Mississippi Raider

by J. T. Edson

  “Be fair, miss,” the Cockney protested, also grinning and thinking what a great pity he would never have such a partner with whom he would be willing to break his habit and work two-handed. “With all due respect to your dad, it was us who invented the bleeding language.”

  “That’s why we got rid of you in ‘seventy-six,” Belle countered, and placed her back against the wall with hands cupped, ready to help her companion with the ascent.

  Reaching the top of the wall was accomplished with no greater difficulty than when the pair had come over it on their arrival. Once Higgins was in position, Belle threw the sack containing the documents from Crumley’s office to him and he dropped them over the other side. On her joining him, he assisted her in making the descent. Then, to remove the last trace of their illicit visit, he grasped the inner edge of the padded cover and, taking it with him, rolled from his perch. Being skilled as what a later generation would refer to as a cat burglar, a drop of the height he needed to make encumbered with the protective covering was nothing to him. However, as he alighted by the girl and she was picking up the sack, there was a nasty surprise in store for them.

  “You did that real well!” announced a masculine voice with a Southern accent having a suggestion of a good education. “Now you can come along with us!”

  Leaving their places of concealment and converging swiftly on the pair, the four men who appeared were clad alike in dark-colored civilian clothing—even to their collarless shirts— which in the available light gave no suggestion by its quality and style of their stations in life. All were larger and more powerfully built than the Cockney, but this did not make any of them slow-moving or clumsy on their feet. The only slight consolation Belle could draw—and she assumed Higgins felt the same—was that none were holding weapons or worse badges of office to indicate an official status.

  “Scarper, Miss B.!” the Cockney yelled while swiftly discarding the once again folded collapsible ladder and bull’s-eye lantern from his belt and, ducking his head, starting to charge at the closest man. “Take stoppo!”

  “The hell I will!” the girl spluttered, and let the sack fall from her fingers.

  Although considering the advice to be justified, the sense of responsibility to others that had been instilled into her since childhood would not allow Belle to take it. To have done so would leave the friendly little Englishman who had willingly helped her at the mercy of the approaching quartet. Whoever they might be, that was a situation not to be contemplated or accepted without helping him make the fight he was going to put up so she might be able to escape.

  Darting forward even faster than the Cockney, the girl once more blessed the footwear she had on for the ease of movement it permitted. Bending her feet into a half-crouched position without slowing her pace on coming into what she estimated to be the most effective range, she sprang into the air. Straightening the limbs and bending them under her body as she twisted it slightly, she propelled her feet forward with a thrusting motion. Caught in the chest by the soles of the savate boots, the man she had selected as her target went staggering back a few steps. Glancing around at the moment of impact, she found that Higgins had delivered the charge with rather less success: his objective was taller and able to withstand the impact with it failing to achieve its purpose.

  Dropping to the ground, Belle saw the man attacked by the Cockney swing a punch that sent him sprawling to the ground in the flaccid way of one stunned by the blow. Then she had troubles of her own. Caught around the arms from the rear, she had them pinned to her sides with a strength against which she knew she could achieve nothing by muscle power alone. Nor did having her feet swung from the ground increase her chances of effecting an escape. Nor, although she used them to fend off the third member of the quartet as he came toward her, was the respite she gained of sufficient length of time for her to try to effect an escape from the bearlike hugging applied by her captor. Then the last of the group came over from an angle where she was unable to reach him. He had taken something from his jacket pocket that felt wet and had a sweet sickly smell as it was clapped onto her face. Although guessing what the liquid must be, as she had occasionally smelled chloroform when helping her mother—who had always kept in touch with the latest medical developments—use it while performing urgent treatment in the absence of a doctor, she tried to hold her breath and struggle. Neither proved to be of any avail, and she felt a blackness descending upon her as she sank into an unconscious state.

  ~*~

  “Where am I?” Belle Boyd groaned as sentience returned to her.

  “How do you feel?” inquired an unseen speaker with a feminine Southern timbre suggestive of good breeding and education, the voice coming from among the mists that seemed to be surrounding the girl.

  “Terrible!” Belle croaked.

  “And so you should,” the speaker asserted coldly. “Pulling a foolish game like you were. Your momma and poppa would have been ashamed of you.”

  “Where—?” the girl croaked, thinking the voice seemed vaguely familiar as she began shaking her head and trying to sit up. “What—?”

  “Lie still, girl!” the speaker commanded in a less-than-solicitous fashion. “The effects will wear off all the quicker if you do.”

  Taking the advice, Belle soon found it was valid. As the mists began to clear, she found she was lying on a settee in a luxuriously furnished room. Despite the means employed to bring her there, she was not fastened up in any way. Nor, she slowly became aware, were any of her captors present. However, as a result of having been rendered unconscious by the application of chloroform, she did not believe their absence made her position any more safer. Regardless of who the apparently Southern-born woman with whom she had spoken might be, although her hands and feet were at liberty, she knew that she would be unable to take any kind of positive action in her present enfeebled condition. At last, her vision cleared sufficiently for her to make out even more of her surroundings.

  “You!” Belle gasped as her gaze came to rest upon the speaker.

