by Ray Hogan
Again the moment was a powder keg, awaiting the slightest spark to turn the clearing into a wholesale bloodletting.
The lieutenant returned Adam’s fixed gaze. “Let go my horse, mister.”
“When you start backing up. Take a good look around. Probably two dozen guns pointing at your belly.”
“You look behind me,” Griswold said. “You’ll see fifty leveled at you.”
“No doubt. But you keep thinking that you’ll be the first to go down if somebody makes a wrong move.” The young officer hesitated, swallowed hard. “Lieutenant Griswold. What’s the delay there?” Cook’s voice echoed strangely through the trees.
Adam released his grip on the bridle, faced the senior officer.
“The deal you’re talking about’s off, Colonel,” he said, giving Griswold opportunity to back down gracefully while he held Cook’s attention. “When we got word of the surrender, we made other plans. The cargo’s sold to somebody else now.”
Volatile one instant, Zebulon Cook could be equally calm the next. “You had no right to make such a decision. No authority. The Army of the Confederacy needs those rifles—must in fact have them in order to carry on. Are you aware, mister, that I am empowered to confiscate the goods … and pay you nothing?”
“I’m aware that you can’t … legally.” Adam Rait was also calm, although only by great effort. He shifted his attention to the line of silent soldiers. “What the hell’s the matter with you men? Get it straight in your head. The war’s over. There’s no more Confederacy. You think you can fight a private war of your own against the whole United States Army?”
There was no response from the ragged gray scarecrows. Adam wiped at the sweat gathered on his forehead.
“You can’t win, no matter what you’ve been told. Best thing you can do is pull out. Go home.”
The sergeant behind Cook transferred his weight from the right to left stirrup. “Reckon we’ll stick with the colonel,” he said in a rich drawl.
“Why? If a man’s going to die, it ought to be for something.”
“The colonel knows what he’s a doing.”
“That’ll do, Sergeant!” Cook snapped. “I need no defense from these … these traitorous—”
“You’re sure needing something,” Malachi Lee called from his place among the teamsters. “I ’spect it might be brains.”
A laugh went up, but only from Malachi’s fellow drivers. Another voice shouted: “Gen’ral, you got forty thousand in gold on you? That’s what this here cargo’ll cost you.”
“Hell’s a-frying, Zeke! The Confederacy ain’t never seen forty thousand dollars in gold!”
“You’ll be given an order from the Treasury of the Confederate States,” Cook said, breaking in quietly. “Upon proper presentation you will receive payment in whatever form you wish. Such was the agreement.”
“Agreement was cash on delivery … in gold,” Rait said. “If you can meet those terms, we can do business.”
There was no likelihood of that, Adam knew, and he was not endangering his promise to Emiliano Escobar and the Juárez government. He was simply searching for a way to bring the confrontation to a close; there were far too many nervous trigger fingers gathered in the clearing.
“You will receive an order,” Zebulon Cook repeated patiently. “If such isn’t satisfactory, I will be compelled to confiscate the goods in the name of the Confederate Army.”
“Like hell you will!” Bill Gannon yelled, and jerked out his pistol.
The night rocked with the sound of gunfire as a half a dozen rifles crashed. Will Gordon, immediately behind Gannon, staggered and fell. The teamsters opened up, the sharper crack of their pistols mingling with the more thunderous report of the long guns. Adam saw two soldiers buckle and tumble from their saddles. Another teamster went down. And a third.
Then he had a glimpse of Zeb Cook, saber waving above his plumed hat, mouth blared wide in a wild, ringing yell, charging down upon him.
Adam tried to save himself, jerk clear of the oncoming horse. He stumbled against the prostrate Gordon, recovered his balance, and whirled, his own pistol coming up quick. The flat of Cook’s blade struck him on the side of the head. Lights popped before his eyes and he felt himself going down …
Chapter Fourteen
Stunned, Adam fought to keep from falling under the hooves of Cook’s horse. Confusion swirled around him. He could hear Joe Denver yelling hoarsely, his deep tones overriding the high, cracked voice of Zebulon Cook. Numbly he realized both were close by. There were no more gunshots. He was conscious enough to feel relief.
