Riverrun (5 page)

Still three to two then, and she could not help thinking that this is the way it would be for the rest of her life—kill one and another takes his place, as Geoff had said about the fighting at Gettysburg. And how long would they be able to hold out? How long before even Geoff was forced into the action, as helpless as he was?

She gulped for air as she crawled along the floor to the safety of the wall behind her, loosening the clasp at her neck so she would not feel as though she were strangling. If she were lucky, someone would make a try through the back door and her pistol would cut the rebs’ odds by one. Grimly, she pressed against the wall and faced the door, waiting, then spun around to race into the front room when she heard her mother’s hysterical screaming.

They’ve come in through the second floor, she thought, as she heard her father pounding up the stairs. But when she reached the staircase and looked anxiously upward, there was no shooting, no sound of a struggle. Instead, creeping around the corners like ghosts of thick snakes, were tendrils of smoke. Down the stairs they came, and when she turned to the front room, she saw them poking down through the rafters. Only tendrils at first, then clouds! There was a shuddering crash, and she knew that the rebs had set fire to the roof, and part of it had already collapsed.

She had flung her pistol aside, and had one hand on the banister when her father loomed in the twisting, acrid fog, Geoff limp in his arms, Cass’s mother scuttling behind. “Get to the root cellar,” he grunted when she dashed forward to help, “and open the trap.”

She hesitated for only a fraction of a second, turned and raced to the fireplace and threw back the oval braided rug her mother had made some years before. Grabbing the heavy iron ring in the cellar’s trap door, she yanked upward and the door lifted easily on its well-oiled hinges.

A draught of cool air washed over their faces, clearing their lungs for the moment while Ella fetched a lantern from the granite mantel and lighted it from a spark of the burning ceiling. She looked at no one, but immediately vanished down the stone steps. After a moment she called, and Aaron followed with a now unconscious Geoff. Cass waited anxiously for her father to return, and when he did, dusting grime from his knees, she looked at him questioningly, silently.

“It’s cooler down there,” he said, bridling at her obvious skepticism. “And there’s water. Don’t forget, girl, it extends out under the front yard. Even if the house burns to the ground, they will be safe.”

Cass had not missed the implication of his last words, but she could not help glancing apprehensively at the door. “Air,” she said suddenly. “Father, they’ll suffocate if the smoke gets down in there!”

She looked up for his reply, and heard him choke in horrified surprise. A small red hole suddenly appeared in his forehead, just over his left eye. Before Cass could move, the impact of the ball thrust him backward as though he had been slapped by a vengeful giant, and she could only gape dumbly at the blood and pieces of bone that were smeared on the wall behind him.

In taking a short step toward his body, she did not hear the door slam open behind her, did not hear the kitchen ceiling crash to the floor. All she knew was that her father was dead and if she did not get into the cellar immediately the rest of the house would collapse around her ears. Numbly, trying not to look at the twisted form crumpled against the wall, she reached down for the iron ring that would open the way to safety, and stopped when she heard an angry voice behind her.

“That,” the voice said, “is just about the last move you’re ever going to make.”

Chapter Three

C
ass had no time at all to react to the harsh voice at her ear. A hand tightened abruptly across her chest and she was dragged back toward the door. She tried to cry out, to reach for her father, but the ceiling was beginning to buckle already in half a dozen places, and a shimmering curtain of blinding flame broke through the thick roiling smoke to hide both his shattered body and the door to the cellar. Sparks that seemed alive in their fury leapt to her dress and hair, smoke and fumes filled her lungs and eyes, and it seemed decades before she felt herself outside, stumbling across the porch and into the hands of another man who grabbed her roughly and flung her face-down across his saddle. She offered no resistance. She was too weak from fright, too disheartened at the sudden and bloody collapse of her life, to do more than utter Geoff’s name and whimper for her parents. All she could feel was the searing heat, the burns on her legs and face, and the powerful muscles of the horse beneath her as it reared and bucked away from the flames.

