Northern Blood

by Daniel Greene

  He should have slain the crippled upstart in the duel, taken his scalp for his saddle, and been on his way. But before he could enjoy his kill, the Knight of the Golden Spurs decided to dash in and ruin everything. Then the brave bastard got himself shot too. Payne coughed to the side and brought the bottle back to his lips.

  “Dumb ass,” he spat. Stuart’s wounding was mortal too. He could tell by the way the man was stricken. His body was rigid in pain like a piece of wood. His eyes held something in them too, the vacant stare of a man who knew his days were numbered.

  His men started to stand at attention around the fire. They turned their backs to him. “Oh, thank God. Some smart bastard is going to remove this godforsaken sword out of me.”

  A man walked through them, his hand resting on his saber, wreathed stars on his collar. His general’s coat was soiled and stained with someone’s blood. His blackish beard was long and came to a point, laying over his heart. His hair had been brushed to the side, but loose strands fell in his eyes.

  “Oh bloody hell,” Payne muttered. He rose his voice and called at his men. “Get me the surgeon!”

  Major General Fitzhugh Lee stood in front of Payne and was contemplative. He addressed Payne like he was a common man, a mere pawn in the working class. “Captain Payne.”

  Payne looked at the evening sky shrouded by leaves above him wondering what he’d done to deserve such a prestigious visitor. The rain had been off and on over the day, mixing with his blood and making it a watery pink through his jacket. He put on a false smile. “Can you send me a surgeon, good General? I’ll be bloody dead before the night’s end at this rate.”

  “I will.” Fitz eyed the sword hilt sticking out from Payne’s chest. He gave him a slight grimace. His eyes held worry and grief but were hard too like he wanted someone to place his angst upon. “What happened to Jeb?”

  “What do you think? Some dirty Yank got a lucky shot off. Went through the belly and out his hip. The wound was bad. I suspect mortal.”

  Fitz gulped, Payne’s callous words reopening the wound of Stuart’s unexpected demise. “Be careful, Captain. Do not bring such ill words down upon us.”

  He just didn’t care anymore what these pompous blowhards thought. Without a war, they’d be glorified watchmen on the frontier dodging arrows trying to keep their scalp atop their heads. Then again, he would be a plantation owner with limited outlets for his tastes. War benefited them both in different ways. “I mean no disrespect, General. I only meant to convey the situation in clear words. My shoulder you see.” He glanced down at the hilt of Wolf’s sword with disgust.

  Fitz crouched in front of Payne, shifting his saber out of the way. His eyes studied him. “How did it happen?”

  “We were deceived by the Yankee bandits who had taken his wife. They ambushed us from the woods. Must have had sharpshooters among them. I lost a handful to the shooters alone.”

  Fitz studied the camp around him. “That’s why he disappeared during the battle. When I rushed the 1st forward, he was nowhere to be found.” His voice became more hushed. “I wasted many lives trying to find him. We thought he’d gone down near the battery.”

  “All in vain.” Payne adjusted his back on the tree, sending shooting pains through his body.

  Tears lined Fitz’s eyes as he blinked them away, and his mouth curved in worry. “Where’s Flora? She must be found.”

  “She escaped while we fought.”

  Fitz nodded and gulped, his throat jiggling. “I will make sure my men are on the lookout for her. She’s a smart girl, I assume she would make for Richmond.”

  “Very smart.” Payne grimaced. She could tarnish his reputation by repeating what he had uttered to her. But what could she really do to him? He was rich. His words were harsh yet true. Her husband was dying. Her recollection could be attributed to womanly grief at her husband’s demise.

  “Thank you for trying to save them.” The general put his hand out and Payne gripped it. “Your country owes you a great debt. I will make sure Marse Robert knows of your sacrifice.”

  Payne squeezed harder and jerked him closer. Fitz tried to pull away, but Payne held him steady within inches of his face. Through gritted teeth he said, “Surgeon.”

  “Of course,” Fitz said, nodding.

  Payne released him. “Thank you, General. You are a lifesaver.”

  Fitz stood and eyed him with a touch of disdain. He turned and walked away.

  Fickles rushed past the general. “Payne!” he called. “I have him.”

