Chapter 19

I quietly rode away so as not to attract attention. About an hour later, I rode back to report on the water that I had found. It was hard not to laugh, but everybody was keeping quiet about the confrontation only an hour earlier. It was as if they were trying to keep the news of the encounter from me for fear that I would disapprove. Of course, I didn't disapprove, but I wanted them to bring up the subject. Well, I was disappointed, because nobody said a word. I had wanted them to say something so that I could tell them how proud I was of them, but it looked like I would have to wait for another time to do that.

We moved on and went for four more days before we had another bit of trouble. By this time, we had found our rhythm, so that we were already getting up to 20 miles per day. I was surprised that we were doing so well, but it was bound to end, I suppose. We had come to a good place to stop and were just pulling into our defensive box when about 30 white men rode up. They were led by a man who claimed to be the sheriff and was wearing a badge, so I guessed that he really was the sheriff of the county.

Anyway, he said that we could not camp there. It was private property and the owner didn't want any niggers on his property. He talked to Janet and Joe Henry, who was acting as wagonmaster. It was obvious that he expected to bully and bluster them to get his way, but the both surprised him by refusing to give in.

None of the White men who had ridden up had seen me, yet, so they assumed that Janet was the only White with the train of Negroes. For some stupid reason, the sheriff appeared to think that Janet must be whoring around among the Negroes, because he started ordering her to get her "sorry ass away from them no account niggers."

This just made Janet even madder, and she was awful close to blowing the sheriff to mincemeat with her shotgun. I was amazed and amused at the way she was stifling her seething anger. That sheriff was a dead man if he didn't shut up pretty damned soon.

A few of the Negroes in the train had already gotten their shotguns ready to fight, but I had to remind the rest that they were no longer slaves, and nobody else was going to fight for them. I was happy to see that, when I broke the stasis caused by years of the habit of subservience, they all moved to defend themselves.

Janet and Joe were doing an excellent job of stalling the sheriff and his posse, so the members of the wagon train had sufficient time to get the stock inside the wall of wagons and otherwise complete their defensive preparations. We were all waiting for the sheriff to run out of patience and draw his gun. That would be his last act before he died. As if it would impress his opponents, he announced that, not only was he sheriff of the county, he was the leader of the local chapter of the KKK, and every man here was a member of the chapter. That did it as far as the Negroes were concerned—if a fight started, they had no intention of giving quarter. It seemed that every word from the sheriff was just digging another spade of dirt from his grave.

Finally, the sheriff ran out of patience and reached for his gun. He had hardly moved when Janet fired her shotgun, blowing him from his saddle. The remaining members of the posse were so surprised to see the Grand Poobah defied like that, that they simply sat in place without moving. Before they could recover, Janet ordered them to leave before they, too, were shot. She did direct two of the nearest men to tie the sheriff to his horse and to take him with them when they left.

Janet had quickly reloaded, and the posse was still in shock, so they obeyed her without quibbling. To a man, they turned around and rode away. For safety's sake, we kept a guard mounted that night, but we were not bothered again for the next several days.

This was my opportunity to congratulate everybody for standing up for themselves and their rights. I was proud of them, and I told them so!

A week after this event, we were making our way toward home when, in my capacity as scout, I came upon a wagon with a broken wheel. At least, that was part of the reason the wagon was still there. The broken wheel was on the left rear corner, but on the left front corner was tied a naked Negro man about 40 years old. His back was a raw mass of welts and cuts, and a White man was standing near him with a whip in his hand. Four other White men were standing around, one of them holding a naked Negro woman around her chest so that both of his hands were holding her tits. The woman appeared to be about 20 years old. Another naked Negro woman, also around 40 years old, was lying unconscious in the road.

The Whites were discussing whether or not to continue the whipping when I got close enough to hear the conversation. To say that I was outraged at this scene did not express the half of it. I drew my pistol and didn't wait for an introduction before I started shooting. I shot the closer men first, so the man holding the whip had time to drop the whip and run for his horse. I let him get a few feet away from me and calmly shot him in the back in the region of his left kidney. That was a deliberate shot, since I did not want him to die too quickly, but I wanted it to be certain to be fatal. The man screamed as he fell, and I left him where he was.

I turned my attention to the man tied to the wheel. He was still alive, but barely. I cut him loose and laid him on the ground, face down, and made him as comfortable as possible. Next, I checked on the older woman. She was alive and basically unharmed, except for some scratches scattered about her body, but she had been raped, and the signs were that it had been done several times. I didn't quibble over how many times or how many men. Her, too, I tried to make as comfortable as possible.

Finally, I turned my attention to the younger woman. She had crumpled to a huddled mass on the road and was crying hysterically. I tried talking to her, I tried shaking her shoulder, and, as a last resort, I slapped her face before I could get her to acknowledge my existence. At that, not surprisingly, she tried to pull away from me, but she really had no place to run.

She continued to cry for a few more minutes, then she fainted. I didn't know if that was a good sign or a bad one, but I moved her into the shade beside the other woman and turned my attention back to the man. His back was a mess, but there were no bones showing through the chopped up skin and muscle. The man doing the whipping must have been a real expert with a lot of practice.

I couldn't do anything for the injured man, so I spent some time looting the bodies of the dead White men. There wasn't much in the way of money, as I had expected, but other valuables, such as their guns and better clothes, I tossed into the nearly empty wagon to give to the Negroes who had been attacked. There was a two-hour wait until the wagon train caught up to me, so I stood guard and brushed the flies away from the man's scarred back.

All three of the Negroes regained consciousness before the wagon train reached us, so I was able to find out from the older woman what had happened. She said that they had broken the wagon wheel and were preparing to fix it when the five White men had shown up. They claimed to be a patrol from the local KKK chapter that was sweeping the area for Negroes. Their plan was to chase out or kill all Negroes in the neighborhood, but this family was too good an opportunity to miss. They were in the process of "teaching the family a lesson" when I showed up. The five men had raped the mother and whipped the father just before I showed up. Their plan was to take the daughter back to their headquarters and keep her around long enough for every member of the KKK to rape her; then they would kill her. They would kill the two parents before they left the wagon.