The Regulators made most of their patrols on nights of the full moon. Major Will Coulter, Captain Lige Watson, Sergeant Z. P. Claxton, and two younger men, Toney and Lott, were the five regulars. Others would come along when needed and a black man on a mule tended the horses.
Lige Watson rode with a rifle in a saddle scabbard, a revolver in his belt, a hidden Bowie knife. From time to time, he would teach his son those arts of which Mama so disapproved: how to race horses, how to shoot, how to wield a knife. Sometimes he let me taste his whiskey, and when he was drinking, he might show me “just for fun” how to cheat at cards. But as I would learn, Papa was barely competent in most of these attainments, which he confused with manhood. Because I was only twelve, I confused them, too.
One happy day, he swung me up behind on his big roan. “Come along, boy, I’ll show you something,” he promised, grinning. We rode toward Edgefield. At Deepwood, Cousin Selden stepped forth onto the highroad in linen shirtsleeves, stretching his arms wide to bar our progress as the horse danced and whinnied, backing around in its own stomped-up dust.
“Not one word,” Papa growled over his shoulder.
Our slender kinsman murmured to the roan, slipping his hand onto the bridle so that Papa could not wheel into him, knock him away. The easy movement was so sure of horse and rider that the muscles stiffened in my father’s back. “Stand back, sir,” he snarled, shifting his quirt to his right hand as if set to strike Tilghman on the face.
With his long fair hair and shy expression and high tenor voice, Cousin Selden looked less like a brave cavalry officer than a young clergyman. Because he had never married, Papa called him a “sissy” out of Mama’s hearing. However, that high voice of his was calm and very cold. “There’s three young nigras back up yonder in the branch. Wrists bound, shot like dogs. Since today is the Sabbath, Private Watson, I hoped you might assist me with a Christian burial.”
To call a man “Private” who was known as “Captain” to the Regulators was proof enough of Selden Tilghman’s madness. “Dumped there last night,” he persisted. “These murder gangs ride at night, isn’t that true?” He had a fever in his eyes. His quiet fury and contempt seemed just as scary as Papa’s red eruptive rage. “Since you claim him as a kinsman, Private Watson, you cannot have forgotten the immortal words of Jefferson of Virginia.” Here he shouted, “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just!”
Papa had raised his quirt but that shout stopped him; he could not bring himself to strike a Confederate officer. “We have no business with traitors, damn you! Stand aside!” Yanking his reins, digging his spurs, he fought violently to ride free, his son clinging like a tree frog to his sweaty back. Tilghman braced against the horse’s neck, letting it lift him. Hand clenching the reins under the bit, talking it down, he brought the wheeling roan under control.
Heavy in the saddle, shoulders slumped, Papa, too, appeared subdued. So close to my nose, his smell was bitter, rank. “Damned road walkers,” he muttered.
“Road walkers. And how do you know that, Private? How would you happen to know so much about those murdered boys?”
“Because if they were home niggers, sir, a Radical Scalawag and traitor like yourself would know his nigger friends by name! Now stand aside!” Whistling like a pigeon’s wing, his quirt struck Tilghman on the temple, knocking him off balance, and still our cousin gripped the reins as the big roan reared and snorted, dancing sideways. A moment later, struck violently again, he fell away. Papa shouted, “Your honorable record in the War is all that stands between you and execution as a traitor!”
Cousin Selden rose unhurriedly, brushed himself off. His pale face was bleeding. “My honorable record. What would Private Watson know about such matters?” he inquired, looking straight at Watson’s son.
“Are you challenging my honor?” Papa demanded. “I served four years, Edgefield to Appomattox!” But when I hollered, “Nigger-loving traitor!” at our cousin, my father shot an elbow back, bloodied my nose. “Show respect for an officer of the Confederacy, even this one!” I was astonished by his need to prove to Sissy Selden that Elijah Watson was a guardian of Southern honor.
Cousin Selden and I wiped bloody noses. When Selden noticed our peculiar bond, he grinned; I had to scowl at him lest I grin back. “Send her cousin’s fond respects to your dear mother, Edgar,” he said quietly, as Papa wheeled, booting his horse into a canter. Hand on the hard-haired dusty rump, I turned for a last look at the figure in the road, and Cousin Selden raised his hand in half salute. “God keep you, Cousin Edgar!”
“Face around, damn you!” Papa shouted, cocking his elbow. “Face around, I say!” I hugged up close, out of harm’s way. He galloped homeward.