by Chuck Logan
“Got to hand it to you, you’re quite the ladies’ man,” LaSalle said in that voice, like a cold, slow burn. “You’re the only guy in the world who could get Miss Kirby and Marcy Leets to sit down and put their heads together to sort out this mess you made.”
A metallic pop, a flare of igniting gas and tobacco.
LaSalle said, “Now, I’ll remove the gag and give you a smoke. You start making a ruckus I’ll slap the tape back on. Nod your head if you want the smoke.”
Mitch nodded his head and the tape was pulled gently from his mouth. LaSalle placed the cigarette in Mitch’s lips and he puffed gratefully.
“Thing about women,” LaSalle ruminated as they continued walking, “they make up the rules as they go along. We used to have this discussion over in the sandbox. You know, all the gals they got in the line of fire now. Like can they handle it? And this one doctor had a theory that the army was making a big mistake jumping over too many generations of culture and shit like that. Women don’t have all the macho posturing that goes with sports and jive like fighting on the playground, huh? What they got is maternal instinct, you dig? When push comes to shove they’ll just plain obliterate you.”
“LaSalle,” Mitch mumbled, “where we going?”
“It’s cool. We’re almost there. You just smoke your cigarette and listen. This ain’t what you call a conversation.”
Mitch nodded, stumbled, and was pulled back upright.
“See,” LaSalle said, “the thing wrong with that doc’s theory is women don’t go for the fight first thing like a guy. They’ll, what you call it? Ask for directions when they’re lost, you follow me?”
“I guess,” Mitch said. The nicotine, the delicious morning air on his cheeks, and LaSalle’s conversational tone had a calming effect. It made sense, Ellie washing her hands and kicking him down the line to Dwayne. Then they stopped walking and LaSalle took him by both shoulders and shuffled him back against a tree.
“You know, it didn’t have to be this way, Mitch,” LaSalle said. “You think back over the last few weeks, since the old man went into decline, Miss Kirby kept inviting you to participate in the next step, huh? Like talk to the folks at the bank and the lawyers about plans for the estate? But you was too busy making your own plans, I guess?”
And Mitch heard a long, low roll of drums building in the distance, bouncing and echoing through the trees and the pitch of the ground. But not that far away. And the drumsticks felt like they were beating in his chest.
61
A LITTLE STIFF FROM SLEEPING ON THE GROUND, Rane woke with surprising lightness to the smell of horses and the slap and jingle of McClellan Saddles being hoisted and girth straps being cinched. The rattle of sabers and carbines mixed with soothing soft drawls as the troopers talked the bridles over muzzles and set the bits into foamy yellow teeth. Clouds of steam jetted from flared nostrils. Rane looked into a sidelong equine eye.
Beeman handed him a cup of camp coffee and explained that the cavalry unit was mounting up for their traditional Sunday-morning canter around the battlefield. As the horsemen wheeled into line to be addressed by their commander, Beeman and Rane did up their packs, looped their leathers over their arms, picked up their rifles, and hiked, sipping coffee, toward the parking area across from the Confederate Memorial.
The sun was out, for a change. Delicate streaks of orange and purple layered the sky above the trees on the east side of Hurlbut Field. Rane started the Jeep so Beeman could charge his cell. He discarded the Reb clothes and then changed into his blue sack coat and cap. Beeman took his leathers aside and flipped the USA insignia upright. With Beeman momentarily distracted, Rane fiddled with his camera as he slipped his hand into his duffel, found the spare packet of rounds, loosened the wrapping, and tucked the ten bullets into his right trouser pocket. The percussion caps in his cap box would work on the Sharps.
As he tucked the Nikon back in his haversack, he spied the security team assembling by the road next to the brown van. They looked like they’d lost their edge this morning, after pulling shifts all night and the false alarm with Darl yesterday.
Then he watched Beeman, who stood staring at the blue coat and hat he’d brought. Slowly, Beeman shook his head. “Damned if I will,” he said under his breath. “Ain’t wearing blue going past those burial trenches. Not at Shiloh.”
Rane withheld comment. Whatever it takes.
