Following Wagon Ruts

The train chugged slowly into the station at Independence, Missouri. The wheels screeched on the rails as the engineer applied the brakes and brought the train to a stop. Josephine stood up with the rest of the passengers and then made her way to the aisle between the seats with her bag in hand. When she reached the door of the train car, the conductor held out his hand for her. She took his hand and stepped down to the station platform.

She was glad to be out of the cramped coach. For the entire ride, she had sat shoulder to shoulder between a fat salesman from Kansas City and a woman with red hair and wide hips. The salesman smelled of stale cigar smoke and had constantly let his hand stray to her thigh when he scratched his. The woman smelled of lavender so strong it caused Josephine to cough a few times. She was certain the woman must be a "public woman" who sold her charms because the top of her dress was cut low enough the separation between her heavy breasts was exposed. No proper woman would ever be seen like that.

Josephine was in Independence and she hoped, safe. Only one person knew her destination and she was certain Delia would never tell anyone, much less the man with a scar from his forehead to his left jaw and missing the eye on that side. She shuddered at that vision, a vision that had haunted her since that day at Centralia, Missouri when the bushwackers had come into town.

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Josephine was walking down the street when the force of over a hundred bushwhackers galloped down the main street. The men of the Militia attempted to group and stop the raid, but it happened so quickly they were cut down in a hail of gunfire. The lucky ones turned and ran.

Once the bushwhackers had silenced all resistance, they dismounted and went about robbing every store in the town. After taking all the whiskey from the saloon, they began drinking and soon were half drunk. Josephine had fled to her room in the boarding house, but when six of the bushwhackers began going from room to room and robbing the guests, she climbed out her window and then jumped the four feet to the ground.

She was unhurt by the jump, but one of the bushwackers had come into her room just as she left and was climbing down from the window to follow her. She ran down the alley and into the livery stable to hide in one of the stalls. Josephine was horrified when the man burst through the stable door, and she looked around for some way to defend herself. She picked up the first thing she saw, a horse hoof pick sitting beside a currycomb and a brush on a shelf beside the door to the stall.

As the rest of the bushwhackers ransacked the businesses in Centralia, that man had grabbed her around the waist and forced her back on the straw in the stall. She had pummelled his arm with both fists as he held her down with one hand on her throat and pulled up her skirts with the other. In vain, she had continued to struggle as he unfastened his trousers and then forced her knees apart.

As the man moved closer to his goal, Josephine slashed out with the hooked end of the hoof pick and raked it down the man's face. He'd screamed in pain and let go of her throat, then backed away, clutching his hands to his face long enough for her to get up and run. The last thing she saw as she fled the livery stable was the gash down the man's face and his eyeball hanging from the socket.

Josephine had run to the railroad yard then and hid in one of the storage shacks. She heard the whistle of the oncoming train, and through a crack in the siding boards, she could see the bushwhackers had blocked the track with railroad ties. Some of the bushwhackers were wearing Union uniforms and took positions as if standing guard over the station. The rest were in hiding.

The train approached and then slowed to a stop. The engineer had seen the blockage and thought the Union Army was guarding the track until the blockage could be cleared. When the train stopped, the bushwhackers emerged from their hiding places and forced everyone out of the train cars. The twenty-three actual Union soldiers on the train were lined up in front of a group of the bushwhackers and ordered to take off their uniforms. They had to comply as they had no weapons.

Josephine couldn't hear what was said, but presently, one of the Union soldiers stepped forward to speak to the bushwhackers. A minute later, the bushwhackers opened fire on the remaining soldiers.

The scene that followed was horrific. Most of the Union soldiers were killed outright. Those that were only wounded were shot again or their throats were cut. Once all were dead, the bushwhackers seemed to lose all humanity. They began mutilating the corpses. Josephine saw one of the bushwhackers jumping from body to body and laughing as he did so.