  A man in spectacles and a bloody apron, once white sleeves rolled to his elbows, trailed the lieutenant.

  “Doctor, help this man. He is a true patriot,” Fitz said.

  The surgeon regarded the general for a moment, running his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “There are many more wounded I must see.”

  “You will stay with him until he is properly cared for.”

  The doctor raised his chin. “He is not the worst in my care. He can wait.”

  “I will carve out your eyes if you make me wait,” Payne grunted.

  The doctor eyed him warily along with Fitz. The general spoke. “You will fix him. That’s an order.”

  “Yes, of course,” the surgeon said.

  “Very good,” Fitz said. With a glance at Payne he took his leave.

  “Get this goddamn thing out of me!” Payne shouted at the surgeon.

  The surgeon ignored him, inspecting the wound while he drank more. “Can you move your arm?”

  Payne lifted his hand and flexed his fingers, grinding his jaw through the pain. “Enough?”

  “That’s fine. I don’t normally treat wounds to the torso. Usually you bleed out before you reach me.” He eyed the wound. “Sabers are usually blunted, no?”

  Payne grunted. “Does this look blunted?”

  “We must do this fast and hope that a fever doesn’t take you.”

  “I don’t care. Just fix this.”

  The surgeon sighed. “This will not be comfortable.” He opened a bag and removed a thin metal rod with an ebony wood handle. The head was rounded like a stirring instrument. He pointed at Fickles. “I need you to heat this until it glows.”

  “Ha.” Payne took another swig of the harsh alcohol. “Do it.”

  “You won’t be singing that same tune when we’re through,” the surgeon said.

  “You know nothing,” Payne hissed.

  The doctor eyed him behind his spectacles. “Keep drinking. I don’t have any chloroform.”

  It didn’t take long until Fickles returned with an orange-glowing metal tool. It sizzled as rain fell upon it, little clouds of steam erupting off it.

  “I will not be able to pull this out,” the surgeon said to Fickles. “We need someone stronger.”

  Fickles looked nervous, taking a step back. His face was a shade greener at the thought. “I’d rather not.”

  “Do it, you coward,” Payne slurred at him.

  “I’ll do it,” said William Scott. The scout stood from the fire.

  “You’d love to wouldn’t you, Tiny Scott?”

  “I won’t say it wouldn’t give me a bit of pleasure,” he said. His gray-streaked black beard appeared even more feral with the weather.

  “We all find pleasure in something. Even you, Scott.”

  “Hurry,” the surgeon urged. “Strip him to the trousers.”

  Fickles cut his jacket from his back and then his shirt as gently as he could, but each movement tugged at the blade. The air felt cool on his skin as did the occasional drop of rain on his shoulders. Pinkish blood trickled down his chest.

  The surgeon gave a nod, and Scott walked forward.

  “Pull fast and true, Scott,” Payne grunted with a fiery grin.

  Scott put a boot on Payne’s other shoulder, thrusting him into the tree as a brace. Payne growled with painful anger. The scout’s hands wrapped around the sword’s hilt, and he ripped it out like a lion snatching its prey.

  The sword gr
ated against bone as it was tugged from his body. He felt every inch of the cold metal inside him, grinding against his flesh’s reluctant release. He found himself screaming from the excruciating pain, his eyes blackening.

  Moments later his eyes came back into focus. His breath was sucked from his chest, and he heaved as he tried to breathe.

  Scott held the dripping sword, staring at him.

  “You pull like a cherry’s first time,” Payne said to him.

  Warmness flowed from the wound, running down his breast and onto the ground. Blood pattered as it dripped onto the soil. It formed dark brown and grainy globs with the dirt.

  “Iron,” the surgeon said. Fickles handed it over. Payne’s back was against the tree, and the surgeon didn’t hesitate. The war had made them both hard to pain and suffering. He would be a liar if he claimed he didn’t flinch when the metal got close to his damp cool skin.

  The rod sizzled into his skin, sounding like bacon frying in a pan. It was the worst pain he’d ever endured: biting, life-sucking, and breath-taking. His flesh melded over the wound, puckering.

