Bounty Hunter lj-1

by William W. Johnstone

  Luke didn’t know how he was going to put up a fight. His revolver wasn’t loaded, and getting dunked in the river probably had ruined his caps and powder. He still had his knife, but he wasn’t in any shape for hand-to-hand combat against overwhelming odds.

  The Yankees could just sit there and shoot him while he tried to climb out of the river.

  “Luke! Luke, is that you?”

  The familiar voice sent a surge of relief through him. “Remy! Down here!”

  The Cajun laughed. “Come out of there, you old water rat!”

  With river water streaming from his clothes, Luke clambered onto the bank and collapsed. Remy dismounted and went down to help him.

  “What happened?” Luke asked as he made it to his feet with Remy’s assistance.

  “Lancaster and the others heard the shooting and came to see what was going on. You and I had already done enough damage to the Yankees that they were able to wipe out the rest of the patrol.”

  “Anybody hurt?”

  “No, we were lucky. How about you?”

  “I reckon I’m all right. Just wet and tired. My ammunition’s probably ruined, too.”

  “Don’t worry about that. We’ll be able to scavenge plenty of powder and shot from those dead Yankees, not to mention their guns.”

  “And their horses,” Luke suggested. “It won’t hurt for us to have some extra mounts.”

  “Most of the horses have bolted, but we might be able to catch a few.”

  By the time Luke and Remy reached the road, the wagons had crossed the bridge. They had to steer around the gaping hole in the ground where the keg of blasting powder had gone off, but there was room enough at the side of the road for them to manage that.

  Colonel Lancaster said, “From what Corporal Duquesne tells me, if we’d come along a little later this bridge would already be gone. The same would be true if not for your swift action, Jensen. Good job.”

  “Thank you, sir. And thank you for coming along and taking a hand in the fight.”

  “When we heard the shots, I should have ordered the drivers to turn the wagons around. We should have gone back and looked for another way out of the city. It really wasn’t wise of me to risk our cargo just to see what was happening to the two of you.” The colonel shrugged. “But everything seems to have worked out all right. Just don’t expect me to keep on pulling your fat out of the fire, Jensen.”

  “No, sir, I won’t.” Luke managed to keep the irritation he felt out of his voice. He’d just been following orders when all hell broke loose.

  “We’d better move quickly now,” Lancaster went on. “There are probably more Yankee patrols in the area. They would have been expecting to hear an explosion, but when their men don’t come back, they’ll start to wonder what happened. We don’t want to be here when they come to find out.”

  Luke knew that was true. He started looking for his horse and found the animal grazing peacefully on the grass at the side of the road.

  He couldn’t do anything about his wet clothes except wait for them to dry. That would be miserable, but he could put up with it. He found his hat on the bridge where it had fallen off when he tackled the Yankee.

  The Confederates hastily helped themselves to guns and ammunition from their fallen foes. They were trying to catch some of the Yankee cavalry horses when Lancaster said, “No, leave them here.”

  “It never hurts to have extra mounts, Colonel,” Stratton suggested, unknowingly echoing what Luke had said earlier to Remy.

  “Those horses have U.S. army brands on them,” Lancaster pointed out. “If we’re captured, it’s unlikely we’ll be able to talk ourselves out of a firing squad, but it would be even more difficult if we were in possession of Yankee cavalry mounts.”

  “The colonel’s got a point there,” Luke said. “It might be better if we just make do without them.”

  Nobody put up an argument. A short time later, the group was on the move, following the road into the rugged, wooded countryside of northern Virginia.

  Riding on the wagon with Dale again Luke looked over at Wiley Potter, who rode alongside the vehicle. “Thanks for coming to help me back there.”

  “Well, sure, Jensen,” Potter said. “What else could we do? We’re all on the same side, ain’t we?”

  CHAPTER 5

  After the fight at the bridge, the scouts didn’t run into any more trouble. A couple times they heard hoofbeats coming along the road and quickly found places where they could pull the wagons off into the trees. Yankee cavalrymen galloped past without even slowing down, never realizing how close the Confederates were.

