He paused a moment. Victoria stood in the bedroom door, hand over her mouth. Without a word, Dr. Samuel Knight took the stairs down two at a time and burst into the darkness.
Killing Donnelly was the smartest thing he could have done. Now the carpetbagger would have Norwood’s entire company on his trail. That was what he should have done.
Crippling him for life so he would always remember the man whose wife he had stolen felt like a better revenge.
Knight let the night swallow him as he headed for the fenced pasture and the horses there. Stealing a couple would be icing on the cake.
CHAPTER 9
Knight knew little about horses but was getting good at stealing them. He crawled over the rail fence into the pasture. Several horses came over to see if he had apples or sugar to offer. Taking a bridle from where tack had been stacked, he caught a fine-looking gelding and then led it over to the fence. Pressing against the horse forced it into the fence and gave him a chance to saddle it. Not content with one horse, he found two more bridles and finally mounted, leading his small remuda to a gate.
He thought he heard sounds coming from the barn. Two cowboys might give him trouble, but the real danger came from the main house. Gerald Donnelly would have bandaged his cut Achilles tendon and realized he was crippled for life. The man’s fury showed every time he opened his mouth. Would he take out his rage on Victoria?
“You made your bed. Now lie in it.” The bitterness welling up from inside Knight knew no limits. Her choice of a man, even if she thought he had died in the war, showed her true colors. What love he had felt for her curdled, like milk left in the hot summer sun. Hating her might come later, but for now all he felt was utter contempt.
Leaning out, he kicked at the gate with his toe and lifted the latch. If the other horses escaped, what did it matter to him? Let Donnelly do some work rounding them up. His damaged foot wouldn’t keep him from riding.
Knight applied his heels to the horse’s flanks and rocketed out of the pasture. A cry of elation escaped his lips, then he was galloping away to the road, almost dragged from the saddle by the reins leading the other two horses striving to keep up. He slowed his pace and settled down in the saddle, preparing for a long ride. Milo Hannigan and his gang—why did he think of them as a gang and not a footloose group of drifters?—would already be on the road heading west. If Knight kept riding in that direction, he had to pass through the middle of Pine Knob.
Rather than risk creating a stir by the sight of a decrepit, starved man riding a fine horse and leading others, he veered off the road. Smaller lanes crisscrossed the countryside. While he might not know them the way he had before the war, they provided more furtive ways out of town than the cavalry likely knew, having just arrived.
He passed Joel Krauss’s house. The dawn light showed his old friend already up and doing chores. A moment or two would be all it took to greet him and bid him good-bye. Knight decided against it. Krauss had known of Victoria’s betrayal and had said nothing. Perhaps he thought it wasn’t his place to give such bad news to a returning army veteran, but Knight placed honesty above charity in this regard.
He sagged as he rode past. Blaming Krauss was no answer. Knight would not have believed him if he had told of Victoria and Donnelly, and possibly would have reacted badly. “Kill the messenger” echoed all the way through the South after Lee had surrendered. No one wanted to believe the conflict had ended so badly, and everyone needed to affix blame.
In a minute, Krauss and his home lay behind. In ten, Knight felt he had successfully skirted town and turned back westward along a path overgrown with weeds. At one time it had led to a small salt mine, but when that played out and other sources of salt were discovered, there was no longer any call to ride this way. He passed the small open pit, now a tiny lake of undrinkable water, and rode faster.
Knowing this road ran parallel to the main one to his right, he eventually cut across country until he found the deep ruts and potholes of the more heavily traveled road. He looked back toward Pine Knob, then westward. Not being a trails man, he got no information from the hoofprints in the dirt that might give a clue about Hannigan and his men already passing this way.
Knight shifted uncomfortably in the saddle, then moved the gun belt around his waist so the holster rested on his left hip, the butt of the Colt Navy facing forward. Having easier access to the weapon meant he could draw without standing in the stirrups. His right hip had burned from the weight of the six-shooter since he had left Donnelly. Now it rubbed his left. This warned him that becoming a gunfighter wasn’t in the cards for him. He intended to take off the six-gun the first chance he got.
