The Reach

By Paul Hennrich

Three high-spirited boys and a headstrong girl grow up together in the idyllic, hilled countryside of southern Illinois during the 1850’s, sharing childhoods filled with friendship, adventure, loving families and the golden sunshine that rests gently on the young. But with adulthood comes the 1860’s, a time of cannons and minié balls and numbing tragedy.
It’s the tragic era of the Civil War, followed by the savage fighting against the Indians of the American west, two unforgiving wars in which these young people become embroiled. Their personal relationships come to mirror the turmoil roiling their country, where love and friendship is so easily lost, and a final redemption can only be attained through heart-rending sacrifice.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paul Hennrich
• Release date: May 23, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370091270

Paul Hennrich

I have always loved to write. My third grade teacher read my very first short story to my classmates. In it, I had a head tumbling down a staircase. I have always had a thing for the rough stuff, at least in fiction.Over the years I continued writing. I have written an epic novel over a thousand pages long about a group of young friends, carrying their lives through their childhood years before the Civil War and then in to the war itself, finally dragging them and their relationships into the following Indian wars in the American West. It's titled The Reach and is now available within Smashwords.But first I published DEFINITIONS (Smashwords and Amazon), followed by the second and third adventurers of the of Kent Baker series. In order of publication they are SCAVENGERS (Amazon), and ENTERTAINMENT (Rocking Horse Publishing and Amazon).A fourth caper, KINFOLK, is in the formatting stage and will soon be released at Smashwords.For more info on theses novels and their availability, along with any other news concerning future releases, please go to my website listed below.That is my story as an author. I sincerely hope you find my novels enjoyable diversions -- (we all need diversions, now don't we?).My own more important story is that I’m a happily married man with a beautiful wife and big family that includes a daughter, a son, five grandchildren, mother, son-in-law, brothers and sisters along with their spouses, and a basket full of nieces and nephews. Life is great.

Book preview

BOOK ONE

Between the Wars

The Journal of Tom Wills

June, 1853

Women are a lot like fish, Jesse was saying.

I remember his words clearly. We were sitting on the riverbank by Murphy’s Branch. It was one of those summer days that was the type you want to remember. The sun was out, the clouds were floating, it wasn't hot. Bugs were humming and chirping, letting you know it was nice by them too. I can't say I remember them for sure, the bugs, but I know they were there. They had to of been. The birds too.

What Jesse was saying wasn't exactly that women were like fish. No, what he was saying was that women took men like fish bit a hook.

He was sitting on a finger of bank, farther out in the water than Moses and me. The sun was dabbing the water between the shadows of the tree limbs. The sticks we had tied to our lines for floats were in spots of sun. You always fished in the sun spots.

Girls, Jess repeated, are like how a fish bites. The pretty ones are like a catfish when he's playing around with your worm. Makes your stick circle slow for the longest of time, just playing with you. Kind of snobbish, like she don't really know if she wants you or not. Just slowly circles, slowly circles and teases you till your mad. Some of the others come at you different, like a carp or a buffalo. Grabs you and just tries to take you away all at once. Like it's starving to death. See what I mean?

I didn't say anything. Being Jesse's brother and three years younger, and only nine years old, I never questioned him. I listened in awe, as always, and was just glad he had let me come along.

Moses was his age and just a friend and so had a right to skepticism.

What are you talking about? he asked. What girl tried to gulp you up?

Didn't say any did, just said that's how they would.

Moses felt he had him on the run. If you had them on the run you didn't let up.

And what about the in-between ones, he went on. Kind of pretty but backward shy. How do they bite? Do they in-between bite?

I guess, yes. Like a bluegill. A nibble, then run like hell. You mean you don't know what I mean? About girls?

Jesse, as always, was good. He had turned it around fast. What eleven-year-old would admit he didn't know about girls? Especially with a nine-year old listening.

Sure I know, Moses said quickly, glancing at me out of the corner of his eye. It's just that it was kind of a igernent way to put it. Why would you compare a girl to a fish biting anyway?

Jesse smiled, knowing he knew he had put it on Moses.

Cause I know a lot about both, he said.

Lately I began noticing it didn't take much to run our talking to the way of girls. Of course, I knew why. They were of mind and body to want to figure girls out. Since it was them doing the talking I didn't mind it, even though I didn't care a hoot about any girl anywhere.

I was allowed along, like I said, and I liked listening. If I had been with someone my age we wouldn't have even thought about bringing it up.

But Jesse and Moses were talking about it all the time. It was weighing heavy on them. Not enough that they would invite one to go fishing with us, but enough to talk about them when we went.

I knew I shouldn't say anything but they had started my brain to twisting and so I got stupid and asked.

Yes, but anyway, what if she was pretty but it was a cold day and something was coming out of her nose? How would she bite then?

They turned and looked at me like I was a slimy gar they'd just pulled out of the water of Murphy’s branch.

Moses curled his lips when he spoke.

Oh, now that was really igernent! What pretty girl would let her nose run? Your igernent when you're little, aren't you? Isn't he Jess?

Jesse really wasn't embarrassed by me, but he did laugh, and that was enough.

Igernent he is, he said.

Being igernent, I turned my head away and looked to my stick, thinking I wanted a bite real bad.

It had been a long time since any of us had one. It was four hours past dawn and the heat was chasing the fish away.

It didn't matter much though. We were in the talking mood and the stringer had five catfish and two white perch from when it was cool and they were biting. I looked from my stick to the sky that rolled above the trees.

Some crows were making their way past, black, lazy and fat. Above them a white puff of cloud rolled off too high for a ladder to reach. I thought about it and decided it looked like my grandpa's head, except it's nose was bigger.

