CHAPTER 6
One thing about being with Briggs raiders was that Kirby didn’t have to spend all his time with them. The Ghost Riders would take part in an operation or two, then they would disband and he would actually go back home for weeks at a time.
According to Briggs, doing it that way made it less likely that the Yankees would be able to catch up with them.
Late spring, 1864
Kirby returned to Galena, his first time in town in over a month. As he always did when returning home, he checked at the post office, not really expecting to get any mail. To his surprise, he did get a letter, but it wasn’t from his father, and it was addressed to Mrs. Pearl Jensen. Kirby opened the letter before he even left the post office.
Dear Mrs. Jensen.
It is with much regret that I tell you that your son, Luke Jensen, was killed in battle on Wilderness Creek in Northern Virginia. We didn’t find the body, but believe that the Yankees found him on the battlefield and buried him.
Sincerely,
Colonel Edward Willis
12th Georgia, Commanding
Kirby folded the letter up and put it in his pocket, wondering if his pa knew about it. Perhaps not, since the last word he had received from his pa said that he and Luke had been separated.
Back outside, Kirby climbed onto Ange’s back. When he was riding with Briggs, he was mounted on a horse, but the horse didn’t belong to him.
Briggs had offered to give him one of the Yankee horses, but pointed out that it might be dangerous. “If the Yankee soldiers come through and find you mounted on one of their horses, they’ll hang you for being a bushwhacker. If not for that, for horse stealing. On the other hand, if they see you ridin’ a mule, they won’t give you a second thought.”
Briggs had been right. More than once Kirby had encountered Yankee soldiers, but to the soldiers, he was nothing more than a farm boy, riding a mule.
* * *
Two events occurred in Missouri that had some bearing on the fate of the war within the state. The first was on October 26 when Yankees located Bloody Bill Anderson just outside Glasgow. Though greatly outnumbered, Anderson and his men charged the Union forces, killing five or six of them before encountering heavy fire. Only Anderson and Elmer Gleason continued the attack, Gleason riding side by side with his leader. The others retreated.
Anderson was hit by a bullet behind his ear and killed instantly. Gleason immediately turned and joined the others in retreat. Four other guerrillas were also killed in the attack, but the rest of the men were able to escape.
The second significant event occurred when General Sterling Price was defeated by General James Blunt’s Union cavalry in the battle of Newtonia. Price and his entire corps withdrew, effectively ending any real Confederate presence in Missouri. No longer were any regular Confederate troops in Missouri, but sporadic guerrilla operations continued.
* * *
Archie Clement led what had been Bloody Bill’s guerrillas for a little while after Anderson’s death, but the group splintered by mid-November, and most of the men joined Quantrill, though many, realizing that the war was lost, gave up the battle.
Elmer Gleason was the only man of Anderson’s original group to join Asa Briggs. Shortly after he joined Briggs’ group, he recognized Kirby by the gun he was carrying. “You’re the boy Jesse give one of his guns to, ain’t you? It was right after your ma was killed, as I recall.”
“I’m the one,” Kirby said. “I remember you. You’re the one who wondered if I was old enough to run the farm.”
“You’ve got a good memory.” Gleason was at least fifteen years older, but he and Kirby became very good friends.
Briggs continued to operate as he always had, uniting his group for a particular undertaking, then having them break up and return to their homes. That ruse worked so well that the participation of most members was unknown, even to their nearest neighbors. From time to time, the men would encounter each other in town or on the road but would make no show of recognition.
The Union Army had no idea who was and who wasn’t a member of the group, giving credence to the sobriquet “Ghost Riders.”
* * *
Kirby’s biggest disappointment during his time with Briggs was that they had not encountered Angus Shardeen. They came close once, arriving at a farm just in time to save a farmer and his wife.
Shardeen had been through an hour earlier, robbing the smoke house of the cured hams and bacon. In a macabre joke, he had tied a noose around the woman’s neck and thrown the rope over a beam protruding from the hayloft of the barn. He placed her on her husband’s shoulders so that she would live only as long as he could stand there supporting her.
The farmer was at the point of exhaustion when the Ghost Riders arrived.
“Kirby! Get up there and cut her down!” Asa Briggs ordered, and Kirby stood on his saddle and pulled himself up into the hayloft. He cut the rope just as her husband collapsed.
