John Brown

                                                                             

                                                            John Brown

                                                                

                                                                        By John Rogan

            

             “They just burnt Lawrence. Killed folks.”

 Spindly Oak branches whipped through the wind up high. John ducked beneath the earth-works as bullets clipped over. Men roared.

            “Lawrence, wh…what happened? Wasn’t Kirby going to get us word?”

            “Kirby didn’t, his son came by, one who came with him before, kids all shook up, had scratches, soot, and blood all over. It’s bad John.”

            John rose out of his tent, haggard, dirty, old, he had survived a long time, only by the grace of God. Moses camped among his people, Sara, all the boys, the cold, low valleys of the desert at night, searching for water and lost for 40 years. John’s face did not comprehend the news. Evil. Darkness crept under John’s eyes. Doc, Elisha to Elijah            stood chewing a nub of tobacco, holding the back of his belt, waiting for John to get dressed and come out of the tent. Tears welled up, a tightness in John’s stomach, he told Doc to wait prayed and felt he had to read Judges. The man had a dream the Midianites were to be given over to Gideon, all that was needed was horns to be blown and clay pots to burst, men would scream in terror of the Justice reigning down over this prairie. Fire reigning down on the strong conquering the meek and their faces twisted out of their positions of power, before a flaming sky, their churches crumbling, burning, a skyline of the rich and powerful slave owning class running from the smoke and ruin. Elijah consumed by fire rising up into the heaven. John steeped out of his tent dressed and began walking with Doc.

            “Boys over here. Real upset, it’s awful, keeps stuttering can’t say real words.” The people camp before the milk and honey, all the sacrifice, wandering in a desert, a grouping of people on God’s bear earth. Them men from Missouri had been at it. John walked past Will and his family, Border Ruffians shot all the sheep at Will’s farm because he wanted a Free Kansas. Fire burned in John’s walk, Abraham prepared kindling for Isaac. Will’s family crying amongst all the dead wooly carcasses. John saw Trumpets blare over the flat mud of the land. Clay pot after clay pot exploded as the wicked roared out of their cities, chased down, and fearing the fiery judgment all the comfort evil had brought, their New Orleans slave pens, Atlanta churches, fine French things soaked out by fire and blood.

            “What happened John? Lawrence?” Will asked. All the evil John had to comprehend swirled in his eyes. John walked gravely past, “The truth will come out, brother Will.” John’s walk calmed, became serene, a leader, calling the men in the churches sinners, welcoming back the lost sheep turned away, lost, thinking the right way was good, a Shepard. The boy was wrapped in a blanket he stuttered and cried into John’s face, the long aged black beneath John’s eyes.  

            “Let’s get over to Lawrence, wake up the boys. Send the rifles along the creek and tell every family, make sure everyone hears.” Evil unchecked grows stronger, like Jezebel’s priests of Baal bleeding in piles from cut, twisted throats. Is there  no God? Has there faith wavered so much they adhere to earthly riches of flesh and money? And to kill for all the  money, the flesh, the negro family in bondage. John saw true evil in the air, Satan. Bare trees buzzed and stung at the end of the branches while pale brown, orange, and yellow leaves carpeted the bottom of the creek, Baal priests blood trickling into a small river. John and Doc sent riders out to every family along Pottawatomie Creek. As John was saddling his horse the awe-struck faces came streaming onto John’s place, the circle of tents a stacked log shack, mouths open in an O, eyes uncertain, trying to comprehend all the Evil. John was up on his horse, Ezekiel stared at bones on a valley floor and a voice told him how they could become a nation.

            They rode over night, Doc, John. Flat cold land. Fall ending and the light getting low. Artic Air coming out of Canada down hard driving to the Kansas territory. Land foreign to John at first, the wilderness cast out of Canaan, but so much work to be done, the tension and violence in the air, good and evil so clearly opposed. The territory became home, dangerous for the boys, Sarah, but they had to see it, everyone would eventually and make the choice of what to do when faced with what the light shows. Back East academic groups, fake, self-styled abolitionists called John crazy. Insane. Like Joseph, thrown down a well by his brothers, betrayed, and cast out to the dessert to build his kingdom. By the grace of God. Swirling complexities.  Stars crossed the sky patched and whitened blue and black hues. All the promises to Abraham. John’s youngest son was coughing blood. All the uncertainty.

            It was just before dawn when they came on Lawrence.

            “They hit Barber’s place, burnt his press, all his papers, beat him real bad in front of his wife, kid, they were asleep upstairs when they called him out, shot dead in his doorway. This is too much John. Then they came by Dow’s place called him out, shot it up. Dow’s down at the doctor’s sweating real high. Morphine, he’s hallucinating, got it in the leg, Maggie, his wife, crying, all the kids, just awful. It could have been a lot worse, they was drinking, there was a lot of them, a lot, I’d say over a thousand.”

            “Really, what was leadership, Quantrill, Anderson, The Littles?”

            “Everyone, John all them dirty son of a bitches.”

            “Please, brother.”

            “Sorry, John. It was so scary everyone’s real shook up. Barber’s place all burnt up. Women’s eyes all puffed out.”

            “We’ve got The Rifles all of us along Pottawatomie are with you.”

            “What are we going to do? You said you all would protect us, those fellas ain’t scared. They could come back anytime. We need something out here.”

            “Could I see the Barbers.”

