Horrible Harvest

“Where does Miller put up? Where’s he lay his head at night?”

“A day’s ride  from here – Northwest.”

“How many of you boys is between here and there?”

“Two dozen – Scattered all about. Got cricks to the south and north. You’ll find us camped up and down both directions.”

“The others like you?”

“Like me, how?”

“Not in opposition to seeing Miller gone from this earth?”

“I’d say about half.”

“I don’t need no guessing. I need to know if you’ve had bona fide conversations with others about taking the man out.”

“I have – Half of the half. We’re all new to it. Don’t like it a bit. Life was hard with Momma, but it was preferable to this. The others got beat into liking it out here. I guess my beating hasn’t sunk in yet. Same with the others I mentioned.”

I give his claim some thought and then pult my blade from its sheath. “In one or two ways, I’m worse than Miller.” I moved the tip of the knife just inches from his left eye. “I do my own goddamn killing. He’s got him others that do it for him. And I’m gonna be right honest with you, I don’t just kill. I bring mountains of misery to those who cross me. You understand?”

He pult his head back and give a quick nod.

Piney grabbed the back of Craig’s head. “You hold your head still there, so my good friend here can put your eye out.”

“I won’t cross you. I swear.”

“I’m going to do something I don’t never do. Not ever. I’m going to take your word.” I put the blade to the rope that bound his hands, but before cutting, I said, “If you make me regret this, I’m going to let Piney here have at his favorite fun time.” I winked at Piney. “He’s going to cut your jimmies off and stuff them down your throat.”

Piney give a grin and said, “I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite, but by God, it’s up there.”

I cut his hands free. “Untie your legs.”

He quick-like did as told.

“Where’s your horses?”

“Ain’t got none. Had one, but Wallace shot it. Target practice. He missed. They’re ain’t but one horse at each lookout. I guess so’s we don’t just ride off.”

I give a nod. “Fine. You’ll share Piney’s mount.”

He looked none-too-pleased. “Share – I ain’t in need of a mount. I can run alongside.”

I give a furrow of my brow. “He ain’t gonna hurt you. You won’t hurt the boy, will you, Piney?”

“Not until you give me the go.”

The boy leaned over closer to me and whispered. “It ain’t that – He’s got an odor.”

“He does that,” I said. “You’ll get used to it.”

“Tate, let’s you and I get the horses.”

Tate give a nod, and we begun our trek back to the creek bank.

Once we dipped into the woods, he asked, “What do you have in mind?”

“We’ll gather us up an army of these boys unhappy with their current situation on our way to Miller’s.”

“But they’re just kids.”

“They are, yes, sir, but they’s better than nothing.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

“They can shoot a gun, they can be put to use.”

“But we’ll be throwing them against Miller’s hardest.”

“That we will.”

“Kids against killers? It’ll be a slaughter.”

“That’s the way of things – You should know that better than any fella out there.”

“We can’t do this.”

“Do you have a better goddamn idea?”

“Yeah. We’re out-gunned and out-manned either way. Let’s leave the young’uns out of it. Let’s just the three – four counting Piney – Let’s just the four of us get this thing done.”

“You said it yourself. There’s smart and there’s smarter. This here is the smarter. Craig and his cohorts will be the advance team. They’ll raise a fuss and confusion. We’ll use it as cover to get to Miller – Stockton – Charles.”

We reached the horses when he kicked up his objection to my plan. “I won’t do it. I’m not going to be a party to sending boys into die.”

“Then don’t fucking come. Didn’t nobody ask you to come along. Ride home. Get back to Momma. I hear tell you’re building a railroad in Charleston. You’ve got your own Rex to build. Leave me to burning down what’s left of Miller’s. You stay – You leave – It won’t change a goddamn thing. This boy army we’re to collect will go ahead to rouse things and cut a path for me to get to Charles.”

I started to ride away with Douglas’s horse in tow, but he give me a call out.

“You forgetting Stockton and Miller?”

I stopped. “I ain’t.”

“You didn’t say their names. You said a path to Charles.”

“They’ll all be dead by this time tomorrow. They won’t be left out. You can count on that.”

He climbed his mount and rode ahead of me.

“I told you to ride home – Back to Charleston.”

“I came here to do this thing. I’m going to do this thing.”

“You won’t change my mind. It’s going to happen like I said.”

“I’ve already changed your mind.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means that seeds need time to germinate.” With that, he galloped around the patch of woods, and I lost sight of him as he turned toward the campfire.

