“Not bad shooting, friend Damien,” Griff complimented.
“Excellent bullet placement, brother Griffin.”
The wounded driver stifled a groan and opened the sliding panel between the box and the interior, surprise for the moment overcoming his pain. “My God! Here I thought you two to be helpless babes.”
“There won’t be any trouble over, ah, this?” Griff inquired, reloading his derringer. Damien climbed from the coach to tend the driver’s wound.
“You can be certain-sure of that. An’ if there’s any wanted money on these two, I’ll see to it you get it sent direct. Where will you be that I can reach you?”
“Fort McHenry, in Baltimore, Maryland. We’re reporting in for our first assignment as officers,” Griff proudly informed him.
A whistle of respect came from the driver. “No wonder you can shoot so straight. Well, we’re failin’ behind schedule. Could you gentlemen load them two on top for me? And we’ll head to Valdosta.”
“Glad to oblige,” Griff offered. “And I think one of us should drive.”
“Well, that’s mighty nice of you. Truth is my shoulder’s stiffenin’ up a mite.”
Once on the way again, Damien turned to Griff, atop the driver’s box, extended a silver flask of fine whiskey obtained at Riversend, and spoke through a grin. ‘‘Do you think our train trip will be as exciting?”
Griff gave him a pained expression. “Can you ever be serious?”
“Can you ever be serious, Mr. Stark?” a disgruntled captain snapped at Griffin Stark a month later. Summer had advanced into the ponderous, humid days of August along Chesapeake Bay and everyone suffered—the new commanding officer of the special intelligence unit more than most. Many of his new men shared the common attitude toward spies. They saw the men and women who penetrated enemy lines in one guise or another as lowlifes, hardly more than an enemy themselves. Among those slower to change in attitude had been Lieutenant Griffin Stark.
“Now, then, Stark. One of your spies has brought you information that the Mexican forces thought to be at Canon del Cobre are actually establishing a series of ambush situations across the main road between Torreon and Zacatecas.” Captain Orme stopped a moment and made a face, attempting to untwist his tongue. “Why is it that those Mezkins have to make names so hard to pronounce? Anyway,” he went on after his aside, “it is your job to do something about it. What will that be?”
“Recommend that the force be divided, the stronger to proceed to the canyon, the other to probe for ambushes along the road. Uh … no. That’s not right. I should check my source through another informant.”
“Right for once.” Captain Orme smiled with satisfaction.
“What I don’t see is why we are dealing with a war that is a decade old, and battles that never happened. No American troops went down the spine of the Sierra Madre Occidental. Even though they did advance from the desert at Chihuahua and onto the high plateau between the two mountain ranges, only one battle was fought there at all. And that was after most of the cities had surrendered peacefully, including Aguascalientes.”
“Granted, but Mexico’s the last war we had to fight and learn from. If that isn’t answer enough, then I suggest you pay closer attention, develop some sources, and see if we can find a new war to look forward to. Don’t you like to analyze information and give your commander solid facts to deal with?”
“When will we be assigned to field units so that we can put this training to use?” Griff inquired in exasperation.
“Once you learn it and can apply the lessons taught, then you will have an assignment. Now then, what ways do you have for developing alternate sources of information?”
Escape at last! Griff thought jubilantly an hour later. Then his pleasure dimmed when he recalled that this evening would be the monthly Mess Night.
Stiff and uncomfortable in their full-dress uniforms, Griff and Damien left the quarters they shared and walked across the wide parade ground at five minutes to six that evening. Promptness was demanded, and as the most junior officers present, they received all of the undesirable tasks to be performed at this ritualistic affair. Outside of those who cooked and served the meal, no enlisted personnel ever attended or cared for the needs of the Fort McHenry officer corps on this special night. That dubious privilege devolved on the junior officers.
“Another … wonderful… Mess Night,” Griff intoned in a near whisper, while he took particular efforts to see no dust adhered to his knee-high, black boots.
“Oh, how jolly,” Damien agreed. “Shall we hurry on?”
“Let’s.”
