Those Times and These

“Right down under the little rise where us fellers sat waitin’, stood them four guns that the Liberals bought off of Shelby. Ef brass cannons have feelin’s – and I don’t know no reason why they shouldn’t have – them cannons must have felt like something was radically wrong. The crews were loadin’ and firin’ and swabbin’ and loadin’ and firin’ ag’in – all jest ez busy ez beavers. But they plum overlooked one triflin’ detail which the military experts have always reguarded ez bein’ more or less essential to successful artillery operations. They forgot to aim in the general direction at the enemy. They done a plentiful lot of cheerin’, them gun crews did, and they burnt up a heap of powder and they raised a powerful racket and hullabaloo, but so fur ez visible results went they mout jest ez well have been bombardin’ the clear blue sky of heaven.

“Well, fur quite a spell we stayed up there on the brow of the hill, watchin’ that there engagement. Only you couldn’t properly call it an engagement – by rights it wasn’t nothin’ but a long distance flirtation. Now several of our boys had served one time or another with the guns. There was one little feller named Vince Hawley, out of Lyon’s Battery, that had been one of the crack gunners of the Western Army. He held in ez long ez he could and then he sings out:

“‘Boys, do you know whut’s ailin’ them pore mistreated little field-pieces down yonder? Well, I’ll tell you. They’re Confederate guns, born, bred, and baptised; and they’re cravin’ fur Confederate hands to pet ‘em. It mout be this’ll be the last chance a Southern soldier will ever git to fire a Southern gun. Who’ll go ‘long with me fur one farewell sashay with our own cannons?’

“In another minute eight or ten of our command were pilin’ off their horses and tearin’ down that little hill behind Vince Hawley and bustin’ in amongst the Mexies and laying violent but affectionate hands on one of the twelve-pounders. Right off, the natives perceived whut our fellers wanted to do and they fell back and gave ‘em elbow-room. Honest, son, it seemed like that field-piece recognised her own kind of folks, even ‘way off there on the aidge of a Mexican desert, and strove to respond to their wishes. The boys throwed a charge into her and Hawley sighted her and then – kerboom – off she went!

“Off the Imperial forces went, too. The charge landed right in amongst their front ranks ez they were advancin’ – it happened to be their turn to charge – takin’ ‘em absolutely by surprise. There was a profound scatteration and then spontaneous-like the enemy seemed to come to a realisation of the fact that the other side had broke all the rules and was actually tryin’ to do ‘em a real damage. With one accord they turned tail and started in the general direction of the Isthmus of Panama. Ef they kept up the rate of travel at which they started, they arrived there inside of a week, too – or mebbe even sooner. I s’pose it depended largely on whether their feet held out.

“Hawley and his gang run the gun forward to the crest of a little swale ready to give the retreatin’ forces another treatment in case they should rally and re-form, but a second dose wasn’t needed. Howsomever, before the squad came back, they scouted acrost the field to see whut execution their lone charge had done. Near to where the shell had busted they gathered up six skeered soldiers – fellers that had dropped down, skeered but unhurt, when the smash come and had been layin’ there in a hollow in the ground, fearin’ the worst and hopin’ fur the best. So they brung ‘em back in with ‘em and turned ‘em over to the Liberals ez prisoners of war.

“The rest of us were canterin’ down on the flat by now. We arrived in time to observe that some of the victorious Liberals were engaged in lashin’ the prisoners’ elbows together with ropes, behind their backs, and that whut looked like a firin’ squad was linin’ up conveniently clos’t by. Billy Priest went and located a feller that could interpret after a fashion and inquired whut was the idea. The interpreter feller explained that the idea was to line them six prisoners up and shoot ‘em to death.

“‘Boys,’ says Billy, turnin’ to us, ‘I’m afeared we’ll have to interfere with the contemplated festivalities. Our friends are too gently-inclined durin’ the hostilities and too blame’ bloodthirsty afterward to suit me. Let us bid an adieu to ‘em and purceed upon our way. But first,’ he says, ‘let us break into the picture long enough to save those six poor devils standin’ over there in a row, all tied up like beef-critters fur the butcher.’

“So we rid in betwixt the condemned and the firin’ squad and by various devices such ez drawin’ our carbines and our six-shooters, we made plain our purpose. At that a wave of disappointment run right through the whole army. You could see it travellin’ frum face to face under the dirt that was on said faces. Even the prisoners seemed a trifle put-out and downcasted. Later we found out why. But nobody offered to raise a hand ag’inst us.

