Love and War: The Coltrane Saga, Book 1 (37 page)

“Just keep moving. I want to do what I can for Sam and then be on my way.”

They rode the rest of the way in silence, and as soon as they reached Sam, Kitty told Andy to keep his gun trained on Travis and shoot if necessary, and she slid off her horse and ran to his side. “Sam, are you hurting?” she asked him anxiously, reaching for the knife he held in his hand and cutting the pants leg away from the wound. Two pinhole fang marks oozed blood and yellow serum. Already it was beginning to swell.

He moaned softly, his head leaning back against the trunk of the tree he’d managed to drag himself to. “It hurts powerful bad, Kitty, and I think my other leg is broken. I think I’m a goner…” Through glazed eyes he looked at Andy pointing a gun at Coltrane. “What the hell’s going on around here, anyway?”

“We’re escaping. Just as soon as I do what I can for you. Now don’t talk. Rest so that the blood won’t pump the poison through your body so fast.” She took the tip of the knife and stabbed down into first one fang mark, then the other, slicing open the flesh, then crossing it with another mark. He bit his teeth to keep from screaming, but the moans in his throat were agonizing. She knelt and began to suck out the blood and poison, spitting it out of her mouth.

Sam began to vomit, his whole body heaving convulsively. “He isn’t going to make it, is he?” Travis asked quietly from where he sat on the horse. To Andy he said, “Boy, get me a limb or something for a crutch and let me down off this horse so I can be with my friend.”

Andy did as he was asked, still holding the gun, and Kitty did not protest. She was working feverishly to suck out the poison. And when she had done all she felt she could do, she rocked back on her heels and looked at the now unconscious man before her. “We won’t know for a while whether or not he’ll make it. He’s strong. He didn’t jump and run around and move the poison to his heart, and I did get a lot out by sucking it. With God’s help, he just might make it.”

They all sat down to wait. The night wore on. Ever so often Kitty would reach to touch Sam’s forehead, feeling that it was burning hot with fever. He would moan incoherently, and when his eyes fluttered open momentarily now and then, the look was glassy, dazed. The poison was working on him. Kitty knew that he might die in agony—or he might just go through this terrible period of sickness and then come out of it. There was nothing to do but wait.

“So you’re going home,” Travis said quietly, sitting beside her.

“I certainly am—back to North Carolina—back to wait for the man I love and want to marry.”

“We’re going to find winter quarters to train those men and get me and Sam back on our feet, and when spring comes, we want to get this war over with.”

“I’m sick of hearing about the war.” Her voice was weary.

He ignored her indication that she didn’t want to discuss the situation. “A lot of good men have been killed so far—a lot more will die before it’s over.”

“How many have you killed?” she asked accusingly.

“By myself, maybe twenty, by my men, maybe a hundred.”

“Are you proud of yourself?” She shot him a hateful glance.

“I’m not proud of much of anything, Kitty.” He spoke in a tone of voice she’d never heard him
use
before—soft, tender, as though maybe, somewhere behind that shield of protection he wore, he might actually care about the dying and suffering that was going on all around them. “It’s a sad war. Brother against brother. Father against son. It’s hard to even pinpoint the exact reason that men are killing each other. Up North, I hear there have even been riots because of the new conscription law, and you know what the rioters do after they shout and bum and demonstrate?”

She shook her head. It really didn’t matter. All she wanted was for Sam to come out of this so she and Andy could be on their way.

“Well, they go out and kill hundreds of blacks, sort of like they’re saying ‘Take the black man and get him out of the way…kill all the blacks and we won’t have a war. If they weren’t one of the issues, I don’t think Johnny Reb would even fight. What does the average Southerner care about government anyway? He cares more about God than government.”

She had to laugh in amusement at his thinking. “And just what do you know about the Southerner and his religion?”

“I don’t think there are any people on earth who are more religious than the Southerners. And they’re basically kind people—but then they can turn around and be the meanest. A Northerner will most likely hurt a stranger before his own people, but a Southerner will hurt his father, brother, sister, wife, friends. He just hasn’t learned to separate love and hate. He even blends his belief from the Old Testament into the New, saying one testament is thick with racial pride and war—yet the other is filled with love and forgiveness. They sort of think of themselves as chosen people in the promised land. And your father, he loved you, but yet he walked out on you to go fight for the North. That hurt you, didn’t it?”

