Only the Gallant (22 page)

Abbot placed himself between the Stark brothers and Jesse Redbow McQueen.

“I was just gonna shoot me a Johnny Reb, Major Abbot, sir,” Doc explained, taken aback by the Union officer’s warning.

Peter Abbot, with ever a flair for the dramatic, removed his wire-rim spectacles and cleaned them on a cotton scarf then donned them again. He glanced over his shoulder at Jesse and fixed Doc Stark in a hard-edged stare.

“Ah … but you see, this ‘Johnny Reb’ works for me.”

He turned and rode back to the two mud-drenched combatants by the spring as Doc Stark led his foragers out of the clearing, grudgingly relinquishing the field.

“My compliments, Captain Tyrone,” Abbot said, saluting the Confederate officer. Bon scowled and lowered his head.

“Well, how about it,
turncoat
,” Abbot said, looking down at the eldest son of Ben McQueen. “Are you ready to rejoin your command?”

“You’ll never know how ready,” Jesse replied. He started back toward his horse and stopped in his tracks. “What about Bon?”

Bon glanced up sharply. “Don’t you worry about me, you bastard,” he snapped.

Abbot shrugged. “That is a problem. We can’t let him go and have him warn Pemberton or Johnston about us.”

“Then he can come along with us,” Jesse said. The alternative was executing the officer on the spot. He wasn’t about to allow that to happen.

Abbot looked skeptical.

“As my prisoner,” Jesse added.

“I’d rather be dead,” Bon growled, incensed at the notion. His pride had suffered a near-mortal wound at having been taken in by both McQueen and the major.

“Perhaps so,” Jesse said. “But you’ll learn to live with it.” He motioned for the Rebel officer to follow along. At the first opportunity Bon Tyrone would probably try to kill him—as would Doc and Milo Stark and Titus Connolly.

Jesse McQueen sighed. It was good to be home.

J
ESSE FOUND THE TWO
Union generals a study in contrasts. General William Tecumseh Sherman, tall and angular, his deep-set eyes constantly in motion, scrutinized first McQueen, then Major Abbot, then the commander of the Union Army. General Ulysses S. Grant, at forty, was a rumpled little man whose stooped-shoulder stance and scruffy, bearded face hardly inspired confidence. He kept a cigar clamped between his teeth and a bottle of scotch on the camp table. He took his time and weighed each man’s merits before shifting attention from one individual to the next. At the moment Captain Jesse McQueen was the object of the general’s scrutiny.

“So you are the young man Abbot has been bragging to us about,” Grant said. “I was expecting a real fire-eater, ten feet tall. Why, Mr. McQueen, you appear quite human.” The general glanced at Abbot and chuckled. “Though I suppose size isn’t everything.” Grant was the smallest man in the tent. His military coat was unbuttoned to reveal his undershirt, suspenders, and blue woolen trousers. A moth had found its way into the tent along with a particularly pesty cloud of tiny black gnats that continually harassed the officers.

Sherman handed Grant the dispatches from the Confederate commander in Jackson. “We have already seen your previous list of Pemberton’s troop strength and your sketches of the fortifications around Vicksburg.”

“Quite so,” Grant interjected as he read the letter from Johnston to Pemberton. “Invaluable … ”

Contrary to Jesse’s expectations, Grant had refrained from staying in the plantation house where enemy ears might overhear his plans. The commander of the Northern army was more comfortable seated on his cot among his fellow officers. The troop of Illinois regulars surrounding his headquarters ensured his privacy as well as his safety.

“I have arranged for you to be assigned to the general’s staff,” Abbot said, placing a hand on Jesse’s shoulder. “At least for the time being.”

“Until we can safely send you both back to Washington,” Sherman added. “Where, Major Abbot, you will no doubt conjure up some new schemes to befuddle the Rebs and win glory for your young friend here.” Sherman took a sip of coffee and glanced at Grant as the Union general slapped his hand on the tabletop.

“That’s it! By God, Captain McQueen, but you have brought me excellent news.” Grant stood and leaned forward on his knuckles as he stared at Sherman. “Bill, it seems that Johnston is abandoning the capital to us, Pemberton is keeping himself bottled up, and Bragg is hog-tied in Tennessee. He refuses to send Johnston reinforcements.” Grant walked around the table and stood in the doorway of the camp tent. A soft breeze fanned his cheeks and cooled his perspiring forehead. He stuck his head out and ordered an adjutant stationed outside to fetch the rest of his staff. Then he returned to his place behind the camp table.

