A Meandering Broken Road

By John Daniel Strong

From the Missouri Executive Order 44--the infamous Extermination Order that was unrelenting against the Mormons—to the robbery of the San Miguel Valley Bank in Telluride, Colorado, before Bob Parker became known as Butch Cassidy—though there were men who became legends, there were women just as legendary. In A MEANDERING BROKEN ROAD there are some that were memorable like Constance Franklin who killed twice to save the man she loved—and Janis Little who abandoned the father of her unborn son to marry for money--but there was no one more unforgettable and original than Missy Gardet who when Michael Todd found her for sale on the Queen Isabell when the paddleboat docked in Memphis, she let him take her from what she had become—though he had no money and he had never been more than a horse trader and a drifter with a fast gun.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Sep 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9781665536639

John Daniel Strong

John Daniel Strong was born in San Diego. He has a Bachelor of Science in History and Political Science from Weber State University and a Master of Education from the University of Houston. He has lived in Texas for more than thirty six years. He has three children and eight grandchildren. He is a Veteran and a member of VFW Post 12058 in Kyle, Texas. John has previously published--The Last Muster--a novel that cinemas the Mormons as they escape Missouri during the Extermination Order , and the love of an escort girl for a down on his luck cowboy caught in the crossfire when Butch Cassidy robbed the San Miguel Valley Bank. John has also published--Never Die Today—a novel where love emerges triumphant in a war —when the final curtain call is seen from a wounded Iroquois leaving the American embassy during the fall of Saigon.

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CHAPTER 2

Haun’s Mill

"M y father is dead . . . isn’t he?" Though it was a question, with the answer already known, it was more a declaration than a need for verification.

Yes.

She cocked the pistol.

You can’t kill him twice! James took the locket out of his pocket and held it where Constance could see it.

He was only a boy . . . younger than me . . . why? She took the locket.

The likes of Lilburn Boggs attract certain kinds of men and too often boys not yet men who are predators though the opportunity to act out their mischief has not yet presented itself . . . but that does not explain what makes you Mormons such easy targets . . . what allows the likes of Lilburn Boggs to succeed in stirring up the whole country against you?

I don’t know why so many have turned against us. We believe in the same Jesus Christ other Christians say they believe in . . . and that everyone has the right to worship how they choose. At least it’s professed to be that way in this country . . . but we’re not Protestant or Catholic . . . and that irritates some!

Except some of you are abolitionists . . . and most Missourians don’t like folks . . . Christian or not . . . coming here telling them it’s wrong to own slaves!

And a lot of your Missourians are outlaws that raid along the border. They don’t care one way or the other about what God we pray to . . . and even less about our politics. They just want for the taking what we build out of nothing! Before he was elected governor, Lilburn Boggs was with the mob that ran us out of Jackson County in 1833. They took what was ours then . . . and they want more now . . . though I think you already know that. I heard what Bobby Jo said . . . that you were one of Lilburn Boggs’s men . . .

Then what stopped you from turning that gun on me?

Why did you stop them? Constance looked at the gun in her hands still pointed at Ben.

I knew Lilburn Boggs before I went to Texas. He was a friend then.

And now?

"I don’t agree with the mob . . . and the Extermination Order they are using to attack you . . . or the other Mormons. When I found your father . . . I was leaving Missouri. I don’t want to be a part of what’s happening here . . ."

But you are now . . . even if you don’t want to be. What you did to help me decided that. Bobby Jo will make certain even Lilburn Boggs can’t defend you . . . if he has a mind to . . .

I’m afraid you’re right.

What will you do?

I don’t know. I’m not going to worry about it . . . not now . . . but in case Bobby Jo does decide to come back here . . . and bring with him a few of those men who think the way he does . . . we better leave this place . . .

Unconsciously Constance pulled at her hair, trying to comb it with her fingers, suddenly aware she wanted to look pretty for this stranger. Then she took the reins to Ben’s horse and climbed in the saddle. You don’t have someone here . . . I mean in Missouri . . . do you . . . like . . . maybe a wife . . .

I was married once . . . but when Melanie left me and took our daughter to live in some millennial society in New York I decided to go to Texas.

I heard Bobby Jo call you James. Now hat’s from the Bible . . .

My mother was the daughter of a Baptist preacher . . . but when she married my father and moved to Virginia . . . well . . . my father owns slaves . . . and my mother does the best she can. She does teach them to read the Bible.

Does your father know that?"

No . . .

She did tell you . . . though?

Someday . . . when it’s my choice . . .I will free those slaves without destroying what has become dependent on their labor.

It seems you are caught between doing what’s right . . . and Eli Whitney’s cotton gin . . .

Though slaves have been here as long as those who came for religious freedom . . . when the cotton gin was invented the planter in the south enslaved himself with slavery . . .

