Chapter 6

Jeb said, as we sat in the kitchen drinkin' coffee, "I seen ya let yer niggers use guns. Don't take that as criticism, cuz I seen how it worked out."

"Fuck, man! Do ya think I let them sit around with a thumb up their ass while my women wuz in danger of gittin' raped or killed? Hell, no. Ifen I feed an' house 'em, they're gonna fight fer me. They agree that it's fair, soz I don't git no argument. Besides, they know they're better off here than they would be most places."

"Ya got a point. I wonder ifen I could do the same with my niggers? A big bunch like what hit yer place today would be too much fer my wife an' two boys. They kin all shoot, but I don't have the benefit of the fence that y'all do. I got two niggers, well, three ifen ya count the woman what's the cook, and six fighters could make a big difference ifen I wuzn't around. I think I better look inta followin' yer lead."

"I recommend it. Ya treat yer niggers right an' they'll treat ya right. Jus' so long as ya don't do nothin' mean to 'em, they'll be as loyal as ya could want. I'd trust mine as much as I would ya an' Jethro, an' ya know how I feel 'bout y'all."

"Shit, Jeff, now I know I got ta look inta teachin' my niggers ta shoot. I've always been fair ta 'em, soz I guess that I could trust 'em with guns. Thanks fer the lesson, I shore appreciate it."

That little dust up we had with the Jayhawkers got me ta thinkin' that pistols are nice fer very close range work, but my people needed repeatin' rifles ta do the best job of defendin' theirselves. I went inta town come Saturday ta see ifen I could find the kind of rifles I wanted. I did find three Henrys, soz I bought them on the spot. I figured that they would do fer Rastus, Josiah, an' Inez. Jane wuz right dab with her Spencer, so I figured that she could stay with that fer now, an' I would stick with my Spencer, too, since the shorter barrel wuz a mite more convenient fer use on a hoss. Still, I asked the shopkeeper ta see ifen he could get three more of the Henrys. I figured he could, since I wuz willin' ta pay fer 'em with gold an' silver, an' not that worthless Confederate paper.

The shopkeeper did ask me why I needed so many rifles, soz I winked at him as said, "I'm a collector." He laughed real hard at that an' dropped the subject. He knew what I wuz doin', but he wuz smart enough ta keep his mouth shut on thin's what didn't concern him.

That afternoon, I started shooting classes with the rifles. Rastus an' Josiah didn't have no trouble, but Inez had trouble with the recoil. She was a small woman, so the heavy recoil of the Henry was puttin' a bad bruise on her shoulder. After half an hour, it became obvious that the Henry was jus' too much fer somebody as small as her. I handed her my Spencer an' asked her to give it a try. It was still a problem, but not near as bad as the Henry, so I asked Jane ta swap with Inez. Jane had no problem with the big Henry an' enjoyed the feel of the big gun. She also wuz able to make the switch real easy-like, soz that settled it. Jane, Rastus, an' Josiah used the Henrys an' Inez used the Spencer.

All of 'em knew what shootin' wuz all about, soz none of 'em had any trouble learnin' ta handle their new rifles. By the second day, all four of 'em wuz doin' fine. Any raiders what came around, now, wuz in fer a nasty surprise!

We wuz now in early 1865, an' even the dumbest Rebel could tell that the Union wuz 'bout ta end this here silly War what those fools in South Carolina had started just' ta prove that they had bigger balls than anybody else. A lot of the folks in our area wuz in a hurry fer the War ta end soz we could get back ta livin' like human bein's again. Our biggest worry wuz what wuz gonna happen when the Union Army moved back in an' started runnin' thin's again. Only a fool believed that there wouldn't be a passel of changes.

The thing that I wuz worried 'bout wuz what the Jayhawkers an' the Bushwhackers would do once their cover of bein' guerrillas wuz gone. Oh, shore, some of them would go home an' turn back into peaceful farmers, but I figured that the most of them bastards wuz gonna keep on stealin' an' killin' as long as they could get away with it. Well, 'bout all we could do wuz ta keep our guard up soz we wouldn't git caught by surprise.

Oh, shit, the Jayhawkers is makin' a push through the county tryin' ta steal as much as they kin afore the war is officially over. Jethro's place wuz hit an' his place wuz overrun afore he could light his signal fires. His wife, his 11-year-old daughter, an' his two nigger women slaves wuz raped ta death. He, his 9-year-old son, an' his two nigger men slaves wuz stood against the wall of his barn an' shot.

The way we found out bout all this wuz I had sent Rastus ta Jethro's place ta return a stump puller we had borrowed a week earlier. Rastus wuz drivin' the buckboard, soz he had ta stick ta the road. He must of come up on Jethro's house jus' after them bastards had left. He went through the house an' out-buildin's pretty much on a dead run an' quickly figured out what had happened. Jeb's place wuz on the way, so he stopped ta tell him that he had better git his family an' slaves ta my place as quick as he could soz they'd have a chance ta survive. It looked like there wuz 50 raiders in that gang, an' there wuz no way he could stand 'em off by hisself.

Jeb agreed an' jus' barely escaped the lead elements from the raiders. Jeb's badly frightened people pulled out in two wagons as the first of the raiders rode in. They didn't chase Jeb's wagons, but stopped off ta loot the house, first. Jus' by that stroke of luck wuz Jeb an' his folks able ta escape an' git ta my place.

Rastus made it back 'bout 15 minutes ahead of Jeb, soz we knew ta expect him an' the kind of fight we had ta face. We had time to git ready fer the attack we expected, soz we were better off than everybody else what had been hit by these damned raiders. Since I had been expectin' this ta happen, we wuz ready with some surprises fer the raiders.

Fer one thing, I had gotten the other three Henry rifles two weeks ago, so now everybody wuz armed with a rifle. Martha had the same problem as Inez, so she wuz using my Spencer an' I had switched ta a Henry. That gave us two extra Henrys I could loan out ta a couple of Jeb's people, if necessary. We had plenty of ammunition fer both rifles an' enough powder an' ball fer all the pistols.

We had cleared out a lot of the trees in front of our house—that wuz what we had been usin' the stump puller fer. We got rid of all of the trees what wuz close to the house, so there wuzn't any convenient tree trunks ta hide behind while they wuz shootin' at us.

I had another surprise waitin', too. I had spotted some moderate sized cast iron pots at the general store what had lids what could be fastened down tight. I filled the pots with a mixture of gunpowder an' buckshot an' rigged a fuse arrangement on the lid. There wuz a hole through the lid fer the fuse ta git through ta the powder. The fuze wus lit by a handful of pistol caps arranged on top of the fuse so that they could be set off by a rifle bullet. We hung these bombs in the few trees we left in places where we could shoot at the fuses from the house. Ifen we could set off one of them bombs where a bunch of the raiders wuz standin', they never would know what hit 'em. I wuz hopin' they would think that we had artillery ta use on 'em.

'Bout 45 minutes after Jeb's people showed up, the raiders first appeared. We were as prepared as we would ever be, soz we wuz drinkin' coffee an' talkin' while we waited fer them. Now, I'm a damned good shot with a rifle, but Jane is even better, soz when they got close enough ta be sure we wouldn't miss, the two of us took pot shots at the men we figured fer leaders.

I don't know what the raiders thought 'bout it, but we wuz right pleased ta see the two men fall from their saddles an' not move when they hit the ground. It wuz about 20 yards between our front steps an' the gate in the fence, an' the men we shot wuz about 30 yards beyond that. Now, this wuz respectable shootin', though nothin' real spectacular.