The motion of the boat, Hedges thought, but then he felt the decking tremble. He heard the throb of the engine. The wheel began to thrash at the water. A volley of shots exploded and bullets clanged against the armor plating of the pilothouse. The Southern Glory angled hard away from the dock. Hedges spun the wheel for a mid-river course and glanced back over his shoulder.
The men on the dock had halted: the repair crew staring in awe after the departing boat, the seamen crouched on one knee firing from the shoulder. Hedges caught a brief glimpse of Scott skimming through the white water of the churning wake, hanging on with both hands to the trailing stern line. Then something bulky obstructed his view for a moment. There was a thump, diminished by the engine and water sounds, then an awful crunching noise. More rifle shots cracked. Three bullets clanged against the pilothouse. A lucky shot whined through a rear port and ricocheted off the binnacle. Hedges cursed as he felt the thud of impact and warmth of blood behind his left shoulder.
He checked he was holding course, then glanced behind him again. Scott was closing with the boat, hauling himself handover-hand, approaching the danger area of the threshing wheel. The white water bubbling around him was streaked with dark crimson diluting to pink. But the blood was not spilling from Scott. It came from countless wounds in the mutilated body of Floyd—the object which had interrupted Hedges’ view a few moments earlier.
Scott had fixed the dead Rebel to a strut on the stern wheel, unbuckling the man’s belt then refastening it around the wood. Thus, with each turn of the wheel, the body was hauled out of the water flung through the top arc and then plunged down again. But the gap between wheel and stern was not wide enough and engine power always overcame frail human flesh and bone. Floyd’s head and one arm had been torn off. Both legs were broken at the knees and jagged ends of bone pierced flesh. Each time the body smashed down on to the stern more chunks of human meat were ripped from the torso. And, each time the wheel threw its burden across the top arc, a spray of watered-down blood lashed the pilothouse, like rain gusted by wind.
“Scott, you stupid bastard!” Hedges yelled through a side port after another volley of rifle fire spat at the pilothouse. “The Reb could have fouled something and wrecked the wheel!”
“I got my own friggin’ problems, sir!” Scott snarled back breathlessly. “Get someone to give me a hand for Christ’s sake!”
“Everyone’s busy!” Hedges yelled as the remains of Floyd were dragged clear of the water again. But this time the belt holding him a prisoner snapped and momentum tossed the broken body high into the air. Without the burden, the wheel plunged into a faster rate and the boat surged forward.
The body splashed into the river at the precise moment Seward fired the mortar. The shell left the muzzle with a deafening crack. It lobbed through the morning air with a shrill whistle. The fusillade of rifle shots seemed more distant than the group of men on the dock. The shell scored a direct hit on one of the seamen. It smashed an enormous hole through his chest and exploded inside him as he was flung to the ground. A pall of black smoke obliterated the group for a moment. Then the blast cleared it. Whole bodies and torn sections sailed away from the impact point. Arms, legs, hands, feet and at least two heads seemed suspended in the sunlight for long moments, dropping sprays and gouts of bright crimson. Then they splashed cleanly into the river or spattered with renewed bursts of blood against the concrete dock or timber walls of the warehouse.
Three of the seamen and two civilians had been torn apart by the explosion. The fourth sailor and three civilians remained whole, but lay in the oddly twisted, utterly inert attitudes of certain” death. The remainder writhed in agony or were held unmoving prisoners to shock, groaning and screaming for help.
Seward was doing a gleeful dance of triumph beside the killing mortar. “Frank!” he shrieked in delight. “Frank, I got the bastards. Right in the goddamn middle of ’em. Spread ’em all over the goddamn dock.”
Scott hauled himself along the final few feet of rope and clambered up on to the deck. He flopped out full-length, gasping for air to revitalize exhausted lungs.
“You see it, Captain?” Seward yelled, staring with excited eyes at the pilothouse. “I sure as hell creamed them Johnnie Rebs, uh?”
“Sure, Billy,” Hedges called in reply as he became aware of a burning pain behind his left shoulder. “With someone with your luck on our side, the Union’s just got to win this war.”
“One shell was all it took! Crrruuunch!”
