Vengeance is Black (Edge series Book 10)

by George G. Gilman

  “Well, don’t you stamp your foot, Bob,” Scott called from his bed, pitching his voice at a feminine tone. “It might just be enough to knock this dump over.”

  “Oh, Christ,” Rhett moaned. “Here comes Mr. Hard Man himself.”

  Seward, squatting on the floor, cleaning the barrel of his Colt after a bawling out from Hedges, giggled inanely.

  Douglas, sitting on the room’s only chair, raised his glass of whiskey. “Bottoms up, Bob,” he toasted.

  Rhett ignored the taunt. “Frank’s with him,” he reported.

  “Hey, you guys!”

  Forrest’s shout gathered all five troopers to the window. They looked down through the window Rhett pushed open and saw Hedges and Forrest standing in the lashing rain at the centre of the street Both men wore slickers against the weather and carried Henry repeaters and saddlebags.

  “Get down here, rouse the colored’s and all get mounted,” Forrest yelled. “We’re moving put.”

  The troopers complied with the order in a mood of ambivalence. The weather was awful and they were leaving behind a town filled with women who became wantonly willing on sight of a Federal dollar bill. But the command to action also meant the end of drill square drudgery, and the prospect of shooting at human targets instead of firing range roundels.

  Questions filled the minds of the whites when Hedges led the column in a northwards direction from town, on the wagon route over Walden Ridge towards the Sequatchie Valley. But nobody dated to voice his confusion about riding away from the battle arena. For Sergeant Forrest jogged along beside the Captain, apparently as contented as he could ever be when so dose to a man he hated. Thus, the troopers assumed, Forrest knew the object of the uncomfortable trek through the rain-lashed night. And no man had a desire to arouse the joint wrath of officer and non-com by voicing unwelcome questions.

  The terrain over which the cavalry column passed was desolate and rugged; progress was increasingly hampered as the teeming rain deepened the layer of mud which covered the trail. The horses bucked and kicked to try to free themselves of the sucking sludge. The men slitted their eyes against the needle pricks of slanting rain and cursed the animals and the weather through clenched teeth.

  Hedges heard the rumblings of discontent, but ignored the men behind him as he concentrated upon calming his own horse and staying on the wagon trail as the storm made it increasingly difficult to discern from the morasses on either side. The men’s state of mind was unimportant. They were soldiers and it was therefore their prerogative to gripe. His major concern involved the stamina of the men and their mounts and he realized he had to weigh the risk of the column grinding to an exhausted halt against the need to make the rendezvous which, had been arranged by General Ulysses S. Grant himself.

  “It ain’t gonna be easy, Captain,” Forrest gasped as the head of the column crested one slope only to see another, higher one on the blurred skyline.

  The sergeant had accompanied Hedges to the Chattanooga command post and waited outside while the Captain received his orders from Grant, Sherman and Hooker. When the briefing was concluded, Hedges told Forrest the troop of mixed whites and blacks had been assigned to escort duty of a small army wagon train headed from New Orleans to Washington. The rendezvous point, where the troop would take over the duty from the present escort, was in central Tennessee.

  Filling in the sergeant with the basic details of the troop’s orders was a new tactic Hedges had adopted in an attempt to take the heat out of their relationship. He had decided on the experiment after a great deal of soul-searching: and made the decision firm only when he had convinced himself that such a measure was in the interest of the troop rather than for a selfish reason.

  Up until the confrontation at the rifle pits beneath Missionary Ridge, Forrest’s aggressive attitude had been merely a personal threat to Hedges. But had the sergeant’s enmity exploded on that mist shrouded morning, it was likely the entire troop would have died. So the Captain had been faced with two alternatives — to commit Forrest for court-martial or compromise on his contempt for unexplained orders. And it was a compromise rather than a capitulation.

  For Forrest did not know the precise rendezvous point, nor the cargo carried by the four wagons in the train. Had the sergeant been in possession of this information, Hedges knew, he would be tempted to talk the white troopers into desertion and then make an attempt to steal the two million dollars worth of Confederate gold taken from a captured blockade runner.

