The three men—confident they outwitted the soldiers—crept by lantern flame and moonlight through the horizontal wooden fence slats outlining Toby Jenkins’s one-thousand-acre farmland. Lyle, the leader and last one in, snuffed the fire after sneaking under a “No Trespassers” sign nailed on a post.
“Think he saw us?” Franklin said as the assassins squatted behind a towering weeping willow to catch their breaths and adjust their eyes to the moonlit darkness.
“Ain’t sure,” Lyle whispered, hoping his two compatriots would follow his lead. “Even if he did, from this point on, no light, gentlemen.”
Brendan, the last of the former Confederate soldiers turned hired killers, peeked from behind the tree to see pinpricks of orange candlelight illuminating the farmhouse windows almost half a mile downhill. Cornfields blanketed most of the land, save for the manicured stretch the three hoped to traverse.
“If he saw us, we’d look like fireflies,” Brendan said.
Despite it being past midnight, sweat trickled into their eyes as the August heatwave smothered upcountry South Carolina. Perspiration soaked the men’s dark pants and black short-sleeved shirts. Only their hats distinguished them. Franklin wore a black bowler while Lyle donned a black felt Stetson. Brendan sported a brown one.
“Horses can’t get free, right?” Lyle said to Franklin. “We’re gonna need to beat it quick. I don’t want no one seeing us. I don’t care if it is dark.”
“I hitched them to a tree back yonder. Nobody’s riding these parts at night. Soldiers are too busy rounding up Klansmen to be worrying about us.”
“Good. Here’s another reason God’s calling on us to do this: can you believe those niggers’ll be able to vote for president of the United States in a few months?” Lyle said. “And we’re not allowed to vote? Why should I, a white man, not be allowed to vote in the state where I grew up but some savage can?”
“Well, I think it’s because the Yankees figured us for traitors for insurrection against the United States government,” Franklin said. “So why would Yankees allow us to vote for—”
“I didn’t mean it literally, shithead!” Lyle caught himself and looked around to make sure nobody had heard him. He felt his heart thumping and waited for it to slow a bit before continuing. “Christ, I know goddamn well why we ain’t allowed to vote—I can’t get over it, though. I would’ve kept fighting. I mean, talk about indignity: first Charlie Stanhope dies and wills his property to Toby Jenkins and his wife, and now those animals can vote to keep Grant and those Radical Republicans in office? Mark my words, the goddamn Republicans have the black vote locked up for eternity.”
“Why’d Charlie give them his land?” Franklin asked like a child and not a twenty-eight-year-old Civil War veteran. “I don’t get it.”
“What can I say? He’s a goddamn scalawag,” Lyle said. “He loved those freedmen, bought ’em when they was just teenage kids fresh off the boat in Charleston. Educated them, even—hired a tutor right after he bought them. Figured it best to Americanize them. Never whipped them, never touched them. Hell, he even married the two, and then Charlie—a white man, mind you—offered them their freedom before the War ended, but they stayed.”
“I still don’t get it.”
“It’s like this.” Brendan, a year older than Franklin, chimed in. “Charlie never took a wife. Had no kids. All he asked of them was to help him plant and harvest the corn. And he treated them like family. Hell, Toby and Sarah were his family. And when the old guy kicked, he left them everything to get around the Black Codes. I’ll be goddamned if some black man’s gonna own more property than me.”
“Well, that’s why Mister Diggs hired us today,” Lyle said of Thomas Diggs, the land baron who wanted Toby and Sarah Jenkins out of the picture, and who coveted their property. “A thousand bucks each buys two-hundred acres easy. All we gotta do is force Toby to sign over his property to Mister Diggs, then pop him and his wife and kid.”
“And Sheriff Cole’s okay with this?” Franklin said.
“Don’t worry about him,” Lyle said. “You think anyone in this county’s gonna give two shits about three dead niggers who have no earthly right to that land when white veterans are homeless?”
