Well, Rance thought as he sucked in his breath and pulled his knife from his boot, the man would never wake up again.
He slithered along the ground until he was only a few feet from the guard, then rolled beneath the bottom railing of the corral. A few of the horses standing nearby pawed nervously and sounded nervous whinnies, but the guard never moved.
Rance crawled until he was directly behind the soldier, then sprang up to hold him steady against the post with one arm, while he moved with his other to bring the knife slashing across his throat in a single swift movement.
The soldier struggled only briefly, then slumped lifelessly to the ground.
This is the crucial moment, Rance thought as his heart pounded wildly. If Clark hasn’t done his job, then we’ve blown the whole mission, and we’re dead. He gave a long, low whistle, then quickly unfastened the corral gate and swung it open. Instantly, he leaped onto the nearest horse, wrapping his legs under the belly and digging his fingers into the mane, holding his knife in his teeth.
Edward’s shots exploded the silent night. Rance grinned and kicked the horse’s flanks with his heels. Behind him he could hear Edward screaming the Rebel yell as he continued to fire. The great thunder of horses’ stampeding hooves was like a million drums beating at once. And Rance was leading them, heading down the ravine to where his men waited. They were going to have to ride hard and fast, driving the herd across the Rebel lines, where the Yankees would dare not follow.
He could hear the angry shouts as the sleeping Yankees awoke and realized what was going on. There was no time to look back and see if Edward was following. He had to hang on, to get as far away as possible.
They charged through the night. A low-hanging branch slapped Rance painfully across the face. He struggled to dig his fingers tighter into the horse’s mane, stunned. Blood trickled into his eyes.
On and on he rode, and just as panic began to spark—had they taken the wrong trail? had he missed his men altogether?—he heard triumphant shouts and gratefully jerked his mount to the side, then slid down to run for Virtus, who was waiting nearby.
Once in his familiar saddle, Rance began to relax. The run was over. His men would now take the horses to a prearranged hideout in the mountains. His job was done.
Rance reached into his saddlebag and brought out the small bottle of whiskey, treating himself to a long, satisfying swallow. He mopped the cut on his forehead with his sleeve. The run had been successful. Stuart would have good, fresh horses waiting for him when he finished his present mission. But how damn long was this blasted war going to go on? How many more lives were going to be lost before they could all get down to the business of living in peace? Rance was thoroughly aware that each morning he awoke could be his last.
He waited for Edward to join him for the return to camp, and his mind began to wander, as usual, to thoughts of home—and April. Where was his golden-haired, blue-eyed beauty?
He took another swig of liquor. Damnit, why had she run away? What had he done? He had asked her to stay and she had agreed. And then she had simply disappeared.
He knew she had not made it back to Alabama. He had paid a man a thousand dollars just to ride down there and find out. There was only one woman living at Pinehurst, Vanessa. There were some surly fellows hanging around her. No one named Carter Jennings was about, but Rance’s informant had heard that the plantation owner was dead.
So where the hell was April? What if she had made it back there and Vanessa had killed her? And how the hell was he supposed to find out when he was stuck in the middle of a goddamned war?
He shook his head and ground his teeth together. Blast her, anyway. Why couldn’t she have stayed with him? Eventually, he would have taken her home, done what he could to help her reclaim her home. Well, there was little he could do now.
He had passed the word that he would pay five thousand to any man bringing news of her. It was a long shot—but it was his only shot.
“Well, we made it.” Edward’s face was beaming in the faint moonlight. As he approached, his mount slowed to a walk. “Now all we got to do is get back to camp and, if we’re lucky, we’ll get a few hours sleep.”
Rance tugged at his mustache thoughtfully. Suddenly, he asked, “What do you hear from Trella?”
“Huh?” Edward blinked, surprised at the question at this, of all times. “What brought that on?”
“Is she still in Richmond?”