  “Me,” the woman replied.

  Staring as if unable to believe the evidence of her eyes, Belle concluded that it was obvious how her mother’s cousin had become known as a leading hostess in the society of Washington, D.C., over the past few years.

  In her mid-thirties, Rose Greenhow had strikingly beautiful patrician alabaster features with proud hazel eyes and more than a suggestion of intelligence in their lines. Although the way in which her much longer, immaculately coiffured black tresses made the difference appear more pronounced, she was an inch taller than her niece. Her figure was displayed to its best advantage by a stylish black ball gown with a close-to-daring décolleté. Statuesque in its dimensions, its proudly jutting imposing bosom above a naturally slender waist and richly contoured hips was of the “hourglass” variety so much favored by members of the opposite sex at that period. Everything about her, especially the amount of jewelry glistening in the light of the room from her ears, around her nacreous throat, and on her wrists and fingers, denoted the possession of the most excellent taste.

  “But I thought you were in Washington!” Belle said in a puzzled tone.

  “I was,” Rose replied calmly, studying the girl who had always been her favorite niece in a more speculative than amiable fashion. “But I heard Allan Pinkerton was taking a most unhealthy interest in my affairs and considered it was prudent for me to come back home. The more important thing right now is what kind of game you’ve been playing for the past few weeks.”

  “Game?” Belle repeated, then a remembrance of whom she had been with forced her to attain a sitting position. Anxiety helped her to fend off the dizziness caused by the sudden movement, and she demanded rather than asked, “Where is Alfred Higgins?”

  “Is that the little locksmith—and far more, I should imagine—who you’ve been spending so much time with recently?” Rose inquired.

  “It is,” the girl confirmed. “And if he’s been hurt—!”


  “He hasn’t,” the beautiful Southron woman stated in a reassuring tone. “But it took all Captain Dartagnan’s considerable persuasive powers to convince him you had not been harmed, nor would be.”

  “Where is he now?” Belle insisted.

  “In the kitchen, drinking whiskey and regaling my friends with what I suspect are ribald tales of his criminal exploits in England,” Rose said soothingly. “He’s not harmed, nor will he be. However, after Alex had persuaded him to return your—loot, shall we call it?—and conceal all traces of what you had done, he insisted upon being brought here to make certain you are all right.”

  “Then he may get his nice tickle after all,” the girl said with a smile.

  “I beg your pardon?” the woman asked in genuine puzzlement, lacking the knowledge her niece had acquired about the argot of criminals in London.

  “It’s a private joke, Aunt Rose,” Belle answered, knowing the reference to their relationship had never been popular with the Southron beauty on the grounds that it made her appear old.

  “What you’ve been doing since you arrived in Richmond hasn’t been a joke,” Rose warned, and raised a hand before the girl could speak. “Oh, I know what you’ve been trying to do and why you’ve played that game tonight. Well, you have achieved your intention.”

  “You mean—!”

  “You’ve found the South’s Secret Service, or rather a part of it, at least.”

  “Are you a member of it?”

  “I am and have been for some considerable time.”

  “Then why didn’t you—?”

  “Why didn’t I come straight over to the Sandford and visit to tell you?” Rose finished for the girl. “I’ve only been back for a day, and I meant to do so after having heard all you’ve been getting up to.”

  “Do you mean that—” Belle began, but once again words failed her.

  “You’ve been kept under observation ever since it came to the attention of our people that you were behaving the way you were,” Rose confirmed, nodding her head gracefully and smiling at the confusion being shown by her generally composed and self-possessed niece. “At first it was suspected you might be a Yankee spy, then Colonel Raines told Alex who you were and why you were trying to meet members of the Secret Service.” She lost all traces of levity as a thought struck her, and she continued in a contrite fashion, “Let me offer my condolences over the death of your parents, dear, and please forgive me for not having done so immediately.”

  “No apologies are necessary, Rose” Belle stated, and hoped not saying “Aunt” would show she harbored no ill feeling over the omission. “Then I don’t need to tell you why I wanted to meet and, if I could, join the Secret Service.”

  “You don’t,” the beautiful woman asserted, and all the kindliness left her face. She stiffened as if preparing herself for an unpleasant yet necessary task and went on, “But you can get one thing into your head right now. There’s no room in this organization for a vengeance seeker. Don’t deny it, Belle, you wouldn’t be Electra and Vincent Boyd’s daughter if you didn’t want to do something to avenge their death. The thing is, although everything you’ve done since coming to Richmond—even that escapade tonight—had made us sure that you can be of use to us, you can’t use the Secret Service for your personal ends.”

  “I won’t,” Belle promised without hesitation, realizing that there was no other way she would gain the acceptance she wanted—even more now that she had discovered her favorite aunt’s involvement in the organization she had been seeking. “And you have my word, as Electra and Vincent Boyd’s daughter, on it.”

  “That’s good enough for me,” Rose affirmed. “From tonight you can count yourself a member of the Confederate States Secret Service. However, capable and determined as you’ve shown yourself to be, there are still things you have to learn before we will let you go on any assignments. And, Belle, while none of us will mind if you deal with Tollinger and Barmain as they deserve should your paths cross, you must never under any circumstances turn aside from your assigned duty to do it. Is that understood?”

