by William Gear
The revolver blasted fire into the blackness, the flash illuminated her room. As the concussion deafened her, she caught a glimpse of Maxwell Johnson’s frightened face. His eyes were wide, his mouth open in an O, hands out as if to stop her.
And then the room went black and silent.
For a moment she sat in shock, gasping for breath. The sulfuric smell of burned powder clogged her nose. Her ears were ringing.
“Dear God!” she whispered.
“You silly cunt!” Maxwell whined. “You could have killed me!”
Through her ringing ears, she heard him scramble to his feet, knock over her little table, and fling the door open with a crash. She saw his figure silhouetted against the slight light of the basement, and then his feet pounded on the stairs.
Shivering and sobbing, she lowered the heavy pistol. God, if only she could stop her skin from crawling, banish the blue gleam of Dewley’s eyes where they stared at her from the back of her mind.
50
December 31, 1864
“They have soup at Madame Sabrina’s,” Butler reminded his brother. “Kershaw says the men are getting a mite weary of short rations.” Butler hunched on the foot of his bed where it was stuffed back under the sloping roof.
Doc continued to ignore him as he lifted the newspaper to the feeble light coming through the small glass window in the dormer. Their tiny upstairs room was cramped and cold. Doc’s breath rose in the chill.
Doc announced, “Listen to this. It’s a telegraph sent from General Sherman in Georgia to Lincoln. ‘I beg to present you, as a Christmas present, the city of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, and also about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton.’”
Butler huddled deeper in his coat. Just behind his ear, Kershaw muttered, “The Confederacy is dun foah. That damn Texan Gen’ral Hood has what’s left of the Army of Tennessee skeedadling south. Atlanta and Savannah gone. Marse Robert’s got that bulldog Grant’s teeth locked in his throat at Petersburg.”
“Reckon we all otta jist head on home,” Corporal Pettigrew offered where he sat on the foot of Doc’s bed. The rest of the men were crowded around in the small room, some looking over Doc’s shoulder as he read the St. Louis paper in the fading light.
To his brother, Butler said, “That cook, Hallie Louise, makes a most amazing stew. And it is New Year’s Eve. There will probably be special victuals prepared for a night as auspicious as this.”
Doc shot him a sidelong glance, his lips pursed. “No doubt,” he replied, and then went back to squinting at the paper.
“Why do you answer me sometimes and not others?” Butler demanded, slapping his hands to his knees.
“I’ve decided that when you mention the men, I will no longer respond. That by doing so I’m contributing to your mental illness. Abetting, if not downright rewarding it, as the case may be.”
“Reckon that man’s forever agin’ us,” Phil Vail groused where he sat cross-legged on the floor and fingered a Bowie knife.
Butler almost responded, then grinned to himself, gesturing for Vail to desist. Time to take a more erudite approach. “Philip, on this cold night, would it not behoove us to journey down to Madame Sabrina’s and determine if she needs our assistance?”
“No.” Philip glared at him over the top of the paper. “There is a loaf of bread and some salt pork in the paper wrapper by the windowsill. That will assuage your hunger.”
“Might as well be back in Camp Douglas,” Kershaw muttered behind Butler’s ear.
“Something more filling and tasteful might—”
“We’re saving money, Butler. Train fare to Kansas City or Rolla, let alone the cost of getting from there to Springfield, is substantial.” Doc rubbed his face. “We might be able to find someone willing to let us ride on their wagon, but more likely, we’ll have to walk that last one hundred and fifty miles.”
“We walked from Chicago to St. Louis.”
Doc smiled, as if warily amused. “You ask me, it was a miracle we weren’t strung up as thieves.”
“Who he calling thieves?” Pettigrew asked, scowling. “Them’s Yankees we raided.”
Doc pointed to the worn medical bag by the door. “And I still owe five dollars for the instruments. It was a miracle that I found a used set, let alone that old man Gower would allow me to pay them off on time.” Glaring over the paper, Doc met Butler’s eyes. “Unless you just happen to have another Hernstein surgical case hidden away among all those imaginary men of yours.”
“Philip, you have no reason to turn trite and sarcastic.”
