Matt shook his head, hardly able to believe what he had just heard. One thing he was forced to admit—it was highly unlikely that he could pull off his escape without help. “Why, hell,” he said. “Why not? If you’re that anxious to get shot, then why not?” He took Zeb’s hand, and they shook on it.
The one person in the room without a grin on her face was Molly. Once again, her shining knight in buckskin was about to say good-bye—this time for good, in all likelihood. She was not sure she could stand the prospect of never seeing Matt again. But she understood his need to try to escape. If he allowed himself to be taken back to Virginia, he would probably be hanged. She could not bear the thought. It would be better for him to risk his life on the chance that he might successfully escape. As for her, sorrow seemed to be her lot. She would learn to accept it, knowing that she could never love another after Matt Slaughter.
Plans were quickly laid for an escape attempt the following night. Zeb took it as his responsibility to get rid of the guard outside Matt’s door—his proposed means a bottle of whiskey. From that point on, the plan was simple enough. The two of them would walk across the parade ground to the post trader’s building. Zeb would have the horses tied behind the building. From there, they would simply ride away. It would have been easier for Matt if he had more time to heal, but they both felt the timing was right at the moment, when all troops on the post were on alert because of all the Indians pulling out from the talks.
Matt glanced at Molly, who was listening to every word. He wondered what she might be thinking about it. He knew she wanted to go with him, but he didn’t see that it was possible, and certainly it was no life to thrust upon her. Bringing his mind back to the planned escape, he said, “I’m not of much use without my rifle.”
“Already taken care of,” Zeb answered immediately. “Friend of mine, Darren Murphy, was on stable duty the night you got shot. He told me that as of this mornin’ your saddle with the rifle still in the sling and all your possibles were still in the tack room. Shouldn’t be too hard to get at.”
Matt nodded. Murphy—the name rang a bell. Then he remembered. Zeb had told him Murphy was the trooper who prevented O’Connor from putting another bullet in his back. He looked Zeb in the eye then. “You’ve already been plannin’ this thing, haven’t you? Before you even talked to me about it.”
Zeb grinned and winked. “Your job is to get a helluva lot better overnight,” he said. He glanced over at Molly. The young girl was obviously worried. “Don’t you worry, missy. It’ll be easier than teachin’ a fish to swim. I’ll be gettin’ along now, so’s you two can visit.” With that he prepared to leave. “See ya tomorrow night, partner,” he said to Matt as he went out the door, almost bumping into Dr. Riddler on his way in.
The doctor nodded briefly to Zeb, then turned his attention to his patient and the young lady. “Well, Molly,” he said, “I thought I might find you here. How’s the patient?” He directed the question to Matt.
“I expect I’ll live,” Matt responded. “But I’m too weak to stand up,” he added, thinking it might be best if Riddler thought he was still too weak to warrant any concerns about escape.
“Well, I just wanted to check your bandage before I go home to supper.” After a brief examination, he nodded his satisfaction, then turned to Molly. “Are you about ready to go home? I expect Martha will be looking for you to help with supper.” She nodded, but remained seated. “Well, I’ll see you back at the house then,” he said and departed, pulling the door closed behind him.
She got up from the chair and went to Matt’s bedside. There was no need for speech. Her eyes told him of the pain in her heart as she gazed longingly into his. A tear slowly formed in the corner of her eye, and his heart was captured in that moment. He reached out to take her hand. As soon as his hand touched hers, she came to him, resting her cheek against his shoulder. He held her there for a long moment before speaking. “Molly, I’m sorry things turned out this way. I ain’t got much choice in the matter. I’ve got to get away from here.”
She rose and placed a finger on his lips to silence him. Smiling bravely, she took his face in her hands and kissed him. Her lips were soft and gentle at first touch, but then the tide of her passion could be held back no longer, and she kissed him hard and feverishly, releasing the longing that filled her soul. In that brief moment of time, she was at last able to realize complete contentment. He responded to her kiss with passion equal to hers, lost in that special moment. But then the realization that he must say good-bye told him that this was not to be. He gently pushed her away, and whispered softly, “You’d better go now. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Reluctantly, she pulled away, stood gazing at him as if to fill her eyes before leaving, then turned and left him.
