Chapter 1

The Civil War hadn't really meant much to us in Texas, at least it hadn't meant much to me. We didn't own any slaves and didn't want any. Our small cattle spread didn't take a lot of help and all the while Dad, my brothers Tom and Jack, and I had been able to get things done. Someone in Texas must have had or wanted slaves, or something. Texas seceded from the Union and joined the war.

Talk about a stupid move, there was one for you. I was even stupider. I joined the Confederate Army along with plenty more young fools and was off to war. Eighteen years old and I was off to fight the Yankees. Shit, I wasn't even mad at 'em.

It wasn't long before I was mad enough at Sergeant Jackson though, and then I was mad at Lieutenant Johnson, and pretty soon mad at the whole army I was in. I guess some of our folks knew what they were doing, but no one around me did. After the first two little dust-ups I knew that I'd be leaving the war as a dead man if I stayed with this bunch of morons. Yammering about the wonderful Southern way of life, honor, and dignity.

Those Yankees didn't give a damn about honor, dignity, or any of that bullshit at all. They wanted to kill us and go back home. To me it seemed Jackson and Johnson wanted to help them get the job done soonest.

I took all I could stand of them preaching about fighting to the bitter end for the cause. Fuck the cause. The other dumb bastards could fight for it. I wanted to live over the war and by now I knew that I'd have a hell of a lot easier time doing it with a blue uniform than with a gray one. During guard duty one dark cloudy night I carried my ass.

It was only a few miles to a union camp and I made my way there. The young idiot on guard duty nearly shit himself when I surrendered. It's a fucking wonder he didn't shoot me by accident. Eventually he settled down, took my guns, and led me to his Sergeant. Finally I'd come up on someone in a uniform that wasn't a complete fool. Later I'd learn how rare that was.

Turns out that I wasn't the first good old boy who had come to his senses. They didn't tell me who any of the others were and I didn't recognize anyone, but the Captain that questioned me let me know that there'd been some others swapping gray uniforms for those nice new blue ones lately. After I'd convinced him that I'd seen the error of the Confederate ways and that I knew now that preserving the Union was the way it had to be he swore me into the U S Army. They didn't let me stay with the group I'd surrendered to though.

Two days later I was a hundred miles away and the only ones that really knew that I'd come from the other side were my new Sergeant, O'Riley, and my new Lieutenant, Rosterman. A week later I learned that I hadn't got away from the Rebs a minute too soon.

My X Lieutenant, Johnson and my X Sergeant, Jackson had tried to pull off a bold but stupid nighttime raid. All but two of the poor bastards with them had given their all for the cause and the two who lived were shot up bad. Did I feel guilty? Not by a fucking long shot. I felt smart and better yet, I could still feel and I didn't have any holes in my hide. Fuck the cause and free those poor noble darkies, those were my new words to live by and heavy on the living part. Slavery just wasn't right, especially if I had to die to keep it going.

I wasn't even pissed at all about my demotion to foot soldier. I'd rather be riding a horse instead of walking of course, but being able to lie down and shoot from cover had its own advantages. Especially after O'Riley noticed that unlike most of those around me, I could usually hit what I shot at.

I spent the next sixteen months mostly laying behind cover and poking holes in good old boys from Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. I did my best to concentrate on the officers when I could. They were the bastards who were so anxious to give their all for the cause and I was more than happy to help them along.

It was all over but the singing and slow walking by April of eighteen sixty-five, but they didn't turn me loose until June. They promised if I waited around that eventually they could provide me transportation home, but I kindly declined.

In the first place I didn't want to sit on my ass around in Virginia for what would no doubt be months, and in the second, I didn't want to arrive home in style while those that had stayed with the cause had to walk. I could see there might be some hard feelings somewhere along the line.

I was better off than those poor bastards that stuck to their original side by a good way. Hell, the Union Army actually paid me in real money and for a few bucks they let me keep my perfectly useable Spencer carbine, my more accurate but slower firing Sharp's, and my only recently acquired Remington New Model 1863 44 revolver. They even sold me all the amunition I wanted for dirt cheap. They had plenty now. I was a little pissed that I hadn't been able to keep my saber from my first incarnation as a Confederate Gentleman in the glorious Cavalry, but I hadn't seen that since the night I surrendered.

They paid me off, made me take off the emblems and patches from my uniform, and bid me a fond farewell. I lit out walking but I didn't head home. Go west young man. I'd heard that somewhere and it sounded like a good idea at the time.