“I’d better bring John MacClennand and Jim McPherson in on this.” He held up the stolen Confederate dispatches and smiled. “Gentlemen, we have a ways to go, but the outcome is inevitable. Vicksburg is ours.”

Jesse could see now how first impressions were deceiving. Grant might look like a store clerk but there was another quality to the man, a subtle tenaciousness that had won him victories on the battlefield and would do so again.

By the time the tent was crowded with officers, Jesse managed to win permission to leave. He slipped through the entrance as Sherman argued the merits of striking at Jackson and razing the capital’s factories and warehouses, a plan everyone agreed on. Jesse was grateful that Dunsinane lay farther to the north and that Ophelia was out of harm’s way. It was a comfort to know.

At sunset, Cicero knelt on the muddy creek bank and peered down at his black features mirrored in the water. He liked what he saw, the face of a free man. And the Starks were going to help him stay free, and make him rich in the process. Splitting the Tyrone fortune even four ways was better than crossing to the North with only the shirt on his back. It was Doc who convinced the Union officers that Cicero could prove himself an invaluable scout and an aid to the foragers. Thus Cicero found his place among the Starks. Doc had even given him a long-barreled Patterson Colt that had to be held with a two-handed grip when fired since it kicked like a Missouri mule. But it was his gun, no matter that the hammer was loose or that the cylinder was cracked. The gun was his.

The runaway slave stood and continued to study his reflection.

“Say, buck, look at you. Doc done got you a new blue shirt and army-issue britches and found you a pair of boots.” Cicero nodded to his reflection. “Yes, sir, I looks proper.” He hooked a thumb in his suspenders. “Ain’t no field hand. Ain’t ever gonna be again.” The black man patted the gun butt jutting from his waistband. He straightened and looked proud, then started up the embankment.

The Army of the West spread out before him. The dogs of war had been unleashed upon these fertile fields, and when they left, nothing would ever be the same again. A pall of dust blanketed the meadow and draped the distant trees in a brown shroud. Grit stung his eyes and worked its way between his jaws and made a grinding sound whenever he closed his mouth. Cicero had never seen so many men gathered in one place. The presence of so many Yankees made him feel secure and he wondered when the time came if he would be able to leave with the Starks. He chided himself for being such a coward. Of course, he’d be able to leave. He wanted his share of Old Marse Tyrone’s treasure. He had earned his share by the sweat of his brow and the bondage he and his people had endured. Nothing would keep him from what was rightfully his.

Cicero kept to the edge of the field, on his way to rejoin Doc Stark, whose foragers had pitched camp in the shade of a pecan grove, when he spied the lone prisoner who had been brought in from the woods. Captain Boniface Tyrone had been shackled to the wheel of a canvas-sided ambulance and left with the medical personnel.

Bon Tyrone waited out the dusk in the shade of the medical wagon, his back against the spokes of a rear wheel, his knees drawn up and head nodding forward, the very picture of dejection. Cicero continued to watch the Gray Fox through a haze of dust, and slowly, Tyrone rose up as if sensing the black man’s presence from about fifty feet away. Bon’s gaze settled on the black man, who straightened his spine and walked proud. He wanted to approach the Confederate captain and confront him, but old habits died hard. Though he was miles from Dunsinane, it was difficult to overcome the servility that had been bred in him from birth. Mustering the last of his courage, Cicero approached the Gray Fox.

“Well Marse Bon, you ain’t so high and mighty now,” he said, staring down at the man in chains, squatting by the ambulance.

Bon ignored the black man.

“You look at me when I talk. You the one wearin’ chains now. Not me.” Cicero grinned and placed his hands on his hips.

“You never wore chains at Dunsinane,” Bon remarked.

“Might as well have. I wasn’t free. A man ain’t free then it be the same as chained.” Cicero batted at a swarm of gnats that had begun to plague him.

Bon frowned. “Maybe you’re right.”

“Don’t you worry none, though.” Cicero grinned. “You and Miss Ophelia gonna get to set things aright.”

“What the devil are you talking about?” Bon warily inquired.

“My pa tole me about the well and what it hold.” Cicero could not help himself. “Gonna use that gold to buy my freedom. Ain’t nobody ever gonna tell this colored what to do, ever again.”

