Vengeance Is Black

by George G. Gilman

  Edge wanted to wait: to rest: to summon a renewed surge of strength and to fight the pain in his arm. But an inner compulsion forced him to complete his escape without respite. He stretched out, gripped the rim of a rear wheel and inched his lower body and legs clear of the interior. It felt as if his entire body was encased in a covering of ice as the sighing wind chilled his sweat.

  He knew there could be no slow climb down from the stage: that his clothing could snag or his strength could give out at a critical moment.

  Now that he was outside, each small movement he made seemed to have a larger effect on the stability of the stage than when he had been inside. There was no Winchester to use as a lever now and the level of pain had risen. But he managed to get up on to his haunches. Then, with his good arm stretched out in front of him to lessen the impact, he leapt down into the brush.

  The rear end of the stage reared up as if in some kind of grotesque salute, then the whole creaking mass slid forward.

  The nearside rear wheel was sheered off at the axle and fell back into the brush as the stage plunged down into the ravine, the sound of it smashing into the cliff resounded through the mountains in a discordant symphony of destruction.

  “Over the edge — but not for him,” he rasped as pain welled up over him and returned him into the warm sea of unconsciousness.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE wagon rolled into Jonesville at mid-morning. Captain Hedges’ held the reins and the doctor rode up on the box seat beside him, acting as guide along the rutted road from the Crane Plantation to town.

  The bed of the wagon was low on its springs, heavy with arms and ammunition stolen from a cache in the basement of the house and non-perishable food appropriated from the larder. The troopers—Rhett now attired in a business suit and frock coat from the dead butler’s wardrobe—looked out from flaps and splits in the canvas. Like Hedges, they were freshly bathed and shaved, their clothing brushed clean and their boots polished.

  It wasn’t much of a town, comprised of two parallel streets with three cross streets and a number of alleys linking them, each of these having to bridge a fast running stream which ran through the centre of Jonesville. It had a half-dozen stores, two saloons, a livery stable and blacksmiths, two churches, a bank and a stage depot. All the other buildings were houses, three of the larger ones offering rooms for rent North of the town was a small flour mill on the bank of the stream.

  In the warm sunlight it looked dusty and neglected. The few people on the streets had sad faces and work-worn hands: they wore clothes that had been patched too often and not laundered enough.

  “Ain’t exactly no New York or Frisco,” Forrest muttered.

  “Used to be a nice little town,” Bound explained, directing his remark to Hedges. Then most of the able-bodied men got enlisted in the army. For a long time now Jonesville’s been on the main supply route for the Army of Tennessee. Hardly two weeks ever goes by when we aren’t billeted with men going up to the front or coming back. Now the Federals have taken Chattanooga and it looks certain they’ll push on south. If that happens, it figures there’ll be fighting here – Rebels have got to try to hold everything they can north of Atlanta. Town’s just had its spirit broken, I suppose. The folk who live here don’t care anymore.”

  Bound pointed towards an alleyway and Hedges steered the wagon into it, halting it in front of a stairway canting up the side of a building. At the top was a doorway with a shingle hung outside. The shingle bore Bound’s name in faded lettering.

  “You sound like you’re full of regret, feller,” Hedges said as he lowered himself carefully to the dusty ground, favoring his injured leg.

  The overweight doctor climbed wearily down on the other side, casting nervous glances in each direction. “I’m a Northerner who happens to like a lot about the South,” he answered grimly. “Must because I detest slavery doesn’t mean I have to enjoy witnessing the destruction of everything I hold dear.”

  He looked hard at Hedges, who responded within an impassive shrug. Then Bound labored up the stairway, unlocked his door and looked furtively in both directions along the alley before beckoning to Hedges.

  “Out and up,” the Captain called into the rear of the wagon.

  “Heeled, Captain?” Forrest wanted to know.

  “What do you think?” Hedges growled.

  The troopers jumped down from the rear of the wagon and ran up the stairway, the agitated doctor frantically beckoning them to hurry. Hedges brought up the rear after drawing a Spencer from the wagon.

