Chapter 1: Gotta Go

December 1856

Virginia (Modern-Day West Virginia)

About thirty miles west of present-day Charleston, West Virginia

I was probably two miles from home and gnawing on a piece of jerky to keep the hunger at bay while waiting patiently in the blind I had built. I built it at a natural salt lick I had discovered in one of the areas where I routinely hunt, but only hunt near the salt lick during the winter. Animals frequent the salt lick to do just that, lick the salt.

The rest of the year, I avoid hunting in this area. That way, game is more plentiful there when it’s harder to find elsewhere. I had arrived well before dawn and spent the last hour waiting patiently. Well, maybe not so patiently. Despite the winter weather being warmer than usual lately, it was still darn cold. Lying motionless in a blind I’d built in a tree had left me chilled, even though I’d layered my clothing and wore the thick rabbit-fur jacket Mom and my younger sister Penny made for me.

I usually make two or three pilgrimages here each week to fill four small barrels with brine from the spring at the salt lick. The spring is against the face of a ten-foot cliff. Remnants of a vertical tube on the cliff face look like the spring used to reach the top of it, but part of the cliff had crumbled away long enough ago that the debris has long since been washed away.

Very little water runs out of the spring, but after filling my four barrels, the small pool will be full again in a day or two, depending on the season. Using Rascal and Zeke, our two mules, I leave home right after breakfast with each mule carrying two of the four empty barrels Dad bought from the man who owns the tavern in town. Each barrel originally held eighteen gallons of ale. At the salt lick, I use a bucket and funnel to fill all four barrels nearly full before heading home with almost seventy gallons of brine.

Our family briefly considered starting a business selling salt, but the water returns too slowly. Instead, we keep our family and numerous neighbors supplied with salt. Our family receives goods, labor, and sometimes cash for the salt, five cents a pound. The occasional times that we receive cash, Dad saves it for me and puts it in the bank. The family benefits since we usually get labor or goods in trade. I consider my share to be fair since Mom and Penny do more of the work than I do, although I’m the one who chops most of the firewood.

Mom and Penny boil away the water, using kettles on the wood stove while they cook meals, and occasionally in the fireplace. During the summer, they use a fire outdoors during the day. During the winter, they boil the kettle all day long, so the fire keeps the house warm. Each trip nets our family a bit over fifteen pounds of salt. For some reason, the pool refills faster in the winter, and I make a trip every other day. On the off days, like today, I hunt.

A woman screamed somewhere off to my right shattering the quiet, followed by raised male voices that suddenly stopped. Hearing a woman scream immediately drew my attention and I jumped down to the ground and began running in the direction of the scream. I stumbled and ran awkwardly at first since I was stiff from staying still for so long. When I was close to where I estimated the scream had come from, I slowed, not wanting to announce my presence by crashing through the brush before I knew what was going on.

I slowed further when the male voices became clearer. They were laughing and taunting someone. When I was close enough to see them, I was glad I had hurried. The two men had a woman tied over a fallen tree and were cutting off her buckskin dress. Even though I didn’t know all the details, I knew the only detail that I needed to know to get involved--they intended to force themselves on a woman.

When the men finished pulling off the woman’s dress, one man undid his pants and dropped them around his ankles. That left only one man holding a firearm and he became my target. As I fired my rifle and he fell, the second man dove for his rifle, which was leaning against a tree several feet away. Knowing that he would be looking for me where the smoke from my shot had been taken, I also moved. He was naked from the waist to his feet, and it was all I could do to keep from laughing at him each time he heard a noise and jumped.

Ooooohhhhh, good idea. Once I finished reloading, I found a pinecone and threw it about thirty feet away where it made enough noise that the man spun and fired at it. Laughing openly now, I stepped out from behind the tree with my reloaded rifle aimed at him. When he started to raise his rifle again, I shot him dead center, with the emphasis on dead.

Stopping to cut the woman loose, I saw her face for the first time and suddenly felt terrible for having enjoyed the view of her derriere as I approached.

“Mrs. Wilkes, are you okay?” I asked anxiously, while removing the rag they stuffed in her mouth.

“I am now, thank you,” she replied as I cut the rope binding her wrists. She stood and rubbed the circulation back into her hands and I quickly turned away since she was mostly naked. Oddly, she didn’t seem concerned about her state of undress.

I stripped off my jacket and handed it behind me for her to put on. The leggings she usually wore beneath her buckskin skirt were all the men had left of her clothing. She helped me strip the pants off the first man I shot since he was the smaller of the two. After removing his heavy money belt, I gave her his pants to wear. Checking the money belt, I found twenty Double Eagles in it. He had another $87 and change in his pocket. While I put on the money belt, she put on his suspenders so the pants didn’t fall down.

