11 MAY 1851
SHELBY COUNTY, REPUBLIC OF TEXAS
“Now I know I’m at home,” Pickett said, shaking loose a clump of brick-red mud from his boot as he dismounted in front of the porch. “This is proof positive we’re in red-dirt country, Colonel.”
Walker nodded absently. Twelve hours we’ve been here, he thought, and still not a word from Wheat. And it took us nearly a half-day longer than it should have to reach here in the first place. We’re still moving too slowly. Show me, Lord. Show me how to move these wagons faster.
“Have you found any sign of Captain Wheat?” he asked. “Any indication that he’s on the proper road?”
“None, sir.” Pickett thrust his hands into the pockets of his red-stained trousers. “You oughtn’t to worry, sir. There’s lots of roads and paths through here. Captain Wheat’s probably just found hisself a more roundabout way. This used to be outlaw country, Colonel. Lots of by-ways and such through these woods.”
“Used to be? Hell, it still is outlaw country.” A rough-looking soldier approached the porch. Walker thought a moment. Lane, he remembered. Another one of the Texans. This expedition is naught but Texans and Virginians, he said to himself. The other states should be better represented. Still, what could you do when you had to recruit in secrecy, and most of your experienced men were deserters? You took what you could, that’s what. “Wouldn’t surprise me if them fellows was ambushed by Moderators,” Lane added.
“Moderators?” Pickett said. “Hell, boy, they ain’t any Moderators worthy of the name in Shelby County. We got to go up Carthage way before we have to worry about that. Maybe two days at the rate we been moving.”
“I was under the impression,” Walker said in his command voice, “that the authorities had ended the Moderator-Regulator war some years ago.”
“Oh, it’s ended,” Lane said. “If by that you mean the companies don’t ride in numbers no more. But if you mean the Moderators and Regulators don’t exist, then it ain’t over, Colonel. Not by a long shot.”
“Wasn’t it you, Mister Pickett, who assured me that we’d have no trouble in East Texas?”
“Sure was, Colonel,” Pickett said with a grin. “Still think that’s true, too. Old Lane here’s a Regulator just like me. And we got lots of friends over to Carthage—that’s in Panola County, north and west of here a bit. Even the ones that won’t want to join up will still take it real personal that we get through Panola without any Moderator trouble. You got nothing to worry about, Colonel.”
Other than finding the missing third of my command, Walker thought. “If you can think of a likely path Captain Wheat might be taking,” he said, “I want you to ride out again and search that path. I have to know what’s happened.”
After Pickett had departed, Walker sat back down on the crude chair he’d been given and thought about the Moderators and Regulators. They were essentially two gangs of thugs, though they called themselves Vigilance Committees. Pickett had been right about East Texas having been populated at one time by outlaws; the place had been a warren of escaped slaves and men hiding from Canadian, Spanish or Mexican authorities. The rule of law hadn’t reached that deeply into this country even after the Texans had won their independence, and the Moderators and Regulators had been formed ostensibly to drive the lawless from Shelby, Panola, and Harrison counties. Before long the two groups were killing one another in their attempts to see that what law there was favored themselves and their friends. Dozens of men had died by the time the Texas government had sent an entire regiment of militia to put an end to the war.
Walker had studied the history of the conflict while working at the Courier, mostly with a view to identifying those men who might best be placed to help him. It had never occurred to him that hostile feelings might still run so high that the presence of men from one side in his expedition might prompt the other side to come out against him.
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