Some of the bushwhackers then set fire to the train and started it toward Sturgeon while the others systematically robbed the civilian passengers of any money or jewelry they had. The few who resisted were shot dead. After setting fire to the train station, the bushwhackers mounted their horses and left Centralia with the remaining Union soldier tied to a saddle.

As the dust from their horses settled to the ground, the people of Centralia came to the train station to help. Josephine went back to her room at the boarding house. She'd seen the atrocities happen from a distance. She didn't want to see the result.

She did see many men and more than one woman lying dead in the street in front of the boarding house. Most of the men were part of the town militia that had been cut down at the start of the raid, but she saw the man who worked in the general store lying there. The women were women who had tried to resist giving up their money.

As the magnitude of the massacre began to sink in, there was a wailing from the wives of the men killed and then sobbing. From the remaining men came shouts for vengeance. The telegraph operator sent a message to his home office telling of the attack, and received a message that the Union Army had been dispatched to find the bushwhackers.

Josephine was numb as she cooked the boarding house meals that day. She had no one to grieve for because she had no one. Her father had fled Virginia because he feared for the safety of his family. He was a farmer who did not own slaves and had been vocal about the Bible saying one man should not own another.

He had received threats from those who believed otherwise. Centralia, Missouri had good farm land and was sympathetic to the Union cause. He had sold most of their possessions before war broke out and began the wagon trip to Centralia along with three other families of like mind.

Josephine had lost her mother and father to cholera along the way and her only brother had drowned while attempting to cross the Kaskaskia River in Illinois. She saved her mother's traveling case and her father's pocket knife as remembrances, and finished the trip with a Methodist preacher and his wife. She had found employment as a cook for the boarding house in Centralia.

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After that day, Josephine felt the sorrow of the widows and mothers of Centralia. It was as if a dark cloud had hovered over Centralia and would not go away. After a month, things began to seem better, but the cloud was still there. The streets were filled with women in black and their stern faces looked through black veils. They went about their business as usual, but seldom was heard a laugh or even a chuckle.

During the nights, Josephine would dream about the man with one eye and usually wake terrified and wet with sweat. The dream would not go away, no matter what she tried. Staying awake later did not help. Neither did the whiskey she began drinking before bed each night.

Over the next few months, those dreams did become less frequent, but at least one night a week, she would dream of his hand on her throat and the other forcing her legs apart. She would watch as the hoof pick cut a bloody gash into the man's face and would wake just as the sharp tip gouged out his eye.

The dreams were almost gone when a group of jayhawkers coming back from raiding the southern Missouri towns sympathetic to the Confederacy arrived in Centralia. With them, they brought four men who had been identified as belonging to the group of bushwhackers who had committed the massacre at Centralia. The four were to be tried in Centralia and if convicted, hanged for the atrocity committed there. They were placed in the jail to await their trial the next day.

The boarding house where Josephine was a cook was paid to serve meals to the deputies and inmates of the jail. Josephine hadn't gone to see the four men as had most of the town. She didn't want to remember anything about that horrible day. Such was not to be though. She carried five meals to the jail that evening, one for the deputy on duty and four for the inmates, and was chilled to the bone by the leering grin of one of the men. He wore a patch over his left eye, and the pink, almost healed scar Josephine saw was the same gash she'd made with the hoof pick.

The man looked at her, then said, "Well, if it ain't my little girlfriend. We never got introduced proper like, now did we? I'm Randall Meeks. Who might you be? Well, don't matter none. We got some unfinished business, don't we, girl? I owe you something for this scar and for my eye. Soon's I get outa here, I'll be giving it to you."

Josephine hadn't said anything. She just gave the basket of food to the deputy on duty and walked out of the building. Josephine was worried. The man had recognized her. If he somehow managed to get away, he'd know where she was and would find her. Josephine had no doubts he'd rape her, and he'd probably kill her after he was done so she couldn't tell.

When the deputy came out of the jail, Josephine was still standing there shaking in fright. The deputy touched her shoulder.

