by Ed Gorman
Since Stewart was dead, Wright did not, in his article, call him a spy, though he was no less.
The money was never retrieved.
NOTE: Colonel McDermit’s grandson, Charles, passed along a variety of papers and letters to one Alice Addenbrooke. From there they fell into the hands of Philip Dodd Smith, Jr. who wrote a defining paper about Nevada’s Volunteers in the Civil War. The paper, titled
The Sagebrush Soldiers, was published by the Nevada Historical Society as part of their Civil War Centennial.
FACT: Colonel McDermit was one of 1,080 mostly forgotten men who, for two years, comprised the Nevada Volunteers.
FACT: Twenty-five thousand dollars designated by the Senate for Indian rehabilitation in Nevada reached its destination and disappeared.
Doug Allyn is an accomplished author whose short fiction regularly graces year’s best collections. His work has appeared in Once upon a Crime, Cat Crimes Through Time, and The Year’s 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories, volumes 3 and 4. His stories of Tallifer, the wandering minstrel, have appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and Murder Most Scottish. His story “The Dancing Bear,” a Tallifer tale, won the Edgar award for short fiction for 1995. His other series character is veterinarian Dr. David Westbrook, whose exploits have recently been collected in the anthology All Creatures Dark and Dangerous. He lives with his wife in Montrose, Michigan.
In the following story, he delves not only into American history, but his own family tree, basing the events here on the exploits of his great-uncle Riley Radford, who hid his own herd of horses from both sides during the war.
THE TURNCOAT
Doug Allyn
Gus sensed it before he heard it, something moving outside the ring of firelight, coming closer in the dark. He could feel it between his shoulder blades, sharp as a nudge from a spike bayonet. A ghost walking on his grave?
No. The horses sensed it, too, shifting uneasily in their brush corral at the base of the ridge, raising their heads, tasting the wind. Someone was circling the camp. Definitely. Gus hadn’t survived three years in these mountains by ignoring his instincts.
His battered Remington-Jenks carbine was in a rock cleft with his bedroll but the primer tape was so old the gun only fired half the time. And if the intruder meant to harm him, he’d probably be dead already. Best to wait him out and—A twig snapped in the shadows.
Gus rose slowly, keeping his hands in sight. “Come on in,” he said quietly. “I’ve got no weapon and nothin’ worth stealin’ but I got stew—”
“Shut your mouth. You alone?”
“My son’s up in the ridges, hunting. He’ll be back in a while.”
“Yeah? When did he leave?”
“I don’t know, around noon, I guess.”
“You’re lyin’, old man. I been watching you since morning. Nobody’s come or gone.” The boy stepped out of the shadows. Tall and gawky, he hadn’t seen twenty yet, but his weapon was man-sized, a Colt horse pistol, the hammer eared back, muzzle centered on Gus’s belly.
His ragged uniform jacket was so grimy and faded it was hard to tell its original color. Union artillery blue? Or Arkansas gray? Didn’t matter which side he was on anyway; the boy’d obviously been on the dodge awhile. Face dirty, scraggly beard, cheeks hollow from hunger.
“My name’s Gus McKee, son. I give you my word you got nothin’ to fear from me. I’m hidin’ in these mountains waitin’ out the fight the same as you.”
“You a soldier?” The boy’s eyes flicked around the campsite, edgy as a cat on a cookstove.
“Was once,” Gus acknowledged. “Went down to Mexico with Winfield Scott in ’46. Killed folks I didn’t know in a place I never heard of. Still carry a musket ball in my hip from it. I want no part of this fight.”
“If you ain’t a deserter, why you hidin’ out up here?”
“The wife and I got a little stock ranch west of Reynolds. Raise mostly draft animals, a few saddlebreds. But southern Missouri’s sorry country for breedin’ horses nowadays. Lyon and his Hessians raided my place on their way to Springfield in ’61—”
“‘Hessians’?”
“Germans,” Gus explained. “Immigrants just off the boat, all Union. Folks ’round here call ’em Hessians, like them mercenaries the Brits used in the Revolution. Anyways, after Lyon got killed at Wilson’s Creek both sides started raidin’ our stock, burnin’ crops. Between the so’jer boys and runaway slaves headed north we’re about picked clean. I brung the last of our animals up into these hills so’s my boys have somethin’ to come home to when it’s over.”