“I don’t know, Lyle. The woman had a baby not but a month ago. We gonna kill the baby, too?”
“Yes, Franklin, we are.” Lyle drew his nine-cylinder LeMat. “Check your guns, make sure you don’t have to mess with them when we’re right on top of them.”
“But, Lyle. A baby?”
“If you’re gonna chicken out, then walk away, Franklin,” Lyle hissed. “I didn’t have to ask you and Brendan if you wanted in on this. I figured we’re buddies and we can use the money. Or do you want to keep sleeping in that shit-stinking shack of yours?”
“Course I don’t.”
“Then shut up and let’s do this.”
Brendan carried a Colt revolver with an ivory handle. Franklin loaded his Springfield rifle.
“So what are we doing?” Franklin said.
Lyle stood. Brendan and Franklin followed his lead.
“Well, we surround the house and work our way toward it,” Lyle said. “If someone comes running at you—open fire.”
“But there are only three of us,” Franklin said.
“So?”
“You can’t surround a house with three people. What if they make a break for it on the side we’re not covering?”
The three reasoned in silence.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Franklin’s got a point,” Brendan said.
“Shit, yeah, I guess he does.” Lyle reached under his grimy Stetson and scratched through matted black hair. “All right, here’s what we do. We surround it triangular-like. Brendan, keep your distance while running to the side of the house on your right, enough so that you can keep an eye on its front and side, just in case someone tries sneakin’ out the window. I’ll do likewise on my left. Franklin, you circle around to the back. Hide in the cornfield if you have to. I’ll signal with a bird call, three times.” Lyle blew three short, sharp whistles. “Just like that. When you hear it, start converging—Franklin, that means you move toward the back door.”
“I know what it means.”
“All right, we don’t want to kill Toby Jenkins right away—only if he’s about to fire on you. It looks better if he signs over the deed to Mister Diggs.”
“He ain’t gonna just hand it over,” Brendan said.
“He will when we hold a gun to his baby’s head.”
Brendan and Franklin kept quiet. Lyle continued after a few seconds of silence.
“Don’t kill Sarah, neither, not if you don’t have to. We need the wife and the kid as leverage. Once we get that nigger’s signature, then we blow them all to hell, and we’re all one-thousand dollars richer. And don’t forget to drop the hoods on the way back.”
Lyle patted a white cloth hood with two eyeholes that he had tied to his belt. Brendan and Franklin had knotted hoods to their belts and checked to make sure they hadn’t fallen during their journey.
“If those northerners demand an investigation, they’ll find the hoods, think a struggle took place, and blame the Klan. That’s all they care about stopping these days.”
“But shooting a woman like that—”
“Shut it, Franklin,” Lyle cut him off. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t your little brother fall at Fort Wagner?”
Franklin stiffened his six-foot, eight-inch frame when Lyle invoked the memory of his brother, Clayton. “Yeah, he did.”
“If I recall correctly, one of those nigger Yankees from Massachusetts fired a bullet right in his gut and he screamed for dear life in that tent as the doctors tried pulling it out of him, right?”
“They couldn’t get it in time. He bled out,” Franklin grumbled to himself.
“That’s right.” Lyle violently jabbed toward the house. “And it’s all because of them that your brother’s dead. So don’t you get soft now. You owe it to your family, to your people, to make sure those filthy animals know their place.”
“Fine, I get what you’re saying. But you said Mister Diggs hired David Pruitt last week to do what we’re about to do. Nobody’s seen him since.”
“Probably tried attacking Toby while he was drunk,” Brendan said from behind Franklin.
“No. I lent him my Derringer right before he left,” Franklin said. “He didn’t say why. Only that he wanted something small for his pocket in case he dropped his sidearm. Derringer’s too small for my hand, anyway. But he was plenty sober when I gave it to him. The idea of two-thousand dollars would sober me up right quick, ’cause that’s what Diggs was gonna pay him. Pruitt’s reliable. I served with him. Now he’s gone.”
