This Scorched Earth

by William Gear

  Charlie said, “Now that we got that settled, tell Billy where you been.”

  “Down to Brownsville,” Danny said. “Heard that a fella could make a good fortune in the contraband trade. Ended up in Bagdad after Rip Ford drove the Yankees out. Met a fella there that really taught me how to play poker. Made me a small fortune. Nigh onto a hundred bucks. Greenbacks, not Confederate.”

  Danny’s expression changed, thinning. “Then I run into a fella who really knew poker. He proceeded to teach me a thing or two about cards, like how he spotted my bottom deal. Then he taught me about hideout guns. Like the one he had up his wrist when I went to pull my belt gun.”

  “Guess you crawfished your way out of it?” Billy sipped his whiskey again, enjoying the warmth building in his belly.

  Danny shrugged. “Won’t make that mistake again.”

  “What?” Charlie asked. “The bottom deal or the hideout gun?”

  “Both.” Then the grin faded. “So, reckon I’m headed back to Arkansas. Got nothing else to do.”

  “Want a job?” Billy asked.

  “What kind?” Danny lifted his whiskey, taking a swig.

  “The kind that pays you twenty-five dollars a month. And if you prove yourself, and I don’t have to shoot you, it goes up.”

  “Doing what?” Danny asked. “Waking you up from them damn nightmares you get?”

  Billy narrowed his eyes, thankful Danny didn’t know the extent of them. Of how Sarah rose naked, something foul growing in her womb, her long blond hair blowing around her body. Or how his cock popped its load when the demon grasped it.

  “First off, Danny Goodman, you keep your damned mouth shut. About anything having to do with me. Second, you care for the stock, sometimes hold the horses. Cook along the trail, see to keeping the outfit in top-notch shape, and sometimes you ride in and get information for me. Like a sort of scout.” He paused. “Might be times when there’s hard riding. Maybe some shooting.”

  Charlie was watching Billy through veiled eyes. To forestall him, Billy raised his palm, attention still fixed on Danny. “It would be just like it was when we run Dewley’s bunch down.”

  “Twenty-five a month?” Danny frowned, trying to figure the catch. “And just keep the camp?”

  “I mean it, Danny. I know you. If you got a fault, it’s like tonight with that old duffer. You get likkered up, start wagging your tongue and bragging? I swear to God, and on Maw’s bones, I’ll kill you dead on the spot.”

  “Thirty a month,” Danny said, obviously shaken by the intensity of Billy’s cold blue stare. “And I promise I’ll be worth every penny of it.” He grinned, as if to defuse the tension, and added, “Hell, ain’t nothing in Arkansas I need to see again anyway.”

  Billy then turned to Charlie. “So, what’s the job?”

  Charlie glanced uneasily at Danny. “Yankee captain and a bunch of Negro cavalry. Word is he’s never alone. Five hundred to the man who drops him.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  “Killing him is gonna be like throwing coal oil on a fire. They’ll be looking long and hard fer the killer.”

  “Why, Charlie, they might even find me. God help the hindmost.”

  “You worry me at times, Billy Hancock. It’s like you got a death wish.”

  “Yep. Maybe.” He thought about the Sarah demon. “’Cept the Devil’s already claimed me for his own. Longer I string it out on earth, the longer I keep that son of a bitch waiting.”

  57

  July 6, 1865

  Lightning flashed white and hot in the inky storm. The crashing bangs that followed left Butler shaken as he crouched on the spring wagon seat. God had become the Lord of Battle: blasts of light, sound, and battering gusts of wind betrayed His fury as He tore the storm-filled sky asunder.

  From Butler’s mind came spinning images of Shiloh, of Prairie Grove and Chickamauga. In the afterimages of lightning, visions and faces flickered and faded. The gutted Yankee captain at Shiloh, Amos Kershaw at Chickamauga. Hogs fed on half-burned corpses at Prairie Grove.

  Terrified, and on the point of weeping, Butler huddled as another blast of wind tried to rip his hat away and tumble him from his seat. Then the rain beat down in a savage fury. Balls of hail mixed with the pounding rain, while unrelenting wind ripped his blanket loose from his shoulders.

