These events that followed as the night ended and dawn broke will stay with me, I suppose, forever and ever. I can’t even recollect to going back to a time before that morning without seeing this affair unfold before me. I had to talk to Pa about it in a confident heart to heart talk because I was learning to figure my memories, and trying to make things add up so they could all make sense. He was shoveling dirt at the time.
I told Pa about how unfriendly Lieutenant Haines was, and although my support to him had been necessary, I didn’t feel it had been well-placed. Pa would nod as I spoke, and not say much at all, but would instead let me finish sorting out all my thoughts and memories. I could tell he at first was grieved by what I had had to do, and what I witnessed then at fourteen, but he just kept shoveling dirt, quietly.
Our group of eight riders had come back through their outer picket defense, and after some more time, we pulled off into a nearby stand of timber there on the Strickland’s farm. The lieutenant had us all dismount and ordered two guards and one regular soldier to stay put and hold the horses. He made sure the other five of us understood all that was to happen, so we set out and crossed the road and went into the nearby field of my Pa’s, the five of us moving quietly, and making off toward the barn at the far end.
I was staying close to Lieutenant Haines, like I was supposed to do, but all I wanted was to protest. Why was I needed then? I felt I had done my part as they could all find their way just fine from where we stood, but he would have nothing of it. Our barn was situated almost a half mile away, on the other side of the property, and we had a pretty good amount of old ruts and furrows to cross. The house I was born in stood there nearer to us and the road like a vacant sentry with no sign of life. I couldn’t help but look over that way and wonder what all my Ma and Pa were doing and thinking at that time.
We slowly made our way by crossing the field somewhat north of the barn all the way to back fencing and timberline that marked our boundary. This ran on south down behind the barn and then it turned eastward and ran up that way, marking a boundary for the adjoining field. The chicken coop stood about halfway between the barn and the house, with the wood shed attached there to it. Our old mule was tethered there so he could get some refuge in bad weather; besides, Pa said all that stink should stay put in that one place.
This whole time, the other men remained silent, so all the words spoken was when I was asked a question by the Lieutenant. I would only answer what I was supposed to, and a simple ‘I don’t know’ if he pricked any spot my Pa said nothing about. We were soon getting nearer to our positions as we crossed over and as the other three spread out behind us, the one Home Guard fell back and stopped. He didn’t go any further, and the Lieutenant with his two regular soldiers couldn’t coax him without a lot of noise, so we left him there to sneak on up toward the barn.
The morning would dawn on us soon and now all we could cover was the front and one side. It was getting so cold at that point I started to shiver, but I know fear had some influence on that too. We kept creeping closer and closer to the door and soon one of the others spread out toward one side and we halted closer to the door. It is amazing how in one single minute it can be black as pitch and then in an instant, a dull even light appears so shapes and forms start making sense. Then colors appear in another moment casting a different hue upon the face of the earth. All these brief moments are so brief they really can’t be reckoned with.
The Lieutenant was anxiously awaiting the dawn, and after seeing somewhat more before him, he signaled the other in closer. I think he was going to try to storm the barn door once the light came in, and as the morning sounds began to get sharper I got more scared.
I was telling my Pa about it then, later on, when he was shoveling dirt close up to the side of our barn. I had always wanted a horse of my own, especially with all the new adventures to come, and as I had seen those horses of Stearns, Perdham, and Ragan, I figured the Yanks shouldn’t learn of them, so I didn’t tell them. When Pa heard me say I left out the part of the message with the three horses, he stops digging and looks at me sort of funny. I had never seen that look before, and after a minute he just says, “You didn’t?”
“No Pa. I was hoping if they didn’t know about the horses, then maybe I could claim one later.”
Pa was still standing there, looking amazed, then said I ought to have known better that they would be found out. I answered that I hadn’t known all I would have to do while I was there in Captain Lewis’s tent. Later as it became more apparent that they were to be discovered, it got too late for me to mention. Of course Lieutenant Haines could be heard cursing the earth beneath him when those horses took note of our approach and caused enough commotion to give alarm. Suddenly the barn door cracked open and two gray figures could be seen scampering like wounded jack rabbits out of there and around toward the timber. As they disappeared the Lieutenant’s curses fell upon that cold patch of earth we stood upon, and he finally looks over at me.
“Oh hellfire!” says I real disgusted like. “There should still be one left in the barn.”
So Haines takes hold of his shotgun and with the other two soldiers he quickly steps up to the barn and thrusts open the door. I came up close to peer in, and there I saw the three horses, still bridled up, with all their equipment off in one corner, and close by there was the scarecrow man, splayed out and covered partially with straw, head thrown back and him breathing deep, and not ever knowing anything. Pa was listening to me then, too, but he was still shoveling, as I told him how I didn’t like Lieutenant Haines because he wasn’t very nice.
“Pa, he didn’t need to do that; just walk up and level his shotgun and pull the trigger. It blowed his whole face away and the top of his head too. And then he calls me over to ask me if I recognize him.”
Pa shoveled another batch of dirt out and I sort of gazed off toward the house up there close by the road. Pa finally saw fit to speak again, so he asked me if I was ready to listen.
“Jeremy, those men came in this morning and picked everything clean. They got three good horses with all the saddlery, extra clothing, and one Mississippi rifle and one revolver, and left us here to bury the dead body of John Ragan.”
I interjected, “They even took their boots, Pa! Perdham and Stearns have no coat either. What if they come back?”
Pa was now finished shoveling, and all we had left to do was drag the body over to the grave. I think he knew what I was thinking.
“Son, remember you shall not ever covet anything of your neighbor’s. Besides none of this was your fault. Those two men were counting on their horses to save them, and they were saved, but John Ragan, here, what’s left of him anyways, chose that jug of whiskey I had hidden out here in the barn. If there is a fault to be claimed it is his own. Lieutenant Haines has his own credit to account for with the good Lord, and it ain’t left at all to us; just this cold dead body.”
It didn’t take much thinking at all for me to fully understand what Pa was saying, and he never stopped saying it. Each time he spoke up about it, he just would get prouder and prouder, and I could see Jimmie and Janey sitting there with Ma, and knew they could never understand all I had to do that time. And sometimes Pa would look over at me when one of the younger ones would tell a half-truth, and exclaim with a wink at me, “You forgot your horses.”