Brings the Lightning (The Ames Archives Book 1)

by Peter Grant

  Copyright

  Brings the Lightning

  Peter Grant

  Castalia House

  Kouvola, Finland

  www.castaliahouse.com

  This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by Finnish copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental

  Copyright © 2016 by Peter Grant

  All rights reserved

  Editor: Vox Day

  Cover Image: The Lookout by Frederic Remington

  Version: 001

  This book is dedicated with gratitude to Jim, Rita and Ian.

  Better friends a man can’t hope to find.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Author's Note

  War to the Knife

  There Will Be War

  About the Author

  Castalia House

  Walt cursed beneath his breath as another runnel of water found its way over the brim of his black felt hat and down the neck of his blue greatcoat. He’d only owned them for a few months, their former Union Army owner having had no further need for them after a vicious little skirmish. They had proved very useful against the March and April cold and snow, but weren’t as good at keeping out the rain. The hat’s brim drooped and the coat was almost soaked through, doubling its weight.

  The narrow, winding, overgrown path rounded a corner of the steep bluff to his right, then opened onto a small clearing. His horse began to turn the bend, hoof beats almost completely silent on the sandy soil of the little-used trail, its passage marked only by a soft swish as it brushed against the vegetation on either side. It suddenly lifted its head, ears pricked forward, and looked across the open space into the woods beyond. Walt tensed as he saw its reaction, and gently pulled on the reins, halting the animal before it entered the clearing.

  He knew the animal’s brown coat and his blue and gray clothes, all darkened by rain, would be almost invisible in the gloom beneath the trees; therefore, whoever waited ahead probably hadn’t seen him yet—or, if they had, they weren’t showing any reaction. He slipped off his gloves, tucking them into his greatcoat pockets, then slowly, silently unfastened the flaps of the holsters on either side of his saddle pommel. He drew a Colt Army revolver from the right-hand one, but didn’t cock it yet, wanting to make no noise to give away his presence. With his left hand he eased the drooping hat backwards off his head, letting it hang from its cord around his neck. Now he’d be able to see clearly to shoot, if he had to. He waited, sitting motionless in the fading light.

  Why would anyone be up here, anyway? he thought, puzzled. Sillman’s Hollow’s five miles behind me. Only rocks, trees and bushes grow in these hills, so it’s not a farmer. Prob’ly not blue-belly troops. War’s over now, and besides, there’s been no fighting round here for months. They’d have no reason to be here. The only folks likely to use this old trail are people like me, trying to stay out of sight and keep moving.

  Walt’s horse moved restlessly beneath him. He reached down with his left hand and patted the brown’s shoulder gently to calm it. Like the bay behind him, it made no sound. Both horses were well accustomed to cautious, stop-and-go travel like this. He’d captured both of them from the enemy, then trained them for his specific needs as a scout. They’d smelled powder smoke many times before, and wouldn’t flinch at the sound of gunfire. He knew he could trust them to do what was needed when the time came. He silently loosened the lead rein of the pack horse, ready to release it the instant anything happened. Both horses had been taught to stand in place, ground-hitched, if he dropped their reins.

  The light faded further, the sky growing an even more leaden gray as the sun sank below the cloud-obscured horizon. Still Walt waited, motionless. The first to give away his position was usually the first to die. He’d learned that lesson early and often in bitter encounters along too many dark, narrow trails, as both attacker and defender.

  Suddenly the silence was broken by a shrill, irritated call from the top of the bluff to the right. “Clem! Sim! What’s keepin’ ya, dammit? Come eat!” It was a woman’s voice. Walt couldn’t see her, but it sounded like she was no more than twenty yards away. He tensed, startled, but remained still.

  Across the clearing, a voice came from behind a tree. “Aw, hell, Mattie! Awright, we’re comin’.” A man wearing dirty buckskins stepped out, lifting a Sharps carbine, lowering the hammer to half-cock and laying it in the crook of his left arm. Water dripped from his long, greasy gray hair and beard. “C’mon, Sim. Let’s go.”

