CHAPTER 7

Haydon continued with his story. Wainwright had been a general for the Union Army in the late war. Haydon was a colonel for the Confederacy. They had clashed during that bloody conflict, though not in battle. Their meeting had come after Haydon was captured and incarcerated in a Union prison camp in southern Illinois . . . a camp run by Wainwright.

“Seems like all you ever hear about is how bad things were in the Confederate prison camp at Andersonville,” Haydon related to Buckhorn. “But I’m here to tell you, firsthand, that life in a Union camp, especially one run by the likes of Wainwright, was no picnic, either. And he didn’t have the excuse of massive overcrowding and severe supply shortages like they did in Georgia. By his nature, Wainwright was—is—just plain cruel and sadistic.”

Waving a hand through the empty space where the bottom half of his leg should have been, Haydon went on. “I can thank Wainwright for this. I arrived in his prison with a relatively minor wound suffered in the battle that resulted in my capture. They had a competent medical staff on hand but, because I immediately spoke up against the deplorable conditions I saw elsewhere in the camp, Wainwright decided to make an example of me. He ordered me placed in a hot box with only minimal water and no medical attention to the leg for forty-eight hours. By the time they dragged me out, gangrene had set in. I guess I don’t have to tell you the rest.

“The only time Wainwright left me alone was during the period the stump was healing. After that, I became his favorite little toy for regular bouts of humiliation and torturous punishment. He never broke me completely, though. I fooled the son of a bitch by staying alive, unlike some of the men. Too damn many . . . When the war ended and they opened up the prison camp, I lost track of Wainwright. But not in my mind. He was always there. For all these years, I’ve kept hating and wanting revenge on a ghost. Finally, a couple months ago I got word of him.”

Another former Confederate soldier who’d spent time in Wainwright’s prison camp had showed up in New Orleans and happened to hear Haydon’s name mentioned. He’d come calling on the off chance it was the same Haydon who’d been his commanding officer in the war. It was from this man Haydon had learned where Wainwright was utilizing his all-too-familiar ruthless, ironfisted tactics.

Unlike many Southerners, Haydon had gone home from the war to find out he was not left penniless, thanks to his family’s holdings in a handful of businesses in and around New Orleans. Taking over the operation of those businesses, he had kept them maintaining nice profits and actually flourishing in most instances. That had left him a modestly wealthy man with the wherewithal to check out the Wainwright story more thoroughly and to eventually send for Buckhorn.

“At first,” Haydon explained, “my thoughts were to go confront the evil bastard myself. Another of my overly romanticized notions, I fear. But the limitations of my missing leg and the demands of my various businesses brought me back down to earth and made me realize it would be best for me to remain here.

“Besides, I expect he’d be too quick to recognize me. A stranger, someone with your experience, will be able to work your way in closer. I not only want Wainwright crushed, I want retribution meted out for far more than just what he did to me. He ruined the lives—ended lives, remember—of many a good man. He deserves a severe comeuppance and it would be ideal if he knew it was all toppling down around him and that I was the cause before he dies.”

“Sounds like a tall order,” Buckhorn said on the verge of accepting the job. “But the way you tell it, he sure as hell does sound like an hombre who deserves a comeuppance. Reckon I’m willing to be the one to take a crack at delivering it to him.”

* * *

Two days later, in the first gray light ahead of the sun breaking above the horizon, Buckhorn rode out of New Orleans.

He’d had his visit to the famous city, gotten a good taste, and enjoyed it, except for the encounters with Oscar Turlick, of course. He told himself he might return to cut another swath someday but, for now, he was satisfied. He had a job to do for Andrew Haydon and on top of that he was ready to take a break from all the congestion and noise and general hurly-burly. It felt pretty good to get out on the open trail again.

It had better. A lot of open trail lay ahead of him—about twelve hundred miles, give or take. Three weeks of steady riding. With good luck, maybe a day or two less; with bad, some amount longer.

Wagon Wheel, Arizona, was his destination. A town and a territory, under the thumb of the ruthless man whose name Haydon spoke with such bitterness. Thomas Wainwright. It was there the man was swallowing up vast sections of good ranchland and driving off those trying to make a go of it on the smaller spreads he saw as being in his way. The fellow who’d reported it to Haydon had been one of the latter.

As he rode, Buckhorn remembered one other statement Haydon had said. “I want as much of his ranching operation as possible ruined, too. If that sounds petty and small, I can’t help it.”

* * *

Making it out of Louisiana took longer than anticipated due to the preponderance of small towns, meandering roads, farm fences, creeks, and swampy areas that had to be negotiated. It was nothing like the wide open spaces farther west where Buckhorn normally plied his trade.

Especially the damn swamps. He was used to keeping an eye peeled for rattlers and scorpions and other desert and plains critters that could do a body harm. The thought of all the slimy creepy-crawlies that lurked in the ooze and under the green-water scum of a swamp made his skin crawl. Why the hell anybody would choose to live around such places was more than he could figure. When he expressed these thoughts to Sarge, the big gray chuffed and swung his head in agreement.

By the second week, Buckhorn was well into Texas. The land was opening up, he was making better time, and was generally feeling better about things all the way around. Summer was wearing down, but it was still hot as blazes and the land was baked good and dry, thirsty for the moisture that winter would bring.

And for damn sure there wasn’t a scummy green swamp anywhere in sight.