“There is no gold,” Bon tried to explain, but the black man cut him off.

“I can read your lies, Marse Bon.” Cicero nodded. “Me and my friends, we aims to have it. Ain’t no army gonna stop us. Not Johnny Reb, not Billy Yank.”

“You’re mad. You and your friends,” Bon replied. He struggled to rise. Cicero backed away beyond his reach. “Come back here, Cicero. Wait. You don’t understand!”

“Hold it down there.” Major Harlin, the chief surgeon poked his head out of his tent flap. “Or I’ll have you muzzled, Reb. And you, Cicero, leave that prisoner be. Go on. Go on, now.”

“I’m jes’ as good as you, Marse Bon,” Cicero muttered as he turned to go. “Better even, ’cause I got the gun now.” He patted the Patterson Colt tucked in his wide leather belt. The Missouri volunteers had claimed a corner of a turnip patch near the plantation house and had stripped the garden bare. There’d be pork jowl and greens for supper.

Cicero’s belly began to growl as he continued on to the Starks’ campsite, reaching it in time to find Doc Stark, his brother, and Titus waiting for him with their horses saddled.

“What took you so damn long?” Milo grumbled. Doc warned him to lower his voice.

“It’s time we go,” Doc said, handing the reins to Cicero. His voice was almost a whisper. “The army will be in Jackson tomorrow. A man could get himself killed.” He turned and nodded to Milo and Titus, then all three men climbed into their saddles.

“I’m pow’ful hungry, Doc,” Cicero said. Greens and salt pork smelled mighty good.

“Tomorrow night you can eat your fill,” Doc replied. “In Dunsinane.”

The dying sun painted the Mississippi sky in pastel pinks and purples and etched the clouds in crimson. Field sparrows soared and dipped and glided among the campfires in constant search of food scraps left by the soldiers as they finished their hastily prepared suppers. It was a warm night and mosquitoes continued to swarm. Soon the Union troops were slapping and brushing the pesky insects from their faces and necks. It was as if the countryside itself was attempting to repel the invaders and send them back across the Mason-Dixon, back to the cooler climes far away from the sacred soil of the South.

Jesse McQueen ambled restlessly through the Union camp. Most of the soldiers paid him no mind, considering him just another officer. But now and then he passed a group of men who had witnessed his “court-martial” and seen him stripped of his ranking. Now here he stood in the trappings of a captain. Accounts of his exploits behind the Confederate lines had begun to spread, passed along from one campfire to the next. By morning the entire force would have heard the stories, and after they had been embellished by half the army, Jesse doubted he’d recognize himself in them.

He slowly circled the plantation house, pausing from time to time to gaze at a darkened window, sensing that he was being watched by some member of the family whose name he had been told but didn’t care to remember. It was easier to plunder the property of strangers. And he already knew the enemy too well. It had made his decisions all the more painful.

With that in mind, Jesse noted the physicians’ tent and ambulances about thirty yards from the house and resolved to check on Bon Tyrone. Jesse had no doubt as to the reception he’d receive from the Gray Fox. In the distance, the voices of freed slaves rose in songs of joy and thanksgiving that drifted above the settling camp. How fleeting this freedom, for tomorrow the army would march off and life would continue, for the most part unchanged. Grant had refused them permission to follow an army that might charge into battle on any given day. Most of the ex-slaves understood, but it didn’t change the fact that tonight they felt free, tonight they sang.

Bon Tyrone glanced up as Jesse entered the radiance of the campfire. He held a plate of roast chicken and beans, a tin cup on the ground by his right thigh. At another campfire, a trio of orderlies dined on the remainder of the chicken and beans. The oldest of them looked to be about eighteen. Young and inexperienced, they had been sternly warned against fraternizing with the prisoner and had taken those orders to heart despite the fact that Tyrone was the first live Rebel soldier they had ever seen. The novelty was bound to wear off before long, Jesse thought.

Bon set the food aside and with stomach growling returned to his place by the wagon.

How like Pacer Wolf McQueen was Bon Tyrone. Jesse’s thoughts drifted to his big, rawboned younger brother with his shoulder-length red hair and flashing eyes. Like Pacer Wolf, Jesse thought, in size and temperament, as proud and headstrong. Perhaps it was this similarity that had formed a bond between the two men in the first place.

“You come to gloat, Captain McQueen?”

“You know me better than that.” Jesse scowled.