the gristmill

By Dwight V Murray

First thing I noticed was how careful that there fellow was ‘bout the grave marker . . . like how he didn’t want to track no red clay on top ah that slab what was down by his feet. You know, there ain’t many folks now days what really gives a damn if mud and dirt makes things dirty, but I do—that’s  my job&mdas

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wild Pony Publishing
• Release date: Jan 7, 2018
• ISBN: 9780692898246

Book preview

the gristmill

by dwight v. murray

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Prologue: Spring, 1837

Far to the east, the horizon, reddish pink, promised the soon arrival of the morning sun. The main thoroughfare of the recently renamed small village once known as Fort Harwood, but now Nashville, was void of both horse and man. In the dark of the early morning, a man’s boot-heel snagged on the upper lip of the planked sidewalk, but he caught himself on the porch post. Stepping clear, he eased his way to the jail house door. Searching for a door-knob lost to the black of night—his right hand found a splinter instead.  Quickly, before the sting died away, his left finger and thumb, serving as pliers, he gently pulled it free of the meaty side of his palm. The cuff of his flannel shirt, now spotted red with needle points of blood, hardly concerned him—the young man named Samuel Elwyn Biggs was on a mission.

Turning the door-knob, he let himself into the front office of Nashville’s jail house.

The front room of the town’s only jail was not very large nor did it seldom ever need to be. In order for Bucyrus Vance, the recently appointed Chief of Police to do that for which he was hired, all that was required was a desk, a bench for the occasional visitor, a gun rack in the far corner and a pot-belly cast iron stove to do double duty—that of heating the office during the colder months, and brewing a pot, or two, of coffee every morning, hot or cold, summer or winter.

Entering the confining office, the visitor heard—more than saw—the snoring of a man seemingly in desperate need of sleep.

Samuels’s eyes slowly adjusted from the total darkness of the street to the pale glow of a whale-oil lamp, its wick turned to its lowest burn, as it rested precariously on the far edge of the desk.

He thought of turning the wick to a higher burn, but quit that dangerous thought after seeing in his mind’s eye, a bullet fired by a man not expecting a visitor at such an ungodly hour, tearing a hole through his body.

Cautiously, the uninvited stranger stepped to the cluttered desk.  Hey. Hey . . . wake up, he said, shaking the shoulders of the man from which loud snoring rumbled.

Sheriff Bucyrus Vance grunted, his wake-the-dead snoring suddenly a thing of the past.  Sitting upright he fingered at the gritty grains of sleep glued to the corners of his eyes.  Dabbing at the drool on his lower lip, he snarled at the man towering above him, What the . . . if you don’t mind me asking, just who the hell are you? as he reached for his Paterson revolver barely out of reach of his right elbow serving as a make-do pillow.

Whoa.  Whoa.  Whoa.  Hold up, there.  You don’t need that, offered the stranger.  Cautiously pointing a finger at the revolver in the lawman’s hand, he asked, You the Sheriff of Carlton County?

Nash County, its Nash County now, corrected the barely awake and only recently elected Sheriff.

Pardon me, answered the stranger.

"It used to be know’d as Carlton County. Once.  But it ain’t no more.  Now we go by the name of Nash. Nash County.  So, if you’re looking for the Sheriff of Nash County, you found him. I am both the High Sheriff and the Chief of Police, he added, making little effort to hide the fact he was a bit irritated by such an early visitor.  Tapping a second badge, he added, Don’t see any difference ‘tween the two so I answers to both . . . Sheriff or Chief.  But just so me and you’se on the same footing, who the hell are you?"

Name’s Sam, Samuel Biggs . . . from up-county . . . near the Edgecombe County line . . . not far from Weldon.

And tell me Mister Biggs . . . or was it Mister Samuels?

Samuel Biggs.

Alright then, Mister Biggs it is. Why don’t you just tell me why I should give a rat’s ass about who you are and why you’re standing there going on like me and you’se the best’a friends?