Jesse jiggled his cane pole restlessly, trying to make something happen. The water rolled away from his stick in circles, even though the stick wasn't round. It was Moses who broke the silence.

I'm getting kind of hungry anyway. What about you?

Thirsty too, Jesse said. We may as well go, I guess.

We rolled our line up around our poles, pulled the last of the worms off and threw them in the water, then stuck our hook into the stick to hold everything tight. Being the oldest and the tallest Jesse was elected without a word to pull the fish rope out of the water and carry it. It was mostly the tallest that elected him as he was only months older than Moses. Being tall meant the tails wouldn't drag.

We trundled up the bank and through the willows and maples that covered the most of it. The weeds were dried and laid over and the briars stood above them, making it hard for someone my size to drag themselves through. I pulled along silently, however, knowing it wouldn't do to complain, igernent as I was.

We soon broke out of the woods into a grassy field where the walking became a lot easier. I rushed up to fall in beside the two bigger boys.

The talk about fish biting like women was still bothering Moses it seemed, as he was asking Jesse the question I knew was coming all along.

What about Sarah? What kind of biter do you suppose she would be?

Sarah was a girl in town about their age. Her father owned the tavern. I had noticed that up to a year or so ago they never talked about her, or any girl for that matter. So far that summer, though, she was all they ever talked about. I knew one of them liked her as they were of the right age for losing their senses that way, but what I didn't know was which one. It had been hard to tell by the way they talked. The not knowing made me try to close the gap quickly as soon as I was past tall weeds. It was possible that it could prove the day of reckoning, and a lot of stature would ride on the back of such knowledge when we got back to school.

Sarah? Jesse said, squinting his eyes and pursing his lips in thought, holding the rope carrying the fish over his shoulder.

It seemed someone was always asking Jesse a question. It wasn't just his height that caused it. It was something else. Jesse was a thinker, and usually right, even about things that was mostly made for growed up thinking. He whirled things in his mind like cream in a churn and it always came up butter. That's a highly respected thing in a boy eleven, especially among other boys eleven. It got so you took for granted he was the one with the answer, so why bother with anyone else?

Sarah? he said again, not wanting to rush into anything so important. I'd say Sarah would bite any dang way Sarah wanted. One day she would tease like a catfish, the next she would gulp like a carp. Sarah would do just whatever Sarah wanted to do.

The idea of Sarah gulping seemed to take the wind out of Moses. He just looked at the ground with wide eyes, kind of like he'd been gut struck.

Dang it, he said softly after a while, I believe you're right. She could do what she wanted.

We walked along in silence a while then Moses started laughing.

Ha! What kind of bait would you use for Sarah?

Bait? Ha, ha! Danged if I know. Maybe a ribbon. Or a new pair of shoes.

Or, Moses said with a guffaw, a neked man! Sit some neked man on a big hook and see if she'd come to that!

Yeah, with his wee-tail a-hanging! Think she'd jump to that, Mose?

Ha, ha! Bet so, jump right to that!

It was such a sight to imagine that we all stopped to bend over and laugh. I could just see some neked man on a hook with his wee-tail hanging as plain as day, and so could they. Walking was out of the question. The conjured picture had to be enjoyed.

It took a bit but eventually we started off, wiping the tears from our eyes. Every once in a while someone would mumble 'wee-tail' or 'hook' as the vision floated by once more and we'd laugh again.

Before long we came to the rutted dirt lane that led eventually past both our houses. The warm dust floated up as we kicked along through it and eventually settled on our sweaty foreheads. In another day it would be Saturday and we would go through several washtubs of water before it would all come off. Right then, however, the dust was ours for the taking.

A quarter mile down the road Moses' house came into view. Small, unpainted, with a chimney and a dirt yard picked clean by chickens. A large oak sat right behind it and a short, big-around maple in front. Even from the distance you could see that the front porch sloped downward. It was a small place, but then again there was just Samuel, Moses' father, Mrs. Hoppe and Moses and it was more than enough room for them. Behind the house a short ways sat a wood shed.

In a field just this side of the house Samuel Hoppe was working his team through the grass, laying it under with a singletree plow. He saw us coming and stopped and smiled and walked the short distance to the road.

Mr. Hoppe was the workingest man I ever knew. I never saw him that he wasn't putting himself into a sweat. He worked hard day after day sharecropping our ground, fact being that if you farmed anywhere for miles around you were sharecropping my family's land. On top of that, on weekends, he was our preacher, holding God before us as closely as He could be helt. With any spare time that was left he was helping a neighbor who was behind putting out a crop, or nursing someone who was sick, or just plain checking up on people. In most cases someone else's needs came ahead of his own, making his plot the last one to be farmed. That day it was middle June, time for planting to be winding up, and he was still plowing the first of his own fields. Most said the running around was just Samuel the preacher doing God's work. My Mama didn't disagree with that exactly, she just said she also thought he had a big case of the jitters, whatever that meant.

I had no idea what made him that way, I just know there wasn't anyone who didn't like Samuel Hoppe, for being both a good worker and a good man and preacher with a grip on God.

He wasn't tall, but he was stout, and as he came up to us the stoutness showed through as the sweat pressed his cotton shirt tight against his chest muscles. He wiped his head and light brown hair with a blue handkerchief.

Boys done well, he said, pointing to our fish. Someone's going to be enjoying some fine fried catfish.

You can have them, Reverend, Jesse said. We had the most of the last batch.

Well now, Mr. Hoppe said slyly, do I have to strike a bargain to skin 'em?

Nah. We'll take them up to our place and Moses can bring them back.

Catfish. Um-m-m. Can't beat this deal at twice the price.

Moses looked past his father's shoulder towards the plow and horse.