  Bound had four rooms above the stage depot: a book-lined living room, a Spartan bedroom, a scrupulously clean kitchen and a surgery in which everything was covered with dust. He stood by, controlling his anger, as Hedges and Forrest examined each room.

  “Stairway, two windows which might or might not break a few legs if we jump and a trapdoor out on to the roof,” Forrest listed coldly.

  Hedges nodded and used the muzzle of the Spencer to prise up a strip of carpeting. “Drop flap down to the stage depot,” he added to the list.

  Bound’s anger diminished. “Thought you boys were looking for Rebels under the bed,” he said.

  “That, too,” Hedges replied shortly. “But mostly for ways out if we have to leave in a hurry.”

  “You’re very thorough,” Bound said.

  “One of the reasons the Captain’s a Captain,” Forrest put in with a mean grin. “He thinks of most things.”

  The sergeant jerked a thumb at Seward, who scowled as he hauled himself out of the most comfortable chair in the living room. Forrest sank into it with a sigh.

  “Trouble is, he don’t always tell us what he’s thinking,” Douglas said sourly from where he squatted in a corner.

  Rhett was flicking through a volume taken from one of the many bookshelves. “Like why we’re here, for instance,” he suggested.

  Bell nodded. “Bottled tip in a tank town when it’s likely every Rebel that ain’t fighting is out searching for us.”

  Seward opened his mouth to contribute to the criticism, but lost his voice as he stared into the cruel lines of Hedges’ face. The Captain’s eyes were narrowed to glittering slits and his lips were curled back just enough to show his teeth in a subdued but pointedly menacing snarl. He turned slightly from the waist, swinging his head around to vent the evil expression on every one of the troopers.

  “You’ll get told what you need to know,” he said with soft-voiced venom. “And I’ll decide what you need to know.”

  Rhett buried his head in the book. Seward, Scott, Douglas and Bell injected a degree of defiance into their expressions, then looked questioningly at Forrest. The sergeant had rolled a cigarette and was drawing against it contently as he lounged in the easy chair.

  He treated the men to an easy smile as he scratched his jaw. “Ain’t had this much comfort since I got into this man’s war,” he told them. “So I ain’t got no quarrel with the Captain.” Then he turned his eyes towards Hedges and they showed an evil glitter of their own. “Course, when the time comes, it’ll be up to the Captain to figure a way out.”

  “Would you gentleman like some coffee?” Bound put in, endeavoring to drain the tension out of the atmosphere.

  “Five of us would,” Hedges answered. “Corporal Douglas and Trooper Bell have got some chores to do.”

  “Hell!” Douglas exclaimed. “What–”

  “You unhitch the team from the wagon and exchange the horses for fresh ones at the livery!” Hedges snapped at him.

  “Just like that, uh?” Douglas retorted. “Talk to the man sweet and he’ll give me the best nags he’s got?”

  Forrest lunged out of the chair and caught hold of Douglas’ tunic front. “Do like the man says!” he snarled, his breath hot on the corporal’s suddenly pale face. “You’re supposed to be a Reb soldier. So you commandeer the nags. If the man kicks, tell him he’s a traitor to the Cause. Then shoot him.” He twisted his grip and raised Douglas up on to his toes. “Okay?”
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  “Sure, Frank,” Douglas gasped.

  Forrest nodded and shoved him violently away. Douglas stumbled, caught his balance and went hurriedly out of the door. Bell looked expectantly at Hedges.

  “Trapdoor’s in the bedroom ceiling,” the Captain said. “Stay on the roof until I send up someone to relieve you. You see anyone moving into town, let me know.”

  Bell nodded mutely and went into the bedroom to comply.

  “Coffee for five, doc,” Forrest instructed, sinking back into the easy chair. “Black and strong for me.”

  Hedges pointed a finger at him. “Your job, sergeant,” he said, moving towards the surgery door. “Doc Bound’s got something else to do.”