  The riders could only be Yankees. Nobody else would be out and about at night. The people who lived in the area were huddled in their houses and cabins, hoping and praying they wouldn’t be slaughtered before morning by the northern invaders.

  Luke thought about his ma and Kirby and Janey back on the farm. There had been fighting in Missouri, although not as much as in the east, and widespread bloody raids by guerrilla forces on both sides. He hoped none of the violence had come near the Jensen family farm.

  By morning the Confederates were several miles north of Richmond. As the sun came up, Potter and Casey found a cave-like opening under a rugged bluff topped with trees, and Dale and Edgar drove the wagons into it at Colonel Lancaster’s command. There was room for the horses under the bluff, too.

  “We’ll stay here today,” the colonel said. “Traveling in daylight is too risky while we’re still this close to Richmond. When we swing west and then south we’ll be less likely to run into the Yankees, so we can stay on the road more and make better time then.”

  Based on what he had seen so far, Luke had doubts of Lancaster’s ability to be in charge of the mission, but he agreed with the colonel’s decision. They were all tired and needed some rest, and it would be better for them to lie low for a while.

  They made an unappetizing breakfast of hardtack and salt jowl. No coffee. Luke wasn’t sure how long it had been since he’d had real coffee, but it hadn’t been anytime recently, that was for sure. They took turns sleeping while two men stood guard at all times.

  When it was Luke’s turn to watch, he was paired with Ted Casey. They hunkered in some brush near the wagons, and the first thing Casey did was reach for a tobacco pouch and papers in his shirt pocket.

  Like stopped him with a hand on his arm. “You can’t roll a quirly.”

  “Why not?” Casey asked with a frown.

  “Because the smell of tobacco smoke can travel a pretty good distance. The road’s only about a quarter mile away. You don’t want some smart Yankee coming along, smelling your smoke, and getting curious enough to come over here and take a look around.”

  Casey let out a disgusted snort, but he shrugged and put away the pouch. “If they was smart, they wouldn’t be Yankees.”

  “They probably think the same thing about us Confederates,” Luke pointed out.

  “Don’t start talkin’ about how they just think they’re doin’ the right thing and how we shouldn’t hate ’em because of that.”

  “They’re not doing the right thing,” Luke said with conviction. “They invaded our homes. Of course we have to fight them. But the ones I really hate are the politicians from both sides who kept prodding and poking at each other until they felt like they had to start a war over something that could have been settled without one.”

  “What are you talkin’ about?” Casey asked.

  “Did you know that more than twenty years ago, some congressmen from the South were already talking about ending slavery? Their plan was to get rid of it in stages, so the southern economy wouldn’t be ruined in the process. If the northern politicians had just gone along with that idea, by now a lot of the slaves would be free, maybe even all of them, and there wouldn’t have been any need for this war. But the Northerners turned it down flat. They’d already started making speeches about how all the slaves had to be freed at once, or they wouldn’t go along with it.”<
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  Casey gave him a dubious squint. “I never heard nothin’ about anything like that. You’re makin’ it up.”

  Luke shook his head. “Nope. I read about it in an old newspaper I came across once.”

  “You know how to read, eh?”

  “My ma saw to that. And once I learned, I had a liking for it.”

  That was true. As a boy and a young man, he had read every book and newspaper he could get his hands on. Unfortunately, in the part of the country where he’d grown up, reading material wasn’t all that common.

  But some of the settlements had schools, and whenever he could, Luke would ride over to one of them, sneak in, and “borrow” whatever books he could find. He always took them back once he’d finished reading them, so he didn’t consider it stealing. He was just doing whatever he had to in order to feed his thirst for knowledge.

  One of the few good things about the war was that churches across the South had donated Bibles for the troops, so Luke got the chance to read the Good Book from cover to cover, more than once.

