The Guns Of St John

By John J. Law

"Dr. St John? There's someone here to see you."
The lady knocked a few times on the door, but no one answered.
"I'll just let ourselves in. Come with me, and don't get too startled when you see him. Dr. St. John can still be quite ornery, even with his advanced disease."
"Ornery? What do you mean?"

• Language: English
• Publisher: J.C. Hulsey Books
• Release date: Dec 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223107231

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CHAPTER ONE

The Hand that Fate Dealt.

You could say that I had an idyllic childhood. I grew up with a wonderful, caring mother, and a strong and decisive father that provided for all our needs. I was an only child, but I feel that it only made our family even closer, and I felt that they showered me with all the love and attention a young boy growing in the deep Southlands could ever want.

My childhood was filled with happy memories of watching father speak with his patients or make house-calls, as he was a renowned general practitioner in our town. While he was away, mother would often care for me, and cook wonderful home cooked meals that I still miss to this day. Her Thanksgiving turkey will live on forever in my heart. We also had a sizable cotton plantation that was maintained by several of our slaves, all of whom were not mistreated as far as I can remember. One of the slaves, Solomon, even taught me how to play cards during his spare time. Solomon was the slave that mother and father seemed to favor among the others, and I learned a good deal from him. Many times, I felt he seemed to be a surrogate father of sorts for me, when father was often away on his work and duty. Little did I know then, that all the things that Solomon taught me would serve me well, in the future.

Work and duty. Those were the two things that drove father farther apart from us. That, and the unforgiving tide of the fates and current events themselves would conspire to tear down the short-lived idyllic world of my childhood.

When the Great War broke out, father was one of the first to volunteer for the Southern forces. His strong sense of duty and sacrifice would not allow him to do anything less. He served as a quartermaster, and even as a sometime field medic of sorts, as our Confederate forces needed all the men and the skills they could muster. At around the same time the war started mother began to develop a very persistent cough. We all thought nothing of it at first, but it would soon develop into something a lot more sinister.

Everyone knows that our side lost that conflict of course, and father could see the writing on the wall already. In the waning years of the war, he managed to move us, and a few of our slaves from our estate to a more remote location where we could wait out the end of the war. Solomon and my mother went of course, and it was only then that he noticed that her cough had gotten progressively worse. She was now starting to develop boils in some parts of her body, and coughed out the occasional crimson from her mouth. We all knew what it was of course. It was the dreaded consumption.

I'll never forget the day my mother died. I was only a few years past my tenth summer. I was still a boy when the consumption finally took her. I can still remember her lying on her bed, with the sheets covering most of her body. The large dress she wore covered the frail skin and bones that was once her body, and I was thankful for that. I didn't want to remember her as some sort of mockery of life, in her final moments. They all covered the vicious ravages of the consumption upon her body, but you could see how the disease was taking its toll on her, through her face. Her cheeks were sullen, and her eyes sunken through. Her face was drained of blood and looked very pale. She coughed occasionally now, spitting blood in the nearby pan, but that was because there really wasn't much to cough out anymore. I could see that Mother was finally going to leave this world. I was deeply saddened, but a part of me was also quite relieved to see her go. I had seen her suffer so much as the disease took its toll on her physically and mentally, and I did not want her to suffer any more than she should have.

Collin my dear boy. Come here. Come here and bid your mother farewell.

I drew close to mother and smiled at her. Mother managed to smile at me, despite her paleness. She took my small hand with her withered and bony one. Her fingers almost looked like gnarled branches, and they were no longer tender to the touch. I could barely feel the skin on her hand, as it was now covered with hard boils. The tears started to fall from my eyes as the memories and years with my mother rushed back to me. The lazy afternoon picnics by the river, the time she taught me to catch butterflies and let them go again, even the sumptuous sandwiches that mother used to prepare for meals, they all came back.

Mother, please. don't go.

At that moment, I felt as if I were being rent in two by my grief. A part of me actually wanted mother to pass on, as I did not want her to suffer any more. Another part of me wanted her to stay on, in some kind of form, as long as she could still be with us. At that moment, I understood why my father could not bear to see her like this. Perhaps he did not want to see her in this sorry state, and merely wished to remember her for what she once was.

I have to go now, Collin. The consumption has taken its toll on me.

Mother coughed hard and spat out blood in the nearby pan. She spoke in a deliberate and pained tone. I could see that she was in a lot of suffering, and I could finally see that this had to end now. For her sake.

Mother.

Be a good boy, Collin. Follow your heart, and never forget everything I taught you.

I won't forget you, mother. I'll always love you.

Mother smiled at my words, and for a moment, I thought I saw the light and color return to her face. She closed her eyes and died in peace right then and there. I would like to think that my presence helped her pass on a little more peacefully. 

From that day on, things were never the same. My mother's passing was the end of an era of sorts, in my life. The consumption ravaged her for the entirety of the Great War, and mother passed on, just as our side lost. When mother died, I felt like everything else in my life died as well. We lost the war, and the Federal government came and took away most of our properties in the name of the nation's ‘restoration’ and such. Our slaves were all free men now, but whether they migrated to a better life under this new system remained to be seen. My parents were never overly cruel to our slaves, and this was how I grew close to Solomon. Once they became free men, however, many of them left to rent lands of their own, and the ones that stayed on like Solomon, seemed to eye me with a new and uncomfortable indifference.  