“‘All right then,’ says Billy Priest, ‘so fur so good. And now I think we’d better be resumin’ our journey, takin’ our captives with us. I’ve got a presentiment,’ he says, ‘that they’d probably enjoy better health travellin’ along with us than they would stayin’ on with these here Liberals.’

“‘How about them four field-pieces?’ says one of the boys, speakin’ up. ‘There’s plenty of hosses to haul ‘em. Hadn’t we better take them along with us, too? They’ll git awful lonesome bein’ left in such scurvy company – poor little things!’

“‘No,’ says Billy, ‘I reckin that wouldn’t be right. The prisoners are our’n by right of capture, but the guns ain’t. These fellers bought ‘em off Shelby’s brigade and they’re entitled to keep ‘em. But before we depart,’ he says, ‘it mout not be a bad idea to tinker with ‘em a little with a view to sort of puttin’ ‘em out of commission fur the time bein’. Our late hosts mout take a notion to turn ‘em on us, ez we are goin’ away frum ‘em and there’s a bare chance,’ he says, ‘that they might hit some of us – by accident.’

“So we tinkered with the guns and then we moved out in hollow formation with the six prisoners marchin’ along in the middle and not a soul undertakin’ to halt us ez we went. On the whole them Liberals seemed right pleased to get shet of us. But when we’d gone along fur a mile or so, one of the Mexicans flopped down on his knees and begin to jabber. And then the other five follered suit and jabbered with him. After ‘while it dawned on us that they were beggin’ us to kill ‘em quick and not torture ‘em, they thinkin’ we’d only saved ‘em frum bein’ shot in order to do something much more painful to ‘em at our leisure. So then four or five of the boys dropped down off their mounts and untied ‘em and faced ‘em about so the open country was in front of ‘em and give ‘em a friendly kick or two frum behind ez a notice to ‘em to be on their way. They lit out into the scrub and were gone the same ez ef they’d been so many Molly Cottontails.

“Fur upward of a week then, we moved along, headin’ mighty nigh due South. Considerin’ that the country was supposed to be in the midst of civil war we saw powerful few evidences of it ez we rode through. Life fur the humble Mexican appeared to be waggin’ along about ez usual, but was nothin’ to brag about, at that. We seen him ploughin’ amongst the prevalent desolation with a forked piece of wood, one fork bein’ hitched to a yoke of oxen and the other fork bein’ shod with a little strip of rusty iron. We seen him languidly gatherin’ his wheat, him goin’ ahead and pullin’ it up out of the ground, roots and all and pilin’ it in puny heaps, and then the women cornin’ along behind him and tyin’ it in little bunches with strings. Another place we seen him and his women folks threshin’ grain by beatin’ it with sticks and dependin’ on the wind to help ‘em winnow the wheat from the chaff jest ez it is written ‘twas done in the Bible days. We seen him in his hours of ease, fightin’ his chicken-cock against some other feller’s game-bird, and gamblin’ and scratchin’ his flea-bites and the more we seen of him the less we seemed to keer fur him. He mout of been all right in his way, but he wasn’t our kind of folks; I reckin that was it.

“And he repaid the compliment by not appearin’ to keer very deeply fur us strangers neither, but the women seemed to take to us, mightily. They’d come out to us frum their little dried mud cabins bringin’ us beans and them flat batter-cakes of their’n and even sometimes milk and butter. Also they gave us roughage fur our hosses and wouldn’t take pay fur none of it, indicatin’ by signs that it was all a free gift. Whut between the grazin’ they got and the dried fodder the women gave us, our hosses took on flesh and weren’t sech ga’nted crowbaits ez they had been.

“Seven days of traversin’ that miser’ble land and then, son, we ran smack into the Imperial scouts and found we’d arrived within less ‘en a day’s march of the city of Monterey. Purty soon out come a detachment of cavalry to meet us and inquire into our business and a most Godforsaken lookin’ bunch they were, but with ‘em they had half a dozen Confederates – Missoury boys, all of ‘em exceptin’ one, him bein’ frum Louisiana; and these here Missoury fellers told us some news. It seemed that after Shelby and Price and Hindman got to Monterey their little army had split in two, most of its members headin’ off toward the City of Mexico with no purticular object in view so fur ez anybody knowed but jest filled with a restless cravin’ to stay in the saddle and keep movin’, and the rest strikin’ Westward toward the Pacific Coast.

