Beaudry's Ghost

by Carolan Ivey

  Troy and John watched in dismay as Lane loaded Taylor into the back of her truck.

  “Damn it! I should have known Lane wouldn’t stay out of this!”

  “What now, smart boy?”

  “Have you learned to materialize?”

  “Give me a break. I’m a fast learner, but not that fast.”

  “Hmm. Well, you invaded her dreams that one time. Looks like you’ll have to do it when she’s conscious. It’s gotta look convincing.”

  “Convincing, I can be. What have you got in mind?”

  “A plan. I think. But it’s going to take perfect timing and we’re only going to get one crack at this. Are you ready?”

  “Let’s go. I’m really starting to miss my pretty face. Oh, by the way, there’s something I think you should know. My name.”

  “I already know it. John, right?”

  “Yeah, it’s John. But maybe it’s time you knew my full name. John Beaudry Garrison.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Toward dawn the next day, the grey horse’s heart finally broke.

  And if Jared hadn’t chosen that exact moment to give his fatigued eyes a rest, he would have thought to pull his legs out of the way as the animal went down. But the gelding took one last step, shuddered violently, and collapsed onto its side, pinning Jared’s left leg.

  He grunted and tried to pull free, using his free foot braced against the saddle for leverage. Although the forgiving sand had prevented the weight of the horse from crushing bone, he was stuck like an insect to a specimen board.

  The horse lay with sides heaving, every breath a low moan. Through his pinned leg, he felt the erratic beat of the animal’s great heart and prayed the gelding wouldn’t die. He laid his hand on its foam-flecked neck and asked forgiveness. Ordinarily he would never have ridden the horse down this hard, but it couldn’t be helped.

  He turned as far as he could and scanned the beach in both directions. About a quarter mile to the south, Cape Hatteras Lighthouse glowed and darkened. Glowed and darkened. A silent, ancient signal. The slow, measured cadence echoed in his chest, both beacon and warning.

  To the north, the darkness seemed empty, save for the faint white foam of the waves as they crashed onto the shore. But Harris was out there somewhere, closing on him right now. Until this moment Jared had figured he had a fighting chance to get himself and his borrowed body out of this situation alive. As long as he was free, he had the option to face Harris and fight. But now, unless this horse got up off his leg—not likely in the next few minutes—his options were few. Damn! Jared drove his fist into the sand.

  It had taken much longer than he’d anticipated to reach this spot. Lt. Harris and his few remaining men—two, to be exact—had spotted him as he’d left Taylor at the beach house the night before. The good grey horse he rode had easily outdistanced the slower pack horses ridden by Harris and his men. But the going had been slow as Jared had been hard pressed to find sufficient cover to avoid discovery not only by Harris, but by the police Taylor so feared. Her last warning to him had been to look out for cars colored black and white, topped with colored lights. He’d seen plenty of them, but they hadn’t seen him. He’d made sure of it.

  But another night without proper food and rest had cost him—and the horse. A finer, braver animal he’d never ridden, save for Raven. The horse grunted and paddled its legs weakly, sensing his urgency and trying to respond. He took the reins and held the gelding’s head down, soothing with voice and hands. Perhaps if the horse rested a few minutes, it would find the strength to stagger to its feet. Pushing it to do so now might kill it.

  His pinned leg going numb, he watched the crazy pattern of waves break against the shore, veiled by thin morning mist and lit by a waning moon and the brightening eastern sky. The meeting of two mighty Atlantic currents, one from the north and one from the south, stirred up an erratic maze of currents and shoals that gave this coastal area its name—The Graveyard of the Atlantic.

  Weary to his soul, he let his mind drift back to the night before. Remembering the sounds Taylor had made when she’d surrendered to him. The feel of her face, warm under his palms. The whole of her skin pressed against the whole of his.