They stayed with the couple until both had recovered from the ordeal, spending the night in the barn.
“I’m going to kill him,” Kirby told Elmer.
“Yeah, we would all like to get our hands on him before this war ends.”
“No, not like to kill him. I am going to kill him,” Kirby said. “I’m going to hunt him down, no matter where he is and no matter how long it takes. I don’t care whether the war is still going or whether the war has ended. I am going to dedicate myself to finding him. And when I find him, I’m going to kill him.”
January 1865
Briggs’ Ghost Riders who had not taken part in the battle for Newtonia found themselves in position to, in Briggs’ words, “hit the Yankees a lick.” They were going to rob the payroll being transported to the Baxter Springs post.
“The best way to hurt ’em is to take their money,” Briggs said. “And that’s just what we’re agoin’ to do.”
To that end, the Ghost Riders were waiting in a cornfield alongside the Columbus Road in Cherokee County. It was very cold.
Kirby shivered in the early morning chill.
“Damn. Why couldn’t we wait and do this in the summer time?” Elmer Gleason complained.
“I don’t know,” Kirby said. “Do you think it might be because the payroll is comin’ today and not this summer?”
“There you go, gettin’ all practical on me,” Elmer teased.
“Asa! The coach is acomin’!” one of the others called.
“All right. Get ready.”
Kirby crept up to the edge of the cornfield, then lay down where he would have a good view of the road. He could hear the rumble and squeak of the approaching coach, as well as the drum of hoofbeats, not only from the team, but also from the eight men who were riding as escort.
Briggs pulled his pistol. “I’m goin’ to shoot one of the coach horses. After that, all hell’s goin’ to break loose, so get ready.”
The coach and outriders were close enough that Kirby could hear the driver’s whistles and shouts to the team. He didn’t like the idea of shooting an innocent horse but knew that in order for the plan to succeed, it would have to be done.
Briggs fired, and the first, off-side horse stumbled and went down, bringing the coach to an immediate halt.
Within the opening seconds, at least four of the Union soldiers were down. Others tried to return fire, but were unable to find a target. They simply fired wildly into the cornfield.
“Let’s get outta here!” one of the soldiers shouted, and the others fled at a gallop.
The Ghost Riders cheered, then ran out onto the road and yelled after the retreating soldiers with cat calls and jeers.
The coach driver had been unarmed and had not taken part in the brief battle. He was still sitting on the high seat with his hands in the air.
“Throw down that strong box,” Briggs called.
“What for?” the driver replied. “There ain’t nothin’ in it.”
“What do you mean, there ain’t nothin’ in it? You went to pick up the payroll, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, that’s what we went to do all right. But the money wasn’t there.”
“I don’t believe you,” Briggs said.
“I’ll throw down the strong box ’n let you see for yourself.”
“All right. Do it.”
The driver reached down between his legs.
Briggs pointed his gun and called out, “No, hold it. Climb down here. I’ll get the strong box myself.”
Nodding, and obviously frightened, the driver climbed down from the high seat.
Briggs climbed up, retrieved the strong box, then tossed it down onto the road. “Open it up.”
“Kirby, you’re the best shot among us,” Elmer said. “Think you can shoot the lock off?”
Kirby nodded, pulled his pistol, and fired. The bullet cut the hasp.
Elmer opened the lid and looked inside. “It’s empty.”
“I’ll be damned.” Briggs jumped down from the coach and ordered, “Cut the team loose and let the horses go.”
The driver, who still had his hands raised, protested. “No need for that. All I need to do is cut the dead horse free, then I can go on.”
“You can go on, but it’s goin’ to be afoot,” Briggs said. “Now, cut the team loose, unless you want to see ’em burn to death when I set fire to the coach.”
“No, I wouldn’t want to see no more of the horses killed.” The driver set about the task Briggs had set for him.
Half an hour later, with the driver and horses gone, the dozen Ghost Riders stood near the burning coach, enjoying the heat it was putting out.
“Boys,” Briggs said. “I reckon this war is all but over. I aim to give it up. You’re all free to go wherever you want.” He pointed to the coach. “I had planned for this to be the last operation anyway, but I hoped we’d have some Yankee money to divide before we broke up. I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”
“Hell, Asa, you don’t mind if some of us go ahead ’n try ’n get some of that Yankee money, do you?” Elmer asked.
