Talons of Eagles (13 page)

Jamie chuckled at the memory. For exactly one month after he landed in the horse trough, his saddle went under his horse's belly again, and he got dumped out on the ground. It would be just like Kate to do that.

If anyone else had tried to pet Horse or hand feed him, the aging mean-eyed monster would have taken their hand off at the elbow. But with Kate, he was as gentle as a kitten.

Jamie sat under a tree and read all the letters twice before wrapping them carefully in oilskin and tucking them away in his saddlebags. He had already read them a dozen times over. Not all the letters had been from Kate; his kids had written him, and several of his grandchildren had written short notes.

Jamie closed his eyes and rested for a time. He tried to recall just how old he was. He thought he was fifty-one, but he wasn't sure. He might be forty-nine; he just wasn't sure.

Sergeant Major Huske approached Jamie and squatted down. “The boys is rested and ready to go, Colonel.”

Jamie opened his eyes and nodded his understanding. “You made it clear to everyone what they're to do once the raid is over?”

“Yes, sir. They know to git and where to scatter to.”

Jamie consulted his watch. Huske noticed the tiny picture of Kate.

“Your wife, sir?”

“Yes. We've been married . . . ah, thirty-seven years, I think.”

Huske shook his head and again looked at the picture of Kate. “That don't hardly seem possible, Colonel. She don't look a day over thirty in that pitcher.”

“Well, to tell you the truth, the picture is a few years old. But she still doesn't look her age by a long shot.”

Huske knew that Jamie had fought at the Alamo. But he still found that hard to believe. Jamie just did not look his age. “How old are you, sir? If you'll pardon my askin'.”

“I think I'm fifty-one, Top Soldier. But I'm not real sure about that.”

“You don't look nowheres near that, neither, sir.”

“Thank you. But some mornings I sure feel it.”

Huske chuckled. “I know what you mean, sir. I ain't no spring chicken, myself. When this damn war is over, I'm takin' my wife and them rug rats of ourn that's still to home and headin' west. Git me a section of farmland and live out my years in peace. Sit on the front porch in the evenin's with my good woman and my dogs and smoke my pipe and be at peace with the world.”

“You'll certainly be welcome in our valley, Sergeant Major.”

“I'll sure take you up on that, sir.”

“You ever own slaves, Top Soldier?”

“Oh, no, sir. No one in my family ever did, neither. Hell, sir, we wasn't gentry.”

Jamie smiled sadly. “What is your feeling toward Negroes?”

Huske thought about that for a moment. “I don't rightly know, Colonel. I never had much truck with them. I guess they're all right. Their ways is a sight different from mine, but that ain't no crime. Back home, our land butted up on plantation land, and I been around blacks all my life. But I only got to know a few close-like.” He grimaced. “That was a mighty mean man that was overseer of that plantation. White trash, my daddy used to call him. He'd whip a slave for little or nothin'. I mean, take the hide off with that blacksnake he carried, then slip off down to the quarters at night and bed down with some young high-yeller wench. That ain't right atall.”

Huske paused to light the stub of a cigar. “Colonel, you got a few men right here in this command that'd as soon shoot a black as look at him. They consider them to be less than animals. And you got men in this command who flat don't believe in slavery. And then you got men like me who, I guess, is all caught up in the middle. Blacks, I think, is sorta like the red savage Indians I fought out on the frontier 'fore this caper started. They ain't like us and they ain't never gonna be like us. But they're here. And some of them been here for nigh on two hundred years. When I was stationed up east I seen blacks that was free and had some education. But they still wasn't like us. Not to my way of thinkin'. I think the blackman is gonna be the white man's burden plumb up to the end of time. But that don't give the white man no call to make them slaves or abuse them. I don't want to live with blacks, Colonel. Not with no whole passel of them, anyways. I would have to say that I like blacks as individuals but dislike them as a group. But for me, this war ain't about slavery. I don't care if they're freed or remain slaves. That don't make a whit to me one way or the other. But I would like for the whuppin' on them to stop. For me, the main thing is this: the damn government just ain't got no right to tell me what to do and who to live with and how to conduct my business. That's my affair and none of theirs. If a man annoys me whilst I'm tryin' to live right, I'm gonna tell him about it, and he damn well better straighten up. If he don't, I'm gonna take action, and that action just might involve gunplay.

