Chip Shatto (Perry County Series) Page 4
A remembered feature caused the General to continue. "Starling has extremely bad teeth and therefore rarely exposes them. He speaks coldly through stiffened lips and this habit may also aid identification.
"But Chip, Starling is an ultimate egoist and his vanity may be a weakness. Unfortunately, that is only speculation. He is as deadly as an adder with the cunning of a wolf. With luck you will not encounter him, but if you do, respect his intelligence and distrust his word. Starling is probably not entirely sane and must never be taken lightly."
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The man he was to rescue called himself Walter Saleman and he lived in Stringer, Mississippi. Believed to be a retired professor, he received small amounts of money through a southern bank. Immersed in books and occupied with a large vegetable garden, Saleman aroused no suspicions. If disclosed, his close relationship to a Union cabinet level official would have stunned the rural community.
Much to his family's disapproval, Saleman had removed himself to the south to develop an escape route through which slaves could be moved north in significant numbers. Serious fever laid him low, delaying his plans, and the outbreak of hostilities found him suddenly old and weary, too ill to escape. In Stringer he continued to live in modest circumstances, his vigor and direction gone.
Yet, patriarch of a political dynasty, Saleman's well-being was of vast concern to his progeny and a man who controlled his welfare held a power to influence armies.
A year earlier an attempt to rescue Saleman had been launched. In a wild ride that ripped at supply centers and rail lines, 1700 cavalrymen under the command of Colonel Ben Grierson had swept south from Tennessee. While testing the practicality of long raids through the Confederacy, Grierson was also charged with the task of snatching away Walter Saleman. Enemy resistance forced the raiders along other roads and Saleman remained undisturbed and unaware that rescue had been attempted.
Now he had been exposed and danger grew close. How long would it take for Jonathan Starling to find a single elderly man somewhere within the Confederate States of America? Not long, it was feared.
When he agreed, Chip imposed a precautionary suggestion. Much could happen on the trip he intended and he requested that the General's other agents be dispatched as well. If misfortune befell his own attempt, one of them might succeed.
Chip needed no elaborate planning. He would take the train to St. Louis. There he would be taken south by naval vessel and put ashore in a desolate area well below Vicksburg. Thereafter he would ride openly, a western man come east to see the sights.
McClellan arranged funding and travel orders that would ensure immediate compliance. For an officer without command, and lately considered more politician than soldier, his wishes received exemplary attention.
If his orders had led to an active army, Chip would not have dallied and this assignment demanded even quicker departure; he had a vast distance to cover and he intended to leave immediately. He rode with his possibles in saddlebags or tied behind the cantle. In St. Louis he would buy an easy-gaited pony that could carry supplies or an old and weary rider. So equipped, he had traveled the Oregon Trail and south to Santa Fe. He had crossed the high plains and trailed all the way east to Perry County. To rescue Walter Saleman he would need nothing more.
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Chapter 5
Riding east in the spring, Chip had bypassed St. Louis so it had been years since he had seen the community. Where he had known a bustling village a city now sprawled along the western bluffs of the Mississippi. Wary of population centers, he was pleased that the military operations concerning him were based on the Illinois side.
The Appaloosa had ridden well in a stock car but like himself, needed relief from confinement and the unremitting smoke and soot. Saddled and mounted, Chip fled to clear air and a stone-bottomed brook. He made camp and scrubbed clean both himself and the horse. This night he would enjoy—unassaulted by civilization's stinks and crowds.
By his fire he could consider his actions of the last week. They could stand some pondering, for the last place he had expected to be was camped along the Mississippi. My God, that was half way back to the Rockies and he had promised himself that he was finished with those mountains.
Absently he fingered the white weals of scar tissue that slanted from near his right shoulder to end at his left hip. The mountains had almost done him in that time, but it was when he was getting cut that he had begun thinking of Perry County and how he could enjoy just living peaceful on his own acres, to raise good crops, have a few cows and some chickens.
As the sun set, they came for him again, rushing him to the fire and lashing him to the tree limb that bound his arms like a crucifix.
Coyote Boy was already drunk on pulke and lost in the world of the peyote button. He had begun the toe-heel dancing that he used to reach the spirit world and his sing-song keening echoed and re-echoed through the hellish gorges that protected the camp.
This was the fourth day and Chip knew how it would go. He was almost thankful for the lashings that held him upright because he doubted his legs would long support him.
Although he had been given water, the renegades wasted no food on one who would live only another day.
Coyote Boy had spoken it, promising a stroke for each direction before a final thrust and a death for the sun spirit who nourished and gave light to them all. The Coyote was mad of course, but the madness had made him cunning and his band of outcasts had managed to survive.
Occasionally Coyote Boy heard spirits calling and, after a year's absence, poor old Chip Shatto had come riding into the ranch to provide what was needed. He had been caught flat-footed like the greenest of easterners.
Only a short day's ride out of Ted's ranch he thought the land was peaceable but he should have been looking. They had him in an instant with a dozen guns pointing at his belly. Then they had walked him deep into trackless canyons and begun Coyote Boy's ceremony.
