Dixie's Mettle by Ben Goheen

EAST TEXAS, 1863

“GET IN HERE, DIXIE. Supper’s on the table.”

“I’ll be there in a minute.”

After I sank the broadax into an oak stump next to the woodpile, I glanced around at the culmination of a week’s work with more than a little pride. Course, I still had to stack the wood in the lean-to shed, but the pile would get us off to a good start when Old Man Winter comes a’calling in a couple of months. But it weren’t easy. Cutting up three dead falls on the riverbank to a size that old Sass could snake ’em up the hill to the cabin would get a feller thinking about goin’ south with the geese.

“Get a move on, Dixie,” Mary Alice shouted. “Pa is getting impatient.”

“Aw, he’s always getting impatient about something or another.”

I ran my calloused hands up and down my cord trousers as I pushed through the back door. Mary Alice and Pa were seated at the kitchen table. I’d hoped Pa had already sent his rambling message up to the Heavens, although I had my doubts. He always figured his long-winded prayers weren’t meant only for God but for us sinful earthlings, too.

Five minutes later, we dug into the boiled taters, carrots, and salted pig-meat. Mary Alice was two years younger than me but had been doing a fullgrowed woman’s work since Ma passed. I felt bad for her not being able to do girly things like going to play parties with some of our neighbor’s girls. Still, she rarely complained ’cause she knowed it would fall on deaf ears if’n she did.

My given name is John Dixon Burch, although I’d been called Dixie as far back as I can remember—and my memory is pretty danged good. Pa says I’m sixteen years old, but I’d bet a gold horseshoe, if’n I had one, that I’m seventeen. That’s ’cause I remember my mother telling me how old I was when I reached my fourth birthday. That was way back in 1850, the year she died when we lived in the Kentucky hill country. Pa called it consumption, but as I thought more about it over the years, I’d say she died of worry and the strain of trying to feed a slothful husband and two children off’n the proceeds of a rocky hillside farm.

He was a stern man, my father, with definite Calvinistic religious beliefs. His idea of work was to put on his wire-framed spectacles, flop down in a rocking chair, and read the Bible from dawn to dusk. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not agin’ readin’ the Good Book, no siree, but readin’ don’t help grow taters, feed the hogs, or cut firewood.

After supper, Pa returned to his work in the rocking chair. Mary Alice and I cleaned up the kitchen and sat down for an extra cup of coffee.

“Are you going sparkin’ with Annie tonight?” she asked.

“Might.”

“You’d better watch out for them Bascom boys, then. I heard Rad is taking exception to you and Annie meeting down at the river. Lucy said she’d heard him make some threats agin’ you. She said he aims to take Annie away from you. You might oughta take the rifle with you in case he shows up.”

“That old squirrel gun wouldn’t make a scratch on Rad Bascom’s hard head.”

The squirrel gun was a long-barrel rifle we used to put food on the table when all else failed. That became my job when I came of age—and I gotta say I got danged good at it, too. By the time I was seven, I could bark a squirrel from the highest hickory tree with a single shot, and by nabs, I could pick off a rabbit at fifty yards just as easy.

“It ain’t no gun to defend a body with, Mary Alice.”

“You could always use it as a club.”

I laughed at my little sister’s serious expression. She brought to mind the one picture we had of Mama. Dark curly hair, wide doe-eyes, and a hint of sadness. Mary Alice was the one who cried for a week after we left the mountains of Eastern Kentucky. If’n it had been left up to her, we’d still be living on that rocky hillside slowly starving to death.

Pa had heard a traveling drummer tell about all the available land in a faraway place called Texas. He took it to be a sign from Heaven. After days of fervent prayer, Josiah Burch loaded all our meager belongings in our rickety mule-drawn wagon, and the three of us headed west. Two months later, Pa found a place near a running stream where we started life again in East Texas. Even though I was just eleven years old, and Mary Alice nine, most of the work fell on our shoulders. Pa had his own work to do.

The work weren’t no easier in Texas than it had been in the Kentucky hills, but the rewards were a far sight better. Once we got a spot of ground cleared for a garden, we ate better’n we ever did back in the hills. We came to count on the big vegetable patch, and the few hogs we kept penned behind our cabin. In our second year, we traded for a milk cow, and the following year, we traded for a coop full of chickens. I gradually grew taller and broader through the shoulders as time passed.