A shouted order broke through her despairing fog, and the horses galloped swiftly down the lane. By twisting around and grabbing at one stirrup for support, Cass was able to give herself one final glimpse of the flames that now reached through the swirling gray clouds. And as she watched the dwindling sight, the chimney collapsed outward and fell in a slow, dreamlike shower of heated fieldstone. Then the roof seemed to sigh as it sagged toward collapse, and before the wall of trees blocked everything from view, there was nothing left but a roaring shell pathetically struggling to stay upright.

It was then, in the cool shadows of the lane at night, that awareness finally broke through the shock and Cass began to struggle against her captor, screaming, shrieking, causing the horse to veer sharply and rear in fright. Tears blinded her as the smoke had done, and she grabbed at the rider’s near leg in an attempt to pull herself free. A sudden blow to the back of her head stunned her, and she felt herself manhandled until she was perched sidesaddle in front of him, his one hand holding the reins, the other clamped around her arms, pinioning them to her side. She shook her head to clear it of the sharp pain and noticed as they turned at the well by the road that there were two others riding beside her, dark forms hunched over their mounts’ stretched necks to cut wind resistance. As their speed increased, her captor’s arm freed her so he could take the reins with both hands, and she dug her fingers into the horse’s mane to keep herself from falling. She wanted to scream again, to cry out for help even though she knew there would not be another house within calling distance for at least five miles; but she bit her lower lip to keep herself silent—she had no doubts at all that she would be killed as ruthlessly as her father had been if a single word escaped her. The wind stung her eyes, her burns subsided to a throbbing ache.

She was alone. She had no illusions about that, either. She could not see how either her mother or Geoff could have escaped that inferno behind her, or saved themselves from suffocating. They were dead, all of them were dead, and she was left alone to … to do what?

But there were no tears; they had all gone dry, seared from her eyes by the heat of the flames that had destroyed her home. In their stead, a slowly burgeoning anger that gave her eyes a steady, piercing look as she calmed herself for long enough to examine the area they rode through, to look for the means and the time to attempt an escape.

S
he was sure it was well past midnight when they reached a crossroads and the three men slowed indecisively, muttering to each other about direction and the rapid approach of the storm whose lightning bolts already had begun to stalk toward them over the hills. When the muttering grew inexorably toward an open argument, Cass used the opportunity to ram her elbow suddenly into the stomach of the man holding her. He grunted and swayed backward in the saddle, and she jabbed him again before he could recover. She slid to the ground, raced between the startled horses, and dove into the darkness that the forest provided. She heard delayed shouts, and a single shot that wrenched a knot in her stomach. Instantly there was a wild thrashing as they tried to follow her with their horses, then curses when they had to dismount and pursue on foot. She raced deeper into the woods, fear of what would happen if they should catch her overcoming the rage that had prompted her escape. Branches slapped, stinging across her face before she could lift a hand to stop them, thorns tore unmercifully at her arms and legs. She had no idea of the direction of her flight, only a prodding terror that kept her moving ahead of the others. She swerved sharply several times, stumbling once across a shallow creek, plunging onward with a slowly growing hope when suddenly a root entangled itself around her ankles and she fell headlong onto the forest floor. Scrambling with her fingernails, she regained her feet, only to be tripped again. Sobbing in frustration, she gripped a sapling’s thin trunk and pulled herself up, then threw herself into a run that took her only a dozen paces before a heavy weight thrust itself against her legs and she was driven hard to the earth. The air burst from her lungs and she cried out involuntarily at the glaring lights that sprang burning into her skull. She tasted dirt and blood, and was tossed roughly onto her back while her hands were pinned over her head.

“Ya damned bitch!” a coarse voice snarled. “You’re gonna need a hell of a lot of tannin’, that’s for damned sure!”

“Have you got her, Josh?” a voice called out.

“Over here, Bobbie!” The voice turned foully triumphant. “Cal, bring me that lantern so’s we can see what a damned Yankee whore looks like.”