They left their packs and overcoats in the Jeep, to travel light, then, after Beeman slapped a fresh battery into his radio, they started walking up the Corinth-Pittsburg Landing Road toward the National Cemetery on the Tennessee River. The security van fell in behind and the undercovers tramped the field to the right.
Beeman pointed to the road on his Shiloh Park map and said, “You’re in character this morning, dressed in blue. This is the direction the Yankees ran like hell the first day of the battle.”
Rane slung the Enfield over his shoulder and declined to take the bait. Beeman deserved his drama and Rane felt no need to complicate the day by arguing the history. Let him massage his lucky buckeye as his eyes darted into the trees that, this morning, were exorcised by beams of slanting sunlight. Let Beeman have his moment, carrying a Yankee rifle, seeking the enemy of his blood on the battlefield of his ancestors.
But if shit starts going downrange I will get my hands on that rifle.
They veered off the blacktop down a leaf-strewn muddy trail lined with vehicles and horse trailers; license plates from Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama. Then the path branched, and they came to a small clearing where cannonballs outlined a rectangle of ground. Beeman removed his slouch hat and Rane likewise doffed his cap respectfully, thinking absently: this was one of four Confederate burial trenches on the north side of the battleground, which Sherman’s division had helped fill up as they ran like hell.
Beeman screwed up his lips. “Just threw them in here and left ’em. Never had a proper burial or words said like the Yankees they moved to the bluff. Gotta get permission from the Park Service to lay flowers.” He glanced at Rane. “Same government that burned down Japan and Germany and built ’em back up. Reagan over there at Normandy, put a fuckin’ wreath on Nazi graves.”
Like with the snake and the lawyer, the open manholes were back in Beeman’s eyes. Well why not? Might need all the edge he had, pretty soon.
“Okay, here we go,” Beeman said, putting his cap back on and giving it a determined tug down over his eyes, “let’s bushwhack through the woods and lose them in the thick stuff. Hook up with Darl before they spot us.”
Rane shrugged, fell in step, and shook out his senses. A minute later the shoulder mike rasped. “Hey Beeman, we’re losing you. Angle up toward the road where we can see you.”
Beeman keyed the mike. “Roger that.” Then he reached down to the radio clipped under his jacket and switched it off. “You up for a little cross-country?” he asked.
They set off at a trot, holding their rifles at port arms, equipment swinging and jangling, weaving through the trees and gullies. Then they slowed to climb the tangled slope of a broad ravine, recrossed the empty road, and plunged through more thickets until they worked up the side of a slope toward rows of black cannons.
“This is where Grant set up his last line,” Beeman said, breathing heavily and wiping sweat from his forehead. Moments later they emerged from a path into a grassy area where twenty or so soldiers in blue stood around a campfire, sipping coffee next to a triangular canvas tent. One of them in particular raised a curious eye as they walked past; a mixed couple in blue and gray. Rane presumed he was an officer, because he wore a sword. Then the man returned to discussing the battle with a group of early-morning spectators. Rane overheard him say something about a General Peabody deserving a Congressional Medal of Honor for pushing out the recon company that detected the Rebel advance.
“Bingo,” Beeman said, nodding toward the brick park building across the road on the bluff of the Tennessee River, next to the cemetery. Darl Leets push
ed off the shadowed west side of the building in a camo hunting jacket, a tractor hat, and jeans. Darl inclined his head to the west along the road, so Beeman and Rane turned left and slipped back into the trees. They’d traveled a hundred yards when Darl crossed the road and joined them.
Darl glanced back toward the small Union camp, satisfied they’d lost the security detail. “Okay,” he said, taking out a park map. “You go due west through the thick stuff, cross Tilghman Branch, and come out here.” His finger tapped a black triangle monument marker captioned OGLESBY/HARE. “Then you cross Highway 22 and head toward this picnic area.” He tapped the map again. “This side of the parking lot there’s a long field screened by trees with a cannon at the north end. If he’s going to show he’ll meet with Dwayne in the trees past the cannon on the west side of that field.”
“You going to take us in?” Beeman asked, studying Darl’s face.
Darl shook his head. “This is far as I go. Dwayne finds out I been talking to you…” He bit his lip and let his flitting downcast eyes fill in the rest. Then he looked at the rusty Sharps. “Jeez, Bee, hope you got more than that?”
