Brings the Lightning (The Ames Archives Book 1) (2 page)

Damn you!
he cursed mentally, feeling sick to his stomach.
Why in hell did you join in? I didn’t know you
was
a woman! I’ve never harmed
one
before, and I’d as soon not have hurt you… but what else could I do?

Shaking his head in a vain attempt to clear the ringing, all-too-familiar aftereffects of gunfire from his ears, he swung down from the saddle, then reached up gingerly to the back of his neck. He could feel a line across the skin, which stung as he touched it. His fingers came away red.
Woman or not, she near on did for me. One inch to the right and she’d have blown my neck bone in two. What a hell of a thing that would
be
– survive the war, only to
get
killed
by a no-account bushwhacker’s woman after the surrender!

Walt looked around, tensed for action.
Are there any more of ’em? She only called two for supper, but that don’t mean there weren’t some
others
already up there.
He listened, alert for any sound that might signal danger, but there was nothing.
Maybe it was just those two men. If there’d been others, surely they’d have joined the fight with her, an’ not sat it out? Still, until I’ve checked out whatever’s up there, I’d best be real careful.

With a final rattle in her throat and a tremor through her body, the woman stopped breathing. He couldn’t tell how old she might have been, but she wasn’t young. Her once-dark hair was heavily streaked with gray, and her face was lined and careworn. He glanced at the rifle lying next to her. It was an old muzzle-loading single-shot weapon, its barrel now plugged with dirt from the fall. He left it lying in the grass as he turned and walked over to the two men.

The older man, now also silent in death, was carrying a Lemat revolver in a flap-top saddle holster, altered to fit his belt and balanced by an Arkansas toothpick knife on the other side.
That’s an odd
gun for a bushwhacker
to have,
Walt mused as he removed the weapons and picked up the carbine.
The South didn’t bring in many, and most of ’em went to the cavalry. Maybe one of those the boy said they’d killed this past week was carrying it.

He was about to turn away when he noticed a leather thong around the man’s neck. He pulled open his coat and whistled in surprise. The man was wearing an Indian-made bear-claw necklace. It was strung with all twenty claws from front and back paws—large ones, at that.
I’ve never seen a black bear with claws that big,
Walt mused as he removed it and slipped it into a pocket of his greatcoat.
Wonder if they’re from a grizzly? I’ve heard tell they’re pretty big, but there ain’t any in these parts.

The younger man carried an Allen & Thurber pepperbox revolver thrust behind his belt. Walt tossed it into the brush with a grunt of disdain. He threw the Springfield musket after it as well, after removing the percussion cap from its nipple and lowering the hammer, but kept the boy’s well-worn Green River sheath knife.

He added the weapons to his pack horse’s load and swung into his saddle again, still holding his revolver as he looked up at the bluff.
There’s got to be a path leading up there. It’s too steep to climb here.
He urged the horses into motion, peering at the right side of the trail in the fading light. Sure enough, within a few yards he saw a break in the brush and turned the horses into it. In the gloom they picked their way up a narrow, steeply sloped trail along the face of the bluff, to emerge thirty feet higher on level ground. He followed the trail back along the bluff top until it widened in front of a cave. Two horses were picketed outside beneath a brush lean-to shelter, big enough to hold three times as many animals. They whickered as they heard and scented the approach of his mount. A small stream trickled down a nearby rock face. A tantalizing odor of food came from the cave.

Dismounting, he secured his horses in the shelter, noting in passing that the bushwhackers’ animals, like his, bore US Army brands. He kept the gun ready in his hand as he went inside, looking around warily, but relaxed as he saw three beds made of tree boughs, covered by tarpaulins and piled with old, dirty blankets. One was twice as wide as the others, presumably for the woman and the older man. The narrower beds would be for their sons. A lantern was set on a rock shelf, casting a dim, fitful light. A black cast iron cooking pot was bubbling over coals. Lifting the lid, he saw it contained a mixture of bacon and beans. Another pot of beans was soaking next to a stack of firewood. A half-side of bacon with a carving knife embedded in it lay on a rough-cut table, along with a round loaf of pan bread. A pack saddle, bags and bundles lined one side of the cave.