  “It is!” the girl declared. “Now, as he’s been such a good friend and helpful to me, can I go and see Alfred?”

  “You can, after you’ve washed that black stuff off your face,” Rose confirmed. “And I’ll come with you. I’m rather keen to hear the ending of the story he stopped telling about how he was compelled to respond when a titled lady at a house he was robbing mistook him in the darkness for her husband and insisted—Well, let’s go and see if we can persuade him to fill in the details he was tactful and, I consider, unsporting enough to leave untold when he became aware that I was listening.”

  Rising to carry out her aunt’s instructions with regard to her appearance, Belle felt a sense of elation. Despite the restriction on the freedom to hunt for the murders of her parents that she had willingly agreed to on realizing why they had been imposed, she decided she would do anything possible to justify the faith Rose was putting in her, and after whatever additional training she was to be given, she meant to do everything she could to be a very useful Rebel spy.

  Part Two – The Beginning

  Chapter One – I Think She May Have Recognized Me

  “Good evening, sir,” boomed the elderly-looking and well-dressed man who had accompanied Belle Boyd into the mansion in Atlanta, Georgia, that had been converted to a luxurious gambling house. “My name is Culpepper, Colonel Ebediah F. Culpepper the Third. Retired, of course. They say I’m too old for duty, sir. Well, I’ll show them.” While his left hand tapped the metal ferrule of the silver-topped polished ebony cane in his left hand on the floor as if to emphasize the point he was making, he slapped where the inside breast of his white cutaway jacket bulged with his right palm and went on just as flamboyantly, “I trust, sir, you have liberal funds to meet the winnings I shall have to be used to set up my niece in the manner she deserves?”

  It was highly unlikely that anybody who had known the beautiful, willowy girl when she was living happily at Baton Royale Manor would have recognized her at that moment. She was dressed and behaving in the manner required by her pose of being the kind of fluttery, featherbrained, and generally less-than-competent-at-anything Southron maiden already often portrayed on the stage and met in real life often enough to give credence to the character. She had so ably created the guise for her first assignment as a member of the Confederate States Secret Service.

  Three months had elapsed since Belle had achieved her purpose by having been inducted into the service of the organization she had sought to locate by employing the unconventional methods that brought her to its member’s attention. Although being related to Rose Greenhow, who she had discovered was high in its hierarchy, she was aware that it was solely her own efforts and willingness to learn whatever was required of her that had allowed her to get as far as she had. What was more, on learning how her aunt had been able to reach Richmond, she had discovered something of the dedication that would be expected from her if she was to succeed as a Rebel spy.

  Finding that the attentions of Allan Pinkerton, who she claimed to be the most efficient member of the Union’s Secret Service, had made Washington, D.C., too hot for safety and also having acquired intelligence of vital importance that must be delivered to her superiors with a minimum of delay, Rose had contrived with the help of another lady with Southern sympathies, but who was unable to travel from the North for family reasons, to escape. When telling Belle of the means employed, sounding a trifle defiant and perhaps even a little conscience-stricken, the beautiful black-haired woman had stated that she would not have permitted the sacrifice of liberty if the intelligence she had acquired had not been a matter of highest importance.

  Being a realist, the girl had accepted that she might be compelled to reach similar unpleasant decisions in the work that lay ahead and hoped she would have the strength of will to behave in the same fashion.

  There was one thing of which Belle felt confident. Should she
fail in her duties, it would not be because of a lack of training. In fact, even more than while she was carrying out the program that led to her being brought to the attention of Captain Alexandre Dartagnan, the tall, debonair and handsome French Creole—who could prove to be descended from the famous Gascon swordsman of that name—almost every day had been fully occupied by something that would offer her a greater chance of survival or prove of use for the duties she was to perform.

  The skills that Belle had acquired from Alfred Higgins were improved under his still-willing guidance, with him expressing such admiration for the way they had been followed undetected by him to their burglary that he had offered his services to the organization. Having seen proof of his abilities by the way in which he had helped the girl carry out the robbery and then return the loot—chosen so carefully by her as being embarrassing to the loser rather than of military importance or secrecy—with such dexterity and care that General Wilberforce Crumley never learned its temporary removal had taken place, this was accepted without reservations.

  Instructed by Rose, who was an expert in the subject, as had been proved by the way her return to Richmond had been effected, the girl had improved her already latent ability at creating different characters by using disguises and had been supplied with several things—including the start of a collection of realistic-looking wigs—to give greater credence to whatever persona she adopted. She had become adept at using the code employing a substitution of letters by numbers with which messages could be passed. xii Although competent in the use of savate, she had learned from Dartagnan to employ methods of attack that would result in an immediate disqualification if applied during a formal sporting contest. He had told her with Gallic humor that, instead of making the spectacular leaping high kick to the chest when trying to go to Higgins’s assistance, she would have achieved far better results by delivering a more potent kick to somewhere he described as being “between neck and knee” and was followed by a demonstration that indicated the point on the masculine anatomy he had in mind.