“One shell,” Hedges agreed in a murmur only he could hear, his exhilaration overriding the pain of the shoulder wound. “And the Rebs just went to pieces.”
* * *
“IT is the punishment of the Lord,” the white-haired Arch-Angel Luke said simply. “And verification that He does not approve violence in the doing of His work. The Angels of Paradise regret it was our actions which caused you to kill our brother, sinner.”
The cemetery was peacefully sited among trees to one side of the town. Edge had attended the burial service for Angel Angus because it was pleasant to sit astride the stallion in the cool shade before moving out into the hot sun of afternoon. The whole population of Paradise were present, standing bowed-head and silent amid many simple wooden crosses marking the graves of Angels who had died less violently than this newest entrant from earthly to heavenly paradise.
The citizens’ firm belief that every event was pre-ordained had rapidly countered the shock at the shooting in the barn and the half-breed had not been molested again. While the body was removed and the grave dug. Sarah and Edith had completed Edge’s order. Then he had used the forge fire in the blacksmith section of the stables to heat some beans and boil water for coffee. When he emerged to saddle the stallion, the town and the fields spread out below it were deserted. Luke’s booming voice, intoning a prayer over the body of Angus had drawn him to the cool grove of trees by the cemetery. Now, the short, simple burial service was over and Luke, backed by the regular group which seemed to be members of some kind of council, appeared to be attempting an apology to Edge. But the expression of regret and laying the incident at the doorstep of the Lord’s will was as far as he got.
Then, as the half-breed gave a curt nod of acknowledgement, Luke held up a staying hand.
“You owe us no favors, sinner,” he intoned. “But we would deem it one if you did not talk of Paradise on your travels. Few sinners discover this valley. When one does, it invariably results in trouble.”
Edge shook his head. “I only talk when there’s good reason to say something, feller,” he replied. “Ain’t no good reason to talk about this place.”
Luke lowered his hand. The men backing him dispersed first, and then the lesser angels of Paradise moved out of the grove after them.
“We especially would not wish the law to know of Paradise, sinner,” the white-haired old man said. “We live by the Lord’s rules which do not always match those made by man. Just one of the reasons why the Earthly Angels have chosen to isolate themselves from the rest of humanity.”
“I especially don’t talk with lawman,” Edge told him with a wry smile, thinking fleetingly of a time, long ago, when he had worn a badge.* “Same reason.”
(*See—Edge: Ten Thousand Dollars American.)
He tugged gently on the reins to turn the stallion away from Luke, then tapped the animal lightly with his heels to walk him across the grove. Behind him, as a sign of democracy at work in Paradise, Arch Angel Luke picked up a spade and began to shovel the displaced soil back into the grave. There was no thud of earth on wood for the townspeople did not waste cut timber on caskets; nor did they discard serviceable clothing. Angus went out of the world as naked as he came into it and the worms had direct access to his flesh. It was only his soul that concerned the angels.
Edge stayed in the shade of the trees for a long time, but the incline of the valley’s western side was steep and he and his horse were in a heavy sweat when they emerged at the top. The terrain forced him
to swing south for a while, parallel with the valley.
But, because of the height of the intervening trees, it was not until he reached a man-made break that he was able to look down upon Paradise and the neat fields spread out before it. His vantage point was the overhang—execution rock—three hundred feet above the medieval punishment area.
He pursed his lips as he leaned forward, around the neck of the horse, to peer directly down. The animal was nervous at being so close to the lip of the precipice, his nostrils flared and ears pricked. The half-breed’s long-fingered, brown hand stroked the lathered horseflesh gently and his tone was soothing. “There but for the will of the Lord...”
A rifle shot, diminished by distance, caused him to curtail the wry comment. It was followed immediately by a shrill scream which sounded even further away. But he saw the woman fall, toppling from the highest section of the cathedral wall where she had been mortaring a new block of stone into place. Despite the distance, Edge could tell it was a woman who had been shot. For, as she crumpled, her long black skirt was hoisted to her waist displaying the whiteness of her legs. Angus had been that stark pallor all over.
For stretched seconds, the entire population of Paradise seemed frozen into a state of suspended animation. In the fields and pasture and on the construction site, men and women raised themselves from their chores and stared across the river. In the town they stepped from the doorways of the buildings and shaded their eyes from the sunlight to peer in the same direction.
