‘Well, I never be. I ain’t never met someone from England before. Then again, truth is, I ain’t never really met that many people from anywhere before.’ Her hand lifted to tuck a few errant hairs behind her ear. Her brown hair was still pulled back behind her head, yet enough had escaped the tie holding it there to whisper around her face. ‘So what in the name of the devil are you doing fighting for them Yankees?’
Jack frowned. He remembered that Martha’s father had believed him to be a deserter from the Confederate army. Clearly that opinion had changed.
‘Why do you think I’m a Yankee?’
‘We found that photograph of yours. Of you in a Yankee uniform with a girl at your side.’ Martha looked away, a slight shadow of crimson appearing on her cheeks. ‘Oh, don’t you worry none. We didn’t go through your things or nothing. But that picture, well, it just kinda slipped out.’ She paused and glanced over at Jack. ‘She sure is pretty. Is she your girl?’
‘No.’
‘But I bet you want her to be. She’s one of the most beautiful people I ever saw.’
‘Yes. She is.’ Jack sighed. ‘She isn’t mine.’
Martha’s smile widened at the news. ‘You sound sad. She turn you down?’
‘No.’
‘Uh huh.’ She shook her head at the firm denial. She clearly understood that he was not telling her the whole truth. ‘Well, I can’t sit here lollygagging with you all day. I got work to do and Pa will create if I don’t get everything done just the way he likes it.’ She paused, then reached out to pat Jack’s arm, the one bound to the bedpost. ‘I’ll ask him to untie you. You ain’t about to kill us in our beds, are you now, Jack?’
She smiled, then got to her feet before bustling back over to the far corner. Jack said nothing. Yet her words lingered. He would recover his strength and then he would run. He wondered if that would mean fighting the two people who had brought him back to health. Martha saw no danger in him, but he knew she was wrong to trust him so easily. He would let nothing stand in his way. As soon as he was strong enough, he would leave. And he would kill anyone who tried to stop him.
He felt the coldness creep into his being. It was a reminder of who he was now, and of the task he had set himself.
Morning sunlight streamed through the window behind Jack’s bed. It was cold in the cabin, but warm enough under the blankets piled on top of him, so he stayed still, enjoying the play of the sunlight as it wandered across his face. He forced his mind not to think, but to savour the moment, to try to seek pleasure in his world of darkness.
He was recovering. It was a slow process and he chafed at his incarceration. At least he was no longer bound to the bed. Martha had been true to her word and her father had untied him the very same day. It had been an unnecessary precaution. He had been weak from the sickness, and that sickness had lingered, stealing his strength so that he was able to do little more than eat and drink, and even those two simple tasks exhausted him. The short stagger to a chamber pot took all he had, and so, even now, several weeks after he had been brought to the cabin in the woods, he still could not make it across the room.
A cloud shut off the beam of sunlight. Jack became aware of someone else’s presence in the room.
He opened his eyes to see Martha’s father, Garrison, sprawled in one of the armchairs, his musket across his lap. He was dressed in dark blue overalls and a checked shirt that gaped open at the neck. On his feet were heavy boots, the kind that would last a man a lifetime if they were looked after right.
Jack had seen little of the man since he had arrived. There had been short intervals when Martha and her father had eaten at the table, and even shorter ones when Garrison had stomped across the room before disappearing into the cabin’s bedroom, where he and Martha slept. Otherwise he spent his time outside. Sometimes Jack heard him at work, the never-ending need for fuel keeping the old man chopping wood for hours at a time. At other times he left the farmstead completely. Jack did not know where he went, or what he did.
Now the old man had chosen to come inside. He sat opposite Jack, his eyes riveted on him. Jack pushed himself up the bed until he was sitting, and the two men stared at one another, neither keen to be the first to break the silence. Garrison chewed incessantly, his mouth working back and forth in the same odd, juddering motion Jack remembered from the very first moment the pair had met.
Time passed, the silence growing ever more uncomfortable with each passing minute. It was only broken when the old man sat forward and aimed a stream of brown juice at a spittoon placed near his chair. Some missed, the grim liquid splattering noisily across the pine floorboards.
