“Sawyer,” the boy gasped. “We gotta go. Quick, before Billings gets here.”
“What in the name of Christ are you talkin’ about?” Boyd asked, catching his little brother’s upper arms; Boyd had walked two or three paces ahead, not realizing that I’d halted.
Malcolm twitched free of Boyd and galloped to my side, gripping my shirtfront to further impress upon me his sincerity. He choked out, desperation tinging his plea, “Sawyer, there’s a marshal come for you! He’s at the doc’s office with Mrs. Rebecca just now…we got to go…”
A marshal—perhaps the same man who had taken Lorie, earlier today. Perhaps she was as near as Tilson’s. It was at best a wild hope, but I hoped keenly nonetheless, unaware that I was speaking these thoughts aloud, in great, disjointed chunks. I meant to run that direction as quickly as I was capable, but Boyd caught my arm in his iron grip and insisted, “Hold up.” His voice cut in twain my lack of sense as would the blow of a well-placed ax and he hastily drew the three of us to the side, out of sight between two buildings, and asked, low, “How’d you come to this information, boy?”
It was then that I realized something, and it served to insert a hook into my soul.
Wait. There was a marshal present at the fire that night, at the Rawleys’ place.
I could see a rim of white around each of Malcolm’s eyes, as they were wide with fear. I demanded, “Is it Yancy? Is the marshal who came for me Yancy?”
“No. His name is Quade,” Malcolm said, still gripping my shirt. “We met him not a quarter-hour past, comin’ to find Clemens. He said to Mrs. Rebecca would she be kind enough to put on the coffee for him, as he’s ridden hard to get here.” His voice took on a confessional tone as he said breathlessly, “Boyd, Mrs. Rebecca asked Quade what he was after in such an all-fired hurry, an’ he says, ‘A former Reb named Davis, all’s I know. Killed two fellas near the Missouri border, not a month past,’ he says.”
“Jesus H. Christ,” Boyd uttered.
This could not be, and yet it was.
I felt again the dead weight of my brothers in my arms, stumbling, lurching over rocks slick with rain and dark blood. With a single-minded sort of madness, I had not wanted their bodies to touch the battlefield upon which they’d been slain. Not their lolling heads or splayed hands, not even their boots. Utterly helpless, just as I had been that January day at Murfreesboro. Vulnerable as a young boy from the holler in the midst of ferocious fighting, possessing nothing but flesh with which to stop a bullet’s killing flight.
I saw again the man named Sam Rainey, the man who hurt Lorie in every way he believed himself capable, who would have taken her life without a moment’s pause, if just for the satisfaction of wiping from the Earth another enemy, a woman from the Rebel state of Tennessee. I found him thrashing on the ground in his camp that night, howling, though in that moment of terror I heard nothing more than the sound of Lorie, screaming for me, screaming my name. In the light of that dying fire I witnessed my shot take out Rainey, silencing him forever after.
I saw again, knew I would never fully wipe clean from my memory, the man called Dixon kneeling over Lorie, intending to strangle her—her legs beneath him had been struggling, her feet bare, so hideously vulnerable to him that I could not kill him swiftly enough—I only wished that I could have caused him to suffer before dispatching him straight to whatever lay beyond. As had occurred countless times during the War, I was moving too quickly to take a shot, and had instead swung my rifle’s stock against his skull, effectively cutting short his attempt to strangle Lorie.
“What’s this-all mean?” Malcolm whimpered, and I drew him against me and bent my face to his hatless hair, as I had no answer that would offer comfort. He began quietly crying, doubtless perceiving the lack of choices left to us now.
Boyd’s mind moved at a clip, at the pace of a cantering horse. He understood, “One of them survived, that’s what. Which?”
“They killed Gus. They woulda killed Lorie,” Malcolm said, his voice high-pitched with weeping.
Jack. It had to be that sawed-off runt, the little piece of horseshit who came into our camp back on the trail in Missouri, long before riding with Rainey and Dixon, acting on the orders of the woman who owned the saloon where Lorie had been a prisoner. This woman, this Ginny Hossiter, paid Jack to follow us from St. Louis, and he had, with dutiful obedience, sneaking into Lorie’s tent with the intent of stealing her away. I wanted to kill Jack that very first night, and should have trusted my instinct then.