He rode another half hour without seeing any travelers. In a shady grove, he dismounted, let the horses graze, and began rummaging through the treasure trove he had taken from the upstairs storeroom. If he found a town needing a doctor, his equipment would come in handy. He placed the battered leather bag to one side. Cleaning the surgical tools was a chore for another time.
A smile lit his face when he held up the clothes. They had been work clothes, for the most part, but they might as well have been formal attire for a night at the opera when he compared them to what he wore. He stripped down, then slowly dressed in his discarded clothing, enjoying the feel of the untorn, clean cotton against his skin. No rents or holes let in a breeze, whether at the elbow of the shirt or the seat of his pants. His knees no longer poked through. The only thing missing was a pair of boots to replace the ones with the hole in the sole. Walking now, though, didn’t bother him as much. He had fine horses to ride.
He saw they were getting decent forage, then led them to a small stream for watering. If he kept one and sold the other two, he would have more money in his pocket than any time since being released from Elmira. It was the least Donnelly could give him. The very least.
The rush of events had kept him on edge and alert. Now that danger had passed, he let the exhaustion wash over him like a muzzy blanket. He made certain the horses were securely tethered, then leaned back against a sweet gum tree intending only to rest. His eyelids sagged and within seconds he slept.
* * *
Knight came awake in a rush at the sound of horses along the road. Lots of horses. He reached for his six-shooter, panicked when it wasn’t at his right hip, then remembered he had moved it. Drawing the Colt Navy from a sitting position proved easy. The pistol settled nicely into his hand as he waited to see who rode down on him.
“No need to get all antsy, Doc.”
He twisted around and almost flopped onto the ground. Ben Lunsford loomed above him, arms crossed and looking pleased with himself.
“I snuck up on you real good, didn’t I, Doc?”
“You scared the—yes, you did.” He slid the Colt back into his holster and got to his feet.
“You got the look of a man who needs a noonday meal. I scouted ahead for a good place to stop.” Lunsford pointed. “Them’s the rest of the boys.”
“There’s good water here and plenty of grass for the horses.”
“You’re comin’ up in the world. Those your mounts? Did Donnelly trade ’em for your wife?” Lunsford paled when he saw the reaction his joke caused. “Don’t throw down on me, Doc. I didn’t mean nuthin’ by that. Honest. I was joshin’ you.”
“It was in poor taste. Don’t mention it again. Ever.” Knight relaxed. He had been ready to go for the six-shooter and shoot the only friend he had left in the world. The wound Victoria had caused in his soul had not begun to heal. Maybe it would never be right. “And I stole those horses, fair and square. Does that bother you?”
“Can’t say that it does. Me and Seth have done worse ’n that since we came over from Georgia with Hannigan and the others. Hell, we’ve all done worse, but only when we have to.” His eyes went to Milo Hannigan as he rode up. His expression told Knight everything he needed to know. Hannigan was the one committing the worst crimes. The Lunsford brothers and probably the rest just did what they had to
for survival.
“Well, well, lookee what we got here. You beat us onto the road, Sam. We certainly haven’t been dawdlin’.” Hannigan glanced behind as if he expected to see someone riding down on him.
Knight suspected that might be the case. Ben Lunsford had hinted that breaking the law was less a consideration for Hannigan’s gang than what they gained. Before the war, such behavior had been unacceptable. Now Knight engaged in it himself. Worse, he hardly considered horse thieving a crime if he stole from a Northerner.
“You sure nobody’s on the trail behind you?” Knight asked.
“Now, Sam, who might you be worrying about? Could it be the blue bellies? Stealing a rifle from one of them isn’t crime enough to call out the entire company.”
“We ain’t seen ’em,” Ben Lunsford piped up. “Don’t you go worryin’ your head none ’bout them, Doc.”
“I don’t have the rifle any longer. I . . . dropped it.”
