Nelson Story had provided his cocinero a new Bream and Company Dallas cookwagon with a fold-down table, two twenty-five-gallon water casks, and bins for flour, salt, baking powder, coffee, sugar, and white beans. Ratcliff’s thick-shouldered, short-coupled gelding, Pedro, was tied behind. Inside, frypans and Dutch ovens hung from the wagon bows, and tin plates, knives, forks, and spoons were contained in deep drawers. Each cowboy stowed his bedding in the rear compartment and when a bedroll wasn’t neat enough to suit him, Ratcliff threatened to boot it off, which was when George Dow started calling him “the nigger.”
The failure to ford the Arkansas put Ratcliff out of temper. He liked to reach the night’s bedground by late afternoon so he’d have time to build his cookfire and start supper before the riders arrived. If he couldn’t get his cookwagon through the longhorns, he couldn’t get his biscuits made. He had a buffalo tenderloin salted down; how was he to cook it? He yelled, “Unless you boys untangle those damn beeves, you’ll be eatin’ Rainy Day Stew tonight!”
They didn’t untangle them and come dark they bedded the main on the near shore. Nelson Story stayed across the river with the van. When the riders dismounted at Ratcliff’s cookfire, the coffee was hot, but the stew was as cold as the biscuits they spread it over.
“Christ almighty,” George Dow muttered. “Who said niggers could cook?”
“Who said you knew how to push cows?” Ratcliff snapped.
George had the pinched face and rotten teeth of a man who’d grown up poor. “Wish’t I had a hot meal in my belly.”
“Well,” Petty said, “I got a bellyful of your bitchin’. Shut your yap.”
“Why’s the nigger sayin’ we don’t know how to push cows?” George asked. “Might be before this drive is done I’ll find out just how much he does know.”
“Don’t let Mr. Story hear that bullshit,” Bill Petty said.
“Believe I’ll ride with you tomorrow,” Ratcliff said. “I believe I’ll show this white boy how to push beeves across a river.”
“Mr. Story won’t like it,” Bill Petty predicted.
“Believe I’ll ride with you anyways.”
An hour before sunrise Ratcliff banged his triangle and the nighthawks came in. A wrangler brought in the remuda, and Story’s hands saddled up in a melee of dust and whoops and bucking horses. Ratcliff threw a saddle on Pedro.
A couple hands swam their horses across the Arkansas, roped some leader steers, and after they were dragged into the water, the van swam back to the shore they’d left yesterday.
They withdrew both main and van a quarter mile behind a rise where the critters couldn’t see or smell the river and let them graze for twenty minutes. Then Nelson Story stood in his stirrups and waved his hat and all hell broke loose: pistol shots, popping rope ends, the shrill Confederate yip-yip-yip. The wide-eyed van thundered toward the river, and the main—nine hundred panicked Texas Longhorns—followed close on their heels.
If the van swam the river, the main would follow. But should the main pause for second thoughts at the water’s edge the merry-go-round of beeves would open for business. Van, riders, main, riders stretched out at full gallop.
The longhorns weren’t fifty feet behind Ratcliff and he put the spurs to Pedro. The beeves gathered momentum coming down the bank and as Ratcliff and Pedro hit the water, a Niagara of beeves tumbled in behind them.
Heads and broad horns out of the water, they swam mightily, eyes bulging, bawling in terror.
Eight or ten clambered onto a sandbar, Ratcliff swam Pedro to bump them off, and a longhorn charged Pedro, who couldn’t duck, since the longhorn had four feet on the sandbar and Pedro was swimming. The horn hooked Pedro behind his rib cage and jerked him up and Ratcliff went into the water.
Ratcliff was eye level with swimming longhorns. Their six-foot horns glistened with muddy water and clacked like castanets. The river water tasted like gritty coffee grounds. His hat was gone; when his boots filled, he kicked them off.
He blew out his breath and sank under a steer’s horns, and when he surfaced the steer’s buttocks were churning past, so Ratcliff grabbed the tail. When the steer felt the drag, he swam harder—so hard he set his front hooves on another’s back like he meant to climb over him. Ratcliff puked muddy water.
When Ratcliff’s longhorn got his feet on solid ground, he thought to spin and hook his uninvited passenger, but Nelson Story galloped up and offered Ratcliff a stirrup.
