THE REBEL KILLER

by Paul Fraser Collard

  ‘I think killing that man will bring me peace.’ He gave the answer suddenly. He could feel something akin to anger stirring deep in his gut. ‘People, well, they just come and go. I have nothing save what I am.’ He glared at her then, daring her to contradict him. The anger built inside him. ‘This is what I do and what I’m good at, what I am bloody good at it. So yes, killing gives me peace. It’s the only thing I can do.’

  ‘You sure about that, Jack?’ She reached out to him, her hand tracing down the thick scar on his left cheek. ‘I look at you and I don’t see a man at peace.’

  Jack shook off her fingers. The warmth of her touch repelled him. He held onto the coldness inside him. He needed it. There could be no doubts, no second thoughts. He had embarked on this path and he would not be distracted. If Lyle lived, the guilt would have to be carried until it was Jack’s body laid in the cold earth. He did not have the strength for that. The burden would break him.

  ‘Where’s your man?’ he asked.

  ‘With his company.’ Martha sat back, holding out her hands towards the flames to warm them.

  Jack looked at her for a long time, then pushed himself to his feet.

  ‘You going to hurt him?’ Martha did not sound concerned.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘For what he did to me, or for something else?’

  Jack heard her tone change. It matched the coldness in his own voice. It was a sharp question, one that probed deep. She knew him well enough to sense his anger and frustration at being thwarted. ‘For what he did to you.’

  ‘So you’re getting revenge for me now, is that it?’

  ‘He deserves it.’

  ‘He’ll get his punishment. The Lord knows him. He will have seen what he has done.’

  ‘The Lord.’ Jack scoffed at the mention.

  ‘Yes, the Lord.’ There was fire in Martha’s voice now. ‘You think you have to take responsibility for everything? Ain’t no one else except the mighty Jack Lark who knows what’s right and what’s wrong?’ Her mouth twisted as she fired the words at him. ‘Who made you the Lord’s angel of death?’

  Jack looked down at her. He could see her face clearly in the light of the fire. He saw her pain, and her fear. And he saw her guilt.

  ‘I did.’ He spoke softly and did not shirk from her accusation. ‘I made myself into this. I’m not going to change now. And I don’t care for this Lord of yours. Seems to me he doesn’t give a shit about what goes on down here. But I do. That husband of yours, he beat you like a dog and now he’s sitting over there feeling like the big man. Well, he isn’t, and it’s time he learned that.’

  ‘And you’re going to teach him.’ Some of the fire had left Martha’s voice. Her hand had strayed to her face, the fingers touching the puffy flesh around her eye.

  ‘Someone has to.’ He took a pace forward and rested his hand on the top of her head. ‘None of this is your fault, Martha.’

  ‘You don’t have to do this. Violence doesn’t solve anything.’ She looked up at him.

  Jack let his eyes take in her battered and bruised face. Blood lined the fine wrinkles around her swollen eye, which was bloodshot and sore. She looked older than he remembered. Hers was not the pretty face of a young girl. It was the face of a woman who had lived long enough to know what it was to suffer.

  He offered her a thin-lipped smile, then reached out and traced a soothing pattern on her temple. He repeated the movement over and over, his touch gentle. Then his hand went still.

  ‘You’re wrong.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Violence.’ He withdrew his hand. ‘Violence solves everything.’

  He held her gaze for several long moments, then walked into the darkness to find the man who had beaten his woman.

  Jack was too cold to rest. Even though dawn was still far away, he walked through the streets of Dover. Movement, even if painful, was preferable to lying on the frozen ground. He was not the only one. Since leaving his shelter, he had seen many men, both officers and soldiers, heading into town.

  He had returned to the shelter in the small hours of the night. Martha had been sitting just as he had left her. She had not said a word as he settled down on a blanket. There had been no questions as to what had been done. Yet she had come to him and lain down next to him so that her back pressed into his front. She had held his hands, cradling the broken, bloodied knuckles against her lips. She had stayed in that position, motionless and silent, until he had got to his feet.

