THE REBEL KILLER

by Paul Fraser Collard

  The rider fired again and again, the short flurry of shots coming so fast that the sound blurred together. They heard a shout of pain as at least one of them hit a target.

  Shots came back then. None hit, but they were enough of a warning for the man shooting to turn back around and kick his horse hard.

  The pursuers burst out from behind a small group of trees. This time Jack was closer and he counted eight men in the group. All wore grey uniforms.

  ‘Come on.’ He urged his horse into a trot and took a path parallel to the two groups. They were much lower down the slope, and he was pretty sure that the fast-moving riders would ignore the two spectators.

  He was forced to kick his horse to a faster pace almost immediately. The two groups were charging across the open ground on the upper slope. More shots came as the pursuers tried to bring down their targets. One man broke from the chasing pack. Even from a fair distance, Jack could hear his yips and yells as he encouraged his animal on.

  The men being chased changed direction. With bullets snapping past their ears, they turned southwards and careered down the slope, their horses plunging on even as the ground fell away. It was bravely done. On such a steep slope, either animal could twist or even break a leg at any moment. Yet the two riders being pursued did not care. They rode fast, gambling their lives in the hope that the men chasing them would not be prepared to risk such folly.

  Their pursuers turned to follow. But only their leader increased speed to match the two men risking everything on the sloping ground. The rest slowed, the men unwilling to put their own animals in danger.

  The pair being chased turned as they hit the track Jack and Martha were following. They were no more than two hundred yards away, close enough for Jack to see that both wore blue uniforms. It was by no means certain, as many regiments on both sides followed their own ideas about what sort of uniform they should wear, but he assumed they were from the Union army. As he watched, the pair pulled hard on their reins, bringing their mounts to a halt. Both drew sabres.

  He understood their plan immediately. The leader of the chasing pack had got far ahead of the rest of his men. He was alone.

  Yet the lone rider did not hesitate. Jack caught the flash of sunlight as the man drew his own sabre. He kicked his horse hard, even as the two men he chased forced their own mounts back into motion and pointed them at the single horseman coming against them.

  The distance between the three closed with mesmerising speed. The lone rider ducked low in the saddle as the three men came together. Jack heard the war cries of the blue-clad pair, then a scream as one was cut across the chest. The single rider burst through, hauling hard on the reins of his horse. He turned fast, then kicked with his heels, forcing the animal back up the slope. One of the men he had chased down was still in the saddle. The other was on the ground, clutching at his torn chest.

  Jack could only applaud the skill. He was still riding forward, the fight drawing him in. He could hear the hooves of Martha’s horse on the track just behind him.

  The two men left in the saddle threw themselves into a second round of combat. Neither had much momentum now and both halted as they came together. Jack was close enough to hear the sound of metal on metal as they exchanged blows with their sabres. Both men knew their trade and they fought hard and fast, thrust, cut and parry coming one after the other with a bewildering speed.

  The rest of the chasing pack was close now. The surviving Union rider saw them, and he cut hard, then broke from combat, his heels working to force his tiring horse back into a desperate gallop. Jack heard his cries as he urged his mount away, seeking to prevent the inevitable for a while longer.

  The leader of the pursuers did not ride after him immediately. Instead he waited for his men to catch up, then barked orders. ‘Two of you pick up that there whoreson. The rest of you follow me. Let’s go get that son of a bitch before he skedaddles.’

  As he turned to give chase once more, his hat fell back to reveal a shock of grey hair so pale that it was almost white. The sight brought Jack up short, and he pulled on his reins, bringing his mount to a halt, and peered at the grey-haired man with the bloodied sabre. There was something familiar about him that he had not noticed before.

  Even as Jack squinted, the man sheathed his sabre and drew a revolver. At once, Jack knew who he was looking at. The weapon was beautiful, with carved ivory grips and metal that had been polished so that it gleamed like silver. It was Jack’s own gun, which he had lost when he had been shot down and left to die. He knew of only one man who could have taken it.