Doc’s smile flickered and died. “I’m sorry. You’re right.” He lowered the paper. “We just have to build ourselves up from the bottom, Butler. A physician is judged by his appearance as well as his skill. Once upon a time I swore I’d never again sell my services to a brothel, but in the five months we’ve been in St. Louis, I’ve made enough to put a roof—such as it is—over our heads. We’ve warm clothes and full stomachs. My reputation is such that I can charge more, and the referrals have created a steady business for me.”
“And I get to do odd jobs like painting and cleaning. That helps.”
“Whorehouses seem to have an affinity for the mentally deranged that more elevated establishments do not. Odd that they are so forgiving, but I didn’t devote myself to medicine to spend the rest of my life treating women for hysteria, dosing for syphilis and the clap, and terminating the occasional pregnancy.” Doc pointed a finger. “Come spring, I intend to have enough money to leave this all behind and make our way home.”
“Once past Springfield,” Butler reminded, “there’s not that many fat Yankee farms to raid. And that General Curtis has ordered all the counties in western Missouri to be evacuated. Might be slim pickings until we get to White River.”
“Heard they’s still fighting down to Arkansas,” Kershaw agreed. “’Specially in yor country in de nor’west.”
“Bushwhackers and guerrillas,” Butler agreed. “I wonder what Tom would say if he could see how the independent rangers turned into such an outlaw bunch of—”
“Butler!” Doc snapped, irritation straining his face.
Butler evaded his gaze, knowing full well how Philip hated it when he started talking to his men. But then Philip had been out of sorts since they’d arrived in St. Louis. Butler and the men had “raided” them some clothes from a line over in Illinois, but Philip still wasn’t presentable as a surgeon, let alone a Rebel one. He’d only taken to working the bawdy houses since the girls didn’t care who he was or where he came from. And they paid in coin.
“And they lets you do odd jobs in return for a plate of vittles,” Phil Vail crowed as he studied his knife.
“That’s right,” Butler agreed. “I could sure do with a plate of Madame Sabrin—” He let the rest drop as Doc gave him a sidelong squint.
Keen-eared, Butler heard it first. Hurried steps on the stairway. Doc turned his head just before the rapid knock came.
“Yes?”
“Dr. Hancock? Madame Sabrina sent me. We got a problem. She said to bring you no matter what.”
“What happened?” Doc demanded, rising and walking over to open the door.
Sally Hamilton, no more than sixteen, shivered in a long wool coat. Her thin face—almost unrecognizable washed of its makeup—looked worried. Her hazel eyes widened as she said, “One of the johnnies got a little out of control. Started beating on Chloe. Tanner heard the ruckus and busted a chair across his face. Chloe and the johnny, they’s both in need of stitches.”
Doc shook his head wearily, then reached for his coat.
“Looks like we gonna get a fine New Year’s Eve supper after all,” Kershaw murmured in Butler’s ear.
“Ya’ll reckon they gots black-eyed peas and ham?” Jimmy Peterson wondered.
“While Philip stitches, I’ll be most happy to clean up the blood and dispose of the wrecked furniture. That surely will be worth a bowl or two of whatever fe
ast Hallie Louise has prepared.”
“I don’t know how you do it,” Doc muttered as he picked up his hat and bag. “If I didn’t know you were cursed, I’d say you were blessed.”
Clapping his hat onto his head, Doc followed Sally Hamilton down the stairs. Butler slammed the door behind him, grinning ear to ear as he followed them down the rickety stairs to the alley.
51
March 11, 1865
Billy Hancock rode his tired and stumbling gelding through the thicket along the creekside trail. A good felt hat was clamped tight to his head, his long locks hanging down over the collar of his coat. The Sharps rested across his saddle, easy at hand, and high cavalry boots rose to above his knees. Compliments of a Yankee trooper who no longer had need of them.
All in all, with his linsey shirt and tan pants, Billy thought he cut quite the figure.
Evening was coming, and the birds sounded as full of spring as the flowers that blossomed in the newly sprouted grass. In the south, lightning flickered in tall, bruised clouds.
“Who comes?” a voice called from the scrub oak to the right.
“Billy Hancock. As if you, Bub Dix, didn’t have eyes in yer head to recognize me.”
