The Mountain: An Event Group Thriller (25 page)

“I expect this Senator Harriman is going to get exactly what he came for.”

As the covering was thrown back, Harriman was assailed by the smell coming from the bed of the wagon. He stepped back and threw a hand over his mouth and nose. The smell hit the policemen next and the first of these doubled over and vomited.

“What is the meaning of this?” Harriman demanded to no one other than the dead men piled in the back of the wagon. He ran to the next in line and his senses were assaulted once again when he unveiled the contents of Colonel John Henry Thomas’s wagons. The senator ran to the next, and then the next. All the while Thomas kept his eyes on the senator and hoped he didn’t have the gumption to thoroughly check the dead men in the back. He suspected Harriman wouldn’t, as he too leaned over and expelled the expensive dinner he’d had that night at the Willard Hotel. After that dinner was lost, the senator’s voice echoed through the dock area.

“I have been tricked!”

John Henry smiled.

ONE MILE OUTSIDE OF BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

The progression of the men was slow. Lieutenant Parnell’s marines tried not to push the Reb prisoners too hard, but they were having a difficult time keeping the ragtag group together as some were much stronger than others. It was Parnell who rode up to confront the Confederate colonel about how he was allowing his men to be stretched out in too long a line.

“Colonel, we will have to call a halt. Your men are falling off and we can’t keep them together.”

“Lieutenant Parnell, while I commiserate with your predicament, I am hardly the man to make the protest to.” He looked over at Sergeant Major Dugan, who was walking beside him at Colonel Thomas’s request so he could keep a close eye on Taylor.

“Call a halt,” Dugan said.

“Now!” Taylor yelled at that very moment.

Before Dugan or Parnell could react, Taylor’s men started pulling marines from their saddles. The guard detail was immediately subdued by men who had pretended to be far worse for wear than they truly were. Before Dugan and the young marine knew what was happening, they had their own weapons trained on them.

Taylor shrugged as one of his men tossed him an Army Colt. He cocked it and then smiled at Dugan and Parnell.

“Endless apologies, gentlemen, but this is where my men and I will say good-bye. Our lines are right across the river.”

Dugan stepped forward angrily. He knew he had let down John Henry and he had decided he would rather die than face him. Taylor stopped the old sergeant major by shoving the barrel of the Colt into his rib cage.

“John Henry has thus far treated us with respect. Do not make me do anything other than that, now that the situation has reversed itself.” He shoved harder until Dugan backed up a step. Then his hands as well as those of Parnell were roughly pulled to their backs and tied. “Sergeant Major, a man very much similar to you in every regard was murdered just last night in New York for following my orders. He was a good man, as I am sure you are, but do not think I will hesitate in killing you and all of these men just as surely as my sergeant major was murdered. Now, gentlemen, we must be off.” The smile widened as a horse was brought to Taylor and he mounted.

“The colonel will find you,” Dugan said as he and a humiliated Parnell were shoved down to the base of a large tree and then tied to it along with the rest of their command.

“John Henry has been chasing me since West Point, Sergeant Major, and he hasn’t caught this old boy yet!” Taylor said loudly as he spurred the black horse he was riding. His mount reared and pawed the air, then shot off into the woods where Taylor’s not-so-sick men awaited their colonel.

“I thought he was going to kill us,” Parnell said as he took a deep breath.

“When John Henry finds out about this, you’ll wish that Reb had pulled the trigger, I can assure you.”

The two men heard the silence of the woods around them and then the sound of a Rebel yell came through the fog with a loud whoop.

“He’s going to hang us,” Dugan complained, shaking his head.

BALTIMORE NAVY YARD, BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

John Henry was still smiling when he arrogantly shoved aside the policeman and his manacles. He approached the senator, who was still wiping vomit from his mouth. The man would taste the oysters he’d had for dinner for more than a year afterward.

“Here is your roster, sir,” John Henry said as he held out a piece of paper. “All the casualties of the escape attempt have been documented in my report. They are all yours, Senator,” John Henry said with a smirk.

“They’re all dead,” Harriman said after he caught his breath.

