Short Story / western fragment

The Johnson boys were Arkansas hill trash, Jonah being half-smart and Daniel being half-crazy. They were both too lazy to take part in Mr. Lincoln’s army or the CSA. Running with the guerrillas was hard work too and nary a piece of pie after dinner. With the help of the Draft Laws they figured to go on the scout in the Cherokee Nation. They only got to steal a few horses before losing their hearts to a pair of pretty Cherokee girls, the Fivekiller sisters. Those girls were sweet on those redheaded Arkies as well and the boys traded those stolen Creek horses to the Fivekiller clan and married those girls thinking they’d prosper as farmers and maybe get rich selling corn liqour to their heathen in-laws. But the war kept raging like a thunderstorm, Jayhawkers stole their beeves and Quantrill’s men shot all their hogs. The boys and their wives (now both pregnant) set up a make-shift camp high in the Cookson Hills and spent their time hiding out from everyone.

After the war it was almost worse. There was not money enough to buy nor sell and only starvation was free. There were not hardly enough good horses to steal. After stumbling for years through these challenges the Johnson boys found neither prosperity nor salvation.All they found was more mixed-blood babies crawling on the rocky dirt floor of sawmill plank cabins.

The brothers finally made a batch of liqour that was saleable and they cashed out hearing there was big money in buffalo hides if a crew could bring them in off the prarie. They bought good mules out of Missouri, a wagon and pack outfits to match. They special-ordered a pair of Sharps .50-.90 rifles and had one of them fitted with a telescopic sight. They planned to use their wives as skinners. Their brother-in-law Hindfoot came along with his wife as well. With hides selling for $3.50 each a fortune seemed assured. The brothers left their children with their grandparents in the Nation and the three couples moved out west the wagon creaking and mules sweating.

They never came back from the prarie. “Comanche,” the old-folks said.

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