Coming to grips with his troubled early adulthood just prior to the outbreak of the American Civil War, Perry Adams finds himself on a dramatic and spiritual journey in Jawbone Holler, a folkloric saga set against the backdrop of a nation in transition.
Perry leaves home and embarks on a harrowing trek across three states in pursuit of a farm to call his own in the much-hyped promised land known as Kansas. In his quest for life, love, and liberty, this adventure leads him to northeast Kansas as an unprepared squatter during a brutal winter. Quickly becoming a living legend in the nearby boomtown settlement, he strikes up life-changing relationships with a memorable cast of characters on both the pro- and anti-slavery sides of the Missouri River.
Despite the historical tensions along the border, Perry’s growth matches his conviction to win the heart of an enigmatic young woman who tickles the ivories at a local saloon. But as he navigates personal and social turmoil, will he be drawn into the action of the war? And if so, will he survive in order to overcome the ghosts of his troubled past?
A young adventurer’s quest for life, love, and liberty amid the strife of pre-Civil War America.
Chapter 1—Late Fall 1857—Skedaddle Season
Perry Adams pulled a flask of rum from his hip pocket, raised it to his lips and choked down a spicy swig of bitter truth. Hard knocks were prodding him closer to a decision to skedaddle. As a bead of sweat rolled down his cheek, he wanted to believe that this long, sweltering summer working in his father’s Indiana corn field would be his last. Perry had guzzled more than his share of hardship.
Perry was a devoted worker with a keen intellect. His body had been chiseled by the relentless work needed to coax abundant corn crops from his father’s land. This year, as harvest approached, something was amiss. Sip by sip, liquor was shoving anguish to the front of Perry’s mind.
Perry had discovered rum as an elixir to brighten his disposition while he worked. He liked it. But lately, that revelation had transformed into a fixation. He needed it. Rum was fueling a boiling kettle of self-destruction. It was becoming his grindstone that sharpened a two-edged sword. On one side, it honed a slice of fleeting serenity while mangling the other into a jagged edge that ripped everything in its path. On the brink of his twenty-third year, Perry’s relationships were ablaze, and he was straddling the bonfire.
The most significant misfortune that propelled Perry to indulge in what locals referred to as "kill-devil" rum was the relentless backbreaking toil on Stewart Adams' farm, where his father ruled as taskmaster and tyrant. Whether toting water, hauling manure, or wielding a machete to chop weeds until his palms bled, Perry stood always at his father’s beck and call.
This day marked Perry’s fifth anniversary of working at Stew’s farm outside Salt Spring. While the farm would one day be his, spending the next thirty years of life in the misery of that certainty made him question whether that legacy was one of promise or prison. Calloused hands and broken wishes roused Perry’s hunger for change.
Restless spirit aside, nature had been kind to Perry. His looks surpassed the ragged ends of his disposition. Bold cheekbones, sky-blue eyes, and a well-kept crop of blondish hair set his appearance above most. Perry's sculpted physique revealed the frame of a young man poised for a yet discovered opportunity, his destiny awaiting in the shadows. Perry stood six-foot-two and carried a muscular one hundred ninety pounds. His physical presence opened doors his temperament could just as quickly slam.
After making his final round of chopping weeds from the cornfield, Perry wiped the sweat from his brow with a red bandana and stuffed it into his back pocket. The scorching heat overwhelmed him, surpassing even the effect of the rum as he stumbled toward completion. After the last chop, Perry tucked the handle of his machete into his other back pocket, and began to wobble home, each step more dreadful than the one before it.
Perry was quickly reaching a breaking point and packing a saddlebag to flee his woes tasted better with every additional gulp of kill-devil rum. It fed an inner longing to chase the glow of a distant fire, stoked by the hope that a change of scenery might also salve his emotions.
“The bastard isn’t going to win. Not today, Pappy,” he cursed his father for the dire condition that weighed heavily on his broad shoulders.
---
Stew Adams was harsh on his son, but his disposition took a turn toward cruel after the death of his wife had plunged him into the dismal life of a widower.
It had been a dreary November night years prior when Mary Katherine Adams had passed with the fever. That evening father and son had sat by her bedside in the glow of a lantern. Hand in hand they watched her wither.
“Pappy, what will become of us with Mama gone?” young Perry had asked.
Stew hadn’t answered. He had sat in silence, staring into the emptiness. Mary Katherine’s death was the only bonding moment they had experienced, and grief enshrouded it. From that moment, the chasm between father and son grew to become unbridgeable.
Mary Katherine, always wearing a smile of confidence under a white, lace-trimmed bonnet, had sheltered Perry from Stew’s stormy manner. After she died the loss paralyzed father and son. To escape, Perry would sit in silence, clutching the bonnet for hours—on the front porch, in the barn, in a nearby cornfield. Anywhere as long as the angry old man wasn’t around to deliver his wrath. He usually wasn’t. Instead Stew had eased his grief with a bottle of ‘shine.