Inside the doorway to the Officer’s Mess, breaking the ordinary routine, the post adjutant waited, a battered envelope in one hand. He brightened at the appearance of Stark and Carmichael. “Ah, there you are, Mr. Stark.”
“Yes, sir. Ah, something for me, sir?”
The adjutant’s face took on solemn creases. “I’m sorry to admit there is. This letter only just arrived at headquarters. Distressing news, I must say. Ah, here.”
Griff took the offered envelope and opened it. He scanned the contents quickly, then went back to slowly ingest every word. His expression became grim and the color left his cheeks. At last he looked up, expectantly, at the adjutant.
“Trouble?” Damien inquired.
“Yes. More than that, I’m afraid. It’s from our overseer. Father has seriously injured himself and the doctor says he fears he is dying. It requests that I come at once.” Griff focused once again on the administrative officer. “Would it be possible to get emergency leave?”
“Yes. Yes, of course, under the circumstances.”
“Thank you, sir. I’ll make my excuses to the Mess and start preparations immediately.”
Chapter Two
TOWERING BLACK THUNDERHEADS, illuminated from within by pulsing flashes of lightning, filled the western horizon. The air tingled with the electric threat of a storm, yet no rain fell. Griffin Stark made liberal use of the braided leather quirt he grasped in his right hand to lash the flanks of the horse he had hired in Valdosta. His headlong dash through the night added significance to his urgency. Riversend lay twenty miles from the railroad in the small Georgia town. Driven by the message of his father’s condition, he attempted to make up for what he saw as unconscionable delay.
Unlike the train trip that took him so swiftly from his bride of ten days, this return home seemed interminable. The smoke-and cinder-belching locomotive had screeched to a stop in every town and hamlet between Maryland and Georgia. The three-day passage had left him drawn and irritable. Ahead of him now lay the worst ordeal. Did his father still live? If not, what would the world be like without him?
Duncan Stark had always loomed overlarge in his youngest son’s eyes. When the eldest boy, Jamie, had gone into law and disavowed any interest in the plantation, the old man had been crushed. Later, Evan had followed his older brother in pursuit of medicine, attending the medical school at the University of Edinburgh in the family seat of Scotland. That left two girls and Griffin. The young army officer recalled ruefully how the pressure came on him then, only thirteen years of age. The plantation would be his at his father’s death. No thought of retirement entered the powerful Scot’s mind. Now, it seemed, the day was at hand. A military career, his father had decreed, was not inconsistent with operation of a plantation. Griffin didn’t relish the idea, yet he held his father in too much awe to oppose it. Coming so soon, at the start of his service in the army, would he be able to handle both?
Thought of that brought a new consideration to mind. Could he trust his father’s overseer, Ian McBain? To Griffin’s mind, McBain was a pain in the backside. Overly strict with the Stark slaves, the little man with the outsized shoulders, small pig eyes, and cruel mouth had intimidated Griffin until his twelfth birthday. Then, with his father’s backing, he had issued his first order to the foreman. Resentment and anger had flickered in the man’s eyes, yet he had made a slight bow, touched his forelock
, and gone off to do the boy’s bidding. The thrill of power touched Griffin’s heart. The present situation, though, brought a new light to the future of Ian McBain at Riversend. If forced to a confrontation, how would he handle it? Griff wondered.
Eighteen miles out the Stockton road, the question gained added importance when Griff turned off into the lane that led to the Stark plantation.
In the darkness he nearly collided with Ian McBain and three rough plantation workers. They rode sturdy, shaggy-coated hacks and one led a pack of hounds. Their mutual confusion and surprise ended in a hearty hail from McBain.
“Ho, Master Griffin! It is good that you came quickly. Your father is failing rapidly.” Did Griff detect a hint of malicious pleasure in the giving of this news? Before he could decide, McBain went on. “We’re after a runaway nigger. Got to finish this before a storm comes up.”
“Oh? Who was it ran away? A field hand?”
“No, Master Griffin. It was that new girl that does for your wife. Daphne’s her name. She’s an uppity high yella who is always takin’ on airs. I gave her a bit o’ the lash to touch her up the other day and come tonight, she bolts and runs.”