“At the scene of some crime, I’d wager. No, Sam, don’t worry. I’m not asking for an answer. What I don’t know can’t hurt me.” Milo Hannigan swung down from his horse and handed the reins to Lunsford, as if he were nothing more than a stable hand. “We need to fix some food before we ride on.”
Hannigan looked around and nodded slowly. “You picked a fine spot for a rest. We can graze the horses a mite.” He squinted at the three horses Knight had stolen. “Those make a fine addition to our herd. You mind if we let some of the others swap off as we ride? That gives us a chance to make fifty or more miles a day without killing our mounts. Ride some, switch to a fresh horse, keep going.”
“I’ve got no objection, but I intend to sell two of them when we get to a town so I can have two nickels to rub together.”
“I don’t recognize the brands on their rumps. Looks like a G and a D all intertwined.” Hannigan laughed and slapped Knight on the shoulder. “You got yourself some new duds, too. At least they look better than the rags you wore last time we talked.”
“You said we were heading west. Do you have any particular destination in mind?”
Hannigan turned cagey. His eyes darted about, then fixed on Knight. Every time Knight had seen a man look like this, the next words out of his mouth were lies. For the love of him, he couldn’t figure out why Hannigan would lie about a simple thing like this unless it was his nature. Some men found it impossible to tell the truth because lying was so much fun. It gave them a sense of pulling the wool over someone else’s eyes and being superior as a result.
In the prison camp he had been closest to Ben Lunsford, but long nights spent swapping stories around the pitiful fire the Federals permitted them had forged a sense of camaraderie with Hannigan and a dozen others. He tried to remember something of Hannigan’s history. It came to him that the man was closemouthed, which had prevented learning much at all. Hannigan had sported sergeant’s stripes, but his blouse had been way too tight across the shoulders, hinting that he had taken it from a smaller man. Noncoms had been afforded more privileges, such as they were, than privates. Knight didn’t remember Hannigan sharing much of his extra bounty. What extra rations Knight had received as an officer he had divvied up among all the men in his tent.
When the guards saw this, they had stopped giving him anything at all, forcing him to live off the largesse of the men he had helped. The best of times had been grim, indeed. Two privates had died, and he had left them in their bunks, not telling the guards. Their corpses had rotted, but he had collected two rations for almost a week. That had barely been enough to keep him alive, and the guards had locked him up in a hole as punishment for not reporting the deaths.
He had always thought they were put out, not because he collected the spare rations, but because they hadn’t. Guards ate little better than the inmates, though somewhat more with each meal.
“I mentioned all the mining going on in Arizona. Might be work to be had there,” Hannigan said.
“Stagecoaches carry the payrolls to the mines and gold and silver to the railroads,” Knight said. “Enterprising men might find a way to make a living off that commerce.”
“I do declare, Sam, me and you think alike on this matter. That surprises me just a tad, but then you’ve quite a career stealing horses since you left that hellhole in New York. What’s a strongbox gone missing now and then, eh?” Hannigan laughed, confirming what Knight had thought. Hannigan rode at the head of an outlaw gang, not men hunting for real work and decent lives.
The others milled about until Hannigan gave orders as to what each was to do. He turned back to Knight. “They’re good men, the lot of them, but they need a good leader to keep them on track.”
“I know Ben and Seth, at least a little. That one’s familiar looking, too. Henry Lattimer, from somewhere in Tennessee.” Knight watched the smallish Johnny Nott strutting around like a banty rooster. If anything happened to Hannigan, Nott would be the man taking over the gang—or trying to.
“Turning your back on Johnny, now, that’s not a smart thing to do. No, sir, Sam, it’s not.” Hannigan laughed. “Get the joke? It’s not a good thing to turn your back on Nott. Rumor has it that he shot a man in the back who made fun of him being short.”
“I don’t remember him from Elmira.”