“Why’s that? He out there with a deer rifle?” Beeman asked softly.
“Don’t know what he’s out there with. You gotta take your chances, I guess,” Darl said, his face blank.
“Okay. Fair enough,” Beeman said, hitching up his leather belt, as his eyes turned to the thick western woods. Then Darl handed Beeman the park map, pursed his lips in a relieved expression, turned, and hurried back toward the road.
Beeman watched him go and then said, “Well, this is it. What’s your fate card tell you, John?”
“We’re walking into an ambush, eyes wide open,” Rane said, slightly amazed at the calmness in his voice.
“Yep. For somebody. They could all be out there,” Beeman said, gnawing on his lower lip. “Or maybe I been maneuvered in to clean up a done deal. Only one way to know for sure. You ready?”
More than ready. Rane floated into the tangled brush, his step light. He was almost oblivious to the heavy toy rifle in his hands, the strapped equipment, or his camera swinging in the sack at his left hip. This, finally, was what he came here for: to see if the lost roads of his life would converge ahead. He eyed the rusty Sharps swinging on Beeman’s shoulder. Roll the dice. Be the man in the open this time.
They moved fast through a deep ravine choked with brush, jumped a creek, and stumped up the other side. Rane inhaled his woolly sweat, felt and heard the tickle and whisper of insects. They both came to a trembling halt when a woodpecker drummed a loud tattoo. Sunlight punched through the clouds, broke on the trees, and scattered a shadowy mosaic of Southern stained glass down the forest floor.
Panting, Beeman rasped, “Slow down, John. Talk to me. How should we handle it?”
“We get a look at the ground. Try to spot him first.” Rane removed his cap and wiped sweat from his forehead. “If it is him, we lose in a long-range shooting contest. So we avoid the open and stay in the trees, fix him and then work in tandem. One drawing fire, the other shooting,” he shrugged laconically, “make fewer mistakes than he does.”
They cleared the underbrush, exited the woods, and walked across a broad field toward a triangular stack of black cannonballs. An earnest light now animated Beeman’s face; part condemned man, part executioner. He swung the Sharps off his shoulder and snapped it up, practicing his sight picture. Then he checked the cap on the nipple, his thumb caressing the half-cocked hammer. With a subdued pop, he unfastened the snap on his cartridge box. Then the cap pouch. Rotated his eyes back and forth.
They were out here all alone.
Rane slid his hand in his pocket and squeezed the card as he walked.
They jangled alert at a long, hollow roll of drums coming from the direction of the Confederate encampment. Rane’s pulse quickened and then, spontaneously, they lurched into a run, crossed the highway, and ducked into the shade of the trees.
62
LASALLE PLUCKED THE CIGARETTE FROM MITCH’S lips, pressed him back against the tree, and carefully removed the bandage from his cheek. Then he inserted something in Mitch’s pocket. Cell phone, felt like.
“Didn’t have to be this way,” LaSalle repeated as he removed the blindfold.
For a moment, Mitch refused to open his eyes. Just the soft morning air on his face. The rattle of the drums echoing in his chest.
“You see,” LaSalle said, “way it turns out you did your duty. You stood stud service for old Hiram after all. She was getting set to tell you. She’s going on two months pregnant. No wonder she was so pissed…”
“What?” Mitch’s eyes popped open. “WHAT?”
Oh what a sweet Jesus of a morning exploded fresh in his eyes—the green, sloping grass and the trees in spring feather and the clouds like warm rumpled silk sheets in burgundy and gold and the friendly rising sun could be an illustrated smile in a children’s storybook.
The glorious second crumbled the moment he saw the stern set of LaSalle’s face with its lumpy purple scars and the white rubber gloves on his hands. Standing there like a black nightmare, like duty itself.
Mitch blinked, panted, saw a solitary cannon sitting in the field. “Where?”
“Close to Shiloh. Hear the drums? Reenactors.”
Mitch nodded, eyes fixed past the cannon, down the field. Three people walked toward the trees at the far end, two men in front and a woman in a loose raincoat bringing up the rear.
“Easy now,” LaSalle said as a key appeared in his gloved hand. He unlocked the cuffs and slipped them from Mitch’s wrists. “This is as far as my obligation to the Kirbys takes me.” The black man stepped back. “You’re free.”
