Текст книги "Mankillers"

Автор книги: Ken Casper

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John 15:13

Buck stared at the lonely mound of earth. His brother had been twenty-one. He hadn’t had a chance to grow up or grow old. What kind of man would he have made? A distinguished plantation owner? A responsible philanthropist and respected member of the community? Or would he have continued the path of a reckless wastrel? What was it Clay had wanted to tell him? Was there trouble at home? Had something happened to their father? Had the Yankees destroyed Jasmine?

Buck felt a pang of conscience that he couldn’t recall the verse of scripture on the marker. He hadn’t carried a Bible through the campaigns as so many others had. Perhaps Kentucky would know the reference.

Shifting visions flitted through his memory–Clay as a small boy rearing his horse in the front yard of Jasmine to the terror of their mother and the proud chuckle of their father. The hoop-skirted young ladies giggling behind their fans as they crowded around the strapping adolescent at barbecues and hung onto his every word. Buck did his best to blot out the image of his brother’s abrupt end, but he couldn’t erase it. Ever. Nor could he dispel the almost orgasmic sensation he’d experienced when he executed Zeb Feeney.

He’d never been one for long prayers, even when religion was a more prominent part of his life, so now he simply murmured, “Clay, little brother, I love you. May God help me find the man who killed you. Amen.”

He strode to where Clay’s horse was tethered, picked up a pail of grain, held it in front of him and slowly approached the gelding with a stream of soothing words. Curiosity and hunger overcame the animal’s instinctive apprehension. Soon he was chewing oats while Buck stroked his neck and shoulders.

From there he returned to the shack, still marveling that his own stomach was full, his patients well cared for and being moved to real hospitals, no longer his responsibility. Tonight there’d be no screaming, no sawing, no blood. At last it was time to pack up and leave this accursed place.

Kentucky had cleaned Buck’s surgical instruments and stowed them in a satchel which he could tie to his saddle. Clay’s Henry rifle and Colt pistol lay on the table. The last two bottles of laudanum and a capped half-flask of chloroform were wrapped in torn sheets, ready to be packed in his bags. Tomorrow he would wear his only decent clothes, boots, and hat, and have all of twenty dollars and change in his pockets.

Clay’s saddle sat on the floor of the adjacent room. Kentucky had placed his cavalry hat beside it. Buck stared at it, at the blood matting the yellow plume. He plucked off the top portion and stuck it in his pocket. I’ll give it to Poppa, along with the watch, all that’s left of his favorite son. Then he hurled the hat itself out the window.

Now for the unpleasant task of going through his brother’s possessions. In addition to fifty-five dollars in Confederate paper, he found the scabbard for the Henry, a supply of ammunition for the rifle and the revolver. After reloading the Colt with five cartridges, he lowered the hammer on the empty cylinder. Next he replaced the two spent cartridges in the Henry. With this armory and a good horse his chances of reaching South Carolina substantially improved.

“Sir, it’s ‘most dark,” Kentucky said from the open doorway. “We staying here tonight?”

“Might as well. We both need rest. We’ll use the rooms here and leave early in the morning.”

Buck was bone weary. The accumulated physical strain of the past three years had caught up with him, three years of cutting off hands and feet, arms and legs, of leaving men maimed, lame and sometimes helpless for the rest of their lives—if they chose to survive. Many didn’t.

He wrapped himself in a blanket and lay down on the floor. Soon, like a candle guttering out, he drifted off to sleep. In his dreams he once again felt the heft of a pistol in his hand and pressed the muzzle to the neck of a man with long red hair. He was jolted awake when the man’s head exploded.

For evildoers shall be cut off.

#

The next morning Buck sat on the porch steps with his chin in his hands mulling over the night’s disturbing dream as he watched dawn steal over the treetops along the creek. The insistent chirping of birds began to replace the nocturnal drone of insects. He heard Kentucky rouse.

