THE REBEL KILLER

by Paul Fraser Collard

  The word was followed by another copious spurt from the mouth. Jack could smell the man, tobacco and gun oil underscored by the earthy odour of sweat.

  ‘Well, I reckon I found myself a goddam shit-weasel.’ The man contemplated Jack as what few teeth he had left worked on whatever was in his mouth. He seemed to be considering whether he was worth a bullet. ‘Is that what you are, son? A goddam shit-weasel?’

  Jack closed his eyes. The world was shimmering and turning grey, and he could feel his heart thumping in time with the pounding in his head. Talking was too much of an effort, so he stayed silent. Part of him willed the grubby greybeard to shoot him where he lay and so end the agony.

  ‘Come on then, weasel. You get yourself up on your feet and let’s see what you’re about.’

  The man eased up from his haunches, still covering Jack with his musket. Jack opened a single eye. He did not know if he could obey.

  ‘Come on now.’ The command was punctuated with another stream of spittle. ‘Get yourself on up.’

  Jack summoned the strength. The pain had sunk deep into his bones, but he began to lever himself upright. Standing took nigh on a full minute, and the greybeard watched him the whole time, his only comment another couple of mouthfuls of black juice that he expelled with casual ease.

  ‘You’re as sorry a son of a bitch as ever I saw.’ The man contemplated Jack as he finally found his feet. Jack was a good foot taller, but if the greybeard felt a single ounce of concern, then no trace of it showed in the expression on his ancient, weathered face.

  Jack found he could not stand still. He tottered from side to side, as if swaying in the breeze. The wood around him had taken on an unearthly quality. Nothing felt real. Not even the shudders that racked his body or the white-hot pinches that rippled up and down his skin.

  ‘You got yourself a fine horse there, weasel.’ The old man nodded his head at Jack’s mount, which whinnied on cue. ‘It looks like an army beast to me. Only those sons of bitches have saddles as fine as that one.’ He watched Jack the whole time. ‘Well, you know, I reckon I got me a deserter here. Is that what you are, weasel, a goddam yellow-bellied runner? Why, I reckon if you are, then I’ll get myself a fine reward if I turn you in. Even if it is paid in those rat-shit Confederate dollars of theirs.’

  Jack heard the danger in the old man’s words. He knew nothing of the Confederate army, but he was sure they would not tolerate desertion. No army did. Getting himself hauled back to the nearest Confederate outpost would do him no good at all, not with the posse of cavalry that had been sent after him lying dead in a forgotten farmhouse.

  The old man watched him for several long moments before he spoke again. ‘Does that worry you, weasel? I reckon it does, seeing as how you just looked like you took a great big shit in your goddam pants.’ Another thick spurt of juice was ejected from the old man’s mouth. Something had clearly unsettled him, however, as for the first time, he voided the foul liquid poorly, and a thick stream of it ran down his chin. He lifted a hand from his gun to wipe the excess juice away.

  And that was when Jack struck.

  The notion to fight back had not fully formed in his mind before he lunged forward. Even in his sickened state he could see that the gun in the old man’s hands was an ancient flintlock musket that was likely to be as reliable as a priest in a whorehouse. He grabbed the barrel and pulled it hard, thinking to rip it away from the man, yet his hands slipped and his fingers were powerless to maintain their grip.

  The old man laughed, and tugged the musket out of Jack’s clutches. ‘You sorry son of a bitch,’ he mocked, then guffawed at the sight of Jack lurching forward as if he were about to try again. ‘So be it, shit-weasel.’ He twisted the weapon, bringing the butt around so that it faced Jack. ‘You want to do it this way, then who am I to say no?’

  Jack knew what was coming, but he could do nothing as the rifle butt was hammered forward. Pain flared, as hard as nails and brutal in its ferocity, as the butt slammed into the centre of his chest.

  He was unconscious before he hit the ground.

  For the second time that day, Jack opened his eyes to see the barrel of a gun hovering menacingly in front of his face.