“Of course, she is.” Edward cocked his head to one side and strained to see Rance’s face. “What’s this all about? You know damn well I took her to Richmond and left her there, because she got mad when we went in the army active, and I wouldn’t marry her. She’s working in some bawdy house trying to make me jealous. I won’t fall for that. No woman is going to rope me in, not for a while, anyway. And it damn sure ain’t going to be a whore like Trella.”
“Is that a big house she’s working in?”
“Yeah. About the biggest in Richmond. Damnit, Taggart, you getting a yen for a woman? Hell, you can screw her for all I care.”
“No, it’s not that. Don’t get your dander up. You pretend you don’t care, but you do. It’s April. You know I put the word out I’d pay five thousand for anyone that could tell me where she is.”
“Yeah,” his companion drawled slowly. “So that’s it. I figured you were being eat up inside more than you let on. You think maybe Trella could help you find her?”
“That’s about it.” He kneed Virtus to begin lumbering forward, and Edward followed. “Maybe we can get a few days’ leave and go see if she’s learned anything. She knows about the money, doesn’t she?”
He laughed. “Hell, yes. I imagine she’s keeping her ears open. That woman loves money almost as much as she loves men.”
“We’ll pay her a visit.”
They rode in silence until they reached a gurgling stream. Rance got down from his horse and began to splash water over his face and arms.
Dawn was beginning. A pale gray light covered the earth, heralding a new day. Soon, the sky would turn pink, then bloodred, and the sun would erupt from the horizon.
“You love her, don’t you?” Edward asked quietly, watching Rance carefully as he bathed.
Without looking up, Rance muttered, “I don’t think I’ve ever loved any woman, Clark. You know that. But April belongs to me. Fair and square. Maybe you think that’s stupid, but it’s my way. I want her back. I want her with me until I get tired of her, for however short or long a time that might be.”
He glanced up sharply. “I don’t want to talk about it any more, all right?”
Clark nodded silently, feeling no resentment. They had been together for a long time…long enough for each to respect the other man’s privacy.
When they got to camp they unsaddled their horses and immediately fell on their blankets to try and catch in much sleep as possible.
Rance had just dozed off when the bellow came, “Fall out! Fall out, everyone! We’re under attack!”
Rance leaped up, instantly alert, to see one of their soldiers charging through the camp on a large black horse. Troopers were jumping up from around campfires and beneath trees. Somewhere a bugle began to play the first blaring notes of “To Arms.”
The sound ended abruptly as the bugler fell forward, a bullet in his neck.
“It’s an all-out attack!” someone screamed just as an exploding volley of fire erupted from the woods, only a few hundred yards behind them.
A major came riding up as Rance and Edward scrambled for cover. He yelled hoarsely, “Damnit, we didn’t get the word! Lee’s army has collided head-on with Meade’s.”
“Meade?” Rance cried. “What happened to Hooker?”
“Lincoln replaced him with George Meade. What damn difference does it make now? We’re under attack.” He galloped away to attempt to gather his men for the counter-fire. Rance watched helplessly as a bullet caught him squarely in the back and he toppled headfirst from his horse dead.
&nb
sp; “No time to saddle,” Rance yelled to the men within shouting distance. “Fall into battle line on foot.” They rushed to the edge of the field and fell forward, prone, to begin firing at the charging Yankees.
A screaming Union soldier leaped over a blackberry bush, and Rance raised his revolver and fired, kicking away his tumbling corpse as the man fell on them. Beside him, a Rebel soldier shrieked as he was caught from behind by the swing of a Yankee saber. Rance jerked his own knife from his boot and drove it into the attacker’s throat.
He emptied his gun at Union soldiers around them, clicking on the empty cylinders before throwing it aside and grabbing the dead Yankee’s saber. Charging forward, he felled four of the enemy soldiers and was about to dart for cover when a movement caught his eye to the left. Edward Clark was running right behind him, but he did not see a Yankee approaching from behind, wielding a bloodied sword.
“Clark, hit the ground!” Rance screamed, lunging for the attacking soldier just as Clark swung out of his path.
With one fierce chop, Rance severed the Yankee’s arm, his hand still clutching his sword.