Then, with obscene terror, the brief interlude of shocked silence was shattered. They came out of the trees on the far side of the river and plunged into the slow-moving, sun-dappled water: shrieking, laughing and firing wildly with rifles and revolvers. There were twenty of them. Spokane Indians, dressed in rags and with their naked torsos and faces garishly daubed with war paint. Riding ill-cared-for, sweating ponies that took to the cool water with eagerness and then snorted and tossed their heads in protest at the demand for speed.
The half-breed’s narrowed eyes changed the direction and focus of their cool gaze and showed no trace of emotion at what they saw. The people of Paradise were no longer held immobile by shock. They were running in full-scale retreat from the attacking Indians. Age dictated the pace and those with the greater stamina of fewer years held back to help the older ones. The river was deep and the ponies were weary. The initial burst of continuous gunfire slackened as the riders were forced to concentrate on driving their ponies through the water. But four more black-garbed forms were already sprawled in the field of growing wheat, blasted to death as they whirled to run. And two more—an old man stumbling along with an arm around an older woman—pitched to the ground as sporadic shooting cracked from the group of Indians.
The impassively watching half-breed became aware that, after the first few moments of terror, the element of panic had left the fleeing townspeople. Although still powered by fear, there was purpose in the flight. The hooded-eyed gaze foreshortened again, to look down at the town. And it was apparent that the Earthly Angels were putting a contingency plan into operation. For every pair of running feet was directed towards the church entrance.
A loud splash drew Edge’s attention back to the far side of the river and he uttered a non-committal grunt at what he saw. A heavily-laden flatbed wagon drawn by a six-horse team had plunged into the water at full-tilt. Estes Mackinlay had control of the reins while Silas Gabb lashed at the team with a horsewhip.
“Let’s move it, feller,” Edge said softly into the pricked ears of the stallion as he backed the animal away from the lip of the rock overhang. “All hell’s breaking loose in Paradise.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“THIS tub ain’t got no sun deck, Scott!” Hedges yelled from the pilothouse. “Get off your back and man a gun, trooper.”
Scott was still sprawled out flat on the trembling deck just forward of the churning stern wheel, panting to recover his breath after his struggle to climb aboard. He grimaced, preparing to snarl a grasping retort. But then a renewed burst of rifle fire chattered above the steady rumble of the ironclad’s engine. Splinters exploded from the wood of the hull and deck and bullets ricocheted off the iron citadel. Fear for his life and the urge to retaliate exploded a shriek of anger from Scott’s gaping mouth and sent a bolt of energy through his weary body. He sprang to his feet and dived into the cover of the pilothouse.
Hedges, his teeth bared and his eyes glittering as he battled mentally against the throbbing pain in his wounded shoulder, spun the wheel one-handed. The top-heavy Southern Glory responded sluggishly to the demand of her rudder, her bows nosing reluctantly towards the north bank of the river. She was churning past the compound behind the prison and it was from here that the new burst of gunfire was coming.
Guards, reinforced by a unit of soldiers assigned to assist with preparations for the public hanging, had taken only moments to link the prison break-out with the shooting at the docks. Now, using the seven graves as slit-trenches, they raked the slow-moving ironclad with a constant barrage of rifle fire.
“Jesus Christ, Captain, you spoiled my friggin’ shot!”
The voice was that of Forrest, loud and vibrant with frustration. Gritting his teeth harder against the pain, Hedges rasped a curse, directed at himself, as he spun the wheel in the opposite direction. He blamed the burning agony of the wound for marring his judgment—causing him to react instinctively to the new attack without taking all circumstances into consideration.
The sudden change of course had slowed the ironclad, presenting the Rebels with an easier mark and swinging her cannon off target. And it gained nothing, for the James River was not wide enough to allow the sternwheeler out of rifle range as she churned past the prison. It was just the kind of error Forrest was likely to capitalize on. But at the moment the mean-faced sergeant was concerned with other things.
“That’s friggin’ better!” he yelled gleefully.
