Lamb to the Slaughter

by Tony Masero

  ‘Deserters! What have I to do with such a breed, remove them from my sight.’ His speech was flamboyant and had all the extravagance of a performer, which he was, with such a liking for amateur theatricals that the men nicknamed him ‘Prince John’.

  ‘I think you may want to hear what they have to say, sir.’

  ‘What is it? Some sneaky comments on General McClellan’s underwear no doubt.’

  ‘No, sir. They have number and disposition of the forces against us. A most comprehensive report by this one here,’ he indicated Joe. ‘Who claims he is committed to our Southern cause and all it stands for.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Magruder, studying Joe with a new eye. ‘Very well, Lieutenant. Take a disposition from him, get it written up in full and have copies dispensed to both General’s Longstreet and Hill along the line and then have these two sent back to Richmond, I’m sure the powers that be will want to hear everything they have to say.’

  By the next day, a newly washed and combed Joe Bellows and Obie were transported back to the capital and presented to Captain Meriwether at Castle Thunder for holding until called before the Confederate Army’s intelligence officer.

  Chapter Ten

  Kirby had received his orders at Fort Leavenworth and taken a train ride to bring him as quickly as possible across the country through the free states. Once on the eastern seaboard he had bought himself a homesteader’s simple wagon, loaded it with pots and pans and by avoiding the main trails and travelling across country he had managed to cross over unnoticed into Virginia. It had been a long, time-consuming journey but his orders were clear and they came direct from Allen Pinkerton himself and he made his way as fast as modern transport allowed.

  ‘BS lost in RVa. See mail is recovered. Most urgent.’

  Brief and succinct, the telegram told Kirby that Belle was taken in Richmond, Virginia and that she had important information that Pinkerton wanted.

  As Kirby bumped the small clattering wagon across the Virginia countryside he thought back over his long held yearning for Belle. She had been the only woman in Kirby’s wild young life that had made such an impact on him. Not just her beauty, which was dazzling enough but also the inner character of the woman. He had recognized immediately the courageous creature that lived within and felt she was a kindred spirit to his own free nature.

  But, and here Kirby felt a tinge of resentment, she seemed to show no response to his obvious affection beyond that of friendship. They had come through some tough times together back in Nebraska and Kirby knew Belle was grateful for all he had done for her but still she seemed to offer no more than gratitude to his overtures.

  Kirby settled back on the driving seat and decided that he had to let things be as they were and not worry overly about it. It was his instinctive way to allow events to play out as they would, and if Belle came around, well and good. If not, then that was how it was meant to be and there was no use fretting over it. To see her again would be a pleasure that was for sure but first he must discover where she was and what had happened to her.

  The dangling saucepans and tin mugs that hung from the inside and decorated the outside of the wagon, clashed as he travelled. It had seemed an easy disguise to achieve back when he bought the cart, to be an itinerant tin-ware salesman but as the metal rattled and rang at every bump he was beginning to wish he had chosen something a little quieter. Like a blanket salesman maybe.

  ‘Good day, friend.’

  Kirby had been so lost in thoughts and with all the noise he had not noticed the rider coming up alongside. It was a Confederate dispatch rider, his uniform dust covered and the pony lathered with sweat.

  ‘Howdy,’ Kirby answered in a friendly fashion.

  ‘You from around here?’ the Confederate asked. ‘I seem to be lost.’

  ‘Can’t say I am. Travelling tin salesman, you see? I just head out along the road and go where it takes me. Any sized township or homestead, none to large or small is fine with me. Everybody wants a new skillet or baking pan. Can I interest you in anything, soldier?’

  The rider smiled, he was a young fair-haired man, his forage cap band looped under his chin. A pleasant, homely face grinned back at Kirby and the boy wore a relaxed and unsuspicious country boy innocence about him.

  ‘Not right now, sir. I’m making for Richmond if I can find my way back to the main trail. Fella back a-ways said this was the quickest route but I reckon he must have meant if you had a winged horse or some means of flight, ‘cos this sure ain’t an easy heading.’

  ‘That pony of yours looks about done in, you want to rest up a spell and sit alongside?’

  The rider thought on it a while, then swung across to the wagon, ‘I reckon a spell won’t hurt none. I ain’t carrying anything of urgent import just now so I guess it can wait. Right nice of you, I’m obliged. Name’s Jackson Pendry, pleased to meet you.’

