Seven Out of Hell (13 page)

“Reckon it’ll make ’em feel any better?” Edge asked.

“It’ll make me feel better,” the man responded.

Edge shrugged and started up the slope away from the compound. The others fell in behind him and the grey-haired man held back for only a few moments before joining the rear of the column. They moved silently until they went between the gap in the ridge over-looking the campsite. Then Mrs. White found it impossible to check her emotions further and her body-wracking sobs punctured the stillness.

“What the hell’s wrong now?” Edge snarled.

“How can you ask that?” Beth retorted. “You saw what she went through back there.”

“Sure,” Edge told her. “Mrs. White had a rough time, but all she lost was a little dignity.”

“A little dignity!” Beth raged. “Those two Chinese…”

“Showed her the goods but didn’t deliver,” Edge cut in. He bared his teeth in a grin. “Two Wongs didn’t get to make a White.”

Chapter Seven

F
ED
but not rested, their morale boosted by a surfeit of sex and killing, the six troopers rode hard in the wake of the injured Hedges. Steeling himself against the rising tide of pain, the Captain led them north along the turnpike for several miles, before swinging to the west across untilled countryside. He rode with only one foot in the stirrup, the injured leg hanging free to prevent the crusting of congealed blood from cracking and opening the wound to dust.

Not until mid-afternoon did he call a halt, when he judged they had put fifteen miles between themselves and the town without men. He chose the spot because clear, cold water bubbled up from a spring and a screen of trees provided both shade and cover to the south and east. To the west the terrain was open and undulating, offering them a broad vista in which to spot movement To the north a line of verdant hills dominated the horizon.

“We gonna get some sleep at last?” Forrest asked as he slid from his mount. He stretched out on the lush grass and pressed his mouth into the spring water.

The other men dismounted and waited their turn. Nobody offered to help Hedges from his horse. He slid out of the saddle clumsily and his injured leg thudded to the ground. The blackened blood began to ooze with fresh scarlet. His lean face was twisted by an agony he fought against voicing.

“After you’ve earned it,” he croaked as Forrest finished drinking his fill and rolled over on to his back.

“How’s that, Captain?” the sergeant asked.

“First you’re gonna dig this slug out of my leg.”

Forrest sat up, an evil grin pasted on his features. “Be a pleasure, sir,” he said.

“Figured you’d enjoy it,” Hedges replied, unfastening his tunic, then his belt. “You ever done it before?”

Forrest nodded. “Down on the border. Buddy of my caught a lawman’s bullet in his shoulder.”

“Didn’t know you had any friends,” Hedges said, grimacing as he lifted himself and rolled his pants down. When he came to the area of the wound he wrenched the material away from the dried blood.

“He was the only one,” Forrest replied easily, taking the neckerchief Hedges handed him and pushing Rhett away from the spring so he could soak it. “But then he turned against me. Wound turned septic and he had to have his arm off.”

Hedges pressed his hands hard against the ground and stared up into the unmarred blueness of the sky as Forrest cleaned off the congealed blood. The wound was in the fleshy part of the thigh, out of line with any bone. Cleaned of blood, it was just a neat hole puffed with an angry-looking red surround.

“I’m gonna need your blade, Captain,” Forrest said.

Hedges leaned his head forward. “Take it.”

The sergeant slid the razor from its pouch and tested its sharpness against his thumb. “Ain’t honed like it should be,” he said.

“Oughta make it more fun for you,” Hedges hissed. “Just make sure it’s clean - and your hands.”

Forrest held Hedges pain-filled stare for a moment, then nodded and moved to the spring. The men had drunk their fill and looked down at Hedges with an utter lack of compassion.

“Give me all the matches you got then unsaddle the horses,” Forrest barked.

The troopers surrendered their matches and then attended to the horses. Forrest wrung his hands in the spring water then crouched down beside Hedges. He pulled the Captain’s belt out of his pants and gave it to him.

“To bite on,” he said, and struck a match on Hedges boot sole, then ran the blade through the flame. “I’ll make it quick as I can.”

“Just make it good,” Hedges countered.

Forrest shook out the match and moved to strike another. But instead, he whirled to face Hedges and smashed a right cross into the Captain’s jaw. Hedges’ body stretched its full length across the grass.

“Jesus,” Rhett exclaimed.

“Billy!” Forrest snapped. “Stand over him. He looks like coming out of it before I finish, let him have another one.”

The youngster giggled and squatted beside Hedges, opposite Forrest. He balled his fist, ready. Forrest used one more match then inserted the blade into the wound. Fresh blood spurted. New sweat broke out on the faces of Forrest and his audience. The sergeant moved the razor back and forth, exploring the hole. He grunted as his probing located the bullet.

“Ain’t deep,” he murmured.

The wound was now erupting dark blood like red lava and he was working blind. His wrist suddenly moved and the bullet was flipped out on to the grass.

“How about that,” Seward said in awe.

“Clean him up,” Forrest ordered. “And bind it.”

The sergeant sat down under a tree and lit a cigarette, watching impassively as Seward and Rhett attended to the wound. The hole was now twice as large as it had been. Rhett surrendered his under vest without argument and this was rinsed and torn into strips to form a bandage.

Hedges regained consciousness with a low groan and his hands clawed towards his thigh, which felt as though it were on fire. He was fully dressed again, the razor was back in the neck pouch and Seward was grinning at him, holding out the damaging bullet between finger and thumb.

“Momento, Captain?” he asked.

