Horrible Harvest

Me, Bobby, Bert, Felix, and Evers – We filed out the door. Our horses were waiting for us when we exited the house, along with a dozen men on their mounts. They was all wearing patchwork animal pelt coats and hats made of this and that varmint.

Dusk give way to the dark, and we traveled by torch light through swamps and forest until we reached a clearing lined by a knoll on its westerly side. A scaffold built to hang as many as six set well-constructed at the Southern end. In front of the gallows, stood a thick, single poll. As we rode up, I spotted Boone standing at the steps leading up to the platform, holding a torch and a bucket filled with water or something of the sort. I slumped at the shoulders and tucked my chin in to hide my mug from him. He didn’t notice me, mostly because he had a gator skull atop his fat head that limited his vision.

“Let our guests in,” the judge shouted as he brought his mount to a stop near the grassy knoll.

A row of black men, women, and little ones ascended from the other side of the hill. At their backs was armed fellas, dressed in their pelts and crazy hats. Each was more batshit adorned than the next.

The judge waited until all these so-called guests was settled before he let loose his speech. “This is not how I wanted to spend my evening, people. We gather here too often. We are forced to address these unwanted issues of social perversions with too much regularity. You folks must think I enjoy this.” He guided his horse from one end of the knoll to the next as he spoke. “Y’all are beasts – All y’all – Used to be a law on the books that said, as much – ‘Fore the Radical Republicans burned the books. They thumbed their noses at their own Supreme Court that said you was built for hard labor – Born for it – You was livestock. Left to your own devices – Which is now the case since the Yankee dogs took over – On your own accord, you revert to animalistic behaviors. You rape. You steal. You brutalize – You turn against your Christian teachings – The teachings we whites give you – You violate God’s law – On the regular – Without thought – Without hesitation.

“We gather here too often, so you can see firsthand what comes of your people who commit such atrocities.”

He turned to a group of his men standing at the most Southern end of the knoll. “Bring’em out, boys.”

Gladys come stumbling through the clearing, pushed by some sumbitch furred up from near head to toe. Her arms was tied at the wrists. After her, Douglas – bloodied and beat black and blue – trailed her with a limp. His arms also tied at the wrists.

“Shit,” Evers whispered.

Bert give him a side-eyed glance. “Hush.”

“We got trouble,” Evers replied.

“This is none of our business.”

Evers looked at me and shook his head. “That ain’t altogether true.”

I placed my hand on my revolver.

“Steady now. Steady.” Evers said to me.

Bert turnt in a huff. “Shut your goddamn mouths. This ain’t our concern.”

“Boss,” Evers said. “That there is Augustus’s brother.”

Bert’s mouth dropped open, and his cheeks turnt flush.

“Like I said – Shit.”

Bert quick-like steered his horse through the now herd of riderless horses until he reached Bobby, still sitting atop his mount. I seen him lean in, and whisper in his brother’s ear.

Bobby grimaced and then give me a look. He motioned with his hand for me to settle down. He then give his horse a soft kick in the ribs and headed for the judge.

“Judge Landry, a word.”

The judge turned his crowned head in Bobby’s direction. “Bunning, you are an invited guest. It is not appropriate for you to interrupt our proceedings.”

“It’s just that I have some important information about your prisoner there – The white man.”

“He lays with a nigger and calls her his wife. That is all the information I need. He’s come under her spell – A spell that cannot be broken. I have seen it before – It drives good Christian men mad.”

“He’s not just any man, judge. He is of a prominent Southern family.”

“I know all the prominent Southern families, boy. He has no link to any.”

“He is the adopted son of Cameron Miller. Surely you know, Mr. Miller.”

The judge sat in silence as he give this news some thought. “I know Cameron well. An associate’s son attended his school – Served in his brigade during the war – This man – This deviant – You say he is Cameron’s adopted son?”

Under the influence of opium, on more occasions than I can count, I’d shared stories of all the shit that was my life – The rice farm, the Miller men, the War – I’d shared it all with him, every ugly bit of it. I’d thought it was just a way to rid myself of who I was – Tales to pass the time and drain it from my goddamn veins. But now, Bobby was to put them to use to spin his next con.

“He is.”

“What’s his name?”

Bobby turned to us in his saddle.

“Douglas,” I shouted.

“Douglas,” Bobby repeated to the judge.

Boone give a half turn in my direction upon hearing my voice. I wrapped my grip around the handle of my Gunnison.

“If word were to get to Mr. Cameron about these proceedings, I’m afraid he would not be happy.”

“We are a secret society, Bunning. Word does not leave this arena.”

“I count nearly 75 people, Judge. Not to mention, there are eyes in these surrounding woods from every direction – Looky-loos. Your society can be secret as you want, but word is gonna leave this arena. That many mouths – Secrets don’t keep.”

“Yes, but only five of those mouths know the identity of our criminal degenerate.”

“Six, sir – If we were to include you.”