  Stop, he commanded himself, pulling down his wayward body’s response to just thinking about her. He rested his head on the sand, telling himself yet again that leaving her behind had been the right thing to do. Though now not only was he going to die, but the body he’d borrowed would die, too, leaving another soul to wander on this beach along with him. Had she been here to run interference, there had been a slim chance he could avoid a shot to the back. But now, without her, and trapped, there was no way to avoid the bullet or the sword that would slice his throat. He had only the Bowie knife and the muzzle-loading pistol to defend himself, but it was more than he’d had in 1862. He reached behind his back to make sure he still had both, tucked under his uniform coat.

  The movement overturned the knapsack, which had fallen to his side when the horse had gone down. A sloshing sound reminded him that she must have put an extra container of water inside before he’d left her holding his heart at the beach house.

  The dryness in his throat had nothing to do with thirst, but Jared opened the knapsack anyway. Two metal tins gleamed in the moonlight, and Jared held them up. Coors. Didn’t recognize the name. But the four-letter word printed underneath needed no translation.

  “Beer!” The word emerged from between gasps of appreciative laughter. It was warm, thanks to the heat of the sweaty horse, and Jared had no idea how to open the can, but at that moment he knew he was well and truly in love with Taylor Brannon.

  The metal seemed thin enough. He pulled out the long Bowie knife, poked two holes in the lid, and in short order had half the contents consumed. He set the can aside, leaned back on his elbows and watched the dawn, smiling in spite of what he knew awaited him with the rising sun.

  Grady, my friend, this is one lady we could have fought to the death over.

  A faint stab of pain, barely pinprick, pierced him in the upper back. For a moment his breathing halted, then it was gone. The tattered edges of his soul tore loose in the rising inner wind that warned him Harris was near. Sunrise wasn’t far off; he didn’t have much time left. He turned his face to the north and waited.

  He didn’t wait long. He sat up and watched them approach, breathing slowly to stay focused, calm.

  Three shapeless forms plodded out of the mist, outlines sharpening as they advanced. No doubt their smaller pack horses were about done in. Especially the one carrying the impressive weight of Corporal Gulley.

  One of the figures stood in the stirrups, and he had no trouble recognizing the ramrod-straight posture of Lt. Zachariah Harris. Never taking his eyes from the men, Jared scooped the beer can out of the sand and swallowed the rest. Drawing his lips away from his teeth as the last of the bitter brew slid down his ominously tingling throat, he crushed the can in his hand and dropped it beside him Then he felt for the pistol he’d stuck in the back of his trousers and again waited, his heart pounding louder in his ears with each step the horses took. He knew what was coming, but he planned to go down fighting. He owed it to the man whose body he’d borrowed.

  Harris, Gulley and another man Jared remembered as Stan Follet drew their horses up a few yards away

  Harris leaned his weight on the saddle horn and studied Jared for several seconds. The lieutenant looked the worse for wear after his long journey south. His formerly impeccable grey uniform was encrusted with sand, dark with sweat and rumpled from the ride. The handsome, boyish face was a little rough around the edges, owing to several days’ growth of fuzzy blond beard. But the eyes were the same. Steely grey, slightly mad, missing nothing.

  “A fine morning to die, eh, Beaudry?” he said mildly, just loud enough to be heard over the surf. “Looks like you’ve already killed my horse. You’ll be joining him shortly.”

  Jared went still, his mind searching for options and finding none, save on
e. To keep his enemy in front of him at all costs. Difficult when he was held flat on the sand by the exhausted horse.

  Harris straightened and leisurely drew his pistol, studying it as he spoke.

  “Where’s your young friend, Beaudry? I figured you’d taken him along, since you two seemed so fond of each other.”

  Jared steeled his expression to betray nothing. “As good as dead, after I got through with him.” Which was mostly true, Jared thought ruefully. “He was a good boy, but young. Too trusting. Just who trains your soldiers, Harris? Private Taylor was much too easily led. He should have been home milking cows and suckering tobacco, but as it is…” Jared lifted a shoulder in a regretful shrug and let the sentence dangle.

  Harris’s gaze shifted to the lighthouse, spearing straight up one hundred-eighty feet into the grey light of dawn.

