The Blue, the Grey and the Red
Page 12
Slim shrugged and threw the Winchester over the edge of the shelf. He wore no gunbelt. Ed eased out the Starr and was careful to hold it by the barrel. He arced it away into the night.
"You don't look dead, but you are," he rasped at Paxton.
"Back up," the young deputy told them, jerking the Colt. The two moved along to the comer of the house, furthest from the head of the stairway. Emmeline Greer came out, still buttoning her dress over her ample bosom. "Down the steps," he instructed and she hurried to obey.
Paxton went down more slowly, sideways on so that he could keep Ed and Slim covered. She was waiting on the beach.
"We going to walk, mister?"
"I got one horse," he answered.
She grinned as she fell info step beside him. "Good, I like riding with a man."
"Reckoned you would," he said as they reached the tethered animal and he helped her to swing up behind the saddle. He didn't holster the Colt until he was mounted and had heeled the horse into a canter, heading across the beach to the firmness at the tide-line. "You haven't asked why I got you away, Miss Greer," he called over his shoulder as she tightened her encircling arms about his waist.
"It ain't germane," she said with a laugh. "I'm just so happy to be liberated." They galloped south through the shattered remains of the breaking surf.
CHAPTER EIGHT
It took Hedges six weeks to fully recover from the effects of his initiation into Andersonville and' by that time Forrest was beginning to adopt an attitude similar to the one shared by the other five Union troopers who had commandeered West Point's shack. For the captain gave no hint that he had any intention of trying to escape from the awful conditions under which they were all held prisoner. But, fortunately for Hedges, the sergeant's disenchantment did not take effect until after the injured man was well enough to survive without help.
"He talks too much to the nutter," Bell said sourly one evening as he and Forrest were relieving themselves into the edge of the swamp. "I reckon he's cracking up, Frank. They just sit around and gab all day."
Forrest grimaced and buttoned his fly. Then he retied the length of cord that he used to keep his pants up, since he had traded his belt for a pouch of tobacco, making the deal with the alcoholic guard known to everyone as Mint Julep. He needed less of the cord's length each day as his girth narrowed, the meager ration of cornmeal taking its weakening effect. "Maybe I should have let him croak and cut him up for steaks."
Bell, thinner and more hollow-eyed than the sergeant, sighed reflectively. "I heard some guys over near the south deadline caught a dog and cooked him. Said it tasted like prime beef fresh off the hoof."
The two men began to head back for the shelter, unresponsive to the groans of prisoners suffering slow, diseased death in their stinking shebangs. A prisoner showing his ribcage and shoulder blades through flaccid skin and dressed only in a loincloth fashioned from sacking staggered to a halt in front of them.
"Got anything to eat?" he whispered hoarsely. His eyes were merely deep black holes against the pale grayness of his emaciated face. Yellow pus oozed from an open sore on his stomach. "I'll tell you something if you got a bite."
Forrest regarded the man woodenly and his voice was as hard as his expression. "What you think, Rag? Reckon this one'll stew up good when he croaks?"
The man drew back in horror.
"Nah," Bell answered. "He ain't nothing but bone. Why don't they die with some meat on 'em."
"Olsen's looking for you, mister," the starving prisoner whined. "There, I told you. I reckon that's worth something."
"Sure," Forrest allowed, pushing past the man. "I'll send flowers to the funeral."
"You bastard!" the man snarled and spat, not having the strength to reach his target.
"How'd they ever get to call this a civil war?" Bell asked with a grin. "There just ain't no gentlemen left."
In the shelter, the smell of which no longer offended its new occupants as they grew to live with it, Hedges was again listening to the ramblings of the voluble West Point. The man had been one of the first prisoners into the rebel prison camp and was the sole survivor of the group of infantrymen captured at Antietam Creek. Alternately in the depths of depression or riding the crest of a happiness wave in a world of his own—dependent upon Olsen's willingness to accept further markers in exchange for heroin—he had only two topics of conversation. These comprised his only memories which revolved around cadet days at the West Point Military Academy—and his plan to act dead and be carried out of the stockade aboard the morning dead wagon. It was the latter subject which held Hedges' interest.