  ‘Same here, Jackson. I’m Tyn Bowls.’ Which seemed a suitable pseudonym to Kirby on the spur of the moment.

  They shook on it and carried on in silence for a while.

  ‘Sure makes a hell of a racket, don’t it?’ observed Jackson finally.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Kirby.

  ‘Why all this metal you got rattling around here.’

  ‘Oh that, I’m kind of used to it now. ‘Sides, it lets everyone know I’m coming.’

  ‘Reckon they’ll know you a mile down the road with such a clatter.’

  ‘Leastways I won’t get my head shot off by any patrols or pickets I might surprise coming up this way.’

  ‘That’s a fact,’ agreed Jackson in a sociable fashion. ‘Say, I’ve got some bread and a hunk of cheese in my bags, you want to pull over and share a bite?’

  ‘Why not? I have a jug of honey-brew brandy in back. Let’s take a moment.’

  An hour later a uniformed dispatch rider on a sweating horse galloped south.

  The uniform fit Kirby rather well and he was sorry to dupe the boy and with apology he had left him tied off to the wagon wheel. The young man would work himself free in time and the alarm would be raised but by then Kirby hoped to be long gone.

  He checked through the haversack of dispatches as he rode and they proved to be as Jackson had promised, all boring reports and depositions of little interest except to headquarters records clerks but at least they would offer Kirby access into the city without undue hindrance.

  Under cover of his new disguise as messenger, Kirby successfully ran through the blockades and patrols along his route, eventually following the railroad line down and coming into Richmond from the north. There were many off-duty soldiers at liberty in the town and it was easy for him to blend in with the throng. Luckily he was not short of cash, Pinkerton saw to it that his agents were well supplied with gold coin and Kirby had a money belt under his shirt with enough to see him through.

  Using some of this cash liberally in the taverns and saloons in the city he loosened tongues and gained information about the now notorious Belle’s whereabouts. This was followed by careful observation outside Castle Thunder, and in such a way he had managed to contact the dancing Negro boy Sebastian and get in touch with Belle. But there was no easy way he could get her out unless he could fool the officials inside that he had proper authority to remove the prisoner. And that needed a deal of paperwork that he had no access to.

  There was only one way that Kirby considered he could gain access to the prison and that was to be taken freely inside.

  Kirby began his deception by purchasing some civilian clothes from a dry goods and clothing store and once dressed as a city dweller, he hid his Rebel uniform and invested in a quart bottle of Old Henry drinking whiskey.

  It took an hour of waiting in a darkened doorway and as the church clocks around the city began to peal out the midnight hour, Kirby saw the provost marshal’s patrol coming down the darkened street. Feeling a little disappointed as he wasted the brew by pouring it down his shirtfront, with one last sup from the empty bottle he made his
staggering way out onto Cary Street.

  Kirby had timed it just right as he stumbled a lurching sideways rush that blundered into the six-man patrol. The men scattered as the dark shape fell amongst them bawling obscenities and lashing out wildly.

  ‘I’ll take you all on, you Yankee bastards!’ Kirby shouted, taking a leaning pugilist’s stance. ‘Come on then, one at a time,’ he slurred.

  ‘Steady on, boy,’ it was the sergeant, leading the patrol. ‘We’re no invading army,’ he grinned at the drunk. ‘You’ve just had a few too many.’

  ‘You don’ fool me none,’ said Kirby, looping a wild swing in the air. ‘Come ‘ere and sh-tand up like a man.’

  The sergeant moved forward. He was a thickset individual, not adverse to confrontation in his chosen policing profession. ‘Phew!’ he breathed, as he got wind of Kirby’s whiskey soaked shirt. ‘This old boy stinks like a whole brewery done got distilled in him.’

  ‘Traitor!’ bellowed Kirby, timing a well-aimed uppercut that caught the man a pleasing sounding crack on the jaw.

  ‘Damn it!’ growled the provost sergeant, backing off a step and rubbing his jaw. ‘Right. You asked for it. Get him, you men.’

  They came at Kirby with batons raised and expecting a disabled man were surprised when Kirby responded by laying out one of them with a straight right like a battering ram and handing out two bloody noses to the others before they brought the ‘drunk’ down.

