Walker - Daniel Webster Jackson & The Wrongway Railroad

DANIEL WEBSTER JACKSON

& THE WRONGWAY RAILROAD

by Robert W. Walker

Copyright 2010 by Robert W. Walker, www.robertwalkerbooks.com

Cover copyright 2010 by Stephen Walker, www.srwalkerdesigns.com

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the authors imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Robert W. Walker.

ONE

A DEVIL'S ERRAND

November 17, 1852 in Hannibal , Missouri

The campfire lit the circle of boys, their eyes wide, as they listened to the storyteller. The flames rose and sank with a shifting wind that threw dry leaves into Old Black Billy's face. Old Billy stood over the circle, telling one of his famous "true" ghost stories. Behind the group stood black empty woods and the Negro quarters where most of the boys slept. Here and there among the black people, Daniel Webster Jackson and Joe Grier recognized a white faceother boys from town, who joined them in risking their skins to hear some of the old man's tales. Old Billy had a reputation in Hannibal.

The storyteller suddenly thrust his face toward Daniel's and howled with a blood curdling scream. "That was the cry Colonel Halverston heard when he got back to the place in the woods where them witches waited for him!" the old man said, pausing for a breath before adding, "Colonel man stared up into that big oak tree to find the witches, but colonel's horse reared up scared and throwed him off!" Old Billy jerked his hand upward to bring home his point, moving quickly around the circle.

From where Daniel sat, he could see the well-lit, four- story white house that belonged to the mysterious Colonel Halverston. It was an old mansion with large columns and great bay windows. Across the top floors, a line of windows offered a view of the land. The white walls looked green in darkness, thought Daniel, and he wondered if the colonel had really encountered witches in the nearby woods as a young man.

"It was a trap!" shouted one boy in the crowd.

"Can't trust devil-women!" cried another.

Old Billy kept his tale spinning, shouting over the listeners: "Colonel knew what he was about! He wanted to speak with Miss Amanda just once more, and the only way he could was by trusting in them witches! But Colonel, he protected himself with the riddle and his Bible, from which he took the riddle!"

A flurry of questions from Billy's anxious audience followed.

"What happened next?"

"What come of Miss Amanda?"

"Why didn't the colonel shoot 'em all?"

"There come giggling from up in that tree, them witches sounding just like school children, when one of them says to colonel smart-like, 'Why Colonel, you'll catch your death going about in your nightshirt on an evening cold as this!'" Again Billy paused for effect. "But Colonel, he stood up and said, 'Will I go back to my home and tell other men that the promises of a witch are false? For I will return and my tongue will be my own....'"

Suddenly, a large, black woman came up the embankment behind the storyteller and his audience. She came directly from the slave quarters, shouting, "Old Billy, you stop this here spook tale right now! You young'uns, get home!"

"What's the matter with you, Mattie?" asked Old Billy. "Can't you see we's all enjoying ourselves here?"

"Look up yonder, Billy." She pointed toward the big house. "Looks like the sheriff over to Hannibal's coming to hang you for your fool stories, old man."

Daniel saw torches and men descending the hill.

"My Lord, what could it be?" Old Billy wondered aloud.

"Colonel Halverston's done heard you clear from the house, telling that he's had doings with the Devil and witches, is what!" suggested Mattie as she took several children by the hand to start them homeward.

One boy, perhaps eleven, stopped to ask, "Are they going to sell you South, Mr. Billy?"

Old Billy grinned, tuffs of white hair lifting over his forehead. "Ain't likely, son. Go on with Mattie now."

"Better get them white boys home, too," Mattie called over her shoulder. "Them torches mean to get mad. They'll not take kindly to those white boys being out here."

But Daniel saw that Billy paid the boys no attention at all. Instead, Billy went to several men who had been sitting in the circle and whispered to them.

"Your colonel has joined them," one man shouted to Old Billy.

Daniel and Joe stared for a moment at one another, and then Joe pulled Daniel away, saying, "Let's get clear of here. My pap'11 kill me if he learns I'm out here."

Daniel and Joe had only to take twenty paces to be completely hidden in the surrounding blackness. They rushed without running through the tall grass, careful not to stumble. "Come on, Daniel, we'll take the lower river trail."

But Daniel dropped to his knees. "Wait! Let's see what's up."

Joe crouched next to Daniel. "What are you doing?"

Daniel only crawled back toward the firelight filtering through the high grass. "Let's get out of here," urged Joe.

"Want to see what happens to Old Billy?"

"I ain't sure I do."

"Let's just see."

"Not me! I'm heading for town, Daniel. You get caught, you only have more chores. I get caught, my pap'11 give me a walloping."

Daniel slowly looked over his shoulder. Joe was right there beside him, just as curious. Daniel was glad Joe hadn't run off and left him alone.

Colonel Halverston and Sheriff Brisbane from down at Hannibal, and a posse of sixteen tobacco-chewing Missourians, all carried long guns. The colonel and the sheriff argued loudly as they approached.

"A whole lot of slaves make it free, sheriff." Colonel Halverston sounded angry, his deep voice floated out over the tall grass where Daniel Webster Jackson and Joe Grier lay.

"You go about here shooting off your guns and running them noisy dogs up and down the Mississippi River and making like you catch all the runaways. You tell everybody in these parts only a scant few get away. You doctor all the numbers on the subject, you and the town council, because it doesn't look right on record that too many Negroes are running off, and it loses elections if too many are getting free! And you men looking through the bush and my slave quarters every time a neighbor loses a slave he's mistreated is getting to be a mighty nuisance!"

"Beggin' the colonel's pardon sir, " began the sheriff. "You got no idea the nuisance me and my boys have been put through tonight. Five of 'em run off from Mr. Grimes' place over to Coleson County. Besides, you don't understand."

The colonel went right at the sheriff again, saying, "I understand this much: I look out my window, and I see you men here stretched across my land with torches. For all I know, it's a bunch of night riders, ready to set fire to my barn. You come in here unannounced, without a warrant, carrying guns!"

Below a leafless ash tree with a four-yard reach-around trunk. Sheriff Brisbane held up a hand now to the colonel when they stood before Old Billy. The tree's bark was shining from the torchlights held by the sixteen deputies.

"Colonel," began Sheriff Brisbane, his stomach barrel-round up to his chest was outlined against the night, "you just don't understand. Some folks been saying that more than not, they lose the trail of the runaways right in these parts, right here on your land! Oh, sure, I don't believe you got anything to do with it, but yonder's the Mississippi and yonder's Seaton woods, and beyond that the territories. Some folks think them runaways are disappearing right here! Now, I never believed a word of it, till tonight!"