“Yes, bullets to the backs of their heads usually do that.”

John Henry watched as the senator actually attempted once more to examine the backs of the first and second wagons. Thomas had emptied out the hospital of every Confederate body he could find and had tossed the poor bastards unceremoniously into the backs of the wagons. It was a close-run ruse, as he had to deal with the astonished looks of the military hospital personnel as he did so. He didn’t know how much flak the president would catch over this, but it was the only way he could have pulled this off. After all, he had not been forewarned that Harriman was on the trail of the prisoners. It seemed Major Freeman in New York might have had a little more pull than even the president thought.

The smell emanating from the ten wagons was starting to get to John Henry when the senator abruptly turned and left with the capital police in tow.

“I will get to the bottom of this, I assure you, sir!”

“Yes, I’m sure you will,” Thomas said as he removed his gloves and then turned toward the three people waiting inside the gate. He was about to approach when a marine came running through the gate out of breath.

At the same moment, Professor Ericsson stumbled out of the back of the last wagon, and he too was puking up his own dinner after being unceremoniously tossed into the wagon after the clandestine hospital run.

Thomas took the young marine private by the shoulders and shook him.

“The prisoners—they have escaped,” the boy finally managed to say.

“Sergeant Major Dugan?” asked Thomas, fearful his old friend had been killed by another old friend.

“They harmed no one, sir. Just tied us up and then skedaddled.”

John Henry released the boy. He turned toward the darkness beyond the gate and the thick fog forming through the trees. “Gray Dog!”

Suddenly the fog parted and there was the Comanche appearing like a spectral image. Thomas had not known where he was, but he always showed up when called. He gestured at Gray Dog and nodded his head. It was amazing that he had not had to explain what he wanted the Indian to do. It seemed that the Comanche always knew in advance. He pointed.

Gray Dog didn’t respond to the order. He simply took the first horse he found, stripped the saddle, and then deftly hopped onto the large animal’s back and vanished into the fog.

“Goddamn it, Jessy,” John Henry said, replacing his gauntlets as his horse was brought to him. Trust had never entered into the equation because he thought the men under Taylor’s command were too weak to pull anything off. This was the last time John Henry would underestimate his old friend. He took off through the gate hoping to catch Gray Dog and help return Colonel Jessy Taylor to the docks. They had less than two hours left to catch the morning tide.

The mission thus far had been a disaster and they had not even left Baltimore harbor.

*   *   *

Taylor was proud of his men. They had reacted as if they had not spent the past two years locked away in hell. He watched the men struggle through the thick woods, soaked by the bogs they constantly waded into because of the damnable fog. He dismounted and helped one of his older men into the saddle. The private, an old boy from Wheeling, was tired and far weaker than his younger brethren. The man fought against the silent order given by Taylor but finally relented when he realized his pride was keeping their small, desperate column from escaping. He nodded at the colonel and then slowly rode into the fog. Taylor’s eyes followed the old man and he hoped he had not led the men into another disaster. He felt better when he thought about John Henry.

Corporal Franklin Loudermilk, a skinny, mean man from Richmond, joined Taylor.

“Think it was right to leave them blue bellies just tied up, Colonel? I mean, the way me and some of the boys look at it, they’s
still
the enemy.”

Taylor didn’t answer right away. He knew the man beside him would be bucking for the sergeant major’s responsibility, but the truth of the matter was Loudermilk was a cad of the first order. The man was rumored to prey on the weak. In the prison camp, his own comrades would find food and other supplies missing, and Loudermilk and a few others were suspected. Taylor did not trust a soldier who was so zealous about killing four years into the war. Enough was enough, in his opinion.

“Is that what you think?” Taylor asked without looking at the corporal. He stopped and waited for a few of the stragglers to catch up. With a nod and half-smile he encouraged his boys to move faster. “Well, you go back and tell the boys”—he now looked directly at Loudermilk—“that my order stands. We kill, we get caught. How many weapons do you see, Corporal?” he asked as some of the passing men noticed the anger in his voice.

“Well, none but what we took from the Yanks,” was the meek and cautious answer.