When they were clear, Story said, “If they’ll fit, I’ve a spare pair of boots.”
Ratcliff said, “That’ll be all right.”
Nelson Story said, “I got twenty-five cowboys. You get paid twice their wages account of you’re the cocinero. If there was something you had to prove, I suppose you proved it. Now on, you’ll stay with the cookwagon.”
A hundred yards downstream, Pedro stood shivering. Blood and muddy water pooled under his midsection.
“Pedro was a good horse,” Ratcliff said. “I’ll thank you for the loan of your pistol.”
CHAPTER 13
THE LOYAL LEAGUE
JESSE BURNS AND CHARLES CHEPSTOW WERE IN THE THIRD PEW of Richmond’s First African Baptist Church as its deacons decided Brother Maxwell’s fate. Charles Chepstow checked his watch and sighed.
“You were drunk,” the Reverend Fields Cook said.
The reverend and the deacons were in the front pew, facing the miscreant standing awkwardly before them. “Master—”
“ ‘Brother,’ ” Reverend Cook corrected him.
“Brother Cook, I worked on that d . . . darn track gang four days and every day I ask where is my pay and Captain say pay ain’t until Friday, so I say then I start workin’ on Friday. That’s fair. Day’s work, day’s pay. That’s fair. Captain say there’s plenty niggers in Richmond and he don’t have to hire no saucy one, and he pay me for three days but not the fourth day, which it was noon already, two dollars and a silver quarter, so I goes to the Southside Cafe.”
“Brother Maxwell, the Southside Cafe is not a respectable establishment. Did you gamble?”
Brother Maxwell shook his head. “No, sir.”
“You did drink.”
“Sir, ever since I left Edgeworth Plantation I look for work and I sleep on the streets. When I finds work they don’t pay me one day and they don’t pay me the next day or day after that. And when I ask them for my money, they tell me they got no more work for me ’cause I ‘saucy.’ ”
Before the War the First African’s congregation had been free blacks; some modestly prosperous. Freedmen flooding into Richmond tripled the colored population and strained Christian charity. Richmond’s tobacco factories had resumed production but only hired white males. Some negroes worked on the railroad track gangs, but most freedmen found no work and slept, like Brother Maxwell, in the streets.
“You have attended First African Baptist awaiting your letter of transfer from the Farmville congregation.”
“Back home, I was never no trouble. I’m a good nigger. I come to Richmond to make my way, but they ain’t no work in Richmond and what work they is, Richmond niggers got it. I say—”
“And I say you were drunk in public and your actions disgraced the congregation to which you sought admittance. Brothers, how say you?”
Six deacons of the First African Baptist Church murmured assent.
Reverend Cook stood. “Brother Maxwell, you are expelled from the congregation. Upon genuine repentance and six months’ good conduct, you may apply for readmission.”
“I been comin’ every Sunday. Been comin’ to Sunday school too.”
“I am sorry, Brother Maxwell. But we negroes are scorned by our former masters and your actions justify their scorn.”
With many a supplicating backward glance, the ragged young man made his way down the broad center aisle, and though he paused at the door for a reprieve, when none came, he closed it quietly behind him.
“We’d have made a soldier out of that boy,” Jesse whispered to Chep
stow. “Worse boys than him made their mark.”
Chepstow closed his watch with an audible snap.
Reverend Cook addressed his deacons. “Brothers, congregational business is concluded, but I trust you will stay for the Loyal League meeting. Brother Chepstow and Brother Burns have brought us a report from Philadelphia.”
Charles Chepstow’s lank black hair needed trimming and his lips were set in a prim line. He bustled to the altar to unwrap a long canvas parcel containing the Loyal League symbols. He laid a gavel and a rolled-up United States Constitution beside the pulpit Bible and carefully placed a ballot box on the other side. He jerked a cavalry saber from its scabbard and pronounced, “Union steel! Down with the traitors, up with the star!” Reverend Cook flinched from Chepstow’s glittering blade. Chepstow laid the sword reverently beside the ballot box and intoned, “The negro must have his franchise.”