Even if you free your father’s slaves when they belong to you . . . it may take a violent upheaval to change the landscape that . . . like you said . . . is older than the country itself!

Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Though there are some of us who want slavery to go away . . . we would defend our right to decide how we do it . . .especially against anyone trying to force us to do it their way . . . even if that aligns us with those who would secede from the Union!

So . . . you went to Texas to kill Mexicans?

It did cross my mind I could kill a Mexican in Texas defending what was mine and only be concerned about another Mexican . . . but in New York if I killed the preacher my wife went off with . . . I’d have the law after me. But those were only thoughts. Never really went to Texas to kill anybody. It’s a big place . . . Texas. I just wanted a small piece of it. I thought if I really made something of myself . . . that I didn’t owe to my father . . . I might get Melanie back. In spite of their conversation about slavery that she had diverted him from, James felt it odd he was comfortable talking to Constance about Melanie, unaware there was an unforeseen force already pulling them together that was far more volcanic than whatever had entangled him with Melanie .

Then how did you get involved in the war in Texas?

The war with the Mexicans didn’t start until after I’d been there a while . . . not until the Mexicans under Santa Ana wanted their land back . . . after Americans from Kentucky and Tennessee . . . and other parts of the country . . . including myself . . . had settled the wilds and made it worth something. Like I said . . . I went hoping I’d get my wife and daughter back . . . for all the good it did me. She didn’t even stay with the society and that preacher as long as she did with me. After the divorce she married some congressman and moved to the state capital.

They had reached the cabin, and when Constance saw her father on the bed inside, it was difficult for her to keep her words from catching in her throat as she turned in the saddle and faced James.

Well . . . James Cole . . . have you decided yet what you’re going to do? I guess you could still leave Missouri before Bobby Jo comes back to find you. You could still go to New York and look for your daughter?

Finding Lee Ann has been on my mind some since I returned from San Jacinto . . . but right now I can’t leave you here alone. There’s the Mormon settlement at Haun’s Mill. After I help bury your father . . . I will take you there.

I know about the Mormons at Haun’s Mill. I go to church there . . . and I have a friend . . . Mary Steadwell . . . she lives there . . . but I’m not going with you. This is my home. I’m not going to let the likes of Bobby Jo run me off . . . and Haun’s Mill is the last place I want to go--not after Joseph Smith warned them they should leave. You’ve helped me enough. I can bury my father myself.

What if Bobby Jo comes back?

She held up Ben’s gun. I can take care of myself! I’m not afraid of Bobby Jo. He’s only one man . . . not three! He won’t get his hands on me again. No man will . . . not if I don’t want him to!

How will you eat?

There’s corn stored in a root cellar under the floor of the cabin . . . more than enough for me until next year. I can use that dead boy’s horse to pull my father’s plow in the spring. If you really don’t mind . . . on your way you could stop at Haun’s Mill . . . ask one of the men if they would send some men to finish digging my well. It’s not deep enough to draw water.

I could stay a few days and dig it myself? James suddenly realized he wanted an excuse to stay, and not just because he didn’t think she should be there alone, though he couldn’t force her to let him stay.

No. You need to find your daughter.

He watched her walk through the shadow now reaching from the roof of the cabin to the path that led away from the porch. Then when she disappeared inside just before he rode away, James was surprised he felt more alone than he did when Melanie left.

When he crossed the creek near where Bobby Jo rode away, along the horizon the sun was setting. What yellow-red light that remained splashed through the trees and danced on the ground in front of him. It would be dark before he buried Bill McCurry and the boy even if he just covered them with a little dirt. Yet stopping gave him time to think about Constance—what he desperately needed to do--knowing the Extermination Order that threatened Haun’s Mill, threatened her regardless of where she was as long as she remained anywhere in Missouri and continued to believe Joseph Smith saw God!

After he warned the Mormons at Haun’s Mill about the Extermination Order--though Joseph Smith had already told them to get out--then James intended to go back and find Constance. If he couldn’t convince her to leave, he would stay with her even if she didn’t want him there. She did say she needed her well dug deeper.

As the sun came up and the shadows began to retreat from in front of the cabin, dressed in a pair of her father’s trousers and a blue shirt, Constance sat on the porch. Drawing her legs up, she hugged her knees. The pistol she had taken from Ben was on the porch next to her. She stared at her father’s grave. Though she knew he was dead and buried and there had been more tears, right then even the chill in the air went unnoticed. From the moment he rode away, her only thought was why didn’t she let him stay. Even if she could deny what she was feeling, it was foolish to think she would be safe in spite of what she told him. No Mormon was safe anywhere in Missouri, anymore! She grabbed Ben’s gun. Maybe she could catch James before he left Haun’s Mill.

