by Tony Masero
“Of course, sir,” and Williams hurried briskly out, only too pleased it seemed to escape whatever awaited Zack in his office.
He pushed open the door and stepped in. The man was standing looking out of the window. A tall figure in tight denim pants worn over narrow footed, Mexican heeled boots and a leather vest with a few bulging pockets down the front. He still wore his hat, a low brimmed open-crowned felt that kept his eyes from view, it looked worn and sweat stained. He carried a dirty yellow mackinaw and some tired-looking chaps draped over his shoulder and a holstered pistol in a cartridge belt at his waist. Two leather bracelets were wrapped around his wrists and they held in place the cuffs of a frayed sun-bleached blue calico shirt.
The stranger turned swiftly as Zack entered and he heard the rasp of heavy spurs as the man did so.
“Cap’n Endeavor?” the man asked, his voice low and even.
“I was, now it’s plain mister and who are you?”
“Name’s Longridge Golightly, most folks just call me Long. Smith has sent me. Seems we’re to travel some.”
There was a smell of tired leather and tobacco, mixed with old trail dust and the taint of sweat about the man, yet his presence was marked. He wore an aura of darkness, a hidden hint of confirmed menace yet also casual competence and this seemed to fill the austere silence of the room.
“I see,” said Zack. “Mr. Smith said someone would be coming. A guide, he said. I was expecting somebody….” His voice trailed off.
A wry smiled played at the edge of Long’s leathery lips. “Someone a little more Pinkerton Agency?”
“Well, yes, I suppose so.”
“I might look like a heap of shit and smell as ripe as a dead turkey, sir, but I done some damned hard traveling to get here.” Zack winced at the harsh terms. It had been a while since he had heard the roughness of soldiers and his time amidst Boston high society had taken some of his imperviousness to gutter language away. “You about ready to leave?” Long asked.
Just then, Williams bustled into the room, two heavy suitcases in each hand and a hatbox under his arm.
“I have a few things to arrange,” said Zack, indicating the bags as Williams piled them on the floor.
“This all of it?” asked Long, one eyebrow arching cynically.
“No, there’s a trunk to come. A few changes of clothes. I wasn’t sure exactly what was needed.”
“Hell, boy,” chuckled Long, easing himself away from the window. “Where you planning on going? Some kind of plantation estate, or something. What is all this?” he knelt and opened a bag, brushing a protesting Williams aside brusquely.
“You see, sir?” Williams complained. “This is what I told you, he is an unbelievably rude, vagabond sort of fellow.”
Long was pulling out dress shirts and pressed pants, shaving gear and an assortment of underwear and throwing it aside. “You won’t be needing any of this,” he said, climbing easily to his feet.
He was a few years older than Zack that much was obvious but his seamed face and tanned skin gave him a look of even more age than that. He scratched at his unshaven chin with a rasping sound and then crossed over to Zack’s display of war mementos and took down his old cavalry hat.
“Here y’are,” he said. “This’ll do for you. You have a gun?” he asked, tossing the hat at a dumbfounded Zack who ignored the spinning headgear and let it bounce off his chest and drop to the floor.
Williams bent to pick up the hat. “Leave it!” barked Long and Williams froze, leaning half-over before giving a resentful look and then straightening up. “I said, you got a gun?” Long repeated.
“I do,” Zack answered with a touch of cold acid in his voice. “My old Army Colt, it’s in one of those bags, if you want to check.”
Long made a sucking noise through his teeth and dismissed the aged weapon. “We’ll get you something along the way.”
“You really think I’m traveling anywhere with you?”
Long pouted and said nothing but calmly looked from one to the other of the two men. Then he shrugged, “Makes no mind to me which way you go. I just do as I’m told. Smith said fetch you and bring you down south and that’s what I aim to do.”
Zack’s anger was bubbling just below the surface and he lowered his head aggressively. “You bust in here, without a by-your-leave. Turn out my bags out on the floor and generally behave like a damned roustabout. Why, sir? If I’d had you under my command in the army I’d have…”
“You want to tell your flunkey there to leave us alone?” Long cut in.
Zack turned and nodded to Williams, who with an ugly frown in Long’s direction did as he was told. Once the door was softly closed behind him, Long took off the mackinaw and chaps from his shoulder and threw them across a chair-back. A haze of yellow dust hovered in the morning sunlight breaking through the tall windows as they flopped down.
“Listen, fella,” growled Long. “I’m tired and a little mean, I guess. I apologize for upsetting your sensibilities but where we’re heading you won’t be needing no Sunday-go-riding outfit. This is hard country we’re aiming for. I know it, I’ve been living there most of my life. Now, I’ll tell you true, I don’t want to have to hold no pussy-willow’s hand in this venture, so you say the word and I’m gone.” He slid his hand in a gliding Indian-sign motion echoing the keening gulls flying past the window outside. “It’s your choice, Cap’n. Caleb Smith tells me you were once some kind of officer during the war. Won recognition for bravery and such. I guess your life has been a mite soft since those days but if you’ve still got some brass and wit about you you’ll heed what I say, because as certain as God's green acre I sure as hell know the way of it.”