* * *
Molly came to sit by Matt’s bed for most of the following day, until the evening guard was posted, and Zeb stopped in briefly before putting his plan into operation. Matt was prepared to climb into his buckskins, which Molly had procured for him that afternoon. Ready to leave as soon as he got a signal from Zeb, he could do nothing but wait.
The plan, however, was not at first successful. Zeb managed to persuade the sentry to have a drink or two, but the soldier politely declined to drink himself drunk. In an effort to tempt the sentry to take one more drink, Zeb consumed most of the bottle himself, and ended up asleep outside Matt’s room. At the changing of the guard, the sergeant on duty had Zeb carried out and unceremoniously dumped on the ground behind the hospital. Stiff and sick the next morning, a truly mortified Zeb limped into Matt’s room to apologize and promise that he would not make the same mistake again.
Actually, the extra day gave Matt some much needed time to further recuperate. He agreed to let Zeb try his plan one more time before abandoning the idea. Their luck was considerably better on the next night, for Private Dewey Starks drew the ten-to-midnight tour of duty outside the prisoner’s hospital room. Starks was a notorious drunk. Previously a corporal, he had already been busted back to private for drinking on duty. Zeb was almost prompted to laugh when he entered the hallway a few minutes after ten and discovered Starks seated in the chair outside Matt’s door.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Zeb called out cheerfully, “if it ain’t Private Starks. How you doin’, Dewey?” He held the full whiskey bottle casually so that Starks could see it.
“Howdy, Zeb,” Starks replied, his eyes fixed upon the bottle. “Whatcha got there?”
“Oh, this?” He gave the sentry a little wink. “I just come by to give my friend a little shooter to help him sleep. You won’t let on to nobody, will you?”
“Maybe not,” Starks replied, grinning, “if you was to give me a little shooter, too.”
Zeb paused, his hand on the doorknob. “I wouldn’t wanna do anything to get you in trouble—you bein’ on guard duty and all.”
“Hell, ain’t nobody gonna know but you and me.”
Zeb still hesitated as if trying to decide. “Well, maybe just one. Lemme give Slaughter a little snort first, and then we’ll both have us a shot. All right?” Dewey nodded, his grin reaching from ear to ear. Zeb entered the room to find Matt sitting on the side of the bed, waiting. “Get your clothes on, partner. We’ll be walkin’ out of here before midnight when they change the guard.”
* * *
Sergeant of the guard Billy Harmon halted his guard detail in front of the hospital and ordered the first man at the head of the squad to fall out. After ordering the rest of the detail to stand at ease, he told the replacement sentry to follow him. As soon as he entered the hallway, he knew something was wrong. The chair by the door to Slaughter’s room was vacant.
“Damn that Starks,” he muttered, and hurried to the door of the room, mumbling obscenities as he ran. He thrust the door open and stuck his head inside. The patient was in bed, apparently asleep. Relieved to find the prisoner had not escaped, he turned to Starks’ replacement. “Go find that son of a bitch—look out back, he might be taking a piss. I
’ll look down the other hallway.” They split up to search for the missing guard. “I’ll have his hide for this,” Harmon promised as he stalked toward the end of the corridor.
Starks was nowhere to be found. Sergeant Harmon gave up the search after a few minutes. There was no time to comb the area for the missing sentry. The other guards had to be posted. “You see that you stay alert, dammit,” he ordered as he left to attend his duties.
Private Goodman stood at parade rest until Harmon disappeared. Then he settled himself in the chair. After a few moments, he had second thoughts, and decided he’d better have a look at the prisoner to make sure everything was all right. He eased the door open and nodded to himself, satisfied that the patient was still asleep. He started to close the door when something peculiar caught his eye. The patient had kicked the sheet out on one corner of the bed. It struck Goodman as mighty strange that the man had gone to bed with his boots on. Curious, he pushed on through the door and approached the bed. Pulling the sheet back, he was startled to find Dewey Starks peacefully sleeping off a drunk.
