Daughter of the Sword (54 page)

Six men.

Esther and Billy.

She hoped that if she and Judith were caught, they'd be killed before the raiders learned they were women. “We'd better leave the horses here,” she said softly. “They might whinny. But let's tie them loose enough so that they can get away if we don't come back.”

“You think of everythin'!” grunted Judith unappreciatively.

They tethered the horses and continued toward the light. Soon they could hear voices and could presently see that the raiders had camped among some trees, with their hobbled horses straying about.

Taking off their moccasins, Judith and Deborah worked up behind a thicket. One of the men, a black-bearded skinny fellow, held the white nightgown up to him and did a little shuffle.

“Guess I'll be tuckin' in, gentlemen.”

Another laughed coarsely. “You ain't got the right form for it, Jim. Maybe we shoulda kept that little gal for a while. She had putty yella hair.”

“She'd only been trouble, weepin' and wailin',” a huge blond man said and yawned, stretching. “We got our use outa her.”

“You shouldn't of killed that kid,” said Jim tossing the gown in the fire, where it smoldered, then burst into flames.

“Hell, I didn't mean to,” growled the big blond man. “But he bit my hand and I jerked him harder'n I intended.”

Jim retired to his bedding. So did the others, first stepping off into the bushes to relieve themselves. One came within a few feet of the two women, who scarcely breathed till he went, back to the fire.

Deborah watched where each man lay down. She was glad that none were close together, and several went off among the trees. The large yellow-haired man kicked dirt over the fire and spread his blankets where the sullenly glowing coals outlined his bulky figure.

Almost at once, snoring came from several directions. They'd been drinking and should sleep heavily. Deborah was glad there were no boys in the gang. She was just afraid there'd be noise and that she and Judith would be stopped before they finished.

Getting the two men in the trees might crack twigs. They could be last. Minutes crawled. Several men shifted positions. The snoring was heavier.

Were they all asleep? An hour must have passed. Embers cast a dim glow, both a blessing and a curse. It would make it easier not to trip into someone, but if a sleeper awakened and saw them …

Judith touched her questioningly. Deborah pressed her hand and gave it a slight tug, unsheathing her Bowie, pointing her toward the nearest man while she moved stealthily toward the next.

He was snoring, arms flung back, mouth open. Deborah raised the Bowie as she bent low. It had a razor-sharp edge. On the whole, the light of the coals was fortunate; she could never do it fast enough in the dark to prevent an alarm.

He's asleep,
she thought,
asleep, and he'll never wake up.
Then she thought of Esther and thrust the blade down and across.

Gurglings, thrashing feet. But as the women moved around the circle, no one stirred. It didn't seem real. After the second man, Deborah had to wipe her knife's bloody handle so it wouldn't slip in her fingers.

Judith had finished one. That left two in the trees and the big man near the fire. Judith started for the ones beyond the circle. Deborah moved toward the dull sheen of yellow hair.

He was lying face down, arms cradling his head. His throat was somewhat protected. He was a bull of a man. If he weren't killed at once, he could be a problem.

Blankets made it hard to aim for his side and carve forward. She drew a slow, silent breath and sent the blade into the side of his neck, thrusting forward. He grappled upward, choking, one arm knocking her sideways, though she lunged up with all her strength.

He collapsed on her, blood pumping as his arms and legs writhed. As she struggled free, gasping, there was a muffled sound in the trees.

“What—” a man yelled.

Deborah ran forward. Judith was battling one prostrate man. The other had jumped up and held a knife. Deborah remembered Johnny's teaching in her muscles and bones. She waited for the man's attack, then turned it with the brass guard. He slashed wildly, baring his middle. Deborah thrust in and yanked the blade down and to the side. He shrieked, clutching at his belly, and took a step toward her before he fell.

“Mine's done, too,” panted Judith, getting to her feet. They leaned upon each other for a moment, shuddering. “My God, Deborah! We done a terrible thing!”

“Yes. But could we let them go?”