“Well, that’s why there’s three of us,” Lyle said. “Maybe Toby’s good with a rifle. I don’t know, but it’s all the more reason to keep wise. Franklin, you get going. You’ve got the greatest distance to cover.”
“I might not be able to hear your bird call,” Franklin said as he lumbered away.
“Listen real close and you will,” Lyle spat back.
A full moon in a cloudless sky attuned their eyes to the darkness. Brendan departed counter-clockwise, cocking his Colt as he walked. Lyle focused on the distant two-story farmhouse, believing Toby knew something was up—Why else would he keep his place all alight with candles? Then, one by one, the top-floor windows darkened and the house slowly disappeared, but not completely. The windows flanking the front door remained illuminated.
“Mother and child are asleep,” Lyle said. “It’s just you and me now, boy.”
Brendan, lest he become hopelessly lost, dared not enter the cornfield that grew one-hundred feet from the left side of the farmhouse, reaching across hundreds of unseen acres. The sea of maize wrapped around the property’s rear where Franklin would take cover. Brendan hugged the line, weaving into and out of the stalks in case he heard something. He’d killed men—Union soldiers—but that was seven years ago. Never had executing a potentially unarmed man crossed his mind.
Let Lyle pull the trigger, he thought. The War turned him into a lunatic. He’ll kill that baby, I don’t doubt it.
Brendan repeatedly scampered twelve steps at a time before stopping to listen, until standing one-hundred-and-fifty feet from the left-hand corner of the house. One large window provided a side exit. He crouched into the cornfield, looking through the stalks, waiting for Lyle’s signal to charge. The house glowed silver under the ghostly moonlight.
Franklin ambled along the property’s manicured side. He figured Toby could see anyone and anything coming down the dirt road leading to his front doorstep, but the maze of pine trees flanking his house provided privacy. Franklin hid behind the trees, keeping his grunts down as the pine needles stuck him. Pretty soon, a wide, two-tiered barn came into view. The red-shingled structure housed Toby’s hayloft, tools, rig and three stallions when they weren’t out grazing in the fenced-in swath next to the barn. Franklin bounded from the trees and took refuge behind it, skulked to a corner, and peeked around to see the house sideways. Franklin gripped his rifle. He’d get only one shot, but he could run fast for his size.
Toby ain’t that big. I can get him, he thought. Shoot to injure, especially if it’s the woman. I pray she ain’t carrying no baby.
Franklin would scoot to the back door and kick it in once Lyle signaled. If need be he could cover his side of the house should someone try escaping through its window, deliberately left open with closed shutters, to allow for rare cool breezes.
A loud, lengthy creak cut the night’s silence.
Franklin froze with his back against the barn. He knew that noise. Anyone raised on a farm could identify it. He felt it as his body made contact with the building: a slow wind had caught an unlocked barn door and eased it open. The barn had two sets of double-doors; the second pair, similar in size to the front, stood locked in the rear. Toby could lead his rig straight through the barn when both sets were open. Franklin, pressing himself against the rear door, saw its secured latch.
Franklin then heard through the wood the horses stirring, exhaling sputtered breaths.
Goddamn door woke them up! Franklin thought. Shit, if the lights are still on in the house, then Toby’s likely heard it, too. He’ll hear them for sure if they whinny. Maybe that means we can get him without a fuss when he goes to check on them and close the door. I hope so.
Franklin breathed louder as he pressed his ear to the wood. Soon the horses settled and all quieted except the lone door swaying on squealing hinges. Franklin felt no wind.
Lyle aimed his LeMat as the barn door shimmied. He glanced at the house to check for Toby’s response. The leader, and the youngest of the trio at twenty-four, inched closer and hid behind the trees that checkerboarded that side of the property. The nearer he got to the home the taller and wider the trees grew. Charlie built the house where the biggest trees stood to avail himself of their shade for summer. Lyle, his nerves tingling in anticipation of battle, hid behind a wide oak tree standing one-hundred feet from both the house and the barn. Five minutes passed before he summoned the courage. He thrice whistled before emerging from behind the tree. He trained his firearm on the home’s front door, glancing occasionally at the candle-lit windows to see if someone might push open the shutters to look outside. Nothing moved except for Lyle and his creeping compatriots.