“I don’t mind at all, but you’re on your own. I’m out of it.”
“What are you going to do?” Kirby asked.
“I’m goin’ to Texas,” Briggs said. “You want to come along?”
“Now, why would he want to do that when he can come with me ’n get some of that Yankee money?” Elmer asked.
Kirby shook his head. “I appreciate the invite from both of you and would be honored to join either one of you, but I reckon my pa will be coming back sometime soon now. I wouldn’t want him to come home ’n find nobody waitin’ there for him.”
“How do you know your pa is still alive?” Elmer asked.
“Truth is, Elmer, I don’t know. But if he is, I aim to be there waitin’ for him. Most especially since there ain’t goin’ to be no one else waitin’ there for ’im.”
Elmer nodded. “I can see that.” He stuck his hand out. “Don’t know as we’ll ever run acrossed each other again, but don’t let nobody never call you boy no more. You’re a man, Kirby, and you done proved it more ’n once.”
* * *
Returning to the farm, the first thing Kirby did was dig up the lidded Mason jar he had buried near the corner of the outhouse. It contained the two thousand dollars he’d received from the crops that first year. If his pa came back, he would give him the money. If he didn’t come back, Kirby would have that money to start out on his own.
The stench around the outhouse was pretty intense, but it was for precisely that reason he had chosen to bury the money there. He figured nobody would think someone would choose such a place to bury money, and it was unlikely anyone would make any exploratory digs there.
It took only a few minutes to get to the jar, and with a smile, he reached down to retrieve it. The smile faded when he saw that the money was gone, replaced by a note.
Kirby,
I took the money to invest with Paul Garner. I figure half of it is mine anyway, and I’ll pay you back your half, with interest.
Janey
“Janey! You sorry-assed hellcat!” Kirby shouted at the top of his voice. He threw the jar against the side of the outhouse and watched it shatter.
* * *
By June, six months after Kirby made his last ride with the Ghost Riders, the war had been over and done for better than two months. If his father was coming home, he should be along any time.
Kirby had made the conscious decision not to tell his father about his own experiences during the war. His father had been with the regular army. Kirby wasn’t sure how he would take to the idea of his son having been a Bushwhacker. He remembered his father’s reaction when Luke had said he wanted to join up with George Clark, who was what his pa had said he was—a murderer and an outlaw. Briggs was an irregular, but he had not killed any innocents, nor burned any private homes or farms. Nevertheless, Kirby decided he would keep his participation in such activity to himself.
The very way Briggs had operated during the war, allowing the men to spend a lot of time at home, would help keep his secret. Tom Byrd knew of Kirby’s frequent absences because he kept the mules while Kirby was gone. Kirby had told him that he was earning money by delivering messages and, as far as he knew, Byrd still believed that.
Kirby wondered what his pa would say when he learned his daughter had run off? He wondered, also, if he knew his oldest boy was dead?
Kirby was entertaining all these thoughts as he was busy plowing. Because of his guerrilla activity, he had not put in any crops in the previous two years. He didn’t think he needed to; after all, there was no need for him to support anyone but himself. And he’d taken comfort from knowing that he had two thousand dollars set aside for when his pa returned.
Or at least, he thought he did.
As he thought about finding the money gone with only Janey’s note in the bottle, he got angry again. Like his mother had said, Janey always was a little wild, but he never would have thought she was a thief. What bothered him more than the thought of her taking the money was her giving it to Paul Garner. It would have been bad enough had she kept it for herself. At least she was family. But to have given it to Paul Garner? That was almost more than Kirby could take.
He would like to run into Garner again, some day. Not as much as he wanted to run into Angus Shardeen, but he would like to encounter him some day, whether Janey was still with him or not.
“Where the hell are you now, Janey?” Kirby asked aloud. “Are you still with that sorry buzzard?”
The plow hit a rock and jolted Kirby out of his musing and back to his surroundings, popping his teeth together and wrenching his arms. “Damn, Ange. Didn’t you see that rock?”
Kirby unhooked the plow, running the lines through the eyes of the single tree, and left the plow sitting in the middle of the field. He was late getting the crops in, but no later than anyone else in the hollows and valleys of that part of Missouri. The rains had come and stayed, making fieldwork impossible. But he wanted to get something up before his pa returned. He didn’t want his pa to think that he was a wastrel.