Only when she was dressed did I further search the two men, hoping to learn something about them. The second man had thirty Double Eagles in his money belt, and an additional $64 and change in his pockets.

“Wow,” I gasped when I looked at the rifles the men had with them. Both men carried a new rifle I’d never seen before. It appeared to be half rifle and half revolver.

It was a six-cylinder rifle, and each cylinder required a cap. When they finished firing, either one cylinder or all six, they still had to reload each empty cylinder with powder and a Minié ball, although they could fire all six shots before having to reload.

In their saddlebags, each man carried a pair of Navy Colt Revolvers and a revolver that I’d never seen before. The new revolvers had actual brass cartridges, unlike the Navy Colts I used where I had to load the powder, ball, and percussion cap for each cylinder.

Each of the men had a second rifle in a scabbard, and I recognized the Pattern Enfield rifles immediately. The Enfields were almost as beautiful as the earlier views I’d gotten of Mrs. Wilkes.

I gasped once more when I found even more gold coins in their saddlebags. In addition to weapons worth well over a hundred dollars, each set of saddlebags had $250 in various denominations of gold coins. The horses were excellent animals, better even than Midnight, who was indisputably the finest horse in the county. Mr. Brackett collected a considerable amount of money each year letting the stud do what comes naturally with the mares of anyone who could afford the fee. Hell, the saddles on these two horses were barely broken in, and much finer than any I’d seen before. It was obvious that these two men had a lot of money.

I planned to take everything to the sheriff in Charleston to let him sort it out. Mrs. Wilkes insisted that I at least keep the gold, so we headed for my home. Dad and my brothers were taking advantage of the temporary break in the weather by chopping and splitting firewood when we got there. I took Dad aside and explained what happened, then showed him the money. “Darn, son, looks like you’ve got enough to get your own place now,” he chuckled as he gave me a congratulatory slap on the back. When Dad said that, Emma’s face came immediately to mind. My two older brothers and I were still living at home while we each saved enough to afford our own places so we could support a family when we got married.

Mrs. Wilkes insisted that I keep all the money since I had saved her. “It will help you and the Garfield girl start your married life,” she said, grinning knowingly.

Dad insisted that Mrs. Wilkes and I go inside to warm up and eat while he sent my oldest brother Jake to get Mr. Wilkes. Mr. and Mrs. Wilkes have lived next door to us for as long as I can remember, “next door” being two miles away. Mr. Wilkes was frequently gone for two to four weeks at a time as he drove his wagon to farms in a three-county area, selling and buying goods. If he thought he could turn a profit on something someone wanted to get rid of, he bought it, always for considerably less than it was worth.

Mrs. Wilkes is full-blooded Cherokee. Mr. Wilkes traded for her when I was a baby. Since she hadn’t had any children after two years with her Cherokee husband, he took another wife, and traded his first wife to Mr. Wilkes when he expressed an interest. Since she told me the story, I don’t doubt it. Despite the way Mr. Wilkes ended up with her, they’re always happy when I see them together.

Mrs. Wilkes saw me out hunting when I was seven and took me under her wing, teaching me how to stalk game and move through the woods quietly. She also taught me to track and use a bow like hers, as well as how to make and use snares to capture small animals for meat and pelts.

Rather than wasting caps, powder, and lead on the pesky rabbits that constantly try to devour our garden, I was soon using a bow and snares to defend it. Those rabbits provide the pelts for my new jacket each year. I get a new jacket because I spend so much time out-of-doors hunting in the winter. My sister gets my old one unless Mom trades it to a neighbor for something. Mrs. Wilkes has made me several sets of buckskins over the years. She and my girlfriend, Emma, also wear some of the jackets I’ve outgrown.

Mrs. Wilkes claims that I’m her adopted son since she can’t have children of her own. My parents were ecstatic that I was learning so much from her, as well as giving her someone to talk with and to help her when Mr. Wilkes was out of town. Even in the worst years, I’ve been able to keep meat on the table for our family, and Mom sells or trades quite a bit to neighbors who aren’t as lucky. Mrs. Wilkes gets most of the deerskins in exchange for making me buckskins.

Except for the rabbit pelts, Dad takes the pelts I bring home into the city each spring and sells them, putting the money from the pelts, the meat Mom sells, and the salt we sell, into the bank for me. Even though the account is in his name, he says that the money is mine. Evidently, I already have considerably more saved than both of my older brothers combined.

Mr. Wilkes rushed to his wife when he arrived, making sure she was okay. Once he was assured that she was unharmed, he shook my hand so hard I thought it might fall off. “I always knew you was a good kid, Jimmie. I guess now this makes you a good man, and I should call you Jim, instead,” he exclaimed.

He insisted that I call him Tom, and his wife Dawn. Dawn was short for Dawn Mist, the English translation of her Cherokee name.