Our caravan of four horses and five travelers turnt northwest to the next camp. The grass was tall enough to give us cover as we stopped in a row, staring at the campfire ahead. There were four spotters in this group. They run and frolicked in front of the flames like children playing in a game of tag.

“Which is with us, which ain’t?” I asked Craig.

“Ben Mallory – Punch – He’ll be the smallest of the four. He cries for his parents almost every night. The older three there – They give him hell for it.”

We all ducked as we heard a gunshot go off. The oldest of the four stood on the other side of the fire with his pistol aimed at the sky, hooting like a goddamn lunatic.

“Shoot the stars, boys. Shoot the stars.”

They all raised their guns and fired blind into the air.

After the shooting stopped, I said, to Craig, “Dismount.”

He gladly separated himself from Piney’s stink.

“The three – They’re deep in it?”

“Deep in it?”

“Are they proud Miller men? They give the small one a hard time. Is that just older boys picking on a younger boy or are they hardcore Miller men?”

“Hardcore – They are – Mean as snakes.”

I nodded. “Good. Shoot’em.”

“Sir?”

“Walk up on them and shoot them. All three.”

He looked at the pistol on his hip that was almost as long as his thigh.

“You know how to shoot that thing?”

“Yes, sir. I do. Practice on it a good bit, but – ”

“Then you know how it works. Aim it at what you want to kill, cock the hammer, and pull the fucking trigger.”

“Am I to kill them?”

“The three we can’t trust to join us, yes.”

“You can’t ask the boy to do that,” Tate said.

“That does seem a bit much to ask,” Douglas added.

“A bit much? Boy, you sure have changed.”

“And so have you.”

“If Craig here wants to be free of all this, he’s gonna have to pay his dues. We’ve all lived hell – spilled plenty of blood – Killed others – These are the times – This is how you survive.”

“No – Goddamn it, no,” Tate said, through gritted teeth. “You’ve got things all perverted all to hell. – ”

“Where’s Piney?” Douglas asked.

We all zipped our heads around to the right and left. Piney was nowhere to be found.

“There,” Craig said, pointing to the campfire.

We peered through the darkness and watched as Piney rode up on the four boys. We heard him say one thing and then another and then he give a laugh. The four boys responded with soft laughter of their own. Even from as far away as we was, you could see they was full of unease.

Hiccup quick, Piney pulled his revolver, cocked the hammer, fired, cocked the hammer, fired, hammer, fired. The three older boys folded to the ground like piles of linen. The fourth one screamed and took off in a dead sprint towards us.

“Coming your way,” Piney shouted.

I jumped off my pale mare and intercepted the boy before he run past us. “Whoa – whoa – whoa there, little fella.”

The boy kicked and screamed as I held him by the back of the collar.

“We’re not going to hurt you?”

“That’s a hard sell,” Tate said.

“You ain’t helping,” I said.

“I’m just saying he just witnessed the world’s biggest skunk gun down three of his friends without provocation. Assuring him he won’t be hurt is likely falling on deaf ears.”

“Punch,” Craig said. “It’s okay. They’re with me.”

The small boy calmed at the sound of his friend’s voice. He breathed heavily and sobbed, but he didn’t fight no more.

“We’re getting out of here. We’re going to go home.”

Punch didn’t speak.

“You want to go home, don’t you?”

He nodded.

“Fine. We’re onto it then. These fellas got a plan. We’re gonna get all the others who want to go home and get out of here.”

Punch didn’t speak.

“They’re gonna kill Mr. Miller.”

He perked up. “Mr. Stockton, too?”

“Hell yeah, kid,” Douglas answered. “Mr. Stockton, too.”

I felt the fight ease from the boy, so I let loose his collar.

“You still got your horse?” Craig asked. “Please tell me you’ve still got your horse.”

Punch nodded. “Yeah. Still got him. He’s tied off down by the creek.”

“Thank goodness.”

“What’s wrong, kid? You don’t care for riding with me?” Piney said, as he approached on his draft horse in silence.

“What was that?” I asked him.

“Y’all was jabbering on about this and that. Meanwhile, they was reloading. I thought it best to get to it before they could fire back.”

I give a nod. “That’s fair.”

That was the rest of our night and early morning. We’d ride up on a camp, take out the unfriendlies and collect the rest for our army. When there was no more spotters between Miller and us, we’d collected a company of eleven boys no taller than nipple-high. The ones we’d killed was all older than I’d been when I was promoted to corporal, and they’d been wound tight around the Miller man way. Killing them was entirely unseemly and wholly necessary.