Riker was turning back towards his commander to give him the signal that all was ready when the tell-tale sound of incoming screamed through the air. His eyes mushroomed wide as he saw Daniels hit by the explosion that erupted only six feet in front of the man. Dashing to the man’s side, he saw the man’s gut had been stitched by shrapnel, and he clutched it tightly as crimson oozed between his fingers. The gritting of Daniel’s teeth told Riker the level of pain the man was in, but somehow, he pushed it aside.
“We need to get you back to the rear, to the medics, sir!” Riker shouted into the man’s ear as he clasped the officer’s shoulder.
“Not this day, Riker! The Union is standing on the edge of an abyss. If Pennsylvania falls, all will be lost. I’m staying right here holding my ground to fight this thing out or perish in the attempt!” the man said firmly, despite his egregious wound. Riker had never seen such coolness and conviction in a healthy man, much less one with such injuries. Riker’s admiration rose for his captain, and he promised himself to always live up to the officer’s display of honor and strength.
As the battle continued to rage, Riker stayed with his commander, helping to pass on his instructions and making sure everything was done as ordered. It was a difficult thing as the Confederates had gotten within range, and many of the major’s underlings had died or been carried off the field of battle, their bodies riddled with bullets or missing limbs from the onslaught of the Army of Northern Virginia’s cannons. The Confederates were surging ever closer, and when they reached about a hundred yards off, the major was hit again. This time by Confederate lead, piercing him below the nose. Riker managed to catch Daniels as he fell and laid him gently on the ground. One look at the man told the story, and Riker closed his eyes in a soul-shattering moment before he ordered his commanding officer’s body to be removed to the back line. It was only then that he realized he was the highest-ranking officer available, and that now it was he that was in full command.
He debated in his mind whether to send back for another more seasoned commander of higher rank. This battle was too important as Daniels had said, the North itself could be at stake but realized he didn’t have the luxury of time. With a sudden, strong resolve, he made the decision to step up and accept the leadership role that fate had befallen on him just as it had the day he had become the youngest sheriff Santa Barbara had ever seen.
Riker went around letting the men know there was still someone in command, and his strength and confidence assured the men they could trust him. He was not going to let the honorable Captain Daniels down. Not today.
The Confederates’ rush had hit the line, and it became a hand-to-hand slug fest. Sabers, handspikes, hammers, and pistols ruled the day. Riker prepared to fight back the men that made it to his command area, and he knew he would have his hands full. It was a kind of chaos that Riker had not seen before, but he and his cannoneers and drivers stood their ground valiantly.
Riker made his way down toward the battery's cannon he had repositioned and fell in beside the sixteen-year-old cannoneer. A good kid, a farm boy fresh from a dairy farmstead in Vermont, who was doing his best to keep the enemy at bay. Riker ground his teeth as he drew his pistol, wishing he had use of his dominant hand, but he knew wishing wouldn't make it so. He would simply have to do the best he could, he accepted, as he opened fire at a man making his way over several dead bodies towards the cannon.
Riker’s aim had been off, but still, he managed to take him down by sinking a pair of shots into the grey tunic covering the man’s chest. The bullet-ridden corpse dropped a few feet short of his destination, and as he fell, Riker saw that it was diamond cut diamond—the man had been a captain in the Confederate Army. A split second after the body came to a rest, Riker instinctively ducked as vengeful bullets from the man’s troops screamed by his head.
Regrouping, Riker rushed forward when several Confederate men made it to the cannon. Again, forced to press into service a hand he was not comfortable using, he drew his saber blocking a swing from a grey coat sergeant's sword. Riposting in kind, a slash of Riker's sword opened the man's guts. As they fell out of the man's body, Riker pivoted and lunged at another man who was swinging at the young Vermonter's exposed back while the enlisted man worked to reload his pistol. He sliced the man in the shoulder and the rebel's scream added to the din of close quarters combat. Riker yanked his sword out and belted the man in the jaw with his clenched fist, pain flaring up from his injured wrist like a supernova, but his opponent went down for the count, unconscious. Panting, Riker gathered himself up and moved forward, trying to push the enemy back and having some success.