Franklin assumed the position he’d become accustomed to seven years earlier with his sweat-slicked rifle. He hugged the side wall while aiming at the house before him. He counted five of the barn wall’s rectangular openings roughly five feet off the ground that helped ventilate the stables. Franklin watched for any horse heads that could jut through the darkness for a breath of fresh air. His stomach heaved when the barn door creaked and swayed into his view before swinging back. He blinked sweat out of his eyes and felt blood pulsing through his ears.
Should I close the damn door to cut out the racket? he thought. No! Don’t take your eyes off that house.
The moon bathed the home in light, casting an impenetrable black shadow behind the house.
Christ, if Toby’s back there he could be aiming at my forehead and I’d never know. Franklin tensed and focused on the black patch. He listened for movement and felt unnerved upon not hearing the summer sounds that should be everywhere.
Where are the goddamn cicadas, the crickets? There should be flies buzzing around the barn because of the horseshit!
The lack of insect chirrups amplified each of Franklin’s steps. He gulped and pulled the butt of his rifle into his shoulder while swiping sweat from his eyes with his trigger hand. He scanned the cornfield and horse paddock beyond the dark patch and saw a small, moonlit, white cross poking out of raised ground near a weeping willow whose branches shaded the grave on sunny days.
Charlie Stanhope, Franklin thought. He never wanted to leave this place.
Although he saw only one cross, he didn’t miss a second heap of soil piled ten feet from Charlie’s plot. Franklin had shoveled enough of those holes to know its purpose.
Rumor was going around that Toby’s wife died in childbirth, Franklin thought. A false rumor.
For the life of him, Franklin could not figure why a second grave yawned from the earth.
He brought himself back to the moment and refocused on the home’s rear. His peripheral vision caught movement in the side window. A black hand pushed a shutter outward. Franklin ignored the darkness and aimed square at the open window and the person taking a gander.
The black void from behind Toby’s home disgorged a deep grunt—loud enough to spook Franklin. Instinct told him to duck, and as he did, a three-pronged pitchfork sailed over his head and impaled the barn door with enough force to shut it. Franklin looked over his right shoulder just as the door smacked against its frame, dislodging the second of the double doors from its stasis. The clatter jangled Franklin into accidentally pulling his rifle’s trigger. Brendan witnessed the scenario and bounded, his Colt drawn, toward Franklin as the pitchfork struck wood. Franklin’s gunshot surprised Brendan almost as much as the bullet that ripped clean through his meaty left shoulder. Brendan screamed as he stumbled forward, his arms flailing as he tried regaining his balance. Unable to control his momentum, Brendan fell and hit the ground, inadvertently firing a single shot from his Colt as he somersaulted toward the farmhouse—where Lyle had thrown down his white hood and now steadied himself to kick open the front door. Brendan’s bullet bored into Lyle’s right butt cheek.
“What the fuck?!” Lyle screamed as he collapsed on the porch. He dropped his LeMat and scrambled to grab it, fearing Toby Jenkins would open the door and start blasting.
Franklin, unaware of the chain reaction, and left with only his rifle’s bayonet to protect himself, looked once more at the pitchfork—certain its tines penetrated five inches through the door—and back into the darkness from whence it came.
“I’m going home.” Franklin about-faced and stampeded a reverse trail to the weeping willow where he originally hid with Lyle and Brendan, and then to the horses to unhitch his ride and complete the retreat.
Brendan—aided by the circular, stone, water well in front of Toby’s house—abruptly stopped somersaulting.
At least I have cover, he thought after the thud. He felt the top of his hairy blond head. I lost my hat! Shit, did I write my name in it? I did! I gotta find it or they’ll know I was here!