Since those days, coming home always presented danger to Perry. It typically ended in a shouting match—and sometimes a physical altercation. The trail of abuse continued, even after Stew pledged an oath to sobriety and Perry had become an adult.
Perry kept Mary Katherine’s bonnet on his bedroom dresser. From it he’d drawn strength after each blowup he had with Stew.
---
Lumbering home after this latest long day of fieldwork, Perry mumbled a litany of grievances against his father. The one that lingered was how Stew had denied him a chance to leave the farm five years earlier. Perry had sought a blacksmithing apprenticeship in Kentucky. While Stew was right, damn sure the lad was overdue for a healthy dose of responsibility, sending Perry on the road was not in his best interests or those of his farm. Stew’s denial was less than nurturing.
“Get your ass into the field, and don’t come to my house until your work’s done. I see you still haven’t shed the cloak of a mama’s-boy.” Perry recalled the interaction word for word. “Your mother’s long gone, and she’s not coming back to save you. Don’t even think about letting your shadow darken my threshold until you’ve plowed the last row.”
Perry had wanted to put up a fight, but after investing his body, mind, and soul in the farm’s success, he had no fight left to give. He knew Stew would judge his surrender a sign of softness. As Perry returned home that evening, Stew had stormed out to meet him, head shaking and finger pointing.
“Boy, you’re not goin’ to amount to piss.”
Five years ago. That’s when Perry had first discovered the bottle, but only recently the abuse had begun to take its toll. Now not even kill-devil could lessen the sting of the daily scalding he took from Stew.
“Five years of inglorious shit, all for naught,” he slurred aloud. “I have nothing to my person and even less to my name.”
After that realization Perry decided his return home on this fifth work anniversary evening would be different. It was time to make an unstated stand. This evening there would be no grand entrance. No official surrender to make him a target. What could have been just another long day in his unbearable life, this anniversary evening filled Perry with resolve.
On his trek home, Perry pondered what life would be like had his mother survived. She had not only been his parent but in every sense of the word, his guardian. Through the oak branches that lined the lane, he heard her empowering voice whispering familiar words.
“Chin up. Chest out. The bold and daring win the day.”
The problem was, Mary Katherine wasn’t there. A tear rolled down Perry’s cheek. Broken and close to unsalvageable, Perry had run out of choices. As he reached the barn and began to unpack his tools, he saw Stew.
In his hands Stew held a rifle that reflected the lantern light. Stew raised the gun to his shoulder and blasted a shot into a haystack against the barn’s rear wall. Perry jumped back. What was Stew’s intention? Still muddled by the rum, Perry wasn’t sure whether to fight or run.
Stew held the rifle arm’s length toward Perry. “It’s been five years. This is for you. It’s a top-of-the-line Burnside. You’ve shown me something I never expected. For the better part, you’ve grown up. The success of this farm may rest on my shoulders, but it’s also been placed on your back. For that I am most thankful.”
Perry shuddered and did a double-take. He took the rifle in hand and admired its ebony sheen.
“I think you understand now the bitter flavor of hard work makes the rewards taste that much sweeter. The old place ain’t perfect, and neither am I, but I don’t have horns protruding from my forehead. I just know what needs to be done. I’m broken, and I need your strong back to set this place up for success.”
Stew stepped toward Perry and slapped him on the back in appreciation. Perry flinched.
The rifle’s deceptive glow danced across Perry’s eyes, but he saw it was yet another manipulative move by Stew to keep him chained to the farm. Stew viewed the gift as a shifty investment. The rifle’s value would be more than offset by Perry’s continued work.
Perry reasoned, if the old man was in a giving mood, why not accept it? It certainly would not ease the physical and emotional scars gashed by Stew’s constant lecturing and scolding, but the gun would definitely come in handy.
“The rifle wasn’t necessary, but I’ll take it,” Perry said, forcing a half-smile. “I’ll continue to work in your fields, Pappy. My only request is that you give me ample freedom to live my life as a man.”
“I’ll not make any such promises. As long as you live under my roof, you’ll abide by my directives. Happiness is fleeting and overrated, assuredly followed by misery. You must know that by now. You’ll work like a dog, dawn to dusk.”
Stew’s mood seemed to turn dark.
“This farm’s the best chance you got. Like nobody else, I’ll tolerate your failures because even with your flaws, you’re my farm’s only hope. But, Perry, you must give up the rum. Alcohol almost killed me, and you’re heading down the same path. If you can’t live with that, you should hit the road now and save me the aggravation of digging your grave.”