“Try that again, Colonel, and I’ll blow your goddamn guts all over the place!” Denver’s savage words drilled into Rait’s clearing mind.
“I’ll take no such talk from you, or any man!” Cook was still screaming.
“Up to you. If you’d had a lick of sense, you’d’ve seen this coming and tried to stop it, like he did.”
Adam shook his head to dispel the last of the cobwebs. He pulled himself upright. Denver, pistol in hand, was behind him. To his left Cook, still in the saddle, was poised with upraised saber. Soldiers surrounded the clearing, where three teamsters lay dead.
“You’re under arrest!” Cook shouted his words at Rait. “You and every damned traitor—”
“Arrested for what?” Adam snarled, anger driving him hard. He had endeavored to reason with the officer, and the result had been only death for three men, injuries for others.
“Thievery! Theft of property rightfully belonging to the Confederate States of America. For interfering with the prosecution of the war. Treason! You need more reasons?”
“I need one that makes sense,” Rait shot back. “You’re no different from outlaws, hijackers.”
“Wrong! Confiscation, that’s the correct term,” Cook said, sheathing his blade. Turning his head, he shouted: “Lieutenant Griswold!”
The young officer broke from the ranks, cantered across the clearing. Halting, he saluted smartly. “Yes, sir!”
“Detail ten men to guard these wagons. I don’t trust those civilians in Jonesburg any more than I do these.”
“Yes, sir. Neither do I, sir.”
“Then get these men disarmed and march them into town. They’re all under arrest, awaiting trial.”
“Yes, sir,” Griswold said again, and saluted once more. Then: “What’ll I do with them in town?”
“How the devil would I know? Put them in that vacant livery stable, throw a guard around it.”
“Yes, sir. What about the dead?”
“What’s the count?”
“Four enlisted men. Three teamsters.”
“Have Sergeant Slade form a burial detail and attend to them.”
“Yes, sir. Uh … I was wondering—”
“Well, don’t wonder about it, mister! Just hop to it! I want to pull out for Marshall before noon tomorrow with those wagons.” Abruptly, Cook whirled away, his red sash a garish streak in the dim light.
Griswold beckoned to a rifleman standing nearby. “Corporal, take a dozen men, disarm the prisoners. If anybody objects, shoot him.”
The noncom threw a halfhearted salute, motioned to the soldiers behind him. “You heard the lieutenant. Let’s get at it.”
Cook’s men began to move among the teamsters. A muttering arose, and Adam Rait recognized again the proximity of danger—and a clash in which the wagon crew could only emerge the heavy loser. Head throbbing from the blow he had taken at the hands of Zeb Cook, he hoisted himself onto a wheel hub where he could be seen by all. But before he could sound his caution, Ed Vernon’s voice reached him above the grumbling.
“Cap’n, this what you want us to do … hand over our shooting irons?”
“Do what they tell you,” Adam answered, relieved.
The murmuring ceased. The elderly corporal loo
ked at Rait and said: “Obliged. No use getting shot up if you don’t have to.”
“Ain’t no use of any of it,” Denver barked. “And if you keep listening to that jackass of a colonel, you’ll all end up dead.”
The noncom smiled. “Sure thing. Now, I’ll be taking that whip you got there, too.”
Joe Denver swore deeply, allowed the lash coiled around his left shoulder to fall to the ground. Adam handed his belt and pistol to a young private who looked as though he had yet to weather his first shave, and turned to watch the disarming of his men.
All appeared to be going in an orderly fashion. Off to the left he could hear the burial detail at work, using tools removed from the freight wagons. From the edge of the clearing, Zebulon Cook, his aquiline face in shadow, surveyed it all like some remote god.