  “You been in this war long enough to know nothing’s easy,” the Captain shouted in response to Forrest’s comment.

  The sergeant leered through the rain. “The whores of Chattanooga were, sir!” he yelled.

  Hedges had long ago been purged of his farm boy puritanical attitude to sex, but Forrest’s remark still struck him as unworthy of a reply. And Forrest seemed to expect none as he spurred the horse up the sticky incline towards the brow of the next hill along the trail.

  It was like that for most of the night: slow, hard, rugged riding across country and through weather which grew in the men’s minds to a proportion far larger than any line of enemy soldiers could ever be. And it was this attitude of regarding nature as an aggressive force ranged against them that kept the men struggling ahead. They had won too many battles against flying bullets and slashing steel to allow a storm to beat them.

  Dawn broke with a dark gray light which seemed to have the physical energy to drive the rain ahead of it into the far west. A few spots rode on the wind, but even they were chased away as the eastern horizon glowed with a pale pink light which strengthened to bright red.

  Hedges called a halt in the windbreak of a cliff at the foot of a high peak. The night’s rain formed a water splash into a pool close by and the horses were allowed to drink their fill. The men ate a meager breakfast of crackers and dried fruit, griping at the lack of dry kindling to build a fire for coffee.

  But, just as it had been the white troopers who had voiced their disgruntlement during the night ride, so it was that they bemoaned their inability to get a warming drink. The black soldiers regarded the situation with stoic calm.

  “Christ, them.... colored’s act almost like they’re enjoying this frigging picnic,” Hal Douglas said jeeringly, stopping himself just short of using the word Hedges had banned.

  Manfred finished chewing a stale cracker, and swallowed it with great relish. His broad mouth opened in a cheerful grin. “You ain’t never been a slave, man,” he said quietly. “We may have been forced to join the army, but at least we get paid for the work. And we’ll be free to do what we likes when this lousy war is over.”

  Seward spat into the pool, “This war ain’t never gonna be over,” he said miserably, rasping a hand over the night’s stubble on his jaw. “Us and them Johnnie Rebs are just gonna go on shooting at each other forever and ever.”

  Hedges was not listening to the desultory conversation of the men. He stood apart from them, his hooded eyes scanning a map in his big hands and then lengthening their focus to scrutinize the surrounding country and to examine the sky for a promise of good weather.

  “Five o’clock this afternoon, Captain?” Forrest recalled.

  “Close enough,” Hedges replied, refolding the map in its creases and pushing it into his belt pouch beneath the slicker.

  “We gonna make it?”

  “I reckon.”

  “Mount ’em up?”

  “Obliged.”

  “Get your asses back in the saddles!” Forrest yelled, turning to face the men.

  Hedges watched the sergeant for long moments, pleased with how the experiment was working out. Forrest had a great deal of animal cunning and instincts, but only a modicum of human intelligence. The triple chevron on his tunic sleeve had been a salve to his ego for a long time. Now, being privy to orders from above was making him feel good.

  But, as Hedges swung up on to his own mount, there was a nagging doubt in the back of his mind. When the current novelty was worn
thin, what next would Forrest need to hold him in line? Hedges sighed and raised a hand.

  “Fooorwaaard!” he yelled.

  The column snaked away from the shelter of the cliff and into the teeth of the wind which the new day had brought – drying the mud but scything through uniforms to chill the very bones of the troopers.

  They halted for a midday meal in a deserted hamlet to the many they had passed through in Confederate territory. Then Hedges ordered them on again, under a leaden sky which threatened a further storm but did not deliver it.

  It was four o’clock when the shots rang out: distant and hard to pinpoint in the buffeting, constantly veering wind. Hedges’ hand jerked into the air and he stood in the stirrups to scan the surrounding terrain through slitted eyes. There was an interval of no more than two seconds, then a second burst of gunfire penetrated the hiss of the wind.

  “Over in the west, sir!” Forrest rasped.

