The Good Lord Bird

Only when they was disarmed did they learn to whose hands they had fallen in, for they hadn’t known it was the Old Man they was shooting at. When the Old Man walked up and grumbled, “I’m John Brown of Osawatomie,” several panicked and looked to sprout tears, for the Old Man in plain view was a frightening sight. After months in the cold woods, his clothes was tattered and worn, so you could see the skin underneath. His boots was more toes than anything. His hair and beard were long and scraggly and white and nearly to his chest. He looked mad as a wood hammer. But the Old Man weren’t the monster they thought he was. He lectured several on their cussing and gived them a word or three on the Bible, which plain wore ’em out, and they calmed down. A few even bantered with his men.

Me and Bob tended to the wounded while the Old Man and his boys disarmed Pate’s troops. There was a great many of them rolling on the ground in agony. One feller received a bullet through the mouth that tore away his upper lip and shattered his front teeth. Another, a young boy no more than seventeen or so, lay in the grass, moaning. Bob noticed he was wearing spurs. “You think I can have them spurs, since you won’t be needing them no more?” Bob asked.

The boy nodded, so Bob stooped down to take them off, then said, “There’s only one spur here, sir. Where’s the other?”

“Well, if one side of the horse goes, the other must,” said the boy. “You won’t need but one.”

Bob thanked him for his kindness, took his one spur, and the feller expired.

Up at the top of the ravine, the rest of the men had gathered their prisoners, seventeen in all. Among them was Captain Pate himself and Pardee, who had it out with Bob after he was tried by Kelly and his gang near Dutch’s. He spotted Bob among the Captain’s men and couldn’t stand it. “I should’a beat the butt covers off you before, ya black bastard,” he grumbled.

“Hush now,” the Old Man said. “I’ll have no swearing ’round me.” He turned to Pate. “Where is my boys John and Jason?”

“I ain’t got ’em,” Pate said. “They are at Fort Leavenworth, under federal dragoons.”

“Then we will go there directly and I will exchange you for them.”

We set off for Fort Leavenworth with the prisoners, their horses, and the rest of the horses that Pate’s men left behind. We had enough horses to stock a horse farm, maybe thirty in all, along with mules, and as much of Pate’s booty as we could carry. Myself, I made off with two pairs of pants, a shirt, a can of paint, a set of spurs, and fourteen corncob pipes I was aiming to trade. The Old Man and his boys didn’t take a thing for themselves, though Fred helped hisself to a couple of Colts and a Springfield rifle.

It was twenty miles to Fort Leavenworth, and on the way Pate and the Old Man chatted easily. “I’d just as soon aired you out,” Pate said, “if I had known that was you standing down there in that ravine.”

The Old Man shrugged. “You missed your chance,” he said.

“We ain’t gonna reach the fort,” Pate said. “This trail is full of rebels looking for you, aiming to collect on your reward.”

“When they come, I’ll make sure my first charge is in your face,” the Old Man said calmly.

That quieted Pate up.

Pate was right, though, for we got about ten miles down the road, near Prairie City, when an armed sentinel in uniform approached. He rode right at us, shouting, “Who goes there?”

Fred was in the lead and he hollered out, “Free State!”

The sentry spun his horse ’round, hurried back down the trail, and reappeared with an officer and with several U.S. dragoons, heavily armed. They was federal men, army men, dressed in flashy colored uniforms.

The officer approached the Old Man. “Who are you?” he asked.

“I’m John Brown of Osawatomie.”

“Then you are under arrest.”

“For what?”

“For violating the laws of Kansas Territory.”

“I don’t abide by the bogus laws of this territory,” the Old Man said.

“Well, you will abide by this,” the officer said. He drawed his revolver and pointed it at the Old Man, who stared at the revolver in disdain.

“I don’t take it personal your threats on my life,” the Old Man said calmly. “For you are given orders to follow. I understand you have a job to do. So go ahead and drop the hammer on that thing if you want. You will be a hero to some in this territory if you do it. But should you burst a cap into me, your life won’t be worth a plugged nickel. You will be food for the wolves come evening, for I got a charge to keep from my Maker, Whose home I hope to make my own someday. I done no harm to you and will not. I will let the Lord have you, and that is a far worse outcome than any that you can put forth with what you holding in your hand, which compared to the will of our Maker, ain’t worth a fingernail. My aim is to free the slaves in this territory no matter what you do.”

“On whose authority?”

“The authority of our Maker, henceforth and forevermore known as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.”