A Land Remembered, Volume 1, page 5
“You done said I got no choice. Do I need to take along my shotgun? And I ain’t got a horse.”
“You don’t need to take nothing but yourself. If it gets down to where you have to shoot, we’ll give you a gun. And I’ve got log wagons just up north of here. You can ride from there.”
Tobias turned to Emma. “Maybe I’ll be back real soon. A battle sure couldn’t take as much time as a cattle drive.” Then he said to Zech, “You clean them squirrels there for your mamma. And take the whip and kill something ever day for the two of you to eat.”
“They’s rabbits on that patch of winter rye where I take Tuck and Buck ever morning, Pappa. I’ll kill one ever time I go there.”
Tobias embraced Emma briefly. Then once again he followed a mounted rider across the clearing and into the woods.
***
Tobias passed down the line and was handed a tin cup of thin beef stew and a piece of black bread. Then he sat on a log and started eating.
A man beside him said, “A soldier told me that them Federal troops has raided Baldwin and Gainesville and took everything they could get their hands on. Cows, horses, mules, corn. Whatever. They’re even taking ever black they can find. And they’re on their way here now. It could happen tomorrow.”
“I wish it would and be done with,” Tobias responded, chewing the tough bread. “I been here over two weeks and I’m ready to go back home and see to my wife and boy.”
“I know what you mean. I don’t ever want to cut down another tree. We must of chopped two thousand logs by now.”
“I guess. And maybe more. They ought to have built a barricade from here to Tallahassee. If we’re done with it I wish they’d let us go.”
The logging camp was three miles south of the battle site, in a thick forest of hickory, pine, and oak. Logs were carried from here to the forts on huge oxen-drawn wagons.
Tobias finished the stew and said, “Did the soldier you talked to say how many troops the Federals have?”
“Maybe five and a half thousand.”
“It’s about even then. I guess the Rebs has a good chance to win. But I wish they’d get on with it. I need to go back to the scrub.”
It was just past noon the next day when the men finished loading a wagon and started north across an area of open meadow. Tobias stopped the oxen and said, “Look yonder, over to the west. What are them soldiers doing?”
A line of horses were pulling cannons at a fast trot and were followed by cavalry and foot soldiers.
“Don’t know. But it looks like ever man at the forts is hightailing it down here. Maybe they decided to not fight.”
“Don’t seem likely,” Tobias said. Then he looked to the east and exclaimed, “Yonder! Over yonder! There’s the reason!”
Three long columns of Federal troops were marching toward them, and the columns were flanked on both sides by cavalry.
Tobias then said, “Good Heavens! They’re going to have the battle down here and not up there where they built all them barricades! And we’re going to be caught right in the middle of it!”
“I guess they couldn’t direct the Federals where to fight,” the man next to Tobias said. “But I tell you one thing for sure. We better be gone from here when they start firing them cannons at each other.”
“The woods!” Tobias said urgently. “Run back to the woods! It’s our only chance!”
One of the men cut the oxen loose from the wagon and they all ran back toward the line of trees. They were halfway there when Confederate cannons belched fire and smoke. This was returned instantly from the east. Shells dropped and exploded fifty yards north of the fleeing men.
When Tobias reached the woods he ran right over a stump and fell hard to the ground. Then he crawled into a clump of bushes and watched as the tempo of cannon fire increased. The cannons continued to thunder for more than an hour before men in both armies rushed forward toward each other.
At one point the advancing soldiers overran each other and formed one big mass of slashing swords and firing guns. It was impossible to tell one army from the other except for the color of uniforms. As he watched the battle intensify, Tobias wondered what would have happened if they were all dressed in overalls as he was.
The plain was now engulfed with a low-hanging cloud of smoke, making it difficult to see what was happening. Once a troop of Confederate cavalry rushed through the woods and jumped their horses right over the brush where Tobias was hiding. He was not sure if they saw him or not, or of what they would do if they did. He knew there was no way for them to know that their own log cutters were hiding in these woods.
The battle raged back and forth for four hours, and then the Federal troops turned and retreated rapidly back to the east. Confederates swooped after them, rushing over a plain now littered with bodies—lifeless men in both blue and gray.
Tobias did not come out of the woods even after the battle had passed. He spent the night beneath the brush, and at first dawn he walked to the edge of the woods and looked out, seeing that the dead had not yet been removed. Then a troop of soldiers came from the north, picking up bodies and putting them into wagons. When one wagon came close Tobias ran to it and said, “Is it all done now? I’m one of the log cutters, and if it’s over I need to go home.”
“We whupped them,” one soldier said. “Them Feds is back in Jacksonville by now. But it was a bloody one for both sides. We got to get these men up before the buzzards come after them.”
“I guess it’s done then,” Tobias said.
“This battle is done, but it ain’t over by a long shot,” the soldier said. “There’s more Feds where them come from, and we’ll see them again. But I don’t think nobody cares what you do now, fella.”