He made a snap decision.
Nobody else is
likely to come this way tonight. I’ll clean my guns, eat their food, sleep here, and see what else they’ve got in the morning, when the light’s better. My horses can do with a day’s rest, and there’s new spring grass
for them
in that clearing. I’ll wait for Tay to get back. I’ll be damned if I leave him alive to rob and kill any more Southern boys, with or without his family!

Next morning the rain had stopped and the clouds had parted. Walt rose with the dawn and gently explored the wound on the back of his neck. He’d cleaned it using the dregs of a bottle of whiskey the night before, cursing as the alcohol stung the wound. Now he repeated the process. Instead of bandaging it, he left it open to the fresh air, to dry and form a scab.

He breakfasted on the cold bacon, beans and bread left over from last night, then took the horses down to the clearing and picketed them to graze. Climbing back up the path, he hauled everything out of the cave and inspected his loot. There were burlap sacks, canvas bags and glass jars of food, lanterns, kerosene to fuel them, five iron pots ranging from very large to small, ammunition and cleaning gear for the guns, even a couple of bars of laundry soap—unused, to Walt’s cynical amusement.
No money, though,
he mused as he sorted through the robbers’ clothes and personal belongings.
No one’s got much cash these days. I bet
the
other
boy will bring some back from Ripley,
though.

He set aside the few clothes that would fit him and were still in reasonably good shape. They all smelled dirty and stale, and he wrinkled his nose in distaste. He threw the rest of the clothing into the back of the cave, then selected two blankets that looked to be newer, thicker and cleaner than the others, discarding the rest. He built up a fire outside, filled the two biggest pots with water and set them to heat, then took a spade and went back down to the clearing.

Walking down the slope into the trees, the smell of decaying bodies led him to the remains of three men, still wearing parts of their Confederate gray uniforms. All had been shot. Judging by their condition, they’d died within the past week to ten days. Small animals had been feeding on them.
Looks like that bushwhacker kid told the truth,
Walt thought, feeling both vindicated and vengeful at the same time.
He’s paid for their murders, and so have his father an’ mother… but there’s still that other one coming back tonight. He needs to pay for this, too.

He deepened an existing depression with the spade, and pulled the bodies into it before scraping the dirt back over them. He pulled a downed tree over the grave so its branches would keep the varmints away. Removing his hat, he raised his eyes to the sky. “Lord, I ain’t much of a praying man, but I hope you’re listening anyhow. I don’t know who these men were, but I guess you do. They wore gray, like me, and they didn’t deserve to end like this. Please be mindful of them.”

He used a horse and a rope to pull the three bodies from the clearing down into the trees, piling them next to the grave so as not to alert the remaining man when he returned.
I’m not going to pray for you
, he thought savagely as he turned his back on them.
I reckon I know where you went—your woman, too, ’cause she was just as guilty. I don’t think prayers will help none of you murderers down there!

Walt went back to the cave, laid his guns handy, then stripped naked and shaved laundry soap into the pots. In the biggest, he washed his blankets and those he’d just taken from the bushwhackers, stirring them with a stick, wringing them out, then refilling the pot and setting it to heat again. In the second pot he washed the clothes he’d been wearing, the dirty laundry from his pack, and those he’d taken from the cave. He rinsed everything in the stream, then spread it over bushes to dry in the sunshine and the light breeze.

He cut a hand-size piece of the laundry soap and scrubbed himself from head to toe, using a square cut from a discarded blanket as a washcloth. It was his first opportunity for an all-over wash in hot water in more than a month. He smiled at the unaccustomed whiteness of his body as the dirt fell away, leaving him feeling clean and refreshed. He didn’t shave, deciding that his shaggy hair and bushy beard would help to disguise his features if need be.

