younger, Frank shook his head. ‘Not changed it, Jedediah. I’m Christian-named Alexander Franklin, and I don’t cotton on to Alexander. Nor overmuch to Franklin. Ma was always strong on family names. So I chose Frank.’
‘Beats Thomas Coleman,’ said Younger.
‘I never thought overmuch of Isaiah,’ added Whitey.
Herne sat up and tucked the greased Tranter back in the holster, taking care not to catch the cocking lever on the oiled leather.
‘Me, I like Jedediah Travis,’ he said.
‘How d’you get that mouthful?’ asked Frank James.
‘My Pa was a mapmaker with Fremont and they gotten trapped up in Carson Pass in the Sierras in forty-four. My Ma was there with them and I was born in a snowbound tent on February twenty-ninth. Ma died soon after. My Pa’s name was Albert Jedediah and he called me after him. He was a great admirer of the Texan’s fight for independence against the Mexicans and called me Travis after the defender of die Alamo. That’s all.’
‘Your Pa dead as well?’ asked Cole Younger.
Herne shook his head. ‘Nobody rightly knows. He was never right in the head after Ma died and he took to goin’ off alone. Vanished into Indian country in the fall of that year I was born. Never been seen since. Every now and again there’s talk of a white man with the Sioux in the hills, but there’s never more than talk.’
There was a long silence after his words. Broken by Quantrill’s shout of command for them to mount up and get on their way again.
It was a hard land.
Seamed with deep gullies and steep-banked creeks, some impossible to cross with such a large body of men. Twice Quantrill was forced to order his column to turn about and go miles around one of the natural barriers. As they moved on, so their scouts were gradually being pulled in closer to the rest of them.
Silence became the order as the sun slipped away to the west and the shadows grew harsher and longer, hiding the depth of the ruts in the trails.
Herne jogged along with the rest of them, his left hand resting easily on the hilt of the saber. A long, curved cavalry sword that Quantrill’s men had taken from a Union lieutenant in an ambush only a week or so earlier.
Every now and again they would come across a cluster of cabins, gathered together along the banks of a stream for protection. But in most cases that closeness had been little help to them. It was rare to find a single dwelling that hadn’t long been devastated by one or other of the bands of marauding guerrillas.
They were over the border into Kansas by then.
And night was coming on fast.
The setting sun cast a glow over the land, brightening the reddish-pink colors of the fireweed that twined around the ruined and burned-out buildings. The rough-cut stones of the chimneys were blackened by the smoke, but the greedy vegetation was already beginning to hide the desolation and coyer the land in green once more.
Quantrill held up a gloved right hand to halt the column, the order being passed down the files of men. As Cole Younger was one of the senior lieutenants of the Raiders, his group was near the front, and Jed could easily hear what was happening. One of the scouts had reported a fortified farm ahead of them. About a mile away. They’d gone closer to try and investigate but barking dogs had driven them off.
‘We need a guide to tell us the way to Lawrence,’ snapped the colonel, banging a fist on the pommel of his saddle. ‘Night’s on top of us and I want to attack by the moon while the sons of bitches are sleeping.’
‘Send in a few men and get someone out,’ suggested Frank James.
‘Yeah. That way they won’t know how many of us there are,’ added Younger.
‘Good.’ Quantrill nodded. ‘Cole, take a half dozen of your men and do that. Bring me someone back who can help.’ Staring at Herne. ‘Not a lack-brain like the last one.’
Cole picked Frank, Whitey, Jed and two others to ride on with him, spurring their horses forward across the undulating grassland, until they saw the lights of the farm.
‘Looks like they’re expectin’ trouble,’ commented one of the other Raiders.
‘Live in east Kansas and you get to live with trouble ridin’ hard on your shoulders,’ said Frank James.
‘I never seen nothin’ like that since we was ridin’ with the Pony Express,’ added Whitey Coburn, staring down at the cleared land around the building, and the covered path between house and barns. The heavily shuttered windows with slits for rifles.
‘How’re we goin’ to stop them pickin’ us out of the saddles before we get close?’ asked Cole Younger.
‘One man might do it,’ replied Jed. ‘I’ll go on in alone and try and talk one of them into coming with me.’
‘You know Quantrill will likely kill him?’ said Whitey, his voice low so that others wouldn’t hear.
Jed nodded. ‘Sure. Better one than all.’
Cole Younger hissed through his teeth. ‘Don’t feel partial to goin’ down there under fire. I guess you just got yourself elected, Jed.’
The warning shot came when Herne was still better than two hundred paces off, kicking up dust and whining splinters of stone from fifty yards ahead of him. He held both hands over his head and walked the horse forwards using heels and thighs to keep it moving.
The second shot was a whole lot closer. Sending the stallion skittering sideways, forcing him to grab at the reins. He saw the powder smoke drifting from one of the shutters.
‘Keep movin’, pilgrim!’ shouted a voice.
‘I need to talk to you!’ Herne shouted back.
‘We don’t need to talk to nobody, pilgrim! Just ride on or we’ll pick you out of the saddle clean as a whistle!’
‘You’ll all be dead before sundown if’n you don’t let me ride in!’
There was no answer. Nor were there any more bullets hissing towards him. The weapon probably a Sharps buffalo gun, Herne guessed.
‘Can I come along?’
‘Sure. Better be a good story, son, else you don’t get to ride away.’