Folding and shortening the traces, Kirby jumped onto Ange’s back and kicked the mule into movement. He plodded down the turn row on the east side of the field when dust from the road caught his eye. It was one rider, pulling up to the house leading a saddled but riderless horse, a bay.
Wondering who it might be, Kirby touched the smooth butt of the Navy .36, which he now wore in a holster. As Ange plodded closer to the house, Kirby smiled when he made out the figure in the front yard.
It was his pa.
Kirby slid off the mule and walked over to his father.
“Boy,” Emmett Jensen said, looking at his son, “I swear you’ve grown two feet.”
“You’ve been gone for four years, Pa. Someone my age grows a lot in four years.” Kirby wanted to throw his arms around his pa, but didn’t. His pa didn’t hold with a lot of touching between men. He stuck out his hand and Emmett shook it.
“Strong, too,” Emmett commented.
“Thank you. Plowin’ will do that for you.”
“I expect it will. Crops is late, Kirby.”
“Yes, sir. Rains come and stayed.”
“I wasn’t faulting you, boy.” Emmett let his eyes sweep the land. He coughed, a dry hacking. “I seen a cross on the hill overlooking the creek. Would that be your ma?”
“Yes, sir.”
“When did she pass?”
“Spring, three years ago,” Kirby said, remembering Shardeen’s raid and thinking with a twinge of regret that all the time he had been with Briggs, they had never encountered Shardeen.
“She go hard?”
She was shot down in front of her kids. Was that hard enough? He wanted to share that with his father, and maybe he would someday. There was no need to burden him with that now.
“No, sir, it wasn’t hard at all. She went in her sleep. I found her the next morning when I took her coffee and grits.”
“Good coffee is scarce. What did you do with the coffee?”
“I drank it,” Kirby replied.
“Right nice service?”
She’s buried in a feeding trough, covered by a door. Only ones here were Janey and me, and I had to talk Janey into staying until I said a few words. Kirby did not vocalize his thoughts. “Real good service. Folks come from all over to see her off.”
Emmett cleared his throat and coughed. “Well, I think I’ll go up to the hill and sit with your ma for a while. You put up the horses and rub them down. We’ll talk over supper. I assume we got somethin’ to eat in the house, don’t we?”
“We got some greens. I shot ’n cleaned a squirrel no more ’n a couple hours ago. Was plannin’ on fryin’ it up. I’ll make us some cornbread.”
“Sounds good to me.” Emmett’s eyes flicked over the Navy .36 Colt his son was wearing in a holster. If the sight surprised him, he said nothing about it.
“Pa?”
The father looked at his son.
“I’m glad you’re back.”
What his pa did then couldn’t have astonished Kirby any more than if he had suddenly started dancing. Stepping forward, Emmett put his arms around his son and held him. “I’m glad to be back.”
Emmett turned and walked up the hill as Kirby tended to the horses.
* * *
The cross had been handmade, probably by Kirby, Emmett decided. If so, he had done a good job. The particulars were put on the cross with white paint, the words neatly printed.
PEARL VIRGINIA JENSEN
Wife of Emmett Jensen
Oct 13, 1824–April 23, 1862
Emmett wondered why Kirby hadn’t mentioned that she was also a mother, but perhaps he felt he wouldn’t have room to get it all onto the cross.
He took off his hat and stared down at the grave. Except for the cross, nothing indicated that anyone was buried there. The earth in front of the cross looked no different from the rest of the hill.
“Pearl, I wish I could’ve been here for you. I don’t think this country has ever done anything more foolish than the killin’ spree we just come through. I was a part of it when I shoulda been here.
“I don’t reckon I need to tell you Luke got hisself killed in this war. An’ the reason I don’t reckon I need to tell you is, because more ’n likely, you ’n him is together right now.” Despite the solemnity of the moment, Emmett smiled. “I hope the first thing you done for ’im when you seen ’im was make him some cornbread so’s he could crumble it up in his milk. Lord knows, that boy did like his cornbread ’n milk.