With his eyes slowly adjusting to the near dark of the room, Sam could see the outline of a man’s head slightly tilting upwards, his arm sliding toward the hand gun inches away.  From the little he could make of it, he thought the man appeared far too young for such an important position, but young or not, who was he to question the choices that the good folk of Nash County—or Carlton County—or whatever, made on voting day?  Being of the nonpolitical nature that he was, he wouldn’t have really cared all that much, one way or other, if the rumors that the new Chief of Police had really been voted into such a lofty position by men of wealth in Nashville.  Besides, the age of the sheriff was not his concern, nor was the how of how he came by the badge pinned to his vest . . . all he wanted to know was if the man wearing the badge would help him see to a problem of his own.

They’s only recently changed the name of this here town from Fort Harwood to Nashville, added the Sheriff, as he continued digging at the grains of sleep caught in the corners of his eyelids.  His mouth wide with a yawn, he asked, And do tell me, how come you’re here before the sun even got out’ta bed?

I need your help, the stranger answered.

Well, can this here help you say you be needing hold off ‘till I get a pot of coffee brewing?

Wouldn’t mind some myself if you were to offer me a cup, answered Samuel.

I can do that.  But I hope you like your’n black and straight . . . ain’t got so much as a lump of sugar, not one.  Sniffing at an open mouth mason jar, he grunted, damn milk’s gone sour, too.  Sure as hell narrows it down to black real quick, don’t it? the Chief of Police stated, more than asked, as he stood and rambled toward the pot-belly cast iron stove in the far corner of the ten by  ten room. Damn fires nearly burned out, too."

Black will be fine.  The stronger the better.

Still digging at the annoying tiny grits of sleep, Sheriff Vance asked, What time is it ennie-how?  And what in the name of unholy hell is so damn important that you’re here before the sun’s even woke up?

Like I said, I need your help, Sam repeated.

Alright.  I got that.  Can you at least give me an idea of the nature of this here help you say you be need‘n’?

Yes Sir. I can.  You know of a man what goes by the name of Griffen?  Hesper Griffen?

Sheriff Vance nodded his head.  Show me somebody these here parts what don’t know that son of a bitch.  So, yes, I do know that stinking piece of work, he answered, the drag in his voice Damn it to hell and back.  What’s that sorry ass bastard went and done now.  Kind’a hope’n you was gonna tell me he went and got himself kilt.

No.  Not that.  He didn’t.  He’s alive and on a rant.  Causing all sorts of unholy hell up my way.

And up your way would be?

Six miles or so that way, Samuel answered, pointing northward.  Got me a place I’m gonna call Swift Creek once I get it up and running.

Can this, whatever it is that bastard went and done this here time hold off at least ‘till I can pour us some coffee?  Might as well get something hot in us before you tell me what that two-legged pile of horseshit’s gone and done now.

Sam rather liked the straight forward manner of the man, Chief of Police—High Sheriff—or whatever he preferred to be called.  He’d use both.  Titles didn’t really mean all that much to Samuel—anyway.  Never had.  But if it proved, as more than a few had already rumored it to be, that the High Sheriff had been appointed by that cranky as hell, Matthew Evans—of the lumber yard Evans, he felt he might as well have stayed put in the politically corrupt Petersburg, Virginia.

Truth be told, he’d never been one to give much thought to the who’s, the what’s or the whys or the why nots of those holding political positions or any such positions of power.  Nor had he ever concerned himself with politicians who thought their lofty position made them the superior of all they met . . . and even the more-so when they sat across from him at the gaming tables—something that happened more often than most folks back in Petersburg, Virginia, even knew.  In that former life of his he’d emptied the pockets of more than a few of those self-righteous-title-hugging Poker Players of the highest order.

Returning with two steaming mugs of coffee, each cup nicked with a litany of gouges and chips so severe both the Sheriff and his visitor, had to search for places not yet chipped or gouged deep enough to draw blood from tiny cuts.