  “Planning on defending this lighthouse to the death, were you? You’re a specialist in lost causes, I see. Much like the prisoners I dealt with at Salisbury prison. One in particular. Oh, he was quite troublesome, yes indeed.” Harris laughed, in no hurry now that he saw that his quarry wasn’t going anywhere. “Give up, man. This one’s going the way of the Bodie Island light.” With motion of his head, he ordered Follet and Gulley to dismount.

  Jared’s breath came harder. The same pain that had agonized his arm and leg was about to return. It felt like a giant stepped on his lungs, and Jared clenched his fists, remembering his promise to Taylor. However, he could see no way out of this without damaging any of the three men before him.

  “The Bodie light is still standing, Lieutenant,” Jared goaded. Stalling for time, though he didn’t know why. He’d run out of options. Best to get this over with.

  The news didn’t seem to disturb Harris. “Perhaps. But the bullets I put in its lens will darken it for some time to come. Once I do the same to the Hatteras light, the Yankee Navy won’t be able to use my sacred home soil for anything but to snag their keels.” Harris looked pleased with himself as he stepped down from the horse. “You have caused me a great lot of trouble, Beaudry. My guess is it runs in the family.”

  Jared grinned in spite of what felt like a steel band tightening around his throat. He prayed he’d be able to stay lucid. The horse on his leg coughed, an unhealthy gurgle.

  “Only doing my job.”

  “And I fear I must complete mine.”

  Harris’s body visibly tautened in preparation to fight. Jared restrained his twitching hands from reaching for the pistol at his back, though he didn’t know what the hell held him back. No rescue would miraculously appear out of the mist.

  “Go get him out from under my horse, boys,” ordered Harris. “I just remembered there’s a promise I haven’t kept—to leave behind a calling card for our approaching guests in blue. And if nothing else,” Harris drew his sword and paused to admire the blade, “I always keep my promises.”

  Hefting their muskets, Gulley and Follet advanced upon Jared, who noticed two things. Follet, the younger of the two, was white and shaking, much like the first time Jared had seen him. Gulley’s face was blank, a look Jared knew well. Gulley had shut down anything resembling emotion or feeling, just to get himself through the war and get back home.

  Stay with me on this, Gulley, and you’ll be home soon enough.

  If the two men got hold of him, Jared knew he didn’t have the strength to fight them for very long. They’d hold him down and allow Harris to slice at will. Now was the time. He reached for his pistol, bringing it around to point noncommittally at the two approaching soldiers. Gulley scowled, apparently recognizing the weapon as his own.

  “Which one of you Greybacks is willing to die first?” Gulley and Follet halted in their tracks. Follet glanced nervously at his partner, then back at Harris.

  Harris laughed, kept laughing as he moved between Follet and Gulley, and spread his arms wide apart.

  “You want to kill someone, Beaudry?” His eyes locked with Jared’s and took on a feral gleam. “Kill me.”

  Jared braced on one hand while holding the pistol in the other, his body twisted painfully so he could face the threat. He stared up the barrel, level with the lieutenant’s forehead. For second time in two days, he had the chance to end this the way he’d fantasized for more than a century. And Harris was handing it to him on a silver platter.

  For a split second, Jared’s finger tightened on the trigger, wanting more than anything else on earth to kill this man who had caused him and his family a world of suffering. Wanted it. Harris raised an eyebrow expectantly. Jared’s hand shook with the effort to pull the trigger, but his finger refused to budge.

  Taylor’s angry tirade came back to him—when she’d threatened to take him apart herself if he lifted a hand against any of these men.

  He dropped his aim and fired into the sand between Harris’s feet. The man didn’t budge so much as an inch.

  Harris laughed and shook his head, snagged the weapon from Jared’s hand and proceeded to reload it. “Just like I told you, boys,” he said to Gulley and Follet. “He couldn’t do it two days ago during the skirmish, and he can’t do it now. Nothing sickens me more, Beaudry, than a coward.”

  Bile rose in Jared’s throat and he fingered the knife at the small of his back. And for once reined in his temper.

  “Men,” said Harris, “you are ordered to take this Yankee prisoner.”

  Follet turned whiter. Gulley took a deep breath and moved forward. Jared took a quick look at the lightening sky and calculated how much time he had left. Too much, he figured.