“Colonel, I been jerked around from pillar to post servin' the United States in the army cavalry. It's been a hardship on my family; but me and my wife has raised seven good kids, and we done it the best we could on damn little money. I hear tell that the government is promisin' that when the Yankees is victorious, every black man is gonna get some money, forty acres and a mule. For free. Don't no man deserve nothin' for free. And the land, the money, or the mule had damn well better not belong to me or there's gonna be a killin'. Whichever way this war goes, the South ain't never gonna be the same again. That's why if I live through it, I'm pullin' stakes and headin' west. Colonel, the United States is sending troops to invade my homeland. That ain't right. Jeff Davis has said over and over that this war need not be if the North would just let the South alone.

“I read where some of these Yankee abolitionists is sayin' this nation was built by the slaves. Well, to my way of thinkin', those people don't know hog jowls from horse shit. There ain't never been a slave in my family for as far back as we go in America, and that's more'un two hundred years. And that's written in the family Bible that's been handed down for long generations. Whatever the Huske family has got, the Huske family worked for—without slaves. And I don't like some goddamn Yankee son of a bitch sayin' we used slaves to git what we got. 'Cause we didn't. Talk about slaves, I believe that if we don't stop the Yankees now, right now, our grandkids and their kids and forever on until another war comes along to tear this nation apart—and it will—is gonna be virtual slaves to the Federal government. To me, that's just as plain to see as the snout on a pig. All Abe Lincoln has got to do is leave the South alone and this war is over right now. But he ain't gonna do that. Now, to be honest, I can't lay all the blame on his doorstep, for there's other folks who's prod-din' him to interfere in other folks' lives. Their the ones who need to be shot. That's what I believe. I'm done now, and I reckon that's the longest speech I ever made in my en-tar life. But you asked me, and that's what I think, Colonel.”

“You're an honest man, Top Soldier.”

“If you say so, Colonel.”

Before Jamie could reply, Captain Dupree walked up, an angry expression on his face and a civilian by his side.

“What's the matter, Pierre?” Jamie asked, getting to his feet.

“The operation's been called off, Colonel. This is Edward Oldsman. Our spy network sent him a coded wire and everything is off.”

Jamie stared at the man for a moment. The fellow seemed at ease enough, but there was something that struck a discordant note with Jamie. “You have new orders for us, Mister Oldsman?”

“Yes, Colonel, I do. You are to proceed westward and join the Confederate forces in their attempts to retake Memphis.”

Now Jamie knew the man was lying. There were no plans to retake Memphis. It was solidly in Union hands. “I see. You have a route of travel for us?”

Now the man's face fairly beamed. “Yes, sir, I surely do.” He quickly produced a map and spread it out on an old stump of a tree. “You're to go straight down here, following this route, and cut due west at this little town.”

Only an idiot would have dreamed up such a route, Jamie thought. Or someone who felt that
he
would be idiot enough to take it. “I see,” Jamie said softly. “And we are to pull out when?”

“Immediately, sir.”

“Are you going to guide us, Mister Oldsman?”

“Why . . . ah ... no, Colonel. My orders are to return at once to Louisville.”

Jamie snaked his right-hand Colt out of his non-regulation holster so fast Oldsman's eyes bugged out. Jamie placed the muzzle against the man's forehead, and the sound of his earing the hammer back was loud. It brought a sudden bead of sweat to Oldsman's face.

“No, Mister Oldsman, or whatever your name is. You are not going back to Louisville. You are going with us. But we are not going to Memphis.”

“What . . . what is the meaning of this, sir?” Oldsman managed to stutter.

Jamie smiled at the frightened man. “That should be real clear, Mister Oldsman. You got caught!”

* * *

Jamie quickly pulled his men back and, after an hour's careful ride, made a cold camp in a deeply wooded area along a sluggish creek. He jerked Oldsman off his horse and faced the man.