  “But, Paw, I was sure I heard a horse!” A younger man, wearing similar clothes and carrying a long-barreled Springfield rifled musket, came from behind a tree on the other side of the trail. “It might be another Johnny Reb.”

  Walt realized at once, They’re bushwhackers! They can’t have heard of the surrender at Appomattox yet; but even if they had, it wouldn’t stop their kind. They’re carrion-eaters, not soldiers. His lips drew back in an unconscious snarl of fury.

  “Thought I heard somethin’ myself,” the older man agreed as they stepped away from the trees, “but it was prob’ly just a deer brushin’ through the trees. A rider would have got here by now, if he was comin’ this way.”

  “Deer don’t wear saddles. I figured I heard leather creak.”

  “Well, I didn’t, and no one’s come down the trail, have they, boy?”

  “Naw, but…” The younger man peered across the clearing, then stiffened, pointing in sudden panic at the looming figure. “Hell fire, there he is!”

  Walt didn’t wait for him to finish. He dropped the lead rein and dug in his heels. The brown responded instantly, jumping forward into the clearing as Walt thumb-cocked the revolver. The two men frantically tried to raise, cock and aim their rifles, but he was on them too quickly. He fired twice into the older man’s body. His victim shouted in agony, stumbling sideways into his son, dropping his gun as he clutched at his chest. Before the young man could untangle himself and line his rifle, Walt rode his horse into him. He toppled back, his gun falling from his grasp even as his father collapsed.

  “D– don’t shoot, Mister! Don’t shoot!” The boy cast an anguished glance at the gurgling, twitching, dying man.

  Walt looked down at him, holding his aim steady. “Why in hell were you trying to ambush me?”

  “W– we wuz only gonna see who ya were! We wouldn’t hurt a Union man!” The younger man started to rise. “Paw! I gotta help him!” he half-sobbed.

  Walt’s steely voice stopped him. “You just stay right there, boy.”

  “But– but– we’s patriotic Union men, jus’ like you! You c’n ask Lieutenant Ford up at Ripley. He gave Paw a paper t’ say we c’n stop any Rebs that come through, an’ keep any contraband they’s carryin’. We got three o’ them this past week.” His voice was
rushed, panicked, his words stumbling over each other. He gestured down-slope. “We drug their bodies down there to get ’em out o’ the way. I ain’t lyin’, mister—I c’n show ’em to ya! M’ brother Tay rode to Ripley this mornin’ t’ sell their b’longin’s t’ the sutler an’ their hosses to th’ livery barn, an’ pay the Lieutenant his cut. He’ll be back t’morrer night, an’ he’ll tell ya th’ same as me. Now, please, mister, c’n I see to Paw?”

  “Too late for that, boy. Don’t let this blue coat fool you. I’m a Reb, just like you feared—and since you’ve robbed and killed my kind, I’ll be damned if I leave you alive to bushwhack any more of us who come this way.”

  The young man’s eyes widened in horror, but Walt didn’t give him a chance to reply. He put a bullet through his head. The boy’s body convulsed in an involuntary spasm, then went limp.

  As if echoing Walt’s shot, a rifle cracked from on top of the bluff to his right. A red-hot iron seemed to sear across the back of his neck, and he couldn’t hold back a shout of pain. He twisted in his saddle and whipped up his revolver, arm extended. In the gloom he could see only a shadowy, ill-defined figure through a bloom of grayish-white powder smoke on top of the bluff. He lined his sights on the center of the smoke and triggered a round. A shrill, high-pitched scream came in response. The figure toppled forward over the edge of the bluff, tumbled down the steep, almost vertical slope, and flopped onto the grass.

  Walt tried to thumb-cock the revolver again, but its hammer wouldn’t lock back. He realized instantly that a fired percussion cap, or a piece of it, had jammed the action. Cursing aloud in frustration, he dropped the gun back into its holster as he pulled a Colt Navy revolver from the left side of the saddle horn. Transferring it to his right hand and cocking it, he glanced at the two men. Neither was moving. He tugged at the reins, backing his horse away from them, then trotted over to where the figure was lying.