“About Kirby ’n Janey. I didn’t do right by them, neither, leavin’ ’em here to look after themselves.” Emmett looked around the farm. “But truth to tell, I ain’t seen hide nor hair of Janey yet. Could be she’s fixin’ supper, but seein’ as how Kirby said he would do it, I think it’s more ’n likely that she’s gone.
“And speakin’ of bein’ gone, I ain’t told the boy yet, but I plan for me ’n him to get on out of here. Too many memories here. Even the good ones is painful, what with you gone ’n all. It troubles me some to be goin’ off ’n leavin’ you, but I know that you ain’t really here now. You’re up in heaven, an’ the day’ll come when I’ll join you. So, I reckon this is the last time I’ll be visitin’ you like this. I need to get on in with the boy now. We’ve got some palaverin’ to do.” Emmett put his hat back on, turned, and walked down the hill.
* * *
Over greens, fried squirrel, and corn bread, the father and son ate and talked through the years that they had lost and gained. A few moments of uncomfortable silence came between them occasionally as they adjusted to the time and place, and the fact that their positions had changed.
No change had occurred in the actual relationship; they were still father and son. But Emmett had left a boy; he came home to a man.
“We done our best,” Emmett said. “Can’t nobody say we didn’t. And there ain’t nobody got nothin’ to be ashamed of.”
Kirby hadn’t asked him anything about the war, not knowing if he should. He didn’t know if his pa wanted to talk about it. But when his pa started talking, Kirby just listened.
“I thought it wrong for the Yankees to burn folks’ homes like they done. But it was war, and terrible things happen in war. I didn’t know there was that many Yankees in the whole world.” Emmett began coughing, a deep, racking cough. It lasted for several seconds before he continued.
“Sometimes when they would come at us, why, we would mow them down like takin’ a sickle to wheat. But the Blue bellies just kept on acomin’. You got to give ’em credit for courage. They saw their friends goin’ down all around ’em, but they kept on acomin’. Shoot one and five more would take his place.”
Emmett was quiet for a moment, and Kirby thought he was finished, but his pa continued. “They weren’t near ’bout the riflemen we was, nor the riders neither, but they whupped us fair and square and now it’s time to put all that behind us and get on with livin’.”
“Yes, sir. That’s what I was thinkin’.”
Emmett sopped a piece of cornbread through the juice of his greens, and chewed for a time before he spoke again. “You know your brother Luke is dead, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir. I didn’t know if you knew it or not. I got a letter from a fella named Colonel Willis. He said Luke was killed last year in a place called The Wilderness. Fighting with Lee, wasn’t he?”
Emmett nodded, but he was quiet for a moment.
Luke had always been Pa’s favorite, or so Kirby had felt.
“We wasn’t together, you know. I think I sent your ma a letter tellin’ her that we wasn’t together no more.”
“Yes, sir.”
“About the letters.” Emmett coughed again. “I know I didn’t send many, but it was hard tryin’ to find some way to get the mail to go out. How was we to send ’em? The Yankees wouldn’t allow any mail to pass through their lines, and they made a point of interrupting our mail as much as they could. I didn’t much cotton to the idea of some Yankee reading one of my letters, so I didn’t hardly write none at all.
“But, as for Luke gettin’ killed, I prob’ly don’t know much more ’n you do. From time to time, messengers would get through between our armies. From what I heard, he was tryin’ to get back to The Wilderness. Leastwise, that’s what I was told.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I don’t see no sign of your sister Janey, and you ain’t brought up her name. What are you holdin’ back, Kirby?”
It was the moment Kirby had been dreading.
“She’s run off, ain’t she?”
“She run off with some fella, Pa. Right after Ma died.”
“What kind of feller was he?”
“He was a gambler, I’d say.”
“Smooth talker, I’d wager.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What did his hands look like?”
“Soft.”
“You’re right. More ’n likely was a gambler. You say this was after your ma died?”
“Yes sir.”
“Prob’ly just as good. If she had run off before your ma died, it woulda more ’n likely help kill her.” Emmett said it flatly, shaking his head, then rose from the table.
“I’ve ridden a far piece these last few weeks ’cause I wanted to get home. I was hopin’ I would be comin’ home to Pearl, but what is past is past ’n there’s no point in chewin’ on it. Now I’m home, and I’m tired. Reckon you are too, son. We’ll get some sleep, then we’ll have us a talk in the morning. I got a plan.” He covered his mouth and coughed.
