We held our family council and we unanimously decided to head west in the spring. Everyone even agreed with me that the Nebraska Territory was going to be our objective. I had the two thousand dollars JC had won for me, so selling the farm was only important for my family's honor. We planned on all sitting down at least weekly to develop and refine a plan for the move. JC agreed that he would accompany us at least as far as North Texas.
The second part of the family meeting was how we would protect ourselves from the unpleasantness that we knew was looming. JC and I figured that Cummins probably had some thugs in his hire that would happily dispatch us to our maker and burn the farm to the ground for a few dollars in whiskey money. To that end we divided up into three teams: JC, Anne and Rose; Mama, Ruth and Florence; and Rachael, Carol and me. Then we instituted a watch schedule, with each team taking a four-hour shift. Two members of the team on watch would be out in the barn while one waited in the house.
We positioned weapons near the shuttered windows of the house so they were easily accessible to the others when the team on watch raised the alarm. We had plenty of weapons, both those belonging to JC and me, as well as those from four other households. All of the women could shoot with varying degrees of accuracy, and all were more than ready to contribute to the family's defense.
Rachael and I were the members of our team that stood watch from the hayloft of the barn. While on watch, Rachael and I were alone for the first measurable amount of time since I returned from the war. We talked a lot that first night; some of the things she said astonished me. We were discussing the move to Nebraska when out of the blue she said, "I want to be your woman, Jeremiah." She said it so casually that at first I thought she was spoofing me.
I had been staring out of the hayloft as we talked, her pronouncement made me jerk my head around towards her.
"Wwhat?" I stammered.
She regarded me seriously as she reached her hands up and unpinned her hair. Rachael had beautiful hair the rich reddish color of chestnuts. It hung to the small of her slender back in thick waves. The light from the three-quarter moon spilling into the loft made her tresses sparkle as if they were covered with drops of dew.
"I want to be your woman," she repeated firmly. "I could care less if we ever married, but I love you and I need you Jeremiah. You are the only man I have ever felt comfortable and safe around. Coop was a good man and I loved him in a fashion but with you it is different. I felt it as soon as you came back; you make me feel as if I were Ruth's age again."
I was speechless at her proclamation; all I could think to do was hold my arms out to her. She gave me one of her sweet smiles and fell into my embrace. Rachael was the first woman for whom I'd ever had a yearning. I discovered the illicit joy of self-gratification to mental images of her. I had always thought that she was beautiful with her amazing hair and flawless skin. She was slender and graceful, medium of height with a comely figure. I think a part of my besottment with Millie Silvestry stemmed from her resemblance to Rachael. So Rachael's pronouncement wasn't unwelcome by any means. However, there was a huge fly in the ointment.
"I would love that Rachael; you know I have always adored you, but what about Mama and the rest of the family?"
"Mama knows how I feel, Sweet Baby. She loves us both and wants to see us happy because of all the sorrow our family has been through. The rest of the family will be fine with the idea. We women have already discussed it. In fact, Florence wants the same thing as I, and Ruth fully expects to marry you one day."
To say I was flabbergasted would be putting the matter too mildly. I could understand in a way the feelings of Rachael and Florence because the war had killed off a large percentage of the men of their generation and left crippled a great number of others. I admit freely that I was not put off by the idea of being with either woman. I was already strongly attracted to Rachael, and Florence was a fine woman who was pretty to boot. I wasn't going to rush into anything precipitously, however. If I learned anything in the war, it was the consequences of acting rashly.
"This all comes as a surprise to me, Rachael. I don't quite know how to feel about it, especially what you said about Ruth. She's awfully young to be making decisions about marriage," I said.
"I agree about her being young," Rachael said, "but she sounded determined. There is plenty of time for her to change her mind, though, before she's of an age to marry. Who knows what she'll decide once we arrive out west. Anyway, that's enough talk about other women. You and I are here all alone sitting under a lover's moon; don't you think you should at least give me a kiss?"
I covered her lips with mine and kissed her the way Lorena had taught me. I guess Rachael wasn't expecting me to know how to kiss or something because her eyes popped open and she moaned into my mouth. I was pleased that I was bringing her pleasure, so I stayed the course using just my tongue and lips on her neck as I worked to divest her of her simple frock. All the skin I uncovered was smooth and white as alabaster. Her breasts were small but well formed, her hips and rear delightfully curvaceous. I kissed my way down her body as she cooed in pleasure from my attention.