‘Hellfire.’ The comment was growled softly as he pushed himself to his feet, shuffled to the spillage and mopped it up with a grubby handkerchief produced from a pocket in his overalls.
‘She creates,’ he spoke whilst moving back to his chair, ‘if I make a mess in here.’ He sat down with a huff. ‘Her mother was the same, God rest her soul. Women like things tidy, don’t they just.’ He looked across at Jack, a moment’s embarrassment on his face. ‘You comfy in there?’ The question was delivered in a gruff tone.
Jack nodded. ‘Yes.’ He sensed disapproval.
‘I figured. You’ve been lying there long enough.’
‘You want me out?’ Jack saw no point in beating around the bush.
‘You fit?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Then you can get up.’ The old man’s eyes wandered to a deep set of gouges on the pine floorboards. They led from the door of the bedroom to the feet of Jack’s bed frame. ‘Then we can put that there thing back where it belongs and I’ll have someplace to sleep at night.’
‘This is your bed?’
‘Whose did you think it was?’ The reply was snapped. ‘You think we’re sitting here with a dozen spare goddam bed frames around the place?’ He shook his head. ‘Damn fool Yankees.’
The last comment was delivered under the old man’s breath, but Jack heard it well enough, just as he figured he was meant to.
‘I didn’t know.’
‘Well, you know now.’ The old man stared at him belligerently, chewing all the time. ‘So are you malingering, weasel? Lying in my goddam bed whilst my daughter fusses over you like a mother hen?’
‘No.’ Jack denied the accusation, but it stung. He worried that there was an element of truth in it. He had never been idle for so long. Perhaps he had been hiding by lying there when he could have forced himself into activity.
‘She’s a good girl, my Martha. It’s easy to take advantage of a girl like that, one with a good Christian heart in her and all. Her husband,’ the old man’s mouth twisted as he used the title, ‘he sits there like some kind of goddam emperor or something whilst she fetches and carries for him. I reckon you young ’uns are all the same now. Wouldn’t know an honest day’s work if it jumped up and bit you in the goddam ball sack.’
The old man considered Jack for a long moment, then shook his head. ‘Oh, don’t get me wrong. Martha married well. John Joseph is a good man. Good enough anyways to be off fighting you Yankee sons of bitches.’
‘You think I’m a Yankee?’ Jack recalled Martha telling him the same. They had not spoken of it again, their conversations since solely concerned with his health.
‘I know so. We found that fancy-ass photograph or whatever it’s damn well called. You standing there in your goddam Yankee uniform with some New York filly at your side.’
Jack nodded. ‘It’s true. I fought for the Union.’
‘At the battle over Manassas way?’
Jack nodded.
‘Our boys sure whipped your butts that day, didn’t they, weasel?’ For the first time, a tone of something other than disapproval left the old man’s mouth. ‘Bet you thought they would run at the sight of you all. You didn’t think we’d fight like that, no sir; I bet you thought it’d be easy.’ He paused, then looked at Jack knowingly. ‘That when you ran, weasel?’
Jack held the man’
s gaze. The Union army had been broken. He could have left the field of battle with his regiment, battered and bloodied though it was. He had chosen instead to take a different path, one that had ultimately led to a quiet wood and the hanging of a runaway slave. Just a touch of that bitter memory was enough to ignite a flame of anger.
‘You want me up?’ He fired the words out. ‘You want to turn me in?’
‘If you’re fit.’ The old man did not flinch from the anger in Jack’s voice. He stared back without a qualm. ‘Winter’s coming. If I don’t take you in soon, you’ll be stuck here all winter, eating my food and likely sleeping in my goddam bed whilst I’m in nothing more than a child’s truckle. I reckon it’s high time I earned myself a few of those Confederate dollars to pay me back for all the chow you’ve been shovelling down your goddam neck.’
‘Fine.’ Jack tasted the fury then. He started to move, his hands clawing away the blankets in one angry sweep.
‘You think you can jump me, weasel?’ The old man sat up straighter, the musket now held ready to use. ‘You think you can take me down?’ He laughed at the notion. ‘Well, you’re a big fellow and all, been in the wars a fair bit too judging by all them scars, but you still won’t get me, though you’re welcome to try.’
