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By Root 1823 0

neatly made bed and gazed at it for a long time. Everything about the black dragoon proclaimed something new, something entirely different from what had gone before. Thought had gone into its engineering, but no flourishes had gone into its decoration. It was not to be, as many guns I had seen over the years were, picked up and admired, even fondled. Men, I knew, named their rifles, cleaned and oiled them with pleasure, took as much pride in their workmanship as they might in a fine dog or a graceful picture. The black dragoon didn’t invite that: it was so manufactured, so purely an object designed for a particular use—killing men—that it was impossible to feel affection for it. But with all that, here it was, and across the hall or across the best parlor, it was certainly capable of doing the required damage to Samson Perkins, his nephew Sam, and their friend Chaney Smith, especially if I took them by surprise, which I intended to do. How I imagined it was this: Their faces, the very ones I had seen on the Lawrence road, would turn and look at me just as they had that day, but this time I would raise my black dragoon and fire right into their laughter.

I turned my gaze from the gun on the bed and looked around the room. The windows looked outward; from where I was sitting, I could see only the tops of a few trees and the sky, which was hazy with heat. Even though I had made my own bed and hung up my clothes, Lorna had filled my pitcher, taken away the chamber pot, and pushed the net bed curtains back, not forgetting to arrange them in a graceful drape. The bureau was polished, and its small mirror shone. The pictures on the walls, of flowers and girls in white dresses standing in gardens, were pleasing enough, if a tad over-English and silly.

I looked at the gun again, dark against the white counterpane. The afternoon was drawing on, and soon enough I would hear the clatter of men and horses coming in. My plan was simple enough; if you were intending to commit what those around you considered a crime, but were not intending to get away with it, then that reduced the number of contingencies that you were required to foresee. I went around the bed to the lit- tle table where Thomas’s watch lay, and picked it up. It was warm because the long rays of the sun had been shining on it, but the warmth seemed to come from somewhere else. I let myself think that it came from Thomas himself. I held it in my hand, stared out the window at the sky, and waited.

CHAPTER 24

I Am Doubly Surprised

Those, only, who are free from care and anxiety, and whose minds are mainly occupied by cheerful emotions, are at full liberty to unveil their feelings. —p. 137-38

I DIDN’T HAVE TO WAIT LONG, but as I was caught in a dreamlike state somewhere between panic and anticipation, it seemed both all too long and all too short. Only four of the men and their horses came up to the house; the rest went directly to the stables. While these four men stood with their animals and waited for Ike or someone else to come receive them, they blustered among themselves about their prowess and their intentions. Their voices were deep and carried through the open window, and all spoke in those half-belligerent, half-joking tones that Missourians seemed to specialize in.

"Them d— black abolitionists an’t seen nothin’ till they try to get our niggers. We’ll turn their heads around and show’em their own backs, haw haw!"

"H—, back when I was in Ohio a year ago, if only I’d known they was coming our way! I woulda forestalled a few, I’ll tell ya!"

"I hate goin’ back there! They always look at ya like you’re gonna eat with your knife and an’t never seen a winder before! And then, when ya go to write something, their d— eyebrows go up with every word you write."

"I jes’ stick my tongue between my lips like I ken barely form the letters, then I laugh!"

"Time for laughin’ is past, boys! I say, let ’em come!"

I looked at the pistol on the bed and reflected upon the contrast between these men, among them Thomas’s killers, and Thomas himself. That is the worst agony