Need some help, Pappy? he asked, knowing he was safe in asking because he knew the answer.

Most children Moses and Jesse's age worked the fields hard that time of the year. About the only ones who didn't were Jesse and Moses and both for the same reason. Their father's wouldn't allow it. Our father because he thought it wasn't our place and Reverend Hoppe because he felt Moses shouldn't.

Mrs. Hoppe would get on to him about it and his answer was always the same.

A boy's a boy, he would always say, so let him be one while he can. He'll be grown up soon enough and there'll be time aplenty to pay dues. God likes the children happy.

Mrs. Hoppe was worried about the Reverend's health, being such a worker as he was, and she was right in that Moses' not helping made it harder on him, but the Reverend would have none of it. He would only smile and hug and tickle her and she would slap at him and let it lie.

And being eleven it didn't bother Moses not to work, or to ask to help, knowing the answer.

No, I got her, son, Samuel Hoppe replied. It's a nice day to plow. You boys best get those fish took care of before they dry out.

We started back up the road, the two older boys high stepping.

Here, now, you two wait up on young Tom, he chided. Someday he'll be as big as you and might leave you behind.

I smiled back at him. It was nice to be given the chance to grow up as big as big boys, though I knew my chance of catching Jesse was slim. Still, for an adult to say it was good just the same. He winked at me then turned to work his way back to the plow.

Just past the Hoppe's house the road took an upward tilt. The ground began rolling, which in that part of southern Illinois meant you were mounting a hill. I learned later in Virginia what a hill really was but at that time the definition in my home country was a bigger than average roll in the ground. So it was a hill we were climbing.

At the top of that grade, maybe three quarters of a mile from the Hoppe house, was my and Jesse's home. It started coming into view beyond the trees about the time Moses’ home started disappearing into them. Even from the distance you could see it was a considerably bigger place, two stories tall and made of brick, the only brick home for miles around. Father would have it no other way. His had to own the grandest house and with no chickens in the front yard.

The only thing allowed in our front yard was a tree lined road that circled before a large white front porch, freshly painted every two years. Once I had seen a picture drawing of a southern plantation in a book in Father's library. I had looked on the sly because he didn't like us boys rummaging there. Our house looked kind of like this big house in the drawing, which was someplace in Louisiana. I have no doubt Father planned it that way.

Our house was on the direct top of the hill and from the front porch you see all the surrounding farmland that we owned. Father had that planned that way too.

As we closed in the trees brushed up against the road on our left, tall oaks and shagbark hickories with a few scrubby dogwoods and sassafras. They grew thick because no livestock was grazed there and they had free rein. The woods there was also deep but did not extend to the front of the house, where they weren't allowed because of Father's needing a view.

From behind one of the hickories, just outside the road, a voice came clear and without warning. It didn't surprise us as we were expecting it.

Where you goin' with them fish?

It was Grandpa and he stepped out with a grin on his face. He had gotten up on us again, even though we knew he would.

Grandpa was always proud of getting up on people. That was because he had once been an Indian fighter, forty-some years before. He liked to prove he still had it in him to be one and we liked him to prove it because there wasn't much more for boys to be prouder of than a Grandpa who had been an Indian fighter.

In his hands he held what he always held when he got up on us, a Kentucky long rifle that we stood in awe of as much as of Grandpa. A gun we ached to touch but that Mama would not allow us to get near. She had nothing against that gun in particular, she wouldn't let us touch any.

Grandpa was tall, a little scrunched because of his age but tall just the same. There were those who said he was where Jesse got his height from. It surely wasn't Father or Mama. You could see a likeness in their faces too, both long and pleasant, and in their straight hair combed straight back, though Grandpa's was white instead of brown like Jesse's. Other ways Jess was like Grandpa too. It wouldn't be long before I found he had some of his courage.

Grandpa shifted the rifle so it was cradled across his arms then nodded towards the catch dangling behind Jesse's back.

I suppose you'll want help cleanin' those fish, he said.

We did and he knew we did, which was why we told Reverend Hoppe we were taking them to our house. It was like a game to us, though I don't know that Grandpa knew it. The game being that every time we came home from fishing he would sneak up on us and volunteer to clean our fish.

Then again, I'm pretty sure he knew it.

You can sure help us if you want to, Grandpa, I said as innocently as I could.

He took two long strides in his leather, frontiersman britches and was up beside us.

Might as well, he said. I've wandered these woods about as much as I've a mind to today.

Grandpa spent about all his time wandering the hills and woods. He knew where every ginseng bush was and where the next batch of eating mushrooms was about to come up. He knew when and what fish were about to bite and where to get them and never failed to tell us, and always kept the house in turkeys and venison. It was the Indian fighter in him, I guess, and he was contented with doing it.

Thing was, there hadn't been much for him to do with the business end of our land since my father had taken over the reins of it years before. Jesse and I had never known him as a working man, only as our Grandpa the Indian fighter, who always stayed in his frontiersman ways.

The land, of course, was really his, gathered up and given to him by his father a long while back. His father had been one of the first settlers in the area. It took in a lot of acres and was one of the biggest properties in our part of the state.

Grandpa got the land after his father died and right after that my Father had come and married his daughter and took to running things. And, I gather, Grandpa just let him. And Mama. Mama, I guess, because she was a woman. Grandpa, I always guessed, because of the call of his long rifle.

People talked about Grandpa and his Indian fighting days and his wanderings. He was sort of a legend in our area. Some other people who would have tried the same thing might have been considered a brick short a full load, but not Grandpa. Maybe it was the way he carried himself, sort of tall and limber and proud. I don't know. Maybe it was because he was the one who really owned all the land in the first place, land-owning being big in a place where most folks was small time. Money always made you a little less crazy.