He tore his gaze away from the sickening sight as Edward cried, “I’m hit!”
He saw the blood streaming down his friend’s arm and moved swiftly to support him as they ran for cover. Clark’s legs buckled twice, and Rance had to drag him along. They reached a grove of trees and were out of danger, but only for a short time. The battle was erupting on all sides.
They watched as four Rebel soldiers, their guns emptied, did battle on foot with charging Yankees on horseback. The Yankees wielded swords. Each of the Rebels was hacked down and killed.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Rance said harshly, anxiously. “You’re hit, and all I’ve got is a sword. We’re outnumbered. We’ve got to make it back to the main company. We’ve got a chance there. Here, we’re going to be cut down. How bad are you hit?”
Edward clutched his wounded right arm, blood oozing through his fingers as he shuddered with pain. “I’m pretty sure the ball went all the way through. I’m bleeding on both sides. Got to stop the bleeding—”
“We can’t worry about that now. Lay down on your belly. All we can do is play dead and hope some gun-happy Yankee won’t ride by and decide to make sure we really are. Here, let me smear some of your blood on my back so I’ll look wounded.”
They lay down, a few feet apart, and Rance positioned his body in a grotesque arch. Clark followed suit. “If you hear someone coming, stop breathing,” he ordered. “Lay real still. It’s our only chance.”
“Oh, God, somebody is coming,” Clark said, gasping one last breath and holding it.
The Yankee soldiers slowed their horses as they maneuvered through the thick grove of trees. Seeing two lifeless bodies in their path, they rode right over them. Rance gritted his teeth and struggled to keep from crying out in agony as a hoof crunched down squarely in the middle of his back. He prayed they wouldn’t ride over Clark. Since he was already suffering, he would never be able to hold back a cry of pain.
The Yankees rode on. Soon Rance was dizzy from holding his breath. When they were out of sight, he gulped in the sweet, precious air and rolled toward Clark. He was not moving. “Are you okay?” He gave his friend a gentle shake. “Let’s go.”
Then he saw the mangled arm, crushed into the mud by a horse’s hoof. Cursing, he squeezed Clark’s throat slightly, to feel the pulse. He was still alive, but unconscious. He had probably held his breath, fought to keep from screaming, and had passed out. It had saved his life, but only for the moment. If Rance did not get help for them quickly, Clark was going to die.
He raised up on his knees and stuck two fingers in his mouth to give an ear-splitting whistle. In seconds, Virtus came crashing across the clearing, heading straight for them. “Good boy,” he whispered, patting him absently as he held him steady, checking to make sure the great horse was not wounded. Then he reached down and lifted Clark to place him belly-down across the animal’s back. When he was in position, he swung himself up, clutching the long mane of hair on Virtus’s back as he jerked him around.
Beneath him, Clark moaned. “We’re going to make it, my friend. Hold on,” Rance said tensely. “Just hang on for a little while longer.”
The smell of sulfur and smoke stung his eyes as he guided the horse over the corpses of Yankees and Rebels. The smell of blood was an overpowering stench, battling with sulfur to make a nauseating wave.
Ahead, behind, all around him echoed gunfire and the screams of the wounded. Rance moved the horse as fast as he dared while alert for the enemy.
“Here!”
He jerked his head up, tears of relief sparking his eyes as he saw the men in gray waving to him from where they had taken refuge behind a picket line.
He gripped Clark’s body with one hand, Virtus’s mane with the other, and kneed the horse forward, leaping the last remaining yards to safety. Landing solidly, he lurched to a halt, hanging on to Clark.
“It’s bad,” one of the soldiers told him as they pulled Clark from the horse. “It’s a head-on attack, but we’ve got ’em outnumbered. Lee got just outside Gettysburg, and Meade hit him there this morning.”
Rance slid down and directed that someone see to help for Clark. “The ball passed through his arm. But we were playing dead, and a goddamn Yankee rode his horse over both of us. I feel like my back is broken, but it’s just bruised. He’s the one I’m worried about. The damned horse mangled the arm that was already wounded.”