“Where’ll we put these weapons, Corporal?” the young private asked. “Sure could use me one of these here handguns.”
“The colonel’ll tend to passing them out later,” the noncom replied. “Right now be stacking them in that spring wagon over there.”
“Who was it that got killed?” Rait asked, turning to Denver.
“Gordon. Was standing close to Bill Gannon. Got the bullet aimed for him. And they shot Ike Williams and George Shaw.”
“Many wounded?”
“Few nicks. Nothing serious, I don’t think. I’d say the colonel’s jackleg cavalry got the worst of the deal. What’re you aiming to do? Just don’t seem we ought to take this laying down.” “No choice. He’s got us by the short hairs … but it’s a long time till daylight.”
Rait felt the muzzle of a rifle dig into his spine. A voice with an unmistakable Georgia accent said: “You all get over there with them others.”
The teamsters were being herded into a group on the far side of the clearing. Half of Cook’s men were on foot, weapons drawn; the remainder had mounted, were looking on, also with ready weapons. Everything had become strictly military.
“Column, by fours!” Cook bawled.
The soldiers prodded and pushed the wagon men into a four-abreast formation. Cook rode out front, wheeled, faced his prisoners.
“You men,” he shouted, “are being taken to Jonesburg, where I will try you in a military court! I’ll be sitting on the board with three of my officers.”
That should insure a unanimous decision on all questions, Adam thought.
“I’ll offer you an honorable way out now … and not again,” Cook went on. “Enlist and become a member of the Confederate States Army. Charges against you will then be dropped.”
There was a long moment of silence. It ended when a voice from the ranks of the teamsters said: “I’d as leave go to bed with a rattlesnake as side in with you bushwhacking bastards!”
Cook stiffened. In the flickering light of the fire his face seemed to darken, become almost black, while his eyes fairly popped from his head.
“Sergeant Slade! I want the man who said that.”
The noncom with the thick shoulders hurried to the head of the column, began to move along the length.
“Who done that talking? Hear me? Speak up.”
There was no response. Reaching the end of the line, Slade retraced his steps, demanding, threatening. Again his only reply was silence and sly grins. Halting before his colonel, he saluted.
“Ain’t nobody willing to own up, sir.”
“March ’em out!” Cook shouted, verging on apoplexy. “I’ll get further into this incident at the trial. By God, I will!”
Headed, flanked, and tailed by cavalrymen, Rait and the teamsters were double-timed to Jonesburg. Reaching the end of the street, they were slowed to ordinary pace—and with Zebulon Cook in solitary grandeur leading the column, in the best captor-captive style—were paraded the full extent of the settlement.
They halted at a sprawling structure at the extreme north end. All had been in darkness when they arrived. Now, as if by magic, lights were appearing in windows everywhere.
Jeremy Haskins, standing to Rait’s left, grinned through the dust. “First town I ever woke up without firing a shot,” he said. “Just don’t feel natural.”
As Zeb Cook drew off aloofly to one side of the street, Lieutenant Adrian Griswold, leaving the prisoners in the charge of First Sergeant Slade, made a slow circuit of the abandoned livery barn. The building appeared tight.
“Sergeant,” he said sharply, coming back into the street. “I want a man at the back and front doors of this place. Also, one on each side—where the windows are. See to it.”
The noncom saluted, spun his horse about, and bellowed a string of names. Griswold waited until the sentries had surrendered their animals to the horse holders and taken up their posts, and then ordered the entrance flung open.
“Forward, march!” he shouted and moved aside to let the prisoners proceed into the cavernous structure.
“Mister Griswold!”
Griswold quailed slightly at Zebulon Cook’s summons. Now what the hell’s wrong? he wondered, putting spurs to his mount and galloping the short distance to where his colonel sat in kingly majesty. He saluted crisply.
“Yes, sir!”
“Just wondering, Lieutenant, did you inspect the interior of that building for possible weapons and tools that might be employed in an escape before you consigned your prisoners to it?”
