The wind settled. Complete stillness. Sam
quickly verified this with her wet thumb, then slowly squeezed off. The loud
boom echoed from the hills. The crowd held it’s breath. The judge looked at the
target, shook his head, then looked again. “Dead center bullseye!!! The judge
was laughing, and shaking his head slowly. “Looky here, folks! We have a tie!
This little redhaired Dudley girl, eleven years old, has tied Fred! Who woulda
believed this, folks!”
Sam became a legend in Taledega County
that day. These men would tell this story around a thousand campfires during
the long war to come, giving a brief little respite during the dark days of the
war.
Sam made more friends before she went home
that day. But most of the townspeople still avoided her. Everyone knew she was
a Dudley girl, even though they had never seen a Dudley act so friendly and
personable. But Sam had done what she had set out to do that day, let everybody
in Taladega County know how she could shoot. She was proud of her brand-new .50
caliber buffalo gun she had just won, but mostly, she knew she would never have
to use her gun to protect herself in Taladega County. And maybe, she had made
some friends who could one day help her get away from the Dudley Clan. All was
well in Sam’s world as she rode back to the land of the Dudley’s.
*
Within months, the War was in full swing.
Just as Slim predicted, there were many farms, and even a few rich plantations,
that had no or few men left at home to protect their property. And Slim had
been right on another count.
There were many of the men who tried to avoid
the war, because they had bad feelings about it, or secretly favored the
North. But the winds of war were blowing
like a gale in the South. At first, those who were neutral or secretly favored
the North were threatened and shunned. Later, as more and more rebels were
killed and reinforcements were sorely needed, rebel soldiers began to raid
farms whose men were still at home, and have a hanging. One does not die by hanging quickly, unless the neck is
broken by the initial shock. By simply lifting a man up slowly with a noose
around his neck, it may take five minutes or more. Being hanged for two or three minutes, then surviving, caused many
neutrals or Northern sympathizers to fight for the South. Some stubborn
holdouts were hung several times.
Though these harsh methods were used in
Taladega County, none were interested in raiding the Dudley clan.
“Now, listen here. If they all can shoot
as good as that little red haired girl Sam, we’d lose more men goin up thare
than we got. There must be twenty men up there. And no tellin’ how many young’en’s with a Buffalo gun!
Others nodded their heads in agreement. Most all
of the men in Taladega county with the guts to consider such a thing were away
in the war, anyway. Even the Marshal was long gone. LaFayette Gillum was in the
war all four years. Nobody bothered the Dudley Clan. They were free to conduct
their business, while the young’uns guarded every trail in, night and day. With
their buffalo guns. And by now, everyone knew how deadly a Dudley kid could be.
With a Buffalo gun.
It was
easier for the Dudley businessmen now. The farm machinery and other large items
were of no use to them, because they could never be sold by the peddlers,
anyway. So, they forgot the wagons, used only their fast horses, and
specialized in money, jewels, silver, and other small items, along with taking
the very fastest horses. With emphasis on the money. Other items were hidden away to sell long after the war was
over. As the war moved into Alabama, most people blamed the farm raids on the dern
Yankees. Everyone pretty well just forgot about the Dudley’s.
The Dudley’s were getting rich. Hand over
fist. And their fist could kill at three hundred yards.
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