He could see some nearby infantry regiments moving their way, and he knew they just had to hold on until those reinforcements engaged the enemy. They weren’t going to cede any ground, “not this today,” he repeated the words of his commander in his head as he fought back the onslaught as sweat poured off from him on this hot July afternoon. Just for a second, he closed his eyes and longed for the cool ocean breezes of January when the wind blew off the Pacific and over their small home in Santa Barbara and he would sit on the porch watching McKenna working on one of her landscapes on the easel he had built her.
California vanished, replaced by Pennsylvania as he opened his eyes and turned, seeing a rush at the very edge of his vision. A Confederate soldier was swiping his saber at him, and Riker, attempting to dodge, slipped in the mud and blood that the ground had become. He landed on his knees and miraculously the saber swing of the Confederate soldier whooshed over his head. Having survived a near decapitation he lunged upwards, running the man though in the chest.
The man stood there, gurgling as blood gushed out of his mouth. Riker cursed at the war, thinking, who was this man? Did he have a family? Was he any different than himself? Perhaps in another time and place, they would have enjoyed a beer together. Knowing he didn't have the luxury to think this way, Riker pulled his saber out, letting him drop dead and he charged forward as the arriving infantry hit the Confederates fifty yards to the south.
They almost had them beat, he told himself reassuringly. Then Riker threw himself flat as a man crouched down behind a stone wall began unloading his rifle his way. He heard the explosion of return rifle fire from nearby, followed by a scream. Looking up, he saw the rifleman go down. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw his cannoneer give him a shaky grin and begin to reload again, ducking back down behind his cannon. Riker made a mental note to thank the young dairy farmer later and then rushed forward himself, yelling for his men to follow. They were making headway and the Confederates were now losing the ground they had gained.
The bluecoats surged forward quickly then. Killing the enemy with either their sabers or pistols, and he and his men made it another fifty yards. Some of the enemy had begun retreating and were thinning out. Then a big man in a grey uniform rose up before him swinging his deadly saber. Riker was out of ammo and responded by employing his sword to block the swing and side-stepping a return rejoinder. Riker swung as he stepped back, but his attack was countered when the man took a turn, blocking his swing.
The combatants moved sideways, and Riker hoped to keep the big red-headed bull of a man off balance. Never let them get comfortable, he remembered Pappy Jacque telling him and McKenna way back in their youth during fight training, and he did just that. What worked with fists could just as easily work with sabers. The men continued their movements as the battle raged all around them with Riker constantly circling and lunging to keep the rebel on the defense. When his opening at last came, he took it.
Riker blocked a wide swing and stepped in close, grabbing the man's sword arm, so they were face to face. White hot pain shot through him as he forced his injured wrist to take part in feats that it had no business being involved in. The big man was huffing and puffing furiously, and Riker dropped his saber and drew his long knife from his belt with his now free hand as the man's bulk and strength pushed him back. Riker's blade took him up under his ribs and pier
ced the man's heart, destroying it. There was a look of shock in the redhead's eyes, and then they went blank as they stared into infinity as death took him.
Staggering away, he regained his sword, and returned his knife to his sheath. There were a few Confederates still holding on, and he began to move towards them. Unbeknownst to him, across the field, like the young man from Vermont there was an equally young cannoneer from Georgia starting to panic when he saw his invading fellows had started to lose the day. Hoping to disrupt the tide turning against their forces the lad decided to fire a blast over the Yankees' heads. With Union gunfire still whizzing by and the chaos of sound that the battle was generating, he failed to adjust the height of his shot correctly. Instead of going over the heads of Union and Confederate troops alike, it screamed downward right in the middle of the skirmishing troops
The breath burst from his lungs as Riker felt himself become airborne amidst a hellacious roar that left him temporarily deafened as shrapnel peppered his back. Smashing to the ground, he rolled once before coming to rest on his belly. The sensation of pain exploded through his back, causing him to cry out with the feeling of fire, seemingly consuming him as it coursed through his entire body.