Brendan stayed hidden until his brain stopped bouncing in his skull. He’d forgotten the pain caused by his ragged shoulder wound and peered from behind the well to see Lyle stumbling to regain his footing like a newborn horse. Brendan stood, his body concealed from the belly down by the four-foot-tall well, his head obscured by a water bucket dangling from a pulley secured to a wooden arch. He’d held on to his Colt and cocked it, not sure of his next move: kill Toby, help Lyle, or forget both and find his hat?
Both front barn doors sprang outward. Brendan, craving the well’s protection, crouched and peeked above the stone rim.
“He’s in there! Sumbitch’s been in there all along!” Brendan called to Lyle, who found his LeMat but still struggled to stand. The moonlight shone a few feet into the barn, enough to reveal boot tips poking out of the darkness. Brendan stood and barely made out the forelegs before the figure backed into the abyss. A gleaming object launched from the blackness, moving in a rainbow arch toward the well and Brendan, who heard the projectile slice the air and pierce the wooden bucket, which swung like a pendulum into Brendan’s forehead, knocking him backward. The bucket twisted to reveal a sickle had split the wood.
“Aw, hell, this ain’t worth a thousand bucks!” Brendan charged toward Lyle, but not to break into Toby’s house.
“Forget ’em, if they didn’t know we were coming, they do now!” Brendan grabbed Lyle to urge him off the porch and make for the horses. “Run toward the corn and stay within the first few rows. We’ll be harder to hit! I’ll cover you.”
“Goddamn, it hurts to move!” Lyle whined. He hobbled ahead of Brendan as fast as his body would allow.
The dark figure re-emerged from the barn toting a machete in each hand. Brendan gasped when he saw a moonlit Klansman’s hood concealing the man’s identity. Brendan, even more than two-hundred feet away, fancied himself a skilled shot and aimed square at the chest, successively firing three bullets.
The Klansman remained still, watching.
No way I missed him three times, Brendan thought.
He looked ahead to see Lyle entering the cornfield. Brendan charged, firing his remaining two bullets into the barn not to hit anything, but to provide cover for his escape. Brendan breathed easier upon spotting his hat in the grass near where he began tumbling. He snatched it and disappeared into the stalks with Lyle. Brendan figured Toby could shoot at them, but the chances of hitting them diminished as they hugged the inside line of the field, making sure they could see grassy terrain to their right as they ran.
Not one bullet had been fired from Toby’s house or barn. Brendan and Lyle returned to the weeping willow where they originally devised the plan of attack.
Once they stopped panting, and when Lyle felt secure, he slapped Brendan upside the head. “Why the hell’d you shoot me?”
“Way to say ‘thank you!’ asshole!” Brendan slapped him back. “I could’ve left your ass on that porch and hightailed it out of here like I’m assuming that big oaf did. Speaking of which, that numbskull shot me, or ain’t you seen my shoulder?!”
Lyle lit the lantern he had left by the tree and saw Brendan’s blood, which appeared black, glistening in the moonlight.
“No. I didn’t,” Lyle said. “It hurt?”
“Yeah—something fierce now that I can think about it. I need to get to a doctor and I expect you do too.”
“That’s just what my bullet-riddled ass needs right now: to be bouncing in a saddle.”
“Would you rather wait here for the doctor?”
“Sort of. It means I’ll get more time to think of how to explain all this to Mister Diggs.”
“I ain’t worried about him right now, Lyle. That freedman just made us look like circus clowns. I shot that bastard three times. I know I hit him at least once—I know it. And he didn’t even so much as flinch. I have a feeling he could’ve killed us all but he didn’t. Why?”
Lyle stared at the house. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Finally.” Brendan started walking.
“Ain’t you noticed it?”
“Noticed what?”
“Look down yonder.” Lyle pointed toward the homestead.
The barn doors were closed, and the farmhouse’s windows no longer glowed with candlelight.