A Matter of Honor (Dusty Fog Civil War Book 6)

by J. T. Edson

  ‘That is true,’ the Englishman admitted, nodding approvingly. ‘Yet you have risked your life to save his and still would kill him in action should you meet again.’

  ‘Why sure,’ the small Texan agreed. ‘It makes a man think how futile war is.’

  In Conclusion

  Undoubtedly those of our readers who remember the work upon which this volume is an expansion will wonder why various changes in people and their involvement now appear, particularly where the final lines of the narrative are concerned. We can only assume the source from which we produced the original manuscript had heard that President Abraham Lincoln was involved, but lacked the true facts, and so employed imagination by implying he and Captain Dustine Edward Marsden ‘Dusty’ Fog carried out the conversation regarding the futility of war.

  Appendix One

  Wanting a son and learning his wife, Electra, could not have any more children, Vincent Charles Boyd had given his only daughter, Belle, xxix a thorough training in several subjects not normally regarded as being necessary for the upbringing of a wealthy Southron girl. At seventeen, she could ride—astride, or sidesaddle—as well as any of her male neighbors, men who were to help provide the Army of the Confederate States with its superlative cavalry. In addition, she was a skilled performer with an epee de combat or a saber, xxx an excellent shot with any kind of firearm and an expert at savate, the French form of fist and foot boxing. All of which accomplishments were soon to become very useful to her.

  Shortly before the commencement of the War Between the States, a mob of pro-Union fanatics stormed the Boyd plantation at Baton Royale. Before they were driven off by the ‘downtrodden and abused’ Negro servants of the family, they had murdered Belle’s parents and set fire to her home. She had been wounded in the fighting and, recovering, she joined her cousin, Rose Greenhow, who was operating a successful spy ring. xxxi Wanting to find the leaders of the mob, who had become members of the United States’ Secret Service, Belle had not been content to remain in one place. Instead, she had undertaken the dangerous task of delivering information gathered by other agents to the Confederate authorities. Soon she had graduated to even more hazardous and important assignments. Adding a facility at disguise, accents and lock picking to her accomplishments, she had gained such proficiency she had acquired the sobriquet, ‘the Rebel Spy’. On two occasions, she had worked with Captain Dustine Edward Marsden ‘Dusty’ Fog xxxii and another had brought her into contact with the Ysabel Kid and his father, ,Big Sam Ysabel for the first time. xxxiii However, she had not concluded her quest for revenge until shortly after the War ended. xxxiv

  While the ‘Yankees’ might have had good reason to hate the Rebel Spy when she was engaged in her duties against them during the hostilities, the majority had had no cause to feel other than gratitude towards her after peace had been reached by the meeting in the Appomattox Court House. xxxv On signing the oath of allegiance to the Union, she was enrolled in the U. S. Secret Service by its new controller, General Philo Handiman. Despite all the trouble she had given that organization throughout the War, she served it with loyalty and efficiency.

  Belle’s participation in thwarting a plot to assassinate President Ulysses Simpson Grant had prevented friction, possibly another outbreak of hostilities, between the Northern and Southern States. xxxvi Assisted by Martha ‘Calamity Jane’ Canary xxxvii and the lady outlaw, Belle Starr, xxxviii she had brought to an end the reign of terror created by a murderous gang of female outlaws. xxxix With the aid of General Jackson Baines ‘Ole Devil’ Hardin’s floating outfit, she had broken up the Brotherhood For Southron Freedom and had not allowed her former loyalty to the Confederate States to interfere with her actions. xl After helping to avert diplomatic complications with the Republic of Haiti in the same company, xli she had joined Captain Patrick ‘the Remittance Kid’ xlii Reeder of the British Secret Service and, first, Lieutenant Edward Ballinger of the Chicago Police Department xliii then, later, Calamity Jane, in wrecking two attempts by foreign anarchists to create hostility between the United States and Great—as it was then—Britain. xliv She had once more joined forces with Belle Starr and the Ysabel Kid when involved in the efforts of the international criminal Octavius Xavier ‘the Ox’ Guillemot to gain possession of James Bowie’s knife lost since the fall of the Alamo Mission in the Texas War of Independence. xlv She had also helped defeat a professional duelist who was seeking to prevent the ending of Reconstruction in Texas xlvi and, aided by Britain’s premier female criminal, Amelia Penelope Diana ‘Benkers’ Benkinsop, xlvii finished the career of a renegade arms’s salesman. xlviii