To my way of thinkin’, the Burch family was livin’ high on the hog.

Then the Bascom family moved into an abandoned house down the road which changed everything. Them two Bascom boys, Rad and Quincy, and me clashed often over the four years we’d been neighbors. Me being smaller and younger when they arrived, I always got the worst end of it. I couldn’t count the number of times I hid from Pa and Mary Alice in the smoke house with bloody lips and a bloody nose. But that never kept me from chargin’ back at ’em, bloodied or not. I vowed I’d never let the Bascom brothers end a fight with me running away. Never.

ONE COOL FALL DAY, me and Pa drove our wagon into the nearby town of Caddo Corners to stock up on supplies. Like I done said, I was in my seventeenth year according to my reckoning. I hadn’t been feeling too chipper for a while since Annie had taken up with that piker, Lon Saylor. I surely missed those nights with Annie down on the riverbank.

“What’s all that noise, Pa?” I asked as we got close to town.

“It sounds like a bugle.”

When we reached the center of Caddo Corners in our mule-drawn wagon, I saw a crowd of people gathered at the town square. Pa halted old Sass and Bob near the crowd where a grizzled old man leaned against a post.

“What’s going on here?” Pa asked.

The man spat a stream of tobacco juice at his feet and said, “A rebel colonel has come to town trying to recruit soldiers. He’s got a bunch of them young’uns all fired up marching up and down the street and telling them what a great thing it would be to fight against them Yankee devils.”

“War and killing,” Pa mumbled with a shake of his head. “Come on, Dixie, let’s get on about our business.”

I was taken in by all the hoo-rah and not ready to depart just yet. I didn’t know much about the war that was goin’ on back east, but I figured the sounds and sights takin’ place in Caddo Corners was worth another few minutes of my time.

“You go on, Pa. I’m gonna stay around here for a bit. I’ll be over directly.”

“No, you come now. This is ain’t no place for you.”

Lookin’ back, that was sure enough a poor time for us to dawdle. Rad Bascom done spotted us and came a’runnin’.

Rad was a stocky, muscular boy of nineteen years with a perpetual frown pasted on his square-jawed face. He strutted over to our wagon like a full-growed rooster and stood before us with his hands on his hips. Rad pointed toward the Confederate recruits drilling close by. “Come on, Dixie Boy. How about you get your skinny tail outta that wagon and join up with a fighting outfit like the rest of us. Or, are you too scared?”

I started to answer, but Pa quickly jabbed a sharp elbow into my ribs.

“Leave us be,” Pa said. “We want no part of this.”

“Maybe he’s really a Yankee, Rad,” said his brother, Quincy, who had joined us at the wagon. Quincy stared at me and added, “Don’t let that name Dixie fool you. I’d bet he’s got nothing but Yankee blue blood running through him.”

“Naw, little brother, I’ve seen too much of his blood spurting outta his nose and mouth over the years. It’s bright red alright, but that don’t mean he ain’t got Yankee leanings.”

Quincy was a year younger than Rad and considerably smarter than his brother. But being smarter than Rad could be said of a rotten fence post. Even at that, Quincy was likely to follow his older brother’s lead.

I knowed Texas was a secession state, whatever that meant, and that the people of Caddo Corners had little tolerance for those who didn’t share their secessionist views. Pa had told me and Mary Alice that Kentucky was a border state, neither Yankee nor Rebel. Course, that didn’t mean a lot to neither one of us.

But, now, here on the town square, it kinda seemed important. I expect no one in Caddo Corners knew where our allegiance stood. Rebel or Yankee? It didn’t matter none to Pa. He wasn’t going to have any doings with either side. Thou Shalt Not Kill.

I could see that Rad’s loud mouthing had pulled in a sizable crowd, and that served to egg him on. Rad suddenly reached up and grabbed me by the shirt. Before I could spit, I flew off the wagon and hit the dusty ground hard. When I landed on my back, I saw the look on Pa’s face. It were a look I had never seen before. His face had gone from pale white to sun red. His jaws had tightened, and I saw that his hands were clenched into fists.

I was scared he was going to jump off the wagon and tackle Rad.

Rad had seen the expression on Pa’s face, too. Rad kicked me aside and turned his full attention to Pa. He now had bigger game to tackle.

“I’ve got me a real good idea, old man,” Rad said. “You’re always singing some sad mountain song. Let’s hear you sing a real song. What do you say, Quincy? Wouldn’t you like to hear a real good song from Burch?”