There was no way to really bury the men, but the women dragged their bodies to a slight defile and covered them with leaves, limbs, dirt, and the bloodiest blankets.

Need in the country was too great to shrink from using what belonged to the dead raiders. Quickly bundling up clothing and weapons in usable blankets, the women unhobbled the horses, selected the best two for leading, saddled and loaded them, and let the others go. Recovering their own mounts, they rode back the way they'd come, leading the extra horses.

Sara had kept the fire going. It guided them in. They were too spent, too isolated with the horror of what they had done, to talk beyond bare facts. Sara helped them unsaddle and hobble the horses and spread out their bedding.

Esther slept with Billy. Their bright hair reminded Deborah of that of the big man. He wouldn't see the sun in the morning.

Nor would Billy. And would Esther ever be more than a trembling husk? Sara put out the fire and they all lay down. But as exhausted as she was, Deborah could, for a long time, sink no deeper than thin nightmare skimmings of sleep.

She had killed. She would do it again, under the same circumstances, yet she felt covered with blood, indelibly branded.

Was this the kind of thing Dane had feared for her, why he'd wanted to take her away? She wept but found no ease in it. She couldn't say she'd kill no more. This was the bitter cup of her time and place. How could she beg to be spared from it?

Dawn was graying when she finally slept, and she awoke at a cry from Sara.

“Esther! She's gone!”

Scrambling up, they looked about the camp but found no sign of the woman or child. “Maybe she went back to the cabin to see if anything was left,” Sara suggested,

They dressed hurriedly and almost ran the half-mile down the valley. Esther lay at the door of her charred home with Billy in her arms. They lay in blood that had streamed from her wrists, hacked by a butcher knife that lay beside them.

Sometime in the early morning she had crept here and made sure she wouldn't be separated from her child.

The friends buried them beneath an oak and made rough markers carved with their Bowies. If the father and husband came home, he might never know what had happened to his family, but that was probably best.

This was not a place where Deborah meant to send anyone.

xxiii

By silent agreement they turned toward home, leading the extra horses, which they left at farms where they were most needed, along with weapons and blankets.

“Let's keep three of the rifles,” Sara urged. “I can teach you to shoot, and if we're going to make more trips like this, we'd better have them.”

Trips like this?

Deborah shuddered. But Sara was right. Each kept one of the new Spencers, which had probably been “liberated” from Union regulars. Maccabee whistled when he saw them.

“That's the kind you load on Sunday and shoot all week!” He grinned, examining the tubular magazine in the butt stock that held seven of the plump, copper-cased cartridges, while another could go in the chamber. “Mi-i-ighty nice!”

That wasn't how Deborah felt about it. Though she learned to shoot competently, she hated the roar. Still, it was reassuring to have the Spencers thrust in saddle scabbards when they journeyed toward the border.

Before the first freeze the women had found places for dozens of refugees and helped a number of households combine to mutual benefit. Several times, with their rifles, they ran off scavenging guerrillas who had no taste for real fighting.

They also collected women and children who'd been burned out by raiders and found places for them to live, but never again did they come upon a raped woman or murdered child.

Generally, Southern guerrillas professed a code of chivalry and prided themselves on sparing women, though boys past childhood and old men were fair game. Nor did they worry about how the women and children would live without the food and livestock robbed, from them.

During September Lexington had fallen to Price, while Lane, instead of aiding that beleaguered command, had burned Osceola, court-martialed and shot nine citizens, and captured tons of lead, kegs of powder, cartridge paper, camp equipment, and food intended for the Confederates.

In addition to military supplies, Lane plundered four hundred head of cattle, three hundred fifty horses and mules, and freed two hundred slaves. He also stole an expensive carriage, which he sent to his home in Lawrence. Three hundred of Lane's Brigade got so drunk on looted brandy that they had to be hauled out of town in wagons.

Reprimanded by his superiors for looting, Lane scolded his men for their worst excesses, but he insisted that his method was the only way to protect the border, and he began calling on President Lincoln to create a Department of Kansas and put him in command.