The comment was punctuated by the double crash of two cannon as he and Bell fired in unison. The deep roar muted the rifle fire and then stopped it as the Rebels ducked low into the graves. The shells whistled out of the grey puffs of muzzle smoke on a too-high trajectory, sailing across the water and the compound. Two rifles began to spit death from the boat and Hedges saw that Scott had scrambled up beside one of the mortars. He and Seward were sprawled out on their bellies, able to fire from the elevated position atop the citadel into the graves. Two Rebels twisted upright, clutching at faces from which blood was gouting. Then the cannon shells smashed into the wall of the cell block. Chunks of rock and shards of shrapnel rained down out of the upsurge of black smoke.
Two more shells roared from the cannon. The Rebels stayed crouched in the graves. Seward fired his mortar and Scott was only a moment later after stealing a shell from the younger man’s stock. One of the cannon shells smashed into the gallows, reducing it to matchwood. The other pounded into the hole made by a previous shot and the rear wall of the cell block was breached. Both mortar shots dropped into a single grave.
“Billy, with your luck I ain’t never gonna play poker with you,” Hedges rasped as, for the second time in a few minutes, he saw whole and torn pieces of human bodies sail through the air.
It was as if the kill-crazy youngster had been able to hear the soft spoken words. He snatched his rifle and waved it triumphantly in the air as he grinned up at the pilothouse. “One’s lucky maybe, Captain!” he yelled. “But two’s just gotta be skill.”
“You’ve got a natural knack for killing, trooper!” Hedges allowed as another cannon roared.
This time the puff of smoke spumed from the port side of the ironclad. The shell whistled across the river surface for a short distance, low down. Then it splashed into the water and thudded against the side of an anchored barge.
“Good old Bob!” Scott yelled. “He’s got this natural bent for shootin’ off behind other men.”
“It’s going down!” Rhett shrilled in delight.
Sewar
d and Scott confined their responses to a fit of giggling, then flung themselves to the deck as the Rebels poured rifle fire towards the Southern Glory again.
“Get on the mortars!” Hedges roared as he realized the thrashing progress of the ironclad had carried her fixed cannon off target.
But, sickened into fury by the sight of the blood-soaked bodies of their shattered buddies, the men in the graves gave the exposed troopers no chance to load and prime the guns. Repeating rifles poured a deadly hail of lead across the length of the citadel. Pressing themselves hard against the rusted and dented iron, Scott and Seward bellied forward to duck into the cover of the narrow strip of decking on the port side.
“It was luck I’ll allow, Captain!” Seward yelled. “And I ain’t pushin’ it no more.”
The sight and sound of a constant stream of bullets crashing into the decking around the mortars and whining into ricochets held Hedges back from ordering the men to the guns a second time.
Rhett’s cannon fired again and the shell burst into the wall of a riverside shack. A man screamed and lunged out through the doorway, staring down at the stump of bloody meat where his left arm had been attached to his body. Seward drew a bead on the fleeing man and put a bullet in his head. The man fell in the same direction as the spout of his own blood.
“Me and Bob make a great team!” Seward yelled at Scott “He sets ’em running’ and I pick ’em off.”
A sudden eruption of shouting drew Hedges’ attention to the activity on the south bank of the river again. The rifle fire fell off as the sounds from throats rose. He had to look over his shoulder and through an aft port as the ironclad churned downriver, sliding inexorably beyond the perimeter fence of the compound. But there was time to see what had happened. Emaciated prisoners, dressed in rags and begrimed with filth, had climbed through the breached wall of the cell block and dropped into the compound. Then, gaining strength from the heady experience of freedom after long incarceration, they had run for the graves and plunged down to the attack. Hands, clawed into talons or bunched into firsts, fought for possession of the rifles and revolvers. Then, as more prisoners poured from the shell-ravaged wall, the shooting began again. But this time the range was point-blank. And, where there was not even the room to bring a gun to bear, rifle stocks and revolver butts were raised and powered down. Lead ripped into hearts and tore through intestines. Skulls caved in under the assault of machined wood. Uniforms signified authority and it did not matter if a man was a prison guard or a soldier. He died. And sometimes this was not enough. More bullets and more vicious blows were pounded into unfeeling flesh.
EDGE: Blood Run (Edge series Book 14) Page 8