After feeding and saddling Clay’s horse, Buck stowed his belongings in the saddlebags, added his medical kit and bedroll. The orderly approached with a steaming pot in one hand and leading his saddled mule with the other.

“Coffee, sir? Let me tie this here mule, and I’ll get some cups from the house.”

“I’ll bring them, Kentucky.”

A few minutes later the two men were sitting on the cabin steps, each with his elbows resting on his knees. “I’ve been thinking.” Buck took a sip of his coffee. “The war’s over. I’m no longer an officer, and you’re no longer a sergeant. So why don’t you call me Buck. What do you prefer to be called by? Your nickname or your given name?”

The young man snorted. “I’m so used to Kentucky now, Asa sounds kinda funny to me.”

“Good. It’s Buck and Kentucky, then. Now we need to name our mounts.” Buck paused. When he spoke, his voice was husky. “I have no idea what Clay named his horse. Gypsy sounds like something he would’ve chosen. I’ll use that. What about you?”

“I’m gonna call mine Mule, ‘cause that’s what he is. How long you reckon it’ll take us to get to South Carolina, sir, I mean, Buck?”

“No telling. I suspect we’ll have to go most of the way in the saddle. According to the reports I heard Sherman tore up the railroads. What’s today anyway? I can’t remember.”

“Friday, sir . . . uh . . . Buck. April fourteenth. Good Friday. Sunday’s Easter.”

“Well, Kentucky, Good Friday’s as good a time as any for us to be on our way.”

The younger man rose. “Ain’t nothing left here but sorrow. I’ll be glad to be shed of this place.”

Buck surveyed the scene around him. “This was a farm before we came here. Now it’s a graveyard, like every other place I’ve been to for years now. One graveyard after another.” He stared into space for a moment. “I almost forgot. What do those Bible verses on Clay’s marker mean?”

“Preacher Tate told me. Something about ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that he would lay down his life for his friends.’”

A lump formed in Buck’s throat. “Let’s ride.”

The sun flickered like firelight through the leaves as they traveled east under a sheltering green canopy of oak and hickory. Buck found it hard to believe they weren’t riding to yet another battle and fetid campground. Several miles passed before he broke the silence.

“Kentucky, we’ve been working together now for over a year and all I know about you is your name and that you’re not from Kentucky, that you like mules, make good coffee, and you’re the best damn orderly I’ve ever worked with.”

“I’m not sure about that best part, but the rest is about right. I was born on a farm about halfway between Charleston and Savannah. My mother died, of consumption I think, when I was two or three. Daddy never would talk about her. He stayed busy working, raising our food and some cotton for cash. Then a rich family by the name of Bryce bought up our place and most of the farms around us. They named it Portland Plantation, and we commenced sharecropping for ‘em. The owners liked Daddy well enough, so after a while he was made overseer. We were living better then. I liked farming. Worked for the Bryces till I was old enough to join up after the war started. I kinda got pushed into being a hospital orderly when there was so many sick and wounded.”

“As I said, you’re damn good at taking care of people. Is that what you’d like to do when you get home, work in a hospital?”

“I did what I had to do but I don’t want to do it no more.”

“I understand. So what would you like to do?”

“Go back to Portland and work with my daddy. I like farming, making things grow.”

“It’s hard work, but you’re young. By the way, how old are you?”

“Can’t rightly say . . . Buck.” A wide grin split his face. “I got your name right. Nineteen or twenty, best I can tell. Most times I feel a lot older.”

Buck nodded. “This accursed war’s aged us all.”

“Sure has. Even them little drummer boys come to look like tiny old men.”

“Sending children off to war like that.” Buck growled. “The ones who aren’t killed will probably go crazy after all they’ve been through. A disgrace, I tell you. Those boys can never be children again.”

“Yessir.” They rode on a few paces. “You’re sure right about that.”