  The man with the revolver glanced in Jack’s direction before turning back and forcing his horse into a wild gallop. It had only been for a second, but it had been enough time for Jack to get a proper look at his face. It was one that had become as familiar to him as his own, so many times had he seen it in his mind’s eye.

  He had found Rose’s killer. He had found Major Nathan Lyle.

  Jack kicked hard, forcing his mount to find the speed he would need. Every thought fled from his mind save for one. The moment he had longed for had arrived.

  ‘Lyle!’ He howled the man’s name, then kicked his horse again and again. The two men who had dismounted to deal with the fallen Union rider heard him coming. Both looked up as he thundered past, but he was moving too quickly for either to even contemplate intervening.

  He rode like a madman, forcing his horse to even greater speed, focusing everything on the men ahead. He had lost sight of the Union rider, but he could see Lyle riding just in front of his men. They broke off the track, plunging into the fields on the southern side of the road. The going was good, the ground firm from the winter weather, and they raced along as they pursued their one remaining target.

  The ground flashed by under Jack’s horse’s hooves at breakneck speed. He heard shots as he rode off the track, but paid them no heed as he followed the group of riders ahead, kicking his horse furiously, not caring for the risk.

  He caught a glimpse of the last Union rider. The man was going fast, but Lyle was in hot pursuit. As he rode, Jack smelt a whiff of powder smoke. It was fuel to the fire burning deep inside him, and he urged his horse to even greater speed, forcing the animal to stretch every sinew as he chased down the man he wanted to kill.

  He lost sight of the men as they disappeared behind a wood. They were still a fair distance away, but he knew he was gaining. He had only the simplest plan: he would ride until he caught up with them, then he would draw his revolver and shoot Lyle down. If anyone tried to intervene, he would shoot them too. Nothing mattered save this moment of revenge.

  He raced around the wood, forcing his horse to maintain its speed. The ground was worse here, the going littered with hummocks and divots. He did not care and he willed the animal on, his eyes fixed on the grey-haired rider chasing so hard after the Union fugitive.

  He did not see the hole in the ground. His horse’s leg disappeared into it and there was a crack as loud as a gunshot. Jack was thrown immediately, his world spinning around him for one long-drawn-out moment before he hit the ground.

  The impact was brutal. Every ounce of breath was driven from his body in the second before his head hit the ground and everything went black.

  Jack came back into the world to the screams of an animal in agony. He sat up only with difficulty. The pain came then, surging through him in waves that started in his skull and seared down his body with enough force to leave him shaking.

  With an effort he forced himself onto all fours. He stopped moving, his head hanging low, the pain as bad as any he had ever felt. Then he puked, the vomit rushing out of him, burning and foul in his gullet. He vomited twice more, slathering the ground in the rank mixture.

  He did not want to move, but his horse was screaming in agony. It lay on the ground, kicking its legs as it tried to get to its feet. It lurched half upright, then fell back before trying again, its screams coming without pause. Its front left leg was bent at an impossible angle, the l
imb shattered.

  Jack pushed himself up, staggering like a drunk. He did not bother to wipe the traces of vomit from his face. Instead he drew his revolver. His arm shook as he raised it, the weapon impossibly heavy. He took a step forward, then another, forcing the strength into his legs, moving until the revolver’s muzzle was no more than a few inches from his horse’s head. He did not hesitate. Pulling the trigger, he ended the animal’s agony with a single gunshot.

  Then he stood still, eyes focused on the dirt beneath his boots.

  He did not know how much time passed before he lifted his gaze and thrust the revolver back into its holster. The opportunity he had longed for was lost.

  Jack trudged towards Martha in silence. He carried his saddlebags and they were growing heavier with every step. He was in a foul mood. His failure to catch Lyle rankled. It was worse even than the pain in his body, or the pounding in his head.

  ‘Where have you been?’ Martha had tethered her horse to a section of split-rail fencing that ran along one side of the turnpike and had been rubbing it down as he approached. There was no anger or recrimination in her question.

  Jack did not bother to reply. He was tired and in pain. It had taken him a long time to retrace his steps and find her.