Two weeks of looking around in every little town I came to finally found me a horse good enough to buy, a mule that was worth the price, and a saddle good enough to ride. It would have been easy to find a McClellan for nearly nothing but I'd already done all the time in one of those bastards I wanted to. I splurged and bought a brand new saddle from a small shop. The owner had made the saddle and it was a good one.

Just because I didn't want another McClellan ball buster didn't mean I turned up my nose at all the war equipment that was on the market now. I bought another Spencer and two more Remingtons from mustered out soldiers that were short of drinking money. Hell, one of the Remingtons looked like it had never even been fired.

Even though they'd let me keep my uniform and it was serviceable enough, I got out of it as soon as I could. I hadn't been broke when I converted myself to a union soldier and I had more sense than to spend my Union pay on whores and shitty whiskey. I wasn't that much a fan of jacking off, but it was a hell of a lot cheaper and even healthier than that. Being a soldier with a case of the clap wasn't one of my lifelong ambitions. So when I was mustered out and paid off I had more than the usual unemployed soldier and I could afford some normal looking clothes.

I was heading west but in no real hurry to get there, nor had I any real destination in mind. After a few weeks I did decide to head for Independence Missouri to see about tagging along with a wagon train. I didn't know a thing about looking for gold but neither had thousands of the others that had gone that way with that very thing in mind for years. I did know something about cattle though and all those looking for gold would need something to eat whether they found any or not. I figured I could find something to do that would pay my way for a while and there was a lot of country out that way to see.

When I got to Independence I was surprised. I'd had hints from others I talked to while traveling but the reality of the place was more than I'd expected. There were a hell of a lot of people heading west and a lot of them were stuck in Independence trying to get enough of an outfit together to make the trip.

I did what I'd been doing for the last ten months or so; I wandered around trying to get a handle on what was going on. I did very little talking and a lot of listening. It was late April of 1866 and I learned there weren't nearly as many people here this year as there had been being. The railroads were well on their way to providing an easy trip west and it seemed that wagon trains would probably peter out all together within another year or two.

I was here now though and I had my mind made up to go west. I hadn't decided whether I'd go to Oregon or California or somewhere in between but wherever west I was going this was the place to get started.

With a horse and a good pack mule I'd been picking up this and that as I worked my way this far. Knowing that things would come dear out close to the jumping off point, I'd spent considerable time during my wandering in stocking up. I didn't have enough for a trip by myself though, and if I couldn't find someone that needed to hire a hand along the way I would pay dearly for any supplies I needed to buy.

At least now a days there were supplies to be had. It must have been a lot tougher earlier on when you had to make do with whatever you could bring along from the first. There still weren't any really big towns or cities between here and there but at least now some trading posts had sprung up. They would probably fade out too once the railroad got finished, unless they happened to be near the train's right-of-way.

I found out that the local law around Independence looked long and hard at strange mounted men. It wasn't that they intentionally gave me a hard time, but I was questioned about my plans more than once. Experience with thieves and cheats trying to make off with some of the migrants money or stores had probably taught them to be cautious. I passed muster somehow though and after a couple of days they left me alone.

I had a stroke of good luck while hunting a livery stable to take care of my horse and mule. There was a man asking around for someone to drive a wagon. I heard him talking to the livery's wrangler about it and so I just jumped in and volunteered that I might be interested in the job. He gave me a long looking over and then asked me to come on to a nearby saloon to sit down and talk about it.

He got a beer at the bar and then we sat down at a table.

"I'll buy you a beer if you're tapped out," he said.

"I'm not. I don't drink beer or whiskey. I've heard it's an acquired taste and I never acquired it. Don't seem like I've missed out on much so far."

"You may have a point," he said.

Bill Arceneaux was from Southern Louisiana. He said that before the war he'd had a small sugar cane plantation but he admitted all that was gone now. He'd had to turn his slaves loose and sell his place for whatever he could get out of it. He was taking his wife and family out to California now and he planned to try his hand in the shipping business once he was settled out there.

There was Bill, his wife, two daughters, a cook, the cook's daughter and a hired man with him. He told me that the cook, her daughter, and the hired man had been his slaves before the war but that now they were hired help. I didn't care that much whether they were hired or not. If he still treated them like slaves we'd probably have a run in sooner or later, but to tell the truth, I'd switched sides to save my own hide. It wasn't like I'd taken up freeing the slaves as a religion. Still, I'd come to think it was the right thing to do after a while, and the Union had won the war.