Russell Banks - Cloudsplitter

And naturally, as his fame spread across the nation, brave, reckless, principled young men itching for battle began to join our ranks. You know the names and reputations of many of the best of them, I’m sure, for they were later with us at Harpers Ferry and entered history there: the fierce, intelligent, and well-spoken John Kagi; and the kindly, black-eyed giant, Aaron Stevens; and poor John Cook, who was a genial man but dangerously indiscreet; and Charlie Tidd from Maine, a man with a terrible temper but withal an almost feminine sweetness; and Jeremiah Anderson, the guilty grandson of Virginia slaveholders; and young Will Leeman, barely seventeen when he first showed up at our camp: these men and numerous others whose names and fates you know were with us, but also over time a hundred more, who were just as steadfast and brave and who remain nameless, they were with us, too, and sometimes fell in battle and ended in unmarked graves or beneath humble, forgotten, untended wooden plaques in an overgrown Kansas field or back yard — farmers, carpenters, and clerks, they all, in their churches and meeting houses in Ohio and New York and New England, heard about Old Brown and his men or they read about us in their newspapers, and they dropped their hoes and spades or put aside their pens and eye-shades and, like the Minutemen of their grandfathers’ generation, picked up their rifles and made their way west and south to Kansas, where they got passed along, one to the other, by our growing number of supporters and allies, until they finally one morning walked through the trees into our camp and presented themselves to the lean, leathery old man seated by the fire going over his maps, the legendary John Brown himself.

There were, of course, some young men of a quarrelsome and wasting nature who joined us and stayed awhile as regulars in our Army of the North, as Father sometimes called his force, men who were taints and whose reckless, violent behavior caused many amongst the antislavery residents of Lawrence and Topeka and even back East privately to condemn our work, despite the continuous hosannas in the press. These were fellows who could not keep the pledge they made against the use of alcohol and tobacco or would not subject their wills to Father’s and would have been more at home in the bands of marauding Border Ruffians or brawling with each other in the saloons and muddy alleyways of the shabby border towns along the Missouri River. They did not last long with us. If Father or I found one of them drunk or if, on his or my command, a man did not at once rise from his blankets and mount up with the others at midnight and ride out in the cold rain to make a dawn raid on a pro-slaver’s farmstead twenty miles away on Ottawa Creek, Father was fiercely adamant and had me drive the man from camp like a dog.

I spoke for Father in all matters, except when he chose to speak for himself, which occasions were rare and made all the more impressive by their rarity. Even my brothers Salmon and Fred and Oliver and my brother-in-law Henry Thompson addressed Father through me, and it was through me that he spoke back to them and to the other men. To the journalists, of course, he spoke for himself, for no one, certainly not I, was as articulate and clear and poetical as he when it came to defining and justifying his grand strategy. With his actions in Kansas, Father wished to inspire a similar set of actions by other men all along the thousand-mile border between the North and the South, from Maryland to Missouri: by his and our example, he wished to make warriors of abolitionists and freedmen, and insurrectionists of slaves.

Your researches must have made known to you by now that after the night of the Pottawatomie Massacre, as it quickly came to be called, my elder brothers, John and Jason, were no longer with us. They were not purged from our band by Father, however; they took themselves from it. And it was just as well for them and for us, for they were not cold enough.

When, on that morning in May, we had finally washed all the blood from our hands and faces and had cleaned our broadswords in the waters of the Pottawatomie, we then came somberly, silently away from Dutch Sherman’s place, ascending from the dark, gloomy river-bottom in the wagon and on horseback along the winding, northerly trail to the grassy plateau above. Swaths of ground-fog hovered over the trees in the distance, where the Marais des Cygnes meandered eastward towards the town of Osawatomie, and the tall grasses glistened in the morning sunlight. We came over into the open, newly green meadows and leafy copses outside the settlement and after a while arrived at the crossroads where John and Jason and the Osawatomie Rifles still lay encamped, waiting for instructions from their superiors in Lawrence.

The men of John’s outfit were mostly young fellows, husbands and sons, Osawatomie homesteaders mustered abruptly into a militia company to defend and protect their homes against the Missouri marauders. Thus they could not have joined us in our work anyhow and still retained their commission under Colonel Lane and Mr. Robinson. It was not that Father had mistrusted them, especially John and Jason; it was merely that he respected their charge and mission and knew its difference from ours.

Our arrival at their encampment that morning, however, was met with grim silence by them, which puzzled us. They were mostly standing together near their low, smoky breakfast fire, and as we drew near, they watched us and said nothing and did not even raise a hand in greeting. It was as if we were a painting of six travelers, three on horseback and three in a wagon, being hung on a wall in a museum, and they were a group of silent, thoughtful observers standing ready to examine it. I remember, as we neared the fire and dismounted, that it was Jason who first separated himself from the men and came forward, while John looked on woefully, and the others merely gazed coolly in our direction as if from a great distance.

Jason glanced over the horses and saddles we had taken from Mr. Wilkinson, then abruptly took Father’s hand in his and led him a short ways off. I followed, while the other boys stayed in an isolated knot by the wagon.

Jason said to Father, “Did you have anything to do with that killing over to Dutch Henry’s Crossing?”

Father looked surprised by the question. “What’ve you heard?”

“A few hours ago, just after sunup, one of the boys from over there rode through, all distraught and weeping in a panic,” he said. “We got out of him that his father and two brothers and some other men had been savagely murdered. He said they’d all been chopped down by swords and cut horribly. It was an uncalled-for, wicked act!” he pronounced. Then he looked down at the broadsword I wore on my belt and was briefly silent. “The lad was pretty confused,” he went on, turning back to Father. “But he claimed it was the Browns that did it. He was clear on that. Then he rode on to Osawatomie. To raise the alarm.”

We were all three silent then. At last, Jason said, “Did you do it, Father?”

“I slew no one,” Father declared. “But I do approve of it.”

“I’ll go the route for you, Father, if you’re innocent. But if you did this, you know I can’t defend you. It’s a despicable act. I must know where you and the boys have been all night.”

Father said simply, “No, Jason, you don’t.”

Jason looked at me then. “Do you know who did this?”

I hardened my face and showed him its side. “Yes, I do. But I shan’t tell you.”

His voice lowered almost to a whisper, Jason said, “This is mad.” Then, harshly, he shouted towards the wagon, “Fred, come over here!”

Fred obeyed and came forward and stood beside me with his head hung low, and at once he said to Jason, “I didn’t do it, but I can’t tell you who did. When I came to see what manner of work it was, I couldn’t do it, Jason!” Tears were streaming down his face.