This sentiment produced perfunctory amens as older deacons got up to leave. Before the War, a Richmond free black’s prosperity, and sometimes his life, depended on the patronage of powerful whites; patronage that insisted upon the freed black’s scrubbed, unwavering, asexual “respectability.” For many “respectable” blacks, negro emancipation challenged a lifetime’s provident habits.
Deacon Hanley’s livery business depended on white custom. In 1860, when Deacon Johnson’s boy was picked up by the Richmond police for curfew violation, Johnson’s white patron saved the boy ten lashes. Deacon McIlwaine disapproved, on principle, of assertiveness by colored men. “Dangerous foolishness,” he muttered.
“Dangerous?” Chepstow’s eyes flashed. “Certainly it’s dangerous. No week goes by I don’t receive a death threat. I spurn them. I stamp them under my feet.” As he spoke, Chepstow mimed a death threat received, opened, scanned with indignation, crumpled, and trampled. “What are threats to the Loyal League?”
Mr. Chepstow’s dramatic presentation tempted two more deacons to follow their elders, but Reverend Cook’s frown fixed them in their seats.
The twenty who stayed were younger men, and most, like Reverend Cook, had been free before the war. Some, like Deacon Lewis Lindsey, had political aspirations.
Reverend Cook said, “We are honored tonight to welcome two authors of that famous address from the colored citizens of Virginia which Mr. Stevens and our Republican friends have used to such good effect in Congress. Brother Charles Chepstow and Brother Burns are returned from the Philadelphia convention of Northern Republicans and Southern Unionists. Brothers, let us welcome them with prayer.” Lowering his head, the reverend continued, “Lord, bless our deliberations this night. Bless those who dare to speak up for the right. We pray you will make us citizens as surely as you have set us free.”
“Amen, Reverend Cook. Amen to that.” Jesse’s suit had been tailored for a smaller man, but it was brushed and his shoes were polished. “Deacons, I b’lieve that being inside Richmond looking out is better than being outside Richmond looking in. ’Specially if you’re being shot at by Johnnies.”
Chepstow overrode the deacon’s chuckles. “First, Sergeant Burns fought with the United States Colored Troops. His fight continues at my side. Burns is a devil.” Chepstow smiled indulgently. “A printer’s devil, not a Baptist devil.”
Nobody chuckled and Cook’s “Amen” was halfhearted.
“Welcome to First African, Brother Burns. Will we see you on Sunday?”
“If I can get here.”
“You do honor the Sabbath?”
“Yes, sir; when I’m able to. Mr. Chepstow and me, we print the New Nation. It’s the only Republican newspaper in Virginia. Until the New Nation reported it, Richmond police were whipping blacks for being ‘uppity.’ The Richmond Whig didn’t report these whippings. They never saw them or, perhaps, they thought whipping ‘uppity’ negroes was acceptable. The Richmond Examiner didn’t have space to report such a trivial affair—police whipping blameless, respectable free citizens. No, sir. And the Richmond Dispatch was too busy worrying about the ‘negro criminal element’ and the possibility that somewhere, someday—they are never clear how or where—a respectable white woman might be ‘insulted’ by a negro.
“The Richmond Examiner says I’m a ‘fancy man.’ Mr. Chepstow, he’s a ‘yankee carpetbagger,’ and that’s the kindest thing they say about him. Yes, Reverend. You’ll see me in church Sunday—after the New Nation is printed!”
“Brother Burns,” Deacon Lindsey said, “you talk most as good as our preacher. Maybe you after his job!”
Reverend Cook smiled. “I understand Mr. Burns hopes to be a delegate to Virginia’s Constitutional Convention, where his oratorical abilities will be tested.”
Deacon Lindsey’s skin was so taut, the bones that made up his skull were visible. “Perhaps one of you will tell me somethin’. I been wonderin’. I been wonderin’ why the Virginia Assembly is ex-rebs. They was traitors and rebels once and they still is. I wonderin’ why negroes and white Republicans like Brother Chepstow ain’t sittin’ in the Virginia Assembly.”
“A profound question, sir.” Chepstow unlipped his teeth. “A pro-found question. Traitors cling to power because we have not united with Mr. Stevens and our congressional allies to purge them. But purge them we shall.”
“Brothers.” Reverend Cook returned them to the business at hand. “Please tell us about the Philadelphia Convention. Did Frederick Douglass attend?”