Most people, I had a feeling from my watching and listening to them on the sly, thought it more likely my father was a little touched, instead of Grandpa. Some of them, I gathered, didn't like the airs he put on when he strutted around in his fancy clothes, or the way he talked like he knew everything and everybody.

As it was Grandpa did little talking, except when he had something he thought important enough to say. He hardly ever mentioned his fighting days, though everybody knew about them. At least he had never said much to Jesse and me and we were dying to know about them.

It did seem he was talking to us about it a little more as we got older, but never enough to satisfy us. We figured Momma was protecting us from his violent past like she protected us from his gun and all else. Jesse said it was also because Grandpa was a great man and great men never talked about their battles. George Washington, we figured, never mentioned his. It was them that wrote about him that did all the talking.

But no matter why, Grandpa got away with his leather clothes and stalking in the woods and wasn't considered addled. Sometimes I think I always try to figure too much of the why about things. Maybe the truth of it was he was the original man it all belonged to and that was all that mattered to most folks.

Just below our house a couple of hundred feet, a spring flowed down the hill out of some stubby rocks. It was our fish cleaning place and we all headed there through the grass, the grasshoppers chirping and jumping and making it a living thing.

When we got to the spring Grandpa reached into the sheath at his side and pulled the long bladed knife with the deer antler handle.

We held that knife in as much awe as the long rifle. It just had to of raised some scalps.

He leaned his rifle, which was almost as tall as him, against a nearby willow.

Here, he said, give me one of them whiskered fish. If we don't get around to those boney perch, won't be no great loss.

We followed the knife with wide eyes as he held the first catfish against a small log we had placed by the spring just for skinning and sliced off his head as clean as a whistle, no wasted motion.

Just like a scalp, huh Grandpa? Jesse asked hopefully.

Not so much so, Grandpa replied, not taking the bait.

Grandpa had a way with cleaning a catfish, which could be easy if done right and hells own problem if not. The trick was to end up with a skin flap behind the gills to grab between knife blade and thumb to use to pull the skin off clean with. If you missed leaving it you had a tough time getting a finger hold.

Grandpa knew the trick. When he got done with the head it wasn't seconds before you had nothing but a gutted fish with pinkish-white meat in front of you, meat hanging on backbone and ribs. It would take us boys ten minutes to get one cleaned, which was why we were glad Grandpa fell for our game that he probably knew about.

He flung the first fish's skin and guts into the nearby weeds and held out his hand for the next fish.

Believe I might trail along with you boys the next time, he said. Won't be long before the top water might be gettin' hot enough for the bass to go for a grasshopper. Beat messin' with those boney perch.

It was obvious the perch weren't much to Grandpa, which meant he no doubt wanted out of cleaning them. Which meant nothing to us except that we didn't want to clean them either. So Jesse tried to move the conversation on with a joke.

Yeah, and maybe Father will come along too. Think, Grandpa?

Our father's slowness about doing things with us had long ago become a joke in our minds and didn't bother us at all. Grandpa felt obligated, however, and couldn't let Jesse's jab pass without a defense.

Well, now, I'm sure your father wishes he wasn't so busy. But he is, and he puts good food on the table and a nice enough roof over the top, so best we don't hold it again him.

Oh they don't hold it against him, Grandpa Turner, Moses volunteered, I can vouch for that. He just probably don't have the clothes for fishing.

Jesse and I giggled. Moses was a friend and had a right to jab without fear, even at someone's father. That right ended with a friend like Moses, however.

Grandpa was well into the next catfish and acted like Moses' remark had passed over him.

We watched a while in silence. Flies were starting to gather, the smell of fish being too good to pass up. A light breeze rolled the grass around us. We followed the knife as it did its work, silent and deadly. Moses creased his forehead.

Grandpa Turner, he said, I was wondering. When you was out in the wilderness by yourself during the Indian troubles, how did you shoot for food? I mean, didn't the Indians hear and come after you?

Yeah, Grandpa, didn't you have to be quiet? Jess asked.

Like I said, Grandpa had come to talking about it now and then. We hit it lucky because this looked like it was going to be one of those times.

Do you boys know what it was like in those days? The land, I mean? Wasn't like now, where you can see a neighbor's smoke and sniff his outhouse. Was all woods and prairies. Usually weren't anybody around for miles. If you needed somethin', you took the chance. If it didn't pan out you just had to figure it was your time.

Grandpa had a countrified way of shortcutting his words. It was fun listening to him talk. He lopped off another fish head as easy as he lopped of the end of some of his words.

And there weren't In'yuns hunkered behind every tree like you boys got it figured, he went on. Where I cut my teeth there wasn't a village for fifty, sixty miles. You figure they hung from the vines ready to drop?

The best we could do was shrug our shoulders.

Anyway, he went on, I wasn't often alone. I wasn't one of them alone fellows. Them men was few and far between. Boone, Kenton, Campbell. Had more guts than sense, wanderin' in In'yun country on the sly all alone. Me and my friends, we came up after their like, when most of the In'yuns had moved on. Did I tell you we came out of Indiana?

He looked at Jess and I and we shook our heads.