Each blew across the rims of their cups as steam rose and the smell of freshly brewed coffee wafted through the jail-house office.  Savoring the first rush of caffeine, the High Sheriff of Nash County said, Well.  Let’s have it.  I ain’t got time to discuss much of nothing right now.  I’ve got’ta turn those turd-heads back yonder loose, he said, thumbing over his shoulder, indicating the cells beyond the door separating the front office from the cells beyond, "so they can go on home.  When I’m done, you can explain the whys and the what-fors of your being here.  If it’s worthy of my attention, and once I know what is expected of me, I’ll come on up your way and check it out . . . maybe later on today . . . maybe tomorrow, but ‘till then, my advice is go on back home, but for your own safety, especially when it comes to that sorry piece of work, always go loaded.  Need to go to the outhouse? . . . do it with a gun in your pants.  Got’ta check on your workers? . . . Stuff a gun down inside your pants.  Well, Hell. No matter what you’re doing, just make sure you got one stuck somewhere."

Stick a gun in my pants?

Damn tooting.  And if you was to ask me what I prefer, I’d say one of these, he added, holding a Colt Paterson out for the newly arrived stranger to admire, as far as this kind of gun goes, I prefer these here new Paterson.  They’re accurate as all hell.  There’s that, plus you get five shots.  Need a fresh kill for dinner?  . . . tote the best rifle you got.  Me? I shoot one of them new Springfield’s what uses them firing caps.  They’s my favorite.  If you don’t have one, he added, pointing back at the new model revolver, "you ought’a consider getting one while you’re in town.  Mind you, they don’t come cheap, but what you’re paying for is accuracy not a cheap everyday ‘pop-bang’ to chase buzzards away with.  Mac, over at the dry good store’s got one or two left.  If that money grubbing son of a bitch says all he’s got is one, he’s lying.  He’s got more.  He always tries to get top money for everything he sells.  Tell him I sent you.  He’ll come off his price some.  But not much, mind you.

And lookie here.  Don’t you go reading nothing into things I ain’t even so much as said, demanded  Sheriff Vance.  All I am saying is if you were to see Griffen with a gun and he’s pointing it at you, do us all a favor.  Put a chunk of lead in that old fart’s ass and send that sorry son of a bitch on down to hell . . . that is if the Devil will even take in that ignorant piece ah work.

Leaning closer to the man maybe five years or so older than he, the Chief of Police, winked and added, A smart man would already have him a good story about protecting himself if it ever comes down to needing one.  Catch my drift?

I do, answered Samuel Biggs.

And now, Mister Biggs, begging your pardon, if our little get-to-know one ah’nudder is finished, I got’ta go see what them current occupants of those stinking rat-holes back yonder are up to.

Samuel stood and thanked the young man he had severely miss-judged.  Not only did he seem a good man but one fit for the job he held.  Little did he know that in the coming years he and the High Sheriff of Nash County would become the best of friends.

Taking his leave and hardly past the far corner of the jail house, from a high window with iron bars serving restraints, Sam heard, Look here, you sorry-ass piece of horse droppings, get your nasty butt over here he said, "and listen to me good.  Listen like your life depends on it.

If you, the Sheriff angrily ordered the man occupying the closest cell, ever swear at me again like you just went and done, I’ll cut off your legs, both of ‘em, mind you, and feed ‘em to the hogs.  From what I’ve heard about you from that sow wife of your’n, I think she’d most likely hug my neck ‘till I had to pry her off me with a pry bar for doin’ it.  Now, ‘fore I get much madder than I already am, step back, and grab the bars on the back wall and do not under no circumstance, look in my direction.  You make one move on me, I’ll either bust your head clean wide open or break this here hickory night stick in half, trying to.  And, what’s more, just so you know, I’m a mite partial to this here chunk’a wood.  Might be best if you was to know right up front, you only got one head, but I got me some two dozen of these here sticks waiting their turn for some good ole’ fashion  head-popping.

Doing as told, the latest overnight guest of Nashville’s cell number one shook his head.  Yes Sir.  I be just a mite bit upset an’ I’se sorry, Sheriff.  As for that there washing thing we’uns got’ta do, I ain’t got not one of them there bedbugs on me nowhere.  Unt uh.  No Sir.  Not me.  Look for yourself.  See?  I don’t need no washing down.