Over the next three hours they left the thick underbrush and towering trees of south central Virginia behind. Buck noted his companion seemed to be as uncomfortable in the saddle as he was. It had been a long while since either of them had ridden for more than a few minutes at a time. When they’d moved from camp to camp it was usually on foot beside wagons or riding in them.

They topped a rise, then descended into a valley and started to cross a stream. Buck noticed circling vultures swooping lower and lower a short distance ahead. As they approached a flock of the carrion-eaters, massed on the ground, reluctantly abandoned their feeding and flapped their wings to lift their swollen bodies into the nearby trees.

Kentucky pointed to an emaciated gelding standing beside an empty wagon. Its slashed harness was draped over the shafts. “Sir, ain’t that the Hewitt’s rig? But . . . that ain’t their mare.”

Something was wrong. “Do you see them?”

“No, sir.”

Buck dismounted and walked cautiously toward the bay. Drawing closer he noticed the animal kept its right foreleg raised. Mrs. Hewitt said the red-haired man was riding a crippled horse. A feeling of dread coursed through him.

Kentucky dismounted. “Sir, there’s blood . . . a trail of blood going into the bushes.”

“Wait,” Buck told him. “Let me get my pistol first.”

But his friend had already started into the brush.

“Oh no, no, no. Oh God.”

Buck raced to join him and found his orderly had dropped to his knees and was retching. What could cause such a violent reaction from a man who’d seen so much death and mayhem?

He searched more closely and immediately understood. His own gorge rose and he began to tremble.

“Sweet Jesus,” he mumbled. “It’s Martha Hewitt and her children.”

The three bodies were sprawled in the undergrowth as if they’d been casually discarded. The vultures had already gouged out the eyeballs and shredded their faces. Congealed blood matted the woman’s thighs and her torn dress. He stared at the body of the girl. Hannah too had been violated. Martha’s throat and the throats of her two children had been slashed from ear to ear, almost decapitating them. He tasted vomit. He’d never witnessed such desecration and horror.

Overhead, cynical buzzards orbited patiently from a safe distance.

Billy’s new crutch, now broken, had been tossed twenty feet away and lay on top of a cedar bush. His forearms were slashed to the bone, obviously defensive wounds. The crippled boy had taken his role seriously and clearly fought to protect his mother and sister. Buck wondered if he’d died before or after them.

“No-o-o,” Kentucky wailed again. “This can’t be. Who could have done such a thing? Oh, God.”

Buck bent down and picked up a blood-soaked bandana. “Damn him. Damn him. Damn him.”

“Who?” Kentucky rose to his feet and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

“Damn him to hell.” It was clear to Buck now. “He killed them all just to get a horse.”

“Who’re you talking about?”

“The redheaded man. The man who killed my brother. The man who killed Clay.”

“You sure?”

“Mrs. Hewitt said he was riding a lame horse and had a rag around his neck.” He held up the blood-stiffened cloth, then flung it into the bushes. “That cowardly bastard, raping and killing a woman and her children. I’ll kill him. I’ll find the son of a bitch and I’ll kill him.”

A minute of tense silence followed. Finally Kentucky spoke.

“We’ve got to bury these folks, sir. We can’t just leave ‘em like this. But we don’t have no shovels, and this ground’s hard as stone.”

It took a moment for Buck to reply, but when he did he spoke with an eerie calmness. “We’ll have to burn ‘em.” He glanced around “There’s plenty of dry brush for kindling. You collect it while I put this horse out of its misery. Then we’ll lift the bodies into the wagon and pull it over the carcass.”

#

By noon the next day the funeral pyre had consumed the profaned bodies of Martha Hewitt and her children. All that remained were ashes, metal fittings, wheel rims . . . and mental images that even time would not erase. Kentucky had mumbled a few words in prayer while Buck stared at the flames, his face grim. The vultures, deprived of their feast, had departed reluctantly.

They mounted and rode without speaking. Kentucky tried periodically to initiate a conversation, but Buck answered only in monosyllables while he stared fixedly ahead as though in a trance.