  Sometimes he came across other books, usually in abandoned houses. He’d nearly always had some sort of volume of prose or poetry tucked away in his gear, and he read them until they fell apart from exposure to the elements.

  He didn’t have a book with him at the moment, but maybe once they got to Georgia he could scrounge up a few. He had read some plays by an Englishman named Shakespeare, and he had a hankering to read more.

  “I don’t understand it,” Casey said. “I thought those Yankees were so all-fired anxious to have the slaves freed, and now you’re tellin’ me they turned down a chance to have that happen and went to war instead.”

  “The politicians in Washington raised a big stink about slavery because they didn’t want folks up north thinking too much about the way we were starting to develop more industry here in the South. All those rich men who own factories up there didn’t like that. They didn’t like the contracts our businessmen were starting to make with businesses in England and other places in Europe, either.”

  Luke grunted disdainfully, then went on. “The way they saw it, we weren’t supposed to do anything except grow the crops. They’d do everything else the country needed and rake in all the money. They stirred up a bunch of well-meaning people who had real doubts about slavery and got them to fight a war over it. But if you want the truth, all you have to do is look around. You don’t see any factories still standing in the South, do you?”

  Casey frowned as if thinking about the question hurt his head. “It’s all about states’ rights. That’s what we’re fightin’ for.”

  At this point, all we’re really fighting for is survival, Luke thought. But he said, “It’s true the North tried to trample on the rights of our sovereign states, but consider this . . . the Southern businessmen building those factories and making those contracts with the British wanted the money from those things as much as the Northern industrialists didn’t want them to have it.”

  “So what you’re sayin’ is the politicians and the fellas with a lot of money on both sides have got us fightin’ each other because they want to keep rakin’ it in?”

  Luke shrugged. “Draw your own conclusions, Casey. All I’m saying is the whole situation is a lot more complicated than what most folks think. One side yells about slavery and the other side yells about states’ rights, but like nearly everything else in life, most of it always comes back to money.”

  Casey nodded slowly, as if the implications of what Luke had said were sinking into his brain. After a moment, he said, “You know what we need to do?”

  “What’s that?”

  “We need to get our own hands on some of that money the varmints are fightin’ over.”

  Luke laughed softly. “Men like you and me don’t get rich, Casey. It’s just not in the cards. And I don’t really care. If this war was over tomorrow, I’d go back home and be mighty happy to do it. My family’s farm isn’t much, but if we have faith and work hard enough, it’ll take care of us.”

  “There’s better ways to get rich. Easier ways.” And with that, Casey turned his head to stare hard at the wagons.

  Luke stiffened as he saw where the man was looking. A harsh note came into his voice. “You can forget about that. That gold belongs to the Confederacy. Thinking otherwise is the same thing as committing treason.”

  Casey shook his head and said hastily, “You’ve got me all wrong, Jensen. I’m not thinkin’ anything except I’ll be glad when our turn at guard duty is over so I can get me some more sleep.” He yawned, but Luke wasn’t sure if it was genuine. “It was a hard night, and I’m still tired.”

  “It was a hard night,” Luke agreed, thinking about the encounter with the mob in Richmond and then the fight with the Yankee patrol at the bridge.

  Casey grinned as he poked a fist against Luke’s upper arm.

  “Your problem is you got too many thoughts in that head of yours. A man’s brain ain’t built to work that hard, Jensen. Me, all I think about is whiskey and women and killin’ Yankees, and that’s plenty.”

  “I figure it’ll be a while before we get any whiskey or women,” Luke said, “but it wouldn’t surprise me if you get your fill of killing Yankees before this is all over.”

  CHAPTER 6

  After talking to Casey, Luke felt the need for some solitude. He took his rifle, climbed to the top of the bluff hanging over the wagons, and stretched out among the trees so he could gaze around the countryside.

  Other than numerous columns of smoke rising in the distance marking the location of Richmond, he couldn’t see any signs of the war from where he lay. Here and there, the vegetation was starting to turn green with the approach of spring. A few birds winged through the blue sky.