  “For the love of God!” Butler cried, his voice lost in the earth-shattering crack of thunder as lightning splintered a cottonwood tree in the creek bottom not two hundred yards from the road.

  He hated Kansas.

  The panicked mule kicked and bucked in his harness, adding a squealing bray of fear to the tempest’s howl.

  Squinting, wincing, as hail balls the size of walnuts beat on his head and shoulders, Butler fought to control the frightened mule. White lightning showed that they were still on the Fort Scott Road, though the rutted depression was filling with water and floating hail.

  Not an hour before, Butler had been sweating, worried sick. Doc had been raving in the heat as he fell deeper into delirium. Now Butler’s breath glowed white and frosty each time the lightning flashed.

  The hail came harder and faster. Butler hunched in misery, one arm over his head, the other clamping the reins. In dull anguish he endured. Cold water leached through his blanket and clothes, running icy into his pants and down around his testicles.

  “Oh, God, oh, God,” he kept whispering, half prayer, half whimper.

  The transition to hard rain was warmer, almost a relief.

  Butler opened his eyes. The mule had stopped, defeated, head down and hunched. Around them the world had turned weirdly luminous—an almost dazzling white in the flashes of lightning. Thunder now echoed and boomed rather than blasted.

  Butler slapped the reins, yelling, “Giddup there, Jake!”

  For long seconds the mule resisted, then finally started forward, sloshing through a floating sea of hail. As the lightning flashed again, Butler could see that they were still in the road, the hail there flowing as the water slowly drained.

  “Doc?” Butler called, shivering against the cold. “You all right?”

  No answer.

  Butler turned, staring at the damp mass where Doc had curled into a ball under his hail-covered blanket. Rain was inexorably washing hailstones from the bed, leaving it black and shining in the lightning flashes.

  “We’ll get there, Doc. You’ll see.”

  No answer came from the blanketed form.

  “Son of a bloody bitch,” Butler muttered, turning forward.

  Had to be close to midnight. The storm was rolling off to the northwest, lightning now more intermittent, the darkness deeper, blacker.

  “Think he’s gonna make it?” Kershaw asked unexpectedly.

  “Where’ve you been?” Violent shivers ran through Butler’s shoulders. “Could have used some help in the storm.”

  “Gone scoutin’, Cap’n. Fort’s just ahead. C’est bon.”

  “Thank God.” Butler wiped at the water leaking through his hat and down the sides of his face. “Doc’s worse. The cough’s bad enough. He’s been fevered and raving all day. Talking about Ann Marie, and James, and letters being burned. And the farm being lost.”

  “Y’all think he about t’ give up?”

  “I don’t know, Sergeant.” Butler gritted his teeth against a spasm of shivering.

  At the same time, Doc broke into violent coughing, causing Butler to look back, unable to see anything in the inky blackness.

  “I hate Kansas,” Kershaw muttered from behind Butler’s ear. “And going into some damn Yankee fort? Dat be foolishness if’n you ask me.”

  “They have a doctor.”

  “Dey gots more’n that, Cap’n. Fort Scott’s a supply depot. Reckon dey all got the kind of supply we gonna need for to cross the Plains.”

  Lightning flashed again in the distance, and this time Butler could see buildings in the momentary flicker. Within a matter of yards they passed out of the pale, glowing hail zone, the air war
ming by ten degrees or more.

  The tired mule plodded forward, each step accompanied by the sucking of mud around its hooves.

  On the outskirts of Fort Scott the ramshackle buildings and tents they passed were dark; most had animals tied or staked close by. Dogs barked. These were mostly the saloons, cribs, and gambling dens that popped up around any military post—no matter whose army.

  The military road turned into the town’s main street. After what Butler and the men had seen in Arkansas, the dark houses, stores, liveries, and carriage houses spoke of a prosperity they hadn’t seen since leaving Saint Louis.

  “Looks to be a lot of people,” Kershaw muttered.

  Doc broke into a coughing fit in the wagon box, the tearing sound of it wrenching.

  “There will be a physician at the fort. He’ll know what to do.”

  “You better hope them damn Yankees’ll take a sick Reb, Cap’n,” Pettigrew called from where he walked beside the wagon.

  Butler had no more than entered the parade ground when a voice up ahead called, “Halt. Who goes there?”