  ‘Where’s your horse?’

  ‘Dead.’ He growled the single word, then walked to the small pile of their kit that she had made next to the saddle she had taken off her own horse. He dumped the saddlebags without ceremony before shrugging the rifle off his shoulder and dumping that too.

  ‘You want to tell me what happened?’ Martha stopped tending to her horse and came towards him.

  ‘No.’ Jack pulled the strap of his canteen over his head, then started to undo the belt around his waist. He dropped the belt and its holstered revolver on the ground, then started to remove his jacket.

  ‘You hurt?’ Martha had the sense to keep the questions short.

  Jack did not answer. He pulled off his shirt and grunted as he saw the blood caked around one elbow and more splattered across the back. The undershirt he wore was worse, and he had to pull it hard to get it over his head.

  As he inspected his wounds, Martha retrieved his canteen and a spare undershirt she had pulled from his saddlebags. ‘Stand still.’

  He was too tired to argue and obeyed without a word as she wetted the undershirt then used it to wipe away the worst of the blood. There was something intimate and familiar in her touch that he did not want to dwell on.

  ‘You’re more scarred than our old table,’ she muttered under her breath as she worked on him.

  When the worst of the blood was cleaned away, she stood back to admire her handiwork. ‘You’ll do. They’ll bleed some more, but I reckon you’ll be all right.’ She wiped a hand across her forehead, leaving a streak of blood on her skin. ‘Was that him?’

  Jack took a deep breath, then nodded. He could not meet her gaze.

  ‘Uh huh. I figured. You went off like a bat leaving hell.’ She paused, only speaking again when he looked up at her. ‘Did you get him?’

  Jack shook his head.

  ‘You were going to ride off and kill him just like that? With his men all around him and all?’

  ‘Yes.’ Jack was starting to feel the cold on his bare skin. Yet he welcomed it. It matched the coldness in his soul.

  ‘They’d have killed you.’

  Jack answered with a glare.

  ‘You don’t care? You don’t care that you’d be dead? You’d leave me here all alone?’

  ‘You’re a big girl.’ Jack’s tone was like ice.

  Martha held his gaze, then shook her head. ‘It won’t wash, you know. Not with me.’

  ‘What won’t?’ Jack shivered for the first time. The cold had him.

  ‘This act of yours. Like you don’t care if you live or die. You want to live, Jack. You just don’t like to admit it, because then you’d have to think about what you’re going to do next. And I reckon that frightens you. I reckon that frightens you a whole lot.’

  ‘What do you know about it?’ Jack stared at her, daring her to speak on.

  ‘Oh, I know plenty.’ Martha took a step towards him. ‘When my Joshua died, I just wanted to lay down and join him. That pain, why, it was so bad, I didn’t know how to go on. John was the same. He never talked about it, not once, but I know it hurt him just as bad as it hurt me. It changed him. Changed us both, I guess. Maybe he thought it was my fault that our boy died. I wouldn’t blame him if he did. I mean, I was Joshua’s mother. I was meant to look after him. Meant to keep him safe.’ Tears rolled out of her eyes, and she made no effort to wipe them away. ‘It was different afterwards. John had changed. When I didn’t obey him, he beat me. He beat me so hard I thought he was going to grant me my wish. And I didn’t lift a finger to stop him. It wasn’t his fault, none of it. I gave him the boy he had always wanted and I watched that boy die. So when he beat me, I wanted him to kill me. I wanted to die so that the pain would just go away.’ She took another step so that she was within an arm’s reach. ‘I didn’t die, Jack. So I had to find a way to keep living. You need to do the same.’

  Jack felt the weight of her words. He lifted a hand and licked a finger, then reached out to wipe the streak of blood from her forehead. Her skin was warm under his touch. It was a reminder that there was life in the world. He repeated the gesture, his touch gossamer light.

  He dropped his hand. The warm of the touch was threatening to spread through his frozen husk of a soul, and he could not allow that to happen. He forced the coldness into his being and held it close. He would need it.