When my lips found her treasure she gasped and stiffened. She started to sit up and moved her hand to my head to push me away until my lips found her nubbin. When I hit the sensitive little organ, she moaned and fell back onto the blanket upon which we'd been sitting. She peaked quickly, gasping and thrashing around in pleasure. I kissed my way back up to her body until I was stretched out beside her. I held her and stroked her magnificent mane as she regained her composure. Finally her breathing resided to its normal rhythm and she opened her eyes.
"That was fantastic beyond anything I've ever experienced, my darling man. Wherever did you learn how to pleasure a woman that way?"
"I would not be a gentleman if I told, but I am very pleased that you enjoyed it," I replied.
She pulled my head down and kissed me passionately. She broke the kiss and actually laughed out loud for the first time I could remember. I asked her what was so funny. She replied that she thought she'd be the one teaching an inexperienced boy about lovemaking, not the other way around. I chuckled too.
"Let me show you what else I learned," I said eagerly.
As I said before, I'm not one for idle boasting, so let us leave it that Rachael enjoyed being the beneficiary of my lessons from Connie and her friends.
Two nights later I wasn't surprised that my watch partner was Florence. Nor was I surprised that she wanted me to show her all I'd learned up in Richmond. Florence was more outgoing than Rachael by orders of magnitude and every bit as passionate. Florence was shorter than Rachael by a couple of inches and carried more padding, but she was just as pretty in her own way. She wore her long light brown hair in a single braid and her big brown eyes danced with mischief and good humor. It was nearly impossible to be of an ill nature when around her.
I could tell that we weren't the only team finding novel ways to entertain ourselves up in the hayloft, as JC and Anne became more demonstrative in their affection toward each other. Still, it was a surprise to me when JC came to talk to me while I was in the barn sharpening a scythe. I had five of the implements to peen and stone and two that needed repairs to the snath (handle). We would be needing them shortly to lay in hay and fodder for the winter. JC stood next to me, uncharacteristically quiet, until I looked at him inquiringly.
"Jeb, I think I'm in love with Anne and she says she loves me too. It is the damnedest thing, because I can't recall ever feeling about a woman this way. I can't think when I'm around her. She tells me something and even if it is a thing I wouldn't ever do, I find my head nodding up and down as if it was the best idea I ever heard. I'm going to ask her to marry me."
"This is a good thing JC only if you are not going to be chasing around and gambling as you did in Richmond. Anne is an adult and can make up her own mind but she and the girls are family to me."
JC grinned ruefully. "Them days are over Jeb, word of honor. For some reason Anne makes me not even think about such as that. One thing though, when we move west I ain't sod bustin' for a living. I want to ranch, run a few head of cattle and maybe breed some mules and horses."
I returned his grin. "I am done farming when we leave here, JC. I have never wanted to farm anyway; my feet are too itchy for even ranching probably."
JC and Anne together was one of those oddities for which only love could account. They were opposites in every manner you could measure. JC was stocky and ruddy with black hair; Anne was willowy, fair and blonde. JC was easy going and talkative while Anne was serious and quiet. I guess, come to think about it, they complemented each other perfectly.
Anne was the one who finally dragged JC's real name out of him. She said she wasn't marrying a man who refused to tell her his real name. JC finally fessed up at supper that night. Right in the middle of the meal he got down on one knee in front of Anne's chair. "My real name is Julius Caesar Colberteri, Anne. Now will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?"
Rachael and I were on watch about a week after JC proposed to Anne when eight riders tried to sneak up on us. We saw them from the loft as they led their mounts to within a few hundred feet of the house. After a short conference one man held the horses and the other seven crept forward. When they were about a hundred feet away from the house two of the men lit creosote torches while three others started to move around behind the house. Their plan was clear; they were going to set the house on fire and probably kill anyone who came out the doors or windows.