Tom and Dad accompanied Dawn and me to town the next day to see the sheriff. The thirty-mile ride took most of the day, and we arrived just before dinnertime. The sheriff left with us the next morning to look at the two bodies and thought about my account of the attack. Since she was an Indian, he never bothered to ask Dawn what happened. Still, I showed the sheriff the man with his pants around his ankles and the dress the men had cut off her.

When he looked at their weapons, he whistled. “These two were planning on some serious shooting,” he commented. “These are two of those new-fangled Colt six-shooter repeating rifles. They’re a heck of a lot faster in a gunfight than reloading between each shot,” he said almost reverently.

“And these two revolvers here are the new S&W Revolvers that use metal cartridges. Darn, son, you’re lucky you caught them with their pants down,” he said seriously, as he awarded me their belongings, which I already had. He spent the night with the Wilkes.

Mr. Wilkes, Dad, and I accompanied the sheriff and the two bodies back to town the next day. He went around town the following morning asking if anyone recognized the two men. The owner of the mercantile recognized them, commenting, “I saw them about a week ago when they came in to buy ammunition. I saw them talking to that new fella, Mr. Blake, or Brake, or something like that.”

Dad’s face paled at the news, and Tom wasn’t far behind. “It’s Brake, and he tried to buy our farm just over a month ago. He said I’d regret not selling to him,” Dad growled angrily.

“Done told me pretty much the same thing,” Tom agreed.

“I think I’d better talk to this Mr. Brake,” the Sheriff said. “These two fellas are riding expensive horses with fancy saddles, and even fancier weapons. I’m betting they’re hired guns,” he commented somberly.

“Why is he so interested in our farms?” Dad wondered aloud. “Sure, we have access to the river for water, and the soil is fertile, but there is still lots of unclaimed land along the river that’s just as good. I’ve even panned the river and nearby streams looking for gold and didn’t find any.” Nobody knew the answer.

Since I was inheriting the men’s weapons, the owner of the mercantile asked if I was interested in buying the cartridges the two men ordered for the revolvers, as well as the two additional repeating rifles they ordered. Everything was already half paid for. After speaking with Dad about making sure we were all better armed, I used some of the money I confiscated from the men and bought the cartridges and rifles. We were surprised at how much they had ordered. There were more than two hundred cartridges for the revolvers, as well as enough powder, Minié balls, and caps for the repeating rifles to start a small war. In addition, there were a thousand Minié balls and paper cartridges filled with powder for the Enfield rifles. I even bought extra powder, caps, and lead for my original rifle, as well as for the other weapons our family had.

At the suggestion of the shopkeeper, we paid a visit to the town’s saddle maker. Sure enough, both men had ordered a new double hip holster for the Navy Colts, and a cross draw holster for their S&W revolvers. He said they told him they bought the new revolvers just before coming here and hadn’t had time to get holsters yet. I spent more of the dead men’s money for the four holsters. We stayed in town the rest of the day, not wanting to spend the winter night sleeping outside.

The sheriff rode with us the next morning to talk to Mr. Brake. Dad and I rode the two new horses home. My first impression of the horses was right; they were magnificent. When we got home, Dawn was there and hugged me and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek, thanking me again for saving her. Then she and her husband continued home with the sheriff. While Dad and I ate a late supper, he told the rest of the family about our trip and about the potential problem posed by Mr. Brake.

The sheriff spent the night with the Wilkes family and visited Mr. Brake early the next morning. He reported to us that Brake had a large cabin on a huge parcel of land about two miles above us. He had two more men and four slaves busy building what looked like a bunkhouse and a barn. Brake claimed that he knew nothing about the two hired guns except that they asked him for work as farm hands. The sheriff told us afterwards that Brake had far more lumber up there than he would need to build the bunkhouse and barn.

For a week, I tried to use up all the cartridges I bought, getting used to the rifles and the revolvers. I was surprised at how quickly I caught on to the revolvers since I had never used one before. By the end of the week, I could hit within a couple of inches of where I was aiming the revolver at twenty-five yards. Just for the heck of it, I even practiced a fast draw using the cross-draw holster. I had nothing to compare my speed to but was confident that I could get the gun out quickly if the need arose. Even Dad was impressed by my speed and accuracy with the revolvers.

The Enfield rifles were more of a challenge. Dad explained that the repeating rifles were for shots of a hundred yards or less, and the Enfields were for longer shots. I practiced and found that the Enfield would shoot more than a thousand yards, although I was only accurate to a little more than three hundred yards. Dad was impressed with my marksmanship, having tried one of the Enfields himself.