And given the opportunity to kill him a second time, I had tried, and failed miserably. Never mind that it had been nightfall, and that I acted in a stupor of agonized panic; despite the fact that I fired a rifle into his belly, Jack was no doubt still alive, and there was reason to believe that Lorie was in his company this very night. Jack had certainly spoken to the law, and now a marshal was upon my trail, no doubt ready to apprehend me for a crime I would justify to my deathbed.
“It’s Jack,” I said, with certainty.
“I reckon you’s right,” Boyd said, already comprehending the truth of this. “He’d be the scrawny fella Parmley described. But what about the marshal, with Jack? That was hours past, an’ this Quade just arrived…”
“Yancy,” I whispered, and Boyd’s dark eyes burned through the darkness. He nodded without a word and I felt a sudden and terrible shifting in my bones.
You’ll be hung, I thought. They have Lorie, and you’ll be hung. You’ll be dead and she’ll be alone…
I hissed through my teeth and set Malcolm gently aside; unable to remain still, I paced and then felt blood surge into my skull, pulsing heatedly there. I raged, “It will never let us free, goddammit, it will never fucking let us free!”
Boyd was on me in the next instant, clenching my shoulders in his grasp. He meant to shush my anger, and I threw off his grip.
“There is no redemption for us, don’t you see?” I demanded, overwhelmed by hopeless rage; the world seemed to tilt and pitch. “There is no redemption for what we’ve seen, and what we’ve done…”
“Sawyer!” Boyd yelled, not about to be deterred by my outburst, gripping my shirtfront and shaking me. He was one of few men strong enough to manage this, and did so forcefully; I was reminded of Bainbridge Carter, who had countless times administered such disciplinary shakings to all of us boys. Boyd ordered, “Catch hold of yourself!”
Malcolm clung to my elbow, his pleading voice echoing in my ear, “Sawyer, we got to go. I’ll fetch the horses.”
“Boy, you return to Doc Tilson’s an’ say not a word that you’s seen us,” Boyd said, his breathing uneven. Because I had calmed to his satisfaction, Boyd released my shirt. Malcolm hesitated, but Boyd seemed to have formed a plan, as he said, “Go now, boy, I’ll be there directly to fetch you.”
Malcolm hugged me tightly around the waist, his cheek against my ribs; then he disappeared into the night.
“I’ll fetch Whistler, you stay put here. I’ll be no more’n a minute,” Boyd said, low and emphatically, before departing.
Left alone, the sounds of evening revelry in a busy town reaching my ears from the near-distance, I let my back touch the wooden boards of one of the buildings that bordered this alley, sliding to a crouch and burying my face in both hands. Stalked like an animal, cornered here in this place. Lorie taken by Jack and Yancy—God knew what their intent with her, and I released a heaving breath, unable to prevent the sudden surge of bile from rising. I rolled to the side and vomited. I despised this helplessness, and the fury in the face of it. Jack once intended to return Lorie to Ginny Hossiter back in St. Louis, and I had to assume this was still his plan. He alone would not have authority to take Lorie from town in broad daylight, and though there was no rationale other than a suspicion, I was sure that we were correct in our assumption that the marshal accompanying Jack was indeed Thomas Yancy.
Detained, Parmley said.
“Why?” I whispered, not addressing anyone in particular, not expecting a
n answer. Hunkered there, I was inundated with a sudden memory of a summer from my youth; perhaps seven or eight I had been, and sore because Mama scolded me for hitting Ethan in the eye, and because I knew a greater punishment was coming. I could not recall the exact offense for which I’d struck my brother; only that it had seemed the proper course of action at the time. Ethan and I were the ones to cause trouble on any given day, far too similar in temperament, behaving often in the manner of cats in a burlap sack.
Jeremiah was the soft-hearted one, the last born; behind the pressure of both hands against my face, I saw my youngest brother as a little boy, ruddy and freckled, leaning his cheek against Mama’s upper arm and resting there as she stroked his curls, with tender affection. Jere never gave Mama a moment’s trouble, whereas Ethan and I felt the lash of the strap meted out by Daddy on a regular basis, always deserved; we’d run wild as foxes, along with Beau, Boyd, and Grafton, amidst all the sunny days of our youths. It seemed illogical, even insane, to believe that the six of us would one day ride out from the holler as volunteer soldiers, as cavalrymen for the newly-minted Confederacy. So prideful we had been, with no more than a smoke wisp of an inkling of the horrors we would shortly behold.