“Yeah, and I got one picked out. A real humdinger.”

While I lay by the rear wheel of the wagon struggling to catch my breath, I was a’wishing I had brung along the squirrel gun like Mary Alice wanted. I knowed Pa hated violence of any kind, and I was shocked, but proud, at his reaction to Rad’s mouthing. At the same time, I feared that things were about to get out of hand in a hurry. I looked around at the bystanders and realized they weren’t going to interfere with Rad, so I had to get off my butt and do something, but what?

Before I could move, Rad kicked me in the stomach and said, “Get over there with your old man and sing us a rousing chorus of ‘Dixie.’ After all, that’s your name, ain‘t it?”

Rad moved closer to Pa and said in a low menacing voice. “Now sing, Burch.”

I watched as Pa drew his thin, six-foot frame up straight, looked Rad in the face, and said, “I will not sing ‘Dixie,’ and furthermore, I will not sing any other song for you. Now get out of my way.”

Rad’s face turned into an ugly snarl as the crowd had seen this old man openly defy him without any fear. I figured Rad had to act now before Pa could turn away, or he would lose his edge.

Rad quickly slapped Pa across the face and gave out a low growl. “Dammit, old man, I said sing.” He pulled a knife from under his shirt and pointed it at Pa’s chin. “And I mean right now.”

Pa stood his ground and refused to move. The crowd had gone deathly quiet as they watched Rad Bascom turn into a raving lunatic right before their eyes. He’d become obsessed with forcing Pa to sing “Dixie.”

While all the attention was fixed on Rad, I saw my chance. I noticed a pistol in the belt of one of them Rebel recruits. I slipped over to the Rebel while his attention was fixed on Rad and Pa. I grabbed the pistol from the recruit’s belt and ran straight at Rad.

I jumped in between Rad and Pa and pointed the pistol squarely between Rad’s eyes. “Rad,” I said slow and easy. “I’ve got a mind to blow your head plum off. And believe me, I will do it with pleasure if’n it comes to that. We have taken all the bull from you we’re gonna take.”

I saw Rad’s body begin to quiver. Sweat popped out on his forehead. His hands started to tremble. Rad glanced at the crowd, then at Quincy, who stood beside him all slack-jawed and wide-eyed. Rad’s shoulders suddenly slumped as he dropped the knife and took a quick backward step. As he stepped backwards, I stepped forward, keeping the gun in his face.

“How does it feel, Rad? Huh? How does the cold end of a gun against your head feel? Tell me. Want me to pull the trigger, Rad? Huh? Do you?”

“Dixie... I— I was just funnin... I— I didn’t mean nothing by it.”

“Now it’s your turn, you filthy, good for nothing snake. I’ve got a song for you to sing now. You, too, Quincy. And I want it sung loud for everyone in Caddo Corners to hear.”

Pa laid a hand on my shoulder and said, “No, Dixie.”

I reached up and gently removed his hand from my shoulder. “Go get the supplies, Pa. I’ll be over to help in a bit. There are things that need to be took care of, and I intend to take care of them here and now.”

He looked into my eyes, and I ’spect he saw something in me he ain’t never seen before. And, in his eyes, I saw a touch of sadness mixed with a softer, gentler expression. He gave me a slight nod.

“I’ll wait for you at the general store, son.”

JOSIAH BURCH CLIMBED INTO the wagon and drove toward the general store, his back straight, his head held high. He never looked back, but a slight smile creased his lips when he heard two trembling voices behind him singing “John Brown’s Body.”

Ben Goheen is a former secondary-school teacher and human resources manager in the chemical industry. He is a graduate of Murray State University and currently lives in Western Kentucky, near Kentucky and Barkley Lakes. Ben’s novels of the old west are Echoes of Massacre Canyon, which won the 2016 Peacemaker Award as Best First Western, and his follow-up novel, Mabry’s Challenge. A third western novel entitled The Cowboy and the Scallywag is due to hit the shelves within the next few months. Several of his short stories have made it into print, as well. Ben took particular pleasure in writing his non With Shirttails Flying. It is a true, exciting Hoosiers-like story of the Kentucky high school state championship basketball team of which the author was a member. When not writing, Ben spends much of his time whacking a golf ball around the picturesque courses of Western Kentucky with his buddies and spending time with his son and four granddaughters.