Deserter Read online

  Mare crunched half an apple as Jake wet a strip of cloth with alcohol and gently but very thoroughly cleaned the wound. She shied away from the burning, but the other half of the apple calmed her down. The wound was less serious than it had looked when it was bleeding freely. The separation of the edges of flesh wasn’t wide enough to warrant sutures. There’d be a scar—proud flesh would form—but that would happen with or without stitches. He spread the viscous, medicinal-smelling bag balm the length of the furrow, considered wrapping Mare’s neck, and decided against doing that. Fresh air was often the best medicine for horsehide cuts, and the cloth wrapping would cause the horse to rub her neck against any surface she could find in her stall or out in the pasture.

  Lou Galvin met Jake as Sinclair was leaving the barn, a mug of steaming coffee in each hand. Jake accepted one gratefully, blew over its surface for a moment, and took a mouthful. It was better, just then, than the finest Kentucky bourbon, fragrant, rich, and strong enough to dissolve a musket ball. He drank again, nodding his thanks.

  “Let’s go inside, talk a bit,” Galvin said.

  Sinclair noticed how drawn the older man looked, how the dark half-moons under his eyes sagged, the tight set of his mouth. They walked side by side silently, around to the front of the house and into the parlor. The room was a formal one, Jake saw, probably used only on holidays when neighbors visited, to lay out corpses for mourners who called, and when the preacher came by for a meal. The furniture was ponderous, stuffed to an almost rock-hard firmness, the surface of the fabric as scratchy as dried straw. A symmetrically neat arrangement of logs was set in the fire-place, kindling in place, awaiting a match. The hearth was immaculate; there hadn’t been a fire in the room in a long time. Lou sighed as he settled into an armchair facing the couch where Jake sat.

  “How’d it go?” Galvin asked.

  Jake considered for a long moment before answering. “Not bad. I dropped a couple outlaws. One had a buffalo gun. I got lucky and blew up the rifle.”

  “I doubt much luck was involved, Jake. Seems to me you handle that big Sharps awful well.” He paused for a moment. “What about Mott?”

  Jake held his friend’s eyes. “I had a shot—a clear one. I didn’t take it.”

  Lou’s face hardened. “He pulled the lever that ended my son’s life, Jake.”

  “I know that.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Galvin said, setting his coffee cup on the floor in front of him. “You had Mott in your sights and didn’t pull the trigger? Why the hell not?”

  Jake shook his head. “It would have been an execution, Lou—not something done in a battle. I’ve done more than enough of . . .” He let the sentence die, unfinished.

  Galvin’s voice rose. “An execution? Jesus Christ, didn’t that animal execute Billy? Tell me the difference, Jake—go ahead and do that.”

  Sinclair looked down at his boots.“I can’t, Lou. There wouldn’t have been any difference. But I couldn’t do it.” After a moment, he added,“I’m sorry, Lou.”

  Galvin shook his head in disgust. “You could have ended the whole thing today and you say you couldn’t take the shot.” He made the word “couldn’t” sound like a vile disease. “Shit!”

  The peace that the formal parlor offered earlier had been sucked out of the air by Lou Galvin’s words, by his anger. Both men sat in the stifling quiet. From outside, the only sound that reached them was a quick burst of childish laughter.

  Galvin drew a breath. “Look,” he said, “maybe you have some sort of strategy in mind, something I don’t understand. Is that it?”

  Sinclair shook his head in the negative.

  “Look,” Galvin said again, “I didn’t figure you were a virgin when you came to us. You’re a fighter—I could see that in you. You’ve killed before—I can see it in your eyes, Jake. You might as well have a sign around your neck saying ‘Killer.’ ”

  Jake began to rise to his feet.

  “Sit, damn it,” Galvin snapped. “I’m not through yet. You think I didn’t know you weren’t the usual saddle tramp or drifter? You’re military, Jake—probably Reb, but definitely military. The way you take care of your gear, your horse, carry yourself, take command—all that tells a story.” Lou sat back in his chair. “You showed up not long after the bloodbath at Gettysburg. I figure you’re a deserter.”