The fourth cut began as had the other three. Almost numb from the raw pulke, the Coyote danced closer and laid his sharp blade near Chip's shoulder and attempted to focus his eyes. Three times before Chip had spit squarely into his face, but this time he was about dried out and the knowledge of how it would feel shriveled his gut.
Coyote Boy drew the knife slowly, cutting only through the skin, and Chip fought down the scream that rose to blind his vision and flood his mouth with saliva and bile. Instantly he spit it into his torturer's face and heard the band rumble respect for his courage.
Coyote Boy did not appear to notice and concentrated on keeping the knife on course. To the Coyote, the ceremony held deep meaning and his victim's insults only proved the value of the heart he would soon give to the sun spirit.
Pained beyond reason, Chip lunged against the knife, but the Coyote was ready and he kept the cut shallow.
Blood ran over his hand but he did not hurry and Chip watched the steady movement of the blade with horrified intensity.
Finally it was done and the worst approached.
Coyote Boy danced to the fire and seized handfuls of hot ashes. Holding them aloft as offerings he came again close and rubbed the ashes into the bleeding gash.
For moments that stretched into eternities Chip's mind reeled and before he could recover the Coyote returned with more, and again with more. Not until the last seep of blood was sealed did the Coyote turn away.
Then hard hands tore away Chip's bonds and turned him toward the crude wickiup against a cliff.
With no warning, gunfire blasted the night apart and, barely conscious, Chip heard a heavy slug strike one of his bearers and the man went down limp as a thong. His other guard spun away and Chip tried to grab him but he had no strength and struck the ground in an awkward sprawl.
The guns died away and there was more than a little shouting before gentle hands turned him and he saw Ted's concerned face turn horror stricken as he took in his brother's wounds.
"Oh God, Chip! He's gutted you!"
In the vas
tness of his relief, Chip thought Teddy a little tactless. "I'm not gutted, Ted. The cuts aren't deep."
Weak with pain and release of tension he barely managed to continue. "Am I glad to see you—an' whoever else you brought along."
Ted and another propped him against a rock and Chip was content to just sit there and let some of the hurt go away.
"Damn, Chip, we've been hunting this bunch for weeks. Heard 'em singing last night and worked toward it but couldn't locate the camp until the hollerin' started again.
"God, I didn't even recognize you till they cut you loose." He bent closer to study his brother's wounds. "Damn, they really carved on you, but you're right, they didn't get into your innards."
"Tomorrow was the day for that, Ted."
"You mean...."
"Yep, that crazy one was figurin' on offering me up to the sun god about daylight. Glad you weren't a day later, brother."
"Whew, this is all too close, Chip." Ted brightened in his concern, "Well, at least we got old Coyote Boy. We'll hang him off that tree he had you strung to."
Chip straightened, fire eating across his chest. "You mean he's alive? Coyote Boy is alive?"
"Yep, but not for long."
"Now wait a minute, Ted. I've earned the right to say how he goes. You agree on that?"
"Sure, Chip. If you want him, he's yours." He looked across the fire to where Coyote Boy lay bound, nursing a bullet shattered arm and a nasty gash where a rifle butt had met his head. "Can't say he looks like much though."
"I want him, Ted." Chip gently fingered the filthy gashes on his body. "I'll need an hour or so and something to eat. Then I want him."
Ted didn't like it at all but Chip wasn't fooling. They backed Coyote Boy into a dead-end canyon and tossed him a knife. Then Chip went after him.
The Coyote saw him coming and his face lighted with gladness. Surely the gods again favored him.
An hour's rest and saddle bag food hadn't made Chip a new man, but a mountain man didn't need more and he met Coyote Boy's shambling charge with a rush of his own that almost cut the renegade's hand from his arm. The knife fell from useless fingers and the Coyote looked death in the face for an instant before Chip's knife drove hilt deep into his stomach and ripped upward with all the power he could summon.
For some minutes Chip sat beside the dead Coyote Boy getting his wind back. The execution had been too swift. It did not make up for the days of agony and expectation of death. Grimly, Chip flopped the body onto its stomach and marked off a great rectangle of the Indian's back. Without emotion he skinned out the section of hide and rolled it carefully for later tanning. Someday, he would make something out of Coyote Boy's skin and it would serve him the rest of his life.
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Recovery turned slow after that, as though some of his spirit had been burned out, and even Ted looked at him kind of funny until he was sure that Chip hadn't gotten permanently crazy.
It wasn't as fine in the mountains as it had been and a hunger to come home to Perry County, to run through his hands the rich soil, and smell the damp of a good Pennsylvania woods became irresistible.
So he'd come home, and waiting for him was the war with all its unsettlings. Now here he was heading out again, risking whatever was left of his scarred carcass because he figured he owed it. Well, he would see it through and make sure he had done enough to satisfy both himself and the people running the war. Then he would get that farm and he would turn ground and raise a family.
Pap would have a fit when he really did take up farming, but he had ridden the rough strings and he'd had enough of them. Farming it would be. He visualized some land he had seen up in Pfoutz Valley. Hard up against Turkey Ridge it was, with fields and woods sloping down to the valley road. Maybe it could be bought. He had gold enough.