  Every man in the troop looked to his left, cracking his eyes against the bite of the wind. The country was undulating, broken up here and there by shallow gullies, meadows of brush and stands of timber.

  It was from a gully that the four wagon train emerged, bursting into sight with the teams galloping flat out under the painful lash of bull-whips. At each side of the wagons rode cavalry officers and men in Union blue, twisted in their saddles to pour revolver fire into the gully.

  “Looks like they could be dead on time, Captain,” Forrest rasped.

  “Let’s go!” Hedges snapped, spurring his horse forward and leaving the sergeant to pass oil the command to the troopers.

  They had been midway down a slope when the army wagons raced into sight, perhaps half a mile away. With Hedges some several yards at the head, the troop had to gallop down into a dip, losing sight of their objective, and up a shallow incline on the far side. At the top was the lip of a rocky escarpment and Hedges wheeled his horse into a violent turn. He shouted a warning to the men behind him then raced forward to where the cliff fell away in a less sharp, shale-clad incline.

  All save two men succeeded in veering their horses away from the sheer drop of a hundred feet. These men – both colored’s – screamed a counterpoint to the gunfire as their horses leapt from the cliff. One stayed in the saddle, man and animal completing a grotesque summersault before they smashed to their death amid the jagged remains of a rock fail. The second was flung clear of his mount and cracked open his skull against the cliff face. His bellowing horse landed upright, smashing its leg bones into a thousand fragments before the impact burst open its belly.

  “Then there were twenty-two,” Seward chanted softly to himself as he raced forward in pursuit of Hedges and Forrest.

  Neither man was aware of what had happened in the rear as they angled their mounts to the side and fought to keep them four-footed on the sliding shale of the slope. The men under attack had spotted the blue-uniformed figures on the cliff top and the wagon train had swung off its straight course to close with the reinforcements.

  “I feel like the damn Seventh Cavalry!” Rhett shrieked, trying to conceal his fear by a show of bravado.

  The attackers were in sight now – some twenty men variously dressed in Confederate uniforms and civilian garb.

  “Reb raiders!”Forrest shouted.

  Hedges demanded, and got, a turn of extra speed from his lathered mount, his mind burning with the memory of Bill Terry’s Raiders and the mental agony he had endured because of their leader’s evil viciousness.

  The wagons and the cavalry troop were closing fast, but the attackers were still out of range of the newcomers’ guns. The escort had already been reduced by four riders, the men’s absence emphasized by the quartet of loose horses racing away from the train.

  Another man was lifted from the saddle and slumped to the ground. His foot was caught in the stirrup and he was dragged by his panicked horse, leaving a trail of bloodied skin stripped from his face. Another man went sideways from his mount, falling under the spinning rear wheel of the second wagon in the line. The iron rim neatly severed his head from his shoulders. The horse behind reared at the smell of fresh blood, hurling its rider high into the air. The man’s gun was turned against himself and as he thudded to the ground, his finger squeezed the trigger. He blew out his own brains.

  Two of the attackers were lifted cleanly from their saddles, the damaging bullets making only superficial wounds. But both died of broken necks.

  “Swing around and stop ’em!” Hedges bellowed towards the driver of the lead wagon as the petrified man continued to lash his galloping team towards the approaching troopers.

  Then he released the reins of his horse and slid the Henry from its boot, clinging to the animal with his knees. The rifle bucked in his hands and a raider in grubby civilian clothes was blown sideways out of his saddle.

  The troopers began to fire as the wagons skidded to the side and gave them an unobstructed view of the raiders. Six men aimed at one target and all scored hits. The head of a uniformed man seemed to explode blood and torn flesh as if a charge had gone off inside his skull.

  Two more raiders went down and were trampled to a near pulp as the rest angled to the side, swinging in a wide turn to retreat from the cavalry’s advance. They fired as they changed direction, sending a barrage of lead towards the troopers.

  The whites crouched low in their saddles. Four inexperienced black soldiers were too late to learn the tactic and toppled through fine sprays of their own blood.

  The turn complete, the raiders spurred their mounts back to the full gallop.