  Appendix Two

  Following his enrolment in the Army of the Confederate States, xlix Dustine Edward Marsden ‘Dusty’ Fog had won promotion in the field to captain by the time he reached his seventeenth birthday and was put in command of Company ‘C’, Texas Light Cavalry. l Leading them throughout the campaign in Arkansas, he had earned the reputation of being an exceptionally able military raider and a worthy, if junior, contemporary of the South’s other leading exponents of what eventually became known as ‘commando’ tactics, li Turner Ashby and John Singleton ‘the Grey Ghost’ Mosby. lii In addition to preventing a pair of pro-Union fanatics from starting an Indian up-rising which would have decimated much of Texas, liii he supported Belle ‘the Rebel Spy’ Boyd, q.v., on two of her most dangerous assignments. liv

  At the conclusion of the War Between the States, Dusty became segundo of the great OD Connected ranch in Rio Hondo County, Texas. Its owner and his paternal uncle, General Jackson Baines ‘Ole Devil’ Hardin, C. S. A., had been crippled in a riding accident, lv placing much added responsibility upon his young shoulders. This included handling an important mission upon which the future relations between the United States of America and Mexico hung in the balance. lvi While doing so, he was helped by the two men who became his best friends and leading lights in the ranch’s floating outfit, lvii Mark Counter and the Ysabel Kid. lviii Aided by them, he had helped gather horses to replenish the OD Connected’s war-reduced remuda, lix then was sent to assist Colonel Charles Goodnight lx on the trail drive to Fort Sumner, New Mexico, lxi which had done much to help the Lone Star State recover from the impoverished conditions left by its support of the Confederate cause. With that accomplished, he was equally successful in helping Goodnight convince other ranchers it would be possible to drive large herds of half wild longhorn cattle to the markets offered by the railroad passing through Kansas. lxii

  Having proven himself a first class cowhand, Dusty went on to become acknowledged as a very competent trail boss, lxiii a roundup captain lxiv and a town taming peace officer. lxv Competing in the revolver handling competition at the first Cochise County Fair, he won the title, ‘The Fastest Gun In The West’, by beating a number of well known exponents of rapid gun handling and accurate shooting. lxvi In later years, following his marriage to Lady Winifred Amelia ‘Freddie Woods’ Bes-grove-Woodstole, lxvii he became a noted diplomat.

  Dusty never found his lack of stature an impediment to his achievements. In addition to being naturally strong, lxviii he had taught himself to be completely ambidextrous. lxix Possessing perfectly attuned reflexes, he could draw either, or both, his Colts—no matter whether the 1860 Army Model, lxx or their improved successors, the 1873 Single Action Army Model lxxi —with lightning speed and shoot very accurately. Ole Devil’s ‘valet’, Tommy Okasi, lxxii was Japanese and a trained samaurai. lxxiii From him, along with the General’s ‘granddaughter’, Elizabeth ‘Betty’ Hardin, lxxiv the small Texan had been taught ju jitsu and karate. Neither form of unarmed combat had received the publicity they would be given in later years and were little known in the Western Hemisphere at that time. lxxv Therefore, Dusty found the knowledge a very useful surprise factor when he had to fight bare handed against larger, heavier and stronger men.

  Appendix Three

  Throughout the years we have been writing, we have frequently received letters asking for various Weste
rn terms, or incidents to which we refer, to be explained in greater detail. While we do not have the slightest objection to receiving such mail, we have found it saves us much time consuming repetition to include those most often requested in each volume. While our ‘old hands’ have seen them before, there are always ‘new chums’ coming along who have not.