  Butler pulled the tired mule to a stop. “I’m Captain Butler Hancock. I’ve got a sick man in need of the physician.”

  Dark forms appeared out of the night. “How bad is he, Captain?”

  “Bad. Fevered, raving, coughing. That rain and hail didn’t help.”

  “Silas, escort the captain to the hospital.”

  “Yes, suh.” The accented voice sounded distinctly like a Negro’s. Butler smiled. Funny how the world had changed.

  One of the forms took the mule’s bit and started forward. A break in the clouds provided just enough starlight that Butler could see the buildings in the darkness around him. Only here and there did he see a window backlit by the glow of an oil lamp. Fort Scott had played a pivotal role in the border war, a bustling supply depot that kept the Yankee juggernaut in constant motion against the ragged, half-starved Rebels.

  “Dis be the den of the enemy, Cap’n,” Kershaw whispered softly. “Reckon the men better be right careful.”

  “Sergeant, you have no idea.”

  The man leading the mule called back, “I’m just a private, suh.” A pause. “But, suh, I’s gonna make sergeant someday. All I gots t’ do is be better than the next man. Last two years, I done taught myseff to read. I know the Army Manual by heart. Gonna reenlist until I make sergeant and retire with a pension.”

  “Where were you from?”

  “Arkansas, suh. I’s a slave till Gen’ral Curtis come. Got a chance to make something of myseff, and I swear, I gonna do it. We heah, suh.”

  The colored soldier let loose of the bridle and hurried past the stone pillars supporting the second-story porch. The building was massive, with two rising chimneys.

  “Got a sick man. Need a litter out heah,” Silas called at the door.

  Butler groaned, shivered, and stepped down, his blanket drizzling water. His stiff legs almost failed him.

  The black private stopped, no doubt mistaking Butler’s rain-slouched hat and dark blanket for a Federal uniform, and snapped off a salute. “Cap’n.”

  Butler pulled himself straight and returned his best salute, saying, “Carry on, Private. Dismissed.”

  He grinned to himself as he watched the man’s form disappear into the darkness. Then in poetic cadence, said, “What manner of fools can men be … that they resort to sword, blood, and mayhem to keep other men from being free.”

  “Excuse me, Captain?” asked one of the orderlies who had emerged from the hospital with a litter.

  “Thinking of the idiotic reasons human beings have for killing each other.” Butler gestured toward the back of the wagon. “My brother’s sick. An irony since he’s the regimental surgeon for Neely’s regiment. That’s the Fourth, you know. Bad cough, fever, hot and cold spells, delirium. His name is Philip.”

  “With respect, Captain, just who are you?” the second of the men asked as the two of them shifted the shivering Philip to the litter.

  “Captain Butler Hancock. Late of Company A, the Second Arkansas.”

  “Ah, the colored regiment. No wonder the private saluted you.”

  “He know what the hell he talking about?” Kershaw asked from behind Butler’s ear.

  “One of General Thomas’s first Federal colored regiments. Ironically recruited at Helena, Arkansas, in 1863, long after you’d gone to the Army of Tennessee.”

  “Sir?” one of the orderlies asked as they started Doc up the stairs.

  Butler studied the man thoughtfully. “Did you know that the success of the U.S. Second Arkansas colored Regiment even made Tom Hindman change his tune? Last I heard, just before Chickamauga, he was proposing Negro soldiers for Confederate regiments. Can’t imagine how General Bragg and his flint-nosed cronies would have reacted to that.”

  “Probably why they lost the war, sir,” the orderly returned.

  “Yankee scum belly!” Phil Vail wailed as he appeared around the corner of the hospital. “Oughta whip his arse until it’s red and raw!”

  “Cap’n?” Pettigrew asked as he leaned against the spring wagon. “You better set that popinjay straight on a few things or we’re gonna go through him like a stallion through corn stalks.”

  “Time we taught these smug Yankees a lesson or two.” Peterson added his own ire.

  “Gentlemen, we can discuss the outcome of the war later,” Butler replied. “First let’s get Doc taken care of. Then we can deal with the tactical realities.”