The miles passed. They headed southeast towards the railroad junction at Burkeville. Abandoned wagons, cartridge cases, dented canteens, and discarded clothing littered the road. Scattered mounds with crude markers mutely testified to the cost in lives for liberty and sovereignty. The war was over, but this torn and bruised land would be a long time healing.

Near Burkeville they stopped and watered their mounts at a shallow brook, then washed the road dust from their hands and faces. A massive oak with low-hanging horizontal branches shaded an old campground by the stream. Rusty cups and canteens, pieces of harness leather and rags were scattered over the otherwise peaceful scene.

After a brief conversation, they decided Kentucky would remain at the site and build a campfire while Buck rode into town to purchase civilian clothes and food. He offered to leave the Colt but Kentucky allowed that he’d be more likely to shoot his own foot than anything else. Buck returned the handgun to his saddlebag, lifted the Henry from its scabbard, and handed it to his friend.

“You need to be able to defend yourself. Besides, it might upset folks if I came riding into town with a Henry on the saddle.”

“Yes, sir, I hear that. You be careful now. There’s a lot of bad men out there.”

#

The redheaded man had spent the last two nights in the woods sleeping on the ground. The bleeding had stopped, but his neck still hurt like hell, especially when the damn mare went into a trot. He’d saw viciously at the reins, and the horse would whinny from the pain, but it would also slow to a plodding pace rather than risk more punishment.

Pesky flies swarmed noisily around the stiff, bloody collar of his shirt. He cursed loudly and tried to flail them away but that made his neck hurt worse, so he stopped those futile efforts and defended himself with vile oaths. If the wound wasn’t properly dressed soon, he knew, maggots would start feasting on his rotting flesh.

Beyond the next hill he could see locomotives belching smoke at the railroad intersection near Burkeville. Litter upon litter of soldiers were being crammed side by side onto flatbeds. As he rode nearer, one of the bearers paused, wiped his brow with a rag and yelled.

“Hey, boy, from the looks of that neck you need to climb aboard with us.”

“I ain’t gonna no damn hospital.”

The litter bearer shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

The rider had a sudden thought. “Hold on a minute. Y’all got a doctor ‘round here?”

“Naw, Doc Thomson stayed back at camp. Some damn sniper killed his brother.”

Well, I’ll be honey-fuggled. Never dawned on me that the man standing next to Clay Thomson was his brother.

“Doc Thomson, you say?” He leaned forward in the saddle and suppressed a grin. “Sniper killed his brother, huh?”

“Over west a ways. Near Sayler’s Creek where the fighting was at. Doc Thomson was standing right by him when it happened.”

“Didn’t nobody shoot back?” the rider asked, trying to contain his glee.

“I hear tell Doc Thomson got off a round or two, but he must’ve missed.”

Reckon I was lucky. As I recall Buck Thomson was a dang good shot, at least at pine cones.

“This Doc Thomson? His first name Buck?”

The litter bearer scratched his head. “Don’t rightly know. From South Carolina, I believe. Never heard him called anything but doc or major. A fine man though.”

“Yeah, sure,” mumbled the small rider.

“Take care of that neck now, hear?” the litter bearer called out as the visitor nudged his horse and rode off.

“Oh, I plan to,” whispered the red-haired man. “I definitely plan to.”

Chapter FOUR

Buck guided Gypsy down a slope to the right of the campground until he reached the railroad going into Burkeville, then he followed the tracks. He was challenged by a Union sentry near the outskirts. After he identified himself and his business in town, the soldier let him pass, and in answer to Buck’s questions, provided directions to the nearest mercantile. “Get ready to be skinned,” he said in friendly warning. “Everything’s priced sky-high.”