Rachael was armed with my Enfield and one of our cap and ball pistols, a Colt in .36 caliber. I had my Spencer repeater. I put my lips to Rachael's ear and told her to fire at the man with the torch on the right when I gave her the signal. Rachael appeared scared but determined; I knew she was capable of hitting the man from this distance. On my count of three we fired also simultaneously. The man I hit dropped to one knee but held onto the torch; Rachael's target pitched backwards and his torch went flying through the air. The airborne torch landed behind the other two men and silhouetted them even better than the half moon had. I worked the Spencer's mechanism and dropped another.
I grabbed Rachael's arm and pulled her backwards out of the barn's upper door when the remaining man fired a pistol in our direction. The pall of smoke from our shots was a dead giveaway as to our location. As we were wiggling backwards I heard shooting coming from the house. I hoped that JC and the other women were accounting for themselves as well as we had. We left the Enfield and scrambled down the ladder and out the back door of the barn. As soon as we were outside in the shadows I pulled Rachael against me and kissed her hard. "You are some kind of a special woman Rachael, it made me randy watching you in action," I whispered. No, I am not that big a degenerate, but Rachael appeared shaken by having to shoot someone, so I was trying to snap her out of it. "Now all you have to do is keep an eye on me as I move around the side of the barn and make sure no one sneaks up behind me, okay honey?"
She gave me a shaky smile, nodded and squeezed my hand. I handed her the Spencer and took the Colt. The revolver was fully loaded and I had a spare loaded cylinder in my pocket. I opted for the hand gun because I thought I could move quieter with a less cumbersome weapon. I was going to circle around as quickly as I could and get the drop on the man holding the horses. I figured that any survivors were bound to head that way also and I could mop up any of them that were still alive. I stayed in the shadows and moved to the corner of the barn looking into the front yard. Nothing was moving so I motioned Rachael to join me.
I had Rachael lie prone behind the corner of the building and told her to drop anyone coming towards the house unless she recognized them as family. When I was sure she understood what I wanted I slipped back around the barn and crept along the fence and among the big live oaks and hickory trees surrounding the house. It took me about ten minutes to maneuver around behind the horses. It wasn't difficult to find them as the horses nickered occasionally and two men were whispering urgently to one another. The two raiders didn't know I was there until I was only a few feet behind them.
"Don't move unless you want to join your friends in hell," I said quietly.
Of course the man that wasn't tending the horses started to swing around, pistol in his hand. I shot him in the head without a thought about it. I was protected and semi-concealed behind a big pine tree and could probably have slowed him down instead of killing him. I could have but I didn't, because by attacking my family he had made his decision that it was his night to die. The other man did not so much as twitch. The horses didn't bolt with the gunshot; they were well-trained warhorses.
"Lie on your stomach and put you arms behind your back," I ordered the remaining man.
He quickly complied. "Don't kill me mister, I'm just watching the horses. I ain't even got a gun," he begged.
I didn't reply to his beseeching as I moved to check his compatriot. The man I shot was quite dead, a gaping wound where his right eye had been. I removed his belt and took his pistol from his lifeless fingers. The man had been armed with a LaMat grapeshot revolver. Finding the man with a LaMat was a surprise because the only others I'd seen were carried by high-ranking Confederate officers. PT Beauregard carried one, and so did Jeb Stuart. The weapon was not hardy enough to take the punishment of life with a line soldier. The LaMat was in excellent repair with all nine cylinders and the underslung shotgun chamber loaded. I put it in my belt, sat on the other man's back and trussed up his hands with his friend's belt.
The man I tied up was true to his word as the only thing on his belt was a skinning knife. I confiscated the knife and took a closer look at him in the moon light. The side of the man's head was disfigured as if a good sized portion of his skull had been caved in. His disfigurement and his not being armed led me to believe that he might be addle-brained.
"Friend, you have one chance of leaving here alive tonight. If you make a sound, you'll forfeit that chance," I said to the trussed up man.
He nodded his understanding vigorously. I kept him covered and dragged his dead compatriot off behind a small stand of scrub oak. I returned to the other man, helped him to his feet, and prodded him towards a pair of big pines about twenty feet in front of the horses. There was still gunfire coming from the direction of the house, but it was sporadic; a single shot would ring out then answering fire from the house. I was able to distinguish three distinct weapons firing from outside the house. The men firing on the house seemed intent on earning their blood money and that put me in a quandary. If I stayed put they might succeed in setting fire to the house or hurting someone in my family. I made my decision and untied my prisoner.
"Gather up the horses and follow me," I ordered.