"It's the only way, Captain." West Point was saying as Forrest and Bell crawled in through the hole, their eyes distending against the darkness which came to the shelter each night since the bowl of the lamp had been bled dry of kerosene. ''Guys have stormed the wall, tried climbing it at night and even dug tunnels. But it never works. You gotta go out through the north or the south gate. Then you stay in the dead house till it's dark and sneak away."
Forrest made a sound of disgust as he settled down in a carrier, resting his back against the tin wall. "He's told everybody in the camp about that," the sergeant said sourly. "Maybe once it could have been done. But, you can bet a million some sawbones runs a check on the bodies."
Hedges' eyes, as hungry as every other man's, stared through the meager light into Forrest's pale, unshaven face. "You come up with any better idea, Sergeant?" he asked softly.
"Ain't none," West Point put in.
"I ain't nuts," Forrest snarled.
"You've got no mind to blow," Hedges told him.
Forrest sprang into a crouch, his expression animalistic as he glared at the captain, leaning close to where Hedges was lounging. "No man's got any rank in here," Forrest rasped. "I could wipe you out and no questions asked."
West Point grinned idiotically from one man to the other. "Sic the bastard, Captain," he yelled.
The smile that crossed Forrest's face was as cold as it was insolent. "You gonna try to pull rank?"
Torture and malnutrition had slowed Hedges' reflexes, but he was still able, to draw the razor with a speed of action that rooted Forrest to the spot. The point of the blade hovered a half-inch in front of the sergeant's right eye.
"Rank, no," Hedges said evenly. ''This is something else."
The tension was thick in the malodorous hut and the silence it seemed to demand was almost painful against the men's eardrums. Nobody breathed for several seconds, until Forrest realized he had lost the argument. He rocked backwards, off his heels and sat down hard. He turned to look at Bell.
"First I nurse the crumb and then I give him back the only blade in the whole damn stockade. What do I get for it?"
Bell swallowed hard and didn't answer, his gaze fastened upon Hedges.
"Maybe a ticket to the outside," the Captain said softly.
Forrest was about to snarl an acid reply, but then he detected something in the quiet tones and placid expression of Hedges which pierced his anger.
"You want to tell it?"
Hedges showed his teeth and began to pare a thumbnail with the razor. "Fix him," he said, with an almost imperceptible nod in the direction of the happy West Point.
"For good?" Forrest asked. "He don't deserve that."
"Hey, West Point," Forrest said and as the man turned towards him, lashed out with a fist. The knuckles smacked hard into the jaw and West Point fell over backwards with a sigh.
Hedges began to talk in soft tones as Forrest and Bell leaned close, listening earnestly to the plan. Outside the shelter the rotund, well-dressed Olsen also listened, then backed away and dismissed the four men he had brought with him. They moved away with reluctance, disappointed that there would be no head to crack tonight. But they obeyed Olsen's command because they knew that disobedience would mean a curtailment of the essentials and luxuries which enabled them to stay strong and healthy while their fellow prisoners wasted away around them.
Olsen gasped in surprise as he heard a crunch of boot against dirt and looked up at Seward. Then he screamed and shot forward powered by a vicious kick into the back of his crotch from Douglas. He yelled again as Seward bent a leg and cracked a kneecap against the fat man's jaw. Olsen pitched full-length and lay still.
"Your serve," Douglas said.
Seward shook his head as he looked at the unconscious man. "Looks like he don't want to play no more."
''What's the racket?" Forrest demanded, poking his head out through the hole.
Scott stooped, grabbed Olsen by the scruff of his neck and dragged him to the front of the shelter for Forrest to see. "You got company, Frank. Awful interested in what was going on inside."
"Olsen?"
Scott nodded.
Toss him in the swamp," Forrest said vindictively.