“Jesus,” Mitch mumbled, massaging his wrists; squinting down the field, he isolated a flash of orange footwear. “That’s Dwayne all right…”
“Yep, Marcy too,” LaSalle said. “Don’t know the other guy.”
“I got to talk to Ellie, first thing,” Mitch said earnestly, licking sweat from his lips. When he looked back, the trio had disappeared into the trees. “Where’d they go?”
LaSalle pointed to the right, to a trail that ran just inside the tree line. “You go down that path about a hundred yards and come to a big rock on the right. There’s a tree down across the trail. You wait there. They’ll meet you.”
Mitch nodded. “Damn, LaSalle, you had me going,” he gave a shaky grin, “with that pistol and all.”
“In future I’d watch myself around the women, I was you,” LaSalle said as he turned to leave, “especially the smart ones. ’Cause the smart ones, man, first they get directions, then they obliterate you.”
LaSalle receded out of sight in the trees, then his footfalls faded. Mitch wiggled his fingers and ran them through his grubby hair. Satisfied LaSalle was indeed gone, he set off down the path.
Sonofabitch. A thought like bursting. Ellie being pregnant changed everything.
A few minutes later, he was sitting on the tree trunk that lay across the path by the rock. The drums had stopped. Faint at first, then louder, he heard the footsteps coming up toward him. Then he saw them. Dwayne in front, in his Day-Glo ostrich boots and a light Carhartt jacket so fresh it looked like it just came from the cleaners. Uh-huh, and ole fox-faced Jimmy Beal, Dwayne’s driver and bodyguard, in back of him, wearing one of his Hawaiian shirts. Marcy bringing up the rear, hands plunged in her raincoat pockets.
“Shit man,” Dwayne called out. “Lookit you, the fuckin’ Missing Link.”
“It’s been crazy,” Mitch said, standing up.
“You got that right, starting with you letting Beeman get away. Shoulda known you’d freeze when it came right down to it.” Dwayne curled his lips as Jimmy Beal stepped to the side.
“Hey, Dwayne, man…” Mitch protested.
Jimmy drew a squarish black automatic pistol from under his shirt.
Mitch blinked. Now Dwayne reached around to his back and brought a pistol out too. Not as big as Jimmy’s
. Marcy sidestepped behind Jimmy, her face all wrong, dark-patched, and her hands coming out of her pockets.
White rubber gloves on her hands.
Same as LaSalle.
“Dwayne, what the hell, man? Wait a minute,” Mitch blurted.
“You’re a liability to me now, Mitch. Hiding out in the fuckin’ woods…can’t trust somebody pulls weird shit like that.”
“Woods? Ellie had me locked up. Shit, Dwayne. I’m your cousin,” Mitch protested.
The drums were going again but not so loud that Mitch couldn’t hear Dwayne say, “You ain’t no relation of mine. Not no more.”
And then the whole world blew up with a muffled roar beyond the trees, which drowned out the tattoo of the drums, and Mitch’s eyes spasmed as the sound swooshed right by his shoulder and knocked Dwayne over like a sledgehammer hit him in the chest, and at the exact same moment as Dwayne tipped over, Jimmy Beal’s eyes went wide and his head came apart in a smoky cloud and he pitched forward and where his head had been Marcy held a big Colt Navy in her white-gloved hand.
“Holy shit,” Mitch yelped, jumping, unable to pull his eyes from Dwayne’s feet that were beating on the ground.
Marcy cocked the hammer on the big pistol and leveled it at Mitch’s chest. “Hold that thought, Sport, and don’t even think of moving.” Then Marcy took two steps and lowered the pistol and shot Dwayne once in the head and ended the twitching and it all was contained in the expanding echo of the cannons firing beyond the trees.
Mitch discovered that the astonishment of shock doesn’t come from the outside, it comes from the inside when your heart and lungs turn to ice in your chest and you can’t breathe anymore and you just get stuck with your eyes cranked wide open and what his eyes saw was Ellender Jane Kirby appear in wisps of white smoke, wearing the gray sweat suit and running shoes and a belt cinched around her waist with a holster, a cartridge box, and a cap box.
