Golden Anvil

Not actually gaming related, but never the less, I'd like a critique of it.

Pardon me ma'am. I trust you'll forgive the smell. You see, me and my three friends here have been traveling for several days.

Oh that? Well it's the smell of our fire, you see? The smoke of it collects on everything. Gets into your clothes, your skin, your hair. You can't rid yourself of it once it's gotten into you. Everything we eat, everything we wear, everything bears the taint of it.

Yes ma'am, it does indeed smell like the very fires of Hell. It's the sulfur. My old parson told me once that it's the same stuff as brimstone, just like the Almighty rained down on Gamorrah. I don't know nothing about that, but it does stink.

My name's Otho Hinton ma'am. I hail from across the border, from a little farm by Lexington. But then, I guess you probably had us figured as Missourans. We did make a rather noticable image of ourselves as we entered town. Whooping and hollering and shooting as we came. That small garrison of men in their tents, and that bunch of darkies playing at soldier, they let us get mighty close before we opened up on them. They must have mistook us for Yankees. It's a trick we've used the past year, dressing in blue. It works well, that little deception.

Oh, now, stop your fretting ma'am. I'll not harm your little ones. There's no need to be huddling over that infant so protectively. Nor need you draw that other one behind your skirts. I've committed many crimes, robbed, killed men, burned homes, but murdering children ain't one of them. I'm no baby killer.

A demon from Hell? From brigand to demon, now. I suppose that's an apt enough conversion, ma'am. There's some that have called me such before. They may even be right, for all I know. I suppose I do know something of demons and of Hell. I've been plunged into Hell for a mortal long time it seems. The things I've done and seen these past years, I scarce can recall what it was like to be a civilized man.

I remember well how it started. It was the January after Price had retreated to Neosho. Old William Quantrill had begun his fighting, trying to drive your Jayhawkers from our Southern soil since Price had failed. He put out the call for his band to gather from their winter encampments. There were only 30 or 40 men, then. We've got near 400 now.

My friend Cole Younger had fought the year before with Price, but had left the army when it retreated. Some of your Jayhawkers decided to pay Coles home a visit that winter. They killed his pa, accused Cole of being a spy, burned his property, and stole his horses. Is it any wonder he decided to join Quantrill?

That sort of story is common enough. Why, just ask young Frank here. They whipped his young brother, Jesse, out in a farm field, strung up his pa long enough to make him permanently take leave of his wits, and arrested his ma and pa both just a couple months back. Before that they kept arresting Frank himself, and that after he'd agreed not to fight.

Well, when Cole decided to join up, I decided to go, too. Cole's cousin Charity, a lovely young girl, had never payed me any attention. I thought if I rode with Cole, he might put in a good word for me. Course, she wound up marrying that Kerr fellow, so that was for naught.

We fought all the rest of that winter. Mostly skirmishes. Nothing particularly memorable happened. Our glorious deeds fighting for the Cause wound up as little more than gun fights and brawls in the bushes and barns of Western Missouri. Some good men died, and some Jayhawkers, too. But little was accomplished.

Then came March. Your General Halleck decided we were not soldiers, declared that should we be caught, we should be hung. A fine gentlemen, Halleck. We'd paroled his men and officers when we'd caught them. We'd respected surrenders, flags of truce. Sure, we'd attack from the cover of darkness, or the bushes, but we conducted ourselves honorably. How did he respond? No quarter. Hunt them down and hang them. Well, now, how were we to respond to that, then?

Old Bill had a response. We rode into Kansas. The first yankee we saw was one of them Dutch you people seem to love so much. He couldn't hardly speak English. He stood there in his blue clothes, offering William his pistol, stammering away in his Dutcher language. An eye for an eye. Just like in the Bible. If we were to receive no quarter, why, we'd offer none ourselves. Bill just shot him, then shot the toll collector on a bridge we had to cross. Took his coin, his scrip, wedding band, anything of value. "First Blood," Bill called it. They were the first. It grew easier as we went from there.

Once you've started killing and burying men that were at your mercy, it became as easy to bury mercy as men. We began killing anyone who we encountered that didn't bear allegiance to the South. No more parole, just a pine box and cold earth for the likes of them. We'd ride into a town, take what we liked, and killed who we cared to.

My old parson once told me there was a play writer from England, he said men were like angels. Well, maybe that's so. But I also heard that the demons are angels old Snatch talked into his war with the Almighty. For their sin, the Almighty cast them from Heaven, and down they fell into brimstone. Fallen angels. Well, I've fallen a long, long way.

Course, I ain't the only one that's seen Hell. Your husband knows a thing or two about that I imagine. Probably lit some of the fires himself in Missouri, fires that destroyed so many fine Southern homes after Price retreated from Lexington. I imagine that gold picture frame there on your mantel came from the home of a woman like Cole's cousin Charity. That chest there, I imagine it's full of jewelry and pretties. Those initials there on that chest don't have an F for Fisher in them. Your husband, fine preacher man that he is, seems to have paid a few visits to hell too.