It was after noon by the time he finished. He was tired, but he knew he couldn’t afford to sleep. If the other bushwhacker was due back this evening, he’d have to be ready. While he waited for the sun and wind to dry his body, he dabbed at his injury with whiskey once again. He tugged a comb through the tangles in his newly-washed hair and beard until he had them in a passable semblance of order, then wrapped a clean bandana around his neck to stop his collar chafing the wound. He dressed in the first laundered clothes to dry. He cleaned the guns he’d taken from the bushwhackers the night before, then began to sort through their possessions, stowing everything he wanted in the panniers of his pack saddle and the additional one he’d found in the cave. He tossed what he didn’t need on top of the discarded clothes and blankets. As the rest of the laundry dried, he folded the clothes and made two bundles of them by wrapping them in blankets and tying them with twine.

By late afternoon the clouds were moving in again, gray and ominous, threatening more rain. Walt brought the horses back up to the cave, watered them, and secured them in the lean-to; then he fried up half a dozen thick rashers of bacon, eating them with the last of the pan bread for a quick but delicious supper. He turned up the lantern in the cave to provide light that would silhouette anyone entering, then took his Spencer carbine to a tree about ten yards beyond the mouth of the cave, on the far side of the lean-to.

He waited for over an hour, the daylight slowly fading as the sun set, the clouds grew heavier, and the first slow, fat raindrops began to fall. He fought off the urge to close his eyes. That could get a man killed in a hurry. Too many of his friends and comrades had died that way during the war.

At last he heard, faintly in the distance, the sound of several sets of hooves. He jacked back the side hammer of the carbine, lined it from behind the tree trunk, and waited, wondering if he’d miscalculated. The sounds grew nearer. He was relieved to see just one man appear in the gloom astride a sweating, foam-flecked horse, leading three pack mules with empty saddles.

The tall young man called out as he drew near, “Paw! Maw! It’s Tay! We gotta pack up an’ head out
right now!
I robbed the sutler! He had gold! They’ll be comin’ after me soon. We gotta get away!”

Tay sprang from the saddle, allowing the reins to fall to the ground, and staggered on stiff legs to the mouth of the cave. “
Paw! Maw!
Where are you?”

He must have realized from the silence that something was wrong, because he started to turn around, his hand reaching for the revolver stuffed into his belt. Walt pulled the trigger, the shot crashing out, sending a gush of sparks and white smoke into the air, making the horses and mules start and rear with surprise. Tay screamed and clutched at his stomach, staggering backwards. Walt levered another round into the Spencer’s chamber and cocked the side-hammer as his victim half-fell against the rock face beside the cave mouth.

“
Damn you!
You’ve kilt me!” Tay screeched. “Who are you?”

“I’m one of the Johnny Rebs y’all have been robbing,” Walt replied, not showing himself.

“Where’s Paw an’ Maw an’ Sim?”

“You’ll be joining them soon enough.”

The man clearly understood what he meant. “W– Why’d ya kill ’em, ya murderin’ scum?”

“They tried to ambush me. What did you expect me to do, let them shoot me?”

“You’re lyin’! No one could take ’em that easy!”

As he spoke, Tay suddenly scooped the revolver from his belt. He fired a fast, unaimed shot at the sound of Walt’s voice. The bullet thudded into the tree behind which Walt was sheltering, and he couldn’t help a sudden flinch at the sound. Cursing his stupidity at allowing himself to be distracted, he lined his carbine again and fired another round into the man’s chest. Tay dropped his gun, reeled in a half-circle, then groaned and fell forward onto his face.

Walt waited for a few moments, watching the body carefully, alert for any sign of movement, ready to put another bullet into his victim if necessary. Mentally he cursed himself again.
I shouldn’t have given him time to talk.
I must be getting careless now that the war’s over,
he admitted to himself.
I can’t afford to do that.
There are
trigger-happy Yankees out there who’ll think nothing of killing me, then claiming it was my fault. They know
no one
will ask
any
questions
about another dead Reb. They won, after all.