Sudden anger clouded Griff’s dark blue eyes and furrowed his brow. “McBain, you know the house darkies are not to be given the lash without express orders from the Master. Did my father command this?”
“Nawsir. He was already hurt and in his bed. I been runnin’ things since. She’d been askin’ for it, so I let her have a little.”
“You’ll not again.” Griff’s words sounded ominous, like the distant thunder. “I’m riding on to Riversend. If you find that girl, treat her decently, you hear?”
“Oh, we’ll find her all right. No worry on that score. We’ll find her and … I’ll see she gets the treatment she deserves.” McBain spurred his mount and rode off with his companions. A fragment of mocking laughter whipped back on the growing wind to accompany Griffin along the lane.
Cicero opened the tall double doors at the main entrance to Riversend. His seamed old face, like dark mahogany, topped with a woolly thatch of white hair, showed greater strain than any Griff ever recalled. The major-domo sent for a groom to take Griff’s lathered mount to the stables. Then he led the way into the reception hall.
“Things is mighty bad, Mastah Griffin. Oh, Lawdie, that is so. The Massah he is abed fo’ all of two weeks now. His leg is broke, an’ a passel o’ ribs, shoulder pulled near to out of the socket when he was found by Mr. Travis and Mr. Wells.”
“What happened, Cicero?”
The elderly negro puckered his brow and pursed thick, nearly blue lips. “No one seems to have any idea.”
“Didn’t Father say anything?”
“Nawsah. He ain’t hisself when he is conscious. An’ that ain’t often. He … sort o’ wanders. Keeps callin’ fo’ Mr. McBain. When we brings him, yo’ father, the Massah, he gets mad. It’s sure enough a mystery to me.”
“Take me to him, Cicero. Please hurry.”
“Yassah. He be in the big bedroom top o’ the stairs. Only I gots to warn you. He mighty failed. He look shrunk, an’ all tired out.”
With his apprehension rising, Griffin followed the old house manager up the curving flight of stairs to the second floor of the plantation house. A pall of silence hung over the old mansion and an odor of death permeated the hushed atmosphere. Almost hesitantly, Griffin went to the door that Cicero held open for him.
A wasted yellow hulk, flesh in loose wrinkles on the bones, lay in the center of a large canopied bed. Wisps of once black hair lay like rotted snow on the pillow. A shallow rasp of breath betrayed the only sign of life. This could not be Duncan Stark! Griff thought in shocked dismay. No. Not his father. With a reluctant tread, he approached the shriveled man who hovered so close to death.
“F-father. It’s me … Griffin. Can you hear me?”
“Uh … aaah … W-wh-wha …” Again the eroded figure drifted off into somnolence.
“Father!” Griffin called louder. He received no response. He drew back the covers and made a swift examination.
Griff discovered that the doctor had splinted the broken limbs and done what he could for the dislocated shoulder. A once-powerful man, Duncan Stark now looked like a small child in his own night shirt, a shrunken form that showed no substance. A pang of grief speared Griff’s heart. Oh, Father, he thought miserably, is this to be the way you end your life? For what? And why? Who did this to you? Was it truly an accident, as McBain’s letter had implied?
Even so, why had notice been sent by the slow postal service instead of by the new telegraph that was rapidly linking all parts of the eastern United States? When the overseer returned, he would have some answers to these and other questions, Griff vowed. With a heavy sigh he replaced the covers and walked to the door. He would come back later. Now he needed the comfort Bobbie Jean would bring him. Cicero waited outside. “Where is my wife?”
“She done sit beside the Massah for a long time, Massah Griffin. She get so tired, Mistress Bobbie Jean, that she go to bed two, three hour ago.”
“Thank you, Cicero. Get someone to sit with Father until I greet her and I will come back later.”
“Yassah, Massah Griffin. Onliest thing, you sure to be tired from your long trip. Rest now and you can look in on the Massah in the morning.”
“I … can’t do that, Cicero. He’s … For some reason, I fear for him. I want to be there beside him all night. Send someone up, please.”
“Yassah.”
