THE REBEL KILLER

by Paul Fraser Collard

  They had passed small farms surrounded by split-rail fences, the wooden houses and barns nestled comfortably into their surroundings. Before they had come across the military checkpoint, they had seen little evidence of life, the winter confining the farmers and their families indoors, wisps of smoke trailing from chimneys the only evidence of their existence.

  ‘You got yourself a pass there, mister?’ The picket had come to stand close to Jack’s saddle. He was swathed in blankets, with one wrapped over his head, so that Jack could see nothing more than the clouds of air that escaped his mouth. If he was armed, Jack could not see the weapon.

  ‘No.’ There was no snow on the ground here, but Jack could still feel the cold seeping into his body now that they had stopped. ‘I need one?’

  ‘By rights you do. You a serving man?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What regiment?’

  ‘Lyle’s Raiders.’ Jack gave the name just as he had planned should he ever be challenged. He hoped it would help him track Lyle’s command down. He spoke in a clipped tone, his eyes riveted on the picket the whole time. The revolver on his hip was loose in its holster, a preparation he had made as soon as he had seen the Confederate unit camped across the turnpike.

  ‘Uh huh.’ The picket gave a long sniff. ‘Figures. You boys don’t tend to care much about bits of paper. So where you headed?’

  ‘Nashville.’

  ‘Nashville! Sheet, you got yourselves a long way to go. Take you a whiles, and that’s for sure.’ He frowned. ‘If you got that far to go, what you doing out in this weather?’

  ‘My job.’

  The picket contemplated the answer for several long moments. ‘I hope your job includes killing them damn Yankees. Say, are you English?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Figures. I thought you sounded different.’ The sentry shifted under his wrappings. ‘So what’s your name, mister? My captain will want it. He’ll write it in the log.’

  ‘Captain Pinter.’ Jack gave the lie smoothly, taking the dead man’s name without a qualm.

  The sentry was unconcerned to discover that he addressed an officer. ‘And that your woman?’

  Jack twisted in the saddle and looked back at Martha. There was little of her to be seen under her covering of voluminous furs.

  ‘Yes.’ He faced the picket once more. ‘She’s mine.’

  ‘Uh huh.’ The sentry sniffed again, liquid gurgling deep in his throat. He looked at Martha for a long time before he spoke again. ‘You want to stay a while? Warm yourselves by our fire? We got it right cosy in there.’

  Jack had no intention of taking up the offer, kindly meant or not. ‘We’ll be on our way. I got a report I need to give Major Lyle. He won’t stand any delay.’

  ‘Uh huh.’ The refusal was greeted with another snort and gurgle. ‘Well, you take care out there, sir. There’s lots of wild men on the roads these days. Been a few Yankees too, since we whipped their butt over Manassas way. You watch out, specially with a woman and all.’

  ‘I’ll be careful.’ Jack’s tone was as cold as the air he breathed. ‘You done asking questions now?’

  The sentry looked at him for several long moments, then turned and shuffled away, heading back to the sanctuary of his hut.

  Jack watched him go, his hand moving to his holster to refasten the buckle only when he was sure the man was not about to turn back around. The talk of a pass bothered him. They could not rely on every sentry to let them go so easily. Sooner or later they would run into an officer or a sergeant who was more intent on doing his job. If nothing else, they would need a better story and a damn good reason for being on the road.

  But what bothered him more was the sentry’s reaction to Martha. He sighed. Her presence complicated matters. If he were alone, his journey would be easier. He turned in the saddle to look back at her again, and saw she was staring right back at him, as if able to read his thoughts.

  ‘We sit here much longer, these poor horses will freeze to death. Us too.’ Her admonishment was given with a snap in her tone. ‘We moving on or what?’

  Jack took a deep breath, then tapped his heels and walked his horse on. He would have plenty of time to think on the long road ahead. If Martha became a burden, then it would be easy enough to ditch her. Her hopes of finding her husband did not matter to him. He was no knight in shining armour, and he had no interest in reuniting husband and wife. He cared only for revenge, and for the moment when he would find Nathan Lyle.

