Bad Intendins’ & a Mole named Uncle Rube

As the evening advanced the leaders of the Redbones’ affairs gradually assembled before the throne of Bacchus (1) where, inspired by the worship, the conversation drifted into the inevitable topic of threatening hostilities. Simon Morrows, prominent and influential among his fellow Redbones, was a habitual dispenser of the festive fluid and represented the Hatch store in that lucrative capacity. During the low but open discussion, Morrows diplomatically discouraged any plan or plot which involved an open break at Ten Mile, as this would jeopardize his cherished source of income and inspiration. Instead, Simon proposed and advocated to his compatriot the plan of waylaying their enemies the next morning, at a lonely place known as Chinquapin Gulch. Most of the “White” settlers, including the Musgroves, Davises, and both the older and younger generations of the Creole family Lacaze, passed this arroyo on their return to the Hatch store to which they would most certainly go for Christmas supplies the following day. This plan, Morrows pointed out, was much the best, as the victims could be shot from an ambuscade with no danger to the ambushers and no one need ever know who did the shooting. Simon’s motto was that of his Spanish-speaking friends across the Sabine; “Los Muertos No Hablan” – “Dead Men Tell No Tales.” Since ambushing his enemies is the “Long Suit” of every Redbone, it required no permission for Simon to bring all his hearers into agreement with his scheme that is, all save one.

This lone dissenter was an entirely passive one, a silent, unknown hearer of the discussion. Freely and confidently the determined Redbone had talked, all unmindful of Uncle Rube who was sawing valiantly away on his fiddle, beating time with his foot and ostensibly oblivious to everything but his own paramount part in the success of the evening. But, old Rube’s hearing was more acute than his years belied and if the solemn visaged old darkey, eyes closed and body swaying to his music, missed a word of what passed around the thrown that night, it was nothing more potent than a request for another tune. Rube’s best friends were “White Settlers (2),” but the old Negro was closely associated with the Redbones and lived only a short distance from Wray’s. So when the dance broke up soon after midnight, the faithful old fiddler and his lame mule were seen to job sleepily through the sagging gate and out to the low lean-to stable, half an hour after the last strains of “All Over Now” had sobbed from the weary fiddle. But no one saw Rube and his mule slip silently through the gap and into the woods behind the barn lot, nor did anyone see them steal silently back again, after a ten mile circuit, which ended just as the sun broke over the Cherry Winche swamp, Christmas Eve morning. So it came about that, however many skulking forms may have lain under cover of the brush, or crouched behind tree trunks at Chinquapin Gulch that morning, the intended victims did not appear and as the day advanced it became evident to the ambuscaders that the “White” settlers had missed the trap.

1 not all Redbones had ‘pagan’ tendencies, as many were Christians & some were ministers; but to this day their descendants practice healin’ rituals such as ‘Fire Drawin’, ‘Bleed Stoppin’, & a whole host of folkloric medicinal practices
2 its not a certainty that these ‘friends’ or their families had made him a freeman; his friendship may have been resultant of amicable treatment while a slave, as not every slave was treated in the manner that modern historians proscribe