Hell you say. I didn't tell you that? Seems I ain't told you a lot of things. Yes, sir, I was born in Indiana, east side as it was. Didn't do no fightin' there, was too young and had a watchful mother, not unlike yourselves. Had fights close to home though. Heard of Fallen Timbers? Where Mad Anthony took on Little Turtle? What it was was a tornado had laid over the trees like so much kindlin'. Had to crawl through it careful like, they said, or you got a tomahawk in the face. Rude awakening that would've been. Anyway, Mad Anthony Wayne took them on there. That's why they called him Mad Anthony, he didn't have the sense God give green apples when it came to a fight. Took them on and whipped them, bullets and knives and dead men in the tree trunks. In'yuns took and run, not knowin' what to make of a man who would fight there where they had wanted to. That was one of the few ways to get the best of an In'yun, act in an unexpected' way. They see things one-two-three and don't know what to make of someone who see things cankered. Heard of several people who didn't get painted black and burned because they started spoutin' tongues, as the bible says. Some was already tied up and the branches piled. Can't imagine nobody not slobberin' then. Anyway, Mad Anthony gave 'em such a whippin' they signed over all their land in Indiana. Sure you ain't learned this in school?

We assured him we hadn't, else we forgot.

Well, what do they teach you if they don't teach you Mad Anthony Wayne? 'Rithmatic can only carry you so far.

More guts and skin sailed down the hillside.

Anyway, he continued, my pappy was like Dan Boone when it came to moving on. Waited till the place was safe and tame and then left it. Drove your great grandma to the other side of sane. Pappy took us here to Illinois where the In'yuns still was. Not many mind you, just a few of what was called the Illinois tribes and a scatterin' of Ottawa and Shawnee. In'yuns just the same. Was like your great grandpa wanted to dare 'em. Made them mad, too, him and his like did. Well, he started claimin' land and I got too big for my mother to salt my tail and while he was still claimin' I took off to the parts unknown. But not alone, damn sight not alone. Took Phillip Tobias with me. I weren't no Dan Boone and I don't want you boys be saying I was, no matter what you hear.

He straightened a bit, enough to make his back crack and his stomach grumble.

He went on.

It started out as me and Phillip and we shot food when we wanted because all you could see was trees, trees and trees. It was a frightful inspirin' to be alone like that. I don't know what God even heard us.

Weren't you scared, Grandpa? I asked through a mouth that never closed.

Don't know that I was scared, though there was times I thought more highly of my mother's apron strings. Couldn't help it. Just trees. From every hill, from every point you looked. Trees. It was pretty, mind you, but there was times you felt you was gonna be swallowed. Couldn't figure the day would come when most would be girded and gone, least not in my life. But here we are.

What about Phillip? Jess asked. Where's he at today?

Dead. Fell down a bank and ran a bone through his leg. First came the puss, then the stink and the fever and then he died.

Was you being chased by Indians? Moses blurted.

No, wasn't no In'yuns. Just fell down a bank and put a bone through his leg. Lots of ways of dyin' where there's only trees.

It wasn't a death from Indian fighting but it was a death long ago in the frontier and it was enough to set our minds to running. Two men in buckskins, in the woods, and one of them dying. We looked ahead with dreamy eyes and saw it, with Grandpa in the middle.

What'd he look like? I asked.

Grandpa stopped skinning fish and glanced at me.

What does it matter what he looked like?

Don't know, I said truthfully, just wondering.

He looked back to his work.

You know, haven't thought about Phillip in years. What did he look like? Reg'lar height, reg'lar build. Brown hair. If I remember right he was losin' it as young as he was. Middle twenties. Hmm, kinda sad. Hard to remember the little things, and I watched him die.

He went quiet.

Tell us about it, Grandpa, Jess said hurriedly.

Even then it was half a minute before he spoke.

Don't know that I should. Your children, you know.

Children! I said in disbelief. Well, we know about fishing for women with neked men on hooks and if that ain't big I don't know what is!

Grandpa stopped in spite of a handful of guts.

You know what?

Jesse looked at me in disgust.

Don't pay no mind him, Grandpa, he's igernent. We don't know what he's talking about.

For a while it looked like Grandpa was going to smile, but then he turned serious.

Maybe you are grown up. Maybe.

His hands were getting slippery so he rinsed them in the spring water.

What happened was we was walkin' on a narrow overhang, trying to stay out of briers. Wasn't too far to the creek bed, maybe twenty, twenty-five foot, and most of the drop off was dirt. Just a few jabbings of rock. Anyway, the edge was mossed and our long rifles kinda hard to handle and Phillip just went over. Hardly made a sound, more kind of grunted. When I got to him he still didn't moan and groan, even with that shinbone poking sharp and pointy through his buckskins. It was an ugly sight though as I cut away his pant leg. Meat and blood puffing out around that bone, inside-out turnin'. I tried to set it. To today I don't know how he stood it but still he never made much noise. Thing was, I wasn't no doctor and didn't get it right. Couldn't move him and couldn't leave him and so I just hung around and kep' him in food and water. Fever took him when the puss started and that leg got big and black and blue and wasn't long it stank. Phillip never said much. Course he never did when healthy. We'd go a day or two and he wouldn't comment at all, unless it was unusual cold or hot or pretty. So not being a natural talker, he wasn't in no mood to talk for sure when he was hurtin' bad, even had his mind been right. Course, it wasn't. All he could do was mumble in his sleep. I didn't listen, figured it as personal.

Grandpa was getting to the last catfish and something, the fish or the talk, seemed to be wearing him down.

Went on close to a week or so, he said with less of a voice. I don't know for sure, in them trees you never counted days. Anyway, that last day I went out to hunt and he told me to move his rifle closer. I did. Wasn't a half mile off I heard the shot. Bounced off them woods it seemed like forever. Went back and I buried him. Phillip Tobias. Doubt I could find that place today.

But what happened to him? I asked. Did the Indians git him?

Igernent! Jesse said to me even though it was hard for him to speak.

Let him be, Grandpa said. He's young and little and that's a story I shouldn't of told him. Your mother won't like it if it gives him dreams.

He killed himself! Moses hollered at me in spite of what Grandpa said. "Isn't that right, Grandpa Turner, he killed himself?'

