‘Hold it right there, Reb, or I’ll blow your fuck’n head off!’ the soldier shouted. Jed turned slowly. The soldier was pointing a carbine at his head and Jed almost groaned at the irony: it was a Carver seven-shooter.
‘I’m not a Reb,’ he said. ‘I’m trying to get back to my outfit. ‘
‘Come on up here where I can see you,’ the soldier said, and as he spoke others appeared from the trees behind him. Jed’s hopes sank. He might have been able to talk his way around one man, but not a whole damned patrol. The River Chattahoochee gleamed invitingly ten yards away. Once across it, he would have had a chance of skirting the Federal troops.
‘All right, what’s your name?’ a tall man in the uniform of a captain asked him officiously.
‘Jedediah Strong, sir,’ Jed said. ‘I’m with Twenty Corps, Wood’s brigade.’
‘Who’s your division commander?’
‘General Butterfield, sir.’
‘And your regimental commander?’
It was no use. Jed had picked up enough information from the soldiers he had met to be able to bluff his way past a few casual questions. But this sharp-eyed officer wasn’t going to be quite that easy to fool.
‘I thought as much!’ the man snapped. ‘All right, take him in!’
The privates marched Jed back the way he had come. They were quite amused at his attempt to lie his way out of trouble.
‘What outfit you really from, Johnny?’ one of them asked, as they tramped along the path towards their camp.
‘First Virginia Cavalry,’ Jed said.
‘Didn’t know they was down these parts,’ the second soldier said, but he did not ask any further questions. The camp was up ahead; Jed cursed his luck. To have made it this far and then be taken!
In a way, he supposed, he could blame all his troubles on old Uncle Billy Sherman. Soon after Grant launched his big push south at the beginning of May, Sherman had decided to march the hundred miles from Chattanooga to Atlanta, lighting his way by the fires of Southern towns and plantations. With an army of a hundred thousand men, which included twenty divisions of infantry, four of cavalry, and over two hundred and fifty field guns, bearing down on his ragbag army of around forty thousand, Old Joe Johnston could do little except fall back.
‘In this army,’ one Confederate soldier with whom Jed had shared hardtack said, ‘you tell a captain by the fact he has only got one hole in his pants. A lieutenant’s got two. An’ a private ain’t got a seat to his pants at all!’
Sherman’s advance had speared into Georgia, with Johnston bloodying him badly for each mile he advanced. Richmond was not impressed by Johnston’s fighting retreat and in July he was relieved, to be replaced by the reckless, one-armed, one-legged Hood, who rode into battle strapped to his horse and was said to be crazy enough to attack Hell with a bucket of water.
Now Atlanta was besieged, and Federal cannon battered it every hour of the day. And the Federal line extended right across the route that Jedediah had been taking south, more difficult to cross than any natural barrier.
He was marched to the provost-marshal’s tent and from there to a compound full of other prisoners. There was no food and only a bucket of brackish water with a dipper in it to allay the merciless heat of the sun. Some of the prisoners had made shade by putting their uniform tunics on sticks and squatting beneath .the awning thus made.
After about three hours two guards came into the compound and called Jed’s name. He stepped forward. The other prisoners looked on indifferently.
‘Where they taking me?’ Jed asked one of the soldiers who had come to fetch him.
‘Colonel wants to talk to you,’ one of them grunted.
‘Did he say why?’
The private grinned. ‘How long you been in the army, Johnny? You oughta know colonels don’t talk to the likes of us!’
There was a wooden hut off to one side of the camp, a ramshackle affair of planks and logs that might once have been a forester’s hut. It was to this hut that Jed was marched. Inside, sitting at a folding table covered with papers, sat a Federal colonel, his bald head bowed over his work. He looked up as Jed was brought in.
‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘Look what the cat dragged in!’
It was Jonah Harvey. The beaky nose, the deep-set brown eyes were as Jed remembered. Jonah’s thinning hair was all but completely gone. He was a little thicker around the middle than Jed remembered him from Texas but just as stoop-shouldered, just as reticent-looking.
‘Jonah,’ Jed said. ‘It’s good to see you.’