  Even though it was still long before dawn, the streets of Dover were a hive of activity. Officers bustled this way and that, but most were gathering near the small cemetery just above the town. Jack followed them there, wondering what was causing such a commotion so early the day after the failed breakout attempt.

  He soon saw what was drawing the crowd. A mounted officer was the centre of attention, the men pressed close around him as they listened to what he had to say. The officer was tall and muscular, with dark hair and a heavy moustache and beard. A nearby fire cast enough light for Jack to see his sun-browned skin. He had hard grey eyes that roved over the crowd to meet the gaze of any man bold enough to look back at him.

  ‘Well, are you coming with us?’ Jack heard the officer shout the question at another mounted man in the crowd.

  ‘I’m sorry, General Forrest. I ought not to leave my command, but ought to share their fate.’

  ‘All right. I admire your loyalty, but damn your judgement.’

  Forrest’s firm retort was met with mutters from the rest of the gathered officers.

  For his part, Jack could only admire the reply. He now knew the man at the centre of the crowd to be the fabled General Bedford Forrest. Every man in the fort knew the commander of the Confederate cavalry. Now Jack saw him for the first time, and it was hard not to be impressed, by both his appearance and his attitude. The man was clearly not one to suffer anyone who disagreed with him.

  ‘I’m going to cut my way out.’ Forrest addressed the rest of the crowd. ‘All of you who wish to leave can follow me. If you prefer to stay and take the consequences, then do so, but I will not sit here like a sheep waiting for the butcher’s arrival.’

  There was a growl of approval that rippled through those gathered around. The short, pithy speech was enough to catch Jack’s interest. Forrest was proposing another breakout. If the leader of the Confederate cavalry was going, that would mean Lyle was going too.

  ‘What about the others, General?’ a voice from the throng sang out.

  ‘Floyd and Pillow ain’t got the fight in their bellies,’ Forrest answered immediately. He sat easy in the saddle, as though proposing an escape through an enemy army was an everyday occurrence. ‘General Buckner will be given command. He will surrender the fort and the whole force with it.’

  Forrest’s direct speech and call for action was impressive. For his part, Jack had no intention of being left behind. He had been taken prisoner by the South, and was not going to wait around to see if it would be any different being a prisoner of the Union.

  ‘We leave within the hour. Gather your gear, and bring any man who wants to come with us. I can’t promise you an easy ride, and we may have to cut our way through the Yankee line, but there’s no way in hell I’m sitting here waiting to surrender.’

  The gathering growled its approval then immediately started to break up. Jack left with them. He walked fast, ignoring the chatter of the men around him as they pondered their decisions. He had made his own the moment he heard Forrest propose cutting his way free.

  ‘Look alive-o,’ Jack called out to Martha the moment he approached their shelter.

  ‘What’s going on?’ To her credit, Martha sensed his urgency immediately and got to her feet, her hands already reaching for his knapsack.

  ‘We’re getting out of here. Forrest and his men are planning to cut their way through the Union lines. They’ll let anyone who wants to go with them.’

  ‘And we’re going?’

  ‘
You want to sit here and be taken prisoner? I have no idea what the Yankees will do to you if they find you here.’ Jack fired back the reply.

  ‘The Yankees, Jack?’ Martha picked up on Jack’s choice of words. ‘Why, I do believe you are starting to sound like one of us.’

  Jack paid the pithy comment no heed. He had never been a Yankee, just as he was now no Confederate. He was his own man; nothing more and nothing less.

  He bent over and picked up the carbine he had taken from one of Pinter’s men, a weapon Martha had carried before. ‘You’d better take this. It’s cleaned, but you’ll have to load it. You remember how?’

  Martha took it. ‘I remember. You think it’ll be that bad?’

  Jack shook his head. ‘I have no idea. I can’t imagine the Yankees will just let us leave.’ He offered a tight smile. ‘We may have to fight our way through.’