That's right, yes. There's never no reason to do that, boys, I want you to keep that in mind. But he was sufferin' and there was no way to get him any better. Just remember, it was a long time ago and times was hard. You lived one day, you died the next and never held grudge either way.

What'd you tell his folks? Jesse asked.

Didn't know 'em. Didn't know of 'em. He had just kinda wandered among us out of nowhere and, like I said, never talked.

Jess said, So he's almost forgot about, ain't he? It's just us and you who know about him now.

Grandpa pondered.

Suppose, he finally said. Most others I told are dead and can't remember ever tellin' your mother or father. Don't really know why I told you.

We stood there in awe, knowing we alone held a secret story with Grandpa Turner, an Indian fighter. It put us in an important place. And we knew that, though we busted to, we could never tell anyone else. Secrets with great men was kept that way and we had decided long ago he was a great man because, as Jesse had said, great men never told of their bravery. At least not often. And here he had.

We wanted to ask more but we could see Grandpa was done talking. He turned into himself any time he was. His eyes tightened and you could see his mind working. It was best then to be quiet. He threw the last catfish into the shallow pool. He turned and held out his hand.

Now, he said, how about one of those boney perch.

Jesse put the stringer down and pulled them off one at a time and flung them downhill into the tallest weeds.

What perch, Grandpa? he asked, when he was done.

Grandpa's eyes widened a mite and he rolled a half smile.

Since I'm a man who believes in using what you git, he said, it's a good thing I don't know nothin' about no boney perch. Let's get these eatable fish to the house and maybe your Mother will fix them for supper.

We promised them to Reverend Hoppe, I volunteered.

Sounds good to me, Grandpa said. "Let's see if we can finagle one of

father's old newspapers to roll them in."

We fell in line behind Grandpa and made our way to our large brick house.

Tell us more about Fallen Timbers and Mad Anthony fighting the Indians, Moses pleaded.

We all wanted to hear more, but Moses the most. His plans were to be a soldier and a general, make battle and become famous. He read all the books he could on the subject, though there weren't many to be had in our part of the woods. He never once wavered from his dream and none of us had any doubt he would do it.

It didn't look like Grandpa was ready to go on, though. He picked and chose his talking sparingly, as was the way with great men and heroes.

Best save it for another day, he said. We got business and my mind can't carry a double dose.

Moses puckered in disappointment and followed along.

We bypassed Father's big porch and made our way to the back of the house. It was partially shaded there, several oaks sneaking in close. The smokehouse was a ways behind the trees and down below the hill the hog pen. We kept just enough hogs for us and the only chore Father would allow Jesse and me was slopping and watering them.

He always complained about the smell and threatened to be rid of them, saying a big house like ours didn't deserve a pig smell when the wind blew wrong. But he didn't do it, I guess because he had no other way to be rid of slop.

But the pigs were all his pride could tolerate, though, and we bought all our chicken and beef. That was, he said, the way of a family of means.

We trooped up the smaller back porch and found Mama where we knew we would, in her white kitchen, rolling bread on the center table.

Our mother was a fine looking woman, if a young boy can be trusted to judge such a thing honestly. She was medium tall, nowhere near fat, with clean blonde hair that she washed several times a week, a thought that frightened us when it came to our hair. Her face was small and fine like her hair. Most days she wore the hair in a bun.

Mama kept her own house, even though she didn't have to. She demanded that she should, saying she'd just have to clean again what someone else did. She also said no one would feed her boys but herself, because they were her boys and needed her care. The big house kept her busy and we were big eaters, Grandpa included, but she always kept up and never seemed a whole lot worse for the wear. Maybe, with her mothering disposition, keeping things up for us is what kept her looking happy and healthy. A lot of the women her age looked twenty years older. These were the women who stayed in children and were not as well off as us.

Mama, for whatever reason, had only us and, along with that, enough money and desire to try to keep us fat. In that was happiness, along with the wish to keep her own house.

As it was, even though Father wanted to keep up the looks of a man of means, he never fought Mama much about her doing for herself. I suppose he wasn't so uppity as to look a gift horse in the mouth. Or maybe she had already worn him down by the time we came along. Mama had a definite gift for that. She could wear anybody down.

She would worry you about how you felt, or that your color wasn't right, she had a fixed gift for color, or why weren't you eating more, or did you do this, or had you done that? Getting Father to give in probably was a cinch, the way she could work a person.

Grandpa always said she come by it honest, his mother having held him from the woods longer than he liked.

We didn't begrudge her the worrying, however. She was a good mother and so we got used to it. Grandpa told us years before it was the best we could do.

A grin of relief crossed her face as we came in. It always did when we'd been fishing, visions of us belly up in the branch long since having flowed through her head.

Good, she said, you're back. Shouldn't stay so long, boys, you had me wondering.

It's hardly noon, Jess reminded her.

Noon is too long. Drink some water, you’re bound to be dried out.

We dutifully made our way to the kitchen pump.

Need a newspaper paper, Mama, I said between gulps. Got some fish to send with Moses.

Go ask you father, she said, a doubtful look on her face, but you know how he is.

That we did.

It was a fact of high pride to him that he was the only man for a long ways who had a paper mailed in several times a week, and a big city paper at that. The Missouri Republican. It came all the way from St. Louis, eighty or so miles away. He would have liked to get something from Chicago, his thoughts being Missouri was a state of ruffians and drunks who mistreated the colored, but getting something from as far away as Chicago was a little much, even for a man of his means. At that the paper was always a week old before he got it and often torn. An aggravation to be sure, with him thinking the post rider beat him to the news.

As we took off to try for a part of a Republican, Mama stopped us.