She really wasn’t paying any attention to what he was saying except to wonder why he was rambling on so. And then, just as she realized Andy had fallen off to sleep, Travis reached out and whipped the gun from the boy’s limber hand, laughed, and said, “Now it’s a whole different story, Kitty. The South will have to wait a long time for your return, because you’re still with us.” And his voice was no longer soft or soothing—but harsh and mocking.

Kitty did the one thing she swore she would never do in front of Travis Coltrane. She put her head in her hands and wept—wept for her plight—once again a prisoner, her chance of escape now a thing of the past. It was hopeless. She would never be able to go home. She would never see Nathan again, or Poppa, or her mother. She would probably be killed by a stray bullet in some battle in some unknown town or field. And what difference did it make anymore what happened to any of them? The world as she had known it—and loved it—and lived it—was destroyed. There was nothing left.

Travis reached out and touched her long, silky hair, glistening with golden highlights in the moonbeams that filtered down through the leaves above. “Kitty…” he whispered her name. “Kitty, look at me…”

She turned her face to his, tears glistening on her cheeks. What did he want from her now? What new thing had he thought up to hurt her, destroy her?

He was not smiling. His eyes were burning into hers, his mouth only inches away. “I know you are a temptress, a lying, deceitful Rebel witch who would like to see me dead. I know you’re like all other women, out to use a man, make a fool of him, but yet, you’re so goddamned beautiful that I can’t let you go…can’t get you out of my blood. I know I’ll hate myself for letting you go. I’ll probably hate you, maybe even wind up killing you for betraying me…but for now, I want you as I’ve never wanted a woman before, and I think, if you’ll be honest enough to admit it to yourself, you want me, too.”

She watched, wide-eyed, struggling with the emotions churning within her, as he struggled to his feet, then drew her up against him. Hobbling along, he led her away from where Sam lay, breathing gently now, and Andy, who was still sleeping. He took her through some bushes, where a pine-needle carpet lay, closing them out from the rest of the world. He fell to the bed Nature provided, and she let him draw her down beside him. Wordlessly, he began to unbutton the shirt she wore, his hands warm, touching, seeking. His lips pressed against hers, and she received his probing tongue, yielding, her body aflame with the emotion, the passion, driving within.

He was gentle, loving, taking his time to arouse her and make her moan beneath him. But he did not torture her. For the first time in many years, he wanted to give a woman pleasure, not tease her into begging for his pleasures. And when he took her, they rocked together, murmuring sighs and words of love, and Kitty could not believe it was really happening—she could not really be receiving him this way. Was he right? Did she, deep down, want him this way—or was her body merely seeking animal pleasures?

And when they touched the stars together, he held her close for a long time afterward. “I think it would be proper to tell you I love you,” he whispered against her ear. “But I won’t, Kitty, because I can’t be sure, and I don’t want to lie to you. But I will say that you mean a great deal to me, and I desire you as I’ve never desired another woman, and if you’ll let me, for the time we’re together, I’ll be good to you—I’ll be gentle to you.”

“I can’t say that I love you either, Travis,” she spoke honestly, her mind twisting with agonized memories of the love she was sure she felt for Nathan. “But remember this, in all honesty, I will not take an oath against my people, and when the day comes that I have the opportunity, I’ll go to them.”

He released her and sat up, and in the soft light of the first rays of dawn, he smiled that arrogant smile. “Then we understand each other, Kitty. We’re honest with each other. And we can’t ask for more than that, can we?”

“I guess not.”

They adjusted their clothing and then returned to where Sam was propped against the tree, staring at them with clear, alert eyes. “Where the hell have you two been?” He greeted them. “Damnit, a man could die around here and nobody would care.”

Kitty touched his forehead. The fever was gone. She looked at his leg. The swelling was down. “Sam, I do believe you’re going to be just fine.”

“Hell, if the whole Rebel army can’t kill me, I sure as hell ain’t gonna let no damned rattlesnake take me to glory! Now how about fixing my busted leg so we can get back to camp?”