Don’t matter not one lick to me if I see one or end up counting four hundred of them nasty ass little stink bugs hunkered down on a dime size chunk ah your skin . . . you’re gonna wash yourself in there with this here heating oil or stay locked up tighter than a June bug in a fruit jar ‘till you do.  I make the rules, I read the rules, then I do the rules, and this here one just happens to be rule number, ah, let’s see, pausing as he turned to page sixteen. Now listen and listen up good . . . number sixteen says, ‘No inmate shall be released back into the public domain until he or she has thoroughly been washed free of any insects, be they chiggers, bedbugs, lice or any insect or pests of any known or unknown species.  It is further required such garments in which said inmate arrived must be burned until only ashes remain.  All procedures found herein, must be witnessed by the Chief of Police,’ an’ that’s me, ‘fore any clean supply of new clothing, either purchased by others or provided by immediate family members is to be supplied for the release of said inmate’ . . . and if you ain’t got no idea what’a inmate is . . . well, that’s you, you dumb-ass  peckerwood . . . ‘and be it also understood if the above mentioned inmate is of a family without means, he must obtain new garments through others before being released.  And be it also understood any expense and or expenses incurred from the lack of new clothing shall be ledgered and same must be paid in full before said inmate can be released into the public domain."

Holding a slop jar filled with coal-oil in one hand, a similar one filled with water and a wash rag in the other, Sheriff Vance asked, You do have the required clothing, don’t you?

Yes Sir.  They’s on your desk and lay’n plain as day right next to you.  An’ I might add so was that shooter you always be walk’n ‘round with.  But Sir, my woman . . . she be’s a good Christian woman, as you already know, so she wouldn’t fetch it for me.  Damn bitch.

Good thing, too . . . I sleep with one eye open.  Always have.  Your wife would be one very dead ‘good Christian woman’ if she was to try.  Now the soon’r you’re clean and pass muster, you’re free to go.  Same as the others providing they all have somebody who cares for them as much as your wife does . . . or at least, as much as you think she does.

Chapter 1: The request.

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Fall,  1866.

If it had not been for the two men dressed in ragged butternut clothing digging him out of the crater, the youthful Artillery Captain would have been nothing more than just another entry on the South’s tally board of death. Now, four years later, the man vaguely remembered bits and pieces of that horrid day down in the draw below Malvern Hill, and he often wonders, Wasn’t one of those stretcher-bearers named Gus?

Buck really did not want to do that which the new owner of Swift Creek Plantation, the largest of all such holdings in the Tar Heel state, officially known as North Carolina, kept hounding him about. But even though his employer was a much younger man than he, common decency and the deep respect he held for that man’s father required that he do as asked.

He could not count the times he’d told his recent employer to just forget about it . . . be done with it . . . nothing good will ever come of it. Nor could he count the times he’d told that young man that what he was asking him to do was like looking for the proverbial needle in a proverbial haystack.

But all that aside, Buck knew he would do what was continually being begged of him . . . not so much for the sake of his old friend’s son, but out of the deep respect he held for that young man’s father . . . and a long ago promise he’d made to this old friend, Samuel Elwyn Biggs. Buck owed the founder of North Carolina’s largest plantation, Swift Creek that much, and then some.

Halfway down the rear stairwell of the plantation’s  big house,  Buck cornered the seemingly always ornery as hell,  Doc Yardley,  and once he was sure the two of them were out  of ear shot of  Samuel’s bedroom, he  asked, How much time does he have, Doc? The truth this time.

Damn it, Buck.  You of all people ought’a know better’n ask me a damn fool question like that, snarled Weldon’s elderly, and only man of medicine. There jus’ plain ain’t no way of knowing such things. And here, halfway down these here stairs where everybody and their brother can hear us, sure as hell ain’t no fit place for you to be asking me such a crazy-ass thing like that no how. You could’a at least waited till we was out yonder on the veranda, he added, guiding Buck by his elbow toward and then through the front door.