Placing each word as carefully as a mason places capstones, Mr. Chepstow said, “Wonderful. Unparalleled. Stupendous. For five glorious days Northern and Southern patriots debated the principles of our Republican Party!”
“Mr. Burns, how many negroes were there?”
“There were Pennsylvania and Ohio negroes and a few from Georgia. Frederick Douglass entered the hall arm in arm with Mr. Theodore Tilton, who is a white man.
“I cannot say that every white delegate applauded Mr. Tilton, nor that they took my hand as readily as they would have taken a white’s, but they did vote for negro suffrage, and that’s enough for me. We cannot ask more from whites who learned negro hatred at their mother’s breast.
“Mr. Douglass’s eyes are sharp and penetrating. He has a blacksmith’s handclasp.” When Jesse shook his fingers as if they’d been squeezed, he drew laughter.
Charles Chepstow recaptured the floor with an account of their audience with Thaddeus Stevens . . .
STEVENS’S HOTEL ROOM reeked of ointments. Asafetida leaves roiled in an open pot atop a roaring coal stove. A handsome mulatto woman admitted them to the aged, sickly ruin who was the most powerful man in America.
Stevens’s black wig had been chosen with indifference to appearance and was too ugly to be amusing. His clubfoot rested on his footstool like a challenge.
“Ah, Mr. Chepstow, we meet again. And you, sir? You are?”
Jesse swallowed a hard lump in his throat. “Jesse Burns, sir. I work for Mr. Chepstow.”
Chepstow said, “You look well, Congressman.”
Stevens’s grin was ghastly, “Chepstow, it is not my appearance but my disappearance that troubles me.”
“Is there anything I can get for you, Mr. Stevens?” Jesse asked.
“Ten more years of life. I believe that in ten more years I would see the colored race enjoying full citizenship.”
“Thad, you’ll outlive us all,” Chepstow said.
“Mr. Chepstow, I haven’t time for weary commonplaces. Tell me: will the Virginia Legislature ratify the Fourteenth Amendment?”
“They will not. The Old Masters are too proud.”
Stevens lowered hard brows. “Are they, then!”
“Sir,” Jesse began, diffidently, “if I might speak . . .”
Stevens’s voice softened. “Speak, man.”
“Sir, I was a slave on Stratford Plantation and until the War I thought I’d be a slave all my days. Then Master Lincoln, he made the War and set us free. I was a sergeant with the United States Colored Troops and I fought my old masters. They drew my blood with the b
ullwhip and I drew their blood with my Springfield. I reckon I know the Old Masters as well as anyone.
“One of my masters, Uther Botkin, was fond of quoting Mr. Jefferson: ‘The man who keeps a slave has a wolf by the tail.’ Mr. Stevens, sir, imagine yourself in Virginia, dependent on the labor of slaves for your prosperity and your family’s happiness. What might you have done to preserve that wicked, un-Christian, but by your understanding necessary institution? Slavery, sir, was a great evil, but not all slave owners are wicked men.”
“Mr. Burns, your distinction is too subtle. If we do not prevent them from doing so, your Old Masters will reenslave you. Surely you understand that.”
Jesse considered for a long time. “As a Christian, I must think better of them than that.”
CHAPTER 14
SON-OF-A-BITCH STEW
veal heart brains
tongue kidney suet
sweetbreads flour
kidneys salt
marrowgut pepper
liver
Be on hand with a bucket when the calf is slaughtered to cut out the organs. Discard connective tissue and soak in cold salt water. Cut up the meat and render suet. Flour and fry, one piece at a time. The heart will require longer cooking and should be put in first, then the tongue; the brains go in last. Use only a pound or two of liver. Add salt and pepper and an inch of water. Cover and cook for several hours.
DAWN WAS A RED LINE ON THE HORIZON WHEN NELSON STORY’S crew worked the buck out of their cow ponies. Before the sun had much heat, the herd had walked three miles. Some mornings steam rose off the horses, other mornings were milder.
A Mormon train of wagons and handcarts preceded them five miles ahead and a forty-wagon train kept the same distance behind. Sometimes horsemen passed through the herd and Story’s hands kept a sharp eye that a beef or two didn’t pass with them.