After a week with no further trouble, I went out hunting again. This time, Dawn went with me so we could watch out for each other. She enjoyed riding one of my new horses and smiled as she stroked the withers of the horse. We found a small herd of deer at the salt lick and quietly picked out the two we wanted. On the count of three, we both used our bows, and each hit the young buck we aimed for. Once the two bucks finally collapsed, I carried mine next to Dawn’s and she stood watch while I bled them out and field dressed them. Then I loaded them onto Rascal and Zeke.

I took Dawn home and helped hang her buck so she could skin it. Leading the horse she rode and the two mules, I headed home. Halfway there, I heard a bullet whiz by my head, followed immediately by the report of a rifle. In a second, I was on the ground, sheltered behind a large rock I rolled behind. Backing away from the rock, I entered a shallow brush-lined depression and crawled about a hundred feet to my right where I found another good-sized rock. This one was inside the tree line where I wouldn’t be nearly as visible in the shade as I had been in the sun at the last rock.

I looked to where I thought the shot had come from, all the while listening for sounds indicating that the shooter was trying to flank me. I finally spotted a rifle barrel aimed at the first rock. Since I had my rifle and one of the revolvers with me, I aimed where I thought a shooter would be in relation to the rifle barrel that was sticking out and fired a shot. My effort was rewarded with a scream of pain and the ambusher’s rifle dropping forward.

Still, I crawled slowly and quietly, trying further to flank the shooter. I didn’t know if there was more than one shooter, or if the shooter was only wounded and just pretending to be hurt. More than half an hour later, I was behind the shooter’s position where his horse was. There was only one horse, one set of hoof prints, and one set of footprints, so I crept towards the shooter’s position. He was definitely dead, and the large spot where his blood soaked into the ground was proof of how much blood he had lost.

After retrieving my horses and mules, I rolled the gunman onto a hastily constructed travois, tied it to his horse and dragged him home, wondering how many gunmen the Brake fellow could afford. This one had a nice horse and saddle, but his rifle was a long rifle like my old one, and he had a Colt Navy Revolver. Aside from some jerky, his saddlebags were empty, and he wasn’t wearing a money belt.

When I made it home, Dad gasped when he saw the man’s face. “That’s Brake, the man who tried to buy our farm!” he exclaimed. It was still early enough that we tied the man across his horse and rode into town.

The sheriff had finished his supper before we arrived. “Yup, that’s Mr. Brake,” he concurred when I told him what happened. Once again, Dad and I slept in the livery stable. In the morning, the sheriff returned with us, wanting to look over the scene of the shooting. It was dark by the time we got home, so he spent the night with the Wilkes family again since our house was bursting at the seams.

The next morning, I showed him where the ambush occurred. He walked around and looked at everything, pointing out signs I’d already seen for each event I described. He even found the paper cartridge Mr. Brake had used to reload his rifle. He was finally satisfied that I was telling the truth, and the three of us rode to the Brake cabin.

The two men working there claimed not to know anything about what Mr. Brake was doing, just that they were being paid to oversee construction of the bunkhouse and the barn. None of the four slaves knew anything, but suggested speaking to Mrs. Brake. We did, and moments after she invited us into the cabin, we heard two horses riding away quickly.

I was surprised that Mrs. Brake wasn’t upset about her husband’s death. “I had to marry him or his family would have killed my father,” she explained indignantly. “My father didn’t tell anyone else, but he planned to leave for St. Louis as quickly as he could, still fearing for his life,” she added.

Then she explained why her husband had wanted our land. He had discovered a coal seam near the property line, about halfway between their cabin and our house. He wanted our property so he could haul the coal to the river to ship it. He wanted the Wilkes’ farm so he could have slaves grow food on the two farms to help feed the miners. The two men who just rode away had worked for his family before coming here. They were probably on the way back to Savannah to tell the family what happened. She warned us that there would be trouble when his family found out. Like her deceased husband, they used guns to get what they wanted, including getting even.

Then she stunned us, asking us to take her with us if we left town. She wasn’t sure what would happen to her if she stayed, but knew she wouldn’t enjoy it. Insisting that we call her Florence, or even Flo, she cleared her belongings out of the cabin, along with nearly five thousand dollars in gold she said was for starting up the mine. The four slaves came with us, although our family doesn’t believe in slavery.

With the immediate threat dealt with, we wouldn’t be bothered for several weeks until the two men could ride to Savannah and lead the Brake family members back here. Dad and Tom decided to be gone by then. Knowing that, I paid a visit to the Garfield home. Emma Garfield and I have been friends for as long as we can remember. We’d talked many times about getting married when I could afford it. Dad always insisted that my brothers and I have at least five hundred dollars in the bank before getting married and I could easily afford it now. When I told Mr. Garfield about what happened, he was surprised. Even though they were our neighbors on the side opposite from the Wilkes family, Mr. Brake hadn’t visited them. Evidently, his farm was far enough away that Mr. Brake hadn’t been interested in it.