In all this Daniel might have said “We,” but reportorial modesty forbade.
“And,” he went on, gaining momentum, “I don’t reckon you’ll be forgetting Arkansas, and the ague and rattlesnakes? And how the small-pox swooped down on that camp of cane shacks? And how the quinine gave out, and–and the tobacco? Lawd!–And how those boys forgot how to sew patches, their rags being so far gone! And how they made bridles out of bark, and coffee out of corn! And how they kneaded dough in old rubber blankets and cooked it on rocks! Well, Jack, there they were, in Arkansas like that, and the War was over at last, and Missouri was just a waiting for ’em. And then, to think that they had to face square around another way entirely! Din, you’ll just try to imagine that there devil breed facing any other way except to’ds home!”
“Don’t, Shanks, you––”
“Devils? They were the wildest things that are. It’s a mighty good thing they didn’t go back. Think of their neighbors across the Kansas line, getting ready for ’em with every sort of legal persecution under the sun, and carpet-bag judges to help! Outlaw decrees? Well, I reckon those decrees will make a few outlaws, all right, and there’ll be unsurrendered Johnny Rebs ten years from now. Shelby’s boys had the look of it. Your own Jackson county regiment would have flared into desperadoes at sight of a United States marshal. They were all in just that sort o’ mood, as they turned their backs on Missouri. And after four years, too! But there, it’s a stiff wind that has no turning, so cheer up! They did, as soon as that deluge got done with and they were headed for Mexico, one thousand of ’em. Soldiers mus’n’t repine, you know. For them, Fate arrays herself in April’s capricious sunshine.”
280Driscoll had to smile. “Careful, there, Dan, don’t stampede.”
“I ain’t, but if now ‘I hold my tongue I shall give up the ghost,’ and I want to tell you first that Texas is a handsome state. We–they–were considerable interested all the way through it.”
“But, Meagre Shanks, where’d you leave ’em?”
“Back in Monterey, drinking champagne with Fat Jenny. Alas, ‘who can stay the bottles of heaven?’”
“Fat–who’s she?”
“Now you wait. They’ve got heaps to do in Texas yet, before they get to Fat Jenny. First, they helped themselves out of their own commissary departments, horses, provisions trains, cannon, everything. Decently uniformed for the first time, and the War over! You should of seen ’em, a forest of Sharpe’s carbines, a regular circulating library of Beecher Bibles. There were four Colts and a dragoon sabre and thousands of rounds of ammunition to each man. They had fighting tools to spare, and they cached a lot of the stuff up in the state of Coahuila. And they fed, and got sleek. This ain’t editorial, my boy. It’s God’s own truth. Adventures every step of the way only did ’em good. They saved whole towns from renegade looters by just mentioning Shelby’s name. They fought all day and danced all night. San Antone was the best. There they gathered in generals, governors, senators, and even Kirby Smith, all yearning to join Old Joe–our Old Joe, who ain’t thirty-four yet.”