  He turned his back on Martha and went to pull on his bloodstained clothing.

  ‘Hey! You there. Stop right where you are.’

  An old man shouted the challenge at Jack and Martha as they walked up a rough track that led to a small farmstead. Martha was leading her horse. The animal now carried all their kit and they needed to husband its strength. With only the one mount between them, they would be walking from here on.

  Jack’s hand dropped to the holstered revolver on his hip. He had no intention of stopping.

  The farmstead was small, but it was clearly well looked after. There was a fine Dutch barn with a scattering of small outbuildings, and a handsome two-storey clapboard farmhouse with a wide veranda and neat dormer windows across its upper floor. A pair of locals they had spoken to had told them of its whereabouts. The two men had been quick to relate the tale of the Confederate cavalry chase and the two captives who had been left at the farmstead. The news that the Union riders captured by Lyle’s men were being held in the area had drawn Jack here in the hope of finding the man himself.

  ‘I ain’t telling you again.’ The old man sounded angry. He was armed with a pitchfork and he now pointed this at the pair coming towards him.

  ‘Shut the fuck up.’ Jack was in no mood to argue. The old man had grey in his beard and there was more in what little hair clung precariously to the dome of his head. He was no threat.

  ‘You be off with yourselves now.’ The words were delivered with less venom. ‘I’ve got two goddam Yankees in my house and I’ve been told to guard the place well and see off any strangers that come to take them away.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Jack’s hand rested on the hilt of his revolver. He had not slowed his pace, but changed his direction slightly so that he walked straight at the man.

  ‘Well, for all I know, you could be another one.’

  Jack walked closer. ‘Do I look like a bloody Yankee?’ He was surprised. He was wearing Pinter’s uniform. Clearly the old man didn’t have a clue.

  ‘You could be anything. You talk funny and I want you off my land.’ The old man held out his pitchfork again, pointing the prongs at Jack’s chest.

  ‘Oh, shut your muzzle.’ Jack knocked the pitchfork to one side and strode past the old fool without giving him another look. ‘Martha, ask chummy here for a place to stable the horse and get him to give it some fodder. If he doesn’t do
what you say, then you have my permission to shoot the stupid old sod.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ Martha had followed in his wake. Now she stood next to the man with the pitchfork, who had lowered his makeshift weapon and was looking at the ground.

  ‘I’m going to find out what the hell is going on,’ Jack said. ‘If you hear shooting, then start digging me a hole.’ He carried on towards the farmhouse. The gallows humour sat well in his mind. If Lyle were inside, he knew that only one of them would come out.

  Jack opened the farmhouse’s front door and walked inside. The place was warm to the point of being fuggy. It smelt of woodsmoke and blood.

  ‘Who are you?’ A man dressed in a grey uniform rose from an armchair placed near the stove that was warming the room.

  ‘Captain Sloames, 3rd Virginia Cavalry.’ Jack had been an impostor a long time and he gave the lie without hesitation. The name was a nod to the officer who had picked him from the ranks to make him an orderly. The real Sloames had died suddenly, giving Jack his first opportunity to become someone else. The name of the regiment he had picked out of the air. It sounded reasonable to him. ‘Now tell me what the hell is going on here.’ He gave the instruction in the clipped tones of an officer who was used to being obeyed.

  The soldier scowled, yet still stiffened as if about to stand to attention. ‘Not sure it’s rightly any business of yours, Captain.’

  ‘Don’t be so damned impertinent, soldier.’ Jack snapped the reply as he strode into the room. ‘What unit are you?’

  ‘Lyle’s Raiders.’

  ‘I know Lyle. He’s a good fellow.’ Jack tried not to choke on the words. ‘What are your lot doing here?’ He glanced quickly around the room, then returned his scrutiny to the man in front of him, looking for a flicker of recognition. There was none.

  The man looked uncomfortable. ‘I reckon you’d best ask the lieutenant.’

  ‘Fine.’ Jack’s answer was immediate. ‘Well, don’t just stand there gawping. Go fetch your lieutenant, goddammit.’