  The finger moved towards Bound and crooked. The fat man bobbed his head and followed Hedges through the doorway.

  “Rhett, make the coffee!” Forrest ordered.

  “He told you to do it!”Rhett retorted angrily.

  Forrest grinned at the dandily dressed New Englander. “Hedges is a Captain, Bob. I’m a sergeant. That means we’re both in authority. Art of command is delegation.” The grin turned sour, transforming into a scowl. “So make the goddamn coffee before I cut you into pieces and toss you in the pot.”

  “Then we’ll have chicken stew instead!” Seward exclaimed with a giggle.

  Rhett slammed the book shut and hurled it to the floor. He snorted, “You make me sick to my stomach!”

  “You ain’t got no stomach, Bob!” Scott yelled after him,

  Behind the closed door of the surgery, Dr Bound removed the old dressing from Hedge’s thigh and swabbed away the congealed blood.

  “Messy?” Hedges asked.

  Bound shrugged. “Looks like it was once, but somebody did a good job on it. No new infection. But you know you ought to rest up for a week or so. Liable to keep opening up and bleeding you keep on the move.”

  “We all take chances in a war,” Hedges answered as Bound splashed pure alcohol on the wound.

  “You sure took one, shooting up the Crane place.” Bound dried the moisture and applied a pad which was spongy with ointment “So happens that everyone you killed out there has been responsible for more Union dead than I’d care to count. But you didn’t know that when you ordered your men to start shooting. They could have been innocent victims.”

  Hedges nodded in agreement as Bound began to bandage the wound. He was a good doctor, his pudgy hands gentle in their movements. “That’s war, doc,” the Captain said. “You draw some lines on a map and everybody on the wrong side of them is the enemy.”

  “I’m on the wrong side of one of your lines,” Bound pointed out as he tied the knots in the bandage.

  “Not my lines,” Hedges corrected. “I didn’t draw them.”

  “My point still stands,” Bound insisted.

  Hedges pulled his uniform pants back on. “You got lucky,” he said simply. “Everybody’s entitled to some luck.”

  Bound stared at a glass cabinet with instrument lined shelves. “I’ve had an awful lot of it.”

  “When a man runs out of it, life ain’t worth living,” Hedges told him, rising and heading for this door.

  “Hey, the niggers are coming!” Bell yelled from the roof. “Jesus, are they coming!”

  Hedges jerked open the door and saw the men in the living room startled out of their brief spell of relaxation. Forrest was already on his feet and moving into the bedroom. Seward and Scott were hauling themselves up from the floor where they had been stretched out. Rhett was in the kitchen doorway, a tray of steaming cups in his arms.

  “We’ll take it in the roof garden,” Hedges told him.

  Rhett tossed his head petulantly as Hedges disappeared through the bedroom doorway.

  In the bedroom the bed and a dresser had been pushed together to offer easy access to the trapdoor in the ceiling. Rhett was the last man up, after handing the tray through to Bound.

  The building was only two storeys high but was one of only a few double-floored structures in the centre of town. Thus, it afforded a good all-round view of the two streets in the middle of Jonesville and beyond the town limits over the surrounding countryside.

  The liberated slaves were streaming in from a wooded area to the south east: some thirty riders approaching at the gallop, trailed by twenty or so men running through the rising dust. Every man brandished a weapon of some kind – a rifle, handgun, sword, knife or stout tree branch sharpened at one or both ends.

  At first they approached in silence, only the thudding sounds of galloping hooves to disturb the shimmering air of midday. Down on the streets with buildings to act as a noise barrier, the townspeople went listlessly about their business, unaware of the danger.

  “It’ll be a massacre!” Bound gasped.

  “They’ve got a lot of pent-up hate to get rid of,” Hedges acknowledged.

  “We have to warn them!” Bound implored, raising his hands to his face and cupping them around his mouth.

  But it proved unnecessary. While the troopers sipped at the piping hot coffee, eyes swinging between the townspeople arid the invaders, the Negroes made their own announcement.