  The campfire roared into life, the flames bursting up from the scattering of powder Jack had sprinkled liberally over the damp wood. He hoped they would last long enough for the wood to catch rather than just scorch.

  ‘What you going to do when you run out of that there powder?’

  Jack looked across at Martha. She had a habit of staring at him that was beginning to grate on his nerves. ‘I won’t run out.’

  Martha pulled away the blanket that she had wrapped over her head. Her hands started to work on her hair, just as they did every night. She pulled it from the band that held it behind her head, then began combing her fingers through it. Jack found himself watching her. There was something very feminine about the way she was trying to do something to the lank and greasy strands.

  ‘You catching flies?’ Martha spotted his scrutiny. She paused for a moment, then continued, clearly unconcerned that he was watching her.

  ‘It needs a wash.’

  ‘All of me needs a wash. I ain’t had more than a lick and a spit since we left.’

  ‘We’ll have to find somewhere to stop soon. The horses need some good fodder or else they won’t last the journey, and there are a hundred things we will need.’ Jack turned his attention back to the fire. The flames were dying back and he peered closer at the wood to see if it had caught. ‘Then we need to find out how to get where we’re going.’ He scowled. He had embarked on the journey with little idea of how to reach his destination. ‘There must a railroad or something.’

  ‘How we going to pay for it?’ Martha grimaced as her fingers worked on a particularly stubborn knot.

  ‘You got any money?’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘Then we’ll add it to what I’ve got and use that.’

  Martha’s hands paused. ‘You’re quick to want to spend my money.’

  Jack shrugged. ‘You wanted to come with me. Anyway, we can always find more.’

  ‘And how will we do that exactly?’

  ‘There are ways.’ Jack might have been born without a brass farthing to his name, but he had always known how to find money.

  ‘You a thief?’ Martha scowled as she used the word.

  ‘Among other things.’ Jack could not help smiling as he thought of the back-street hotel he had robbed in India. It was one of the good memories. One of the few.

  ‘I don’t hold with thieving.’

  ‘I don’t hold with starving.’ Jack looked across and caught her eye. ‘Look, Martha, I’ll do whatever it takes. If you don’t like how I go about it, then turn a blind eye or go your own way. I’ll thieve if I have to. Kill too if someone gets in my way.’

  Martha held his gaze. Her hands had stilled. ‘You mean that, don’t you?’

  ‘I do.’ Jack did not look away.

  ‘Killing this one man means that much to you?’

  ‘Yes.’ Jack’s tone was carved from granite.

  ‘She must have been one hell of a girl, your Rose.’

  ‘She was.’

  ‘You want to talk about her?’

  ‘No.’

  Martha smiled at the abrupt reply. ‘How long you been like this, Jack?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like you’re made of stone or something.’

  Jack grunted by way of reply. His fears were becoming fact. If he were alone, there would be no one to pose difficult questions. If he were alone, he would not have to think of anything save the journey, and the moment of Lyle’s death. Instead, here he was, sitting with a woman
he barely knew, being forced into a conversation he did not want to have, being asked questions he did not want to hear. He said nothing and instead poked the fire, nearly extinguishing the few flames he had coaxed into life in the process.

  Martha broke the silence. ‘You don’t want to talk.’

  Jack’s only answer was a brief glance in her direction before he went back to staring at the fire.

  ‘My John’s the same. Sometime I bother him something awful.’ Martha’s tone changed, the words coming out flat. ‘I know I shouldn’t, but you know, I want to know what he’s thinking, what he wants, what he hopes for. After Joshua died, well, he just didn’t want to talk no more.’

  ‘Joshua?’ Jack could not help the question. A large flame burst into life from one of the mouldy logs. Martha’s face was hidden in the shadows, but there was enough light thrown to allow him to see her lips pressed tight together.

  ‘He was our boy.’ Martha moved her head slowly from side to side as she replied. ‘He died. Weren’t more than a month after I birthed him.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘God wanted him back.’ Martha’s reply was instant. ‘He was too perfect for this world so the Lord took him on to the next.’ She tipped her head back and looked up at the sky. ‘Sometime I think I can almost see him up there.’