You boys' shoes clean? I don't want riverbank shoes in a clean house.

Oh, they're clean, Mama, Jesse said, having never looked to know for sure and on we went.

Father's room was at the front of the house and we echoed our shoes as we went down the wide hallway. Father recognized the echoes and called to us when we were a door or two away.

Got clean shoes, boys?

Yes, sir, we answered together, still having never looked.

We came to his office door and stopped, knowing better than to enter unannounced. Father's office was not Mama's kitchen. He was not so glad to see us to risk us having free rein.

He was looking down at some papers on his desk, as we expected, and had not raised his head when he asked us about our shoes.

Jesse and I and our best friend Moses held Father's work papers in awe and puzzlement. It just did not seem possible that one man could have such important things to do that you could not catch him at any time in a normal day not bent over his desk looking at ledgers or deeds. But we never had. Always, when we were lucky enough to be home during the day and not in school, if we came to his office door, he was working over his papers. We figured that every dollar earned needed one paper and since rumors was Father earned a lot, that made for a lot of peering. Sometimes we couldn't help but think a lot of it was an act but, being not that interested, we saw no reason to find out different.

The few times he wasn't in his office signing and reading, he was on his big front porch surveying his land, commenting that so and so’s corn looked good, or so and so had better quit messing around or his crop would be late. He said that last phrase a lot about Reverend Hoppe, though of course never when Moses was around to hear.

About once a week, when the weather was nice, he took to his horse and rode about his acreage, nodding solemnly to any of his ten sharecroppers he happened to see. Nothing much came of these rides except that, we figured, he showed himself, or that he just maybe needed to get away from all those dang papers.

An exceptional thing about the rides was that what Father wore on them was what he wore in his office, a suit with a fluffy white shirt and a little black tie.

My father was short with a little bit of a gut and him in a suit and a tall hat, with a belly hugging the saddle horn, looked just a little bit funny. But he carried himself proud and no one laughed, since he was the landowner. Grandpa mentioned once he ought to hire a slave driver to do the riding, but Grandpa was the only one who dared say such a thing. Father ignored him.

All this meant that paperwork and porch-looking and, once in a long while, riding, was pretty well all my father did. No time was really spent with us, just church going and a picnic now and then. We figured that the paper work was needed but that it was also a way around us. He probably timed a lot of it to our hallway echoes.

That fact did not bother us though. Over the years it had become a joke and we really didn't mind. He wasn't the outside type, after all, and having him tag along in the woods or along a creek bed would have been a considerable hindrance. We saved that kind of stuff for Grandpa, or otherwise just to ourselves.

It wasn't that we felt Father didn't love us. We never really discussed such a thing as love, but I know he did and I know Jess felt so too. He never once whipped us, ever, and that was rare in those times.

It was just that love for his family was handled like all else in his life, just business."

Yes?

Jesse said, Father, could we have a piece of your newspaper? We have some catfish to wrap up for Moses to take home.

Father looked up, definitely shocked.

My paper? My Republican?

Yes, sir.

"For fish?'

It seemed hard for him to understand.

Yes, sir, I said, trying to help. If we don't they'll probably dry out on him and get flies and maggots.

He missed my explanation.

My Republican? he said again. I can't believe you think you need my Republican for fish. No, boys, that won't happen. It not that far to his house if you put a move on. And unless you've washed off from fishing you'd probably best not be standing where you are.

We caught five, I said, as if it mattered.

Already his head had turned back to his desktop.

Good, he said, offhandedly.

We shrugged, as we always did, and headed back down the hall. It hadn't ruined our day. We had too much to do for that.

Get your paper? Mama asked as we passed through the kitchen.

No, I said. Father just couldn't understand.

You'll figure something, she said, carrying the bread towards the oven door beside the brick fireplace.

We exited the door to see Grandpa walking towards us with two large pieces of elm bark in his hand.

Been turned down for your paper yet? he asked.

It occurred to me that Grandpa was the one who told us to ask for the paper, but I didn't dwell on it. Grandpa was sometimes hard to figure.

Yes, Jess said.

Here, he said, handing Moses the two pieces of bark, rough sides out. Sandwiched between the pieces were some hickory leaves, dripping water.

Got your fish in these wetted leaves. That'll hold them till you get them to a skillet.

Moses thanked him and we started off down the hill. Grandpa took one of his favorite seats, in the middle of the top step of our front porch.

Prolly won't have time to get all there and back before your mother's supper call, he commented.

We know, Jesse called over his shoulder. We won't go all the way.

We marched side by side, giving the dust fits again.

Hang it! Jesse said after we moved outside hearing distance. Wasn't that a story about Grandpa's friend!

Phillip Toe-be-ass, I said, so everyone could be sure about the man's name.

They didn't seem as interested in how it was said as me.

Something I guess! Moses said. Them alone in the wilderness, probably surrounded by Indians. Must of been something! Wish I could of been there. Would of got to bury his body and everything else. I wonder if he broke his long rifle when he fell?

Guess not! Jess answered. Shot himself with it, didn't he? Shot himself dead. It was a better story than any book's ever had and Grandpa chose only to tell us. That's the big thing. He'll tell us more now, I bet, especially if we keep this one secret.

He looked down at me hard.

Hear that, Tom!

It was a cut to the bone and I didn't take it lightly.

I'm not never telling! Why you looking at me?

Cause your igernent. You went and slobbered about the neked man and the fishhook. Grandpa almost laughed at us. You gonna tell stories to someone you laugh at?

It was an accident, I said in valiant defense. And I thought he would know about neked men and girls. Hell’s bells, Grandpa knows about everything.