  “Of course, Captain,” the first of the litter bearers said as they bore Doc’s frail body into the dimly lit hospital. “With respect, sir, since he is a civilian, we may have to relocate your brother to a private physician’s care.”

  “Doc never mustered out,” Butler responded. “He should still be on the regimental rolls.”

  “Tactical realities?” the second wondered as he vanished into the hospital.

  Behind Butler’s ear, Kershaw growled, “Can’t wait to chop these cocksure Yankees down to size. You got a plan, Cap’n?”

  Butler smiled in anticipation. “Of course. Fort Scott served as a supply depot, and gentlemen, we’re going on a raid.”

  58

  July 8, 1865

  Doc coughed himself awake, blinked at the world through rheumy eyes, and rubbed them with a weak hand. Nothing made sense. Phantasms seemed oddly interlinked in his memory: Ann Marie; shattered and bleeding limbs coming loose in his hands; freezing and starving men staring at him from sunken eyes; as if all the worst of his memories were patched together and merging into each other.

  The taste in his mouth was nothing short of vile. He swallowed dryly, coughed again, and barely managed to sit up, only to trigger that racking and painful cough.

  He was in a bed. For a moment he wondered if he were in a prison camp. No. Too clean and dry. A hospital, no doubt about it. Only four beds in the long line were occupied, most of them broken bones and injuries from what he could see. The building was frame, and it was delightfully warm. Bright sunlight shone beyond the shadowed windows. A powder magazine and flagpole shone in what was obviously a parade ground. Beyond were officers’ quarters and barracks.

  “Dr. Hancock?” a voice asked.

  “Yes?” Doc’s voice sounded like gravel rubbed on oak.

  An orderly in an apron came striding down between the rows of beds. He was a young man, maybe early twenties, bearded, with curious light brown eyes. “How are you feeling?”

  “Thirsty. Hungry. Where am I?”

  “Fort Scott, sir. Captain Hancock brought you in. We’ve been treating your chest with mustard packs and a spoonful of syrup of squills four times a day.”

  That explained the taste in his mouth.

  “How long have I been here?”

  “Two days.” The orderly offered his hand. “Bryan Miles, sir. The post surgeon was called away to see to a broken leg. He’ll be delighted to learn that you’ve come back to us. For a time we thought you were a goner.”

/>   “Two days?” Doc wondered, feeling dizzy. He leaned back, resting his head on the pillow. “Could I get a glass of water, please?”

  “Of course.” Miles hurried away.

  Doc pinched his brow, trying to remember. Last he could recall, he’d been in the wagon. One minute he was burning up, the next his bones were shivering with a cold so intense he might have been back in Camp Douglas. Each jolt of the wagon had been like a sledgehammer beating his body.

  And then the phantasms had come. Eerie and unreal, dream and memory melting together. Ann Marie, Sally Spears, Paw and Maw, images from Boston, and Shiloh, and prison camp. The bearded man staring at him over the shotgun as he drove Butler from the Hancock farm.

  “Why the hell didn’t I just let myself die?”

  “Dr. Hancock? Here’s your water, sir.”

  Doc struggled to sit up, broke into coughing, and was helped by Miles. Gratefully he sucked down drafts of the warm water until the glass was empty. Then a second.

  “Miles, my stomach is like an empty hole. Is there anything to eat?”

  “Got some stew back on the stove. It’s not much, but—”

  “It will be wondrous,” Doc said wearily.

  “And as soon as you’ve eaten, I should give you a dose of quinine sulfate with a strong opiate in addition to your syrup of squills. What you need more than anything now is to rest and rebuild your strength.”

  “Lovely.” Doc fought another round of coughing.

  “And after that, a good dosing of spirits of turpentine.”

  “What for?”

  Miles shrugged, failing to meet Doc’s eyes. “Don’t know where you’ve been, but somewhere along the way you’ve picked up a solid infestation of intestinal worms. I hope you weren’t sharing mess with the colored troops?”

  Doc cocked his head. “Colored troops?”

  “In the Second Arkansas.” Miles waved it away. “In the meantime, we have a clerical issue. We can’t find Neely’s regiment in the records.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Probably just an error in records. Happens a lot, sir. We’re just about on the edge of the world out here, but it is correct that you were never mustered out of your unit?”