  Exhausted men seated nearby around campfires gazed on, both concern and shame in their eyes. They’d heard him cry out in pain. They looked away.

  “Turn him over.”

  “Mother of God!” Payne breathed. Strong hands flipped him. Payne tried to stand, he had to fight them. Once was enough. No more. Not again. But Fickles and Scott held him down as easily as if he were newborn babe.

  The ground was wet and smelled like freshly tilled soil. Soon the smell of his own flesh filled his nostrils as the wound on his back was sealed with burning fire. He screamed long and loud now. His men looked away, and he couldn’t take his eyes from the flames.

  The surgeon bent down again, apparently having missed a part. Payne screamed, only one word, long and painful: “Woooollllllffffff!”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Evening, May 11, 1864

  Near Yellow Tavern, Virginia

  A wet dusk approached, and Wolf’s men were stopped by pickets from the 5th New York north of Yellow Tavern. The pickets stepped out from the woods, eyeing the wolf banner with suspicion.

  Wolf held out a hand. “We’re with Custer’s Brigade.”

  A young private with a weak mustache grinned. “Oh really?”

  “I ain’t going to fight you. Get your commanding officer.”

  Wolf spoke with their lieutenant for almost twenty minutes before he left to find his captain.

  The captain arrived with long-whiskered sideburns his eyes tired behind gold-rimmed glasses. He didn’t think too highly of their story and left them under guard. It took a good deal of more convincing and name dropping until Wolf convinced him enough to send a rider to Custer’s Brigade. An hour passed, and Wolf sat with his men under guard. Merciless exhaustion yoked them.

  “I assure you Sheridan will want to speak with us,” Wolf said.

  “I second that. The longer you detain us the angrier he will be,” Hogan added.

  Their guards laughed. A particularly skinny private gave them a smirk. “Sure they will. I’m thinking that we’ll get to execute you spies by dark.”

  Thumping hooves brought more riders from the interior of the camp. They bore the Cavalry Corps flag, a blue dovetailed guidon with white crossed sabers and a large red C in the center of the sabers. Next to that was Sheridan’s personal guidon of red and white opposing stars on either half. Behind them flew Custer’s personal guidon, the top portion blue and the bottom red, crossed sabers in the middle.

  If the stars on his shoulders didn’t give the major general away, surely his chunky little frame and wide-brimmed hat did. Next to him rode the athletic General Custer with his flowing golden locks and his hussar-style jacket that denoted him as a man of flamboyance, something that only a man of authority could pull off.

  The captain hurried toward the riders.

  Sheridan didn’t even bother to let him speak. “Release these men goddammit. Can’t you see they’re with us?”

  The captain opened and closed his mouth. “They’re dressed like civilians.” Hurriedly he continued blurting out, “Their banner wasn’t standard regulation, sir.”

  “Don’t preach to me about regulations. These are my men, you stinking buffoon of an ape. Release them immediately.”

  The captain lowered his head. “I apologize, sir.”

  “I’ll make you sorry. You’ll be damn sure to stay on guard duty for the rest of the war.”

  The captain hurried toward his men, waving his arms at them. “You heard the general! Release them!”

  Wolf led his men and their mounts out of detainment. He walked his horse near Sheridan, looking up at him. “Sir, we have dead.”

  Sheridan eyed the bodies draped over saddles. “Put them with the rest.” He pointed to a growing pile.

  “We’ll take them back to the camp,” Wilhelm said to Wolf. “You tell them what we’ve done.”

  Custer nodded fiercely at the unit. “You men rejoin us when you’re done caring for the dead.” His tone conveyed sacred understanding of the need to care for their fallen brothers.

  Wilhelm led the rest of the men into the interior of the Cavalry Corps bivouac.

  Wolf mounted and accompanied the generals to a farmhouse they’d taken as headquarters. Everywhere there were Union cavalrymen. It was an intimidating and sprawling force. A few wore bandages around limbs, but most were excited by the small battle they’d recently fought. A battle which they were claiming as a victory.