  Jack glanced up too. The stars looked down, untroubled and serene. ‘I like the stars.’ He made the admission freely. ‘They don’t give a shit about us. They just sit there without a care in the whole bloody world. That’s what I like about them.’ He immediately felt foolish. He was a hardened soldier, yet he was spouting on like some street-corner poet.

  ‘You think your Rose is up there too? With my Joshua?’

  Jack shook his head. ‘I’ve no idea, love.’

  ‘I think she is.’ Martha inched closer to the fire. ‘You knew her a long time?’

  Jack heard the need in her voice. She didn’t just want to talk; she had to. Like a soldier on the eve of battle, she needed the distraction.

  ‘No.’ He found a thin smile. ‘I hardly knew her at all.’

  ‘That the truth?’ Martha gave a smile of her own. ‘You hardly knew her at all, yet now here you are, hell bent on chasing down the man you think killed her, no matter that you’re killing yourself in the process. I reckon that makes you a fool, Jack Lark.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Jack could not help laughing a little at Martha’s verdict. He’d been called a fool a lot in his life. Yet here he was. Still breathing. Still fighting.

  ‘You told us she was a slave.’

  ‘She was. She escaped.’

  ‘Then she must be something special. It ain’t easy being a slave and it’s even harder getting away. Those poor people. Why the Lord put them on this good earth just to let them be treated like that, I don’t know.’

  Jack was intrigued. ‘You’re from the South and your husband is in the Confederate army. Don’t you believe in slavery? Isn’t that what you’re fighting for?’

  ‘No.’ Martha’s reply was firm. ‘We never had slaves; that’s for rich folk. All we care about is getting enough to eat, our family, doing God’s will and staying alive. We leave the politicking to them that wants to do it. It ain’t for the likes of us.’

  ‘But your husband went to fight,’ Jack pressed her. ‘He’s fighting so those rich folk get to keep their slaves.’

  ‘Lordy, my John ain’t fighting for them slaves. He’s fighting for our rights! We just want to be free.’

  ‘The North want you to be free too.’ Jack had heard a dozen arguments supporting the Union’s position during his time in the North. This was the first time he had heard the view of someone from the South.

  ‘The hell they do. They want to make us just like them, when all we want is to be left alone and to live as we see fit. I don’t need some know-nothing sitting up there in Washington telling me how to live my life. Soon as we broke away from the Union, why, them Yankees thought they’d invade our homes and fight us till they brought us to heel like some damn dog that needs a whipping to know who’s master. We ain’t fighting to let them rich folk get to keep their slaves. We’re fighting for our liberty, just like the founding fathers said we should.’

  Jack shook his head. The argument sounded dreadfully similar to the one he had heard in the North. The Union was not just fighting to free slaves. They were fighting to preserve the very idea of the United States. They wanted America to be one great united nation. To achieve that aim, they could not allow the Confederate states to break away and form their own version of the founding fathers’ vision.

  ‘And what if the North are fighting for the same things?’

  Martha was watching him closely. ‘Maybe they are. Maybe they’re not. Maybe they’re just fighting because that was a whole lot easier than sitting around a table and working it all out. All I know is those Yankees want to stop us doing what we want. That’s why my John went to fight.’ She offered a wan smile. ‘So are you still a Billy Yankee at heart, Jack?’

  ‘No,’ Jack answered honestly. ‘I never was.’

  ‘Why’d you fight for them then?’

  ‘Because someone asked me to.’

  ‘That it?’

  ‘He paid me.’

  ‘So you fight just for money?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That don’t make a whole lot of sense.’ Martha chuckled at the conflicting answers.

  ‘No, I know.’ Jack laughed too. ‘I don’t understand it either. I hope your John is a less complicated man.’

  Martha’s laughter stopped. ‘No one ever called my John complicated.’

  ‘But he’s a good man?’

  ‘I known him my whole life.’ Martha evaded the question. ‘Pa didn’t like him.’

  ‘Why doesn’t that surprise me?’ Jack tried to lighten the tone. ‘Did the old man like anyone?’