He turned to the soldier who had been telling him of the attack and asked, “What happened to Stuart? Why weren’t we warned that Meade was moving to meet Lee head-on?”
The soldier, hardly more than a boy, shrugged. “All anybody can figure is that Hooker’s army was bigger than we thought, and it’s taking Stuart longer to get around him. It don’t matter now, does it? The battle is on.”
A terrible wave of foreboding moving through him, Rance nodded in solemn agreement.
On the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg, July 1, 1863, the Federals were greatly outnumbered and the Confederates were victorious. General Lee was attacking at both flanks and in the center of the federal lines, using everything he had in an attempt to crush the Army of the Potomac once and for all.
It was not until late that night that Rance was able to get to the hospital tent to ask about Edward. He had gone out to join in the fighting and lost count of the number of Yankees who died by his hand. Exhausted, he walked toward the medical area. He tensed at the anguished shrieks of the wounded and dying. He had to pick his way through the men lying side by side on the ground. Some were on stretchers, some lay on blankets. Others, waiting for treatment, were lying on the bare ground.
Some were already dead and lay with unseeing eyes. It would be a while, he knew, before the dead were discovered and carried away.
A fire flickered to his left, and he grimaced at the sight of corpses stacked like cordwood, nearly eight feet high. Barebacked soldiers worked wearily nearby with shovels, digging a large pit for a common grave.
The sight to his right sickened him even more. Here was the disposal area from the surgical tents. Arms and legs…hands and feet…when there was time, they would be buried. For now, they were food for flies in the hot July evening.
The scene inside the tents was grisly. Surgeons in bloodied aprons worked frantically over wounded men placed on wooden operating tables. Some held their big knives between their teeth as they used their hands to feel wounds. If a bone were smashed, if the wound was gouged and arteries ripped open, then there would be a quick swipe of the knife, the chilling grind of saw against bone, and another human limb was tossed outside.
They had run out of anesthetic. Now there was nothing left but whiskey. It was not enough to deaden the excruciating pain of surgery. Soldiers stood around the tables holding down the screaming, frantically fighting men who swore they would rather die than be dismembered. Some were restrained with ropes.
Rance paused to watch, and respect grew in him at the sight of the surgeons, their pain over the task mingling with determination. Now and then one of the assistants would turn away, retching. Twice Rance saw strong men pass out at the gory sight.
The yellowish glow from lanterns hanging overhead cast an eerie halo over the scene. Rance moved on to where patients already treated lay on the ground. The smell of hot tar and seared flesh touched his nostrils. He had seen the black substance slapped on freshly cut stumps to stop the bleeding.
Some of the men lay moaning softly in anguish. Others had passed out from their ordeal on the table. And, as always, the sightless eyes of the dead stared past him.
“What are you doing here, soldier?”
Rance jerked around at the sound of the belligerent voice. A man much larger than he, heavy, with square-set hulking shoulders, glared at him. The pressures of the day and his present surroundings had taken their toll.
“I’m looking for a friend of mine who was hit this morning. Lieutenant Edward Clark,” Rance explained.
The soldier sneered. “Well, it ain’t visitin’ hours, soldier, and it ain’t tea time, neither. So why in the fuck don’t you get outta here? I got enough to do without—”
Rance’s hand shot out to wrap around the big man’s throat and slam him backward, pinning him against a tree trunk.
“It’s ‘Captain’ to you, Private,” he said between clenched teeth, “and I’m in no mood to take your guff. This goddamn war wasn’t my idea. So back off.”
The man’s eyes bulged as Rance exerted pressure on his throat.
“Do you understand me?” Rance leaned forward and stared straight into his eyes. “Or do you want the two of us to fight our own battle?”
The private tried to nod but could not. Rance released him, and he clutched his throat with both hands and coughed several times before whispering hoarsely, “Hell, I didn’t mean nothin’, sir. It’s been a hard day, and—”
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