  Although Americans in general use the word, ‘cinch’, from the Spanish, 'cincha’ for the short band made from coarsely woven horsehair, canvas, or cordage, and terminated at each end with a metal ring which—together with the ‘latigo’—is used to fasten the saddle on the back of a horse, because of its Mexican connotations, Texans employ the term ‘girth’, generally pronouncing it, ‘girt’. As cowhands of the Lone Star State fastened the end of the lariat to the saddlehorn when roping the half wild longhorn cattle, or range horses, instead of using a ‘dally’ which could be slipped free hurriedly in an emergency, their rigs had two girths for added security.

  ‘Light a shuck’; cowhands’ expression for leaving hurriedly. It derives from the habit in the night camps of trail drives and roundups on the open range of supplying ‘shucks’—dried corn cobs—to be lit and used for illumination by anybody who had to leave the campfire and walk in the darkness. As the ‘shuck’ burned away very quickly, a person had to move fast if wanting to benefit from its light.

  ‘Make wolf bait’, one term meaning, ‘to kill’. It derived from the practice in the Old West, when a range was infested by predators—not necessarily wolves only—of slaughtering an animal and, poisoning the carcass, leaving it to be devoured.

  We strongly suspect that the trend in film and television Westerns made since the early 1960s to portray all cowhands as long haired, heavily bearded and filthy stems less from the desire of the production companies to create ‘realism’ than because there were so few actors—particularly to play supporting roles—who were clean shaven and short haired and because the ‘liberal’ elements who began to gain control, of the entertainment media appear to have an obsession for showing dirty conditions, habits and appearances. In our extensive reference library we cannot find a dozen photographs of actual cowhands—as opposed to Army scouts, mountain men, or old time gold prospectors—with long hair and bushy beards. In fact, our reading on the subject has led us to assume the term ‘long hair’ was one of opprobrium in the Old West and Prohibition eras as it still is in cattle country today.

  The sharp toes and high heels of the boots worn by cowhands were purely functional. The former could enter, or be slipped free from a stirrup iron very quickly in an emergency. Not only did the latter offer a firmer grip in the stirrups, they could be spiked into the ground to supply extra holding power when roping on foot.

  ‘Gone to Texas’; at odds with the law, usually in the United States of America at the time the saying came into being. Many fugitives from justice and wanted men entered Texas during the colonization period—which had commenced during the early 1820s due to the Government of Mexico offering land to ‘Anglos’ so they would act as a ‘buffer state’ against the marauding Comanche Indians—and continued until annexation as a State of the Union on February 16, 1846. Until the latter became a fact, such miscreants had known there was little danger of being arrested and extradited by the local authorities. In fact, like Kenya from the 1920s until the outbreak of World War II, in spite of the great number of honest, law-abiding and hard working folks who genuinely wished to make their homes there, Texas in the days before independence was attained from Mexican domination gained a reputation for being, ‘a place in the sun for shady people.’

  ‘Give it up to the Green River’: another term meaning to kill, generally with some form of edged weapon. First produced on the Green River, at Green Field, Massachusetts in 1834, a very popular kind of knife had the following inscription on the blade just below the hilt, ‘J. Russell & Co.’ Green River Works’. Any knife thrust into an enemy ‘up to the Green River’— whether it bore the inscription or not—would almost certainly inflict a fatal wound.

  In 1872, an international committee sitting in judgment on what became known as the ‘Alabama’ Arbitration Tribunal, over protests leveled by the United States of America at the conduct of Great Britain during the War Between the States, had ruled in favor of the complainants. For allowing naval vessels of the Confederate States such as the cruisers Alabama, Florida and Shenandoah not only to be built in, but operate from its ports—and being involved in blockade running and other activities deemed equally detrimental to the cause of the Union—the Government of Great Britain was ordered to pay restitution to the sum of £15,500,000. As is told in BEGU1NAGE, BEGUINAGE IS DEAD!, THE REMITTANCE KID and THE WHIP AND THE WAR LANCE, the United States’ Congress trod warily where British interests were concerned after the award was made to avoid any chance of a similar action being instituted against them.