  The generals and aides dismounted, followed by a much slower Wolf. His injuries and exhaustion were finally rearing their ugly head. Being surrounded by fellow soldiers in the heart of his army’s camp had begun to ease his wary nerves. In some ways it was a false sense of security, but it was much more secure than being in the field on your own with only a few reliable men by your side.

  The ground met his feet, and the weight on his bad leg felt unstable. The gash over his ribs ached fiercely now. He eyed the cut and lifted his arm to run a finger along the length of it. It was sharp and tender, and his clothes stuck to the wound. Gingerly, he tugged his shirt and coat free of the crusting saber slice.

  Custer eyed him over his horse. “Are you wounded, Lieutenant?”

  “Not enough. I can get it looked at later.”

  “I’ll send for the surgeon as soon as we are done here.” Custer wrapped the reins of his horse around a tree. “I see you’re missing your saber as well.”

  “Left it in a man.”

  Custer grinned beneath a wispy mustache. “No better place for it. You didn’t take it back?”

  “No, sir, he escaped with it.”

  “We’ll get you another.”

  Wolf nodded somberly. “Thank you, sir.”

  They entered the house and Wolf’s entire body felt shaken and weary. He ignored the desire to collapse and stood at attention as Sheridan pulled a cigar from his double-breasted frock coat before taking a seat in a creaking chair. He tossed his hat on the table, and with a grin, he lit the cigar then blew out a cloud of smoke.

  “We had a nice fight today,” Sheridan said.

  “Good, sir,” Wolf managed.

  Sheridan puffed quickly, the tip flaring orange. “Well, what news of your mission man? Don’t keep me in suspense. Were we lucky? Or did you succeed? I don’t see his wife with you.”

  “I let her go.”

  Sheridan grinned around his cigar. “So you did snatch her.” He glanced at Custer. “I told you he did. Did you see way they folded today? Ha!”

  “We heard a rumor, Lieutenant,” Custer said.

  “What’s that, sir?”

  “That Stuart was wounded.”

  “I suspect he will die, sir.”

  Sheridan leaned his elbows on the table in anticipation. “Truly?”

  “We did it, sir.”

  “Out with it, man. The story, I want a story for Chrissake. Are you dense?”

  “One of my men, Se
rgeant Ira Roberts, shot him through his gut and out his hip. He was in immense pain, sir.”

  “That name’s familiar.” Sheridan glanced at Custer. “Why do I know that?”

  “He was promoted with me, sir. We escaped Libby together.” Roberts’s record was much longer. He enlisted with me. He fought with me at Gettysburg. We drank together. He loved a girl named Rosie. He fought Hampton and lived. He had no parents and the best eyes in the company. But Sheridan would only understand his loss on the surface.

  “So the bastard shot the Knight of the Golden Spurs.” Sheridan leaned back in his chair. “Bring that fellow in. I’d love to meet him.”

  “He’s dead, sir.”

  “How’d it happen? Don’t spare a detail.”

  “Stuart was attempting to rescue her. He had a unit of men tracking us. Things went bad in the negotiations and a fight broke out.” He left out the duel and Payne and the revenge. He left out that he was returning Stuart’s wife to the worry-stricken general and the fact that Payne and Stuart were arguing about who was going to kill him when the shot was fired.

  Sheridan shook his head. “He was a formidable opponent, but it could not last. Not with Little Phil on the chase. Did you lose many men?”

  “Half my men.”

  “Half?” Sheridan nodded, tonguing his cigar.

  “Yes, sir.” Wolf kept his chin high. He was uncomfortable with the number of men he’d led to the slaughter. They followed him willingly, but ultimately, they died under his command.

  “Those men did a great service. It was a fair trade to bag the pompous bastard.”

  Wolf stood silent. He would have traded all his men’s lives back for Stuart’s, goddamn the war effort. Someone else’s men could be sacrificed.

  Sheridan regarded him for a moment with a slight nod. He had expected Wolf to share in his joy, but then he realized that Wolf wasn’t and became more somber. “War is loss.” He pulled out a piece of paper and an inkwell. “I’m going to give you and your men a month’s furlough for your exemplary service. All charges against you and Sergeant Roberts have been dropped and will be expunged from your records.”

  “Thank you, sir. I will offer it to them, but they won’t take it.”