Griswold felt the sweat gathering on his neck and face. The old bastard knows damned well I didn’t, he thought. Sat there on his fat ass and watched me. He had a fleeting wish that things could be the way they were before the war—the family plantation in Louisiana; the easy living; the days when you used your quirt on men like Zeb Cook if they stepped in front of you on the street, but that was gone—long gone …
“Well, Lieutenant, did you?”
“No, sir.”
“Then, I suggest you take a detail and do so at once. Thoroughly, mister!”
“Yes, sir,” the young officer said, saluting again. He started to wheel, wishing in that moment that he had not been fool enough to sign up with Zebulon Cook. But the picture had been a glowing one, the promises broad. Maybe there could be another plantation …
“And, Lieutenant!”
Now what …? “Yes, sir.”
“You’ll be a long time making the next grade unless you start using your head for something besides a rack for your hat.”
Yes, sir. Go to hell, sir. And I’m not so goddamn sure I want the next rank, Adrian Griswold thought, but he once more snapped his salute and said,“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” and rode on to attend to his duties.
Chapter Fifteen
From the dark safety of a thicket dominated by towering sycamores, Angela and Bernal watched the capture of Adam Rait and his teamsters.
The general shook his head in frustration and anger. “Nothing goes right. Now this Yankee Army takes possession. It would seem our mission is doomed from the beginning.”
Angela, dressed in boots, split riding skirt, dark-colored shirt, and wide-brimmed hat, and listening to one of the Yankee officers shouting commands, scarcely heard Bernal. She had watched Adam Rait go down before the charge of the one with the saber, waited breathless until he rose again. When it was apparent that he was not badly hurt, she felt a sense of relief.
She should have no such emotion, she told herself, and firmly turned her thoughts to the problem at hand.
“They leave the wagons,” she said. “A pity your soldiers are not near.”
Offended, Hernando shrugged. “If it were possible to foresee all …”
“An observation only, my general.”
The prisoners were being lined up into a column. She moved on a few steps, endeavoring to locate Rait. The men were all on the opposite side of the fire, and the intervening glare was somewhat blinding. Finally, she saw him standing near the center.
Adam Rait seem
ed docile enough, and that was surprising, completely out of character for him. He would not be giving up so easily. No doubt, he had something in mind. Although she had but a brief acquaintance with him, she recognized him as one of strong will and not likely to be turned aside without considerable effort.
The column was ready to march, but there was a delay for one reason or another. The officer in command was addressing the prisoners; just what he was saying Angela could not hear. The interlude ended shortly, and the teamsters and all of the soldiers, with the exception of those left to guard the wagons, moved out.
“This will be difficult to explain,” Bernal said morosely. “I have no liking for the welcome that will await us in Mexico City.”
“You surrender too quickly,” she said, tucking a stray lock of hair back under her hat. “It is not finished.”
“Surrender? Not finished?” the officer echoed stupidly. “How can that be? The Confederate Army has taken possession of our rifles and ammunition … will convert them to their own use. We are powerless to prevent it.”
“It is not the real army, General,” she replied impatiently. “Had you listened closely you would know this. The American war is truly over. These soldiers are but renegades.”
“Renegades or not, what is the difference?”
“None, perhaps … except they have no right to the cargo we hope to possess, and it is likely that Adam Rait will not yield with so small a struggle.”
“I have seen braver men.”
“That is my point. A thought was in his mind, an idea. He looks ahead. A fool would have fought and lost. He did not.”
Hernando Bernal sighed. “All is not clear.”
“It will be to our advantage to assist him, aid him in an escape.”
He nodded vaguely. “If we so aid this Adam Rait, he will perhaps feel certain obligations. Is that what you are thinking, my lady?”
It wasn’t exactly, but at least she was getting through to him, Angela thought, and that was important.
“Partly. It is certain that our hopes die if the renegade soldiers are permitted to depart with the shipment of arms.”