Well just keep your mouth shut from now on, we'll do the talking. I want for sure to hear more out of Grandpa.

Do you suppose he could find the place again and we could go and dig him up? Moses asked.

Said he didn't think he could, Jesse said. Why would you want to, anyway?

Moses shrugged. I knew what he meant but I didn't know the why either.

Said anymore to your Mama about our campout? Moses asked after a while.

We had been talking about it since spring. Our first campout in the woods, just like frontiersmen. Jesse, Moses and I under the stars.

Mama was our main sticking point. She saw evils galore and death in every possibility. We had been working on her for weeks. Mr. and Mrs. Hoppe had been no problem, especially when Mr. Hoppe said he'd done the same thing as a boy. My father had reservations but didn't put up much of a fight. Mama was the only remaining problem.

Jesse said, Yeah, we been talking about it. I think she'll say yes. But it's not been easy.

Said she feared for wolves, I recalled.

And Grandpa said he had shot the last one ten, fifteen years ago, Jesse said.

Wolves! Moses said with wide eyes. Your Grandpa shot wolves around here?

Figure Grandpa's shot about everything. Anyway, we'll ask her again tonight. She might give in.

Naw, I said in exasperation, she'll probably come up with another animal. We're gonna have to fight her about all the furry animals.

The thought of her standing in the way of the biggest fun we had ever planned just wore me out.

She'll give in, Jesse said strongly. We won't take no for an answer.

The day was gaining heat, like a log rolling downhill gained dust. I glanced up at the surrounding country.

The clouds were dying out, getting pushed out by the heat. I gazed at the green, wooded hills and wondered on which on we would have our adventure, camped out like Grandpa and Phillip Tobias. Or like Boone. Nothing around but wide open sky, night sounds and a fire.

It seemed a dream, to do such a thing. It excited me, just the thought, and looking back on it it's not hard to understand. We were reaching to touch fingers with an exciting past, a past where men did manly things. Sometimes at the end of those manly actions, like Grandpa's friend, they came to die and be buried. Some were surely forgot, yet even that seemed an honor. No boy has ever cared how hard the truth is.

A figure was moving up the road towards us. It wasn't long before we realized it was Moses' father.

Where you going, Pappy? Moses asked when the gap had closed.

Reverend Hoppe looked as sweaty and dusty as we must have.

Going to the Kressler place, Moses. Their cow's should be ready to calf and last I heard John was laid up with a fever. Was Sunday, at least, didn't make our service.

Done plowing?

Not done, but done for the day. Birthing waits for no plow.

Need help, Pap?

I wouldn't think so. You best go on down and keep your mother company. Is that the catfish?

Yes, sir, I said.

Man alive! I hope you don't eat it all before I get home, boy, he said to Moses.

Save you some, I promise. You sure Mr. Kressler ain't better and don't need no help? Or that that cow's not ready yet?

Can't chance it.

Mr. Hoppe patted him on the back and went on by.

We watched him go. We were at our turnaround spot.

You father never stops moving and mine never stops setting, Jesse said. Figure that, Moses. I guess they're doing what they want.

I guess. See you boys tomorrow. Don't forget to work on your Mama.

By the time Jesse and I tarried a bit, then got back to the house, it was edging on three o'clock and suppertime.

Suppertime was an important time at our place. Father demanded that all be there and washed and sitting at the stroke of the clock. It was especially bad to be late on days when his Missouri Republican had arrived and the news needed to be read and discussed.

News was high on Father's list. The paper made him, he figured, an expert on it. It went along, like a lot of other things, with being a man of his position.

We were hardly started into Mama's roast meat and carrots when he unfolded the paper and put it to the side of the plate where he could see it.

He had taken off his coat but still wore his white shirt and tie.

Looks like they're still arguing in the west about the compromise Clay made in '50. It's just too bad he didn't live to see it through.

Henry Clay? Jess asked.

He was good at remembering those things. Father was proud of that.

Yes, old Henry. Should have been president, just lived too far south.

Henry Clay was one of those people Father liked. A southern gentleman. A man with power and a way with words. He often commented that Henry should have been president. Henry had run several times, we knew, but had always lost. Father always said Henry's problem had been the black folk muddle and rich people from New York and Massachusetts. What rich people he meant, he never said, just that they had run a shaft up Henry, that good old southern gentleman.

Father blamed a lot on the rich folk out east and the black folk down south. They made life miserable for good old fellas like Henry, a man he felt on a first name basis with.

But Henry sure messed up on that compromise, he went on. You can't let some states have slaves and some not, it just won't work. Folks there are on either side who just won't give in. Best bet is to just say flat out slaves aren't going to be. Send the nigra folk back over the ocean.

Slavery was a mystery to my father. Though he felt himself like a man over a plantation and had built his big house to that effect, he just could not understand why anyone needed to beat people to work for nothing. Couldn't they see you could just sharecrop the ground like he did? He gave what he thought to be a fair rental price, though there were folks who would differ, and he couldn't figure why the gentlemen in the south would not do the same. It all seemed so easy to him.

It wasn't that he had such strong feelings for the slaves, as they didn't matter much to his mind either way. Mostly, he felt, they were a nuisance. And because they were a nuisance, he could not understand the trouble they were causing, not when people could be worked for pay and a man of privilege, like himself, could still make good money. Doing it the way he did, he felt, put him a rung above his fellow plantation owners below the Mason-Dixon.

How could you send them all back? I asked between chews. Aren't there hundreds of them?

It could be done, my father said. Mark my word, if it's not done, and if someone don't figure something out about this soon, there's going to be a fight. And I just don't see why. It's beyond me.

Why question a fight? Grandpa commented. "They happen sooner or later, no matter the reason. Always have, always will. If