Pain coated Hedges’ face with sweat that immediately crusted in the heat and streaked the stubbled skin with salt lines.

“Get rid of it, Billy,” Forrest rasped. “He don’t need reminding.”

They remained beside the spring until the heat had gone from the afternoon and the level of the Captain’s agony had subsided. All were aware - but did not voice an opinion - that Hedges’ wound was still dangerous and would remain so until it had received medical attention. And, as the one most deeply concerned, it was Hedges himself who gave the order to mount up and continue the ride north.

The pain returned to its full intensity as Scott and Rhett helped him up on to his horse and subsided hardly at all as he led the troopers at an easy canter across the open country. They rode throughout the rest of the afternoon and into evening, on a curved course that took them to the west and then north, swinging wide of Atlanta. Water was plentiful, and so was food in the many small settlements dotting the foothills of the Blue Mountain range. But Hedges kept the men hungry until nightfall. Then he organized, but took no part in, a raid on a grocery and feed store of a hamlet straddling the Coosa River.

Forrest handled the foray with the skill of an expert thief and the men were able to clatter out of town across the north-bound river bridge without pursuit. They carried with them a sufficient horde of supplies to last them for two days. But Hedges could not meet the schedule. As they made camp and ate their newly acquired rations some five miles north of the river, the Captain became aware of a numbness in his injured leg. The lack of feeling provided a moment of sweet relief, but Hedges did not allow himself to be deluded by the sudden cessation of pain. For he was experienced in the results of untreated wounds. Thus, as he removed the dressing, he was prepared for the nauseating odor of decayed flesh and the sight of swollen green-tinged pus that told of gangrene.

“You knew I weren’t no sawbones,” Forrest defended as he saw the festering wound in the blue moonlight.

“I ain’t making no complaint,” Hedges answered. He pointed into the darkness. “North’s that way, over the mountains. Union ought to have Tennessee buttoned up by now. But don’t forget you got on Confederate threads.”

The troopers eyed the Captain in confusion. Forrest was the first to see the light.

“You asking us to leave you here, Captain?”

“Bother you?”

Forrest nodded. “Maybe it does. I ain’t never known you give up on anything till now.”

“I ain’t giving up,” Hedges replied. “I figure to find me a doctor and keep my leg from rotting off. That’ll take time. By then you could be back in blue and fighting the war again.”

The troopers were neutrals and none spoke in an attempt to influence Forrest as the sergeant pondered the decision. Only crickets disturbed the silence as he thought. Finally he shook his head.

“You ain’t no friend of mine, Captain,” he said softly. “I figure I’ve had good reason to kill you a dozen times. But I didn’t. And you know why. I need you. I hate your cruddy guts and I’d like to put a bullet in your other leg. But I ain’t sure I could get where I’m goin’ without you.”

He looked around at the impassive faces of the troopers, “Billy, scout ahead in the hills. See if you can find a town big enough to have a sawbones. Rog - rip up your underwear and make a new bandage for the Captain.”

Seward mounted and rode off. Bell started to unbutton his tunic. Hedges showed Forrest a cold grin.

“You’re making a bad decision, Forrest,” he said softly.

“Maybe,” the sergeant replied without looking at the wounded man. “But I need you around to keep making the right ones.”

Hedges’ expression revealed nothing of what he was thinking as he allowed Bell to rebind the wound and he held his silence as he was lifted up into the saddle. They had travelled less than half a mile when Seward approached them at the gallop.

“You find a place?” Forrest demanded as the youngster drew in deep breaths.

“Sure thing,” Seward shot back, pointing to a ridge in the north east. “Big enough for a dozen medics, I reckon.”

“Ain’t nothin’ that big till Chattanooga,” Hedges said coldly, glancing at the star dotted sky, checking his bearings.

“But this ain’t no town, sir,” Seward replied with a grin.

“You said big,” Forrest snarled.

“Yeah,” Seward answered, whirling his horse and heeling it forward. “Big on trouble, maybe. Come take a look.”

Cursing Seward’s obtuseness, the rest of the horsemen streamed after him up a grassy slope featured with clumps of trees and weather-smoothed rocks. At the crest they halted and looked down in amazement at a shallow valley containing a sight with which all were familiar.

“It’s a goddamn army camp!” Douglas said in a hushed whisper.

“And how,” Bell put in.

Hedges’ slitted eyes raked across the moonlit vista below, realizing it was more than a mere camp. For this was only half of it, with rigidly straight lines of tents, a timber headquarters building and a drill area. But on the other side of a road which bisected the valley the land was host to an ordnance and supply depot. Crowded close together were rows of artillery pieces, wagons, powder magazines, small arms and ammunition stores, feed barns, a corral crowded with horses and - in one corner - a wire mesh stockade. As the Union troopers looked on, a line of slaves was being urged through the open gate of the stockade. Other Negroes continued to work under armed guard in various sections of the depot.

“Your decision, Captain,” Forrest said lightly.

“An easy one,” Hedges replied, using his good leg to urge the horse forward, “I ain’t got no choice.”

“You’ll do the talkin’?” the sergeant called after him.

Hedges looked back over his shoulder. “We got chased out of Tennessee by the Yankees,” he answered. “Anyone wants to know the details, you just tagged along after me.” He forced a grin. “I’m the only one among us knows his ass from his elbow.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Scott muttered and ducked under a back-handed cuff from Forrest before the troopers moved off in the wake of the Captain.