“You got boys in the fight? Which side?”
“Both.” Gus shrugged. “Oldest run away to sea in ’57, stayed with the Union navy when war broke out. Last I heard, he was on the Hartford, off Mobile Bay. Second-oldest is with Bedford Forest, two younger boys went off with General Price in ’62.”
“And which do you favor, Mr. McKee?”
“I favor stayin’ alive in a troubled time, same as you. Can I put my hands down? Coffee’s ’bout to boil over and it’s hard to come by out here. Care for some?”
“I’d appreciate it,” the boy said, slowly lowering his pistol as Gus knelt to retrieve the pot from the coals. Pouring two cups of scalding brew, Gus passed one to the youth.
“I didn’t catch your name, boy.”
“It’s Mitchell, Elias Mitchell. I apologize for comin’ down on you like this. I been on the run.”
“You’re Federal.” It wasn’t a question.
Eli nodded, sipping the coffee. “How’d you know?”
“You never heard of Hessians for one thing. Where you from?”
“Illinois. My folks got a farm near Cairo. I enlisted for a year but my unit got busted up after Perryville and my new outfit drafted us for the duration. I served more’n three years, seen a lot of action. Then I got a letter that said my folks are farm’ poorly. I’ve had enough. I joined up to save the Union and free the slaves but we mostly been burnin’ farms and villages, leavin’ folks to starve. Couldn’t do it no more. Lit out from Vicksburg last month, workin’ my way home.”
“You’re still a ways from Illinois.”
“Not as fur as I was. Had a horse for a while but she went lame on me, had to turn her loose.”
“Near here?” Gus asked sharply, suddenly wary.
“No, down in Arkansas, two weeks back. Why?”
“These hills may look empty but they ain’t. Union patrols are out, foraging, huntin’ deserters from both sides. Got a bounty on Union boys, twenty dollars a head.”
“Hell, that’s more’n we been gettin’ paid!”
“Worse than that, it’s dead or alive and they ain’t fussy about which.”
“Man, that’s crazy,” Eli said, shaking his head. “You’re doin’ the proper thing stayin’ up here, Mr. McKee. There ain’t no right side in this fight no more. If there ever was.”
“Maybe not You got any money, boy?”
“Money? No sir. A few Dixie singles for souvenirs, is all. I’m afraid I can’t pay you for the coffee. Sorry.”
“So am I, especially since I was hopin’ to sell you a horse. Is your word any good?”
“Yes sir, I believe it is,” Eli said, puzzled. “Why?”
“Because I’m going to loan you a horse, young Mitchell. But I want your word I’ll get my animal back when this is over.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Boy, I been shiftin’ my little herd around these hills, dodgin’ Union and Reb patrols, jayhawkers and outlaws for three years now. But I know every foot of these mountains. You don’t. You try walkin’ home through the Ozarks, you’ll be taken sure as God made green apples. Maybe they’ll even track you back to me. Way I see it, the sooner you’re long gone from here, the better for both of us. With a horse and some luck you can be home in a week.”
“You’re taking a hell of a gamble for somebody you hardly know, Mr. McKee. To be honest, I staked you out because I planned to steal a h
orse. At gunpoint if I had to.”
“Is that a fact? More coffee?”
“I’m serious.”
“Maybe. But you didn’t backshoot me or try to rustle my stock and nowadays that’ll pass for righteous. Drink your coffee, boy, have some stew. Come moonrise I’ll put you on a jayhawk trail. You can cover eight, ten miles yet tonight.”
“I—surely do thank you, Mr. McKee. But it ain’t quite that simple.”
“No? Why not?”
“Last few days, I been layin’ up with a wounded Reb at a spring few miles south. I told him I’d fetch help.”
“A creek with cedars around it, end of a long valley?”
“You know it?”
“I know every waterhole for sixty miles around, boy. But I ain’t the only one. Yanks scout that valley regular.”
“I didn’t see any.”
“You was lucky. How long’s he been there?”
“I don’t know. A few days. He’s hurt bad. Gutshot.”
“A local boy?” Gus asked, swallowing.