  ‘Well, that sure took you long enough.’ The old man was sitting on the ground, the musket held out with the butt resting on the ground. ‘Now we can do this two ways, boy. You do as I say and I’ll go easy on you. Try anything fancy again and so help me I’ll beat your sorry ass black and blue. Now,’ he looked at Jack with hard pale blue eyes, ‘you want to choose which one of those it’s going to be?’

  Jack hauled a breath into his lungs, wincing at the pain it caused. He was as weak as a kitten and he knew the old man could beat him without breaking sweat. As much as it stung his pride, he could not fight. He was powerless.

  ‘All right.’ He forced the words out. ‘You’ll have to help me.’

  ‘Now, boy, that ain’t how this goes. Either you get yourself up onto your own two goddam feet, or I’ll let you lie right where you are and leave you there to rot. You’re a sick man, in case you hadn’t noticed, and I ain’t going to get any closer to you than I have to.’

  The greybeard lumbered to his feet. ‘Let me tell you what’s going to happen. You’re going to stand nice and still whilst I bind your arms. Then we are going to head over thataways. The nearest soldiers are a couple of dozen miles from here, and I know for sure that you ain’t fit enough to walk even one of those goddam miles. So we’re going to go someplace where you can rest up awhiles until you’re well enough for me to turn you in.’

  Jack listened to the instructions in silence. There was a moment’s relief that he was not going to be handed over right there and then. The old man was a fool. He was gifting Jack the one thing he needed more than anything else. Time.

  ‘All right.’ The words rasped as he uttered them.

  ‘Glad to hear you’re seeing sense, weasel. But I warn you. You try to grab this here musket one more time and I’ll ram it right down your goddam throat. You get me, boy?’

  ‘Yes.’ Jack hauled another painful breath deep into his tortured lungs, then gingerly started to rise. Once he was on his feet, he stood docile and compliant as his arms were bound behind his back.

  Only when the old man was finished did he speak again.

  ‘Now then, boy. It’s time for me and you to take a little walk. You give me any shit and I swear I’ll knock you down. You get me?’

  Jack felt the burn of the rope on the skin of his wrists. He was bound tight. ‘Yes. I get you.’

  ‘Good.’ The word was followed by a mouthful of the black liquid. ‘Perhaps you ain’t quite as dumb as you look.’

  Jack heard the greybeard moving behind him. His horse snorted as the old man untied its reins from where Jack had lashed them around a tree trunk.

  ‘Go on then, weasel. Start walking. Take it nice and easy and go where I tell you. Do anything else and you get a musket ball up your ass. You got that?’

  ‘Yes.’ Jack sucked down a breath and lumbered into motion. He had no strength to do anything but what he was told.

  The homestead was a mean, higgledy-piggledy sort of place. Not that Jack cared. Every step was a trial. He had no idea how long he had laboured along, or how he had done so for so long. He existed in a world shrouded in fog, his senses dulled to the extent that he no longer knew where he was. There was just the misery of existing, his fever-racked body in a state of constant torment.

  His eyes took in the main cabin as he staggered out from the trees and into the level clearing in which it was situated. It was made from rough-hewn logs, with a single tiny window hacked clumsily into each flank. The two short sides of the building supported haphazard lean-tos that looked just about ready to fall over. All manner of things littered the ground around it, from a broken-down cart with spokeless wheels, to a number of splintered and cracked wooden barrels, most of which were filled with dark, scummy water. A hundred tree stumps surrounded the building, the evid
ence of the area being widened and reclaimed from the wood around it, and an enormous pile of logs had been dumped into one jumbled heap no more than four or five paces from what looked to be the cabin’s only entrance. There were two further buildings, both as ramshackle as the main one. As far as Jack could tell, one was a stable, the other some sort of food store.

  ‘Whoa there, weasel.’ The grey-bearded man called Jack to a halt, the first words either of them had spoken in a long while.

  Jack did his best. His body still moved, his feet making small shuffling steps on the ground as if his legs had not comprehended the command to stop walking. His head spun and he felt his muscles trembling. He did not know how much longer he could stand.

  ‘What you caught yourself there, Pa?’

  A new voice entered Jack’s small world. It was a woman’s voice, a reminder that there was life outside his own personal hell.