The wave of agony was too great as it overcame him, the last things that echoed through his mind were the shouts of the young private from Vermont hollering his name and his wonder at what the hell had just happened? Mercifully, blackness came over him as he passed into oblivion.
CHAPTER 26
WASHINGTON D.C.
AUGUST 1863
Riker had no memory of the time between being rushed into the field hospital and waking up at the hospital in the capital. He'd fought a disorienting wave of panic when he had come to, and only the timely arrival of a nurse had been able to calm him. The first few days were but a murky whirlpool of memories of doctors, nurses, and an occasional officer checking in on him. It was a good two weeks before he was allowed to rest on his back and despite the tenderness from the healing wound that he'd been told left a crescent-shaped scar across the whole of his back, he was happy to no longer be sleeping on his stomach. It had been an unnatural position for him, and one he was more than happy to abandon.
As he recovered, he became aware that each day seemed indistinguishable from the day before. That was until he awoke to the day that changed his life forever. He’d been half asleep in his bed, basking in the mid-morning sun that streamed through the window when he heard a familiar voice speaking to him, so soft and soothing, and he felt the gentle shaking of his arm. Opening his eyes, he found himself looking into McKenna’s tear-streaked face.
“Mickey! I was … wondering if you would ever turn up.” He strained to move to hug her, but a twinge of pain shot through him, and she gently pushed him back down, leaned in, and draped herself across his chest.
"I'm so sorry. I didn't even know you were here. Abraham thought it best that I did not know of your injuries until it was certain beyond doubt that you would live. He sent men to find me, but it took them a considerable amount of time to track me down. I was working on a painting in the Adirondacks of some mountains called the Dix Range. As soon as I was found, he saw that I was brought here immediately.” He continued stroking her hair as she lay sprawled out over him, and his mouth turned upward into a small smile.
Of course, the president had seen that she got to him, and he had suspected all along that waking up here in the best hospital in the capital had been their old friend's doing. He mouthed a silent thank you to have McKenna there with him now. He'd missed her ever since she'd left the West to enroll in the Philadelphia School of Design for Women to pursue her love for art. He would never have stood in her way of leaving, of course, but he'd wished in his heart that she could have stayed to become his deputy when he had been sworn in as the youngest sheriff since Santa Barbara had been settled. It wouldn't have been easy to have accomplished, that he knew. His tenure as sheriff had come just after the tumultuous 1850s when the coastal town had been dubbed ‘the rowdiest and most dangerous town between Los Angeles and San Francisco." As it was, most citizens already had doubts about such a young man as a sheriff, to begin with, and adding a youthful woman as his deputy would have been a bridge too far.
Still, he knew McKenna would have stayed had he asked as they both shared the same love for upholding the law and seeing justice done. It had been woven into the very fabric of their being from the moment that their father had been murdered. As good as they were with their guns, the young siblings knew they needed to be able to have a further advantage over lawbreakers when the day came to fight them, so the pair had sought out additional training. Most had come from their surrogate uncle "Pappy Jacque" who had trained them both to be excellent fighters. Skills he had picked up in his youth after escaping slavery in the Deep South to flee to Montreal. The man liked to laugh that freedom had come with a price. He was free in Canada, but he was still a black man in a white man's world, and sometimes he literally had to fight to survive. The Rikers had been moved by what he had endured but had always been grateful that the man had picked up his skills and passed them down to them.
So in the end, McKenna had gone off to the all-women’s school for art and had excelled at it. Following her graduation, she traveled about the country supporting herself by painting everything from lush landscapes to striking portraits. Still, she had always tried to get home to Santa Barbara to be with him, Abbie Maria, and Pappy Jacque when he wasn’t trapping in the Santa Ynez Mountains.