The judge smiled. “I’m quite sure I can keep a secret, Bunning.”

“And yet, you invite strangers to your hanging.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. There ain’t to be a hanging here tonight.”

“The gallows indicate otherwise.”

“This – What was his name – Douglas – Douglas’s sins require immolation.”

Upon hearing this, I focused on the bucket in Boone’s hand. It was kerosine.

Douglas and Gladys was positioned on either side of the large poll.

“If you will excuse me, Bunning, I have social corruption to erase, and if Miller is still the man I remember, he is more likely to shake my hand for bringing judgement upon his son than condemn me for it.”

Bobby stared at him for a tick of time before backing his horse away. He turned his mount and trotted to me. Whispering, he said, “I don’t suppose there’s a way to talk you down from doing something stupid.”

“If it were Bert, could you be talked down?”

He sighed. “Whatever you’re gonna do – make it big. Make it noisy as all hell.”

“Bunning,” the judge snapped. “Your mumbling is unwelcomed. Hold your tongue.”

Bobby turned to him and give an apology.

I eased my gun out of my holster.

“Now, you people – We had an agreement. You keep to yours, and we’ll keep to ours. You got your freedom. That’s all you’re gonna get give to you. You gotta earn everything else, and you earn that by knowing your place in this world. Whites – We make the rules. You was born to follow. And we make rules to help you. You people don’t know how things work. You don’t think that way. We do. We was born to rule.

“These two here – They’re trying to make you think that you’re regular – That you got abilities you ain’t got. You big black studs – You don’t breed with just one mare. You mount a different one every night – And you females, you’re in heat ‘round the clock. You produce offspring like you’re a tree producing leaves. You got’em everywhere.

“Every once in a blue moon, you lure in a white man who’s run afoul of Christian ladies, and they get this notion that they’ve got romantic feelings for you. They find themselves in love with a beast of the field.

“Unnatural, it is. Unholy. Unclean.”

He turnt to the men who flanked Douglas and Gladys. “Tie the sow to the stake.”

Two men stepped to Gladys and pushed her toward the pole.

Using Evers as cover, I aimed my gun in Boone’s direction. I stared at the bucket in his hand. Bobby said make it big and noisy, and that bucket was about make things loud as shit. I cocked the hammer, took aim, and fired.

The bucket splintered to pieces. Kerosine splashed in all directions, hitting Boone and the gallows.

Boone was so startled he jerked ass-backwards and dropped the torch. The flame spread like a spider’s web across air and ground. Quicker than a blink, Boone’s pelt coat was set fire and latched on to him like a snake coiled around a rat.

The horses whinnied and snorted and raised up on their hind legs.

In the mess of confusion, Bert raised up in his saddle and barked out, “Bluebellies!”

That single word sent every white man in a fur coat scattered in every direction. Not a one offered aid to Boone as he flopped to the ground, on fire from ass to gator skull.

Evers and I steered our mounts through the mass of people, now running every which way. We reached the poll, finding only Douglas. He was too dogwhipped to even hold himself up.

I jumped off my horse. “Douglas.”

He looked at me through eyes near swoll shut. “Where is she?”

“C’mon,” I said, grabbing him around the arm. I pulled my knife and cut away at the ropes that bound him.

“Where is she?”

I looked to Evers. “You spot her?”

“I’m looking,” he said, as he sat tall in his saddle and scanned the arena grounds. “They’s a mess a folks to wade through – Got her!” He kicked his horse and barreled his mount through the mass of fleeing people.

“Where is she?” Douglas asked, again.

“Evers is working on it – ” I heard two gunshots. “I’m guessing that means he got hold of her.”

I turnt to bring my horse closer, so I could get Douglas in the saddle, but I was greeted with the barrel of a gun set a foot from my face.

The judge stood looking at me with his revolver cocked and ready to fire. “I got a good idea who you are.”

I didn’t respond.

“Bunning called you Augustus a time or two back at the house. Didn’t mean nothing to me until he brought up Cameron Miller. You’re the war hero turned sodomite.”

“I’m not.”

“You’re trying to tell me you ain’t Augustus Tennyson? You don’t lay with men? That’s an abomination, boy. I got you dead to rights. I heard the stories. I know what you are – ”

“I’m trying to tell you I ain’t no war hero.”

“You’re goddamn right you ain’t. You’re filth, and I’m gonna remove you from this world – ”

A shot rung out, but it didn’t come from the Judge’s gun. Bobby set atop his horse, smoke still streaming out of the barrel of his revolver – His hand shaking, and the color drained from his face. “Get your brother. Let’s find some distance from this shit storm.”

Evers rode up with Gladys clinging to him tightly on the back of his mount.

“We’ll take two of the horses these idiots left behind,” Bobby said, as I helped Douglas climb atop the back of my pale pony.

I give Bobby a look with the mind to thank him, but he spoke before I could get the words out.

“Just made a correction to business deal gone bad. That’s all that was.” With that, he rode off.