The Good Lord Bird

By now the Old Man’s army had gotten bigger. There were at least twenty men setting about. Piles of arms and broadswords were leaned up against trees. The small lean-to tent I first saw was gone. In its place was a real tent, which, like everything there, was stolen for it was painted in the front with a sign that read Knox’s Fishing, Tackle, and Mining Tools. Out near the edge of camp, I counted fourteen horses, two wagons, a cannon, three woodstoves, enough swords to supply at least fifty men, and a box marked Thimbles. The men looked exhausted, but the Old Man looked fresh as a daisy. A week’s worth of white beard had growed on his chin, bringing it closer down to his chest. His clothes were soiled and torn worse than ever, and his toes protruded so far from his boots, they looked like slippers. But he moved spry and sprite as a spring creek.

“The killing of our enemies was ordained,” he said aloud, to no one in particular. “If folks ’round here read the Good Book, they wouldn’t lose heart so easily when pressing forth in the Lord’s purpose. Psalms seventy-two, four, says, ‘He shall judge the poor of the people, and save the children of the needy, and break into pieces the oppressor.’ And that, Little Onion,” he said sternly, pulling off the fire the pig that was now roasted clean through, and glancing around at the men who looked away, “tells you all you need to know. Gather ’round a moment as I pray, men, then my brave Little Onion here will help me serve this ragged army.”

Owen stepped forward. “Let me pray, Pa,” he said, for the men looked to be starving, and I reckoned they couldn’t stand an hour of the Captain doodling at the Almighty. The Old Man grumbled but agreed, and after we prayed and ate, he huddled with the others around his map, while Fred and I stayed away from them and cleaned up.

Fred, short as he was in his head, was terrific glad to see me. But he seemed worried. “We done a bad thing,” he said.

“I know it,” I said.

“My brother John who run off, we never found him. My brother Jason, too. We can’t find neither.”

“Where you think they gone?”

“Wherever they are,” he said glumly. “We gonna fetch ’em.”

“Do we got to?”

He glanced furtively at his Pa, then sighed and looked away. “I missed you, Little Onion. Where’d you run off to?”

I was about to tell him when a horse and rider charged into camp. The rider cornered the Old Man and spoke to him, and a few moments later, the Captain called us to order, standing in the middle of the camp by the fire while the men gathered around.

“Good news, men. My old enemy Captain Pate has a posse raiding homes on the Santa Fe Road and planning to attack Lawrence. He got Jason and John with him. They are likely to drop ’em at Fort Leavenworth for imprisonment. We going after them.”

“How big is his army?” Owen asked.

“A hundred fifty to two hundred, I’m told,” Old Man Brown said.

I looked around. I counted twenty-three among us, including me.

“We only got ammo for a day’s fight,” Owen said.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“What we gonna use when we run out? Harsh language?”

But the Old Man was already movin’, grabbing his saddlebags. “Lord’s riding on high, men! Remember the army of Zion! Mount up!”

“Tomorrow’s Sunday, Father,” Owen said.

“So what?”

“What say we wait till Monday and catch Pate then. He’s likely headed to Lawrence. He won’t attack Lawrence on a Sunday.”

“In fact, that’s exactly when he’ll attack,” the Old Man said, “knowing I’m a God-fearing man and likely to rest on the Lord’s day. We’ll ride up by way of Prairie City and cut him off at Black Jack. Let’s pray, men.”

Well, there weren’t no stopping him. The men gathered around him in a circle. The Old Man dropped to his knees, stretched out his hands, palms toward the sky, looking like Moses of old, his beard angling down like a bird’s nest. He commenced to praying.

Thirty minutes later Fred lay on the ground snoring, Owen stared into space, and the others milled about, smoking and doodling with saddlebags and scrawling letters home while the Old Man carried on, hollering up to the Anointed One with his eyes closed, till Owen finally piped out, “Pa, we got to ride! Jason and John is prisoner and headed to Fort Leavenworth, remember?”

That broke the spell. The Old Man, still on his knees, opened his eyes, irritated. “Every time I gets to the balance of my words of thanks to my Savior, I gets interrupted,” he grumbled, getting to his feet. “But I expect the God of Gods has understanding about the patience of the young, who don’t favors Him to the necessary ends so as to give Him proper thanks for blessings which He giveth so freely.”

With that, we saddled up and rode due north, to meet Captain Pate and his posse, and I was full-blown back in his army and the business of being a girl again.

7. Black Jack