“I’m tethered here, like a canary’s confined to a coal mine,” Perry said. “I fear you’ll never turn over the reins. I doubt this will ever be my farm. Try as I might, I can’t do this much longer, Pappy. It’s killing me from the inside out.”
“I’ve been thinking about beef cattle,” Stew threw out a lifeline. “Building the best bloodline in the state of Indiana. I’m not sure you’re up to the task, but I’m willing to give it a shot.”
“Well, Pappy, I know all the hay haulin’ and shit scoopin’ would fall on my shoulders. Does it really make a difference?”
Perry looked away from his father’s stare and ran his eyes along the length of the rifle barrel. Even with gun in hand, inside, Perry had nothing left to give, including forgiveness.
---
As the growing season dragged on, it was endless and unpaid, as expected. The old man hardly lifted a finger. Stew’s talk of bringing cattle to the farm was yet another lie. The broken promise sucked Perry deeper into a whirlwind of anger. If he had to work this hard, he wanted to do it for himself. He could not wait another thirty years to taste the sweet rewards of hard work. He felt doubly a slave, to his father and, increasingly, to his flask of rum.
The only bright spot that kept Perry in Salt Spring was pure-natured Violet LeDoux.
At best Violet was marginal but pleasing enough to satiate his desire for physical companionship. With coppery brunette hair and freckles dotting her cheeks like the evening stars, even by Salt Spring standards Violet still only a notch above average. Perry contemplated expressing his love, but something always seemed askew. From a more discerning angle, Violet was a bit horse-faced and cackly voiced, flaws that Perry had found easy to swallow. Violet was convenient.
Perry considered Violet his flickering beacon, but realized she could also be his breaking point. As Saturday night approached after a long day of field work, Perry lubricated his mind with a bottle of rum and sought out Violet’s companionship.
He rustled the bushes outside Violet’s bedroom window, and she quietly hurried to meet him. Perry was drunk and amorous, and Violet was intoxicated by dreams never to ensue.
“Oh, Perry, I’ve been praying for your visit this night,” Violet whispered as the two walked hand-in-hand toward the barn, their usual spot for late-night romance.
Violet pressed her torso tight against Perry, and it lit his fuse of passion. She kissed him and enjoyed the familiar taste of rum on his lips. Perry did not mind in the least. Rum enhanced her appeal.
“Violet, I have been waiting all day to see you,” Perry slurred. He pushed Violet into a pile of blossomed clover hay.
After an hour, the two bid silent farewells for the night.
---
Ample work in the cornfield awaited a hungover Perry as the morning sun broke over a nearby hill. He had been working in the field for two hours when he saw Violet walking toward him down the adjacent road. She ran to meet him.
“Did you mean what you said last night?” Violet asked. “That we should get out of this town and strike a path of our own?”
Violet’s screeching voice added to his hungover irritation. Her arrival in the cornfield puzzled Perry. His agitation exploded. As sweat poured down Perry’s forehead, he knew his true intent to leave, but staying here and farming for Stew might be preferable to having Violet as a partner, in travel or life.
“All I remember about last night was we had a pleasant time.”
“A pleasant time? A pleasant time? Perry Adams, you talked about forever. I gave myself to you.”
Violet threw up her arms in anger and turned her head in rejection.
“I’m sorry, Violet, I don’t remember. If I said any of that, it was hayloft talk. This ain’t gonna happen.”
Violet’s body shook. Her face melted in despair. Her dream shattered into a thousand shards. Violet turned abruptly and ran from the field, her chorus of squawking cries fading as she disappeared beyond a hill.
Perry wasn’t sure what to make of the drama. With a slight dash of remorse, he digested it the best he could. If what she had said was true, Perry knew he would have little choice. Out of honor he would either need to marry Violet or get the hell out of town.
As Perry finished his workday, the scene with Violet continued to weigh on his mind, as did the decision he faced.
Entering the barn to put away his tools, he was met by Violet’s brothers, Carl and Lance LeDoux.
Toad-ugly Carl grabbed Perry and knocked him to the ground with a broadside body blow. Lance, the younger of the two, yanked Perry up by the arms and held him while Carl delivered kicks to the groin, fists to the face, and punches to the gut. Carl flashed the glowing blade of his knife in Perry’s bloody face.
“Mess with our sister again, you pigeon-livered bastard, and you won’t have another chance to exercise the tools of your manhood,” Carl hissed. “Violet’s devastated. If she tells us you’ve been prowling around like a barn cat in quest of a haystack mouse, Lance and I will return as the rabid dogs of your nightmares. You’d better pray she doesn’t end up pregnant.”
Perry realized the whole affair between himself and Violet, and now her brothers, stunk like rotting fish in a scrap heap. Everyone smelled it but nobody wanted to do anything about it until it grew to be unbearable. Perry realized it had become time to put some fresh soil atop the pile.