  ‘I found him near the ferry road. I reckon I got me a deserter.’

  ‘You think that’s a soldier, Pa?’ The voice came closer. ‘I don’t see how we think we can whip them Yankees if our boys are all like that. Why, he looks fit to drop.’

  ‘He’s sick.’ The greybeard spat onto the ground. ‘And he’s your responsibility now, girl. I can’t turn him in like that.’

  ‘What am I supposed to do with him?’

  ‘How the hell should I know?’ Another stream of juice splattered onto the ground. ‘Just keep the shit-weasel alive. Soon as he can walk, I’ll take him in.’

  ‘It’s a shit-weasel, is it, Pa? I ain’t seen one of those before.’ The woman’s voice mocked her father’s words. ‘You going to skin it, then?’

  ‘Mind your tongue, girl. But I’ll skin him if I have to. I reckon there’ll be folk as say I should. Man like that should be fighting them Yankees just like your John is, not running around the woods. Now you do as you’re damn well told, girl. I don’t want none of your back-chatting, you hear me?’

  ‘Yes, Pa.’ The reply came obediently.

  Jack barely listened to the exchange. He did not care about what was said. He thought only of how long it would be before he could lie down. He had nothing left.

  A woman’s face came into view. She was much shorter than he was, shorter even than her father. Jack got the impression of a narrow, pinched face with hair scraped back into a purposeful ponytail. She wore a homespun dress made from heavy grey cloth pulled tight around the waist, with long sleeves and a skirt that dragged along the ground. She was old enough to have fine lines around her blue eyes, but she had a slim, lithe figure that might have sparked a flare of interest in his mind were he not struggling to stay on his feet.

  ‘What’s wrong with him, Pa?’

  ‘How the hell should I know, girl?’

  ‘Is he shot?’

  ‘Not by me.’

  The woman stood in front of Jack and peered at him. ‘You got a tongue in that there head of yours, mister?’

  ‘He don’t say much.’ Her father answered for Jack.

  ‘Hush a minute, I’m talking to him.’

  ‘Don’t you go feeling pity for the boy, Martha. I plan to get rid of the son of a bitch just as soon as he can walk.’

  ‘Looks to me like that might be a whiles.’ Martha was looking Jack directly in the eye. ‘You caught yourself a sorry-looking creature there, Pa. Why, he’s more scarred than our old table.’

  Jack held her gaze. He could feel the world closing in around him. She was close enough for him to smell her. There was the hint of soap under woodsmoke. It was a good smell, clean and wholesome.

  ‘Why, you’re as broken-down and sorry a son of a gun as I ever saw, mister.’ Martha put her hands on her hips and shook her head as she looked Jack over.

  Jack felt the blackness rushing towards him. The last thing he saw was a pair of blue eyes, then oblivion claimed him and he fell face down into the dirt.

  Jack awoke in almost perfect comfort. The bed he was in was soft and smelt of soap powder. He lay on his back, his head nestled into pillows, though his right arm was held at an awkward angle above his head. He was naked – the brush of the sheets against his skin told him that – but he felt better than he had for a long time. Although his body still ached, it was a dull, distant pain, one that could almost be ignored. He was hot, but his skin no longer burned as it had when he had walked through the wood with a musket barrel at his back. The change in his fortune was enough to give him hope.

  He tried to move, but his right arm prevented him from doing so. It took a moment for him to realise that his wrist was bound to the bedstead with a thick wrap of rough old rope. He took a deep breath and wriggled up the bed as best he could, until he was sitting upright.

  The room he was in was not large. The walls were made of rough planks of pine, devoid of all decoration. There was a stove in one corner and a table with four chairs tucked neatly underneath. Two moth-eaten brown armchairs faced the open wood fire, with a fat log placed in front of each. A simple dresser completed the mismatched collection of furniture, its shelves crowded with household objects from stacked plates to pans and dishes. The room was simple, clean and tidy.

  There were two doors. One led outside, the other to what he supposed had to be a second, inner room that encompassed the far end of the cabin. Light filtered in through two small rectangular windows, but it was not enough to brighten the dull interior.