Tobias turned and went back into the woods. He could see no sign of any of the other loggers, so he headed south alone. He had walked just over a mile when he cut around a canebrake and found the horse. It was tied to a bush, and the rider was lying on the ground, wearing a blood-soaked uniform.
He was a boy of no more than eighteen. Lead balls had caught him in the neck and chest, and Tobias wondered how he could have ridden this far from the battle before falling.
Tobias removed a pistol and scabbard from the soldier’s side, and then he unfastened the ammunition belt and put it in one saddlebag. There was also a rifle strapped to the saddle. He said, “I might as well take all of this, fella, but I want you to understand I ain’t stealing from the dead. It ain’t no use to you anymore, and it will be a godsend for me out in the scrub. I won’t bury you, ’cause they’ll find you sooner or later and send you back home. And I know you’d rather be with your folks than here in these woods.”
He then searched the other saddlebag and found a knife and several tins of beef. He opened one can and ate ravenously, washing it down with water from the soldier’s canteen. Then he mounted the horse and rode south.
***
When Tobias rode into the clearing he could not believe what he was seeing. Then the realization of it caused his hands to tremble. The house was no longer there, nor the barn, nor the smokehouse. Where they once stood, there were now piles of ashes. Only the woodshed remained.
He moved the horse forward slowly, dreading what he might find in the ashes. Then he heard movement behind the shed. Slowly and cautiously, Emma emerged from a bush, and then Zech peeked from behind the shed.
“Tobias!” Emma shouted, rushing to him. “We didn’t know it was you. We only heard a horse coming. We thought one of them had come back.”
Tobias jumped from the horse. “What has happened here, Emma? What is all this?”
“They came a week ago, fifteen of them. When they left the next morning they set fire to all but the shed.”
Zech said excitedly, “They killed Tuck, Pappa! They cooked him and et him right here in the yard! And they took Buck with them when they left!”
Tobias was furious.
“They weren’t Federals,” Emma said quickly. “They were Confederate deserters, Tobias. Some of them still had on pieces of their uniforms. They must have known about the battle and all the men being gone up there, ’cause they weren’t in no hurry at all.”
“Our own people did this to us?” Tobias questioned, finding it hard to believe. “Rebs?”
“Yes, Tobias. They were the meanest-looking men I’ve ever seen.”
“Did they do harm to you?” Tobias then asked.
“They did us no harm, but I begged them not to burn the house, and they did it anyway.”
“Blast them! They didn’t have to do this. They could have just took what they wanted and left. Did you save anything?”
“Not much,” Emma replied. “They left soon as they set the fires, and me and Zech ran in and got what we could. But the house went up too fast. We got an axe, a saw, the frying pan and a few blankets. But we didn’t get any clothes. It just went up too fast.”
“They took the shotgun, Pappa,” Zech said, “but I still got the whip. Where’d you get the horse?”
“Off a dead soldier. A Federal.”
Tobias walked over and looked at the scorched ground where the house had been. He kicked the ashes and said, “Ain’t no man ever gonna do this to me again! Not ever! I’ll kill the first one who tries! And I’ll kill a thousand more if I have to! So help me, I will!”
“We could live in the shed while you build another house,” Emma said, frightened by the bitterness in his voice. “It’s better than what we had when we first came here.”
“No! We’ll go south. This time we’ll go to a place where nobody can find us till the war is over. That’s what I should have done in the first place.”
“They didn’t burn the wagon, Pappa,” Zech said. “It’s behind the shed.”
“I don’t know if this cavalry horse can pull it or not,” Tobias said. “He’s trained to run, not pull. But we’ll try. There’s tinned beef and hardtack in the saddlebag. Soon as we eat a bite we’ll leave. This time we’ll go to a place where they can’t find us, just like the Indians done.”
***
At first Tobias headed directly south, leading the horse and wagon through thick woods, sometimes having to backtrack when he came to swampy bottoms and then follow higher ridges of dry ground.
On the second day he came into the lower scrub, an area he had never before explored. Here there were rolling sand hills thickly covered with tiny, runty scrub oak and impenetrable clumps of Spanish bayonet. The dead trunks of pines pointed upward forlornly, some peppered with woodpecker holes, the limbless trees giving evidence of some great fire that had once rushed over the land, destroying all in its path.
Every small oak had bear marks on its trunk, deep slashes made by claws, and buzzards circled overhead constantly. Occasionally Tobias came too close to the bayonet plants and jumped back in pain as they cut into his flesh.
Emma held the reins as Tobias took the axe and tried to cut a path for them to pass. Even in the cold he was sweating, and damp splotches covered his overalls. Again and again the wagon wheels sank down into the sand and stuck, and when this happened, they all pushed as the horse strained and neighed loudly, bucking and straining again, trying vainly to move the wagon forward.
“It ain’t no use,” Tobias finally said, putting the axe back into the wagon. “This is the most hellish place I’ve ever seen. There ain’t no way we can get through it with the wagon. We’ll have to turn and go back, then take the trail down to the St. Johns and follow the river south. There ought to be open land along the river.”
