Billy gestured at the wagon where the mules were happily lounging in their harnesses. “Just took a load of deer hides down to the tanyard in the holler. Old man Russell’s going to give half to cover Paw’s debts at the tavern. Ain’t much in the way of money these days. Mostly it’s just what they call scrip printed up by Governor Rector down to Little Rock.”
That brought laughter from the men on the porch. “At least you got hides to trade,” the lean one called. “We barely got spit.”
“Heard the army was back. Heard some was making camp in Cross Hollow.”
“We’re mustered out,” Danny told him, walking over to run a hand down the off mule’s sweaty flank as he absently inspected the harness. “Soldiering ain’t what they say it is, Billy. Hell, up to yesterday, we was gonna hang ol’ Du Val. He’s the paymaster. Or supposed to be. Till yesterday we hadn’t seen a dollar. And they was gonna transfer us from the State Army to the Confederacy. Ship us off out of the state. For three years, if you can believe?”
“Like hell they was!” a skinny youth wearing britches with the knees out cried.
“So … what’s next?” Billy asked.
Danny shrugged. “Anything but the army, that’s sure.”
“Huzzaw, huzzaw!” called one of the men on the porch as he lifted his tin cup in a toast.
Billy shot his friend a sidelong look. “You all ain’t sounding like the steely-eyed victors of that Oak Hill battle. Heard you made Wilson’s Creek run red with Federal blood.”
“Billy, I ain’t never been so tired, so hot, so thirsty, so footsore, so cold, or so scared as I been in the last three months.” Danny’s fingers on the mule’s side might have been like feathers, so lightly did they stroke. “What happened up on Wilson’s Creek? That battle? You remember Jackson Darrow?”
“Married Shirley Winston.”
“He was no farther from me than you is now. We’s headed up that bloody hill right into the Federal guns. Solid shot from Federal artillery hit him square in the head.” Danny’s fingers rose from the mule to press into Billy’s forehead just above his nose. “A jagged chunk of bone blasted out of Jackson’s skull and cut my scalp. Spattered his blood and brains on my right side. Saw the air filled with a red haze as his body dropped to the ground. There wasn’t nothing in his head, Billy. Just the empty bottom of his skull from his ears on down.”
Billy had felt a crawling sensation at Danny’s touch, as if his own skull had been in Federal gun sights.
Danny averted his face, as if away from the memory, his features twitching as if they itched. “Ain’t nothing like the sound of war. The roar of the guns … rifles and pistols firing. Men screaming and shouting, and blubbering, and praying. Exploding shells. A thousand bullets whistle and shriek in the air. And the smoke … the hell-stink of smoke … and blood … and busted-open guts.”
The men on the porch had gone silent, listening, a couple of them nodding.
“What about John Gritts?” Billy asked.
Danny seemed to shake his stun away. “Hit in the leg. Heard they took him to Springfield with the rest of the wounded. ‘Old Ben’”—as General McCulloch’s troops called him—“started us home right smart, not wanting to leave us in Missouri.”
The blond loudly insisted, “That Missouri bunch under General Price? They’s a thieving bunch of weasels. Saw a bunch of them run from the fighting.”
“And don’t fergit them that was robbing our dead and wounded,” the thin-faced man on the porch declared hotly. “Taking the guns and watches and personals off wounded Arkansans. Right there in front of us.”
“And they stole a bunch of our guns, too,” another added. “Me, I ain’t never fighting for no Missouri bastard’s freedom again.”
Grunts of assent and the clicking of cups and tankards emphasized their sentiment.
“How bad was John Gritts hit?” Billy endured a sinking sensation.
“Hard, Billy. Minié ball took out a big chunk of the bone just up from the knee.”
“Think he’s alive?”
“Don’t know.” Danny averted his eyes, going back to running his fingers down the mule’s short-haired red hide.
“Anyone else you know of?”
Danny barely nodded. “You remember Hank Adamson?”
“Told him I’d whip his ass if’n he ever come sniffing around Sarah again.”
“Well, he ain’t gonna be sniffing around nobody no more. Case shot tore him clean in half. His innards was strung across the grass for twelve feet from his chest to what was left of his hips and legs.”
Danny’s words stuck down inside Billy like cobwebs on his soul. They haunted him as he climbed back on the wagon and took the familiar Huntsville Road back to the valley.
As he lay in his bed that night, listening to the crickets and the whippoorwill, he pressed lightly on his abdomen, wondering what that would be like to be blown apart and have his guts strewn along like bloody rope.
One thing’s sure. They ain’t never gonna make me into no soldier.
But then he really didn’t need to worry. The war was over. Ben McCulloch had whipped the Federals at Wilson’s Creek.
7
September 10, 1861
“If you would know and understand Cicero,” Paw had recently said, “you must make the acquaintance of Thomas Hindman. As an orator, visionary, and patriot, Hindman is Cicero incarnate.”
The words had stuck in Butler’s head. He had been at loose ends, wondering about which regiment to join. Upon hearing that Congressman Hindman had arrived in Little Rock, Butler decided it was his sign from the gods that here was an opportunity to be seized.
“I don’t always see eye to eye with the man, slave-owner as he is, but I did Hindman a great service one night,” Paw had claimed. “The man owes me his life.”
Butler had applied all of his calligraphic talents as he labored over the sheet of foolscap
