The Pirate of Peppercorn Creek

It was the time of year that many in the Liars Bunch lived for. When the streets of the village of Jocobo were packed with strangers looking for a good time. They were searching for an answer and the Liars Bunch—a’settin’—on their bench, were there to give it to them.

Some of the boys even dressed up for the part although it was hard to figure out what part exactly they were playing. Joe “Peets” Moss might have looked the artistic type if it hadn’t been for the cheap all-sport shoes he was wearing. Zack Hardy affected the hog farmer style, with the bibs and the softball sized chaw tucked demurely in his cheek. The expensive watch on his wrist kinda gives his game away, though. Erv Roadapple looked like a bum, but it’s only because he’s not married and hates ironing his clothes. Harry Whelp, the one-eyed dentist, rarely bothers changing from his work “whites” with their splotches of dried blood arcing across his shirt and pants. Old Bart, however, is the very picture of a small town sage in his black slacks, white shirt, and thin black tie with a silver clasp. A cowboy hat wards off the hot sun and his silver belt buckle is cast in the shape of a lone American eagle, pouncing, with its wings flung high and talons extended.

A stuffed eagle sat in one corner of Calamine Pete’s cabin. It was a trophy he’d taken from an English “naturalist” right before he’d made him walk the plank. He hadn’t even bothered to pause and watch the lubber drown. “Let Nature take her course,” he chuckled.

Oh, yo ho ho
You dirty old dog,
Gonna cut you up
Like an ol’ fat hog!
Yo ho ho
And a bottle of beer . . .

“Jimmie!” He heard his mother calling him. “Jimmie!”

“All right,” he thought, “make that a bottle of root beer.” He got up from his favorite spot along the bank of Peppercorn Creek with a sigh, watching as the little reed boats he’d made that afternoon floated forever downstream. He wished he could go along, he thought, while starting home for supper. He could still hear the pirates singing their song.

Yo ho ho,
And a cask of scum
Effin’ you see us comin’
You better run . . .

Vinegarroon County was not the kind of place you’d expect to find a band of scurvy pirates but there they were, inside the head of the dreamy little boy sitting in the back row of the classroom. They were starting classes earlier every year it seemed. Why, summer wasn’t even close to over and here they were already learning geometry! He’d show them some geometry, by golly—the geometry of chasing Spanish treasure off Haiti and Jamaica! The geometry of a well-placed shot into ships’ rigging! The geometry of walking the plank! Ho ho ho!

“Um, could you repeat that question again, Mrs. Greech?”

Abby Greech shook her head with disdain. “Jimmie Bartholomew, you may want to stay after today’s class and clean the blackboards.”

“Aw.” Pa would have a fit if he wasn’t home in time to start his chores.

Later, with the room empty, as he stood beside her desk, Mrs. Greech said. “Jimmie, I told a little fib. I don’t want you to clean the blackboards.”

Jimmie looked up at her questioningly. Mrs. Greech was an old woman, at least 30, but she came from the city and had university training and so she was a little bit scary.

“I want you to write on the blackboard exactly what it is you’re daydreaming about during my class. You can go home as soon as you’ve finished.” She handed him a piece of chalk and walked out of the room.

“Gee whiz,” he thought, scratching his head. He stared at the board for quite some time before shrugging. “Why the heck not?”

He wrote down what was in his head until he’d filled up one blackboard and continued on to another. When he’d filled that one up he continued writing on the one in Mr. Grassgold’s room, then the room across the hall. Oh, Pa was mad that night and he’d gone to bed without supper and grounded for a month, but the growls his belly made were like the sweet groans of the mast as the sails shifted with the evening breeze.

Mrs. Greech had made him a writer. And he had had a wonderful career as the gadgets columnist in Popular Morbeau Magazine. Over six million readers worldwide and they even paid him, too, somewhat.

The warm breeze felt good to Old Bart as he snoozed on the Liars Bunch’s bench.

The fury of a storm just passing had left Calamine Pete and his scurvy crew helpless as a British frigate approached. The King Canute had no mercy for pirates. The battle was short and brutal as the Canute battered them from afar. Explosions ripped the deck and killed his men as Calamine Pete labored in vain to strike back. Finally the British ship of war approached deliberately, menacingly, grappling hooks pulling at what rigging was left. Calamine Pete and a few crewmen made it over the side and into a dinghy only moments before the bomb they’d set in the magazine took both ships in a towering gout of flame.

Old Jimmie Bartholomew sighed as he opened his eyes and gazed benignly out on the peaceful scene in downtown Jocobo on a warm summer’s evening.

Old Jack City

“Dang,” thought Banner Brummett as he listened to the sound of axes falling in the distance. It had been hardly a year since he and his family had built their cabin on the high point between Salt and Greasy Creeks and it was already getting crowded, the way it’d been up by Scarcity Fat before he’d left. Back there Fleenersburg was growing so fast they said that someday it might be bigger than Bloomington itself. As soon as the rumor about the new county had been confirmed he and his brother Pierson had lit out and bought land as near the middle of it as was reasonable. Now it was official. This was where the county seat would be.