Sergeant Harmon was fit to be tied. “There’s gonna be hell to pay for this. Starks can kiss his ass good-bye.” He stormed out of the room to confront Goodman and a sleepy hospital orderly who had just been roused from his cot. “Go find Lieutenant O’Connor,” he ordered Goodman.
Harmon waited. After more than a quarter of an hour, Goodman returned alone, and reported that he could not find O’Connor. This did nothing to calm the sergeant’s rapidly growing irritation. The officer of the day was supposed to be available any hour of the night. “Did you look in the guardhouse?” Harmon asked, knowing that it was probably the first place Goodman had looked. When the private answered that he had, Harmon threw up his hands in defeat. “Well, dammit, I don’t know what to do. We’ve got an escaped prisoner loose somewhere, and the damn officer of the day ain’t nowhere to be found.” He fumed for a minute while he decided what to do. “I reckon we’ll go wake the damn major up. He ain’t gonna be too happy with O’Connor.” The thought caused a malicious grin to appear. Like most of the enlisted men on post, he had no love for the lieutenant.
* * *
“I’m sorry you have to walk a piece, but I was afraid if I brought the horses to the hospital, somebody mighta noticed,” Zeb said as the two men made their way across the deserted parade ground.
“It’s all right. I’m makin’ it just fine.” Still unsteady, and experiencing a dull pain from the chunk of lead lodged in his back, Matt was making every effort to simulate a casual stroll. A growing dampening of his shirt, however, told him that the wound was bleeding. No matter, he thought. He’d rather bleed out and die right there on the parade ground than go to the gallows in Virginia. “Where the hell did you leave the horses, anyway?”
“Behind the sutler’s store—we only got one little problem. I ain’t been able to get in the tack room to get your saddle and stuff. It weren’t no problem gettin’ your horse. I just got in behind ’em when they drove ’em all out to graze down by the river. Hell, I coulda cut out two or three more. But the damn stables was busy as hell all day. I reckon there was a big to-do about the Injuns pullin’ out. There ought’n to be nobody there this time of night ’cept one guard, though.”
As Zeb had figured, there was one man standing guard at the stables. He walked a post around the three buildings and the corral. It seemed a long circuit for one man to make, but when Matt questioned it, Zeb said that he had seen only one man walking the post, although it had seemed odd to him as well. It was ridiculously easy to simply wait until the guard was at the far corner of his post, beyond the next two barns, and then slip in the back of the first barn.
Walking hurriedly between the line of stalls, they headed to the tack room to recover Matt’s belongings. About to enter the room, Zeb held Matt back with a quick grasp of his arm. “Well, lookee here,” he whispered, and pointed to the floor just in front of his feet. “I damn near stepped on him.” It was a man sleeping, obviously another guard who should have been walking the post with his partner. They stepped around him very carefully. While Matt searched through assorted gear for his saddle, Zeb looked for some rope. Finding several coils looped over a post, he selected one and returned to secure the sleeping soldier. Before the guard was fully awake, he was tied and gagged. And by the time he was alert to what was taking place, he was helpless to do anything about it.
Unfortunately, it was too dark in the room to distinguish Matt’s outfit from several others lining the walls. “I’m gonna have to light that lantern there by the door,” Matt said. “I can’t see what I’m doin’.”
“Wait till I run back to the door, and I’ll tell you when the guard is walking around the far building,” Zeb said. “I don’t think there’s much chance he can see the light. He’ll be on the other side of the building.”
Zeb was right. The third barn completely blocked the guard’s line of sight for several minutes. In half that time, Matt collected his saddle and rifle, and the two fugitives were hustling toward a little clump of trees where their horses waited—the guard none the wiser.
The midnight raid on the stables did not go completely undetected, however. Lieutenant James O’Connor, officer of the day, stopped in his tracks when he saw a light suddenly appear in the tack room of the first barn. Smiling smugly to himself, he hurried toward the barn, certain that he had caught one of his sentries away from his post, possibly even sleeping while the other guard acted as lookout. He had been determined that there would be no slacking on his tour as OD, and he had been showing up unexpectedly at other guard posts throughout the night. This was the first sign of dereliction of duty, and he was eager to spring his trap on the unsuspecting slacker.