He decided not to think about all that right then. Walter Saleman came first.
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He bought a horse from a poor selection. It was of no special consequence except that it was unbranded and moved easily. Saleman probably wouldn't ride well so a comfortable gait would be more important than speed or endurance.
The Army grumbled about his simple requests as though is presence seriously disrupted the war effort, but they drafted orders for his transportation downstream and turned him over to the Navy.
He picked up an extra blanket and bought simple rations that could be had at almost any trading post. He didn't really expect examination of his possibles bag by eagle-eyed Confederates, but he took no chances. Everything about him had to smack of the mountain man.
Although a fast disappearing breed, they were known to stay out of others' disputes and didn't give a hang in hell about Union or Rebel as long as they were left alone.
Riding to the river, Chip could ponder that thought,
He cared, and maybe that was part of why he wore out the free-living mountain life. It was good to see the far country and try the wild life for size, but a man was still part of a people and it seemed as though he owed more than just riding along and drifting with the wind.
He had to admit he wasn't up on the slavery question and he had mixed feelings about states' rights. A few black men had fled to the mountains and some of them took up with the Indians. He had ridden with one now and then, and as far as he could see they weren't any different, except in color of course. He grinned to himself. They had all looked like wolves or bears and stunk of smoke, horses, sweat, and furs. White, black, or red—in the mountains a man got judged solely by how he acted. Weakness as well as strength showed pretty quickly. The weak didn't last long and some of the strong didn't either. He supposed there was a lot of luck mixed in there too, but anyone claiming a black man wasn't human was a fool. Whether they had souls or not, he couldn't say. He hadn't ever seen a soul or met a man who had. Could be none of them was so blessed.
States' rights were argued even among those who didn't care. "Who rules who" was always good talk and the only background a man needed was a strong opinion. Chip figured the states should have the right to decide most things but choosing to bust up the Union wasn't one of them. He suspected a state's rights might end when they began affecting their neighbors or the country as a whole, sort of like a man's rights ended where another's began. Probably the arguments went a lot deeper but it seemed to him that more than one supposedly complicated subject could be solved by looking at it simple and straight.
The Navy gave him room on the deck of a tired old stern-wheeler that looked lucky to be going downstream.
The craft was heavily loaded with military stores for troops holding Vicksburg and other strongpoints all the way down to Baton Rouge. Now that they held the entire Mississippi, the Union Navy could supply the armies from both St. Louis and New Orleans. In many ways their control of the river cut the Confederacy in two and further weakened the struggling slave states.
The sides of the river boat were bulwarked with meal and flour bags to protect from Rebel sniping along the riverbanks. Chip picked a safe-looking spot and settled himself and his horses. The Navy's only remaining duty would be to put him safely and he hoped, inconspicuously, ashore about halfway between Vicksburg and Natchez. Then he would ride east along the back roads until he found the village of Stringer—and Walter Saleman.
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Chapter 6
Some of the time, Chip thought his plan to casually ride across the state of Mississippi and out again to be the most ill-conceived scheme ever undertaken. Of all the swampy, snake-infested, bug-ridden, pestiferous wallows he had ever chanced upon, Mississippi was the worst!
If a man cut cross-country he was almost certain to run into some sort of bayou or blackwater creek that would bog him hock deep with no way to go but back.
What roads there were hardly qualified as traces ... and the bugs! Damn the buzzing, stinging millions of them! Their droning never ceased, they died in the food, adventured up noses and into ears. They drowned in the constant sweat that soaked his hunting clothes and the leather garm
ents were ringed with salt stains and stunk like a dead buffalo. He didn't think of turning back of course. It wasn't that hard, it was just miserable.
The villages he rode through amounted to less than the countryside. Dirt poor with shacky cabins, the whites appeared only slightly less beaten down than the negros who always outnumbered them.
The ex-soldiers looked just like their northern counterparts, only poorer. Many had lost limbs while others wore the sunken-chested stricken appearance of consumptives broken by camp fever and allowed to come home—probably to die.
Otherwise, the land was empty of manpower. Those that could were gone to the war. Recruiters had swept the countryside clean and it occurred to Chip that once past the regiments facing them, a Union Army could march the length and breadth of the Confederacy without serious opposition. Whether they admitted it or not, the South was about licked and it looked to him as though, at least in this region, there wasn't a whole lot left to come home to.
Occasionally he did encounter small bands of hard looking men. Mostly they were returning veterans, sick of fighting and just wanting to get home. A few were mean-looking bunches, the kind that lurked on the fringe of things seeking easy prey. They eyed Chip's good trappings hungrily, but he wouldn't be easy at all, so they kept on going.
Once he got settled into the best way, Chip made the days long. He kept careful track of the turns and the shortcuts so that he wouldn't get turned around coming out. He didn't like retracing his steps, as someone might be waiting, but tramping around in country this flat and featureless could waste a lot of time and maybe wear old Saleman plumb out. In this case it would be sensible to go back the way he came in.
Getting close, he also got lucky and found an easy horse trail from Taylorsville to Stringer. He forded the Leaf River, worrying about water moccasins and quicksand, and made Stringer's short main street in mid-afternoon.