Herne glanced over his shoulder, making out the dim shapes of the others, lurking on the edges of a clump of scrubby trees. Then he moved on closer to the house.
‘That’s about close enough, pilgrim. I can hear you good from there!’
‘I’d like it face to face. If’n you got women and children in there if s better they don’t hear all of this.’
A long pause. He figured they were talking over who he might be and what the threat could be that might endanger them. Finally he heard the rattling of heavy bolts and the front door creaked open a few inches.
‘Step down. Keep your hands clear of that hardware you’re sportin’.’
‘I guess I don’t look a damned fool. So don’t treat me like one. Come on out. We don’t have a whole lot of time for this foolishness.’
Finally a man appeared in the dark opening, his face ruddy in the setting sun. He was carrying a Sharps rifle cocked in his hands. Looking cautiously around him he walked across the few yards to stand by Herne’s horse.
‘You’re covered by six guns, son. So take it easy and don’t move suddenly.’
‘You the man hereabouts?’
‘My homestead, boy. My wife’s there. Three sons. Couple of hands too.’
Herne was curious. The man looked forty years of age, and he’d managed to survive in this region when nearly everyone else had gone under or moved to the townships where there was more of a chance of living.
‘You manage to hold out here?’
He nodded. “Sure did. Take a mighty strong force to shift me and they’d take losses. I figure nobody in his right mind’s goin’ to bother for what he can get out of us. But you didn’t come to jaw, did you, son?’
Jed shook his head. ‘Guess not. Fact is, time’s about run out for you, mister—?’
The Sharps lifted and pointed directly at his face. ‘Name’s Martin. William Martin. You better speak fast and dear.’
‘You see me. Back there in the trees you see another half dozen.’
‘Sure. That don’t frighten me none.’
‘Over that hill there’s another four hundred and fifty men.’
‘What?’
Even in the warm light of the sun Herne saw the change in the color of the man’s face. From angry red to frightened white.
‘I’m with Quantrill.’
‘Oh, no! Jesus Christ, son, what can he want with me? I’m nothin’ to him. No trouble. Nothin’ at all. What can he want with me?’
From inside the cabin Jed heard the voice of a woman, sounding worried. ‘Bill! What’s the boy want? Is it trouble?’
The man turned round and called back. ‘No. Nothin’ at all, Ma. Keep that door shut. I’ll be in shortly.’
‘You won’t, Bill,’ said Herne, quietly. ‘You’re to come with me and help us.’
‘Help you!’
‘Sure. You play poker, Bill?’
‘Some. What that’s to do with Bloody Quantrill wantin’ me?’
‘You’re sitting there with a good hand, Bill. Say it’s about three little ladies with an ace for a kicker.’
‘What?’
‘Easy, Bill. And you see the fellow across the table showin’ three kings with maybe more hidden. Now if you done your best and you know it’s not good enough, then what is there to do but fold up easy.’
The sun was sinking fast and the shadows from the hills had spread to the cabin, making it hard for Jed to see the other man’s face.
‘What does he want?’
‘Guide to Lawrence is all.’
‘My God! Quantrill’s goin’ to destroy Lawrence for what Jim Lane and the others done years back! And he wants me to help him. No chance of that, son. And you go tell him that from me.’
Jed had lost patience with the man’s stubborn foolishness and pride.
He leaned out of the saddle and Martin recoiled from the anger in the young boy’s face.
‘That is enough! You damned fool! You think Quantrill cares as much for you as a snake he’d step on? You come with me peaceable and maybe you live. Your folks all get to live, that’s for certain. You refuse and you’ll live long enough to wish for death, seein’ your children spitted on bayonets and your wife staked out and raped by man after man until her blood’s thick in the dirt!!’
‘But—’
‘No damned “buts”. Martin! You Just go get your horse and come with me. Right now! And I mean now and not in a half hour!’
Jed tugged on the reins, making his horse whiney in protest, walking it slowly away from the cabin, not bothering to look back over his shoulder. Not oven caring whether the man came or not. If he did it would be easier and quicker. If he didn’t then that wouldn’t much matter either.
He’d nearly reached the shelter of the trees where the others were waiting when he heard hoofbeats following him. Martin reined in alongside of him, breathing heavily with the rush of leaving.
‘You sure Quantrill won’t hurt me none?’
‘Nothin’s sure, Mr. Martin. Not a damned thing in life,’
“But you said that—’
‘I said that you and all your kin would die ifn you didn’t come with me.’
They rode on in silence, the rest of the Raiders falling in behind them. None of them spoke a word until they reached the far side of the hill where Quantrill and the remainder of the column were waiting.
Night wrapped them in its cloak, and they rode slowly on towards Lawrence, guided by William Martin. He had also told them that he’d heard a large number of men riding east and south the previous night. Quantrill smiled thinly at that, guessing that this must be the band of Jayhawkers leaving Lawrence undefended. And their leader Jim Lane along with his family.
‘There it is,’ said Martin, close to midnight, after a winding ride along unmarked trails through deep gullies, bringing them to Lawrence by a back route that kept them totally unobserved.
From the top of the rise they could look down on the scattered lights of the township, less than a mile away. Quantrill smiled again and passed the word for the men to rest. That they would attack in two hours.
Having guided them safely to their destination William Martin was rewarded by having his throat slit and being pushed into a drainage ditch to bleed to death.
Two days later a party of Jayhawkers, suspecting that he had guided the Raiders, attacked his homestead and butchered every living soul there.