  Martha looked at the carbine in her hands. It looked too big for her, even though it was several inches shorter than a regular rifle.

  ‘I ain’t fought before.’

  ‘It’s easy, you just point the barrel and pull the trigger.’ Jack gave a glib answer as he started to sort out his own weapons.

  ‘And then you kill a man.’

  Something in her tone stopped him. He turned to look at her. It was easy enough to see her fear. ‘Look, just follow me. I won’t abandon you.’ He reached out and placed a heavy hand on her shoulder. ‘You’ll be fine, I promise.’ He patted her once, then stood back and scrutinised her. ‘At least you look the part now.’

  ‘Well, I sure stink as bad as any of you men.’ Martha’s mouth twisted into something halfway between a smile and a grimace. She said nothing more as she went to Jack’s knapsack and fished for the cartridge pouch.

  It took a while, but working together they loaded their weapons, gathered their gear, then saddled the mare that Jack had stolen. It was dark and bitterly cold, but it was time to quit their shelter and ride with Forrest and his men. It was time to leave Dover, Fort Donelson and the Confederate army behind.

  Jack and Martha rode in the midst of a motley crew. As far as Jack could judge, around five hundred men had followed Forrest that night. The four hundred cavalrymen of his own command had been joined by men from a number of different units, along with the remains of a single battery of artillery that had been badly mauled in the previous day’s fighting. Jack and Martha were not the only ones to share a horse’s back. With more men wanting to go with Forrest than there were mounts, a fair few had resorted to either sharing an animal or else finding a precarious perch on the cannons and their limbers.

  The group left the Confederate lines with little fanfare and took the old Charlotte road that ran out of Dover. A few men stood and watched them leave. They rode in darkness, their way lit only by the light of the moon. They could see neither army. The troops on the front lines were forbidden from lighting fires to avoid giving their position away and so drawing fire from the dozens of cannon that now faced each other. It made for miserable conditions, and Jack was glad to be riding away from the doomed fort.

  The column pressed on. It moved slowly, the pace dictated as much by the treacherous going as by the slower-moving caissons, limbers and carriages of the artillerymen. To Jack it felt odd to be moving so leisurely. It did not feel as if they were engaged on some wild breakout attempt.

  Within the first hour, they reached a wide creek to the east of Dover. In the meagre light, it looked formidable. At least one hundred yards wide, with dozens of floating islands of ice across its surface, it was a daunting barrier. As Jack watched, Forrest rode directly into the surging waters. He pushed through the ice, forcing his horse through the fast-moving current, then, without stopping, urged the animal up the far bank before turning and waving to the lead ranks to follow.

  The men at the head of the column needed no further urging. They followed the route their commander had taken, the air full of the noise of the horses splashing through the freezing creek. When it was his turn, Jack could not help gasping as he walked his mare into the water. It was deep enough to reach the horse’s saddle, and frigid on his lower legs.

  ‘That way.’ An officer waiting on the far side of the river pointed to another road on the far side of the overflow. ‘That leads to the Cumberland Ironworks. Follow it all the way to Cumberland City and don’t stop for nothing.’

  Forrest knew his trade, and the column proceeded slowly with men sent to scout the way ahead, whilst others took up the positions of advance and rear guard. Yet he need not have bothered. No Union picket challenged their progress and they passed through the enemy lines without a shot being fired. Many more men could have come with them. Forrest had saved his own regiment, along with a battery of guns and a few hundred other troops, but the rest of the Confederate force had stayed behind and now would be forced to surrender.

  The Confederate government would lose a large portion of their army, but for the moment, Jack and Martha were safe.

  Jack stood in the open doorway of the farmhouse and looked outside at the rain that was coming down in torrents. There had been days of the relentless, frigid downpour, and the deluge had turned the roads around Nashville into so much slurry.