  Looking over the sights of his revolver as he drew nearer, he gulped in sudden dismay. It was a woman! A dark stain was soaking through her checkered gingham dress, centered over her groin and left upper thigh. It was already large, spreading with remorseless speed. Got the big artery in her leg, he realized. She’s bleeding out. She had half-raised herself onto one elbow, but even as he watched she slumped back, eyes closed, gasping for air. She was done for.

  Damn you! he cursed mentally, feeling sick to his stomach. Why in hell did you join in? I didn’t know you was a woman! I’ve never harmed one before, and I’d as soon not have hurt you… but what else could I do?

  Shaking his head in a vain attempt to clear the ringing, all-too-familiar aftereffects of gunfire from his ears, he swung down from the saddle, then reached up gingerly to the back of his neck. He could feel a line across the skin, which stung as he touched it. His fingers came away red. Woman or not, she near on did for me. One inch to the right and she’d have blown my neck bone in two. What a hell of a thing that would be – survive the war, only to get killed by a no-account bushwhacker’s woman after the surrender!

  Walt looked around, tensed for action. Are there any more of ’em? She only called two for supper, but that don’t mean there weren’t some others already up there. He listened, alert for any sound that might signal danger, but there was nothing. Maybe it was just those two men. If there’d been others, surely they’d have joined the fight with her, an’ not sat it out? Still, until I’ve checked out whatever’s up there, I’d best be real careful.

  With a final rattle in her throat and a tremor through her body, the woman stopped breathing. He couldn’t tell how old she might have been, but she wasn’t young. Her once-dark hair was heavily streaked with gray, and her face was lined and careworn. He glanced at the rifle lying next to her. It was an old muzzle-loading single-shot weapon, its barrel now plugged with dirt from the fall. He left it lying in the grass as he turned and walked over to the two men.

  The older man, now also silent in death, was carrying a Lemat revolver in a flap-top saddle holster, altered to fit his belt and balanced by an Arkansas toothpick knife on the other side. That’s an odd gun for a bushwhacker to have, Walt mused as he removed the weapons and picked up the carbine. The South didn’t bring in many, and most of ’em went to the cavalry. Maybe one of those the boy said they’d killed this past week was carrying it.

  He was about to turn away when he noticed a leather thong around the man’s neck. He pulled open his coat and whistled in surprise. The man was wearing an Indian-made bear-claw necklace. It was strung with all twenty claws from front and back paws—large ones, at that. I’ve never seen a black bear with claws that big, Walt mused as he removed it and slipped it into a pocket of his greatcoat. Wonder if they’re from a grizzly? I’ve heard tell they’re pretty big, but there ain’t any in these parts.

  The younger man carried an Allen & Thurber pepperbox revolver thrust behind his belt. Walt tossed it into the brush with a grunt of disdain. He threw the Springfield musket after it as well, after removing the percussion cap from its nipple and lowering the hammer, but kept the boy’s well-worn Green River sheath knife.

  He added the weapons to his pack horse’s load and swung into his saddle again, still holding his revolver as he looked up at the bluff. There’s got to be a path leading up there. It’s too steep to climb here. He urged the horses into motion, peering at the right side of the trail in the fading light. Sure enough, within a few yards he saw a break in the brush and turned the horses into it. In the gloom they picked their way up a narrow, steeply sloped trail along the face of the bluff, to emerge thirty feet higher on level ground. He followed the trail back along the bluff top until it widened in front of a cave. Two horses were picketed outside beneath a brush lean-to shelter, big enough to hold three times as many animals. They whickered as they heard and scented the approach of his mount. A small stream trickled down a nearby rock face. A tantalizing odor of food came from the cave.