Overall, Perry’s behavior took on the same rancid qualities among members of the Salt Spring community. Most folks had been inclined to brush it off as a young man blowing off steam. But over the next two-week period, starting with the incident with Violet’s brothers, a series of mysterious calamities had become a pattern.
A rock had been hurled through a window. A split-rail fence had been kicked down, resulting in the loss of cattle. A barn had mysteriously caught fire.
Toward the end of the ruinous string of events, townsfolk whispered about the angry young son of Stewart Adams. Was he responsible? Other than the substantiated claim about his mistreatment of Violet, nothing else was really verified. The growing accusation, however, was that when Perry was drunk, he showed little regard for their sentiments or possessions. It was past time for the community to turn the stinking scrap heap. The town elders were asked to do something to encourage Perry to hit the road and to put safeguards in place to ensure he never came back.
Over the next few days, during extended periods of sobriety, Perry grew aware of his growing reputational crisis. He felt helpless. The desperation fortified his growing ambition to leave. Untamed as a wild stallion and gruff as a grizzly, Perry’s bitterness approached that of his old man, the last person he wanted as a role model.
The conflict with the LeDoux brothers had been the last straw. It had added the last slosh of kerosene to Perry’s blazing choice of hitting the road. His bruised face and sore ribs were the last ingredients in a rancid hobo stew. Perry made plans to rid himself of Violet, her brothers, his father, and all the other carping fools who lived in Salt Spring.
Where would he go, and how? A month earlier Perry had clipped an article from the local newspaper about untamed territories in the West. The article had captured his mind. He’d squirreled it away in the barn under a stack of old feed sacks. The morning after his run-in with the LeDoux boys, he pulled out the old clipping and read it aloud: “Without any doubt whatever, Kansas is destined to be acknowledged ‘the garden spot of the world.’ Her excellent and easily cultivated soil, delightful climate, and her position as the great center of the United States, will give to her an importance and secure for her a propriety of which her enterprising citizens may justly be proud.”
The story had promoted Kansas Territory as “The Land of the Future,” and now that sounded good to Perry—a place to farm for himself, to establish a family, to thrive. Worthy goals if he could get there alive.
Late that night by the glow of a kerosene lamp, Perry wandered the kitchen, gathering a few items, a pot, a pan, and a few utensils he considered essential for life on the run. He scavenged through a drawer where he had seen Stew hide a bag of coins. He grabbed the entire bag. So as not to wake up the old man, he carefully placed the items in a burlap bag and cinched it up. He snuffed the lamp and sneaked out the front door.
Perry limped to the barn, still sore from the earlier run-in with the LeDoux brothers.
The barn was Perry’s haven. After carefully opening the door, Perry struck a match and lit a lantern. He removed a leather saddlebag hanging from the wall. Perry stashed the bag of coins and utensils into the bag. He jammed in a small satchel of beef jerky. With a length of hemp baling twine, he carefully tied up a bedroll and several hand tools for his journey.
He also gathered three prized possessions: his new rifle and a box of cartridges, a bag of seed corn left over from the previous year’s planting, and a brass nautical spyglass that had belonged to a great-great-grandfather rumored to have been a pirate. As Perry gathered the items, he felt like a pirate too.
Scratched into the brass patina of the spyglass was the phrase, “Avast! Pay attention.”
One thing Perry did not pack on that moonless Indiana night was his flask. He pulled it from his back pocket, took a final whiff of its remnants, looked at it with regretful ambivalence, and hurled it with a clank against the back wall of the barn.
Perry fastened a halter around the neck of his father’s mule, Luke, and snuck him out of the barn. Perry loaded the mule’s back and crept from the barnyard with no crumb of remorse for mule-napping or thievery. He came by it naturally. The great-great-grandson of a pirate stealing from the great-grandson of a pirate . . . It was pure symmetry.
Perry had raised Luke from a colt and considered himself the animal’s better keeper. To signify his level of endearment, Perry called him Lukey. Perry looked over his shoulder a final time as he led Luke away from the farmstead where he had grown up, had said a last goodbye to his dying mother, and had gone to battle with his father. After that he did not look back.
Like a shadowy apparition, he exited the farm gate. His goal was to make twenty miles a day, sometimes more, sometimes less. Accounting timewise for hazards, and he was certain there would be plenty, was an inexact science.
Perry whispered in the mule’s tall ears, “Lukey, this escape is the only tonic that’s going to cure the predicament I face here in Salt Spring. The entire world’s against me. But I’ll show ‘em all. I’ll fight, scratch, and dig until I build a new home, harvest corn from my land, and sprout a family of my own. I just hope we can make it.”
He was certain Luke understood every single word.