"Bring him inside," Hedges countermanded.
The men on the outside looked at Forrest expectantly, aware of his change of heart towards Hedges over recent weeks.
"Do like the Captain says," Forrest said and glowered at the troopers, his expression warning them of the consequences of sarcasm.
Inside the shelter, Forrest and Seward held Olsen in a sitting position as Hedges slapped the man fore and backhanded across the cheeks, jerking him to consciousness. His eyes snapped open, were dazed for a moment, then flooded with fear as he surveyed the ring of faces.
"Keep the lamp," he said quickly. "I'll get you some oil. No charge. I wouldn't take no markers from you gents."
Hedges smiled and showed him the razor. Olsen drew back as far as his captors would allow: but not out of range of the blade. Hedges reached out, grasped one of Olsen's hands and made a thin, shallow cut across the soft, flabby back of it. Olsen stared in horror at the trail of blood.
"My marker's better than any you've collected, fatso," Hedges hissed. "That's just a sample. No obligation. You don't want any more, just tell me what you heard."
Olsen forced his hand to his mouth and sucked off the blood. "All of it," he said suddenly as the faces pressed in closer around him. "I'd like to buy a place."
"How much you got?" Hedges asked.
"I ain't got nothing," Olsen rapped out. "My cousin down at the railroad depot's got all the markers. Close to a half million bucksworth. Soon as the war's over, we'll collect."
"You can't collect from dead men," Forrest put in as Olsen's round mouth sucked up more blood.
"Relatives maybe," Olsen answered quickly. "No guarantee in every case, of course. That's why I have to charge so high. Men die in here and maybe there's no relatives on the outside. I have to allow for those kinds of losses. Any split you want for a place. Cut out my cousin if you like. He's a no-good bastard anyway."
"Runs in the family," Hedges said and slashed with the razor.
Olsen made a wet sound as blood bubbled in his gaping throat. As Forrest and Seward released their hold on the limp form, Hedges wiped the razor on the dead man's suit jacket.
"What's happening?" Rhett asked fearfully.
"We needed. a body," Forrest answered, and turned a grin towards the New Englander. "If it hadn't been him, it might have been you."
"Jesus!" Rhett murmured.
"No good," Hedges put in. "Can't rely on him to stay dead."
*****
It was apparent that no one expected the trial to last long. The hanging, if such there was to be, had been set for noon and it was after eleven when Railston prodded a shotgun into Edge's back to force him into the sunlit courtroom. It was not a large room, but every available square foot of public area had been packed with extra seating for those of the city's populace who needed to see that justice was done.
Lydia Eden sat tight-lipped and erect at the prosecutor’s table, beside a grey-haired man who was big built but seemed somehow shrunken by the aura of self-righteous determination surrounding the woman. The twelve-man jury looked to be drawn from both farming and city stock and each of them glanced towards the small, black-clad woman for moral support as Edge ran his killer's stare over their faces. Her slight nod seemed to give them some comfort, but none would dare to meet Edge's gaze again.
The two court officers who had shackled Edge's hands behind his back in the cell while Railston held the shotgun leveled, took up positions at each side of the prisoner as Railston shoved him hard into a chair behind the defense table.
"Fine day for dying, ain't it?" the marshal muttered close to Edge's ear.
Edge looked towards the row of windows at one side of the courtroom and narrowed his eyes against the harsh glare of sunlight they admitted. Two of them were open and a fresh ocean breeze swirled in. As the babble of conversation from the public section died down, Edge could hear the surf hitting the beach.
"Rather wait until it snows," he said into the hush that had fallen over the room.
"Silence for Judge Ira Ryan," one of the court officers yelled and everyone in the court rose as a door opened behind a rostrum and a dapper, hawk-faced man shuffled through. The silence held until the judge had seated himself behind a fixed desk on the rostrum and cast an all-seeing, squint-eyed glance across the many faces before him.
"Court's in session. You may be seated," the officer intoned.