Jack ignored the abuse. He had his feet on the floorboards, the wood cold on the soles of his feet. He stood straight up, forcing his body to obey. The moment he was upright, his head spun and he retched, the spasm uncontrollable and violent, then sat back down heavily.
‘Hellfire, don’t you spew your goddam guts up on my bed.’ His threats forgotten, the old man jumped to his feet, pausing only long enough to prop his musket against his chair before rushing over carrying his spittoon, the liquid inside sloshing noisily. ‘Do it in here if you have to.’
Jack caught a glimpse of foul black liquid before its smell hit him. A moment later, he puked, a great rush spewing out of him. It went on for some time. Most went in the spittoon.
He was shaking by the time he had finished.
‘Pa, what in the name of the devil are you doing to poor Jack?’
Jack heard Martha’s voice as he flopped back onto the bed. It was as if she spoke from some great distance.
‘You should know better at your age. I don’t know what you said to him, but I can see the good it did.’ Her words came quickly.
‘Mind your tongue, girl.’ Garrison fired the command at his daughter, his anger all the swifter for being brought on by shame. ‘Know your damn place.’
‘Yes, Pa.’ The fire left Martha’s voice, and she stopped in her tracks, head bowed.
‘Now you tend to your chores and get this man well. Then get the son of a gun out of my goddam bed. You hear me, girl?’
‘Yes, Pa.’ Martha’s voice was small.
‘Well, don’t just stand there. Get on with it.’ Garrison growled the last of his instructions before marching out of the room.
Jack closed his eyes, trying to stop himself from shaking, the tremors racing up and down his body and leaving him cold. He felt a hand on his forehead, the touch now familiar.
‘You lie back, Jack, take it easy. We’ll look after you. My pa, he might cuss and moan some, but any fool can see you’re still sick, and no Christian could stand back and see you taken away to who knows what fate whilst you’re like that. So you sleep now. You’re safe here.’
‘Thank you,’ Jack muttered.
‘There’s no need to thank me.’ Martha tutted away his gratitude. ‘We’ll get you well then you can be on your way. You must have someplace to go.’ She spoke softly, as if worried her father would overhear her make the promise.
‘I do.’ Jack kept his eyes closed as he replied.
‘Well, that’s good. We all need someplace to call home.’
‘No.’ Jack was lulled by her touch. His tongue was speaking without thought. ‘I don’t have a home.’
‘Then where are you going to go?’ Martha did not understand his remark.
‘There is something I need to do. Someone I must find.’
‘A girl? The one from that photograph?’
‘No. A man.’ For a reason he did not fully understand, he felt able to speak the truth.
‘A friend?’
‘No.’ He opened his eyes and saw Martha staring directly at him. She flinched as his gaze found hers, but did not look away. He held her stare. ‘It’s a man I am going to kill.’ He paused, waiting for the reaction.
Martha’s eyes flickered back and forth as she considered his words. ‘You must really hate that man.’
‘Yes.’ Jack felt his stomach churn. Whether it was just nausea or a reaction to his own words, he did not know.
‘Then we need to get you fit.’ Martha’s tone was brisk. ‘And I reckon that might take a while.’ She offered a tight smile. ‘There’s no future in hate, Jack.’
‘There is for me.’
‘The good Lord would say different.’
‘The good Lord would understand.’ Jack’s voice was tight.
Martha’s eyes widened at the blasphemy, but she did not stand or back away. Instead she leaned closer, tucking the sheet over Jack’s body. ‘Well, you’ve got a home here as long as you need it, no matter what old grumbling Garrison might say.’ She sat back and smiled. ‘You get some rest, Jack. We got plenty of time and you’re safe here. We can worry about that future of yours another day.’
Jack did as he was told. He was grateful to Martha, both for her care and for her protection. He sensed she had more to say on the matter of his plan to find the man he wanted to kill. But she was right: for the moment that could wait. Yet in another regard, he knew she was wrong. He would never be safe. He would never be home. And his future had only one thing in it.
Revenge.