  Again, Jake started to rise, but Galvin went on. “That doesn’t mean anything to me. Why you walked away isn’t my concern. I can’t judge you or any other man. I doubt I could have stayed with either side after the carnage you boys had seen.” His voice became a whisper. “Thing is, you had that son of a bitch in your sights and you didn’t—”

  “I was a sharpshooter in the army of the Confederate States of America,” Jake said. “You’re right about me being military.” On his feet now, Sinclair looked down at the older man.“I had lots of men in my sights, just like I did Mott. I killed those other men. Today I killed a couple of outlaws who were chasing me, shooting at me. That’s what made all the difference. That’s why I rode away from Gettysburg on a horse I salvaged—stole, I guess. I couldn’t be an executioner any longer. I’ll protect myself and I’ll protect people who are important to me, but I won’t be like Mott, the man who pulls the lever—not for you or your Night Riders, not for anyone or anything.” He took a step toward the door.

  “Sit down, Jake,” Galvin said quietly. “Give me a minute.”

  Jake stopped and, after more than a couple of seconds, turned back and took his seat on the couch once again.

  “What you’ve done in the war and who you’ve done it for doesn’t matter a hoot to me. Reb or Union, it seems to me that we have a whole generation of good men killing each other over bullshit an’ politics. I read in Harper’s Illustrated that a boy—a Union private—put a bayonet through his own brother’s chest—a Reb private—at Manassas. That was . . . well, hell, Jake—I’m wandering here. Point is, without you, those outlaws would go on doing what they were doing as long as they wanted to. I got to thank you for that.” He shook his head a bit. “Passing on the opportunity to drop the man who hanged my son won’t ever set right with me, Jake. I guess you can understand that, and you’ll understand it even more if you ever become a father. But I know you had your reasons, and I guess that’ll have to be good enough for me.”

  “Thanks, Lou,” Sinclair said quietly.

  The silence returned to room, this time almost funereal rather than tense, as if neither man quite knew what to say or how to end the meeting.

  “One more thing,” Galvin finally said. “You mentioned Mott’s men were chasing you. What stopped them? Seems like your gunning a couple of them would have heated them up so they’d ride hard to get you.”

  “I wondered about that. Then I thought about it as I rode back here. What’s happening is this, I’m pretty sure: Mott gave his men orders to chase me a bit but not to follow me here for a fight. He’s not a fool. He’s thinking he has the town in his hand and fighting a pitched battle here would only cost him some men and some time. Hell, why not just sit back and keep running Fairplay exactly as he has been? It’s worked for him for several years. There’s no reason it won’t keep working. Sit tight, run whores, swill booze, and be the goddamn king of Fairplay is a fine way to go, at least in his mind. Why bother with a bunch of farmers holed up on a ranch miles away from town?

  “He knows the men can’t stay here forever, Lou—that eventually they’ll have to go back to their homes, their own spreads. That’s when he’ll hit them. Here, they’re like an armed and guarded encampment, but separately they’re easy prey for Mott’s gang of cutthroats. They can wipe out your boys one by one, family by family, attacking whenever Mott cares to.”

  Galvin leaned forward and picked up the now cool cup of coffee he’d set on the floor earlier. He sipped from it and grimaced. “Cold,” he said. “I’m going to the kitchen to freshen this. Give me your cup—you can use a refill, I’m thinking.”