***

Buck sat on one of the two recently painted white wrought iron summer benches, Doc Yardley claimed the other. For a few moments not much was said by either man—each thinking their own thoughts—each suffering their own heart ache. A late summer breeze ruffling the thinning tangle of snow-white hair crowning Buck’s head required the man caught up in the high-end of middle age to comb it back into place with fingers spread wide.  The same breeze dried the sweat dampened bald scalp of one of the oldest, if not the oldest Doctors still practicing medicine in all of North Carolina.   Even though Doc Yardley might have been crowding the high-end of his seventh decade, his vigor and love of his fellow man had never diminished over the years, so he still plied his trade.

Doc, as he preferred to be called by those he thought of as close friends, sat quietly and studied Buck’s facial tics.   He’d been a student of folks and their maladies for over six decades and understood how sometimes even the slightest changes on their faces spoke volumes of their general health.  The road map of  worry lines he saw on Buck’s face told him if he didn’t intervene soon, his old friend  might fall into that deep hole of anxiety most folks these parts commonly referred to as Nervous Vexation.

Familiar with the calming effect of nicotine, of which the labels on each hand-rolled Cuban Cigar claimed an excess of, he reasoned smoking one or two might just be the answer to not only calm Buck’s shattered nerves, but his own, as well—but, he was fresh out of his weekly ration of his favored cigars—smoked his last Carolina Gold before arriving to see to Samuel Elwyn Biggs’ most recent health issue.

In an attempt to help his old friend relax, he’d do what he could to soothe Buck’s shattered nerves. Using the only logical ploy short of sounding if he was begging for a cigar, Doc said You look a mite bit off your feed.  Can’t say as I much blame you. It’s a hard day when one must watch a dear friend pass so slowly through the Good Lord’s Pearly Gates. Here, do a little of this,’ he said.  Might take the edge off a bit," he added, digging deep into a vest pocket for a can of snuff that he knew had only a dust of powder left in it.

No thanks, Doc, can’t say as I really like snuff all that much, but I do believe I’ll smoke me one of these, Buck answered, removing a Carolina Gold from his own fully loaded vest pocket. Tobacco’s tobacco the way I see it. Besides, I do prefer the smell and taste of a lit cigar over dip’n snuff. Always have.

If truth be known, so do I, but I’m fresh out’ta the ones I brought with me.  Smoked my last one on the way here. Even with the hint out in the open, Buck didn’t respond as Doc had hoped he would, so finally, he was left to ask, Say. You wouldn’t happen to have another one of them there Golds on you, would you? If you do, I wouldn’t mind if you was to offer me one.

Yeah, I got me a few left, you old goat. I reckon I ought’a just give you one of ‘em ‘fore you pull a gun on me and take it.

Well, then.  Just give me the damn thing and quit dangling it like it’s a carrot and I’m a rabbit, snapped Doc Yardley, extending his hand, while, with his free hand, he scratched a match across the concrete slab beneath the two of them.

Cuba’s tobacco had held each of the men prisoners to the vile habit of smoking ever since the deathly ill man lying in his death-bed upstairs had introduced them to the hard to come by and rather expensive cigars nearly three decades earlier.

Doc inhaled deeply—his addiction required that—before he let out the smoke and thanked the man sitting across from him.

Now that the two were alone and out of ear-shot of the others sharing a death watch vigil in the master’s bedroom at the top of the stairs, with the sweet smelling smoke curling from the corners of his mouth, Buck asked the same question he’d asked Doc Yardley in the curve of the stairwell. So, Doc? What about Sam? An’ tell me the truth this time.  An’ look here, you old buzzard, don’t you go putting no sugar on it, neither.  The truth. You hear me?

Oh yes, yes,  his voice fading . . . our dear, dear, friend Samuel, answered Doc Yardley, his face etched with sorrow—his shoulders sagging from the heavy weight of knowing the obvious and only answer he had to offer.

Dammit, Doc, Buck snapped. You know good as me, you could’a at least said something up there. Miss Rose weren’t nowhere near close by, pointing toward the second story window, but no . . . oh hell no, not you. ‘Let’s go down to the veranda’ you said. And here we are. So out with it and don’t be telling me them lies you been telling everybody else. How is he really doing, Doc?