Snow smothered the ground. It was ball-achingly cold and had been for over a month. The new year had been ushered in with a blizzard, the snow driven so hard by the wind that the three of them had been incarcerated in the cabin for the best part of a week. Martha’s father had grumbled every hour of every day, and most especially after he was forced to spend hours fighting to clear a path to the wood store near the cabin’s front door. He had spent the rest of his time whittling a collection of small woodland animals that he lined up around his armchair in pairs like a modern-day Noah, before burning every last one the day the blizzard stopped and they could finally force their way outside.
Jack had spent the time recovering. Martha had cared for him. She did not fuss, no matter what her father might mumble under his breath when he thought she could not hear him. By the end of the week of the great blizzard, Jack was able to move around the cabin without feeling faint, and the first signs of strength were returning to muscles wasted by so long confined to a sickbed.
As much as he admired Martha for her good spirit and charitable care, he was heartily sick of being an invalid. The first day Garrison had ventured outside after the blizzard, Jack had followed. The next day he had dragged the heavy bed frame back into the cabin’s single bedroom, replacing it with the truckle bed he had found in there.
The following day he had started chopping wood. He had worked all morning, stopping only when he could no longer lift the axe. The afternoon he had spent with Pinter’s rifle, learning how it worked and how to strip and clean it. On just the one occasion had he allowed himself to fire a full magazine load of sixteen shots to get a feel for the weapon. He would have shot more, but he was aware that he had only the ammunition he had taken from Pinter’s saddlebags. The cartridges came in boxes of one hundred, produced by a company called the New Haven Arms Company. He had one full box and one nearly half used, and he had no idea when he would get more. He would have to husband it carefully.
He had found a broadside tucked into one of the boxes of ammunition. The advertisement claimed the rifle to be the most effective weapon in the world, with a penetration of eight inches at one hundred yards and five inches at four hundred. Having fired it, Jack was dubious of the claims
, especially the one that stated that the rounds shot by the rifle could still kill at one thousand yards. But even if he judged it to be less powerful and to have less of an effective range than the bold claims on the broadside, the rapid rate of fire certainly made up for it.
The rifle was quite unlike any other he had seen. It took copper cartridges that were much smaller than the Minié balls he was used to. It had taken him a while to figure out how they were fired, the lack of a nipple for a percussion cap under the weapon’s hammer leaving him bewildered. He had only been sure that the cartridges themselves contained the firing charge when he had used the weapon for the first time.
Up to sixteen of the cartridges could be fed through an opening at the front of the weapon into a magazine that ran along the underside of the barrel, where they were held in place by a spring. When the odd-shaped handle around the trigger was cranked forward, the fired cartridge was ejected and a fresh one forced under the rifle’s hammer. The same mechanism moved back a heavy bolt, which pushed the rifle’s hammer into position ready to fire again and closed the breach around the fresh cartridge. Now that he had practised with the weapon, Jack could understand how Pinter had been able to keep up such a rapid rate of fire.
Such a rate would give a man an advantage in a fight even against a rifled musket. Jack knew that a good soldier armed with a rifled musket like the Springfield the 1st Boston had used could fire three shots a minute, yet this new rifle could fire sixteen in a much shorter span of time. The broadside he had found with the ammunition claimed that as many as sixty shots could be fired in a single minute. That might take some doing, but nonetheless, any regiment armed with the weapons would have a devastating advantage on the field of battle. The only drawback he could find was that the weapon felt lighter and less sturdy than the rifle muskets he was used to. The groove in the underside of the magazine would also be prone to collect dirt, and he could only imagine that in the filth and chaos of battle, the weapon would surely get blocked or even broken.
He bent down and picked up another log that he placed on the stump where Garrison had been chopping wood for decades. Something about the rifle unsettled him. It spoke of a different way of making war, one that he could not fully begin to comprehend. He had the feeling that he was standing on the precipice of a new age, one where men could be killed with even greater efficiency. He shivered as he pictured the effect a rapid-fire weapon like Pinter’s rifle could have on the tightly packed ranks of an advancing infantry column. The carnage would be like nothing seen before: men gutted and cut down like wheat before one of the new-fangled mechanical threshing machines.
THE REBEL KILLER Page 12