"Ma'am, I heard what he said, but don't you worry none. He'll hang along with the other three soon's we get the trial over. You just bring their food to the door of the jail from now on. That way, you won't have to see him again. He ain't gonna be able to do or say anything more to you."

Josephine chastised herself for being afraid. The jail was strong and guarded by a deputy all day and all night. There was no way the men could escape and what the deputy had said about them hanging was certain to happen. Everybody knew the trial was just a formality. Talk of deserved vengeance was already circulating among the very men who would serve on the jury.

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That night, an hour before daylight, someone went into the jail, stabbed the deputy on duty to death and released all four captives. Since the streets were deserted at that hour, no one saw the captives escape.

Josephine heard that news as she cooked breakfast at the boarding house. The escape had been discovered when the sheriff came to relieve the night deputy just after daylight. He was arranging for a posse to find them when the owner of the livery stable came to report someone had stolen four horses, saddles, and bridles sometime during the night.

The Sheriff said the jayhawkers had reported seeing two men in the distance on their way back to Centralia, but had dismissed them as just men riding in the same direction. Now he thought the two were probably other bushwhackers who had followed the jayhawkers and the four captives to Centralia. Once they knew where their fellow murderers were being held, they planned and executed the escape.

They would naturally ride back to southern Missouri where most people supported the Confederacy, so the search began at the south end of town. They did find the fresh tracks of horses in the dust, and followed them until they entered rocky ground. After an hour, they had not found the track again and returned to Centralia.

It took Josephine only a few minutes to decide what she should do. She packed her mother's traveling case with as much of her clothing as would fit and then walked out the door. On her way to the train station, she met Delia, the women who washed the linen for the boarding house. Delia asked where she was going, and Josephine said to Independence to see her aunt but would be back in a week. They talked for a few moments before Delia wished her a safe trip and walked on toward the boarding house. Josephine used most of her small savings to purchase a train fare to Independence, and an hour later was sitting in her seat and watching Missouri go by.

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Josephine knew traveling to Independence was a little risky. While Independence was staunchly Union and there were Union troops nearby, the Confederacy was rumored to be attempting to re-take Missouri. She hoped the battles would stay in the east part of the state. That hope became relief when she arrived in Independence on the first of October.

Things in Independence seemed normal enough given the times and the political struggle for Missouri. There were many people from the rural areas outside of the town living with relatives because of the evacuation order a year earlier, but for the most part, people went about their business as usual. Josephine found a job as a cook in the hotel and settled down to a new life.

That lasted until the 21st of October. The Union Army had been defeated at Lexington, Missouri and had retreated to set up camp five miles east of the city. People in the city were worried the Union line would not hold, and on the 21st, that fear proved to be reality. The Union lines were forced to retreat through Independence, and throughout the afternoon there was fighting in the city. Josephine and the other hotel employees hid in the cellar of the hotel to await the outcome of the battle. As night fell, they could hear occasional shots being fired, but the rest of the night was calm.

The next day, there was more fighting in the streets during the morning and into the afternoon. In late afternoon, the fighting subsided and Josephine and the others ventured out of the cellar. The Confederates had been forced to retreat and there were Union soldiers in Independence again.

That night, Josephine sat on her bed thinking. Was there no place safe from the war? She'd been through so much for her twenty-two years. She'd lost her family because of the war. She'd watched unarmed men executed for the crime of just wearing a Union uniform. She'd escaped being raped only by luck and her will to fight back. She'd watched women cry over dead husbands and sons who'd had nothing at all to do with the war. Now, she'd hidden in a cellar while the two armies exchanged places twice in Independence. It was only luck or divine providence or something else that kept a cannon ball from landing in the cellar and killing them all.

Josephine tried to think of a way to escape to someplace where the war wouldn't go. That place obviously wasn't Missouri. South was the Confederate area and was constantly raided by both the Union Army and the groups of jayhawkers who were out for vengeance. To the north, the area that sided with the Union, the situation was the same except in reverse. It was also likely Randall Meeks would still be in Missouri.

