Chapter 2

It wasn't the only thing set to go though. Carolyn had a blacksmith on her ranch and she had him go over her big wagon and both the others looking for things needing fixing. She also had me tell him just how I wanted them fixed up. I asked him if he could put a hook onto the tongue of each wagon and strong loop onto the back of each one so they'd stay in line when we were traveling. Hell, he did it in only a couple of hours and then he had some of the hands hitch the mules and tried it out.

It worked out perfectly and since they had a good Jack on the place they had several big mules they could add to the bunch we had already.

Carolyn went down into town the next day to her lawyers place where the First Methodist Churcch closed a deal for her place. They paid her fifteen thousand in gold for her home and two thousand acres and we naturally took it in glod double eagles and she had her blacksmith make three stout iron boxes and attach them to the underside of the wagons.

Hell, we were set to go and the next morning we packed up, changed the mattress in the wedding wagon out for the one on Carolyn's bed and then headed out. We rode a ferry from Memphis into Arkansas and then heaed toward Missoouri from there. Even though we had the hook up installed already we drove the wagons separetly so all the women and girls plus Jimbo could practice driving the wagons.

Jimbo threw us a curve on the second day away from their home. He announced he was named Jakebo from now on and even though Carolyn cried a little at first she was one of the first to switch to calling him by his new name and I'll admit it made my eyes a little misty a time or two.

All my business hadn't been transacted at Carolyn's home while I was staying there. I'd found a good gunsmithe place in Memphis and I'd had every .44 calibre handgun we owned converted to fire the same .44 rimfires the Henrys used. I'd also had him go through all the actions to make sure they were right and i'd had him reduce the trigger pull a little. They werne't set on so called hair triggers but they were close and all the actions were as smooth as silk to operate, even in the double action firing.

As we passed through Memphis the last time Jimbo spotted something he wanted in the window of a store and so we pulled our long rig over and unassed it to go inside. He had spied a Greener in a window display and when we got inside it was a twelve gauge. I thought he was big enough to handle the smaller loads and I paid for it and a thousand shells right away. I even bought the nice saddle scabbard they had for it.

As we left West Memphis, the town on the Arkansas side the ferry let us off at, and got on out of town heading north I let Jimbo practice with one of the best and newest Henrys we had and he was a damned good shot. I also gave him one of the 44 conversions we had and he tried it out too.

We passed a deer browsing near the roadsice about two miles out of town and Jimbo showed me a trick he'd made up himself. We were riding in the front wagon and he took off toward the back of it, scrambled out of the canvas, hopped down onto the tongue of the following wagon and raced down it into the next wagon. I guess he pulled the same trick in the second wagon and he ended up in the rear one, picked up his new Greener, and shot the deer from the front seat of the third wagon.

I could barely keep from laughing at his antics when we stopped and I went to the back and gutted the deer and skinned it out. I tied it up to the last wagon to let it bleed out and we were on our way again.

We pulled off into the woods after the first day of travel and as I started the cook fire Jimbo started his campaign to have deer for supper. All the women told him of course we were going to eat the meat he provided for the family and they cooked every bit of it. It was more than we could eat, but the women said we could have it like jerky the next day and then put what was left into a stewpot and have a nice venison stew for supper tomorrow.

The next day was nice traveling, but as we got closer to the Missouri line I started worrying over the tales I'd heard of the raiders from Missouri during the war. Of couse the war was over, but even I knew there were some in Missouri who were unreconstructed as of yet. No matter how the war came out I was sure if there were former raiders around they would probably still be raiders at heart if not in deed.

We were about twenty miles from the Missouri line when we ran into our first shit. Of course we had all weapons loaded and I was watching the roadside closely. I happened to see a man chopping hell out of a tree near the road and so I pulled us to a stop. Sure enough the tree came down to block our way, the only bad part for them was a good part for us. We had stopped a quarter of a mile before we came to it.

Four men bailed out of the woods on horseback anyway and they turned our way with pistols in hand. Jimbo and I were firing Henrys at them right away and I had already told the women to get back into the wagon. Only two of the men made it even with our lead mules and both Jimbo and I picked up our Greners and let fly.

It was an awesome demonstration of why not to buck a shotgun head on. Since we'd aimed a little high to make sure we didn't hit our mules or their horses the last two were decapitated, but not in the normal way.

We didn't separate their heads from their bodies. It was more like we just erased their heads. Their bodies stayed upright on their horses for a few seconds, but they both spurted blood up from the stumps of their necks until they fell off. Jimbo was very excited since they were the first men he'd ever killed. He broke the Greener open and put in two more shells right away and we got down and walked toward the bodies. I was pushing new bullets into my Henry as we went.

We collected horses and everything off the dead men as we went but when we reached the place where the tree had been cut I saw a young boy sitting in the woods and he looked like he was crying. I walked over to him and asked what was wrong.

"That was my pa you killed, or one of them was. Ma told him not to try nothing so silly, but now he's dead and we won't even have him to hunt for our food." he said, and big tears were rolling down his cheeks.

"Come along with me son and get in the wagon back here. How far away do you live?" I asked.

"It's just about two miles up the road."

"Well come and show me which man was your pa," I said, and he did.

We took everything from all their pockets. I was intending to save what was in the boy's father's pockets but he didn't have anything. I picked him up and carried him to the last wagon and put him inside and laid him out.

I asked the boy if any of the others had been any kin to him and he told me they weren't so we stripped off their bodies and dragged them back into the woods. I had the boy get into the wagon seat with me on the first wagon and Jimbo came and got in beside him.

The boy showed us where to turn off to his place and it wasn't even a mile off the road. His mother came out into the yard when we got there and as Jimmy Carter would say much later, I had lust in my heart at once. The only trouble was I'd thought my heart was up in my chest and not down behind my zipper where the lust had started something.

We all unassed the wagons and the women were all crowded around the woman who we took to be Johnny's mother when I gave her the sad news. She cried at first and then bucked up.

"I told Frank we'd make it somehow without robbing folks who hadn't done us no ham but he kept listening to those other fools and just had to try it. I'm awful sorry for what they tried to do to you folks." Mary Jameson said to us.

The women were alreay over their mad over things now and they did their best to comfor the woman. I at least asked her if she had any preference where I should bury her husband, and she showed me a place behind the house so I got a shovel and started digging.

I called Mary Jameson out when I had her husband in the hole and she said a prayer over him and then the women went back into the house and I covered him up. His son watched the whole thing and only cried a little.

I had noticed the women going out to the wagons and bringing things inside while we were finishing up. When Johnny and I went into the house I could smell food cooking. I got another little shock when I went into the kitchen. Mary Jameson had a baby girl at her breast nursing.

"I guess Frank did at least do a little good getting killed. He let you kind folks find us here and share a meal with us. Maybe it'll let me keep my milk a little longer and it'll keep the baby from starving right away." Mary said.