Zack looked past him to the view across the rooftops and down to the harbor. He recognized some of the truth of what Long said. He had gone soft, he knew that and he considered that it might have been the very thing that had been needling him so much over the intervening years. He missed the action-call that had been his daily bread during the war and had now been forced into some backroom in his mind since taking up the practice. It rankled him though, that Long had read him so easily.
“So, what do I need?” he asked in a gesture of acquiescence.
Long sniffed. “Your hat, some good boots and riding gear. Bring yourself a bandana and that hog leg you spoke of, you won’t need much more.”
“Is it really that bad down there?” he asked, bending and scooping up the cavalry hat and placing it on his head. He knew he must look ridiculous wearing it over the business suit of high-buttoned cut-away jacket and checkered pants but he could see that Long knew his business and was mellowing enough with the rough character to be prepared to adapt to what he said.
Long was rolling himself a spill of tobacco from a pouch he had produced from one of his vest pockets. “Coming from all this…” Long shucked out a phosphorus all-weather match and struck it along the seat of his denims and he flared it demonstrably around the room before setting his cigarette alight. “Yes, it’ll be tough. People down there don’t fool around; they’ll see you a-coming a mile away. You get all high and mighty with some of those old boys down there and they’ll bust you wide open for breakfast.”
“Have no fear, I can handle myself,” Zack intoned with a touch of pride, although secretly wondering if he still could.
“I dare say, son. Just wind your neck in some, is all I’m saying.”
“So, tell me, Mister Golightly. Just what are your brave qualifications to undertake this onerous mission?’
Long looked at him narrowly over the smoke from his cigarette as if gauging whether the question was a veiled insult. “I did my time in service, just like you. On the other side, of course.” He watched Zack waiting for a reaction but got none so he went on. “After the war I did some time with the Rangers, some cowboying and the like. Scouted for the military, slugging it out with commancheros and Apaches for a spell. Was even a lawman one time.”
“A tried and tested warrior then?”<
br />
“That’s not how I’d put it but I’ve been around.”
“It seems then that I am in your hands,” Zack said decisively.
“Appears that way,” agreed Long, seating himself casually on the edge of Zack’s desk. He folded one arm across his middle and rested the arm with the smoking cigarette on his crooked arm. “So what’s the truth of this affair at the Libby Prison? Were you really one of those that made the breakout? Was a hell of a thing, if it’s true.”
“It’s true alright. Yes, I was there,” Zack admitted, feeling the rise of old memories again. The sorry taste of the breakfast gruel she had prepared for him that morning. A watery porridge with a few flakes of crushed wheat, the flavor of which still lingered in the back of his throat. And the blood-taint of James’ wounds mixed with the sharp stink of a soiled baby. The smells rushed in, the scent of the old cabin with its dankness and filth and the crisp coldness that permeated the place. He was there again and he shuddered at the thought.
Chapter Five
The marsh woods outside Charleston -1863
The baby was crying. A low-pitched keening that never seemed to stop.
“She’s not well,” Mary confessed. “It’s the cold, I guess. Got some kind of colic.”
Zack looked at the child. “She certainly looks feverish alright.”
“How’s your friend?”
“About the same as Prudence. Hot and feverish but I’m obliged for you for dressing his wounds. You did a fine job with those bandages.”
She had tied back her hair tightly to tend to the baby and it gave her a somewhat severe look. Under her grubby features and the deeply sunken eyes there was still the remnants of a pretty girl though, her youth was saving her from the complete aspect of a worn harridan but how long she would bear up was a question Zack would rather not speculate on.
“They both need proper doctoring,” she sighed.
Zack went over to the table and sat down, folded his hands on the table and sunk his chin on his wrists. He gave a deep sigh, “I guess James and I’ll have to make a move soon. They’ll be searching for us and if they find us here it will not go well for you.”
“I wanted to ask you,” she said with a hint of caution in her voice. “Will you take us with you? There is so little for us here and I fear for Prudence in this place without food and warmth.”
Zack looked across at her and shook his head slightly. “The dangers will be manifold, Mary. Not only are we a couple of ragtag escaped prisoners-of-war but one of us wounded as well. We’re not really equipped to help you much. At least here you have shelter, out there it is bitter.”
“I’d rather take the chance,” she said. “We’ll die if we stay here.”
“You know they could hang you as a spy if they catch us? They’ll charge you with aiding and abetting the enemy and probably treat you ill for it.”
“I doubt that,” she said, turning away and busying herself straightening the child in the rough wooden crate she used as a cot. “I am a southern lady after all and a mother too. They will do nothing to one of their own.”
“Don’t count on it,” said Zack soberly. He had already seen too much cruelty, the effects of roving southern irregulars who acted under their own orders, raiding, pillaging and killing civilians at will. The war had released the most basic of instincts and the land was full of brutalized creatures that would think nothing of murdering a young woman and her child, if not worse before they did so.
Zack chewed on his lip for a moment knowing he had little choice really. “All right then,” he said. “We’ll wait until James is a little recovered and then make a try for Union lines.”