  ‘Mason-Dixon’ line, also called erroneously, the ‘Mason-Dixie’ line. The boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland, as surveyed in 1763-67 by the Englishmen, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, which came to be regarded as the dividing line separating the Southern ‘Slave’ and Northern ‘Free’ States of America.

  ‘New England’: the North-East section of the United States, including Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, Connecticut and Rhode Island, which was first settled primarily by people from the British Isles.

  Dusty Fog’s Civil War by J. T. Edson

  Mississippi Raider

  You’re In Command Now, Mr. Fog

  The Big Gun

  Under the Stars and Bars

  The Fastest Gun in Texas

  A Matter of Honor

  … and more to come!

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  i The attack took place on April 14, 1861, Fort Sumter being in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina.

  ii What happened when a parole was given, accepted and broken is described in: Part Two, ‘A Convention Of War’, UNDER THE STARS AND BARS.

  iii An example of an early form of machine gun is given in: THE DEVIL GUN.

  iv An incident involving the use of an observation balloon is described in: THE BIG GUN.

  v The exception was the Hunley of the Confederate States’ Navy. Although its motive power was supplied by eight men who operated cranks to turn the propeller, the vessel was a genuine submarine capable of moving beneath the surface. After serious ‘teething’ troubles, during which members of the crew lost their lives, the Hunley rammed and sank the Federal corvette, Housatanic, which was blockading the harbor at Charleston on February 17, 1864.

  vi An example of one way in which ‘ torpedoes’ could be used and the types involved is given in: THE BLOODY BORDER.

  vii See: Paragraph Two, Author’s Note.

  viii ‘Sucker State jury-fixer’: derogatory names for respectively Illinois and a lawyer, particularly—although this did not apply in the case of Abraham Lincoln—one who was willing to employ dishonest tactics on behalf of his clients.

  ix What happened when Horace Trumpeter, promoted to Brigadier General, was sent upon active service in a fighting zone is told in KILL DUSTY FOG!

  x Information regarding two later graduates of the college who belonged to the sorority can be found in WACO’S BADGE and HOUND DOG MAN.

  xi Information regarding others with a similar bizarre taste in entertainment is given in: OLD MOCCASINS ON THE TRAIL; CALAMITY, MARK AND BELLE; Part Five, ‘The Butcher’s Fiery End’, J. T.’S LADIES; TERROR VALLEY; RAPIDO CLINT; ‘CAP’ FOG, TEXAS RANGER, MEET MR. J. G. REEDER; THE SHERIFF OF ROCKABYE COUNTY and BAD HOMBRE.

  xii Told in: THE BIG GUN.

  xiii Details of the family background and special qualifications of Belle ‘the Rebel
Spy’ Boyd are given in: APPENDIX ONE.

  xiv Details of the family background and special qualifications of Captain Dustine Edward Marsden ‘Dusty’ Fog are given in: APPENDIX TWO.

  xv Further information regarding the sometimes contradictory character and exploits of First Lieutenant Charles William Henry ‘Red’ Blaze can be found in various volumes of the Civil War and Floating Outfit series. J. T. E.

  xvi When intended to fulfill military contracts, Colt 1860 Army Model revolvers had barrels eight inches in length.

  xvii An example of just how dangerous failure to take such precautions could prove is given in: THE FAST GUN.

  xviii ‘Copperhead’: derogatory name for a Southron serving on the Union side.

  xix The injury ended the participation of Belle ‘the Rebel Spy’ Boyd in the affairs of Brigadier General Moses. J. Buller. However, as word still had not reached Washington, District of Columbia, about the outcome of the assignment, by the time she recovered, she went to Arkansas with the results recorded in: THE COLT AND THE SABER and THE REBEL SPY.