When James reached the outskirts of the Mormon colony even the air seemed restless. Then unanswered gunfire --scattered at first--then hundreds of volleyed bursts--shattered the stillness. James hurried the mare, crossing Shoal Creek. When he stopped, with his gun drawn, what he saw made him nauseated. Wasn’t this what the Alamo had looked like after Santa Ana? Only there a war had been declared against men that were armed and could shoot back. Here there had been no regard even for the children! Everywhere the air was thick with the smell of burnt gunpowder and death. Inside the blacksmith shop James counted the bodies of at least a dozen men, and under the bellows there was a boy. He looked about ten though most of his head was gone!

The man that did that . . . when he shot him he said nits make lice. Alive . . . he’d be a Mormon . . . The voice belonged to a young woman with a bandaged hand. She was standing outside the door to the blacksmith shop. I don’t know you. I’m Mary Steadwell . . . but I know you’re not with the mob that did this. If you were you wouldn’t be here. You’d be gone with the rest of them. They murder unarmed men and boys . . . and shoot helpless women! She held up her bandaged hand. Then they run off like the cowards they are . . .

James walked past the injured woman. Behind her on the ground there was an old man with a hole in his chest, and his body was mangled.

That’s Thomas McBride . . . or should I say . . . it was Thomas McBride. He fought with George Washington in the Revolution. After he shot him a Missouri militiaman named Rogers hacked his body with a corn knife! Mary stood over the old veteran’s body. There were tears in her eyes. Who are you . . . anyway?

James . . . James Cole. I know your friend . . . Constance Franklin . . .

How do you know Constance? And how do you know me?

Constance told me your name. Which way did they go . . . the men that did this? James was already mounted on his horse.

They rode north . . . but not before they robbed our houses and wagons and stripped some of the men they murdered.

James started up the street.

What are you doing? It’s not your fight. Even if it was there’s too many of them . . .

There’s always something that can be done. James rode down the street, away from Haun’s Mill, ashamed he had ever known Lilburn W. Boggs!

When Constance rode into Haun’s Mill, for a desperate moment, with the sight of so many dead, all but hysteria was forgotten. Mary! Constance jumped from Ben’s horse and grabbed her friend, both women sobbing uncontrollably.

They wouldn’t stop shooting. Mary sat on the ground. They fired through the cracks between the logs. Everyone in the blacksmith shop was trapped! They shot me when I tried to run. I was lucky . . . though. I fainted and fell behind a log. It saved me! I counted more than twenty musket balls in that log after Alma Smith’s mother found me . . .

What will you do now? You can’t stay here. They may come back.

We have to leave Missouri . . . just like that skunk Lilburn Boggs ordered . . . but where will we go? You and your father will have to come . . . too. You can’t stay behind by yourselves!

My father’s dead . . . murdered by Lilburn Boggs’s Missouri militia. Then they tried to rape me!

How did you get away?

Some man . . . a stranger . . . James Cole. He was coming here. Have you seen anyone you don’t know . . . someone not with those murderers? Constance was more than worried about James. What if Bobby Jo had ambushed him and left him somewhere alone to die? What if he was already dead? Her heart was beating loud enough that she knew Mary had to hear it.

About twenty minutes before you rode up a man riding a black mare went after the men that did this. He said his name was James Cole . . . and he knew you.

Constance grabbed the reins to Ben’s horse.

Where are you going? Mary stood up.

After James Cole!

What! Are you crazy! The whole country’s killing Mormons!

I’ll be all right as soon as I find James. She jumped in the stirrup and swung her leg over, sitting in the saddle after the horse was already at a full run. Though Mary yelled after her again, Constance was already too far down the road to hear.

Not far from Haun’s Mill, James picked up the tracks of a lot of riders moving fast, away from the butchered village. Though it was not like him to throw caution astray, nevertheless, he turned the mare after them. Then too late, he heard the click of a hammer behind his head as Bobby Jo cocked his rifle and his foot caught James just below the back of his neck above his shoulder. The blow knocked James to the ground.

Though dazed, his first reflex was to grab one of the Patersons while trying to sit up, but he thought better of that when he saw Bobby Jo.

Now that’s the smart thing. Even staying alive a minute or two is better than dying for sure right now. You just sit there . . . James Cole . . . and shed both those Patersons! Bobby Jo jumped from the tree he had been sitting in while he watched James ride up the road. Though he could have shot him anytime, this was more personal. Too bad you be a Mormon lover. We might have been friends . . . but now I got to shoot you . . . leave you here to die. Ben was my friend.

You talk too much . . . Bobby Jo. You lie . . . too. That boy . . . Ben. . . he was never your friend. Now shoot me . . . if you’ve a mind to . . . unless you aim to talk me to death.