Before he reached the corner of the corral, the light went out. He stopped to look and listen. About to move again, he paused when he saw two figures slinking away in the darkness, carrying something toward a small stand of trees several yards past the stables. Ha! he thought. Looks like I’ve stumbled upon a little larceny. Feeling pleased with the opportunity to come down hard on a couple of enlisted men, he made his way quickly toward the stand of trees.
* * *
“Want me to do that for you?” Zeb asked, watching Matt strain to throw his saddle on the paint.
“No,” Matt replied. “I’m a mite weak yet, but I can manage to saddle my own horse.” He was reaching under the horse’s belly to tighten the girth strap when suddenly both men froze simultaneously at the distinct sound of a hammer cocking.
“That’s right,” O’Connor said. “You’d best not move a muscle.” He stepped into the small clearing where the horses had waited, realizing only then whom he had happened upon. “Well, as I live and breathe,” he blurted, hardly believing his eyes. “If it isn’t Mr. Slaughter, and Mr. Benson—I believe I’ve discovered a jailbreak in progress.” He kept his revolver pointed at them while he moved to position himself better. “You were damn lucky the first time, Slaughter, but this time you’re going to be shot dead while trying to escape.” His hatred for the tall scout came boiling to the surface. “Damn you,” he spat, “you should have died when I shot you before.” He glanced briefly at Zeb. “Sorry, Benson, I’ve really got nothing against you, but you’re here with the prisoner on your own accord, and I don’t want any witnesses.” He fairly quivered with excitement, anticipating the sweet taste of revenge, knowing that he had both men helpless before him. Though he was trembling, it was far from the fearful nervousness he had felt the first time, when he’d shot Slaughter in the back. This time Slaughter was weak and vulnerable.
“Why, you yellow piece of shit,” Zeb snarled. “You think you can kill both of us before one of us gets to you?”
O’Connor smirked, enjoying his moment of power. “I think I can empty this gun before either one of you takes a step toward me.”
“Would it be easier for you if I turned my back?” Matt asked. “That’s how you work best, ain’t it?” He was pressing for time, hoping to k
eep O’Connor talking. His rifle was secured in the saddle sling out of his reach, and he wasn’t sure how fast he could move to get it. It didn’t look good. The odds were not in his favor. His greatest regret at the moment was that Zeb had been pulled into it.
Realizing that he had better finish the job before one or both of them decided to jump him, O’Connor raised the pistol and aimed it at Matt’s chest. Seconds before his finger tightened upon the trigger, he suddenly felt the cold, hard steel of a double gun barrel pressed against the back of his neck, and the metallic clicks of both hammers cocking. He froze, unable to move, consumed by the mental image of what both barrels of a shotgun would do to his head. Though the distraction was for only for a second, Matt was instantly upon him, his hand locked on the man’s wrist. Zeb was right behind, neither one of them knowing what had happened to cause the lieutenant to freeze, but both reacting automatically.
With O’Connor disarmed and pinned to the ground under both men, there was time to discover the slight figure in the shadow of the oaks. Clearly as frightened as the lieutenant, but with deadly resolve, Molly stepped into the clearing. Visibly shaken, she carefully released the two cocked hammers on Dr. Riddler’s double-barreled shotgun while silently giving thanks that she had not had to pull the triggers.
“Molly,” was all Matt could say at the moment, still amazed by her sudden appearance. He would have gone to her at once, but he was occupied at the moment with the unfortunate lieutenant.
Zeb, seated now on the lieutenant’s legs, grinned up at the young lady, enjoying the irony of O’Connor’s fortune. “Always a pleasure to see you, ma’am,” he called out with a chuckle. Looking back at Matt then, he asked, “What are we gonna do with this pup?”
“I don’t know,” Matt replied at first, then said, “We need some rope.”
“There’s plenty back in that barn,” Zeb said. “Wait till that sentry walks up to the other end, and I’ll run back and get some.” He hesitated a moment. “’Course it’d be a whole lot easier to just cut his throat, and then we wouldn’t have to tie him up.”
The Hostile Trail Page 22