‘What the Hell are you doing this far south?’ Jonah said. ‘The captain who brought you in said you were First Virginia Cavalry. That’s old Stonewall Jackson’s outfit. They’re fighting up north of Richmond somewhere.’
‘I deserted, Jonah,’ Jed said. ‘I was on my way to Texas.’
‘I see,’ Harvey said. He looked disappointed, as though Jed had let him down personally. He pursed his lips, and leaned back in his chair, frowning slightly.
‘We’re sending prisoners back to Chattanooga,’ he said. ‘Then north to prison. I don’t want to send you to prison, Jed. For old time’s sake.’
Jed said nothing. Jonah was eyeing him speculatively, as if wondering whether to say what was in his mind. Eventually he spoke.
‘What was your rank when you – left the army?’
‘Colonel of cavalry,’ Jed said.
Jonah smiled. ‘You didn’t do any better than I, then.’
‘Why should I have done?’
‘I always thought you’d go to the top, Jed. That you were a better soldier than me.’
‘No,’ Jed said. ‘No, Jonah.’ He was thinking of a talk they’d had, a long time ago, after the fight with El Gato at Brownsville in Texas. Jonah had confessed to being scared before the fight. He had been surprised when Jed told him that he was, too, that everyone was.
‘This is what I thought we might do, Jed,’ Jonah said slowly. ‘You’re no longer a Confederate soldier. If you’ll swear the oath of allegiance to the Union, I’ll talk to Division. I’m sure they’ll sanction your serving with us.’
‘You want me to become a Federal soldier?’ Jed said. ‘Turn my coat?’
‘Join the winning side, Jed,’ Harvey replied. ‘The South is done for.’ He saw Jed’s hesitation and misread it. ‘Jed, listen to me. I’m making a very special exception of you. If I put in a personal recommendation, Division will endorse it. You might even get a commission.’
‘They’re giving commissions to one-armed men in your army?’ Jed asked.
‘I wasn’t going to ask. Where did it happen?’
‘Gettysburg,’ Jed said.
‘I was at Vicksburg,’ Jonah said, as if to exculpate himself. ‘And the answer is, yes. We’ve got lots of officers who’ve had amputations. You’re otherwise fit?’
‘Yes,’ Jed grinned. ‘Just lousy.’
‘Jed, you’re stalling,’ Jonah Harvey said. ‘I want an answer.’
‘And if the answer is no?’
Jonah’s face hardened and for the first time hostility lit the dark eyes. ‘That really would be very stupid!’ he said.
‘One more question,’ Jedediah said. ‘What happened to my pistol?’
‘I’ve got it,’ Jonah said. ‘Why?’
‘I took it off El Gato,’ Jed replied. ‘I’d like to have it back.’
‘You’ll swear, then?’ Jonah looked relieved. He reached into a foot-locker, behind him and pulled out the great pistol. He handed it to Jed.
‘That’s a hell of a big gun,’ he grinned.
‘You’re right,’ Jed said. ‘It would blow a hell of a big hole in you, Jonah. So don’t make me use it.’
‘What?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Jed said. ‘Sorry I’ve got to do this, Jonah.’
‘What the Hell?’ Jonah laid his hands flat on top of the table and glared across it at Jed. ‘You must be out of your mind!’ He opened his mouth, looking past Jed to the door.
‘Don’t!’ Jed said and eared back the hammer of the gun. Jonah looked into his eyes and saw the death there. His mouth snapped shut. ‘That’s better,’ Jed said.
‘You’ll never get out of here! Put that damned gun down.’
‘On your feet,’ Jed said. ‘Colonel.’
He waited, poised, as Jonah came around the table. If there was going to be opposition, it was always right away. He actually saw the tension go out of Harvey’s shoulders and elation surged through him.
‘This is what we’re going to do, Jonah,’ he told him. ‘We’re going to walk to the perimeter, down by the river. If anyone asks us why, you’ll give them some damned reason or other. And keep in mind that I’ll have this gun stuck in your ribs the whole way. One squawk, and I’ll festoon your innards over a tree.’
‘And I was appealing to your sense of honor!’ Harvey said, disgustedly. ‘I should have known better!’
