The Good Lord Bird

I don’t know what it is, but every time the Old Man started talking holy, just the mention of his Maker’s name made him downright dangerous. A kind of electricity climbed over him. His voice become like gravel scrapin’ a dirt road. Something raised up in him. His old, tired frame dropped away, and in its place stood a man wound up like a death mill. It was most unsettling thing to see, and the officer got unnerved by it. “I ain’t here to debate you on the premise,” he said. “Tell your men to lay down their arms, and there won’t be no trouble.”

“Don’t want none. Does your work include taking prisoners and exchanging them?” the Old Man asked.

“Yes, it does.”

“I got seventeen prisoners here from Black Jack. I could have killed them directly, for they was intent on taking my life. Instead I am bringing them to Fort Leavenworth for your justice. That ought to be worth something. I want my boys who is held there and nothing more. If you will take these prisoners in exchange for them, I will call it a square deal and hand myself over to you without a fight or harsh word. But if you don’t, you will be worm food, sir. For I am in service of a Greater Power. And my men here will aim for your heart and no one else’s. And while we are outnumbered here two to one, your death will be certain, for they will aim for you alone, and after that, you will suffer the death of a thousand ages, having to explain to your Maker the support of a cause that has enslaved your fellow human beings and entrapped your soul in a way you know not. I have been chosen to do His special work and I aim to keep that charge. You, on the other hand, have not been chosen. So I am not going with you to Fort Leavenworth today, nor am I leaving this territory, until my boys are freed.”

“Who are they?”

“They are Browns. They had nothing to do with any killings in this area. They came here to settle the land and have lost everything, including their crops, which were burned by the very rebels you see before you.”

The officer turned to Pate. “Is that true?” he asked.

Pate shrugged. “We did burn these nigger-stealer’s crops. Twice. And we will burn their homes if we get the chance, for they are lawbreakers and thieves.”

That changed up the officer, and he said, “That sounds like a pretty rotten piece of business.”

“Is you Pro Slave or Free State?” Pate asked.

“I’m U.S. State,” the officer snapped. “Here to enforce the territorial laws of the United States government, not Missouri or Kansas.” He now turned his gun on Pate and said to Brown, “If I carry your prisoners back to Leavenworth, can I trust you to stay here?”

“So long as you bring my sons back in exchange for ’em.”

“I cannot promise that, but I will speak to my superior officer about it.”

“And who would that be?”

“Captain Jeb Stuart.”

“You tell Captain Stuart that Old John Brown of Osawatomie is here at Prairie City awaiting his sons. And if they are not back here in exchange for these prisoners in three days, I will burn this territory.”

“And if they do come back? Would you surrender yourself?”

The Old Man folded his hands behind his back.

“I would do that,” he said.

“How do I know you’re not lying?”

The Old Man held up his right hand. “You have it here before God that I, John Brown, will not leave here for three days while I wait for you to bring my boys back. And I will surrender myself to the will of Almighty God upon their return.”

Well, the officer agreed and set off.

The Old Man was lying, of course. For he didn’t say nothing about surrendering himself to the U.S. government. Anytime he said something about the will of God, it meant he weren’t going to cooperate or do nothing but as he saw fit. He had no intentions of leaving Kansas Territory or turning himself in or paying attention to what any white soldier told him. He would tell a fib in a minute to help his cause. He was like everybody in war. He believed God was on his side. Everybody got God on their side in a war. Problem is, God ain’t tellin’ nobody who He’s for.

8. A Bad Omen

The Old Man said he’d wait three days for the federals to bring his boys back. He didn’t get to wait that long. The very next morning, a local feller, friendly to our side, come charging in on his horse, breathless, and told him, “The Missourians got a column heading to burn down your homestead.” That was Brown’s Station, where the Old Man and his boys had staked out claims and built homes, near Osawatomie.

The Old Man considered it. “I can’t leave till the federals come back with John and Jason,” he said. “I gived my word. I can’t go back home and face their wives with empty palms.” Some of his son’s wives wasn’t too fond of the Old Man for pulling their husbands into the war and getting ’em damn near kilt—in fact, before it was over, some of ’em was kilt outright—over the slavery question.