  The outer door opened and the woman he remembered from his arrival walked in, her arms laden with wood cut ready for burning in the stove.

  ‘You’re awake,’ she observed as she kicked the door shut behind her.

  Jack said nothing. He studied her as she walked, her quick, purposeful bustle taking her across the room at a rapid pace. There was not a lot to see, her figure well hidden underneath a heavy brown shawl.

  ‘You back with us now, mister?’ The question was fired at him even though she faced the other way as she stacked the wood into a basket near the stove. She only paused when there was no reply to her question.

  ‘You don’t say much, do you now? You’ve been lying in that there bed for two whole days now. Most of that time we couldn’t stop you from hollering and crying. Now you’re finally awake and you ain’t got a thing to say to the world.’

  Jack absorbed the news, accepting it and storing it away. Later, he would try to make sense of all that had happened.

  Wood deposited, the woman turned and walked towards him, her arms wrapping the shawl tighter around her, as if it were some form of protection from the stranger in her home. Yet wary or not, she still came to perch on the side of the bed, her hand reaching out to touch his forehead.

  ‘You’re still damn hot.’ She shook her head as if disappointed with the discovery. ‘Though not as bad as you were, mind. Why, when you first arrived, I could’ve fried an egg on your forehead.’ She smiled at the idea. ‘You thirsty?’

  Jack nodded but said nothing. He too felt wary. He was powerless as he was, naked and bound. He found the notion almost amusing. He was also weak as a newborn. The woman could beat him with her hair comb.

  She sat looking at him for a long moment before getting back to her feet and going to the table, where a large enamel jug stood. The sound of water being poured was overly loud in the silent room.

  Jack watched her. Her shawl had slipped, revealing a lean body clad in the same dress he recalled her wearing when he arrived. There was little meat on her bones, but he could make out enough to know that there was an attractive woman hidden beneath the simple clothing. His scrutiny stopped as she turned and came back towards him, but she had seen him watching her and her expression was guarded as she approached.

  ‘This ain’t your first time in a sickbed, is it?’ she asked as she sat on the edge of the bed again, then offered him the mug of water, holding it out handle first so that he could take it in his free left hand. ‘I seen all those scars of yours,’ she added in a conspiratorial tone, then smiled at something she read in his expression. ‘Don’t you worry n
one. You ain’t the first man I’ve seen.’

  Jack did his best not to squirm. Her remarks made him uncomfortable, so he drained the mug of water, savouring the sweetness as it unglued his mouth.

  ‘I’m an old married woman. You ain’t got nothing that I ain’t seen before. Except all those scars of yours. Why, I sure ain’t seen nothing like them. Not ever.’

  She was looking him dead in the eye, and her gaze unsettled him. Her pale blue eyes showed no trace of anxiety as she sat next to a man her father believed to be a deserter. She wasn’t a great beauty, her face too narrow and her eyes too close together for that. Yet she was capable and clearly able to look after herself. Something in her competent manner and her simple, clean appearance was appealing.

  ‘So you ain’t going to say nothing to me at all, mister? I’ve waited a long time for you to wake up. Least you can do is pass the time of day with me.’ Her eyes narrowed as she rebuked him, but there was a hint of a smile on her lips.

  ‘What would you have me say?’ The words felt odd as he spoke them. It had been a while since he had said anything much at all.

  She smiled as he finally broke his silence. It sat well on her face. ‘Well, that’s better. Let’s start at the beginning. What’s your name?’

  ‘Jack.’

  Her smile broadened. ‘That’s a fine name. It suits you. So let’s do this proper. My name is Martha Joseph, and that grumbling son of a gun you sometimes see around the place is Garrison Garnet, my father.’ She paused to stifle a giggle. ‘How odd this is. You’ve been lying there all this time and we never knew your given name.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘There ain’t nothing to apologise for. You’re sick and it’s our Christian duty to take care of you, seeing as how it was that father of mine that found you. That’s just how it’s meant to be.’ Her brow furrowed. ‘But where are you from, Jack? You don’t sound like anyone I ever spoke to before.’

  ‘London.’

  ‘London! London, as in England?’ Martha’s eyes widened.

  Jack nodded.