Well . . . if you’re gonna put it that way, truth be known and truth be told, not good.  But let’s smoke a bit first. Maybe then we can figure things out. While we’re at it, you got any more of these? Doc Yardley asked, holding his still smoking cigar up to face level.

I reckon there’s some left. What are you doing with all them cigars Sam sets aside for you each and every month, ennie-how? You smoke’n ‘em or eaten ‘em?  Or both?  Lord how mercy, I can’t hardly stand a man what begs for a smoke, and I ain’t never seen the likes of you. But I reckon we got enough to last ‘til the next load gets here, he added, patting his vest pocket to be sure the last he had left to his name were still there.  There’s ‘spose to be another load on the way now that those damn Yankees done opened the blockade what they set up ‘tween Cuba and Florida—or at least we been told they was gonna open it up. Maybe they will. Maybe they won’t. Hell. Who knows what them sorry ass son-sa-bitch’s are liable to do from one day to the next.  But don’t go fret’n yourself up in a frenzy, you’ll keep getting the same number cigars as always, Buck added, pulling a smoldering cigar from his own lips.

The promise of cigars always tended to cheer the good Doctor up. Three bales of cotton for two crates of Cuban cigars and every three months the same.   Right?  Sure beats the hell out of anything I ever heard, he added as he sucked hard and inhaled deeply.

That’s for sure.  It is one hell of a deal . . . for them and us.  And just so you know, Sam told me no mor’n a week gone now, him and that Cuban fell’r dun’ went an ‘agreed no matter what the future comes to, they’d keep trading same as always. That’s what you really wanted to hear, ain’t it?

If you’re gonna put it like that, they are one of the few pleasures an old man like me can abide.

So tell me, what about Sam? And don’t you go lying to me with none of that bull-shit you been feeding Miss Rose. You got that poor woman thinking her husband’s gonna make it to ah hun’ert years old . . . and then some. Jus’t tell me the truth for once.

***

Doc Yardley glanced away, seemingly studying the far tree line, Well, Buck, he finally answered, as he scratched at the few strands of snow white hair that still held tenuously to his age spotted scalp . . . it’s like this. He’s fading—fading fast. Two days. Three at most would be my guess.

Can I see him? asked Buck, as he struggled to control his emotions already stretched to the point of breaking. Willie . . .  you know Willie, their house boy, don’t you? Well anyway, he said Sam’s been asking for me.

Of  course you can, but not just yet . . . give Miss Rose a bit longer with her husband while me and you  finish these, Doc answered, holding the cigar slightly above his eyes . . . examining it as if studying the nature of tobacco. Me and you both’ll go up and spend a few minutes with him. Now, I said ‘a few,’ mind you.  That’s all. You wake him up; I sure as hell will send your sorry ass down to Andersonville so they can hold you under lock and key ‘til the day you die. You hear me?

Doc, you dumb-ass, that prison’s been tore down nigh on a whole year gone now, Buck answered, finding a much needed courage in the manly art of swearing.

There or somewhere else. Don’t much matter not one lick to me where that place might be. Or maybe, if you wake him up, I’ll build a new one just for you.  And listen here, you make damn sure you clear look’n in on him with Miss Rose first. Being his wife gives her the first say for dang nere ‘bout ‘ever’thing.   And don’t you go tell’n her I said two, three days neither . . . you hear me?

I ain’t no fool, Doc.

I ain’t saying you is, but I swear Buck, sometimes your think’r, he said, tapping a finger against his own forehead, don’t burn nigh on as bright as an oil lamp turned down low.

***

A feeble hand, once strong enough to crush rocks, reached for Buck’s. As the two dear friends held hands, the bed-ridden man, his voice weak and raspy, said, Had one hell of a go of it, didn’t we, Buck?

That we did. Sam. That we did. But we ain’t thru riding this son of a bitch yet. Not by a long shot. No Sir, we ain’t. Besides,   Doc said you’re doing some better.

Hell, Buck. That old fart’s a liar. You know it, and I know it.  Always has been one.

Buck knew Doc Yardley wasn’t lying. Anybody blind as a bat flying through the flames of Hell could see that.