Horrible Harvest

I looked across the plain and seen three elevated humps. All was free of grass at the highest point. The exposed dirt held deep cuts that run down the side of the steep incline.

“He’s got a state-sized plot of land he thrones over. Spotters’ll be here, there, and everywhere. They may not catch you crossing over, but they’ll get eyes on you soon after. You can be assured of that.”

“Good,” I said. “Saves us the trouble of finding them.”

“You wanna be dead? Is that what I’m to gather?”

“Living is like love, my friend. Comes with a whole hell of a lot of heartache and woe – We’ll crossover the ridge and set up camp.”

“They’ll definitely get eyes on you by sunrise – especially if you was to build a fire – But I reckon that’s what you’ll be wanting.”

I reached in my haversack and pult out another hundred dollars. “Here,” I said, stretching out to hand Piney the money.

“You done paid me.”

“Didn’t pay you enough.”

“You paid me what you promised. That’s enough.”

“Then shit on a stick. This is extra. Use it to romance your round-bottomed good Kate.”

He stared at the money. “She’s good Kate – with the round-bottom. The good comes first.”

“Round-bottom Kate – Good-bottom Kate – I don’t give much of a care. Just spend the fucking money on her. Win her over.”

He made no attempt to take the money

“What the devil is wrong with you? Don’t you want it?”

“Never seen extra pay that don’t come without extra-aggravation.”

“It don’t come with no more aggravation than you’ve already got. Your job is done. Take the money and ride off – Get to the nearest settlement – Buy a bath and some grooming, for Christ sake – Get you some real clothes. Then head north to good Kate’s heart and loins. Live a little. Invest in some heartache.”

He give a toothless grin and took the money. “You boys turnt out to be pleasant company. I’m a little sad what’s to come of you – Miller’s gonna do you all in, you know that, right?”

Tate shrugged. “We might surprise you.”

“No, you won’t. I don’t know nothing about bathing or love, but I know when hell’s coming, and it’s coming for you boys. Y’all should just ride off with me. I’ll get all done up clean and shiny, and you can come with me to Uecker’s post. I’ll introduce you to good Kate, and you can see for yourself what a handsome gal she is.”

“We’ve got us plenty of experience dealing with hell,” I said.

“And we’re all still standing,” Douglas added.

Piney shrugged. “Suppose it don’t matter one way or another. Whatever comes of you once you cross over the ridge – I won’t never see you all again. You’ll be dead to me either way.” He steered his draft mount to the North and started singing his made-up song “Oh, good Kate, with the round-bottom is my love. She come from the angels above. She gives me wiggles and laughs, and I’ll give her my heartbeats last. I’ll fill her heart, and I’ll fill her loins – ”

Douglas moved ahead of the pack and said, “He’s gone, but I’ll be damned if he didn’t leave his stink behind.”

“I believe he passed it on to us,” Tate said. We rode a little further on before he asked, “You sure about this?”

“Sure about what?” I asked.

“This plan of yours. To set up camp on the other side of the ridge – To let ourselves be found.”

“It’s the quickest way to Miller.”

“But is it the smartest?”

“Ain’t nothing smart about any of this.”

“Yes, but there’s smarter, right? Maybe we should lie low. Get a feel for things. Track down these spotters before they track us down.”

“That’s a lot of work to arrive at the same outcome.”

“But it gives us control, doesn’t it? Isn’t that what we want?”

“Douglas and I got the one thing that’ll give us the upper hand with these spotters.”

“And that is?”

“We’s Tennysons. Our last name’ll get us a free escort all the way to Mr. Miller himself.”

“Okay, but what kind of escort?”

“Does it matter?”

“Does it matter? Hell yes, it matters. They’re likely to be escorting us in for our hanging. They’ll take our guns. We’re as good as dead.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“Lord, you haven’t thought this through one bit, have you?”

“Have you?”

“I have. I’m in favor of sneaking in and making our way to Miller without being seen.”

“Does your plan go beyond that?”

“It does. We hold off and breach the ridge come nightfall. These spotters will have campfires same as we would. In this country – This wide-open terrain – We’ll be able to spot the glow of their fire easy. We use the darkness to sneak up on them and take them by surprise.”

“Then what?”

“We coerce them to take us to Miller.”

“Coerce them how?”

“In unpleasant ways.”

I give a shrug. “Okay.”

“Okay? Just like that? You’re not going to fight me on it?”

“No. What fer? Your plan is just as dumb as mine, but it gets us there quicker.”

I rode ahead to tell Douglas what’s to come.

At nightfall, the moon hung up in the sky like a sickle. The stars bloomed above us like a field of sparkling daisies. We walked our mounts up the ridge and fount a small plateau to survey the valley to our fronts. The temperature felt as if it was tumbling by the minute. We was a dozen shivers in before Tate said, in an excited whisper, “There. Nine o’clock. See that flicker?”

Douglas and I looked to where he was pointing, and the swaying flames of a campfire fount purchase in our line of sight.

“That’s a good trek,” Douglas said.

“Then we better get on our go,” I said.

“That distance – We’re liable to lose our way in the dark.”

“We’ll just follow the creek.”

“What creek?”

“The creek that runs south of them.”

“How do you know there’s a creek to the south of them?”