“But about two hundred of ‘em had stayed behind and enlisted at Monterey, havin’ been given a bounty of six hundred dollars apiece and a promise of one hundred dollars a month in pay ef they’d fight fur Maximilian. The delegation that had rode out to meet us now were part and parcel of that two hundred. They seemed tickled to death to see us and they bragged about the money they were gittin’, but ef you watched ‘em kind of clos’t you could tell, mighty easy, they weren’t exactly overjoyed and carried away with enthusiasm over their present jobs. They told us in confidence that the French officers in their army were fine soldiers and done the best they could with the material they had, but that the rank and file were small potatoes and few in the hill. In fact, we gathered frum remarks let fall here and there that after servin’ ez a Confederate fur a period of years and fightin’ ag’inst husky fellers frum Indiana or Kansas or Michigan or somewheres up that way, bein’ a soldier of fortune with the Imperials and fightin’ ag’inst the Liberals was, comparatively speakin’, a mighty tame pursuit – that you’d probably live longer so doin’, but you wouldn’t have anywheres near the excitement. On top of all that, though, they extended a cordial invitation to us to go on back to Monterey with ‘em and enlist under the Maximilian government.

“Some of our outfit seemed to sort of lean toward the proposition and some to sort of lean ag’inst it, without exactly statin’ their reasons why and wherefore. But amongst us all there wasn’t a man but whut relied mighty implicit on Billy Priest’s judgment, and besides which, you’ve got to remember, son, that discipline had come to be a sort of an ingrained habit with us. We’d got used to lookin’ to our leaders to show us the way and give us our orders and then we’d try to obey ‘em, spite of hell and high water. That’s the way it had been with us for four long years and that’s the way it still was with us. So under the circumstances, with sentiment divided ez it was, we-all waited to see how Billy Priest felt, because ez I jest told you, we imposed a heap of confidence in his views on purty near any subject you mout mention. The final say-so bein’ put up to him, he studied a little and then he said to the Missoury boys that hearin’ frum them about the Confederacy havin’ split up into pieces had injected a new and a different aspect into the case and in his belief it was a thing that needed thinkin’ over and mebbe sleepin’ on. Accordin’ly, ef it was all the same to them, he’d like to wait till next mornin’ before comin’ to a definite decision and he believed that in this his associates would concur with him. That was agreeable to the fellers that had brung us the invitation, or ef it wasn’t they let on like it was anyhow, and so we left the matter standin’ where it was without further argument on their part.

“They told us good-by and expressed the hope that they’d see us next day in Monterey and then they rid on back to headquarters to report progress on the part of the committee on new members and to ask further time, I s’pose. Ez fur us, we went into camp right where we was.

“Most of us suspicioned that after we’d fed the hosses and et our supper Billy would call a sort of caucus and git the sense of the meetin’, but he didn’t take no steps in that direction and of course nobody else felt qualified to do so. After a while the fires we’d lit to cook our victuals on begin to die down low and the boys started to turn in. There wasn’t much talkin’ or singin’, or skylarkin’ round, but a whole heap of thinkin’ was goin’ on – you could feel it in the air. I was layin’ there on the ground under my old ragged blankets with my saddle fur a pillow and the sky fur my bed canopy, but I didn’t drop right off like I usually done. I was busy ponderin’ over in my mind quite a number of things. I remember how gash’ly and on-earthly them old cactus plants looked, loomin’ up all ‘round me there in the darkness and how strange the stars looked, a-shinin’ overhead. They didn’t seem like the same stars we’d been used to sleepin’ under before we come on down here into Mexico. Even the new moon had a different look, ez though it was another moon frum the one that had furnished light fur us to go possum-huntin’ by when we were striplin’ boys growin’ up. This here one was a lonesome, strange, furreign-lookin’ moon, ef you git my meanin’? Anyhow it seemed so to me.

“Somebody spoke my name right alongside of me, and I tum’t over and raised up my head and there was Billy Priest hunkered down. He had a little scrap of dried greasewood in his hand and he was scratchin’ with it in the dirt in a kind of an absent-minded way.

“‘You ain’t asleep yet, Jimmy?’ he says to me.

“‘No,’ I says, ‘I’ve been layin’here, study-in’.’

“‘That so?’ he says. ‘Whut about in particular?’

“‘Oh nothin’ in particular,’ I says, ‘jest studyin’.’

“He don’t say anything more fur a minute; jest keepin’ on makin’ little marks in the dirt with the end of his stick. Then he says to me: “‘Jimmy,’ he says, ‘I’ve been doin’ right smart thinkin’ myself.’

“‘Have you?’ I says.

“‘Yes,’ he says, ‘I have. I’ve been thinkin’ that whilst peppers make quite spicy eatin’ and beans are claimed to be very nourishin’ articles of food, still when taken to excess they’re liable to pall on the palate, sooner or later.’

“‘They certainly are,’ I says.