The man grinned crookedly, saluted and said, "Right away, Captain."
He walked over to the horses and cooed gently to them as he untied both ends of the picket line the horses were secured to. The horses followed him placidly as he walked back towards me. I was impressed at the way he handled the horses and told him so.
"Animals like me," he said. "They don't care if'n I'm ugly and simple."
We followed the fence line back towards the barn keeping in the shadows of the hickory trees. At the end of the fence I stopped and scanned the area around the barn looking for Rachael. It would be the devil's luck to be shot by a woman who professed to love me. I finally spotted her hunkered down behind the watering trough at the corner of the barn. I stayed out of sight from the house as best I could and gave a whippoorwill call twice. I waited a few seconds then moved along the fence closer to her. I stopped again and repeated my very good imitation of the night bird that sang around the farm all summer long. When Rachael seemed to be looking in my direction I gave her a slight wave and stood up hoping the moonlight was enough for her to identify me.
Rachael waved back briefly so we made our way over to her. Rachael hugged me fiercely when I made it to the barn and move behind the horse trough with her. We had a hurriedly whispered conversation. I told her about killing one of the raiders and how I figured besides my captive only three were left. She concurred and said they were all in back of the house. Someone in the house dispatched the man with the torch I had wounded. I had my prisoner lead the horses into the barn then retied his hands. I told Rachael that if the prisoner moved or yelled to shoot him, then I pulled the Lamat out of my belt and moved around the barn and towards the back of the house.
The back of the house faced into a wooded area that started about sixty feet from the rear wall. In between the house and the woods were Ma's small garden plot, our well and the outhouse. One of the raiders was behind the privy, while the other two were about thirty feet apart at the edge of the woods behind him. Thinking the man behind the outhouse was the biggest threat, I edged my way closer to him. I braced my firing arm against a tree about fifteen paces away from him, fixed the center of his back in my sights and shot him. As soon as I fired I recocked the Lamat and moved to put the tree between the next closest raider and me. Almost simultaneously he and I fired; a split second later a third shot rang out.
The man in front of me didn't have a chance; my bullet hit him square in the chest and he catapulted backwards, his shot at me harmlessly whistling past the tree. Unfortunately the third shot, fired by the man I had stupidly left for dead at the privy, hit me low in the back on my left side. Actually the bullet caught me in my big stupid Georgia butt. The impact of the slug hurt like hell and pitched me face first against the tree. I bounced off the trunk of that big hickory tree with a grunt and fell to my side just as the man at the outhouse fired again. Mercifully, his second bullet thumped harmlessly into the tree and I was able to twist around and bring the LaMat to bear. I thumbed the scatter gun trigger and fired at the kneeling miscreant before he could align his sight on me again.
The LaMat discharged with a deafening roar and flames shot a foot out the barrel. My aim was hasty but the shotgun pellets covered a wide enough area so that many of them hit my target like a swarm of angry hornets. The man grunted as he pitched backwards, his pistol flying up into the air. I shot him again with the revolver, hoping that he'd stay dead this time, before turning my attention towards the third and last raider. The exchanges of gunfire between me and the two other men lasted 30 seconds at the most and I was still shielded by the bole of the hickory tree. When I cautiously peeked around the tree, I caught sight of the last man running pell-mell towards where he thought his horse was still tied.
I tried to stand up and give chase but it hurt like hell to put my weight on my right leg. I was about to hail the house about the third man when JC stepped around the corner and shot the escaping raider with his Spencer. JC ducked back around the corner of the house as the man went down, so I hollered out to him.
"That was the last of them, JC. The rest are dead except for one that Rachael is holding at gun point by the barn. I need some help though. I'm wounded and I can't walk," I yelled.
Looking back on it, I probably should have not shouted that last little bit out, because as soon as I said I was hurt all hell broke loose. The reaction from JC and my family was out of proportion to the extent of my injuries but I was unable to get that point across to them. JC reached me first but Florence wasn't far behind him. Between them, they managed to help me into the house. Ma made a big fuss over me once I was in the house; while JC went to collect our prisoner and Rachael from the barn. Ma made a pallet for me by the fireplace, had Flo and Anne help me lay down, and then unceremoniously cut the back of my britches away so she could see the wound.