Bobby Jo laughed. Where’s that Mormon bitch you took from us? You leave her back there where I stuck her father after you were done with her? I got better taste . . . but it would have been fun to watch Ben make her squirm. That boy . . . he had a real mean streak . . . but she weren’t no cause to kill him . . .

I don’t see much but evil in you . . . Bobby Jo.

Well . . . James Cole . . . can’t say I will miss you . . . The grin was gone Where his rifle was pointed Bobby Jo couldn’t miss.

James stiffened. He had seen too many men gut shot the way Bobby Jo intended. After the initial shock wore off, the burning would set in, and then James would pray to die! He would move just as Bobby Jo fired. Then maybe the bullet would hit him where he would die quick. Nonetheless, in the half second James figured it would take Bobby Jo to pull the trigger, James chased but one thought—he would never see Constance again!

Then suddenly from somewhere close behind James a pistol fired once, and then again. Then Bobby Jo, disbelief in his eyes, fell against the tree he had been standing in front of. He was dead before James could turn to see Constance standing near the mare holding Ben’s gun with both hands. She was still pointing it at Bobby Jo, blue smoke hanging in the air above her head.

In Texas there had been more than one friend who had killed to save James Cole--but never a woman so hauntingly beautiful! Now as he stood there watching her body move as she breathed the cold air knowing she had just saved him from an agonizing death, he couldn’t remember ever being so unsure of himself. He did know one thing though, he wanted to be in her arms—he could think of nothing else.

Damn you . . . James Cole! Don’t you know why I came after you? It certainly was not to kill Bobby Jo! Then she threw the pistol on the ground and was in his arms. Then her kiss flamed what he had only dreamed even when he was married to Melanie.

CHAPTER 3

Ginger Franklin

T uesday after they were married Constance asked James to take her to Gallatin. Though it was less than thirty miles from Haun’s mill to where Peter and Ginger lived, Constance knew Ginger wouldn’t know Jimmy Franklin was dead, and Constance wanted to be the one to tell her sister about his death. They had to leave Missouri anyway, and if they went to Ginger’s they could cross the Mississippi into Illinois together.

Peter stood watch at the window, a prisoner in his own home. Already there had been neighbors burned out and livestock driven off, cows left to bloat in the fields, shot just for sport. Yet for some unknown reason the mob had left them alone. Not even a night rider had come on their property.

Peter . . . Ginger was sitting across the room near the hearth, little Peter asleep in her arms. The fire from the snapping log filled the walls with dancing shadows as the wind blew against the frosted window. Do you think we can hold out here alone until my father and Constance come from Haun’s mill? There’s only a few of our neighbors left. The others have already fled into Gallatin! Some of the women were carrying babies with scarcely more than the clothing on their backs while the mob jeered . . . kicking their feet up at them as if they were mangy dogs! Just yesterday Paula Cumby said before she left Far West Governor Boggs was arming the mob militia with legal warrants to put down the uprising . . . alleging we are the ones that started the looting and burning . . .

We don’t know if your father and sister are even coming. They may have gone back to Far West where there is safety in numbers. Peter fingered the trigger on his rifle.

Peter . . . isn’t it odd we’ve been left alone . . . that nothing’s happened to us? We both know the mob has been reinforced from every county within three hundred miles of here . . .

It just doesn’t add up. They know we’re here. There should have been trouble by now . . . but not even a rock has been thrown.

At least they don’t know we’ve built barricades and stored enough food so they can’t starve us out like they did those poor souls in Dewitt . . .

We do need black powder if the mob does decide to come after us . . .

But you will have to go into Seth to get black powder.

Now that the refugees from Dewitt have crowded into Far West . . . that may be why Jimmy and Constance are not here . . . if they did go back to Far West . . . and Far West is under siege . . . but about going into Seth . . . I’m not leaving you here alone . . .

Then we’ll all go. You get the wagon ready while I get Little Peter into something warm.

I’ll be outside with the wagon. Hurry! We don’t want to be coming back in the dark . . .

Cable Walker was a border renegade, running from the police in Atlanta. Before he came to Missouri, in front of several men, some sitting at the table, he had killed a man in a card game when he was accused of cheating. He had shot the man under the table that called him out. Then he had calmly picked up the money, and after shoving it into his hat, he had walked out the door before anyone realized what had happened. Now he was in Daviess County using the mob to covert his unlawful aims, and Ginger Williams was what he wanted!

Assuming once he killed Peter there would be no one to stop him from taking Ginger, Cable had watched Peter when he came out of the store with the keg of black powder. While eying Peter from across the street, Cable grew impatient about what he wanted as his attention fixated on Ginger waiting in the wagon. Although they saw Cable standing next to his horse, neither Peter nor Ginger knew it had been Cable who had kept the mob away, preferring not to risk anything happening to Ginger or her son in