* * *
Breakfast was meager the next morning—grits and coffee that was mostly chicory, along with a piece of leftover cornbread. Kirby knew that his pa was working up to say something, and he was anxious to hear what it was, but he waited.
Finally, washing down the last piece of bread with the last swallow of coffee, Emmett began to speak. “I spent some time talkin’ to your ma last night, ’n I’m goin’ to tell you what I told her. I don’t think it’s good to stay here, boy. Too many memories and the land’s got too many rocks to farm. You got ’ny money left from four years of farmin’ since I been gone? I figure crops prob’ly brought in a fair price, bein’ as so many farmers was off fightin’ in the war.”
Kirby wanted to tell his pa about the two thousand dollars he had been saving, the money that Janey took, but he held his tongue about that. “I . . . uh, ain’t got no money at all.”
“Ah, don’t fret over it. Farmin’ is a hard way to make a livin’, and truth to tell, I’m proud of you just for supportin’ yourself while I was gone.
“We’ll sell the mules and milk cows and buy a couple o’ good pack horses. The mules is getting too old for where we’re goin’. Problem is, they may be too old to even sell. If we can’t sell ’em, I’d hate to have to put ’em down.”
“We ain’t goin’ to put Ange and Rhoda down, Pa,” Kirby said resolutely. “If that’s what it takes for us to go, you just go on without me an’ I’ll stay here with the mules.”
Kirby’s response irritated Emmett, but only for a moment, then inexplicably, he smiled. “You got grit, boy. You ain’t just growed in body. All right. We’ll find somethin’ to do with the mules.”
“I don’t know if Mr. Byrd will buy ’em, but he’d take ’em, and look after ’em. He likes ’em, and the mules like him.”
The expression on Emmett’s face indicated surprise and curiosity. “How do you know that?”
Kirby wasn’t ready to tell his pa just yet about going out with Asa Briggs and leaving the mules with Tom Byrd.
“He, uh, told me one time that if I ever wanted to get rid of the mules that he would take them.” That wasn’t a complete lie. Byrd had said once that, as often as Kirby brought the team over, he may as well leave them with him.
“All right. We’ll leave ’em with Tom,” Emmett said. “What day is this, anyway?
“It’s Wednesday, Pa.”
“How far you been from this holler?”
Kirby thought about his experiences with the Ghost Riders. He had been as far north as Liberty and Glasgow, Missouri, west into Kansas, east to Clark’s Mill, Missouri, and south to Cane Hill, Arkansas. He felt bad about deceiving his pa, but again, that wasn’t information he was ready to share just yet. “A good piece, Pa. I been to Springfield.”
“Then it’s about time you got out to see more of this country.” Emmett stuffed his pipe and lit it, then pushed his rawhide-bottomed chair back and looked at his son.
“You got somethin’ in mind, don’t you, Pa?”
“Toward the end of the war, Kirby, some Texicans and some mountain men joined up with us. Them mountain men had been all the way to the Pacific Ocean, but they talked a lot about a place the Shoshone Indians call Idee ho, or somethin’ like that.
“I’d like to see it. Texas too, and some of the rest of the country between here and there, and maybe get all the way out to the Pacific Ocean.” Emmett coughed again.
“I seen the Atlantic Ocean, and I tell you, boy, you never seen so much water. If I was to see the Pacific Ocean, too, why that would mean I been all the way across this country from east to west. You just got no idea how big this country is. But the West is where all the people seems to be headed now, so I figure we’ll just head on out that way, too.”
“Pa? How will we know when we get to where it is we’re going?”
“We’ll know. You got any regrets, Kirby? Leaving this place, I mean.”
“Hard work, not always enough food, Jayhawks, Yankees, cold winters, and some bad memories,” Kirby replied. “If that’s regrets, I’m happy to leave them behind.”
Emmett’s reply was unusually soft. “You was just a boy when I pulled out with the Grays. I reckon I done you, your sister ’n your ma a disservice, like half a million other men done their loved ones. I didn’t leave you no time for youthful foolishness, no time to be a young boy. You had to be a man at an awful young age, and I don’t know if I can make up for that, but I aim to try. From now on, son, it’ll be you and me.”