  ‘Shoot!’ cursed one of the patrolmen, wiping his streaming nose and looking at the fallen Kirby. ‘Hope this boy’s on our side when the Yankees get here. He sure packs a wallop all right.’

  ‘Let’s get the fool over to the prison, he can spend the night there before Court in the morning.’

  The patrol lifted the dazed Kirby between them and frog-marched him over to the jail entrance.

  By the time Kirby stood under the baleful eye of Captain Meriwether, he was recovered enough to take in his surroundings.

  ‘Drunk and disorderly,’ said Meriwether, noting it down in his ledger as he spoke. ‘Name?’

  Kirby continued his drunken pretense, by swaying forward and grinning stupidly at the Captain. ‘Now, come on, soldier boy,’ he slurred. ‘I just had a drink or two, is all. Then these fellows,’ he waved a limp hand at the patrol standing on either side of him. ‘They set about me. Look here, I got the bruises to show it.’ Kirby swung around glaring accusingly at the men of the patrol. ‘Police brutality, that’s what it is. Why ain’t you out there protecting our women and children from the damned Federals, eh? ‘Stead of picking on an innocent God fearing man like me.’

  ‘Silence!’ snapped Meriwether. ‘Alright,’ he said to the patrol sergeant. ‘You can leave him with us, he can spend a night in the cells and we’ll set him up before the judge in the morning.’ As the provost men made their way out, Meriwether turned to Qualms, who was leaning casually against the wall of the office and watching the proceedings with a bored eye.

  ‘Get him out of here, Sergeant,’ Meriwether ordered. ‘Fellow’s stinking up my office.’

  ‘This is your office?’ asked Kirby in feigned surprise and lurching about as if he could barely keep his feet. ‘My God, sir. I’ve seen better-looking rooms in a two-dollar bordello; sure you ain’t running a whorehouse here? My,’ he leered at Qualms. ‘That would be real nice now, wouldn’t it?’

  Qualms harrumphed a laugh and pushing away from the wall he gripped Kirby’s arm. ‘You ain’t got a hope in hell of any of that tonight, you stinking whiskey-head.’

  ‘Come tighten your girth and the slack on your rein,’ Kirby began singing loudly, ‘Come buckle your blanket and holster again. Try click of your trigger and balance your blade, for he must be sure who goes on a raid….’

  Meriwether nodded at his sergeant and Qualms pulled the carousing Kirby from the room.

  ‘Shutup!’ Qualms bellowed in Kirby’s ear as they made their way along the deserted corridor.

  ‘You’re a nice fellow,’ Kirby breathed whiskey fumes into Qualm’s ear, slumping against him heavily. ‘I think I like you.’

  ‘Get off me,’ growled Qualms, struggling with the flopping spread of Kirby’s enveloping arms.

  Kirby stumbled, pressing against the sergeant and in doing so reaching an unseen hand across to the Rebel’s gun belt. Swiftly he dexterously unsnapped the latch and grasped the service revolver.

  ‘What the….’ gasped Qualms as he heard the weapon being cocked and felt the barrel pressing into his belly deep under his ribs.

  ‘You got two chances here,’ whispered the suddenly sober sounding Kirby. ‘You can holler out and get a slug in the guts and die slow or you can take me where I want to go, which is it to be?’

  Qualms eyes rounded as he stared down at the menacing pistol sticking into his stomach. ‘Who the hell are you?’ he breathed.

  ‘Wrong answer,’ said Kirby, bringing up the pistol and clouting Qualms on the side of the head with the butt. ‘Take me to the women’s quarters.’

  Still hanging on to Qualms as if drunk, Kirby kept the pistol out of sight as they staggered up the steps.

  ‘You won’t make it,’ warned Qualms.

  ‘If I don’t neither will you.’

  ‘Who you come for?’

  They had reached a landing on the first story where a guard dressed in a greatcoat sat on duty and the man got up from his stool as the pair reached the top of the stairs.

  ‘What you got there, Sergeant?’ he asked.

  ‘Lookee, here,’ slurred Kirby. ‘Another sweetie. You fellas sure are nice to a body.’

  The guard sniffed disapprovingly, ‘One more damned drunk. You okay, sarge? You look a bit peeky.’