Now there's no use protesting. Your man spoke his mind loudly enough from his pulpet here in Lawrence. We all know his thoughts on us Missourans and our peculiar institution. We know he was with General Lane. Why, we know it was himself that declared all those niggers free after Lane stoll them last year. Probably even helped Pottawatomie Brown himself back in '57, murdering those folk on that creek. Now he's gone and become an officer in one of those regiments of runaways Lane's raised, encouraging slaves to kill their masters. We know his views, clear enough.

Now Mrs. Fisher, to business. If you might be so kind as to tell me where the good Dr. Fisher might be we'll be on our way.

Damn you for a liar. Mayhap a wise man might flee for his life when Bill Quantrill and his Raiders ride into town. But I know he's here. I can sense it. We demons can sense these things.

Yes ma'am, you are right. It isn't gentlemanly to doubt the word of a lady, nor to swear in the presence of children. But then, I'm no gentleman, and neither are my friends here. Why, what gentleman would ride to a town to burn it to its foundations and kill all its menfolk? No gentleman would plunder the town and put it to the torch, drunk with a lust for vengance and whisky.

But, then, you abolitionist Yankees haven't been gentlemanly, neither. Why, wasn't it just last week your General Ewing ordered all our kinfolk be turned out of their homes and forced to Texas, just for feeding their menfolk? And wasn't it your Jayhawkers coming from Kansas, from this very town, who have murdered so many honest southern men, robbed so many fine southern women, and made this town fat on plunder? We've a mind to get back some of our own, ma'am.

What sort of gentleman would sieze the womenfolk of a foe and lock them away in a ramshackle warehouse, then colapse it on them? Wasn't it just last week our kith and kin died in that trap just down the street from where we stand? Cole is beside himself over the death of Charity. He weeps as though she were his own sister. And As for Bloody Bill Anderson, well... I shudder to think what acts he's committing even now. His one sister murdered and another crippled for life, the third badly wounded as well? Acts such as this are the Devils work, not that of civilized folk. Let us not talk of gentlemen. There are none here, ma'am. Not me, and not your husband.

Now I ask again. Where is your husband, woman?

You still deny he's here? Very well. I'll just find him myself. Now provide me a candle, as I've a mind to start with the celler. Don't argue about it, or perhaps I will forget myself and become a demon from Hell indeed.

Yes, ma'am. That lamp will form a sufficient substitute for a candle, if only it'll light. I'll just turn the wick down and fetch a straw to light it from the stove.

Hellfire. The wick's down too far. This'll not light for all the prayers a demon might offer till it's dried a bit. Fetch me another lamp, then, and right quick.

Well, aint you just the most peculiar woman, to thrust your babe into the arms of a demon from Hell. Never mind that. He'll not be harmed. You go and fetch that lamp I asked for, while my friends and I restore some of the loot of Missouri to it's rightful owners. I'll start with that picture frame and chest.

Back so soon? Good. It seems you Yankees can learn when you're licked, even in this accursed town. Here, take your child back, and I'll take that lamp. Now mind your manners, ma'am while we have a quick peek at that celler. One of the boys here will stay with you, just for your safety, of course.

Well ma'am, I own it seems I must beg your pardon. Apparently you are a truthful woman after all, Yankee or no. Your husband isn't down there that we could see. No gasp was heard as we cocked our pistols, no face shown with fear in the light of the beam. We'll depart now and look for the next name on our list of men not yet aware they're dead. We'll catch your husband up soon enough. But before we go, there's one last task.

Burn it, boys.

----

Author's note.

Though the conversation itself is fictituous, this story is true. On August 21st, 1863 southern raiders under the command of William Quantrill swept into Lawrence, Kansas. Seeking revenge for the accidental deaths of several of the band's female relatives in the town a week earlier, the raiders carried death lists naming men to be murdered, and homes to be burned. By the end of the day over 200 towns folk lay dead and nearly the same number of houses and businesses had been burned.

Otho Hinton would be captured, and would die the following February attempting to escape before being tried for his role in the massacre.

Mrs. Fisher's house would be destroyed by fire. Missed in the search, her husband actually was hiding in the cellar, and would barely escape with his life. The Fishers would be left with almost nothing.

The raid marked the beggining of the end for Quantrill. Many of his own men would desert, horrified by the massacre, including Cole Younger (later a member of the James Gang with raider vets Frank and Jesse). Others, like Bloody Bill Anderson, would become so drunk on the taste of murder as to become unmanageable. Quantrill would be overthrown by one of his own lieutenants and would die in Tennessee as the war came to an end.

The Lawrence Massacre would remain the single largest act of terror in the United States for over 130 years, finally being overtaken by the deaths of 168 people in the Edwin P. Murrah Federal Building, Oklahoma City, in 1995. Though fewer people died in Oklahoma City, among the dead were women and children, the one attrocity Quantrill's Demons never committed...

-James Hinton, July 2005.