“No sir, he’s from Arkansas. From what he said, I believe he was a lieutenant with General Price. He’s ravin’, half out of his head. He won’t last long without help.”
“Gutshot, he won’t last long, period. Your home’s the other direction, Mr. Mitchell. Goin’ back will only buy trouble for yourself, maybe for him, too.”
“But I promised.”
“You can’t be held to that. There’s a war on, for God’s sake. He’s probably dead already. Tell you what, I’ll try to look in on him in a day or two. Will that do?”
“I—guess it will have to. Thank you.”
“No need. Bein’ a damn fool comes natural to me. Here, have some stew.” Dumping a steaming mix of rabbit, wild corn, and a yam onto a metal plate, Gus passed it to Eli. “I don’t get much news up here, can you fill me in?”
“Don’t know much myself,” Eli mumbled around a mouthful. “Nobody tells the infantry nothin’, but from what I’ve seen it’s almost over.”
“Been hearin’ that since ’61.”
“It’s true. Atlanta’s fallen, Sherman’s marchin’ to Savannah burnin’ everything for sixty miles around. Richmond’s surrounded. Hood’s still loose, though, headed for Nashville, they say.”
“And General Price?”
“He got whipped bad at Westport in the fall, fell back into Arkansas. I hear his men are havin’ bard times, eatin’ their horses, livin’ on grass themselves. Sorry, you said your sons…?”
“Two of ’em are with Price,” Gus spat. “Damned nonsense. I never owned a slave in my life, don’t hold with it. But after them Yanks hit us, there was no keepin’ my boys back. Went off to fight for the Cause.”
“For slavery?”
“For independence, by our lights. To live free without Yanks or Hessians runnin’ off our stock. The only slaves I’ve seen since the Emancipation were runaways grubbin’ for food in my fields like animals. Think they’re better off than before?”
“Sir, near as I can tell, this war ain’t made anybody better off, Negro or white. The slaves we freed had nowhere to go, no food, no land. Like I said, there’s no right side to it. I just want to go home.”
“I know the feelin’,” Gus agreed, “Know it well.”
Later, in the moonlight, Gus saddled his own mare with one of his working rigs, Elias Mitchell climbed aboard and Gus sent him north along an old jayhawk trace. Watching the boy move off into the shadows, he felt surprisingly content, considering he’d just given away an animal he’d raised from a colt. The damned war was turning the whole world upside down.
But Gus woke uneasy at first light with a nagging sense of something amiss. Huddled in his blanket beside the dying campfire, he tried to put his finger on it.
Was it something about Mitchell? Something he’d said or done? Didn’t seem likely. He’d given the deserter his mare freely. What else could he do? Kill the boy? Drive him off? He had no regrets about his decision.
True, he scarcely knew the boy, but Gus was a stockman who could rank a horse at forty paces and a fair judge of people as well. Young Eli Mitchell struck him as an honest man. He’d promised to return the mare later on and Gus believed he would try to do so.…
And that was the rub. Eli would return the mare because he was honest and he’d given Gus his word. But he’d also promised to help a wounded Reb lieutenant. And now he had a fresh horse and some food … Damn it!
Cursing his own stupidity, Gus rolled out of his blankets, fetched his rifle from the cache and headed off down the trail at a trot. The mare’s tracks were easy to follow in the morning dew. The boy had ridden north just long enough to get out of Gus’s sight, then he’d turned south, working his way back to the spring and his wounded friend.
But Gus knew the hills far better. Leaving the trail, he trotted uphill through the aspens at a mile-eating lope. A horse couldn’t go directly over the mountain crest but a man could, and it would cut the journey in half. With luck, he’d make the waterhole by noon.
But Gus was running short on luck. And Eli Mitchell’s was gone altogether.
As he crested the ridge overlooking the valley, Gus heard a shout, then the thunder of hooves. Threading the mare through the trees at the edge of the valley, Eli Mitchell had been sported by a Union patrol. Though he was clearly trapped, Eli never hesitated. Wheeling his mount, he raced down the valley toward the mouth. The patrol fanned out to intercept him, cutting him off easily, encircling him before he’d covered half a mile.