  Jake handed over the
mug. He rose and walked to the window. The blond young girl raced around the edge of the house, screeching, running for all she was worth, clutching at her dress to keep from stepping on the hem and tumbling. A few feet behind her one of her brothers was in pursuit, a yard-long milk snake writhing from his fist, his smile broad enough and bright enough to outshine the sun. Jake smiled at the children and then was suddenly disoriented, almost dizzy. The images of him and his friend Apollo, the son of his family’s cook, chasing Apollo’s sister, Aphrodite, across the pasture grass with a fat swamp toad, washed away the scene outside the window of Galvin’s house. Neither black had a last name; most slave owners named children born on their plantations whimsically, with about as much forethought as they’d give to naming a litter of mongrel puppies. Aphrodite and Apollo had been Jake’s best friends through his childhood, and their mother’s sister had been his nanny. They’d still been with his father when Jake left for war. He had no idea where they were now—if they’d abandoned the plantation after the Emancipation Proclamation or opted to stay with the elder Sinclair. Abraham Lincoln’s five pages of handwritten words, declaring “that all persons held as slaves are, and henceforth shall be, free,” tolled the end of the Southern livelihood and way of life, according to Confederacy sympathizers.

  Jake had never felt that his friends were chattel—property—and, actually, hadn’t given the idea much thought until very recently. It was simply the way things were in the South—perhaps as things were supposed to be. Now he wasn’t at all sure about the institution of African slavery. It was difficult for him to imagine his father’s slaves taking care of themselves outside the plantation, away from a master who provided them with everything they had—food, housing, medical care, even clothing. But, still, didn’t a black man deserve a shot at freedom? And what about the Negro babies being birthed now? Should they grow up under the lifetime yoke of—

  “Jake? Where are you? Here’s your coffee. You look dazed, son.”

  Jake took the mug. “Drifting a bit, I guess,” he said. He sipped at his cup. The heady scent of whiskey reached him even before the aroma of the coffee in which it was mixed. “Just the thing,” he said, following Galvin back to their seats.

  Lou lit a cigar and drew on it until clouds of fragrant bluish smoke surrounded him. “Cigar, Jake?” he asked.

  “No—no, thanks. This Irish coffee’ll do me just fine.”

  Lou settled more comfortably in his armchair. “So,” he said after a long moment, “what can we do—from a military standpoint, I mean?”

  Jake didn’t need to think before speaking. The answer to that question had been in his mind ever since his ride back from the gunfight that morning. “I don’t see that we have but a single option, Lou, unless all of you want things to stay just as they’ve been since Mott took over.”

  “You know we don’t want that, Jake. That’s why all of us are here, armed, posting guards and all. What’s your plan?”

  Jake drank half his coffee and lowered the cup. “It’s not much of a plan quite yet,” he said, “but I think I have an idea.”

  “And that idea is what?”

  “I’m approaching the whole thing from—like you said—a military standpoint. If two armies were in the same basic situation we have here, the one feeling the pressure would act quickly and decisively.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah,” Jake said. “I say we attack Fairplay and shoot Mott’s ass off right there in town.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  The whole goddamn operation was coming apart.

  Mott had the entire town of Fairplay tucked securely behind bulwarks of huge, fantastically long tree trunks that ran, unbroken and straight as a schoolmarm’s ruler, the full length of the town. The cannons—four-inchers and some with maws double that—were firing canisters and grapeshot, tearing gaping holes in both men and the attack line Jake had formed. Now the outlaws were jamming long lengths of heavy chain into the barrels of their artillery, the chains twisting sinuously, strangely slowly and gracefully in the air, cutting men in half as easily as a sharp scythe shears ripe wheat. The horrible whine of the chains through the air was just as Sinclair had heard it at the bloodbath at Antietam—an eerie, high-pitched tone that was far more frightening than the reports of the cannons themselves.

  A hot-air observation balloon drifted in the wind currents above Fairplay, a flagman directing Mott’s artillery. Jake squinted at it carefully through the smoke and then fell back, stunned, aghast. Uriah Toole, still headless from Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg but somehow clearly identifiable, pointed his red flag directly at Sinclair. Billy Galvin, a noose snug around his neck, trailing a short length of rope, was jacking rounds into his rifle, firing nonstop. One of his slugs took Lou Galvin in the forehead and Lou’s lifeless body spun—cartwheeled—off into the prairie like a tumbleweed in a stiff wind.

