Ancestry Magazine

The saddle bags he sat on bulged with deals in the making. His cookpot simmered with bits of rabbit, squirrel, and schemes that promised to be tasty. Behind him, his fiddle dangled from the saddle that straddled a pinto he had probably swiped from the Osage in one of his fabled coups.

It had to be him. I knew it the minute I saw his milewide back there in the clearing, framed by a grove of hackberries and chinquapins.

Ol’ Jim Ball. Andy Jackson’s friend from the Battle of New Orleans. The Fiddler. The Ark ansas Traveler whose horse was the only home he ever claimed.

Am I dreaming, or have I found him–this fox I’ve chased for a dozen years but have never seen a likeness of, except for the pen and ink sketch of his backside in Harper’s Weekly?

“Major Ball?”

“Some folks call me that,” he drawled. “But, then, some folks call me worse.” Gingerly he drew from the pot the pine bough he used to stir the stew, blew on the tip, and then sucked at it, contemplating its flavor before he pressed the matter. “Who wants to know?”

“Margaret’s family sent me,” I said simply.

“Margaret?” The question hung between us for a moment, but then his voice honeyed. “Ahhh, yes. The little French widow from Ouachita.” The memory was obviously a pleasant one.

“Yes. The little widow you left with child.”

His shoulders shrugged, straining the waistcoat he wore to keep the chill out of his bones even though it was a summer evening.

“So?” he countered. “This is Arkansas, Ma’am! Haven’t you heard what Governor Yell said? All men lose their honesty and all women their virtue, once they cross the river into Arkansas.” 

I didn’t laugh. Margaret wouldn’t have thought it funny.

His broad back still fended off my charges. Obviously he was not going to make this easy. But then, he never had. From Virginia to Texas I had trailed him–before arthritis took hold of his joints and he had doubled back to settle into the foothills of the Ozarks, like a hound returning to his lair to nurse his wounds.

“Well, what do they want?” he pressed, a curious edge to his voice at last.

“To know you. To understand you. To find out whether–somewhere, sometime–something compelled you to acknowledge the son you left behind.”

“Bullfeathers!” he snorted. “It’s my fortune they’re after. What else do women and their bairns ever want? You’ve dogged me through the diamond fields. You’ve seen me pan for gold. Sure, they sent you for my fortune. Well, dream on, Ma’am! The joke’s on y’all.”

For a moment I wondered if I’d found, after all, the right Jim Ball. Where was the charm and wit of all the lore? But then he laughed his merry overture, now hoarsened by whiskey and soothed by sweet oil, that was long ago immortalized by all who crossed his path.

“We’ve had a good time, haven’t we?” he chuckled. “I’ve called the tunes, and you’ve danced the jigs. I hide. You still seek. Well, I’ll confess this much. I almost folded my hand and let you have me there Under-the-Hill at Natchez. After all, what’s the thrill of the chase if you don’t let a fine lady catch you once in a while?”

“Then I’ve caught you?” I barely whispered, almost afraid that somehow he’d call my bluff again.

“Perhaps,” he parried. “Care for one last dance, Ma’am, just for memory’s sake? You’ll pass me my fiddle?”

I turned to the pinto, unleashed the rawhide that held his “Sweet Lil,” and felt it slip from my grip.

The night breeze rustled behind me and I swiveled back toward the campfire to find just a single ember glowing. Gone was the pot. Gone were the saddlebags full of intrigues. Gone was the man. Or was he? Beyond the grove, I thought I heard again his lilting overture and the taunt of the legendary trickster as he savored his latest coup …

“Dream on, Genie!”

Elizabeth Shown Mills, CG, CGL, FASG, has chased “Ol’ Jim Ball”–asleep and awake–for more than fifteen years. She is currently editor of theNGS Quarterly.