“Goin’ over to Dawson’s now, Maw,” he called to his wife, Esther, who was working inside. Out in the yard he passed their tall, ungainly ash leach. Behind it an old hound lay in the shade. Banner stopped beside the yarb garden to bite off a chaw of ‘baccy from the well-gnawed plug he kept in his overalls. He tongued the wad deep into his jowl before ambling off again on his short journey.

It was going to be another hot August day and Brummett wanted to get over to Dawson’s before the shenanigans commenced. James Dawson had got himself appointed sheriff by his pal, the governor of Indiana. This meant he was the one who organized the elections for all the important county positions. Dawson had recently moved down here from his spread in Georgetown after they’d been turned down for the county seat. He’d hastily thrown up a cabin on the south bank of the Salt Creek and was handing out county offices to all of his pals. They’d thrown Banner a bone by making him county agent. It was the least they could do since Brummett had already given over fifty acres of his best land for the new town. He’d given them cash as well, which was hard to come by thanks to the Bank of the U.S., damn their eyes!

They’d actually followed his advice and named the new county seat Jacksonburg, for Old Hickory, the best danged president since George Washington! Nobody was fool enough to argue with that. Jacksonburg. He liked the sound of that name. Kinda rolled off the tongue.

Today we’ll commence the layin’ out, he thought as he passed by the limits of his own property, delineated by a row of dry, piled brush. He crossed the area where the town would soon be. He’d cleared many of the trees himself—beautiful, huge trees that were of no use. So they’d burned them in huge fires, leaving some of the nut trees and a persimmon or two. Once he’d cut the town into lots it’d be somebody else’s problem.

He tried to imagine a courthouse in the clearing and cabins, taverns, shops, a church or two. “Here’s a good place for a horseshoe pit,” he thought morosely. “Maybe set a bench up there for me and the other old boys to sit around and tell each other lies—a liars’ bench.”

Banner started walking again. It was hard to remember how wild this place had been a short year ago. It still was wild around the edges. The bears were pretty much gone but the wolves still prowled nearby in the hills and “pisonous snakes wuz everywhere to be found.” He followed the trail south and soon was at the cabin of his royal highness James Dawson. It wasn’t particularly well built, the logs had gaps big enough to let a skunk through and the joints were laughable—he’d like to see Dawson winter here. Any number of camps had been set up in the clearing near the cabin. Folks were arriving from all over the county to see what the commissioners were going to decide. Banner nodded to a couple of folks he knew from over the old county line. Sighing, he entered the cabin.

It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the sudden cool dark. The commissioners sat around a thick puncheon table. There was James Alexander of Monroe, David Deitz and Hiram Wilson of Bartholomew County, and Stephen Parks of Jackson County. They’d returned recently from a visit to competing sites for the county seat but there never seemed to be much doubt about what they were going to decide. Georgetown had more settlers but was too far north and Hedgesville as county seat was laughable, the pipe dream of old L.M. Hedges and David Randolph, owner of the grocery there.

“Ah, Mr. Brummett, are you ready?”

“That’s why I’m here.”

“Come on over and take a look here at Mr. Dawson’s survey . . .”

Outside a crowd of fifty or sixty had gathered. A deer was roasting over a fire and a hastily constructed table was being filled with eats of all kinds. Some of the boys were swimming in the creek, swinging out over the water on a grape vine and dropping off with a loud shout. The men were drinking mash and shooting at a mark. Some were sitting around a stump playing cards, including Littleton Mathis who looked like he was winning. Even the folks up Harden Hollar were there, along with some Taggarts and a Hamblen or two from up county.

Inside the cabin the table had been moved into a corner. A jug, a tin cup, and a bucket of water sat upon it. Across the room, on a bed, a fiddler played as two barefoot men danced.

“Looks like somebody’s declared a holiday.”

As he left the cabin Brummett saw his son Josh and told him to go fetch his ma and tell her to bring the jug. “Tell her Rolla’s here with his fiddle, we’re havin’ some dancin’ tonight.”

Banner joined a large knot of men where Kentucky Bill Snyder was braggin’ on his horse. Said it was the fastest in this new Brown County. He got a good laugh out of that. Soon they were betting on horses they hadn’t even seen yet and planning to meet later in the month up in Georgetown where there was a good flat field to run.

Banner noticed one of the commissioners, Hiram Wilson, fanning himself with a piece of the county map. Something about it caught his eye.

“Lemmee see that for a minute, Hiram,” Brummett said, reaching out. His jaw swung open as he realized what he was seeing. “You added this new township and now Jacksonburg is outside of Jackson township. It’s gonna confuse people.”

“Don’t worry about that now, Banner, we’ll fix it later,” Hiram tipped his hat and stepped over to speak to the widow Jordan.

ØØØ

Seven months later the Indiana General Assembly officially changed Jacksonville’s name to Nashville, at Banner Brummett’s suggestion, to honor the city and state from where many of the county’s earliest settlers had come and where their beloved Old Hickory made his home.

Originally published in Our Brown County Magazine 1995

They put them all in the Blockhouse eventually.