I was mortified, as everyone, including the youngsters, stood around gawking at my big old white and shiny butt. Ma even had young Ruby holding the coal oil lamp as she poked and prodded, unmindful of my protests. "Hush up, Jeremiah, and let me work," she admonished. Then she added insult to indignity by giving me a stinging swat on my uninjured cheek. My nieces and nephews thought that grandma smacking my butt was hysterically funny. They were having a good laugh at my expense when Rachael came busting through the door. Her worried look turned to one of confusion as everyone was laughing except yours truly.
My nephew Joshua couldn't wait to tell her what happened. "Jeb got shot in the butt and Granny spanked him for being a big crybaby," he whooped.
I won't subject you to the grisly particulars of Ma plucking the bullet out of my backside. It hurt like tarnations but I suffered through it thanks to a couple of cups of Pa's corn liquor that Ma kept around for medicinal purposes. Ma also liberally applied that same liquor to the wound to cleanse it. That hurt worse than her poking around for the slug. While Ma was doctoring on me, only Rachael, Florence and JC stayed in the room. Rachael and Flo held my hands whilst JC stood around making pithy and amusing banter at my expense. One of the things he pointed out was the irony of me making it unscathed through four years of war only to be shot in the hind end by another Confederate soldier.
I was able to gingerly walk the day after the attack and wanted to do just that, but Ma and my women wouldn't hear of it. They were adamant I stay down for a few more days so as not to risk tearing open Ma's stitching. For four agonizing days my movements were strictly limited to using the thunder pot. While I was off my feet, JC and the rest of the family took care of the bodies of the men that attacked us. The man that I'd captured ended up becoming our hired hand because Ma didn't have the heart to send him out into the world alone, what with him being slow witted and such. The man, whose name we learned was Curtis McIntire, turned out to be as harmless as a puppy. Curtis's head injury left him about the same age as my nephew Joshua. He was a hard worker though, and he loved Ma to death for the simple kindness she showed him.
My being bedridden especially rankled because on the day after the attack, JC paid Pollard T. Cummins a little visit. I didn't know anything about him doing that until he returned home and handed me a handful of Yankee currency and a poke jangling with gold and silver coins.
"Cummins agreed to your price and terms for selling the farm, Jeb, and he even sent along a little money to help out while you recover from your wound," he said at my questioning look. When I pressed him for details all he told me was that Pollard had agreed that we could stay where we were until springtime. No matter how I prodded he wouldn't tell me any more. Whatever he did also convinced Cummins to leave us alone until we were gone. We never heard another peep from him for the rest of the winter.
Winters in west-central Georgia were nowhere near as cold as we'd suffered in northern Virginia during the war. Thankfully, the winter of 1865 was even milder than usual. We had a few nights in the twenties and awoke to many a morning of frost, but the temperature almost always rose enough for us to work outside. We had a plenty of work to do to be prepared to move out as soon as winter broke. We had four households of possessions to condense down into three wagons. We also had wagons to repair and food items to purchase and pack. Essentially, we had to prepare to be self sufficient for at least three months.
JC and I also used the time to modify the freight drays we'd appropriated from the Union Army into covered wagons. We bought canvas from a mill in Columbus and wood from the sawmill in Catawlah. We spent time training teams to pull the four wagons we were taking with us. We had two teams of three mules and a wheel horse to pull the drays, a pair of mules to pull the bigger of our two farm wagons and two horses to pull the smallest wagon. We trained everyone big enough on how to drive and maintain the wagons and we worked out a system of duties and responsibilities to keep us organized and moving once we were on the trail. Our time working with General Lee's headquarters' trains proved invaluable in preparing us for our trip westward.
During the second week of December, Anne and JC were married at Antioch Baptist Church. JC's transformation from a bounder and rakehell to a family man was something I thought I'd never witness. But change he did as his behavior swung like a pendulum from one extreme to the other. Anne's steady and gentle nature seemed to be the cure for all that had ailed my friend JC. It seemed as if our roles had suddenly reversed and he was now the steady and sober one while I was dallying with both Rachael and Florence. Actually, because of the number of people living under one roof, opportunities to dally were few and far between. Both women were openly affectionate to me, though, and I did manage to sneak off with one or the other often enough to take the sharp edges off all of us.
Joe J