My father was as fair-minded a man as any I had ever known, and always calmly explained to us his justification for any disciplinary action. I recalled twitching with nervous anticipation in the barn, where we were routinely punished, usually fidgeting side-by-side with Eth, unable to process more than a few words of Daddy’s earnest speeches, my eyes roving repeatedly to the strap. Strappings hurt for days on end; the first night, it was often impossible to sit for longer than a few minutes. But this particular instance, Daddy had not yet returned home from town, and the livery stable; I knew as soon as he did I would have to accept my punishment with no excuses. Lying there in our hayfield, which was a good two months from harvest and smelled as sweet as heaven, I imagined remaining hidden until the morning.
It had been a lovely evening; even flat upon my back in the hay, the view was familiar—the topmost branches of the oaks that grew strong and sturdy on the north side of the house visible above the stalks of grain surrounding me; the oak limbs curled and twisted in the fashion of an old man’s fingers, thick with summer leaves; the scent of supper wafted from our home. The swath of early-evening sky above lit my face with a rosy tint, smooth as the soft breast feathers of a hen, and I reached up as though to pet it, bringing together my hands and shaping my fingers to form an oval, through which I peered at the lace made by the thin, fair-weather clouds drifting lazily along in whatever gentle breeze was stirring the air in that summer of 1850, or perhaps ’fifty-one.
And across that sky, into the frame I created of my hands, a crow winged past, a blot of ink against a pale-smooth page, the death specter forcing an acknowledgment of its presence upon me, long before I’d killed another man. Perhaps even then it had a claim upon my soul.
Lorie, I thought now, nearly two decades later, driving away the memory of the crow before it further mangled my control. I dug the heels of my hands against my eye sockets and begged my wife, Forgive me for not protecting you as I should have. God knows I will never forgive myself. I am coming for you. I will not rest until I find you. I will find you and I will face my punishment. Even if it means I will hang and be sent forthwith to hell, I would kill them again. I would save you no matter what the price.
“Davis!” A man’s voice, unfamiliar to my ears, approaching my position from the right. Again he bellowed, “Sawyer Davis! I’ve reason to believe you’re hereabouts!”
I rose swiftly, grasping the hilt of my .44 without a moment’s thought; before I could draw, Malcolm darted at me from the direction of Tilson’s, sudden as a pheasant rising from a roadside ditch. He reached me only seconds before a stranger appeared at the opening of the alley behind him, and Malcolm uttered one word. He cried, “Run!”
I could not judge the best course of action—there was no time, and I turned blindly, unwilling to flee and thus leave the boy alone. It was too late, and unwise, to draw my pistol now.
“Stop, or I will shoot!” commanded another voice, before I could move one way or the other, and a second stranger blocked the opposite end of the alley, from the direction of the adjacent street, advancing with a double-barrel shotgun trained upon my gut.
“No,” Malcolm moaned.
“Son, I’ll ask you to approach me, slowly now,” said the man to the right, beckoning to Malcolm. I felt crushed beneath the weight of water, powerless as a drowning man.
“Goddammit, this man acted in defense! His wife has been stolen!” I could hear Boyd’s voice, raised in fury, from out on the street. “You’ll not take him, I say!”
“Step back, sir! I said, step back!” These words were directed at Boyd.
“Take me,” I ordered at once, tossing my pistol to the ground with a cold thump, putting Malcolm immediately behind me. I lifted both hands, hearing the boy restraining sobs. My voice was scarcely audible as I spoke to him, lying, “It’ll be all right.”
Both strangers converged upon me, each stopping just out of arm’s reach with firearms at the ready. I kept my gaze steady upon the man to my left, the one with the double-barrel.
“Sawyer Davis, formerly of the Second Corps?” asked the man to my right, brisk and businesslike. Both were dressed for hard riding; the man who addressed me wore a marshal’s star.
“Yes.”
“Very good,” he said, holstering his pistol, producing instead a clanking set of irons. With an air of calm efficiency, he said, “Name’s Quade. If you’ll extend your wrists, thank you.”