Then the war had come, and Riker had resigned his post as sheriff and enlisted in the fight to preserve the Union. That fight had led him here to his hospital bed, but at least it had reunited him with his only known blood relative and best friend. The pair visited for a long while each trying to top the other with their exploits since they had last been together. It would have continued into the afternoon except they’d heard a commotion coming from the corridor beyond his room. McKenna’s eyes sparkled, and she flashed him a smile.
“You ready for a surprise, Nash?”
There wasn't time to answer before the door swung open and a tall figure, made even taller still with the stovepipe hat adorning his head filled the doorway. The man eased his six-foot-four-inch frame through the door; his gray eyes twinkling with warmth as he removed his hat in the presence of McKenna.
"Mr. President!" Riker nearly shouted as he bolted up in his bed before being hit by another wave of pain. Lincoln joined McKenna at the side of the bed, wrapping his lanky arm around her shoulders, squeezing her before he held out a hand that signaled Riker to lean back. Sinking back against the pillow propped up behind him, Riker marveled. It was one thing for Abraham to see that he was well taken care of at the finest hospital in Washington, but to take the time out when the all-consuming burden of this nightmarish war had engulfed the man astonished him—and humbled him at the same time.
“Mister Lincoln, you shouldn’t be here. I’m just one soldier among many,” He tried to protest weakly, but the rail-splitter just smiled at him.
“All fine and brave soldiers to the man. The cream of what this nation has to offer. But we all know I wouldn’t be holding court at your bedside but for the two of you and for the last time if you won’t call me Abe at least call me Abraham!”
Riker smiled, "Well, it's not like I can refuse a direct order from my commander-in-chief, now can I … Abraham?" A pleased smile spread across the president's face, and a moment later, McKenna laid her hand on the man's shoulder.
“You should know this is the second time Abe has been to see you,” she said breezily, catching him by surprise. He gave the tall man a questioning look.
“The night they brought you in here I came by in the wee hours of the morning so as not to attract attention. Those who did see me were sworn to secrecy. With the morphine haze you were in, son, it’s no surprise you don’t remember me being here during the brief time you came to,” Lincoln revealed, further flooring him. Suddenly a dawning realization swep
t over Riker and he fixed curious eyes upon Lincoln.
“How exactly did you know I’d been wounded at Gettysburg?”
Lincoln didn’t immediately answer but instead drew the lone chair sitting in one corner of the room up to the other side of the bed. Extending his arm, he escorted McKenna, who was all smiles to the seat. Smiling inside, Riker couldn’t help to wonder what Mary Lincoln would think if she were here. The woman had long had a resentment of McKenna and misplaced jealousy towards his sister whenever the Rikers would visit the Lincolns in the years between their meeting and the start of the War Between the States.
As McKenna took her place in the proffered chair, Lincoln went to the door, opened it a crack, and spoke to someone on the other side. A moment later two orderlies came in carrying a pair of chairs and set them down at Riker’s bedside. As they left the room, they passed a gruff-looking distinguished older man who was now entering. Lincoln’s hand made a sweeping gesture towards the chairs. Both men took a seat and Riker’s amazement continued as he found himself staring into the face of the Secretary of War himself, Edwin Stanton.
“Sir!” Riker said snapping off a salute, suddenly embarrassed that he had forgotten to do the same for Abraham himself, though he knew the genial president wouldn’t have minded one bit.
"Thank you for your service, son. It was men like you that brought a glorious end to Lee's invasion of the North when your brave troops foiled Pickett's Charge. Lord knows we lost around fifteen hundred noble souls defending the sweet land of Pennsylvania but estimates put the rebels at losing nearly six thousand of their invaders!" Stanton said, slapping his knee, his eyes gleaming. Glancing at Lincoln, he saw the same somber look on the president's face that he knew he wore on his own.
Six-Guns Or Surrender (Lincoln's Lawman Book 1) Page 16