“He joined us after we drifted south, after we got out. I never heard that he served. Asking questions about his background never seemed a safe thing to do. I think it’s about the same with Porkchop. We call him that because he always orders pork chops when we get food at a restaurant. Eats pigs’ knuckles in a saloon, can’t get enough bacon on the trail. The best I can tell, he served with a cavalry regiment, maybe Jeb Stuart’s. He’s a hell of a rider, knows everything there is to know about horses and can even shoe a horse using a bent tenpenny nail and spit.”
The man Hannigan spoke of sat with his back to a tree, his eyes darting about suspiciously. He had the same look that Nott did. A bullet to the back was more likely than facing down an enemy. Hannigan had gathered a band of killers, other than Ben and his brother. Riding with them gave Knight a chance to leave behind all his crimes, but finding a place to settle down would be hard if Hannigan and the others robbed and killed as they went. It would be like pulling on a thread and hoping everything didn’t unravel before the cloth vanished entirely.
“We lost one or two others. They kind of drifted away, not liking the way I did things. I don’t hold that against them, and it might be for the best. We’re a good size to ride fast, when necessary.”
“I’m a bit sad leaving behind the Piney Woods, but doing it as fast as I can is good sense,” Knight said. “I grew up there, but the rest of your gang’s all far from their homes. All I need to do is get used to Pine Knob not being home anymore.”
“While we were prisoners, you talked a blue streak about Pine Knob and your wife. Sorry that didn’t work out for you.” Hannigan spat, wiped his lips with his sleeve, and then asked, “You reckon the cavalry there will be on your trail for whatever you’ve done? Other than stealing some horses?”
Knight nodded glumly.
“Nott! Get your ass over here.” Hannigan rested his hand on his six-gun. When the short man with the tall hat sauntered over, he said, “Watch our back trail for soldiers. Sam here thinks they might be comin’ after him.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Use your judgment. You’re the smartest one of all of us.”
“Don’t you forget it, Milo. Don’t you ever damn forget it.” Johnny Nott hitched up his gun belt and left.
“He shoots better than he carries a tune. We can take our time with Nott guarding our back trail.”
“I need to rest up and get some food.” Knight inhaled deeply. The smell of food cooking and coffee boiling made his mouth water.
“You’re one of us now, Sam. Help yourself. Remember what I said about Nott. And Porkchop.” Hannigan’s laugh carried a note of pure evil with it.
“Thanks for the warning.” Knight saw how Hannigan kept discipline i
n his ragtag band. Keeping them suspicious of one another worked so long as each depended on him to lead them.
Let one of them, Nott or Porkchop most likely, make a bid to take over the gang and a stack of back-shot bodies would feed the wolves for quite a while. Knight gave up speculating who would come out alive. By the time lead started to fly, he wanted to be far off and long gone.
* * *
The rest of the day was spent eating and lounging around, which made Knight increasingly uneasy. Donnelly wasn’t the kind to let such an affront go unpunished. Trying to nap availed Knight little but a sore shoulder as he turned from one side to the other. Just before sundown he heard horses coming. He got to his feet and had his Colt out before anyone else noticed Nott returning.
Knight holstered his six-shooter and wondered where Nott had gotten another horse. As the man rode closer, Knight went cold inside. The horse trotted along without a rider and still sporting a McClellan saddle used by the cavalry, twin wood planks fit on either side of the horse’s spine. Such a saddle was comfortable for the horse and hell for the rider, but this only spoke to which the US Army considered more valuable.
Johnny Nott drew rein and dropped to the ground. Knight thought he had shrunk another inch or just misremembered how short the man was.
Nott glared at him and pushed past to speak with Hannigan. “Got another horse for the remuda. The damn Yankee ain’t gonna need it no longer.” Nott patted his six-shooter. “Rode right up to me bold as brass and asked what I was doin’ on the road. So I showed him. One shot. Right here.” Nott pressed his index finger between his eyes. “Wasn’t even much blood though it damn near blowed the back of his head off.”
“You murdered a trooper?” Knight swallowed hard. “That’s sure to stir up Captain Norwood and get the whole company on our tail.”
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