Ruffian
A Work of Original Short Fiction by the Tactical Hermit
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Missouri - 1869
Thick grey rifle smoke spiraled up into the treetops as an eerie silence hung over the western Missouri creek bottom. The incessant chatter of birds and squirrels had stopped on cue as if God himself had directed nature’s orchestra to stand as a guilty witness to the wanton deeds of man.
As quiet as water running over rock, Tate Davis slowly crawled out from the thick, tangled undergrowth and took a knee. He was dressed in woolen butternut brown trousers, a frayed grey woolen shirt, black knee-high Federal cavalry boots and his lucky sweat-stained brown slouch hat. On his belt he wore two rifle ammunition pouches and two tie-down Navy Colt revolvers, both mounted cross-draw. His face was smeared with burnt cork and in his arms he cradled a well-used Spencer carbine with sixteen notches carved into the stock in roman numerals: XVI.
Taking a quick look around he gave a short fox whistle and over a dozen men dressed similar emerged from the undergrowth around him and took a knee.
“OK boys, two of you get mounted and collect the stragglers, the rest of you get down there and strip them of everything they got. If you have to finish any of em’ off, use your knife, we don’t need anymore shootin’ this morning!”
A series of low grunts followed as a dozen burly outlaws set out down the slope to loot the dead and finish the dying. Out of the dozen miscreants slouching down into the crimson killing field, Newly Davis was the youngest.
He was a tall, scrawny orphan of fifteen from Scots-Irish stock with hair the color of brick dust and blue-grey eyes that were wise beyond their years. His father, Cole Davis, had fought with the Tenth Missouri and had fallen at the Battle of Pea Ridge in sixty-two’ while his mother, in a fit of grief had taken to moonshine and during a bender wandered into the woods at night during a blizzard.
It took three days to thaw her body out for the burial. At the funeral, the preacher had asked Newly if he had any kin that could take him in. When Newly replied he only knew of his Uncle Tate Davis, the preacher’s face went ghostly white as if the very words of his uncle’s name were some kind of evil incantation.
Newly knew Uncle Tate had a reputation as a southern loyalist and guerilla bushwhacker and ever since the war ended he and dozens others like him had been continuing to carry the fight to the Union by robbing trains and banks as if Appomattox had been nothing but a bad rumor.