Billy followed the trail into the small camp where nine stained-and-moldy tents and a couple of lean-tos surrounded a clearing. The camp was home to about twenty men, former Confederate soldiers. Most were deserters, hiding out to avoid conscription at best—trial and execution for desertion at worst. In Billy’s mind, the only crime they’d committed was being smart enough to want out of the whole damn mess back East.
“What news?” Charlie Deveroux asked as he stood. His Enfield rifle hung from one hand, a tin coffee cup in the other. Charlie was closing in on forty. A thin man with weary brown eyes and a thick black beard, he walked with a slight limp from a wound received at Vicksburg. He was sort of the leader, if any man could be called that.
“Not much. I slipped into a tavern outside Fort Worth a couple of nights ago. Talk is that the militia is going to leave Waco and make a sweep north looking for conscripts.” Billy smiled. “Word is they ain’t gonna be looking any too hard even if they get their lazy asses out of camp.”
“What’s changed?”
“The war, Charlie.”
Here and there men appeared out of tents and the brush down by the creek. Any arrival of news was greeted with curiosity.
“Is it over?”
“Not yet. Reckon it’ll be soon, though. South Carolina is wrecked and Sherman is marching into North Carolina. Won’t be another month and he’ll be coming in ahind Gen’ral Lee. Ain’t nothing but guerrilla bands fighting the Yankees. Little pockets of Rebs like in Texas, southwest Arkansas, and northwest Louisiana. Heard that Florida’s mostly untouched, but who’d want it?”
Charlie scratched his beard, black eyes thoughtful. “Where’s Danny?”
“Looking to a young lady at a place called Eulalia’s in Fort Worth.” Billy walked his horse to cool him out after shucking the saddle. “Told him I’d ride up and give you boys the word that it won’t be long and we’ll all be free.”
“You starting to sound like a Yankee?” Amos Kern asked facetiously. He was a lanky and tall man in his thirties who longed constantly for his wife in Shreveport.
Satisfied that his worn-out gelding had been seen to, Billy tied him to the picket rope before walking over and seating himself by the fire.
Charlie was watching him with those hard black eyes, a curious reservation in his face.
“What?” Billy demanded.
“You going back to Arkansas after it’s over?”
Billy chewed his lip, frowned. “Maw’s dead. Reckon Paw is too, since no one heard a word of him after Shiloh. If Sarah’s back at the farm, she sure as hell don’t want to see me. Had one brother in prison camp up to Camp Douglas. And Butler? If he survived Chickamauga, there was the Atlanta battles, then Franklin and Nashville. He was an officer, so if he survived, Yankees’ll most likely throw his bones into a prison camp after the surrender. Maybe hang him. No telling what’s gonna happen to all them Rebels.”
“So … what’re you gonna do?”
Billy could feel this leading up to something. “You got a suggestion?”
“You been pinch-mouthed about it, but I heard you killed a renegade Confederate lieutenant in a card game up in the Nations.”
“He was a bottom dealer. Danny caught him cheatin’.”
“Heard he got off the first shot and missed. That cool as a springhouse, you shot him through the heart. That he’d killed five men in pistol fights, and a heap more riding with Bloody Bill Anderson. That he was known as a mighty mean man.”
Billy narrowed his eyes. “He’s a cheat. Don’t matter how tough a man is said to be, a bullet to the heart’ll make him dust.”
“And there’s the Dewley bunch over to Arkansas.” Charlie lifted a calming hand. “Yes, I been asking about you. I’da been a fool not to. Something about you is like a coiled snake, Billy Hancock. Cold and deadly.”
“You got a point to all this?”
Charlie glanced around, making sure the others had drifted off. From his boot top, he pulled a whiskey flask and offered it to Billy. “Not a point. A proposition.”
“Then make it.” Billy took a swig of the whiskey.
“War’s ending, and the Rebs are losing. There’s scores to be settled, and bad blood to be dealt with. That means there’s money to be made.” Charlie’s dark eyes seemed to sharpen. “Assuming, that is, that a man isn’t any too squeamish about killing.”
Billy took another sip of the whiskey, waiting.