The worst part of my life that fell into hopeless disarray was my father himself. My father fell into debt, drunkenness, and despair. His constant companion was a whiskey bottle, and he was now also prone to irrational fits of rage, now and then. I thank the Good Lord that he never really did hit me, but there were times that he came pretty close. This was a far cry from his former state of being a respected doctor in our community. My father felt that he failed my mother, and he was often quite vocal about his frustrations.

I'm supposed to be the blasted best doctor in this whole place, but I couldn't even save her from the ravages of that damn consumption! Perhaps if I had not volunteered in the army, she would still be alive now, if I acted more decisively!

It was a terrible sight, seeing my father like that. Growing up, I often caught him in such moods of his, mouthing and ranting all sorts of nonsense while carrying a whiskey bottle in one hand. Father, you know you were only doing your duty when you volunteered. You did your part to preserve our way of life. I see that now.

I could not save your mother! That was all that mattered, and I failed in that, son. Miserably.

My father was inconsolable in those long and terrible nights. I guess he was never really the same after my mother died. I guess neither was I.

The war took away everything from me. It took away my mother, left my father a shell of his former self, and our way of life. There was really nothing left of the old life I had known, and this was about the time that my life began to take a slightly darker turn. 

I guess you could say that I was lost during those young years between childhood and adulthood. I had lost the light of my family, and our way of life was now just a memory. Just as the southern country which I was raised in was now changing into something I was not sure of, I was also growing into a man. Whether I would be a good man or not, is not for me to say, but for a higher power.

I often found myself in a lot of trouble during this time. Nothing compared to the troubles that would beset me in my adult life, of course, but troubles nonetheless. I got into many fights mostly with children of free men in the area. I remember even chasing some of them away from a watering hole near our home. The poor boys really did nothing wrong but bathe by the riverside, but I would not be swayed. I was so full of anger and frustration with everything that I found them to be nothing more than a convenient release. I fired my father's colt pistol in the air. It just took three shots to send them all scampering away, half-naked. Fortunately, I did not kill any of them. If I had done so, I would have probably done something that I would later, truly regret. I know this was probably not the most advisable course of action for a young man to take back then, but that was simply who I was. I was young, very frustrated and with little direction in my life, and I simply did not know what else to do.

I was later guided by my concerned uncle to go to school. I managed to finish medical school with good standing and would have followed in my father's footsteps as a doctor. Doctor Collin St. John. It would have had a good ring to it, if I do say so, myself. Unfortunately, the medical profession was not a path that I was destined to take in my life. At least my father managed to see me graduate and become a doctor, before he himself passed on. His excessive drinking soon took a toll on his body, and his heart and kidneys eventually gave out. Something tells me that it was more of his heart that failed, as he never really got over my mother's death.  With me becoming a doctor, I guess Pa, was more at ease to just pass on. He probably figured that I could now take care of myself and he could just focus on the business of moving on to see Ma, in a better place. When father passed, he seemed more relieved than in pain, as he would finally get to see her again. I do believe that they both reunited to see each other in Paradise.

I never forgot how my mother passed, and I will also never forget what my father told me shortly before he himself passed away. I was just about to finish my studies in medicine, back then. It was during one of those many, countless nights that father drank away. Strangely enough, he seemed unusually pensive that night. He was not feeling moody about mother's death, or the other misfortunes that had befallen us. He merely stared at the moon, as he caught me reading by gaslight. I caught him staring at me from behind my eye, and I thought that he smiled. That was when he spoke. Never be a drunkard, son. Never go down the road that my life's taken, boy. You're much better than that, and I reckon you'll be a much better man than I turned out to be.

You weren't a bad man Pa. You were the best man that you could ever be for me and Ma.

I should have been better son. I should have been better! Now promise me you'll do better than I did in this life.

I sensed so much pent-up bitterness and tension in those short words that came out of Pa's mouth that night. I could see that there was no point in debating what he had said, and I simply decided to agree with him. I promise Pa.

Good.

Pa nodded, and that was the end of that discussion right there. I wonder how he would feel if he saw how my life has turned out. There have been many nights that I've stayed up, asking for his forgiveness, for the path that my life's taken. Well, there is nothing I can do about any of it now. I can only live my life the best way I see fit. I also take some consolation that I somehow eased both my parents' passing and made it as pleasant as could be possible. Or at least, I hope I did.

I was starting to establish my medical practice when the initial cough started to manifest itself. I brushed it off as nothing a little rest could take care of. After all, I was a young, aspiring doctor, and I did spend many late nights trying to start my practice. The night fevers followed, as well as a rapid decrease in my overall weight. Even before I started coughing blood, I already knew what was upon me, and I did not like it. I had developed the same consumption that had taken my mother. 

When I learned that I had the consumption, I actually thanked the fates that my father was not around anymore. After all, such news of my illness would have probably devastated him, and would do no good at all. My practice was only starting, but I would have to nip it in the bud. After all, no one in his