Dropping to his belly on the ridge, Gus fumbled in his pouch for the brass-cased Mexican field glass, his only trophy from the war. Snapping it open, he hastily homed in on the meadow below, bringing it into focus. It was already over. The Union patrol had Eli surrounded, the boy with his hands in the air as the troopers closed in, weapons at the ready.
Gus was too far away to make out faces clearly. Didn’t recognize the officer in charge—a captain, tall, gaunt, with a Vandyke goatee, a cape, and a French-style kepi forage cap. The troopers? Militia, judging from their mismatched uniforms. Probably Hessians from Saint Lou or Jefferson City. But their civilian scout …
Damn! Gus recognized the slouch hat and stooped shoulders even before he zeroed in on the scout’s face. Aaron Meachum, a jayhawker renegade who’d been raiding and murdering in Kansas years before the war came, camouflaging his thievery with a smokescreen of abolitionist bushwa. As a Hessian sergeant questioned Eli, Meachum casually circled his mount around behind the boy, looking his mare over.
Would he recognize the animal? Gus searched his memory, trying to recall if Meachum had ever seen the mare. Once, maybe, at the Reynolds County Fair. Meachum had tried to goad Gus’s younger son into a fight, backing off when Gus stepped in. Meachum might have seen the horse then, but that was before the war and—
With a single, fluid motion Meachum drew his pistol and shot Eli in the head! His hands still raised, the boy collapsed like a broken puppet, toppling from the saddle to the grass of the valley floor.
“No!” Gus was on his feet, stunned, staring. But too far away to be heard. The other troopers seemed just as surprised. Red-faced, the sergeant was yelling at Meachum, his voice carrying across the valley. Ignoring him, the jayhawker scout dismounted and ran his hands over Eli’s horse, stepping across the boy’s body without so much as a downward glance.
Satisfied, Meachum unsaddled Eli’s mare, tossed the battered work saddle aside, then transferred his own McClellan rig to the mare’s back, kicking the wind out of her belly as he yanked the cinch taut.
The troopers watched in silence as Meachum swung into the saddle, then the sergeant muttered something and men dismounted, hoisted Eli’s body across the back of Meachum’s horse and tied him on. Meachum said something to them, a joke apparently since Gus could read his grin clear across the meadow. None of the others smiled.
Wheeling his horse, the captain led the troop out of the valley by twos with Eli’s body bouncing like a saddlebag o
n the last horse. Gus stayed crouched, watching them vanish into the distance, then waited another hour to be sure they were gone.
And only then did he begin working his way across the ridge crest toward the spring Eli had described, the one he’d led the patrol away from before they rode him down.
* * *
Gus wanted the lieutenant to be dead. It would be simpler. He could get back to his camp to think, clear his head of the vision of Eli, falling with his hands still raised.…
He heard a soft click. A pistol hammer being eared back.
“Stop where you are. Raise…” The voice faded away,
Gus froze. “Lieutenant? My name’s McKee. Elias Mitchell sent me to you.” No answer, only a muffled cough. Gus could see him now, half concealed in a copse of cedars beside the brook that trickled into the basin. An officer, all right, cadet gray tunic, gilt buttons, yellow cavalry stripe on his trousers. And an army Colt in his fist.
But the gun wasn’t aimed directly at Gus. Only in his general direction. And even at that distance Gus caught the sour stench of a suppurating belly wound. Mortification. Gangrene.
Kneeling beside him, Gus gently took the gun from his hand. Doubted the Reb even knew it. The lieutenant’s eyes were open but he was gazing into some impossible distance, his face ashen, blood bubbling in the corners of his mouth, his lips red as rouge.
After a time he seemed to drift back, staring up at Gus, faintly puzzled.
“I’m sorry,” he said, licking his lips. “I was with my mother … do I know you?”
“No, Lieutenant. My name’s McKee. Elias Mitchell sent me.”
“Who?”
“Elias Mitchell. A boy who stayed with you a few days back?”
“Mitchell, yes. The Yankee. Is he all right?”
“He’s … fine. He’s gone home. To his people.”
“I’m glad. He was kind to me.…” He swallowed. “I haven’t much time, sir. I am Lieutenant James Oliver Neeland, of the First Arkansas. I have family on the White River Valley. Could you write to my father, tell him what happened? Jason Neeland, general delivery, Clarendon.”