“My scouts say the nearest home is about two miles from here, Oldsman. So your screaming won't be heard.”

“What screaming?” Oldsman stammered.

“I was raised by the Shawnee, Oldsman. I know ways to get information out of people that you haven't faced in your most terrible nightmares.”

“You're making a horrible mistake, Colonel! I swear to you before God I am a true-to-the-cause Southerner.”

“What you are, sir, is a liar. One of my men, who was a telegrapher before the war, tapped into the telegraph wires this morning to send a coded message down the line. Our orders still stood. There are no plans to retake Memphis. Furthermore, only an idiot would have chosen the route you pointed out to me. I hold no rancor toward you, Mister Oldsman. You are a Union man just doing your job. But I am a colonel in the Army of the Confederate States of America, and I also have a job to do. I want the truth now, Mister Oldsman.”

“I have spoken the truth to you, Colonel. I stand by my words.”

“Then you, sir, are a fool,” Jamie told him. “Sergeant Major, build a small fire under that limb over there.” He pointed. “Corporal, tie Mister Oldsman's hands behind his back and then string him up by the feet, head down, over the fire. This is a little trick I watched the Shawnee do several times. It makes quite a sight when a man's hair catches on fire and his head cooks. The pressure builds up inside the skull until finally it explodes.”

“Great God!” Oldsman yelled. “I'm a white man, Colonel. You can't treat me like a damn ignorant nigger!”

Every Marauder head within hearing range turned at that remark. The encampment fell very silent.

Captain Judd broke the silence by asking, “I thought you Yankees loved colored folks, Oldsman. Are you saying that it would be all right to burn a black but not a white man?”

Oldsman looked at the lieutenant for a few seconds, and then cussed him.

“I have a new name for Mister Oldsman,” Jamie said. “Talks Out of Both Sides of Mouth.”

“Go to hell, Colonel!” Oldsman said.

“Still want the fire, Colonel?” Huske asked, standing with an arm load of dry wood.

“Yes. We'll see how well Oldsman stands up to pain.”

“You're bluffing!” Oldsman blurted.

Jamie's smile could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be called pleasant. “You want to bet your life on that, Oldsman?” When the man did not reply, Jamie said, “Get the fire started, Top Soldier. String him up by his feet, Corporal.”

Oldsman's bravery lasted until he felt the heat from the nearly smokeless fire on the top of his head. Then he broke and started begging.

“For the love of God, MacCallister!” he shouted. “Don't do this to me. I'll tell you all I know. Please don't set me afire. I implore you!”

“Cut him down,” Jamie ordered.

The badly shaken and trembling man was freed and set on the ground. He was given a cup of whiskey. He gulped it down and started talking.

“I didn't think you would actually do it,” he said.

“Get to the point,” Jamie told him.

“We have a spy high up in your command, Colonel. Not this command, but in General Smith's headquarters. And no, I don't know who it is. I honestly do not know that.”

“I believe you,” Jamie said. “Go on.”

“Had you fallen for my story, this unit was to be ambushed about thirty miles down the route I showed you. The Union cavalry is there now, in place. On both sides of the covered bridge. You're a very hated man, Colonel MacCallister. And this unit of yours is much feared. That's all I know, Colonel. If you don't believe that, then I am prepared to meet my Maker, for as God is my witness, I have told you the truth.”

Jamie believed him.

Oldsman said, “I suppose that I will be charged with being a spy and hanged, Colonel?”

Jamie shook his head. “Not by me, you won't. Kentucky is not officially part of the Confederacy. You cooperated, so I am going to send along a note asking that you be paroled.”

“Thank you, Colonel.”

He ordered four men to escort Oldsman—or whatever his name was—back to General Smith's HQ for further interrogation. They left immediately.

It was almost dusk, so Jamie decided to remain in the cold camp where they were for that night. He had some thinking to do. A lot of thinking.

Jamie lay long and sleepless in his blankets that summer's night. Hated and much feared, Oldsman had said. Very well, Jamie thought, making up his mind. He would give the Union army more grist for their fear mill.

Right in their own damn backyard!