“So unless you intend to chuck rocks at our pursuers who
are
armed, don’t go makin’ the Yanks murderous, because frankly our odds of escaping John Henry Thomas are about the same as the chance of my taking your opinion into account. Now get moving, Corporal.”

Taylor watched the man raise his brows and then smirk and move off. Taylor knew that man needed watching.

Jessy stopped, preparing to wait for a few other stragglers, when the night around him fell silent. Suddenly a
whoosh
flew past his right ear. He flinched when the arrow stuck in the tree next to his head. Before Taylor could react he heard a man yell something he couldn’t understand and then a gunshot sounded. Jessy cursed as he moved quickly forward. He knew it was John Henry’s boy. He hadn’t liked the looks of the Comanche. In his opinion, they were the sneakiest of all the tribes.

There were more shouts ahead. Another gunshot.

“Hold your fire,” he said as loudly as he dared.

As he pulled up beside a tree he saw the men around him hunkered down with as much cover as they could find. He only hoped the fog would be confusing to not only the Indian but the men he knew were out there. John Henry’s men.

As these thoughts crossed his mind, he knew it was over. Hoofbeats sounded through the trees as riders rode in on the group of escaping men at breakneck speed. Only cavalrymen rode as foolhardy as that, and John Henry Thomas was the best cavalryman Taylor had ever known. The man from Texas was a far better tactician than Jeb Stuart and also more keen to enemy responses. John Henry was known in the Indian days as the great liar because the Indians always found him where he wasn’t supposed to be. His nose for finding men was legend in the cavalry corps. Thomas eased his horse from the tree line.

“Tell those men to hold their fire, or so help me we’ll convince them the easy way,” John Henry yelled as his horse came to a sliding stop just in front of Taylor.

“All southern men, hold your fire, lay down your weapons,” Taylor said, his eyes never leaving Thomas, who was busy staring down at him with his Colt drawn and aimed right at his head.

In the woods he heard men curse, others shouting profanities as the marines on horseback herded them into a tight circle. The fog wasn’t helping much as the men were roughly handled this time in respect to their newly found strength.

John Henry released the hammer on the Colt and then holstered the weapon. “Bugler, sound recall,” he said as a young marine rode up next to him. The boy looked confused for a moment as he thought about the army bugle call that had been requested. “Blow something, boy,” Thomas said as he approached Taylor.

The bugler decided that maybe the marine recall was the same as the army’s. Regardless, it was marines out there anyway. He blew the brief signal to reform with the prisoners.

“If it weren’t for that Indian, you would never have found us,” Taylor said as John Henry reached out and removed the pistol from the belt of Taylor. The colonel unlocked the cylinder and then removed it, his eyes never leaving Jessy’s.

“The next time he won’t miss with that arrow. The rest will be shot on my orders. Are we understanding each other, Colonel?” Thomas asked as he glared at his onetime friend. “I have no time for this.”

“Well, John Henry, excuse me if I’m not a big enthusiast of chasing horse-crap fairy tales. Even if you find something, you think it will change a damn thing? You’re as much of a romantic as your boss, my friend. Telling my men to die for this is laughable.”

Thomas took Taylor by the shoulder and pushed him into a solid object. Gray Dog was there and he had no expression as he tied the colonel up with rope.

John Henry stepped up to face Taylor. “You’re as blind and stubborn as you ever were, Jessy.”

Thomas angrily walked away as Gray Dog easily moved Taylor forward toward his angry men. They were no longer treated as weak men. These were Confederate cavalry once again and they would be treated as such—dangerous.

BALTIMORE NAVY YARD, BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

Claire Richelieu had heard the distant reports of weapons fire, which was also heard by the navy and marine personnel at the dock area. Claire was no expert, but she knew that the random shots had come from the general direction in which Colonel Thomas’s Indian had disappeared. She fanned her hot face as Ollafson nervously waited.

“Professor Ollafson?” came a familiar voice from behind them. Claire closed her eyes, for she had been fearful of this moment from the time she had been informed they would have a second person as company on the voyage.

“Yes, I am Ollafson,” the professor answered, apprehensive though he was after the excitement of the evening.