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Western action in the grand tradition of THE SEARCHER!
Ex-Confederate Major Griff Stark vowed to track down his son, Jeremy, whom he had entrusted to the Tucker family, headed by his brother-in-law and wife. With Jeremy being the only link to his past, he embarked upon a quest to find him and bring him home.
Eventually the Confederate picks up the cold trail, and with the help of Ansel Thorson, they follow the Oregon Trail to Nebraska and finally Wyoming. Each time just missing the Tuckers as they move on across the ruthless land, Stark is shadowed by ruthless railway agents working for a group called The Consortium, who want the reward on his head … and they aren’t concerned if he’s still breathing when they collect!
The Confederate will find his son—and destroy anyone or anything standing in his way!
CONTENTS
Prelude
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Dedication
Author Tribute
Copyright
To the memory of
Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest
and to my ancestors among the
Stillwells, Mays, Randolphs, and Monroes
who faithfully served the Cause.
“Hoist high the Bonny Blue Flag!”
PRELUDE
(Taken from THE CONFEDERATE Book 1)
“THING IS, THERE ain’t gonna be any new Confederacy, Colonel. Not out there in the West or anywhere else.”
Colonel Chester Braithwaite sat in a spacious cabin in the Missouri Ozarks, where for the past hour he had been using his most persuasive talents to convince a stubborn pair of brothers and three of their friends that he represented a rebirth of the Confederacy and that their past experiences were in demand to further the cause. His patience, grown thin, was further worn away by the incessant squeak of a rocker in one corner near the fieldstone fireplace. Like a grande dame, the mother of the obstinate pair rocked and plied her quilting needle.
“You are being short-sighted,” Braithwaite protested. “Look at what is happening around you. The railroads are every bit as much an enemy as the Union was. They are stealing your land, dispossessing people in the name of progress. A blow against them is a stand for freedom.”
“We fought our war,” the elder brother replied. “Our cause was right but we lost. Now we ain’t at war with anyone. I want to keep it that way. It’s time to get back to farmin’ and raisin’ a family. Thank you, Colonel, but no.”
Braithwaite shrugged. The five men he had come to see rose, making it plain that the talking was over. He did the same.
“You’re making a mistake. Mark me, the time will come when you will wish you had taken me up on my offer. Good afternoon, gentlemen.”
After Braithwaite’s buggy had rattled off down the tree-lined road, the elder brother turned to the others, though his words were meant for his kin. “What do you think, Jim?”
“We have it good now. Why spoil it with more bloody raidin’? The man’s a damn fool, Cole.”
By the end of the second day, Griffin Stark felt he had spoken to every soul in Valdosta. Always with the same result. Nothing had changed since his first attempt. Fatigue sagged him as he made his difficult way down the walk toward the edge of town. A friendly shopkeeper had told him of a camp beyond the city limits where a large number of freed slaves had gathered. With plantations destroyed and unemployment monumental even among whites, they congregated in hopes of some miracle that might come out of mutual support. Before he reached his goal, he heard the singing.
“I looked over Jordan an’ what did I see? Comin’ for to carry me home ...”
A mournful chorus, rich with rumbling bass and baritone notes, joined the sweet contralto voice. Fora moment, Griff’s spirits lifted. It was like coming home to Riversend after a long hot day in the fields.
For the hundredth time that day he felt as though the last of his strength would leave him. Exerting tremendous new effort, he cane-walked his way into the camp.
Some two hundred former slaves stood in the irregular streets of the tent city. Others gathered around a small bonfire where meat was roasting arid the singers had congregated. Griff grunted with each step as he headed in that direction. No one moved as he passed by, neither to help nor hinder him. He came upon the harmonizing group and his stomach cramped in reaction to the succulent odor of cooking flesh. He realized he had not eaten since morning.
“M-Mistah … Mistah Griffin, suh?” a hesitant female voice stammered out.
Griff looked across the smoky fire at a face vaguely familiar, though lined now with privation and confusion. Then the connection was completed in his brain and he saw the afternoon long ago when his father’s funeral had just ended and he had intervened on behalf of a young house servant. Daphne. That had been her name.
“Daphne?”
“Yassah, Mistah Griffin. It’s me all right. We was tol’ you was dead.”
“I’m alive enough.” The reunion ended abruptly. “My wife? Do you know anything about Bobbie Jean and my son?”
Daphne’s eyes glanced away for a second, uncertain how to explain. Her own memories of the fateful day at Riversend still haunted her. “Yassah, I do. The boy’s gone to Mistah Tucker’s place,” she evaded, not wanting to give him the awful news.
“But what about my wife?”
“Let’s go over there where you can sit down, Mistah Griffin. You looking mighty tired.”
“News about my wife would refresh me remarkably,” Griff snapped impatiently.
“Please. Let’s go sit down.”
Under the shade of a widespread sycamore, they sat on a circular bench fashioned by some long-ago carpenter. The eagerness and hope that shined in Griff’s face pierced Daphne to the heart. She knew no words. Nothing to soften the blow. Her pink tongue darted out and licked dry lips.