            The new widow was crying, loud huff, gasps. The house burnt only at the front they could still sleep there. Dow screaming about the burning in his body. Back East the meek crumbled under cane blows. The story circled all along Pottawatomie for weeks and weeks before this, the senator unconscious with the cane reigning down and sharp red blood gushing out. No shame in their evil. Evil circled below John’s eyes in the ruins of the Barber’s fallen house. Job must have been mad, angry, possessed by evil, angry enough to kill, John thought. Good people rising out of their bed to be killed, terrorized. Job’s boils, John tried to imagine the pain, erupting like singed flesh from a fire inside. Tested again and again. John wanted to cry. Lucifer swirling around below his eyes, cast out, falling from grace. A veined pumped by John’s temple so he could hear it, his hair hurt, and he could not stop walking and speaking below his breath.  Job stared up at the stars and was told he would not know. Lost tribes wandering the land. Lonely lost, poor men. The tribe of Benjamin raped a woman to death then took up arms against their brothers, the 12 other tribes of Israel. Late into candlelight John had to read, his legs and arms moving while laying for sleep. Judah led the Benjaminites away from Gibeah. On the plain of Geba, flat land, no one could escape. The Benjaminites saw their city behind their backs, Gibeah go up in flames,  surrounded, routed they scattered and Judah chased down, 25,100 men, piles of slit throats, all the blood pooling, slowing streaming down, as the white, salt plane rose to Rimmon, city after city burned. 600 made it to the Rock of Rimmon were found, tracked, bludgeoned and hacked. Blood purified the tribe. The twelve tribes, the nation remained, pure, for the grace of God. The dawn came up, blue, and cold. Before Kansas, back East John spent his whole day tanning leather, fine saddles, long days in the shop, drying, stretching, carving, day after day, he watched the sunlight shift in the room he always stood in. 

            “Let’s get back to Pottawatomie.” John woke Doc up. Sleeping with is clothes on and inflicted with fear Doc was up quick. Ready to go.

            “Alright let’s go. You, You alright John, John, John! You Alright.” It was a day’s ride back to Pottawatomie. A long, encompassing wind, cold, late fall rain drove into their faces the way home. Thick mud turned to brown water up to the horse’s knees. Noah was a madman for building his boat.

Black, deep in November night, cold drilling out from the North. Fog glowed low above thick mud and pussy willows. Up to each of the houses, the small family camps.

            “Where are you taking them! Oh lord no, no, please, nooo!”

            It had been discussed. Small meetings of The Rifles confirmed the choices, the date, the need. Families picked out, the men, the worst slave profiteers, slave catchers. The ones trusted carried it out, John’s sons. Abraham set up kindling, bound Isaac. John had prayed and prayed for a better answer, prayed for the answer to go away, for there never to be an answer, to not be the messenger, to not take part, his existence, celestial bodies rotated powder blue and black above and he saw Revelation falling from the sky, the sinful looking up in horror, Georgia Chapels, brimstone sizzling off melted rock streaming down on Soddom and Gomorah. The heat building in humid, Southern churches, the priest telling all his landed parishioners, “We have to get out.”

Kids dragged out kicking, screaming and pleading. Sons saying good bye to their fathers screaming to not die. Unnatural sounds, young men, consumed by evil, goodness emitting out of their cries, whelps. When the broadsword hit rock it was through. They tossed the bodies in the creek. Throats and spinal columns still loosely and thinly attached to some. John threw up when they boys were too busy. His vomit coming like waves of relief, the outrage driven out of his body, hack after hack. Blood flowed down into the creek. They washed the broadswords and any blood out in the slow, shallow water. A cold, moonless walk back, John was barely able to see the hand in front of his face.

Weeks turned to months and John read about his name in the New York papers. A young boy was waiting with his wife when he emerged out of his room from prayer one August day.

“They shot Frederick.” John got on his horse and rode straight for Osawatomie.

Spindly Oak branches whipped through the wind up high. John ducked beneath the earth-works as bullets clipped over. Men roared.

“My son, Frederick. Is he okay?”

“I don’t know. We’re trying to get word. He’s a good kid him and about 40 other Rifles held em off for a bit outside town. Reverend White and Jack Reed are trying to move on Lawrence then Topeka. They raided an armory and seem to be determined, John. I wouldn’t have called you out here.” Job’s house fell on his family. The threats. Word spread fast “Old Man Brown.” John could not be seen, he would draw an ambush, even going to church. He stayed in his hut reading scripture. His sons like Aaaron speaking for him. Walking along paths he thought of dirty young men rising out of the grasss, shot for the sins of others. John the Baptist’s head was on a platter. Jesus was beaten, tormented, humiliated and crucified.

“They’re turning our flank, they got too many guns, their burning the feed store along Forest Street. We gotta pull back.”

Once Lawrence was safely secured, defenses built, John had sent Judah, his son, on an organizing trip to Topeka, to check up on defenses and the morale of the free-state factions there. Today, John had switched too quickly between old and New testaments, having to reread each passage, thinking about his wife smiling and his sons and his grandsons growing older he finished a sentence and did not discern its meaning. He prayed again for guidance, strength to make the right choice and the knowledge to know what was right. Every day after prayer he walked along a thin deer path behind the family’s encampment. He could not organize and participate, he was well known, “Old Man Brown”. Following the path he saw a smaller path branch off and followed it lost in thought. The promise to Abraham, Israel and its twelve tribes, turning away from God, killing God’s son, then back to tribes roaming in the dessert, Jesus being mocked as king of the Jews, slaves storming out of Egypt, a blind man lowered through a hole in the roof. Not remembering what direction he came from John heard a leaf rustle resonate, he stopped  stiff, scared into awareness of the green undergrowth, he slowly craned his neck and looked completely around him, he heard another leaf rustle and then another, John felt a wetness hit the back of his head, he watched a rain drop plop off a leaf in front of him and then rain fell in sheets turning the forest to chaos. John watched stilled, calm, and peering up he let his clothes get wet.