Cicero departed for the rear stair while Griffin walked unerringly down the hall to the room he’d shared with Bobbie Jean for ten short days. He touched the gilt-plated pistol-grip latch and eased it open. The door swung wide and he looked in on his darling.
Bobbie Jean lay sprawled across the bed, dressed only in her shift, as though she had gotten no farther in disrobing before exhaustion caught up to her and sent her into oblivion. The magnificent swell of her firm, round breasts rose and fell with her even breathing. Transfixed by this sight, Griffin stood a long half-minute before entering. He crossed to the bed on tiptoe and paused over the slumbering form. “Bobbie Jean … it’s me, Griff. I’m home.”
“Unnh … mummph ...”
“Wake up, darlin’, I’m here now.”
“Wha …! Oh, yes. Yes, you are. I was dreaming about you and for a minute I didn’t think you were real.”
Griff reached out and took his wife in his arms. “I’m real enough, don’t you think?” He hugged her to him and covered her lips and neck with ardent kisses.
“My, you are amorous tonight, Mr. Stark. I do declare some of that Yankee boy, Damien, has rubbed off on you. So flip and then to expect me to fly to your arms like a wanton.”
“Don’t tease, Bobbie Jean. I … I just saw Father.”
“Oh, the poor man. I’m beside myself, Griff. It has been such an ordeal. What took you so long to get here?”
“What do you mean? I came as soon as I got word.”
“But that nasty ol’ Mr. McBain said he telegraphed for you weeks ago, right after the accident.”
“I’ll deal with McBain in the morning. Providing he’s back.”
“Where has he gone?”
“Something about a runaway. A girl named Daphne.”
Bobbie Jean’s eyes widened. “Daphne? I wondered why that girl wasn’t here to do for me when I left your father’s bedside.”
“Do you know of any reason that Daphne might want to run?”
“Only that McBain’s been trying to get under her skirt and she wouldn’t let him. He whipped her for that a few days ago. At least that was the real reason. He said she was acting above her station.”
Silence held for a second, then Griff asked his wife, “Are you sure that what … what happened to Father was an accident?”
“Travis and Wells found him, out in the back section, in those woods. They said they didn’t see anyone around and his horse had run away. McBain went out and looked around. He said
it was certain sure that your father had an accident. Suggested that maybe his horse threw him.”
Griff knew that to be nonsense. His father was the best horseman around these parts. He held his own counsel on this, though and resumed his embraces of his lovely wife. Her high cheekbones and Romanesque nose, framed by dark auburn hair gave her an intriguing appearance that had fascinated him since childhood. The most beautiful girl he knew. The fires of his denied passion rose to consume him. He drew Bobbie Jean closer and his touch became a prolonged caress of desire.
Bobbie Jean tried to pull away. “No. Don’t you think, I mean with your father like he is—?”
“I’ve missed you so much, Bobbie Jean, and my longing is consuming me. You are so beautiful.” Hurriedly he began to undress. “Quick, love, take off that shift.”
Heat shining from her eyes, Bobbie Jean began to comply, aroused by her husband’s ardent pursuit of her being. A knock at the door halted them both.
“Mastah Griffin, your father is awake and asking for you,” Cicero called through the closed panel.
A pained expression crossed Griff’s face and he stuffed his shirt back into his open trousers and buttoned it. Mischievously Bobbie Jean reached out and tweaked the rigid shaft that protruded from his open fly.
“Later,” she promised.
“In only a short while.”
Griff strode swiftly down the hall and entered his father’s room. The emaciated man sat upright, braced by three goose-down pillows. His eyes burned, red-rimmed and filled with an unholy light. He made a feeble gesture of recognition when Griff crossed to his bed. His mouth worked and he coughed, due to liquid-filled lungs, before he could speak.
“Griffin. I’m glad you are … are here. You must listen. I haven’t much time.”
‘‘No, Father. You’re awake and sitting up. A few days and you will be good as new.”
‘‘Don’t try to humor me. I’m … I’ll never leave this bed. I’m going to join your dear mother. I know it beyond doubt. Now hear me out. McBain. You must get McBain for me.”
The Confederate Page 3