Tobias unhitched the panting horse and tied it to a bush, then the three of them pulled the wagon from the sand and turned it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Kissimee 1864
The runty black cow snorted and tossed its head from side to side, as if daring the horse and rider to come after it. Tobias eyed it cautiously, trying to maneuver the horse to one side. Then the cow snorted again, wheeled, and darted off into a thick strand of trees, its wide horns making clanking sounds as they struck vines.
Tobias kicked the horse into full pursuit. He dodged low-hanging limbs and then felt his body crash into the side of a tree, causing him to depart the saddle, flip over backward, and hit the ground with a thud.
“Dang you!” he shouted as the horse disappeared into the brush. Zech was off to one side, watching. He ran to his father and said, “He done it again, didn’t he, Pappa?”
“Cussed army horse don’t know how to do nothing but run in a straight line!” Tobias said, getting up and brushing dirt from his overalls. “He ain’t worth spit in a swamp. We’ll never catch them cows till we get a horse that knows how to run around trees instead of into them. Even a mule would know better than that.”
“I’ll go fetch him back,” Zech said. “You wait here, Pappa. He’s just right down yonder.”
Tobias hobbled over to a tree and sat down, and in a few minutes Zech returned with the horse. He said, “We going to try some more, Pappa? They’s two more cows in the brush. I seen them.”
“We best go on back now. I’ve got chores to do at the house.”
“Can I ride the horse now?”
“You can have that blasted critter. Just be sure he don’t walk head-on into a tree and knock your brains out. I feel like my tail is broke.”
Zech scrambled onto the saddle and they went along a path that wound beneath huge oaks. Soon they came to a small plot of ground that was fenced with split cypress rails. Inside the pen there was one cow with the letters MCI burned into its side.
Tobias looked at the cow and said, “It ain’t much, but it’s a start. We ought to have a dozen by now. We’ll try again tomorrow.”
“Maybe we ought to build us a trap,” Zech said, bouncing up and down in the saddle as if the horse were in full gallop. “We could catch ’em like you trap coons.”
“That’d be some trap. A wild cow ain’t a coon, and you know that. What we need is a horse with sense and some dogs.”
***
The small cabin was in a clearing on the east bank of the Kissimmee River. It was built of cypress logs fastened together with pegs, and the roof was palmetto fronds. It contained two rooms, one a kitchen and eating area and the other a sleeping room. Tobias and Emma occupied the small private room and Zech slept on a pallet in the kitchen.
It took Tobias six months to find the place. They followed the west bank of the St. Johns, stopping for days at a time to let the tired horse rest and gather strength, taking what food they could from the woods and the water. Nights were spent beneath the thin protection of bushy cabbage palm tops or the outspread limbs of water oaks.
When they reached the source of the St. Johns in a lake that seemed to mesh into an impenetrable swamp, they camped there for a month, fishing with crude hooks Tobias made from thorn bushes and killing coons and rabbits with the whip. Then they turned inland and wandered again, finally coming to a dense hammock along the bank of the Kissimmee.
Tobias knew at once that this isolated place was what he was looking for. There were no other homesteads nearby, and the nearest trading post was at Fort Capron, fifty miles to the east.
Since arriving at the hammock, Tobias had been to the trading post only once, and it was then he learned the war was over, that the south had lost. He had gone there to buy salt, and he also paid a blacksmith two dollars of the fourteen dollars he earned on the cattle drive to make a branding iron. His pen stood empty for almost a year after that. There was nothing to brand, and for practice he burned the letters MCI into every log on the side of the house. And then one day he caught the lone cow. After herding it into the pen, he held it on the ground while Zech pressed the hot iron to its side. Tobias then stood for an hour just looking at the burned MCI that proclaimed the cow to be his own.
While scouting the surrounding countryside, he came upon an abandoned village where Seminoles once lived. The chickees were rotten and had fallen into decayed heaps, but there were also the remains of a garden that still contained corn, squash, beans and pumpkins, and a small plot of sugar cane. From this he started his own garden, and he hoped it would thrive in the black river bottom soil.
His next project was to build a small barn for the horse and add several rails to the cow pen fence. These woods too were filled with predators. Each night he tied the horse to a post just outside the cabin door. It was no good for chasing cows in a swamp, but it was his only means of pulling the wagon to the trading post or elsewhere.
***
Spring had just passed into early summer, and the woods were alive with the sounds of chattering birds and rambling animals. Squirrels barked and great blue herons squawked loudly as they glided along the nearby river. A red fox flicked its bushy tail and ran across the path as Tobias and Zech entered the clearing. Zech stayed on the horse, racing it back and forth between the cabin and the edge of the woods.
Emma was at a table in the kitchen area, chopping coon meat into small pieces and putting them into the frying pan. When Tobias entered she put down the knife and said, “Do you know when you might make another trip to the trading post?”
“I guess I ought to go pretty soon. I’ve got a whole passel of coon skins. Maybe they’ve got in some flour. A batch of biscuits would sure go good. Seems I ain’t et one for ten years.”