  ‘He liked you. Well, after a while he did.’ Martha tried to smile, but the expression evaded her. ‘He is a good man, my John. I don’t blame him for that temper of his, or for what he does when I make him angry. When we were first married, I doubt there was anyone happier than the pair of us.’ She finally managed to find a half-smile at some old memory. ‘A lot of things changed when Joshua passed.’ She paused, staring off into the distance. ‘But John’s not a fighter, not really.’ Her voice hardened. ‘It frightens me to think that he has to fight men like you.’

  Jack was wondering at Martha’s choice of words. ‘Does he hit you?’ He did not shirk from the question. He had been brought up in the rookeries, a hard place where people had to struggle to survive. He had known enough men who beat their wives to recognise the hidden meaning.

  ‘Sometimes. If I deserve it. Sometimes even if I don’t.’ He caught a flash of defiance in her reply, and her chin lifted a fraction.

  ‘Maybe he’ll be different when he comes home. War changes a man.’

  ‘Maybe he will. He weren’t always like he is now, but I ain’t counting on him coming home like he was before. I ain’t that lucky.’ Martha avoided Jack’s gaze. ‘So what were you like before you became a soldier who fights, or maybe doesn’t fight, for money?’

  Jack heard the mockery in her tone and was pleased. The Martha sitting opposite him had proved herself to be as tough a character as he had ever met, and he could only admire her for it. Yet there were clearly other sides to her character. He could not imagine this Martha submitting meekly to her husband and taking a beating from him. Perhaps the time alone with her father had changed her. Or perhaps she was a different person when she was with her husband. Whichever it might be, he could see the change that had come into her expression as the conversation had turned towards her marriage, and so he decided to steer it in a different direction.

  ‘I’ve always been fighting one way or the other, and I’ve been a soldier a long time now. It’s who I am. What I think I’ve always been deep inside.’

  He paused for a moment, wondering if he should continue. It was rare for him to
speak with such candour, yet Martha had been open, and he could sense that he could talk to her without fear of recrimination.

  ‘I like it. I like being a soldier. I like what I can do. Something happens to me when I’m fighting. It’s like I become the person I was meant to be. Everything else, well, that’s just so much bullshit.’

  Martha did not reply. She was looking at him, her brow furrowed as if she had finally awoken to the fact that she had tied herself to a dangerous man she hardly knew.

  ‘We need to do something different,’ Jack did not give her time to dwell, ‘if we’re going to get where we want to go.’ He was thinking back to the sentry and his half-hearted attempt to get Jack and Martha to stay. The next time they might not get away so easily.

  ‘Different?’

  ‘It’s too dangerous to travel as we are.’ He smiled as the idea formed in his mind, stirring the memories of his first time as an impostor. ‘You’ll need to change. You won’t like it, I know that, but it is what it is, and you’ll just have to get used to it.’ He watched Martha’s expression. It was clear she was wary of whatever it was he had planned. ‘It’s time you became someone else.’

  ‘You sure ’bout this, Jack?’

  ‘You look fine.’ Jack did not bother to turn around in the saddle. It was not the first time Martha had asked the question. It was mid morning and they had been riding since first light. This was the fourth or fifth time she had interrupted the quiet ride.

  ‘I don’t sound like a man.’

  ‘Then don’t say anything.’ This time Jack reined his horse in and brought it to a stand, then turned to glare at her. ‘Look. I don’t want to have to say this again. You look fine.’

  Martha stopped her own horse. ‘I look like a bushwhacker.’

  ‘Yes, you do, and that’s the point.’ He offered something that he hoped was close to a reassuring smile. ‘Even your old man wouldn’t recognise you.’

  Martha scowled, then lifted her hat. Her hands clawed at the remains of her hair. ‘I look stupid.’

  Jack smiled at her expression. He had been many things in his time, but it was the first time he had tried his hand at being a barber on anyone else’s hair except his own. He had done a fair job, at least to his mind. He had not chopped her hair close to her scalp; he had left a fair amount so that it reached almost down to her neck. The clumps, and the few odd parts that stood upright, would settle with time. ‘Least you don’t have to worry about washing it any more.’