  Jack and Martha had found the abandoned house on the outskirts of the city and had taken it for their own. The owners had clearly left in a hurry, and Jack could only suppose they had joined one of the long columns of refugees that were now leaving Nashville every day as the Union army pressed ever closer. It had been stripped of everything of value, but there was still enough furniture left behind for Jack and Martha to be comfortable enough.

  Jack stood and listened to the rain as it lashed down, cradling the mug of coffee Martha had given him in his hands, relishing the heat on his skin. The bitter black brew was a poor substitute for a mug of good tarry soldier’s tea so thick you could almost stand your spoon upright in it, but at least it was warm, and it helped to stave off the chill of another bitterly cold morning.

  As he watched the rain, he wondered how much longer the Confederate army would remain in the city. It was a pitifully small force, and getting smaller every day. Nashville was the largest settlement he had been in since he had left Boston all those months before, and it was not a pretty place. The large state capitol that stood on a hill overlooking the city was as fine a building as he had seen in America, its design making it look like some sort of Greek temple, and the tall lantern in the centre of the roof allowed it to totally dominate its surroundings. But no other building came close to matching its splendour, with much of the centre of the city given over to industry.

  Nashville’s position on the banks of the Cumberland river provided good access to the rest of Tennessee and beyond, but it was the network of railroads that met in the city that gave it a much greater importance now that war had begun. Four lines converged here, representing a strategic hub that the Confederate army could ill afford to lose. But Jack saw no sign of a defence being prepared. Indeed, the only thing on the minds of both the citizens of Nashville and the exhausted and sickened soldiers was flight.

  Every day he saw fewer soldiers on the streets. So many were sick. One officer of artillery he spoke to told of one third of the army’s strength being ill. The force that was being assembled after the loss of the river forts was falling apart before it had even had the chance to face the enemy.

  Jack still wore Pinter’s uniform and so it was easy enough for him to walk through the city unimpeded. He had purchased himself a new sword to replace the one lost in the fight with Lyle. It was a standard officer’s sabre, made at the Nashville Plow Works, and it looked just like ones he had seen in the North, although the maker’s name and the initials CSA had been stamped on the underside of the guard to remind the owner which side they were on. Back at the farm, he had worked on the blade, oiling and polishing the steel and sharpening the edge with a whetstone. It was no maharajah’s talwar, but it would do the job.

  His stolen uniform also allowed him to ask que
stions that would likely have aroused suspicion were he dressed as a civilian. He now knew that Fort Donelson had surrendered the day after Forrest had led his men away. Nashville was full of talk of an unconditional surrender, the Union’s General Grant refusing to give an inch to the beleaguered and surrounded Confederate forces. Close to twelve thousand men had been forced to lay down their arms, a horrendous blow to the Confederate cause.

  The Union army now held the vital river arteries that could be used to strike further south. The Northern forces would be able to use the rivers to transport men and supplies without the need to march long distances across country. They had broken the back of the Confederate defensive line in northern Tennessee and Kentucky, and now the Southern generals were hastily assembling every man they could find to form an army that would have a fighting chance of stopping the inevitable Union push south.

  ‘Are you going out in that?’

  Jack drained the last of his coffee, then turned to smile at Martha, who had crept up behind him. ‘Later, maybe. No one’s going anywhere at the moment.’

  ‘And when they do, you’ll go with them.’

  Jack sighed. He was in no mood to repeat the familiar argument. ‘Yes.’

  Martha shook her head at his answer. She was still dressed as a soldier, but her clothes were now clean. The stay in the farmhouse had given them more than just the time to tend to their clothing. Both had been able to rest, and so find the strength they would need when they embarked on the next leg of their journey.

  ‘You don’t think it’s time to let this one lie, Jack? You found that man twice already. You even tried to kill him. Isn’t that enough?’

  ‘No.’ Jack turned back to look at the rain, which if anything was coming down even harder.

  ‘You’re a pig-headed fool, you know that?’ Martha had not moved as he turned away, and now stood facing his back, her hands on her hips.

  ‘Maybe,’ he sighed. ‘I think I preferred you when you didn’t say boo to a goose.’