‘Indeed you should, Jonah,’ Jed replied softly. ‘I haven’t got time for honor anymore. The kind of war I’ve been in tends to put it a long way behind survival.’ He gestured towards the door and Jonah Harvey opened it. The sergeant outside looked up expectantly.
‘Carry on, sergeant,’ Harvey ordered. ‘I am taking the prisoner to Division.’
‘Sir!’ the sergeant threw a sloppy salute. Harvey walked briskly ahead with Jed on his right side, the pistol hidden beneath a folded overcoat he had thrown across his arm. It took them about five minutes to get to the riverbank.
‘What happens now, Jed?’ Jonah said softly. ‘The minute you run, I yell.’
Jed glanced up and down the riverbank. One or two figures moved here and there, and there were men crossing the pontoon bridge, about sixty or seventy yards upstream.
‘Jonah,’ he said softly. ‘I’m doing what I have to do.’
He hit Harvey suddenly with the barrel of the pistol. Harvey slumped to his knees, then all the way down. Jed stuck the gun into his waistband and ran for the river. It was deep and wide: he hoped he could make it across. He plunged into the water and started swimming strongly. The current bore him rapidly downstream. He heard shouts behind him and flung a look back at the shore. He could see the tall, stoop-shouldered figure of Jonah Harvey gesticulating, and men running down the bluffs above river, rifles ported, leaping over stones and skirting clumps of scrub. He heard the flat splat of the carbines and dove under water. The current was very strong. He was going downstream very fast and not making much progress across. A chunk of driftwood bobbed into view and he threw an arm over it gratefully. The shots were dying away behind him. Sorry, Jonah, he said silently.
About half an hour later Jed managed to claw his way ashore where the river made a bend, swirling even more rapidly through huge boulders that had fallen down the steep, timbered banks. He staggered into a small clearing and fell down, panting with exertion. His clothes steamed in the hot sun.
He glanced up at the sky, gauging direction. He wanted to move more or less southwestern the general direction of Montgomery, Alabama. Then, for a long while, he would be in Confederate-held territory. Only when he came to the Mississippi would he again have to run the gauntlet of Federal control.
He knew where he was going now: to Texas. That was where Old Man Maxwell was. ‘Old Edward Maxwell always was a mite close to loony,’ a man in Culpeper told Jed. ‘Got a damned sight worse after his wife died. When the war moved south, he went with it. Said he was goin’ to visit the wrath o’ God on the Rebs. Got hisself a scalawag crew o’ Nigger freedmen, prison scourin’s, deserters and God knows what else, and went on down Georgia.’
In Georgia, Jed learned that the Maxwell gang had burned a small country town to the ground. Steaming up the Altahama River to Darien, they had fired cannon shells into the plantation buildings, although there were only women and children in them. When they reached the town, Maxwell turned his guerrillas loose, ordering them to put everything they could carry away on the boat. Then he put the place to the torch; not a plank was left standing. Federal troops pursued him and drove the gang out of Georgia. A talkative provost-marshal in Darien told Jed they had gone, south again.
‘Last news! got,’ he said, ‘they was turned bad the way Charley Quantrill did. They’s makin’ raids all over Texas. Austin, San Antone, all round that area.’ He squinted at Jed curiously. ‘Why you lookin’ for Maxwell, anyway?’
‘He’s lived too long,’ Jed said.
He got into a fight with a frock-coated dandy in a Natchez deadfall. Jed was winning: the ten dollars with which he had walked into the dive was up to nearly fifty and he pushed it all forward when he found himself holding jacks and kings. It was a come-on hand; and the’ thin-faced gambler with the foxy eyes was just about to deal himself a third ace off the bottom of the pack when Jed’s hand clamped his wrist in a grip of iron, pinning it to the table.
‘I want no trouble, sir,’ he said gently. ‘So I am going to ask one of these gentlemen watching to look at that card. If it is not an ace, I owe you an apology, and the pot is yours.’
He could feel the hostility all around: the place was full of the man’s friends. In other circumstances Jed would have backed off and let it be. But he needed the money desperately. He had to buy a horse, some winter clothes, a decent pair of boots.
‘You callin’ me a cheat, suh?’ the man said. ‘You air callin’ James Delauncey a cheat?’
‘No, Mr. Delauncey,’ Jed said. ‘Not without proof.’