A mile down the tracks he entered the busy town. Gypsy stepped daintily along the muddy main street while Buck’s eyes tracked restlessly back and forth over the throngs mingling along the wooden sidewalks. Hostile and curious stares followed his progress. Clots of slouchers standing isly along the streets plus filthy horsemen and wagon-drivers represented the largest collection of “po’ white trash” Buck had ever seen. He reached down and untied the saddlebag hiding his Colt. Everyone seemed to be waiting for something to happen, probably bad.

He dismounted in front of the general store and tied Gypsy to the rail. Inside he found a meager selection of poor quality garments which were, as the sentry had warned, overpriced. They had one virtue, however. They were for sale. He bought outfits for himself and Kentucky.

Buck donned his new civilian coat which smelled musty and fit him poorly, then packaged his uniform tunic with the rest of his purchases. After tying this parcel behind the saddle, he mounted Gypsy once again, headed out of town, and waved to the same friendly sentry as he passed. The evening light had faded and the moonless night was a velvet shroud studded with twinkling diamonds. Gypsy was stepping carefully up the flank of a hill when Buck saw the welcome glow of Kentucky’s fire.

His senses became unnaturally acute when he heard a muffled groaning sound and glimpsed flickering shadows of figures silhouetted in the firelight. Below the crest Buck slipped from his saddle and knotted Gypsy’s reins to a small shrub. Stealthily he opened a saddlebag, withdrew a handful of cartridges and quietly placed them in his coat pocket before filling the empty sixth cylinder of the Colt. With careful deliberation, he silently lowered the hammer.

He crouched forward. For the moment, the rhythmic slapping sounds had ceased. He inched still closer until he had a clear view of the scene below.

Two ragged men lay by the campfire passing a bottle between them. One was obese and red-faced. His left arm ended where his elbow should have been. The other, skinny to the point of emaciation, had a crudely fashioned peg leg strapped to what was left of his right thigh. A third man, standing with his back to Buck, was average in height and weight and in possession of all his limbs. He held a whip in his right hand and appeared to be catching his breath. It wasn’t until he turned to speak to the others that Buck saw the patch covering his left eye and the jagged scar from brow to chin that cut across what once might have been a pleasant face.

Spread-eagled on a nearby tree, Kentucky sagged, his wrists fixed to overhead branches with strips of rawhide. His feet barely touched the ground. He was naked except for the fouled pants pooled around his ankles. Blood oozed from his rectum. A dirty rag was stuffed in his mouth.

“I generally prefer doing niggers,” the whip man told his victim between heavy breaths. “But you’ll just have to do, white boy.”

“You done real good with that white lady the other night, Amos,” said the one-armed man. He took a swig from the whiskey bottle and handed it over to his scarecrow companion. “Real good.”

The leg amputee gulped and snickered. “Oh, yeah. She sure did scream. Make this here white boy scream like a woman, Amos.” He fondled the crotch of his pants. “I truly like it when you make ‘em scream.”

Amos straightened, shook out the whip and was drawing it back for the next lash when Buck cocked his weapon. The distinctive click stopped one-eye in mid motion. The two good pairs of eyes also turned to face the sound.

“Who’s there?” the fat man called out. “Redhead, you come back to play too?”

Buck pulled the trigger. The bullet severed Amos’s upraised hand. The whip tumbled to the ground and laid there, fingers still clutching the handle. Several seconds went by before the owner registered his

loss. Then, screaming, he fell down, clutching the blood-spurting stump.

“That enough screaming for you?” Buck asked the one-legged pervert. A second bullet entered the man’s narrow chest before he had a chance to reply.

Buck then swung his Colt and took deliberate aim at the fat man.

“Please, mister, please.” He held up his good arm and the stump of the other.

Buck pulled the trigger a third time. This bullet found the man’s Adam’s apple and nearly severed his porcine head. Blood gushed from ruptured arteries before finally dribbling to a halt.

He laid his weapon on the ground. The only sound in the black night was the blubbering of the whip-man as he rocked back and forth, clutching the raw end of his forearm. Instinctively, Buck noted his vice-like grip formed a tourniquet.