“She dead, suh. Missus Bobbie Jean is dead. I don’ know any easy way to tell it. It happened many months ago.”
An animal cry of sheer torment tore from Griff’s chest. His eyes went unfocused, and for a moment it appeared that he would topple off the seat. Daphne put a steadying hand on his shoulder and her eyes filled with tears.
“The … the Bummers came. They kilt Caesar and Cicero. Shot ’em down like dogs. Then they used me shamefully. They was gonna do those things with your missus, too, only she fought ’em. She did for two of them with that hoss pistol you give her. One of them shot her. Then they burned everything.
“After … after it was all over, I got two of the field hands who didn’t run off and we buried everyone. Didn’t have nothin’ to make a marker with, so we just put up some wood crosses. They’s still out there, I expect. When we finished I took Mastah Jeremy to his Auntie Julie’s.”
“How did you get there?”
“Walked. The Bummers runned off all the stock.”
“That’s a long way.” The words came mechanically, Griff’s mind still trying to reject the finality of Bobbie Jean’s death.
“We didn’t get there until long after dark. There was lots of Yankees on the road an’ we had to hide several times.”
“And Jeremy is still at the Tuckers’?”
“Yes, sir. Far as I knows.”
“Thank you, Daphne. Thank you for caring. Was she brave? Bobbie Jean?”
“To the very last. Put the fear of God in them lowlifes.”
“T-that makes me … proud of her. Thank you. Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Not unless it’s a job. Work’s around to do aplenty, but the jobs is mighty skeerce.”
“I … I can’t help you there. But, here, this isn’t much. Only fifty dollars, but it can get you food, take you somewhere to find work.”
“Oh, I couldn’t take money from you, Mistah Griffin. You … you’ll need it for Mastah Jeremy.”
“We’ll be all right. You take it. It’s the … least I can do.”
“Will I see you again, Mistah Griffin?”
“Perhaps. Perhaps I’ll rebuild Riversend. If I do, you’ll always have a place there.”
“Bless you, Mistah Griffin. God bless you an’ all yours.”
Propelled by an indomitable iron will, Griffin Stark made it all the way back to the lodging house, unmindful of the agony in his legs. The left one felt cold and tingly all the while and the shooting pains had become nearly unbearable. He negotiated the steep stairway without assistance and got into his room before his grief exploded and he wept without restraint for more than an hour.
Jennifer found him there near midnight. The scalding tears had run dry, the mind-dissolving grief had departed. All that he had left was the hollow place in his world that had once held Bobbie Jean. Her knock brought only a muffled response.
“Griff? Are you in there?”
“Go … go away for a while.”
“What’s the matter? Let me in.” She persisted and at last Griff complied. One look told her that some shattering bit of information had come his way.
“Bobbie Jean is dead,” he muttered as he hobbled back to the bed.
“Oh, no! Oh, Griff, how terrible.” Tears formed in Jennifer’s eyes. “Are … are you sure? It isn’t a mistake?”
“No mistake. It was some of Sherman’s Bummers. It happened when they burned Riversend. All these months … chasing a dead woman.”
Jennifer could contain herself no longer. She rushed to Griff, threw her arms around him and surrendered to choking, gasping sobs. Guilt, shame, and overwhelming grief burned in her chest like a raging fire. Her tears wet his collar and he patted the back of her head, speaking soft, soothing words until they stuck in his throat and he could cry again. A clean, healing lament this time. When their tears subsided, Griff laid new plans.
“We’ll go get Jeremy. Then back to Maryland. Next year I can think of rebuilding Riversend. But first my son.”
“The Tuckers?” the gangly, brown-faced man in farmer’s clothes repeated the name. “Naw suh, they’re not here no more. That’s the folks we bought this place off. Evan and Julie Tucker. Right nice couple. Them an’ their li’l boy, Jeremy. Had a daughter, too. Pretty thing. Movin’ west, they said.
“Evan, he come home from the wo’ with his left hand shot off. Said it wouldn’t do for farmin’, but he could still ply his trade as a blacksmith and do a little ‘horse doctorin” on the side.”
“Do you have any idea where they were going?” Griffin Stark asked earnestly. It had been a long two-day trip to the Tucker farm from Valdosta. The continued brutal August weather had not made it easy.
“Sorry, but I don’t know. He did mention Illinois or some place in Missouri. Saint Louis, I think.”
“Thanks for your help,” Griff returned, his hand extended to be shaken.
Griff headed the buggy on toward Way cross. There more bad news awaited them. At the prearranged mail drop at the local Harmon and Company stagecoach-line office, they found a letter from Damien. Months old now, it told of the murder of Jenny’s father. Everyone, including the law, remained mystified as to the cause or to why the armed assassins had wanted to find Griff, Damien, and Jenny. Griff had no better idea than they.
He wondered, though, how much more tragedy would stalk his trail in search of his son.