One of the men who had been watching the game leaned forward and flicked over the card. It was the ace of hearts. Jed leaned back, releasing Delauncey’s hand. He flipped over his own hand. ‘Two pairs, kings and queens,’ he. said. ‘Now if Mr. Delauncey has two more aces, I’d say that was fair proof he made a mistake, and I’m sure it was no more than that.’
It was a try at giving the gambler a chance to get off the hook, without making an issue of it, but he saw the anger stain Delauncey’s eyes and knew there was no hope of that.
‘You damned liar!’ Delauncey shouted, and shook a snub-nosed Derringer out of the sleeve of his jacket. Its snapping report merged with the heavier boom of Jed’s Mexican gun. Delauncey was snatched backwards as if he had been roped by a man on a running horse, slamming against the wall and sliding down it, his eyes still open, dead before he hit the floor. The Derringer ball missed Jed’s head by a fraction, coming close enough to jar his skull in passing and burning a red track above Jed’s left ear. He reeled and almost fell, but regained his balance as Delauncey’s friends started forward.
‘It would be a mistake,’ he told them and they froze. ‘Now, if one of you gentlemen would be kind enough to hand me my winnings?’ he suggested. ‘You, sir?’ A small, portly man with a fancy waistcoat nodded and hastily raked up the money on the table.
‘In my pocket, if you please,’ Jed said pleasantly. The man sidled close, pushed the money into Jed’s overcoat pocket and scuttled away, as though afraid Jed might bite him. Jed backed out of the saloon and into the street. There were horses standing hipshot at the hitching rail and he ran across and got on the nearest one, a big, lineback dun with a deep chest, rangy and strong. There was no point worrying about horse-thieving now. If he stayed in town Delauncey’s friends would get him and if Delauncey’s friends didn’t get him the law would. He kicked the horse into a run and thundered out of town.
Two weeks later he rode in San Antonio, a bearded man on a rangy dun, wearing a thick blanket coat against the wicked winds slicing across the llano. On his left hip in a cut-top cavalry holster he carried a heavy pistol. On the right, slanted forward for cross draw, was a leather handled bowie knife. He rode along Portrero Street and up to the Alamo Plaza. Everything looked exactly the way it had done more than five years earlier, when he had first arrived in San Antonio to report to Colonel Robert E. Lee.
Well, a lot of other things had changed, Jed thought, as he swung down outside Menger’s hotel, and handed the reins of his horse to a waiting peon. He was surprised how easily the Spanish came back as he told the man to feed the horse and curry him.
It was cool and shady inside the hotel. Jed went to the bar first and had a cold beer. There were a few soldiers in Confederate uniform lounging around, off-duty. He nodded hello to them. They regarded him without interest.
After he got his gear stowed at the hotel, Jed walked down the street to the office of the provost marshal. He found it occupied by a short, square-jawed officer of about forty, who told Jed his name was Kerr.
‘What can I do for you, Mr. Strong?’ he asked, indicating that Jed should take a chair.
‘I’m looking for someone, Captain,’ Jed told him. ‘A man named Edward Maxwell.’
Captain Kerr’s head came up and he eyed Jed sharply. ‘May I ask you why?’
‘Personal business,’ Jed answered.
‘You know this Maxwell?’
‘Years ago,’ Jed said. ‘I was told he’s turned guerrilla.’
‘That’s right,’ Kerr said, getting a stogy out of his jacket pocket and lighting it, releasing huge clouds of pungent blue smoke. ‘You want one?’ he said to Jed.
‘No thanks,’ Jed grinned. ‘I don’t have a permit.’ The Confederate officer grinned and then his face grew serious again.
‘It’s obviously none of my business, Mr. Strong,’ he said, tentatively. ‘But I’d recommend you stay a long way away from Old Man Maxwell and his gang.’
‘You know where he is?’
‘Not exactly,’ Kerr replied. ‘It’s a big country we’ve got down here, Mr. Strong. The Maxwell gang operates roughly between here and Fort Stockton. They raid into Mexico and even as far north as Dallas. It’s said they hole up somewhere on the Colorado or in the San Saba. Nobody knows for sure.’