“There’s something you need to hear about what went on in camp while we were out last night.” Travis sat down and started rolling a cigarette. “And I reckon Kitty needs to tend to that nail hole in young Andy’s hand. Then we’ll get around to that leg of yours.”

Kitty and Travis exchanged looks, and Sam saw and chuckled. “Well, I guess you two have seen what I been knowing all along.”

Kitty had moved out of hearing range, and Travis asked him, “And what might that be, you old codger?”

“You two love each other,” he said simply. “You might wind up shootin’ each other before this dadblamed war is over, but for right now, you sure as hell are in love with that girl.”

Travis looked to where Kitty was leaning over Andy, shaking him awake, telling him she had to see to his hand. She was beautiful. She was the finest-looking woman he had ever seen, the lushest, most appealing body he had ever held in his arms. And for the moment, until their world finished exploding around them—she was his. But love? No—he couldn’t admit to love, not the way he felt about women, and if ever a treacherous woman lived, it was Kitty Wright.

“Sam,” he slapped his longtime friend on the shoulder and grinned down at him, “you’re full of shit!”

Chapter Twenty-Three

By the first part o September 1862, the state of Virginia was clear of Federal forces. General Robert E. Lee felt that the time was ripe to invade the North as success might secure Maryland for the Confederacy and bring the needed official recognition to the Southern nation from England and France. Then both foreign powers would send supplies, perhaps even troops, to aid the Southern cause. So on September 5th, Lee’s gray-clad regiments waded across the Potomac River. At Frederick, Maryland, Lee divided his army, sending General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson southward to capture Harpers Ferry and keep the Valley avenue open, while Lee took the rest of his army and headed westward to Sharpsburg.

Meanwhile, President Lincoln assigned what was left of General John Pope’s forces to join McClellan to pursue the Confederate invaders. And on the fourteenth day of September, McClellan fought his way through the passes of South Mountain, Maryland. The next day, as McClellan’s troops converged on Lee, Jackson was busy seizing Harpers Ferry. Jackson then hurried northward and rejoined Lee at Sharpsburg on September 16th.

And then came the largest one-day blood bath ever fought on American soil. From sunrise to sunset, Federal units made repeated assaults on Lee’s lines. Casualties were mounting frightfully in East Wood, West Wood, Dunker Church, and Sunken Road, and around Burnside’s Bridge. By nightfall, General Lee’s battered army was still holding its position, having lost nine thousand men. McClellan had lost twelve thousand.

Lee’s invasion was ended by the battle of Antietam Creek, and he retired back to Virginia. It was five days later that Lincoln issued his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which promised freedom to all slaves in Confederate-held territory after January 1st, 1863. Thus, the war was converted into a struggle for human freedom and the European nations were deterred from granting aid or recognition to the Confederacy.

Coltrane’s Raiders heard the news as they pushed on toward the Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee, rumored to be a haven for deserters from both armies.

“Damnit, I want to head back,” Travis swore as they sat around the campfire after a meager supper of flapjacks. “Now’s no time to be sitting around. We’ve got to strike while Lee’s strength is weakened. How many men we got rounded up so far?” He looked at Sam.

“I reckon we’ve got about thirty-eight now.” Andy spoke up from where he sat close to Travis, hanging on to his every word.

Kitty stared at them critically from where she sat in the shadows eating her small portion of the food. She didn’t like the way Andy was looking up to Travis. She had seen it developing little by little, but after the shooting incident, when Travis praised Andy for killing one of his own men, telling him how brave he was, Andy was following the Captain around like a faithful old hound dog.

She also did not like the way that Travis and Sam were able to pull in deserters along the way to join their group. The Yankees were scared to refuse because they were threatened with instant hanging if they did. And the Southern soldiers were just grateful that they weren’t shot on sight, and since they were deserting from their own regiments, they felt safer, Kitty supposed, joining up with the Raiders.

“Both of us are too busted up to think about fighting right now.” Sam poked at the fire with a stick, his splinted leg stuck out in front of him. “The thing for us to do is hurry up and find decent winter quarters, and by spring we’ll be better’n ever, and we’ll have a hundred men ready to fight. We’ll have the best goldanged bunch of cavalrymen in the whole Union army!”