Bob showed up at his uncle’s door one
day, carrying a letter from his papa for Clint. The Tennessee Dudley’s were not
overly excited about Bob living with them, but Clint owed it to his brother Ted
to take him in. Blood was thicker than water. If Bob got to be too much
trouble, Clint would just run him off. After all, money was thicker than blood with
all the Dudleys’.
Bob loved to spend a lot of time in
town, drinkin’ and Fightin’. And, talkin’ way too much. Soon he was telling all
who would listen how tough his family was, how a Dudley never left any debt
unpaid. At least, unless money was involved. His cousins’, Clint’s three boys who were
grown men now, starting their own families, seemed to look up to Bob, and
before long they were bragging around, too, about the Dudley’s being so big and
bad. Serenity sensed this; she could soon see a change in her boys. She needed
to find a way of getting rid of Bob. She was smart enough to see that the
Tennessee Dudley’s would soon have a reputation as bad as those scumbag
relatives in Taladega County.
*
The war just seemed to drag on forever. For
everybody except the Dudley’s. During the first two years, the Dudley’s in
Alabama had gotten rich. Slims’ plan had worked perfectly. The final two years
had been slower for the clan, because most Southerners’ had less and less money
for them to steal. And by then, the Yankees had already beaten them to most of
it. But, still, just how much money did one family need in a lifetime? All in
all, Slim was happy. At least, happy as a Dudley could be.
Clint’s family in Tennessee had not been
so fortunate. They were suffering almost as badly as most of the Southerners
around them that they stole from. Clint
didn’t see any point in keeping his theft operation two long days ride away
from his family. He hated those long boring horseback rides. And, he left too
many victims who were beginning to have grave suspicions about their sneaky
actions. For the Tennessee Dudley’s, life was hard.
Bob wanted to go home. He didn’t like
living the pore life. Clint just didn’t handle things right, to Bob’s way of
thinking. And, more and more, this sorry bunch he was now forced to live with
had a belly full of Bob.
Someway, somehow, Bob had to find a
way to get Slim to let him come back.
Bob
was putting together a plan. Mrs. Dolly, Slim’s wife, just loved little
red-haired girls. The Thacker’s, who had a little farm just on the other side
of the swamp, had a cute little girl, about the right age. He had seen her on
one of his scouting trips, looking for something to come back and steal, some
dark night. She had a really pretty head of red
hair. If he could just get that pretty little girl, take her to Taladega to
Mrs. Dolly, surely Slim would have to take him back. He would bide his time,
and strike when the time was right, and then he could go back home. He smiled
as he thought about it, and realized how smart he was, to come up with this
clever plan.
Actually, Bob was dumb as a doornail. Slim
would never let him come back, no matter what. Slim, also, had a belly full of Bad Bob. But Bob was just too dumb to realize that.
*
Author’s note: LaFayette was my great
grandfather. This segment about his war years is mostly true.
Former Taladega Marshall LaFayette Gillum
suffered greatly during the war. Early on, he was wounded, and spent several
months in the hospital. Not long after he was back in action, he was captured
by the Yankees, and had spent many months in a northern prison camp, far away
from Taladega County. Eventually, he managed to escape, and he headed south.
Ever south. He traveled by night, hid out by day. He had no food. This year did, however, have a bumper
crop of White Oak acorns. Often, he was forced to live on the acorns. They are
edible, but have a strong tannin content, giving them a bad aftertaste. He was
forced to use the Indian method of gathering up a batch, cracking them,
wrapping them in a cloth and leaching them out for a day or so in a running
stream.
He was slowly starving. During the last
days of the war, he stumbled into a camp of Tennessee Volunteers. He was barely
able to walk. James Thacker and his son
Tom, who had been fighting with the Volunteers for two years, found Lafayette
one morning. In spite of the fact that the Volunteers were ragged and hungry
themselves, James and Tom cared for him, and slowly began to save his life.
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