Apart from the door through which Ryan had emerged, there were only two other entrances to the room. Both remained firmly closed. Edge settled back into his chair, convinced Paxton had either failed, or not tried, to find Emmeline Greer. But although his attitude was one of relaxation, his flinty eyes roved the room continuously, taking in its every detail. As the judge instructed the jury in a rich, Irish brogue and then launched into an oration on the prisoner's rights, Edge reached a decision. Crashing one of the windows was too dangerous and he had no idea where two of the doors led. The door which led' to the marshal's office and cells was slightly ajar and offered an exit through familiar territory.
"Call Marshal Railston," the prosecutor opened as soon as the judge had finished his address.
Edge's expression was impassive as he listened to Railston's evidence of finding only one gun that had been fired in the back room of the Royal Flush saloon—Edge's gun.
"You represented, son?" Ryan asked when the prosecuting counsel had sat down.
Edge decided the judge was old enough to be his father and he liked the man's paternal manner. He wondered if Ryan's blandness would disappear when he passed sentence.
"Didn't want to take any debts to my grave, judge," Edge said evenly.
Ryan's expression darkened. "Smart talk won't get you anywhere," he snapped. "You want to question the marshal?"
"We ain't on speaking terms," Edge answered.
Laughter exploded from the public section and Ryan's eyes blazed with rage as he slapped his gavel on the desk. "I'll hold you in contempt!" he roared.
"I'll take that instead of' the murder rap."
More merriment burst from the spectators and wasted several seconds before the banging of the gavel could quieten it. Blood vessels stood out from Ryan's brow as his rage reached a peak. He glared at Edge. "I'm withdrawing your right to speak again during this trial. If you utter another sound I'll have you removed to the cells and try you in your absence." Edge knew the judge was not making an idle threat and emitted a low sigh as Ryan turned to the spectators and warned them of ejection should they interrupt the proceedings.
The coroner was called and, after he had received a nod of encouragement from Lydia Eden, told how both Shelby and Chadwick Eden had be
en killed with .45 caliber bullets. Abel Heffner had been seated at the rear of the public section and he pushed himself to the front with his head bowed when he was called to the witness stand. He mumbled the oath and then sat sideways to avoid a chance clash of eyes with Edge. The judge ordered him to face the court and the prosecutor asked him to tell his story in his own words.
"He shot Drew Shelby and Chadwick Eden," Heffner said suddenly, the words tumbling over each other as he looked everywhere except at Edge. "He come into the Royal Flush and we was having a friendly game of five-card draw-penny-ante stuff, you know? Then he comes in and starts upping the stakes. We're all winning so we go along. Then he starts to win. Lydia Eden's boy, he sees him cheating and calls him. He pulls a gun and blasts the kid. Drew Shelby went for his iron, but the cardsharp was already holding and he blasted Drew."
Edge glanced around the courtroom, unperturbed by the obvious effect the eye-witness account was having upon everybody present. His hooded eyes hovered momentarily upon each door, but none opened to admit Paxton and the woman.
"He’s a damn liar, judge!" a shrill voice' shouted from the public section.
As Lydia Eden and the marshal swung around to glare angrily towards the source of the interruption, Ryan made forceful use of his gavel to curtail the sudden burst of excited conversation.
"Who said that?" the judge demanded, squinting through the sunlight.
Edge allowed a low sigh to escape his pursed lips and turned his head slowly. Emmeline Greer, older and less desirable than he remembered, was rising to her feet at the rear of the courtroom. Beside her was Deputy Paxton. Both seemed to be in urgent need of sleep, but as they met the withering stares of Lydia Eden and the marshal, fear came to the surface, harder arid far more positive than fatigue.
Edge looked back at the judge and saw him in concentrated study of Mrs. Eden and. Railston a moment before glancing at the prisoner. The quizzical expression in his wise eyes invited comment.
"Think my case has arrived, judge," Edge said quietly into the expectant silence that was clamped over the courtroom. "You want to call a witness in your defense, son?" the old man asked.