“‘Let’s see,’ he says. ‘This is the last week in July, ain’t it? Back in God’s country, the first of the home-grown watermelons oughter be comin’ in about now, oughten they? And in about another week from now they’ll be pickin’ those great big stripedy rattlesnake melons that grow in the river bottoms down below town, won’t they?’

“‘Yes,’ I says, ‘they will, ef the season ain’t been rainy and set ‘em back.’

“‘Let us hope it ain’t,’ he says, and I could hear his stick scratchin’ in the grit of that desert land, makin’ a scrabblin’ itchy kind of sound.

“‘Jimmy Bagby,’ he says, ‘any man’s liable to make a mistake sometimes, but that don’t necessarily stamp him ez a fool onlessen he sticks to it too long after he’s found out it is a mistake.’

“‘Billy,’ I says, ‘I can’t take issue with you there.’”

“‘F’r instance now,’ he says, ‘you take a remark which I let fall some weeks back touch-in’ on flags. Well I’ve been thinkin’ that remark over, Jimmy, and I’ve about come to the conclusion that ef a man has to give up the flag he fout under and can’t have it no longer, he mout in time come to be equally comfortable in the shadder of the flag he was born under. He might even come to love ‘em both, mighty sincerely – lovin’ one fur whut it meant to him once’t and fur all the traditions and all the memories it stands fur, and lovin’ the other fur whut it may mean to him now and whut it’s liable to mean to his children and their children.’

“‘But Billy,’ I says, ‘when all is said and done, we fit in defence of a constitutional principle.’

“‘You bet we did,’ he says; ‘but it’s mostly all been said and it’s practically all been done. I figger it out this way, Jimmy. Reguardless of the merits of a given case, ef a man fights fur whut he thinks is right, so fur ez he pussonally is concerned, he fights fur whut is right. I ain’t expectin’ it to happen yit awhile, but I’m willin’ to bet you something that in the days ahead both sides will come to feel jest that way about it too.’

“‘Do you think so, Billy?’ I says.

“‘Jimmy,’ he say, ‘I don’t only think so – I jest natchelly knows so. I feel it in my bones.’

“‘Then I persume you must be correct,’ I says.

“He waits a minute and then he says: ‘Jimmy,’ he says, ‘I don’t believe I’d ever make a success ez one of these here passenger-pigeons. Now, a passenger-pigeon ain’t got no regular native land of his own. He loves one country part of the time and another country part of the time, dividin’ his seasons betwixt ‘em. Now with me I’m afraid it’s different.’

“‘Billy,’ I says, ‘I’ve about re’ch the conclusion that I wasn’t cut out to be a passenger-pigeon, neither.’

“He waits a minute, me holdin’ back fur him to speak and wonderin’ whut his next subject is goin’ to be. Bill Priest always was a master one to ramble in his conversations. After a while he speaks, very pensive:

“‘Jimmy,’ he says, ‘ef a man was to git up on a hoss, say to-morrow momin’ and ride along right stiddy he’d jest about git home by hog-killin’ time, wouldn’t he?’

“‘Jest about,’ I says, ‘ef nothin’ serious happened to delay him on the way.’

“‘That’s right,’ he says, ‘the spare ribs and the chitterlin’s would jest about be ripe when he arrove back.’

“I didn’t make no answer to that – my mouth was waterin’ so I couldn’t speak. Besides there didn’t seem to be nothin’ to say.

“‘The fall revivals ought to be startin’ up about then, too,’ he says, ‘old folks gittin’ religion all over ag’in and the mourners’ bench overflowin’, and off in the back pews and in the dark comers young folks flirtin’ with one another and holdin’ hands under cover of the hymn-books. But all the girls we left behind us have probably got new beaux by now, don’t you reckin?’

“‘Yes, Billy,’ I says, ‘I reckin they have and I don’t know ez I could blame ‘em much neither, whut with us streakin’ ‘way off down here like a passel of idiots.’

“He gits up and throws away his stick.

“‘Well, Jimmy,’ he says, ‘I’m powerful glad to find out we agree on so many topics. Well, good night,’ he says.

“‘Good night,’ I says, and then I rolled over and went right off to sleep. But before I dropped off I ketched a peep of Billy Priest, squattin’ down alongside one of the other boys, and doubtless fixin’ to read that other feller’s thoughts like a book the same ez he’d jest been readin’ mine.