He raced to the torture tree. “Hang on, Kentucky. Hang on. They won’t hurt you anymore.”

He removed the gag from his friend’s mouth and with infinite care cut the bindings from his arms. Gently he lowered him, first to a sitting position on the ground, then onto his stomach. Kentucky’s back was raw flesh. If he survived, it would be with scars resembling those of the most abused slaves.

“Lie as still as you can. I’ll get the laudanum. Then I’ll fix you up.”

Kentucky blinked slowly, then jerked uncontrollably as a spasm of pain ripped through him.

From the corner of his eye Buck spied the whip-man—Amos—slithering toward the cast-off gun. Buck weighed his options. He could retrieve his weapon before the one-eyed sadist reached it. With the pull of the trigger he could send the devil’s soul to its eternal reward.

For evildoers shall be cut off.

But not yet.

Buck snatched up the whip, scraped off the bloody remnants of the man’s hand, quickly assessed its balance and, in one fluid motion, cracked it over the miscreant’s head.

“Next time I take out your other eye,” he told the man on the ground. Buck picked up the Colt, tucked it in his belt and hurried to Gypsy.

Returning with his medical kit to the campfire a minute later, he found Kentucky in a pain-induced stupor. His breathing was shallow, his pulse thready. He didn’t respond to questions. Buck knew his life was ebbing.

Working rapidly, he tore remnants of the young man’s clothes into strips and padded his rectum until the hemorrhage had ceased. With some difficulty he raised him into enough of an upright position for him to swallow the laudanum. Only when the narcotic had taken effect did Buck proceed to dress his lacerated flesh with cloth strips. For the moment, there was little more he could do.

Leaving him, Buck searched the bodies of the two dead men and found a hundred dollars in gold coins in one of their pockets.

“How about you, Amos, you got any money?”

The whip man hadn’t moved from where Buck left him. Still clutching his shattered stump, his eyes wide with fear, he said nothing. Buck roughly emptied his pockets and found almost $300 in gold and silver and a single gold nugget about the size of a butterbean.

Sweet Jesus. The nugget that Martha Hewitt found in Feeney’s mash.

“Where’d you boys get all this money? You rob a bank? Anybody else in this gang of yours hiding off somewhere?”

“I’m dying. Help me.”

“Where’d you get this nugget?”

“Pegleg give it to me.”

“Where’d he get it?” Buck stood over him, the toe of his boot poised a few inches from the man’s groin.

“The woman had it.”

“He rape her?”

“That’s how he found the nugget. It was in her drawers.”

Buck saw white. His finger twitched on the trigger of the Colt. “Why’d you cut their throats?”

The whip man sucked in a breath. “We was low on bullets.”

Inexpressible rage welled inside Buck. As Martha Hewitt had said, some men deserved to die, and this man qualified, but still not quite yet. “Tell me about the red-headed man—” he nodded toward the nearly headless corpse a few yards away “—the one your friend mentioned.”

“Ain’t one of us. He was switching horses with the woman when we rode up. She was begging him not to take their nag, but he paid her no mind and rode off on it.”

“Describe him.”

“Little feller, long red hair. None of us never seen him before. Had a bandage ‘round his neck, headed east.” The man’s breathing was labored. “I swear that’s all I know, mister. Now help me. You gonna let me bleed to death?”

“No, I’m not.” Buck leveled the pistol at his head and pulled the trigger.

For evildoers shall be cut off.

He returned to Kentucky’s side. The rectal bleeding had ceased; his breathing had improved; and his heartbeat was stronger. Buck sighed with relief and adjusted the blankets.

Through the night he sat by his friend, monitored his pulse, watched for recurrent bleeding and tended the fire.

Who are these men? Where do such beings come from? Were they once simple farmers, blacksmiths, draymen, who’d been so shattered by war that they’d degenerated into beasts? Or were they diseased from birth, and spent a lifetime as prowling vultures feeding on the carrion of war and the misfortunes of others? Is death the only answer for such people?