“Thank you,” she said with a relieved air.
“Here,” he said, getting up as he noticed her quivering lips, her teeth chattering against the cold even though she tried to keep her jaw clamped shut to avoid showing it. “Take my jacket. I’ll get some more firewood. It’s risky advertising our presence with a fire but we’ll freeze if we don’t have some warmth.”
He took off his jacket and draped it around her shoulders. She dropped her head in gratitude and as he wrapped the material around her, their fingers touched and she held him there gratefully a moment before releasing him.
“You are very kind, Captain. I had not expected as much civility from a Federal soldier.”
“Please, call me Zack, everybody does. You should remember, Mary, it is not the uniform that fashions the man but the other way around.”
“I will remember,” she said with a brief smile.
As he tramped through the hoar frost encrusted ground outside searching for dry twigs and branches that they might use without causing smoke he thought on the young girl inside. She bore up quite well, he thought, given her circumstances. Despite being cast out by her family she showed courage and a degree of determination. He could not leave her alone in the hut, he had known that all along but he despaired of the additional difficulties it would make. There would be no chance of silence with the baby along should it be necessary. Their pace would be slow with her and his wounded companion and Zack only foresaw hardships ahead. They would need a great break of luck to make it through.
She had made some attempt at cleaning the place when he returned and a small fire was already burning in the brick fireplace. The baby had quieted and James slept as he did much of the time now, although he moved restlessly from time to time in troubled dreams.
“There,” Zack said setting down the bundle and reaching out to warm his hands at the flames. “We are ready for a few hours at least.”
She crouched beside him and stretched her small hands out to the fire also.
“Oh, for some tea or coffee,” she sighed. “How pleasant that would be.”
He noticed her hands were red and sore with the cold and had the look of chilblains about them so he reached across to take them into his own.
“Here,” he said. “Let me warm your fingers.”
He was not sure why he had done it, for his hands were even colder than hers. He thought later that maybe it had been some thought of shared comfort that made him hold her so. As he cupped her fingers and blew on them with his warming breath, she smiled and lent her head in gratitude against his shoulder.
“Do you want your jacket back? I am quite warm now,” she asked.
“No, keep it a while.”
“Why don’t we share it?” she slipped it off and wrapped it over them both as they hugged the small fire’s warmth.
He slid his arm under the loose jacket until was around her shoulders and she snuggled close. He could feel the softness of her arm under his touch and despite their situation it brought a thrill through him. He had been so long a time in the rough and often desperate company of men that to know a moment of gentleness was a sudden relief.
Her head was on his shoulder as she stared into the flames and Zack could smell her hair and young skin as it warmed in the glow.
“Let us get more comfortable,” he said, moving over and leaning against the brick fire-breast. “Come, rest here. Maybe you will sleep.”
She came over and rested against him, lying quite comfortable within the curl of his arms.
“Do you have a family at home?” she asked, her gaze fixed dreamily on the flames.
“No, there is no one. My folks passed away some years back and I believe a great many of my younger relatives are lost to us in the war.”
“No wife or sweetheart then?”
“No,” he shook his head. “I have been married to my books a while. I am studying for the law.”
He pulled the jacket closer around her as he felt the icy draught from beneath the sagging door race across the floor and chill his arm.
“How about you? What do you do now? Surely your father will relent and take you back?”
She did not answer and he wondered if the matter was too distressing for her but he looked down and saw that her eyes were closed and that her breathing was low and even. She was asleep.
<
br /> He held her so for a while and a feeling of protectiveness came over him as he looked down at her drawn features softened in repose. She appeared so vulnerable now, like a child at rest and he reached up and gently stroked her hair, brushing back a few strands that had fallen across her brow. She mumbled at his touch and was awake in an instant.
“The baby?” she asked breathlessly.
“She’s all right,” he whispered. “She still sleeps, as you should. I will wake you if she calls.”
Mary tilted her head then to look up at him.
“Thank you,” she said, reaching up and without forethought she kissed him softly on the lips.
Zack was surprised. “There is no need,” he said.
“For the comfort you offer,” she said. “For this.”
He held her tightly and felt himself drawn to her as she pressed against him in response. Tilting her chin he gave her an answering kiss and she met him fervently, her arms encircling his neck and pulling him down to her.
“I have but lain with a man once,” she whispered as they broke apart. “And that begot me Prudence, may you give me equal joy.”
It was a union made of loneliness and desperation. A warming moment shared to keep the chill of danger and climate at bay. There was no thought in Zack’s mind of anything other than the instant and all the pent up months of imprisonment and tension it released from him. He gave no thought to the future or where entering this road might lead and he felt that Mary came to him with the same intention. There was a natural innocence found in the lovemaking for both of them and they lay together on the dirt floor before the fire in forgetful passion for a long while.
They slept afterward, each replete in the momentary sharing of affection and companionship.
~*~
It was two days later that they prepared to leave the cabin. By then, Zack knew he was in love with Mary and she with him, James realized it also and he looked at Zack with a strangely jealous smile when he saw the way it was between them. The inactivity and rest had done him good and he had recovered a great deal after his fever abated.