  “Then there were eighteen!” Seward chanted as he gave chase with the rest of the troopers.

  As the wagon train creaked to a dust-raising halt and the three surviving members of the escort party slumped in their saddles and gulped air into starved lungs, the pursuers became the pursued.

  Just as the men in the escort party had been hampered by having to shout over their shoulders with no opportunity to aim, so the raiders could now only fire wildly for effect. But their horses were fresher than those of the troopers and the gap between chasers and chased noticeably widened as the pace told on the cavalry’s mounts.

  Three men fell under a hail of rifle fire, two rolling to a stop in attitudes of death: the third sitting up and clutching at a shoulder wound.

  “Someone capture that guy!” Hedges roared as he galloped on ahead.

  Only one of the white troopers was prepared to leave the fray while there was still a chance of spilling blood. So it was that Rhett skidded his horse to a halt and leveled his rifle at the frightened looking teenager wearing a Confederate forage cap, black civilian shirt and gold-striped uniform pants.

  “Better keep your ass on the ground, kid!” Douglas yelled as he raced after the troopers ahead of him, with the colored’s streaming out behind him.

  The boy raider, who didn’t seem to be any older than seventeen, reached for his hip: then sighed as his fingers touched the empty holster.

  “All right, mister soldier,” he said, “I give up.”

  Rhett slid from his saddle, making sure to keep the Henry aimed at the prisoner. His weakly handsome face was set in a wicked smile as he savored the coward’s delight of having a man at his mercy, “You’d better,” he replied, towering over the boy on the ground.

  The sound of thudding hooves and crackle of gunfire had diminished and an eerie silence had descended in its wake. There was no longer even the hiss of the biting wind.

  Rhett’s delicate tongue darted out to lick dry lips as he cast quick, nervous glances around him. He and the boy were deep in the gully from which the wagon train had been chased. The rocky sides did not allow entrance to the wind. The halted wagons were beyond the range of vision through the mouth of the gully. In the other direction the steep-sided cutting curved away, taking the troopers out of sight and earshot

  When the apprehensive New Englander returned his attention to the prisoner, he saw that the boy was smiling cunningly. He hurriedly r
eadjusted the set of his lips to make his expression friendly, but not before Rhett had witnessed the sign of his true feelings. The boy knew he was scared.

  “Try anything, and I’ll kill you,” Rhett snarled.

  “What could I try?” the boy asked with a shrug that pained his injured shoulder. But he didn’t clutch at the blood-seeping wound. For his free hand was draped loosely over a fist-sized chunk of rock.

  “Just don’t, or I’ll blow your head off,” Rhett snapped, deciding he was going to do it anyway. It could just be that the raiders had a reserve force hidden far up the gully and the troop might be ambushed. If that happened, the bastards would come roaring out after the wagons again and Rhett would be right in their path.

  But in case that didn’t happen, he realized he had to cover himself. He would ask the boy some questions and hope the information he secured would compensate for his having to kill the prisoner to prevent him escaping.

  “Every time you don’t answer what I ask, kid, I’ll blow a piece off you,” Rhett said suddenly, adjusting the aim of the Henry so the muzzle hovered over the hand of the boy’s injured arm.

  “Sure, mister soldier,” the boy invited. “Fire away.” He broadened his grin, “Hey, forget I said that, I mean ask away.”

  The troopers brought down no more raiders. The ground began to adopt an upward slope as the walls of the gully lost height. The fresher horses of the men ahead showed their reserves of stamina by pulling far out of range of the troopers’ guns. Then, when the raiders disappeared from sight over the crest of a low ridge, Hedges ordered his men to a halt. He was conscious of two dangers – that the raiders might realize their advantage of comparative freshness and turn on the troopers, or circle around to by-pass the gully and launch a new attack of the now virtually unguarded wagons.

  The Captain eyed Forrest, expecting an argument against the order, but the sergeant was not looking at him. He was surveying the weary faces of the men and the flaring nostrils of the horses.

  “Guess we got run into the ground, Captain,” the sergeant said at last, his own voice breathless.