‘You haven’t tried to bring them in?’
‘We’ve tried,’ Kerr said grimly. ‘We’ve sent half a dozen patrols out after those murdering scum. They cut the last one to pieces. Worse than damn Comanches!’ He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a sheaf of dodgers. He riffled through them, withdrew one and slid it across the desk to Jed.
WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE
One thousand dollars reward will be paid to any person or persons who will capture EDWARD MAXWELL and deliver him either to me or to the military in Texas. Satisfactory proof of identity will be required.
Gonzales y Cordoba; Governor
‘Is that old General Gonzales?’ Jed asked.
‘The same,’ Kerr replied. ‘You know him too?’
‘I was here in ’59, Captain,’ Jed explained. ‘With Lee.’
‘Ah,’ Kerr said. ‘You … stayed with him?’ It was a delicately put question and Jed appreciated the way Kerr did it.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Till I got this, at Gettysburg.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Do you know whether General Gonzales’ daughter still lives in town?’
‘You couldn’t live in San Antone and not know it, Mr. Strong,’ Kerr grinned. ‘I’d wager half the men in town are in love with her.’
‘No bet,’ Jed said. ‘About this Maxwell.’
‘What about him?’
Jed picked up the reward poster. ‘You got yourself a bounty hunter, Captain.’
‘You don’t remember me, do you?’ he said.
‘I do not think so,’ Maria Gonzales said.
He told her his name and reminded her of their meeting in the home of the alcalde at Brownsville, but still she did not remember. The man standing before her was a bearded, one-armed stranger, whose eyes told her that he had seen death on his winged horse many times. The boy who had flirted with her had not been at all like this one. He looks like a half-tamed animal, she thought.
‘My name is Jedediah Strong,’ he told her again. ‘I was a lieutenant then. We fought El Gato, the bandit.
‘I remember that,’ she said frowning. She noticed the keenness of his inspection, the way his eyes checked her hands for a wedding band and the flicker of relief when he did not see one.
‘Well?’ she said. ‘What can I do to help you, sir?’
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I only came to see if you were as beautiful as I remembered. And you are.’
‘You are … direct,’ she said.
‘Forgive me,’ Jed said. ‘I’ve come a long way and have perhaps forgotten the rules a little. A man alone on the trail thinks in straight lines. Food, warmth, shelter, love.’
‘You have been traveling for a long time?’
‘Long enough, God knows,’ he answered. ‘It’s a long time since I’ve seen anyone like you.’
‘And that is all you came here for. To tell me this?’
‘That,’ he said. ‘And to leave word for your father that I will bring him the head of Old Man Maxwell.’
‘You?’ Her glance touched his pinned sleeve. ‘But he has many men, señor. And all of them are killers. Especially the sons.’
‘Sons?’ he frowned.
‘They are worse than he.’
‘How old are they?’ he asked her.
‘Young men,’ she said. ‘Twenty-three, twenty-four.’
‘I thought they had been killed. In the war.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘They ride with their maldito padre. Why do you go after them? Can you need money so badly that you will hunt men like animals to get it?’
‘I’m not doing it for the bounty,’ he said. ‘I don’t want money.’
‘Then why?’
‘I’ll tell you when I come back,’ he answered. He made as if to go and then turned back. ‘You never married? That Coronel? I forgot his name.’
‘Lopez y Hoya,’ she said. ‘No. We did not marry.’ She did not elaborate. He did not ask. ‘And you?’
He did not answer. She tipped back her head and the dark hair swung. ‘There was someone, then?’
‘Yes.’
‘She meant a great deal to you, I think,’ Maria said. ‘For a short while, she was all there was in all my world,’ he said.
‘And – where is she now?’
‘I don’t know,’ Jed said. ‘I don’t know. I think she is probably dead.’
Maria shook her head. ‘Not while you remember her like that, Mr. Strong. She lives in your eyes, your mind.’
‘I’ll tell you about her,’ Jed said. ‘One day.’
‘Why would you tell me?’
‘My name is Jedediah,’ he said. ‘Remember it. I will tell you because you will want to know. And because I will want you to.’
He left San Antonio next morning at dawn. There was a wicked edge on the November wind, and the smell of rain in the air.