Woe to Live On: A Novel by Daniel Woodrell

this fight and would give more if I had them. No, that should not be doubted.”
    Jack Bull knocked back some brandy and pursed his lips. His eyes went to the floor, then to Evans.
    “You have been trying to walk the neutral line, Mr. Evans, and it won’t bear walking in this war.”
    “I know it,” the old beaten gent said. “Your father, good old Asa, he tried it, too. But it don’t bear walking, as you have said.”
    The mention of Asa doused us with a slop of gloom. He had been one of Missouri’s finest, but that had not saved him, or his property, or his family.
    “My father trusted the Yankees,” Jack Bull said. “It is a mistake he made only once, but that was all she wrote.” Jack Bull jerked himself up and began to pace. “You and him, Evans, why did you trust Yankees?”
    Evans turned his hands up at this and glanced at all the night the window showed. This was tender territory with us all.
    “You know why. Not because we were fools. It was because we were
not
fools. They promised us all—they called us ‘prominent landowners’—they promised us we would not be bothered. They would protect us and our slaves from Jayhawkers if we pledged neutral.” A whole ripple of shakes went through his form. “It made all kinds of sense at the time.”
    “And none now,” Jack Bull said. “They didn’t even protect my father from their own men. They murdered him for his watch and his boots and his horse. That is murder for cheap. And he had not taken up arms against them.”
    “That was the deal,” Evans said. His long fingers went to picking at his beard. There was sorrow in his every gesture. “Who killed Asa, Mr. Chiles? I never knew who killed him.”
    “It was Captain Warren and his miserable gang. They were seen. Did you ever see Captain Warren?”
    “No.”
    “He had a face so like that of a pig that you blinked and rubbed your eyes at the sight of him. The only excuse for a man to look so like a pig was that you were asleep and had eaten a wrong thing at dinner.” The paces picked up and Jack Bull went from wall to wall. “Warren followed myfather from town and robbed him on the road. He didn’t need to kill him but he did.”
    “We pressed charges,” I said. The recollection of us trying to press murder charges on a Federal filled me with humiliation. “They laughed at us.”
    “That is their habit,” Evans said.
    “Jake and me”—Jack Bull stopped and looked my way—“there is always Jake with me—went for him on our own hook. Warren had a wife. We put rags in her mouth and met him in his very own house. I never abuse women, but I put a quilt over her and sat on it ’til he came in.”
    “Well, all the rules are gone with men of that sort,” Evans said. “Their women aren’t much better.”
    “I know it,” Jack Bull said. “I liked it that way. I liked using his wife as a chair. She was soft. It was no hard thing to do. Captain Warren came in for vittles and got served a bitter dish. His world went sour on him. We killed him. We killed him several times, eh, Jake?”
    “That’s right,” I said. “There was no chance left in it.”
    “It was our first real fight. Everything got changed by it.”
    “You took to the bush,” Evans said. “All the good men are in the bush now.”
    “Those are words that have went south forever,” Jack Bull said. “ ‘Good’ doesn’t mean anything like what it used to mean. No, sir, we are not
good
men. But we are men. They’ll have to whip us. We won’t do it for them by quitting.”
    “My prayers are with you,” Evans said. “They have become more frequent, and they are always with you men in the bush.” Evans stared off and breathed sadly. He had once beena man best left unmolested, but now he was old. “We will be quitting this country in the spring. As soon as the roads are clear we will be trying for Texas.”
    “About half of Missouri has went to Texas,” I said. “Plenty of friends are there.”
    Evans nodded my