Spake As a Dragon by Larry Edward Hunt Read Free Book Online Page B

been
conscripted by a scouting party of Yankee soldiers and was pulling
labor duty with the Union Army, so they figured nothing was left
for them in South Carolina. They too would begin a new life with
the Scarburgs in Alabama.
    “ Where was me and Lizzie
Mama?”
    “ Well, child, you two
would not be born until we got settled in Alabama, and yes, Sary
was here with me too. Just like she promised, and thank God she
still is.
    “ I remember the morning we
left Scarlett. I was happy and sad at the same time. I wish you
could have seen us, Father driving one wagon, Jefferson another and
Uncle Jed bringing up the rear. I can still hear your father: “All
right, come on everyone get aboard. Let me count off the children,
Luke, Matthew, Margaret, William, Isaac, Stephen and there you are
Tom Henry. That is all the children Mother, let’s get going to our
new home in Alabama.”
    “ Your father was almost
correct, but that wasn’t all of my children. It had slipped his
mind about your sister Cecelia June, the oldest by birth had
already married Lester Smith in the summer of ‘49. Cecelia and
Lester were staying in South Carolina. Then there was my darling
little boy Paul - I walked over to the cemetery out under the trees
close to the big house; I wanted to say good-bye. He was my second;
he had died a long time before you two came along. I just had to
say good-bye one last time.
    “ Your father had estimated
the journey to take about two weeks. The first couple of days went
by without anything happening out of the ordinary; on the third
day, we were looking for a place to pitch camp for the night. It
was getting close to sundown when we happened upon a cabin. The
folks came out and greeted us, we talked and they wanted us to stay
the night with them. They would not take no for an answer. The
woman of the cabin even invited Uncle Jed, Sary and Jefferson to
stay. The people in the house welcomed us all but said they were
embarrassed that all she had for supper and breakfast was some
bacon and cornpone. We gave her a large, cured ham, some homemade
molasses, coffee and flour. You both should have seen the smile on
her face; it had been a while since she had eaten so
well.
    “ The night went well as
did breakfast the next morning. Once we left the cabin and began
traveling down the road, your brother William was wiggling and
squirming, so was Isaac. Margaret said something was crawling on
her. Stephen yelled he was being bitten by something crawling on
him too. We were close to a mountain stream and Robert stopped the
mules.
    “ Your father got down from
the wagon and declared, ‘Everyone out! Take off all your clothes,
grab a couple bars of that lye soap and jump in the creek and scrub
all over, scrub hard. Boys go downstream, girls you go a bit
upstream. I’ll build a fire. Mother boil their
clothes!’”
    “ What was goin’ on Mama?
Why did Father want them to take a bath and boil their
clothes?”
    “ Bedbugs child – we were
covered in bedbugs we had gotten from those folks in the cabin.
They were fine folks, but they didn’t realize they weren’t living
there alone.” Malinda said grinning.
    Malinda returned to the story of their
trip from South Carolina. Mattie Ann was holding onto every word,
and now even Lizzie was beginning to listen. She explained that
after a few more days of driving all day and camping out under the
stars at night they were in the hills of Georgia when all of a
sudden, two men leaped from the side of the road into the path of
their wagons. Both men had bandanas over their faces, wore large
black sloth hats and brandished pistols. One fired his pistol into
the air.
    The closest bandit yelled, “Give us
yer money! All of it or we’s goin’ to kilt you.”
    She explained how Robert had figured
the bandits would kill them regardless whether he gave them their
money or not, and he wasn’t about to give them anything.
    “ All right don’t shoot,
it’s right here in this box under the