  Dismounting, he secured his horses in the shelter, noting in passing that the bushwhackers’ animals, like his, bore US Army brands. He kept the gun ready in his hand as he went inside, looking around warily, but relaxed as he saw three beds made of tree boughs, covered by tarpaulins and piled with old, dirty blankets. One was twice as wide as the others, presumably for the woman and the older man. The narrower beds would be for their sons. A lantern was set on a rock shelf, casting a dim, fitful light. A black cast iron cooking pot was bubbling over coals. Lifting the lid, he saw it contained a mixture of bacon and beans. Another pot of beans was soaking next to a stack of firewood. A half-side of bacon with a carving knife embedded in it lay on a rough-cut table, along with a round loaf of pan bread. A pack saddle, bags and bundles lined one side of the cave.

  He made a snap decision. Nobody else is likely to come this way tonight. I’ll clean my guns, eat their food, sleep here, and see what else they’ve got in the morning, when the light’s better. My horses can do with a day’s rest, and there’s new spring grass for them in that clearing. I’ll wait for Tay to get back. I’ll be damned if I leave him alive to rob and kill any more Southern boys, with or without his family!

  Next morning the rain had stopped and the clouds had parted. Walt rose with the dawn and gently explored the wound on the back of his neck. He’d cleaned it using the dregs of a bottle of whiskey the night before, cursing as the alcohol stung the wound. Now he repeated the process. Instead of bandaging it, he left it open to the fresh air, to dry and form a scab.

  He breakfasted on the cold bacon, beans and bread left over from last night, then took the horses down to the clearing and picketed them to graze. Climbing back up the path, he hauled everything out of the cave and inspected his loot. There were burlap sacks, canvas bags and glass jars of food, lanterns, kerosene to fuel them, five iron pots ranging from very large to small, ammunition and cleaning gear for the guns, even a couple of bars of laundry soap—unused, to Walt’s cynical amusement. No money, though, he mused as he sorted through the robbers’ clothes and personal belongings. No o
ne’s got much cash these days. I bet the other boy will bring some back from Ripley, though.

  He set aside the few clothes that would fit him and were still in reasonably good shape. They all smelled dirty and stale, and he wrinkled his nose in distaste. He threw the rest of the clothing into the back of the cave, then selected two blankets that looked to be newer, thicker and cleaner than the others, discarding the rest. He built up a fire outside, filled the two biggest pots with water and set them to heat, then took a spade and went back down to the clearing.

  Walking down the slope into the trees, the smell of decaying bodies led him to the remains of three men, still wearing parts of their Confederate gray uniforms. All had been shot. Judging by their condition, they’d died within the past week to ten days. Small animals had been feeding on them. Looks like that bushwhacker kid told the truth, Walt thought, feeling both vindicated and vengeful at the same time. He’s paid for their murders, and so have his father an’ mother… but there’s still that other one coming back tonight. He needs to pay for this, too.

  He deepened an existing depression with the spade, and pulled the bodies into it before scraping the dirt back over them. He pulled a downed tree over the grave so its branches would keep the varmints away. Removing his hat, he raised his eyes to the sky. “Lord, I ain’t much of a praying man, but I hope you’re listening anyhow. I don’t know who these men were, but I guess you do. They wore gray, like me, and they didn’t deserve to end like this. Please be mindful of them.”

  He used a horse and a rope to pull the three bodies from the clearing down into the trees, piling them next to the grave so as not to alert the remaining man when he returned. I’m not going to pray for you, he thought savagely as he turned his back on them. I reckon I know where you went—your woman, too, ’cause she was just as guilty. I don’t think prayers will help none of you murderers down there!

  Walt went back to the cave, laid his guns handy, then stripped naked and shaved laundry soap into the pots. In the biggest, he washed his blankets and those he’d just taken from the bushwhackers, stirring them with a stick, wringing them out, then refilling the pot and setting it to heat again. In the second pot he washed the clothes he’d been wearing, the dirty laundry from his pack, and those he’d taken from the cave. He rinsed everything in the stream, then spread it over bushes to dry in the sunshine and the light breeze.