Charlie added, “You know about the Dutchies down ’round Fredericksburg? Large community. Most had Union loyalty. Lot of Texas Rebels had it out for them. You heard about the ‘Butcher of Fredericksburg,’ the People’s Court?”
“Yep. Local justice looking for traitors and deserters. If’n they’da caught Danny and me, and we’d Injuned away from the conscription, they’da been the ones in Texas to judge and hang us by our scrawny necks.”
“A friend of mine is a Dutchy. His sons were hung by a People’s Court. All four of them. For treason. Funny thing is, the judge of that People’s Court now claims title to my friend’s land and holdings. All of it.”
“Sounds like this judge is a lying and thievin’ bastard, but he ain’t my bastard to worry about. So why would I care?”
“What if I told you two hundred dollars in gold could be yours if that judge was found dead some morning.”
Billy took another swig of the whiskey. “That’s a lot of money.”
“My friend is willing to pay for justice. His youngest boy was just thirteen. Only reason my friend didn’t swing with them is because his wife’s sister over in Burnet took sick the afternoon before the riders arrived. So he wasn’t home.”
Two hundred dollars? Billy rocked his jaw back and forth. Just to kill a thief? Of course, the judge would be an important man, somebody with local connections to county or state. But the time to get him would be now, before the Yankees marched in and declared martial law. And as soon as they did, there’d be confusion everywhere.
“Where do I have to go?”
“Lampasas.”
“Why don’t your friend do it hisself?”
“And swing for the murder of the man who hung his boys? No, he’s got to be somewhere else. Austin. San Antonio. Someplace where he can prove he didn’t do it.”
Billy felt the devil warm the area around his heart. It would be hunting, just like he’d done with Dewley’s bastards. And it was still justice, doing right by bringing down the evildoers.
“How do I get paid?”
“If you’re right, and the war’s about over, I’d meet you at Eulalia’s first of April.” Charlie took the whiskey flask and drank from it. Swallowing he added, “And the money will be there, Billy Hancock. Not only do you got my word, but you’re the last person on earth I want to spend my life running from, you spooky bastard
.”
Billy grinned at that, clasping his arms around the knees of his high-topped boots. “Better tell your friend to spend the rest of the month in San Antonio. Tell Danny I’ll meet him at Eulalia’s that same night.”
He liked Eulalia’s. There was a whore there who never made fun of him if his pizzle stayed limp. That seemed to happen more often these days, especially if he’d had one of the nightmares recently.
52
March 22, 1865
The man’s name was Anson Hartlee. True to Billy’s instincts, Hartlee was everything Billy had figured he’d be. Hartlee was active in the Texas Democratic Party—one of the most prominent men in both Lampasas and Burnet Counties, with connections in Austin. He was the director of two local banks, and one of the biggest landholders in the county. During the war, his empire had grown to include quite a bit of land confiscated from the Germans down around Fredericksburg.
Hartlee’s ranch lay five miles south of Lampasas on the Burnet Road and consisted of a two-story stone house, large barn, cotton, corn, and tobacco fields, and several outbuildings.
For three days, Billy applied his skills as he scouted around the Hartlee ranch, learning the lay of the land. Watching the comings and goings. The five hunting dogs might have been a problem, but Billy began sneaking close from downwind and leaving treats for the dogs. These he’d carry under his armpit to ensure they were doused with his scent, and he’d urinate close by to ensure the dogs were accustomed to his presence.
By the fourth day, the dogs didn’t react when he approached the house from upwind.
Hartlee lived alone, his wife having died of the typhoid three years earlier. Of his three sons, one had died at Shiloh, another at Chancellorsville, and the third was reportedly convalescing in Chimborazo hospital in Richmond after losing his left leg.
The banker had four Negro slaves who worked the fields and retired at sunset. A fifth, a male house servant, prepared the meals and saw to the domestic duties.
Each morning Hartlee had ridden off on his big black horse at just before seven. Each evening he returned home a little after six. When he did, he rode the black into the barn, stripped the saddle and bridle, curried the animal, watered it, and locked it into a stall for the night. Only then did he walk to the slave quarters for a report on the day’s activities. That done, he retired to the house and a supper laid on the dining room table.