  Kirby lashed out with the revolver and the heavy weapon caught the man on the side of the skull below his forage cap and dropped him stunned to the floor. Kirby leaned over and hit him hard again before facing Qualms again with the pistol.

  ‘Women’s quarters,’ he said. ‘I want a Belle Slaughter and you’re going to call her out for me.’

  Qualms belligerently acquiesced and jerked his chin up a floor.

  ‘Try anything and I’ll nail you, that’s a promise,’ Kirby whispered meaningfully.

  ‘I believe it,’ admitted a glowering Qualms.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Kirby waved him on with the pistol.

  The next landing held another guard who was brooding over a clay pipe that seemed reluctant to light. His rifle was leaning against the corner of the landing out of reach.

  ‘Ah, Sergeant, thought I heard….’ He said, looking up as Qualms breasted the stair head. His jaw dropped as he saw the gun in Kirby’s hand and the pipe fell forgotten from his mouth.

  ‘What is this?’ he managed.

  ‘Open up, if you want to live to find out,’ Kirby ordered.

  The soldier fumbled with a set of keys, one eye on the unmoving gun barrel.

  ‘Hurry it up.’

  The heavy door creaked open and Kirby ushered the two men inside. The smell hit him as he followed. A hot fetid stink of massed unwashed bodies and used night-soil buckets that was oppressively repulsive despite the huge size of the once tobacco-leaf drying room.

  ‘Call her out,’ Kirby said.

  ‘Belle Slaughter!’ Qualms ordered. ‘Front and center.’

  A rush of whispered sound ran through the women lying sleeping on the plank floor. There was a fluttering of curious movement in the dim chamber, where Kirby could see the crammed bodies stretched out far away from him into the dark depths of the huge room.

  A lone figure got to her feet and despite the shadows Kirby recognized the glint of golden hair.

  ‘Belle,’ he called. ‘Get over here.’

  She came as fast as she could, stepping lightly over and around the prone forms.

  ‘Outside,’ said Kirby.

  ‘Thank the Lord you came Kirby,’ breathed Belle as she stepped through the door and onto the landing.

  Kirby put his hands into the back of each of th
e two soldiers and pushed them forward. ‘Ladies,’ he called. ‘These two will be keeping you company for a while. I sure hope you can entertain them in a righteous manner.’

  ‘Wait!’ pleaded Qualms fearfully, as dark shapes rose from the floor around him. ‘You can’t leave us here. Not with them,’ he begged.

  ‘We’ll take good care of him,’ a low female voice promised from the darkness. ‘Don’t you worry none on that score.’

  Kirby heard a whimper of despair from Qualms as he swung the door closed and locked it again. There was a sudden rush of sound, of screams and grunts coming dully from inside the room.

  ‘Glad I ain’t those two,’ said Kirby ruefully.

  ‘They deserve all they get,’ spat Belle.

  ‘Come on, quick and quiet.’

  Kirby led the way down, only stopping to get the long greatcoat and cap from the still stunned guard on the lower floor.

  ‘Here,’ he said to Belle. ‘Take the rifle and follow behind. Maybe in the dark you’ll pass muster as a guard.’

  They scurried down the stairs to the corridor below and Kirby paused, peering around the corner. The corridor was empty but a light showed coming from Meriwether’s office, where the door was open a crack and cast a beam across to the peeling paintwork on the corridor wall opposite.

  ‘Step out like you’re meant to be here,’ whispered Kirby. ‘If we’re bold enough maybe we can fool them.’

  ‘What about the guards outside in the street?’

  ‘It’s dark and late, might be they ain’t at their best just now.’

  ‘Take Meriwether instead,’ suggested Belle.

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘He runs this place, the one in the office there.’

  ‘Oh, that cold-faced bastard. I met him already, you reckon he’ll go for it?’

  ‘Here,’ said Belle breathlessly. ‘You take the cap and greatcoat. Don’t worry he’s got a thing for me.’

  ‘Now why am I not surprised?’ growled Kirby cynically.

  When Kirby stepped into the room, Meriwether raised his eyes from his bookwork with a sullen look. His Pit Bull was on its feet, its small pointed ears raised like horns and a low rumbling growl coming from deep in its black throat.