  Taylor, my love, forgive me for this. I’m going to have to hurt at least one of them if this man’s body is to live.

  Jared pulled the knife even as the two Rebel soldiers yanked him from under the horse. But as he’d expected, he didn’t have breath enough for an extended fight. He did manage to blacken Follet’s eye and bloody Gulley’s nose, though, before he succumbed to the larger man’s size and strength. Blood filled his mouth, thanks to Gulley’s meaty fist, as he was hauled to his feet, both arms wrenched behind him. Jared fought for air, his muscles straining against suppressed rage—rage at his own failure to save himself from the oblivion he could already feel descending upon him. Failure to prevent another man’s death.

  As she crept among the towering sand dunes in the half-light, Taylor thought she heard shouts from just up the beach.

  “There they are!” she muttered. And high time, too. For hours she’d been using up her precious reserves of strength, searching up and down this section of beach for the men who were about to kill the man she loved. Shaking with a new flood of adrenaline, she let the butt of her Enfield drop to the sand and reached for the box of cartridges on her belt. It took her twice as long as normal to load, because her hands wouldn’t stop trembling, and she couldn’t stop from swaying from one side to the other on wobbly legs.

  “Damn it, damn it, damn it!” She fumbled the cartridge and watched it drop to the sand. As she fished for another, her personal radar sensed a large, dark presence in her immediate vicinity.

  “Oh, great. Now what?” Jared had been right. Apparently she was now wide open and vulnerable to whatever itinerant spirit who happened by. Holding her breath, she slowly looked up from her task, her gaze first encountering a pair of dark hooves, equally dark horse legs and tossing head, then on up to its rider.

  “Oh, God, not you again.”

  Had she passed out and begun to dream? Before, this guy had only appeared in her sleep. No, she was just hallucinating, she decided. Jared was down the beach, fighting for his life; not mounted on this black horse in front of her. The concussion, combined with blood loss and exhaustion, had finally taken the rest of her sanity.

  “Ignore it,” she told herself, and finished loading her weapon. “It isn’t really there.” But when she looked up again, her vision was still firmly in place, positioned between her and the path to the beach. “It isn’t there,” she repeated, taking a few marching steps forward. She stumbled to a halt
when the horseman vision didn’t move, didn’t dissolve away like it was supposed to.

  “All right,” she said cautiously. And took three steps to the left to get around him. The horse danced neatly into her path. She took three steps to the right. The horse followed. Left. Cha cha cha. Right. Cha cha cha.

  “Oh, come on!” she yelled. “Get out of my way!”

  The horseman leaned forward, rested one forearm on the saddle horn, and waved his index finger at her. Nope, he seemed to say.

  From the beach, she heard the crack of a pistol. Whose? Taylor’s heart skipped over several beats as she drew her brows together in a determined frown.

  “Move it, buster. I’m coming through. Get out of my brain and leave me alone!” Using the last of her courage, she charged, bayonet pointed at the dark horseman. Next thing she knew, the dunes were behind her and her booted feet rested on flat beach. The horse and rider vision had evaporated, just as she’d suspected. So that had been her mistake all these years, she mused as knees crumpled. She’d wasted her time running from her visions when she should have been ordering them around!

  Breathing hard, she propped herself up on one arm and scanned the beach, which was partially shrouded in heavy morning mist. Damn, the men were farther away than she’d first thought. A good quarter mile. In the pale dawn she could just make out four figures, three of them locked in a struggle, but she couldn’t tell who was who. A larger, grey shape lay nearby, flat on the beach. Taylor blanched. Jeff Davis, Stephen’s beloved horse, was down. Groaning with the strain on her sore muscles and the pull on her wounds, she climbed to her feet and took off at the double-quick.

  Harris approached, smiling and waving the muzzle of the pistol in a slow circle. Jared waited until Harris was within range, and emptied his bloody mouth onto the lieutenant’s boots. Not a very noble, or wise, thing to do, Jared thought distantly. But under the circumstances, if he was going back to the lonely void he’d fought so hard to escape, he was going down fighting.