“Get back!” demanded the man with the shotgun, swinging it towards the end of the alley, where Boyd, in a fury and appearing twice his usual size, approached with a determined stride. His pistol was holstered, but his intent could be perceived as nothing other than deadly.
I regained control of my voice and said sharply, “Boyd!”
“Mr. Carter!” shouted a woman, from the street. Seconds later Rebecca Krage darted into view; Marshal Quade jerked visibly at the sound of her voice. We all watched with some degree of stun as she flew to Boyd and caught his right arm, tugging with considerable strength. This action was enough of a surprise that her aim of halting him was successful. She gasped out, “Stop this! You’re endangering both yourself and Mr. Davis!”
“Jesus Christ, this is why I hate towns,” muttered the man with the double-barrel.
“Becky, get back!” Quade thundered. “What in God’s name?”
“Leverett, these men are searching for a woman,” Rebecca said breathlessly, refusing to heed the marshal’s order, still clutching Boyd’s elbow. Directly beside Boyd, the top of her head scarcely reached his collarbones, but again her attitude lent her height. Clearly she was acquainted with Marshal Quade, who was discernibly upset at her presence, but who was not surprised enough to forgo his duty; my wrists were now tightly shackled, connected by a length of narrow metal links.
Quade asked Rebecca, with no small amount of shock, “You know this man?”
Boyd jerked determinedly from Rebecca’s grasp and advanced another few steps, speaking furiously, “My sister, this man’s wife, was taken from this shit-pile town this very afternoon, an’ we’s reason to believe that she is with men who wish her harm.”
“Has Billings been informed of this?” asked Quade.
“No, as we only just come to the conclusion ourselves,” Boyd said. His gaze held mine, then shifted to Malcolm; he gestured briefly to the boy to come to him, and Malcolm did. Rebecca, not to be deterred, moved forward and curled one arm about Malcolm, squeezing him close to her side.
“Please, Lev, let them tell you what they have learned,” Rebecca insisted.
“I’m afraid I can’t do a thing but take this fellow Davis to the jailhouse. He’s a wanted man, Becky, and I’ll not speak another word on the subject.” The marshal was lean, built on the spare, but he spoke with authority, and in a tone t
hat discouraged any sort of protest.
Rebecca protested, with no small amount of heat, “You must listen to what they have to say. A woman is missing from this town!”
“Sawyer done nothin’ wrong,” Malcolm said, imploring Marshal Quade, his eyes wide and earnest. “Them men was gonna kill Lorie. They beat her bloody. You ain’t got a right to take Sawyer!” He was working himself into a frenzy, as though about to jump forward and into danger, and Boyd caught him by the scruff.
“Jesus Christ,” muttered Quade’s accomplice, for the second time. He let the shotgun barrel drift south and only for a second did I entertain the thought of lunging and removing it from his grasp.
Quade said to Malcolm, “Son, I’ve a duty to uphold. When a man is accused of murder, action must be taken. If you’ll excuse us.” So saying, he looped the chain from the irons around one hand, with the ease of a many-times-repeated action, and ordered, “Potts, go find Clemens and tell him we’ve got our man.” And to me, “Come along, Davis.”
I had no choice but to follow.
* * *
The jailhouse was lit by two separate lanterns. Within, we were met by Billings, now hatless and with unkempt hair. I had a sudden, absurd picture of him continuously raking his fingers through it; the way it stood on end suggested such a thing. He had been smoking, and removed the cigar from his teeth to inquire, “What the devil?”
“Billings,” acknowledged Marshal Quade. In the yellow light I took stock of the marshal, who was perhaps ten years my senior, with a face baked brown by the sun but for white squint lines in the outer corners of his eyes. I found myself daring to hope that it was a scrap of reasonability I observed in his gaze as he regarded me just as frankly. Quade looked back to the sheriff and said, “You’ve received a wire about this man as of this afternoon, I’d wager. You been to the telegraph office since midday?”
“I’ve had my hands full with the hanging,” Billings said defensively, eyes narrowing. “This fellow’s wife was lost in our town just this afternoon. What’s this about? I swear I’ve not had a longer day since the goddamn Vicksburg Campaign.”
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