There had been several travelers going through Independence on their way to Oregon and California. Most did not stay at the hotel. They needed all the money they had to buy wagons, oxen, and supplies for the trip. They did talk to the people of Independence though. Most said they were fleeing the war and hoping to make a better life for themselves. Oregon had free land and California was where gold had been discovered.

Josephine considered both, but didn't see how she could go to either place. She was a small woman and would never be able to do it by herself. She'd grown up on a farm but her father had used horses and mules, not oxen. She wouldn't know how to drive them or see to their care. She also did not have enough money to buy the wagon, oxen and supplies needed.

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Over the next few weeks, Josephine listened to the talk of the men and women who stayed at the hotel. Most were on their way to Council Bluffs, Iowa and were waiting for passage on a steamboat up river. They were men of means who were going to build a railroad across the plains and mountains to the Pacific Ocean.

Those men talked of many things as they ate, and Josephine listened as best she could from the hotel kitchen. One evening, she overheard a man telling about a woman who had fought in the Union Army as a man. According to his story, the woman had cut her hair and posed as an eighteen year old boy when she enlisted. She was not found out until wounded in the chest during a battle. The surgeon had removed her shirt to dress the wound and discovered her true sex.

Josephine had mused that if she were to do the same, traveling to Oregon or California would be a simple matter. There were men who made the trip on horseback rather than in a wagon. She'd seen two crossing the Missouri on the ferry one Sunday after she'd finished cooking breakfast. They each rode a horse and led a packhorse laden with the supplies they'd need.

She'd asked old Amos, the man who tended the bar in the hotel, where the men were going. He said they were most likely prospectors heading to California or young men going to Oregon to start farming, and they probably would stay with a group of wagons for safety and companionship even though their horses could travel faster than the oxen pulling the wagons of the settlers.

That night, Josephine counted the money she kept hidden in her mother's old traveling case. Her wage was a dollar a day plus her room and board, but she'd worked at the hotel only a month. She had twenty-five dollars and ten cents to her name. That wouldn't begin to buy a horse and saddle, let alone a pack horse and supplies too. She sighed as she put the money back into the traveling case and put it under the bed. She'd have to wait, probably at least until spring. She only hoped the war would stay far, far away until then. She didn't want to think about Randall Meeks and where he might be.

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Thomas climbed into his saddle, picked up the reins, and then spoke to the black gelding.

"Giddup, Ringo. I see Independence in the distance and you're rested enough. I think we'll spend the night there. You wouldn't mind a good feed of oats, wouldja? Me, I'm getting' mighty tired of bacon and corn cakes. I'm gonna have me a steak and some potatoes, and then stretch out on a bed instead of hard ground."

Thomas Brighton thought about his situation as the black gelding walked slowly toward the town in the distance. He should have been back with the Union Army and helping his artillery unit shell the Confederate lines at the last battle of the war. He'd sworn to do that when he enlisted in the Army of the Potomac, and had done his best until Antietam. During that battle, he'd been struck in the right leg by a minié ball that shattered his knee. He'd lived to make it to the surgeon who took one look and then instructed his assistant to put Thomas to sleep with chloroform. When Thomas woke up, his lower right leg was gone.

He was transferred to Stanton Hospital where he healed. Three months later he had been fitted with a Jewitt wooden lower leg. It took some practice to learn to walk again, but by March, he could walk without assistance even though he had a very visible limp.

The Union Army discharged him and paid him all his back pay. As an orphan from Washington, D.C., Thomas had no home to go back to and he didn't want to stay in the East. The war was still raging in the East and he'd be reminded of it every day. Thomas bought a train ticket to St. Louis. St. Louis was the gateway to the West, and it seemed like a good place to start. Jobs were available there, and he needed one to earn enough money to buy a horse and supplies.