“Well, son, the next mornin’ at sun-up we were all up, too. We had our breakfast, sech ez it was, and broke camp and mounted and started off with Billy Priest ridin’ at the head of the column and me stickin’ clos’t beside him. I didn’t know fur sure whut was on the mind of anybody else in that there cavalcade of gentlemen rangers, but I was mighty certain about whut I aimed to do. I aimed to stick with Billy Priest; that’s whut. Strange to say, nobody ast any questions about whut we were goin’ to do with reguards to them Imperalists waitin’ there fur us in Monterey. You never saw such a silent lot of troopers in your life. There wasn’t no singin’ nor laughin’ and mighty little talkin’. But fur half an hour or so there was some good, stiddy lopin’.

“Presently one of the boys pulled out of line and spurred up alongside of our chief.

“‘S’cuse me, commander,’ he says, ‘but it begins to look to me like we were back trackin’ on our own trail.’

“Billy looks at him, grinnin’ a little through his whiskers. We all had whiskers on our faces, or the startin’s of ‘em.

“‘Bless my soul, I believe you’re right!’ says Billy. ‘Why, you’ve got the makin’s of a scout in you.’

“‘But look here,’ says the other feller, still sort of puzzled-like, ‘that means we’re headin’ due North, don’t it?’

“‘It means I’m headin’ North,’ says Billy, and at that he quit grinnin’. ‘But you, nor no one else in this troop don’t have to fol-ler along onlessen you’re minded so to do. Every man here is a free agent and his own boss. And ef anybody is dissatisfied with the route I’m takin’ and favours some other, I’d like fur him to come out now and say so. It won’t take me more’n thirty seconds to resign my leadership.’

“‘Oh, that’s all right,’ says the other feller, ‘I was merely astin’ the question, that’s all. I ain’t dissatisfied. I voted fur you ez commander fur the entire campaign – not fur jest part of it. I was fur you when we elected you, and I’m fur you yit.’

“And with that he wheeled and racked along back to his place. Purty soon Billy looked over his shoulder along the column and an idea struck him. Not fur behind him Tom Moss was joggin’ along with his old battered banjo swung acrost his back. Havin’ toted that there banjo of his’n all through the war he’d likewise brought it along with him into Mexico. He had a mighty pleasin’ voice, too, and the way he could sing and play that song about him bein’ a good old rebel and not carin’ a dam’ made you feel that he didn’t care a dam’, neither. Billy beckoned to him and Tom rid up alongside and Billy whispered something in his ear. Tom’s face all lit up then and he on-slung his banjo frum over his shoulder and throwed one laig over his saddle-bow and hit the strings a couple of licks and reared his head back and in another second he was singin’ at the top of his voice. But this time he wasn’t singin’ the song about bein’ a good old rebel. He was singin’ the one that begins:

The sun shines bright on my Old Kintucky Home;‘Tis Summer, the darkies are gay,The corn tops are ripe and the medders are in bloom,And the birds make music all the day.’

“In another minute everybody else was singin’, too – singin’ and gallopin’. Son, you never in your whole life seen so many hairy, ragged, rusty fellers on hoss-back a-tear in’ along through the dust of a strange land, actin’ like they were all in a powerful hurry to git somewheres and skeered the gates would be shut before they arrived. Boy, listen: the homesickness jest popped out through my pores like perspiration.

“It taken us all of seven days to git frum the border acros’t that long stretch of waste to within a day’s ride of the city of Monterey. It only taken us four and a half to git back ag’in to the border, the natives standin’ by to watch us as we tore on past ‘em. The sun was still several hours high on the evenin’ of the fifth day when we come in sight of the Rio Grande River; and I don’t ever seem to recall a stretch of muddy yaller water that looked so grateful to my eyes ez that one looked.

“We come canterin’ down to the water’s edge, all of us bein’ plum’ jaded and mighty travel-worn. And there, right over yond’ on the fur bank we could see the peaky tops of some army tents standin’ in rows and we heared the notes of a bugle, soundin’ mighty sweet and clear in that still air. And it dawned on us that by a strange coincidence whut wouldn’t be liable to happen once’t in a dozen years had happened in our purticular case – that the United States Government, ez represented by a detachment of its military forces, had moved down to the line at a point almost opposite to the place where we aimed to cross back over.

“I ain’t sure yit whut it was – it mout a-been the first sight of the foeman he’d fit ag’inst so long that riled him or it mout a-been merely a sort of sneakin’ desire to make out like he purposed to hold off to the very last and then be won over by sweet blandishments – but jest ez we reached the river, a big feller hailin’ frum down in Bland County rid up in front of Billy Priest and he says he wants to ast him a question.

“‘Fire away,’ says Billy.

“‘Bill Priest,’ says the Bland County feller, ‘I take it to be your intention to go back into the once’t free but now conquered state of Texas?’