Cass struggled silently, knowing what was coming and fighting with what little strength she had left to prevent it. It should not have been this way, she told herself desperately, fearfully; it should be gentle, on a thick down mattress with warm quilts and a fire that burned both log and being. It should be on cool nights with Geoffrey—but there was little she could do now but postpone the inevitable.

The lantern was brought, and thrust toward her face. She twisted helplessly away and squinted against the harsh light until her eyes adjusted and she was able to see clearly the face of the man who had abducted her.

Lightning flashed, was answered by companion thunder, and the clearing where she had been caught was bathed momentarily in a blue-white glare.

Josh was obviously little older than she, but his rounded face was streaked with caked dirt and stubbled with a straggly beard as black as the shadows that veiled his eyes; Bobbie, who had poked his leering face over Josh’s bony shoulder, was like enough to Josh to be his twin, but when he grinned Cass could see that he had lost most of his teeth to blackened gums, and there was a soiled, stiff bandage wound about his head and padded thickly over his right ear. The other one, Cal, stayed clear of the light, but she could easily imagine the sinister, hungry look on his battle-scarred face.

“You’re a fighter, no doubt about it,” Josh said. His drawl was slow, mocking, and when Cass suddenly bucked to test his grip he held on tightly and spat to one side. “That captain of yours, he treat you right, did he?”

“Bastard!” she said, and closed her eyes quickly in an expectant grimace. Instead of striking her, however, he only laughed.

“Farm gals sure are tough up around here,” he said. Then, lower and more fiercely, “Hold her good, Bobbie. Hold the little bitch good. I don’t want her to miss a thing.”

“God!” she shouted, and shouted again before one of them stuffed a filthy rag into her mouth. It was hard for her to breathe then, and she was forced by the lack of air to control herself even as Josh’s scarred hands tore at her dress, ripping loose the bone buttons and metal clasps until she could feel the forest’s cool breath against her sweaty skin. He sighed, laughed, and tore the bodice of her undergarment until her breasts were freed. He pawed at them, squeezed them while his legs bunched her skirts up to her waist. She continued to buck, to writhe, hoping the hand that kept her wrists pinned would loosen its hold and her fingers could rake his face; but he was strong, too strong, and she had to be content with freeing one leg and kicking Bobbie in the groin before he could ward off the blow. He screamed and fell back, and Josh shook his head in near admiration as he laughed yet again.

Laughing! Cass thought as she thrashed her head from side to side; it was no more than a sport to him, like hounds and hare; she could tell it by his crooked grin as his free hand left her aching breasts and moved to loosen his breeches.

By the time he was ready, she had only her eyes to fend him off, to bear into his own glazed ones with a hatred that exploded into loathing as he rose, spat, lowered and entered her with a sadistically powerful thrust that brought from her a scream even through the gag that threatened to suffocate her.

Mercifully, the agony of body and mind dropped her into unconsciousness before Josh had done with her and it was Bobbie’s turn. And when it was finally over, when the three Confederates had taken out their fury at the Union army on one Northern woman, they trussed her, wrist and ankle, and threw her over the back of Josh’s horse as though she were a bedroll. She came around shortly afterward, only dimly aware of the knives of pain that continued to thrust unmercifully into her thighs, her stomach, only faintly understanding that she vomited several times until her stomach was empty and there was only agony left to tear through her raw throat. She thought of nothing—though a part of her rejoiced that she was still alive—and did not struggle against the waves of unconsciousness that washed over her periodically whenever her mind threatened to remember what had happened.

S
ometime during the next few hours she realized through a nauseated haze that they had exchanged their horses for a small, closed carriage and had tossed her unceremoniously onto the floor. She lost track of the sun, and she was unable to see the countryside because they kept her on her back and had drawn the stiff, blue curtains over the tiny windows in the doors and sides. One of the three always sat on the rear seat above her, boots on her legs or stomach as though she were nothing more than a convenient footrest. By the second or third night she was dizzy from thirst and hunger, and she asked tightly for something to keep her alive. A smile nearly broke through her dried, cracked lips when the gag was finally removed and the man called Cal held a canteen to her mouth.