“Because their job is to watch this ridge. Means they post up there for a good-long while. Stay like that, you make your camp as close to water as you can. I’m guessing that puts a creek to their fucking backs – Most likely.”

“I ain’t a fan of guessing and most-likely.”

“It’s all we goddamn got.”

We mounted the horses and snaked our way down the ridge. An hour later, we fount the creek and followed its twists and turns west. The glow of the campfire bubbled up over a tree line some time after that. When the smell of the fire reached us, we dismounted and tied off the horses on a row of trees that hugged the creek bank.

Douglas craned his neck to the left and right, trying like hell to get a count of the spotters. “I see three – Could be a fourth.” He unholstered his pistol, and I quick grabbed him at the wrist.

“Keep that thing packed away.”

“What in the name of good sense are you talking about?”

“This is one group of spotters. There will be others. You fire that gun, you’ll draw their attention – And Tate’s plan goes to shit.”

 “Tates plan is shit, and I ain’t gonna fire it. I’m gonna use it – To keep them hampered and docile.”

“You pull that gun. You better be prepared to use it. It ain’t a tool built to keep situations docile.”

Tate peered through the patch of trees at the fire and then whispered. “I think your count is off, Douglas. I only see two spotters.”

Douglas stood beside him and studied the campfire. “There was more just a second ago – I swear.”

I unholstered my Gunnison. “How ‘bout that, Tate. Your plan was shit.”

“I thought we wasn’t to pull our weapons.”

“They know we’re here.”

Douglas and Tate pult their sidearms.

“How do you know?”

“Count went from four to two. That means we got two as decoys and two making their way through the dark to sneak up on us – ”

We heard a sing-songy mumbling coming from the campfire.

“What do we do?” Tate said.

“Use the trees. Nice and slow. Through this here patch to the clearing. Only fire if you lay eyes on the spotters real up close and personal.”

I took a beat, give a nod to the others, and then stepped into the patch of woods. Douglas and Tate made their way through the trees to my right. We was all bent slightly at the knees and slouched at the shoulders as we drew closer and closer to the fire. The mumbling slowly churned into recognizable words. Then I heard it. The song. “Oh, good Kate with the nice round bottom is my love,” I eased up. My pistol still at the ready, but there weren’t no doubt. It was Piney. I looked to the others to see if they’d heard what I’d heard, and I could tell by their faces that they had.

We stepped out past the trees and into the clearing next to the campfire and spotted Piney sitting on a tree fall with young boy sitting on the ground next to him. The young’un’s hands and feet was tied. Two other boys was face down, dead in the dirt. The firelight give a sparkle to the blood streaming from their throats.

“She come from the angels above – Hey, fellas. It’s me. It’s your friend Piney.”

“What are you – ”

“I ain’t had good company in a long, long – Forever, so I dee-cided not to part from it. Hope you don’t mind.”

“You killed them?” Douglas said.

“Not all – Just them two. Didn’t have enough rope to keep them settled and out of trouble, and to be honest, I didn’t care for their attitude – This here is Craig Cornhole – He’s agreed to take us to your Mr. Miller.”

“Cornwall,” Craig said. “Don’t kill me – Please.”

“No one’s going to kill you,” I said.

“Not tonight, anyhow,” Piney added. “You said, some mean things about good Kate that I ain’t likely to forget once we’re done with Miller, so I wouldn’t take breathing for granted if’n I was you.”

“I didn’t say nothing – They did – The ones you killed – And they was just joshing – We didn’t know she was your lady.”

Piney grabbed the boy by the hair and yanked his head back. “You don’t tell no rude jokes about my good Kate, you hear me? Whether she’s my lady or not. Woman’s a saint, and she wouldn’t never touch the likes of you or any man that runs with Miller. Your lies ain’t funny in the littlest. Didn’t none of you fill her heart or her loins like you said, – ”

“Okay, okay – It’s not – No one had a romp with her – I swear, and it wasn’t me that said, it – It was Wallace and you done cut his throat for it.”

Piney leave go his hair. “And that’s why you’re the one I kept a-breathing. Wallace told the lie and the other one laughed it up. They’re onto their maker now – And he’s likely to be sending them packing for what they said on good Kate. But don’t think I didn’t hear you give a giggle on the matter.”

I set on the tree fall. “How long you been with Miller?”

“Six – Eight months,” the boy answered.

“How’d you join up?”

“His man – Stockton – He caught me scavenging metal from his raiders camp outside Iowa City. Blacksmith traded money for iron. Daddy died in the war. Momma struggles to find seamstress work – I was out collecting what I could – Got snatched. Brought out here – I swear I don’t know nothing about Kate.”

I put my hand on his shoulder. “That’s good Kate – And you can settle yourself. This is the best day you’ve ever had.”

“Mister – I ain’t one to argue, but I’ve had better days than this.”

“We’re gonna get you home.”

“Again, not to disagree, but Mr. Miller – Mr. Stockton – They ain’t about to let that happen. Once you get put in the Miller men. You’re a Miller man for life.”

“Tell that to my brother and me. We got out. Took a war to get us out, but we got out just the same.”

“You ran with Mr. Miller?”

“We did, and we’re here to bring that sumbitch to his end of days.”

Craig switched his glare from me to Douglas and then said, “I wouldn’t be opposed to that.”