  It would have been a tranquil, beautiful scene if not for the never-ending rumble of artillery, which could be heard even so far from the capital city. The sound of the bombardment was a constant reminder of the ugliness lurking beneath the apparently peaceful surface.

  He and his companions were putting that behind them, at least for the moment, Luke reminded himself. He was sure the war would catch up to them again, probably sooner rather than later, but he was going to enjoy the solitude while he could.

  Weariness stole over him, begging him to close his eyes. He fought it off, knowing if he gave in to the temptation, he would fall asleep. The possibility of the Yankees sneaking up on the escort on his watch was unacceptable.

  To help keep himself awake, he looked down at the brush where Ted Casey still hunkered. He caught a glimpse of the scout through the branches, but only because he knew where the man was. Luke thought it was very unlikely anybody else would spot Casey.

  He recalled the way Casey had looked at the wagons while they were talking about getting rich. The memory brought a frown to Luke’s face.

  As soon as President Davis had explained the details of the mission the night before, Luke had worried about entrusting the safety of so much gold to such a small group of men.

  It made sense from a tactical standpoint. Nine men and two wagons could move a lot faster and attract a lot less attention than a company of soldiers.

  But if some of those men turned out not to be trustworthy, it could lead to trouble. Luke knew he could trust Remy, Dale, and Edgar, and Colonel Lancaster was completely devoted to the Confederacy. The other four men were unknown quantities. In the long run, how would they react to the temptation of all that bullion?

  Of course, they could be wondering the exact same thing about him and his friends, Luke reminded himself. Potter, Stratton, Richards, and Casey certainly hadn’t held back when it came to fighting the Yankees at the bridge. They had pitched right in, risking their lives for the cause . . . and also to save him and Remy.

  Thinking about the cause made Luke ponder the future. It was pretty obvious the Confederate government couldn’t survive without the funds represented by that gold. Even if they made it safely to Georgia with the wagons, and the govern
ment set up a new capital there, would it mean anything except the Confederacy would cling to existence by its fingernails for another few weeks?

  General William Tecumseh Sherman had already stormed through Georgia, leaving much of it in ruins. Atlanta—what was left of it after the Yankees had burned the city—was in Union hands. Once Richmond fell, as seemed inevitable, Grant could just turn around and march south, and the remnants of the Confederacy would be caught between two overwhelming forces.

  The glorious cause, Luke thought bitterly. But despite his own cynicism, he knew he would fight to the end. Jensens didn’t give up, even in the face of certain defeat. Sometimes events had a way of taking unexpected turns.

  Even so, Luke didn’t hold out much hope the mission would really change anything.

  He lay on top of the bluff until it was time to wake up Dale for a turn on guard duty. He climbed down, went into the cave-like overhang, and reached under the lead wagon to where Dale had wrapped up in a blanket.

  A shaken shoulder brought Dale out of his slumber. “Trouble?” he asked in a groggy voice.

  “Nope,” Luke told him. “Everything’s quiet. But it’s your turn to stand guard.”

  Dale yawned and stretched.

  “One thing,” Luke went on quietly after glancing around to see that no one was going to overhear. “Keep an eye on Casey, Stratton, Potter, and Richards.”

  “Why?” Dale asked with a frown.

  “I just think it would be a good idea, until we’re sure how much we can count on them.”

  Understanding dawned in Dale’s eyes. “All right, Luke. But so far they haven’t given us any reason not to trust them.”

  “Maybe not,” Luke said, not wanting to get into the details of his conversation with Casey just yet, “but we want things to stay that way.”

  Before the sun went down that evening, Edgar Millgard built a small fire under the bluff. The overhang would disperse the smoke enough that it wouldn’t be noticed. He cooked more of the salt pork, and they had biscuits with the meat instead of hardtack. “Don’t get used to eatin’ so fancy,” he warned the men with a grin. “We don’t have much flour.”