And have I been chosen to rid the world of such vermin?

He gazed at the three bodies scattered around the campsite. He had no regrets.

And what of the redheaded man? He stole a horse and left a woman and her children to the merciless depredations of these sadistic murderers.

His time will come.

#

As dawn broke, Buck shrugged off his blanket and moved closer to Kentucky’s side. His breathing was deep and regular, there was no evidence of further blood loss, and his color was good.

Buck stirred the coals of the smoldering fire to a warm glow and put coffee on to boil while he washed up at the stream. He watered and saddled their mounts then packed the saddlebags.

Kentucky began to stir.

“Good morning.” Buck tried to sound positive, but his voice was husky as he stooped to examine his patient. “Last night you had me worried, but you’re still with us, and that’s a good sign.”

Kentucky turned his head.

“Don’t try to talk now. There’ll be time for that later. Right now what you have to do is get well. And you will. Give yourself time. It’ll get better. I promise.”

Mindful of the young man’s anguish and humiliation, Buck gently but thoroughly palpated his abdomen. “You’re not tender down here but you have a lot of healing to do. No solid food for a while.”

Buck cleansed and redressed the lacerated flesh. Occasionally Kentucky flinched but never uttered a sound.

“I realize it’s painful for you to move, but it’s too dangerous for us to stay here. I’ll make it as easy for you as I can, but we have to leave this place. Do you understand?”

Kentucky nodded.

Buck helped him into the clothes he’d bought in Burkeville. Aware of how miserable the coming journey would be, he gave him another dose of laudanum, then set about padding Mule’s saddle with the dead men’s blankets. Carefully he helped the sweating, trembling rider onto it.

Their procession into Burkeville was slow but attracted no more interest than Buck’s visit had the day before. They followed the directions they received from a stranger on the street to the town’s sole remaining apothecary’s shop to buy salve and dressings. Rather than dismount and then have to remount, Kentucky remained on Mule while Buck went inside to make the purchases.

“Ever been on a steamboat, Kentucky?” he asked after they were again underway.

No answer.

“Seems to me the deck chair of a paddle-wheeler will be easier on your backside than the saddle on Mule. What say we get a buggy and go to Norfolk, then take a steamship from there to Charleston?”

No response.

They proceeded to a livery stable where, after brief negotiations Buck was able to purchase a well-used but serviceable high-wheeled buggy. The grumbling of his stomach announced it was ready for more than the coffee he’d drunk several hours earlier. With Kentucky sitting on the padded seat of the buggy, Mule in its traces and Gypsy in tow, they drove to the town’s only restaurant. Buck ordered a plate of ham and the first eggs he’d tasted in months for himself and a bowl of cornbread and buttermilk for Kentucky. But the young man refused to even sample it. All in good time, Buck thought. While he was drinking his third cup of steaming coffee, the door burst open.

A bald little man wearing a green eyeshade yelled, “Somebody shot the president! Lincoln’s dead! It just come in over the telegraph. All hell’s broke loose in Washington! Union troops here and everywhere placed on alert. There’ll be hell to pay now.” As quickly as he’d arrived he was gone.

“Let the damn Yankees worry about it,” Buck muttered to himself. His main concern was to get Kentucky safely home, then find the red-haired killer of his brother.

Where the hell was that bastard, anyway? Which way was he headed?

#

Easter sunrise began with Buck preparing the animals and buggy for the long ride from the hills and valleys of south-central Virginia to the low country, swamps, and tidal flats of the coast. While driving the rig he passed the hours talking to Kentucky who remained mute and unresponsive. Buck glanced over, saw droplets staining his friend’s pants and realized Kentucky was sobbing.

“What’s wrong, my friend?”

The young man wagged his head but said nothing.

Buck pulled over to the side of the road and looped the reins over the brake handle. “Are you in pain? Is your back hurting?”