Union forces pursued Price and won a battle at Spring-field “on the anniversary of the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava, October 25,” wrote Dane sardonically. “We can take Price if we thrust south now, but General Hunter, replacing Frémont, has ordered us to retreat.”

With the Union forces went refugees who'd been burned out by the Confederates. Hundreds of slaves joined Lane's Brigade and added to the destitute pouring into Kansas. At the end of November, Lane went back to Washington for the opening of Congress and renewed his pleas to be given command of an army with which to scourge Confederates in Missouri, Arkansas, and Indian Territory. Lincoln created this department in mid-November, but reports of Lane's brigandage led the President to make General David Hunter the commander. In a tantrum, Lane abandoned his military career and resumed his seat in the Senate.

In January of 1862, General Ulysses Grant moved, along with a gunboat flotilla, against Confederate garrisons on the Mississippi, Cumberland, and Tennessee rivers. That winter and spring, Kansas men were in the fierce battles that raged through Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi, culminating at Shiloh in April.

Later that month, Flag Officer Farragut bombarded New Orleans, which was then occupied by General Benjamin Butler, who'd later be known as “Beast” because of his treatment of Southern women sympathizers. It was Butler who declared blacks “contraband of war” and let them work on fortifications and otherwise aid the Union.

In March, the Confederate ironclad,
Virginia,
formerly the
Merrimac,
battled the Union ironclad
Monitor
for five hours, the first battle between those armored crafts. The
Virginia
had to go to Norfolk for repairs, and when that town fell early in May, Confederates burned the ironclad to keep it from being captured by the Union.

As Federals and Confederates skirmished in Missouri through that bitter winter, guerrillas terrorized the border. By spring Quantrill's name was being coupled with that of Charlie Slaughter.

Handsome, English, deadly with gun or Bowie.

Deborah's heart skipped a beat when she heard about it, then hammered till the pound of blood in her ears brought on a violent headache. It must, be Rolf. The scent of blood had drawn him back.

She watched for him on her relief missions to the border, but though several times the three women forted up at threatened farms and drove off guerrillas, she saw none with that raw gold hair.

Refugee Indians from the Indian Nations added to the flow of homeless, despairing people seeking help in Kansas. Friedental built a large house and sheltered and fed blacks, Indians, and whites dispossessed till they could be squeezed in somewhere else. And all the time crops had to be planted till the harvest.

Lane finally persuaded Lincoln to let him recruit Negro troops, and by mid-August, Maccabee and Rebe had joined the Zouaves d'Afrique. Each smith's striker would now advance to smith, choosing for his striker the best of several men and boys who had been helping at the forges.

Laddie, thus promoted, argued strenuously that he should be allowed to join the army, but Sara managed to coax him into staying till he was seventeen, at least.

When he grumbled that the war would be over by then, everyone chorused, “I hope so!”

“You're goin' to look like a circus in red pantaloons,” Judith grumbled to her husband.

Maccabee chortled, “You're just jealous 'cause I'm gettin' to wear real French clothes!” he teased. Though he'd be greatly missed at the smithy, no one tried to dissuade him. It was clear how much it meant to him and Rebe to fight as equals, not trail along as cooks and ostlers.

After the crushing Confederate defeat at Pea Ridge near the Arkansas-Missouri border in March of '62, in which Confederate Cherokees, Creeks, and Choctaws had taken scalps, bushwacking tactics generally replaced conventional military operations for the Confederacy, and as all available Federals were called to fight at Vicksburg, the charge of defending Kansas, Arkansas, Missouri, and the Indian Nations fell more and more on Negroes and Indians.

Dane wrote that summer that he was transferring to the newly forming Eleventh Kansas. Most of the present forces were being sent to the raging battles in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama, “but I became a soldier again to protect your region,” he wrote. “Deborah,
can
you remember me? It seems forever.”

Johnny's letter told of the same transfer for him and Doc, of being so thirsty after one battle that men fought over water used to wash wounds, of lips and tongues so swollen and bleeding that saltpeter in the powder stung each time they bit a cartridge.