And now …
The saga continues …
Chapter One
BEFORE BEGINNING HIS search, Griff and Jennifer returned to Riversend. On closer examination they discovered that one grave had been set aside from the other four, which were themselves divided into two groups. The solitary one had to be Bobbie Jean’s. Jennifer found some surviving wild flowers along the creek bank and brought them to him. Throats constricted by each one’s private grief, they said nothing while Griff knelt and placed the sparse, already wilting spray on the rubble-covered mound.
He remained that way for three long minutes, more than his condition allowed for, so that he needed assistance to rise, and his first steps could better be called falling forward than walking. When his powerful shoulders had hauled him into the buggy, he looked back for only a brief second and spoke at last, softly, with vibrant emotion. “Good-bye, Bobbie Jean.”
“Welcome to Saint Louis, Colonel. Sit down. Make yourself comfortable.” The general manager of the newly formed Rocky Mountain Railroad gestured expansively.
“It’s good of you to see me.” Chester Braithwaite studied the man behind the desk. He had the quick, undisciplined gestures Braithwaite had come to associate with those who had managed to evade military service during the recent conflict. It was enough to engender the former colonel’s contempt and intense dislike.
“Not at all. I hear you are going to be moving out West to coordinate matters for us?”
The terse, scathing telegram in his inner coat pocket burned into his flesh. Albert Treadwell had used few, though cutting, words to reprimand him for his failure to recruit some of Quantrill’s old border raiders into his squad of enforcers. Perhaps, it was suggested, the colonel had lost his touch. He nodded, to give himself time to control his vocal cords.
“Yes. I understand there are difficulties in several areas where the road wants to put tracks.”
“There are difficulties everywhere. The political ones are being most ably handled back East. In the West – and particularly north of the mining town of Silver Creek, Colorado Territory – too often people tend to defend their property rights with force. That sort of thing takes a man skilled in the use of the same. They must be made to comply … and that’s where you come in. When are you leaving?”
“Tomorrow. To Saint Joseph by stage, then on across Kansas and into Colorado. What’s it like, the Territory?”
“Mostly ups and downs.” Walter Chambers smiled at his own weak joke. “A mountainous country for the most part. At least where our headquarters is to be. Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, the Dakotas, where we intend to expand, are primarily prairie. Flat, windy, lonely land. No people. If you don’t count the army and the hostiles.”
“Indians?”
“By the thousands. Then there’s the buffalo. Lord, they tear up anything they come across. They can eat anything and reproduce at a fantastic rate. Several of our big competitors have lost miles of track to the beasts. One of our major financiers has an idea how to eliminate the menace. Perhaps you met him in New York? John Paul Star of United States Fur Company? The mills are the answer. The hundreds in operation and the thousands a-building. They all need belts for power, belts of the highest quality. Buffalo hide provides the very best. So, one of our hidden subsidiaries offers high prices for hides. There’s a lot of men out there.” Another sweeping gesture, encompassing the entire frontier, accompanied Chambers’ words. “Lots who cannot adapt to the changes wrought by the war. They still long for the wild, free days before the upheaval in the East sent thousands of refugees westward. They’ll hunt the buffalo. Hunt him relentlessly if the pay is right, until the shaggy monstrosities are gone from the face of the earth. With the buffalo, goes the Indian.”
“What is so important about eliminating the Indians?”
“They are intractable. It is entirely outside their nature to live the sort of planned, directed lives that the Consortium foresees for the future. Farmers must farm,” he quoted from Albert Treadwell’s favorite maxim, “railroaders must roll, factory workers spin and weave and cob
ble shoes. Each contributing in his own part to the greater good of the Consortium. It is impossible to get the savage to turn a single furrow, he would lose all his fingers in a mill, and the concept of proper shoes is so alien as to be considered laughable by them. As to the railroads, they attack them at every opportunity. No, indeed, there is absolutely no room in a well-ordered future for the Sioux and the Cheyenne, the Arapaho and the Crow.”
“Your, ah, vehemence amazes me, Mr. Chambers.”
“Really, Colonel? I thought you would be impressed with my grasp of the wider picture.”
“Oh, I am. I was made privy to only a small panel of the entire, ah, mural,” Braithwaite replied, adopting the general manager’s metaphor. “Now that I have a wider view, I can appreciate the special problems I might encounter. Tell me, what would be the official reaction if I were to request an increase in personnel to say, ah … thirty men?”
“I’m sure it would be received with the greatest enthusiasm. The sooner we make our presence felt over that vast area, the better. You understand that you have complete carte blanche as to the methods employed. What the Consortium must have is land, competing businesses absorbed, major obstacles removed by any means. Don’t worry about names of buyers. Your job is to convince, not to conduct purchase arrangements. The ‘who’ will be there when the money is ready to change hands.”
“I’ve encountered difficulties recruiting.”
“So I’ve been told. You won’t find it all that hard once you reach the jump-off point at Saint Joseph. All the riffraff of the frontier floats through there at one time or another.”
Braithwaite’s voice grew hard and icy. “I don’t want riffraff, Mr. Chambers. Riffraff haven’t any guts. I want competent men who have proven themselves in the recent conflict. Men who can take orders and follow them without argument. But, then, I suppose you wouldn’t be acquainted with the type,” he concluded with a deliberate sneer.
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