  Jake fed a cartridge into the breech of his Sharps, drew a breath, and placed his sights on the chest of an outlaw behind the crank of a Gattling gun. Jake eased back on the trigger and tiny bits of blowback gunpowder stung his forehead and cheek. The slug lumbered out of the end of the octagonal barrel, hesitated for a long moment in the air, and then made an abrupt turn, picked up speed and velocity, and blew a massive hole into the chest of the little boy who’d been chasing his sister with the milk snake. The outlaws were using what looked like a medieval catapult of some sort, hurling liquid sheets of white-hot molten . . .

  Sinclair writhed in his bed, the light cover wrapped around him as tightly as a leather restraint, his face, his chest drenched in sweat. He fought to a sitting position, gasping, the narrow bed rocking crazily as he battled against the horrors of his nightmare. A gentle shaft of moonlight opaquely lighting the room brought Jake to his senses. His breath rasped in his throat as if he’d run full-out far too long and his heart banged frantically in his chest. Sucking in air, almost sobbing, he unwrapped the sodden sheet from his upper body, tossed it aside, and made his way on trembling legs to the window. He leaned forward, nose touching the cold glass, supporting his upper body with his hands on the sill. He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep, but the night was still deep-dark and there was no hint of light at the eastern horizon, not even the vague pastels of false dawn.

  A single lantern shone from window to window in the barn as the man carrying it moved about inside the structure. As Sinclair watched, another light moved from the far side of the barn to join the one he’d seen first. A horse in one of the stalls nickered and, in a moment, another stomped steel-shod hooves on the wooden floor and answered with a low whinny. A pair of men moved from the darkness into the scant light in front of the barn, slid the overhead door open, and went inside, leaving the gap open. Both men had rifles over their shoulders.

  Jake took his hands from the sill and stood straight before the window. His breathing was regular now—almost normal—and the light-headed trembling sensation was gone. It was chilly in the room and his sweat became a clammy blanket. He used the shaving towel from the hook on the side of the dresser to rub his chest and face dry, scratched a lucifer, and lit his lamp. The water in the basin was cold as he slapped it on his face and neck. He whipped thick suds in the saving cup and worked the Ohio Brand razor a few sweeping strokes against the buffalo-leather strop Lou had provided. Jake had missed the morning ritual of shaving during the time he was drifting, although at the time he hadn’t realized it. Since being at Galvin’s place he’d been shaving daily. It was a good way to start a day. As he was wiping away lather from his neck his hand brushed against locks of hair that now reached damned near his shoulders. He gathered a thick clump and sheared off a good three inches, and then worked his way around the back of his head, the Swedish steel blade parting the hair cleanly, effortlessly. He pulled on his denim pants and then his boots. He buttoned his shirt and shrugged on his vest. Last, he buckled on his holster and Colt, tying the holster low on his right leg. His fingers moved around his gun belt, assuring himself that each loop cont
ained a fresh cartridge, although he’d checked at least once the night before. There was a seam of yellowish light at the horizon the next time Sinclair glanced out the window. His Sharps had been leaning against the wall next to his bed. He picked up the sack of .54-caliber cartridges from the floor next to the stock of the rifle and distributed them among his vest and pants pockets, checked to be positive that there was a round in the chamber and the safety lock in place, and left his room carrying his rifle in one hand and his lantern in the other. The light created sharp-edged shadows in the hall in front of him. As he passed Lou’s bedroom he saw that the door was open and that the room was empty.

  The cheerful aroma of brewing coffee reached Sinclair before he started down the stairs, as did the hazy light from the kitchen, which grew stronger as he walked through the parlor. Lou Galvin sat at the table, a mug of coffee in his hand. He nodded toward the pot on the woodstove. “Help yourself,” he said. “But be careful an’drink it slow—otherwise it’ll melt your teeth down to nubs.” He grinned. “I may have made it the slightest bit strong.”

  Sinclair took a mug from the sideboard and filled it. He sipped. “No stronger than, say, a cup of lye and catamount piss—but it tastes just fine.” He sat across from Lou.