  As the massive, bald-headed leader of the freed slaves raised a rifle above his head, fifty mouths snapped open and vented a blood-curdling roar. It boomed into the town streets as nothing .more than an animalistic bellow that halted people in mid-stride and drained their faces of color.

  Then the thunder of hoof beats trembled the hot air, to be drowned out a moment later by a full throated chant:

  “White bastards die... white bastards die... white bastards die.”

  “What was that?”Douglas yelled from the alley.

  Forrest glanced over the edge of the roof and saw the corporal had just finished harnessing a fresh team to the wagon. “Better get up here, Hal,” Forrest called to him. “Things are looking black for anyone caught on the streets.”

  “You mean...”

  “I mean get up here, lunkhead!” Forrest hurled at him. “And fast!”

  Douglas raced up the stairway.

  The Negroes reached the southern end of town and split into two equal groups, each unit racing into the main streets. Rifles and revolvers exploded into sound, signaling the cessation of the chant.

  Two women with shopping baskets were caught in the middle of the street. One went in one direction as the other turned to retreat. His mouth gaping wide in a silent war cry, the shiny-domed head man kicked free of his stirrups and splayed his legs. His feet hooked around the necks of the women and they fell, screaming, beneath the crashing hooves of the horses grouped behind.

  An old man in thick-lensed eyeglasses peered out of his store doorway and his stomach exploded in a red spray as half a dozen rifle bullets ripped into him.

  On the second street a man, with his wife as a passenger, tried to outrun the riders in his buggy. Eight bullets penetrated the rear panel and exploded through his chest. His wife jerked the reins from his hands, but his body tipped forward across the back of the frightened mare. The animal swerved and the buggy went into a dust-billowing slide, side-swiping a rooming house. The woman was lifted from her seat and hurled through a window, needle sharp shards of glass inscribing bloody lines over her face and body.

  Two men fired from the doorway of a saloon and a Negro was toppled from his horse, blood gushing from a severed neck artery. The horseman closest to the man who had died turned his mount towards the saloon, charging across the sidewalk and crashing into the batwing doors. One of the white men fired at point-blank range into the Negro’s stomach. The Negro roared in pain and anger and swung a saber with tremendous strength. The top of the man’s head was sliced cleanly through and skimmed through the air, scattering blood and tissue.

  The second white man raised his rifle, but saw the bubbling redness within the skull of his dead friend and began to vomit. The horse, panicked at being suddenly enclosed in the saloon fetid with exploded powder, reared and lashed out with his forelegs. Chairs were knocked side
ways and tables were splintered. The Negro slid from the animal’s back and was prevented from falling by coming up against the bar. The barkeep snatched a bottle from a shelf and swung it. It shattered over the Negro’s head. The black man whirled, his body movement adding force to his arcing arm. The saber severed the barkeep’s right arm above the elbow and then carved a gaping gash across his chest. The Negro saw the final movement of the man’s exposed heart before three fast shots delved into the back of his head.

  The man who had been sick exploded into a spasm of hysterical laughter at overcoming his nausea and killing the Negro. But the sound became a gasping death rattle as another invader rushed into the saloon and drove a wooden spear into his back. The sharpened point burst out through his stomach.

  The dead sprawled in the dust of the streets, both black and white: more white than black. The horsemen had reached the north end of town and dismounted: were now moving back south again. Like the men who had been on foot from the start, each group sub-divided into two, to cover both sides of the street. Some buildings were empty: many were not. In some were men and women with guns who sometimes dropped a few of the enemy. Occasionally unarmed townspeople begged for mercy.

  The Negroes listened to not a single plea. Guns blazed, blades swished or spears drove forward. Men, women and children spurted blood in their paroxysms of death. There was no rape nor, as yet, any looting. Killing was all that engaged the Negroes: quick, merciless and joyless killing. It was as if every grudge held by every slave in the South had been transmitted to the minds of these black men and the burden had become too great so they had been transmuted into mindless animals. The simple accident of geography meant that Jonesville was the object of their vengeance.