Heaven in a Wildflower (22 page)

Brett ducked, feeling the bullet whiz overhead. Curses and screams of terror exploded from below as he threw the reins to Adam and ordered, “Take ‘em and move out!”

Turning, he aimed in the direction the gunfire was coming from—but never got off the first shot.

The impact of the bullet tearing into his shoulder sent him tumbling off the top of the stagecoach and into an abyss of oblivion.

From somewhere far, far away, Brett could hear the evil laughter of the outlaws. The pain in his shoulder was excruciating, but he was about to attempt movement when he froze to hear one of the men saying, “Are you sure the driver’s dead? Maybe you ought to put another bullet in his head to make sure.”

“Aw, shit, he was dead ‘fore he hit the ground,” came a confident response from another. “No need to waste ammunition. They’re all dead. Let’s go.”

Someone hooted, “Good haul. That old biddy had a diamond brooch that’ll keep me in whiskey and whores for a year.”

Another snickered. “Yeah, I’ll be needin’ to find some of both after wastin’ my time with the young filly. Hell, she died before I could finish.”

“You choked her to death.”

“Let’s go,” came an impatient call from afar. “It’s a long way to California, and I want to put as many tracks between me and war as I can.”

Someone else laughed. “We gonna all feel real bad about runnin’ out on our neighbors if the South wins.”

“Hell, California’s better’n cotton fields.”

They rode away, shrieking and laughing over the carnage.

Brett realized, in a flash of white-hot pain and nausea, that he was unable to move his left arm. Struggling to remove his shirt with only one hand, he gritted his teeth as he pressed it against the wound, to try to slow the bleeding. As he did so, he looked around at the scene of massacre.

Florence, stripped naked, limbs grotesquely twisted, stared heavenward with glazed eyes. The other woman lay dead a few feet away. Two of the men had been dragged outside and shot in the head, the others had been murdered in their seats.

There had been six of them. Brett had seen them through half-closed lids. He had no doubt they were the Reb deserters the station manager had warned him about, but it had all happened too fast. He never had a chance. Maybe if Seth had been along, things would have turned out different.

Thinking of Seth caused Brett to remember the man who’d been sitting in his place. Shakily getting to his feet, he walked around the coach. Adam was lying face down, blood oozing from a bullet hole in his back. Brett started to turn away but hesitated when he heard a moan. Moving as fast as pain would allow, he went to kneel beside Adam and roll him over. He was still alive but fading fast.

Brett saw him trying to move his lips. “Don’t try to talk,” he ordered tersely. “They didn’t steal the team. I’ll take you with me back to the way station.”

He started to move away to get a horse ready to ride, but with startling strength, Adam’s hand snaked out to grab his good arm. “No. No time. I’m goin’, and I don’t mind, ‘cause Martha and Leroy are waitin’, but you gotta take it. I can tell you’re a man in torment. The gold will ease your pain. Might as well take it. I ain’t got no use for it where I’m goin’. Streets are already paved in gold…” He attempted a rueful laugh, but began to cough, choking on his own blood, which now bubbled from his lips. With his last shred of strength, he pointed to his feet. “Boots…map…”

With one last gasp, Adam Barnes died.

Brett got up and staggered toward the nervously pawing horses. He began to unfasten the harness of the one closest to him. Bleeding badly, he wasn’t concerned with the man’s dying words. It was only when he was about to try and mount the horse that it dawned on him maybe he was a fool to pass up the offer.

Returning, he knelt again. Barnes had pointed at his feet and said “boots.” Brett removed the left one, ran his fingers inside, but found nothing. Repeating the slow, torturous movements, for he could only use one hand, he managed to yank off the remaining boot. This time, when he felt inside, he touched paper, drawing it out to unfold and see that it was indeed a crudely drawn map of Adam Barnes’s unstaked gold mine. As he’d said, no one would ever stumble across it, for it looked to be well hidden.

One day, Brett halfheartedly promised himself, he’d come back and search for it. But right now, he knew he had to get help or he was going to die like the others.

And he didn’t want to die.

Not now.

Because suddenly he had a mission.

He was going to get over his wound and then, by damn, he was going to war.

Maybe, he told himself amidst the blinding sea of anguish, fighting for the Union against the South was the only revenge he’d ever have against the Sinclairs.

Capt. John Drew sighed and looked at the lovely young girl standing next to him at the ship’s railing. He saw the heated glow of determination in her fiery green eyes and knew it was hopeless to argue. They’d arrived in Philadelphia the day before, and ever since hearing the news that had everyone on the waterfront excited, he’d been arguing with her to return with him to England.

She lifted her chin in firm resolve. “I’ve come this far. I can make it the rest of the way on my own, but you did promise Mr. Rozelle you’d help me find passage on to New Orleans.”

“I know, I know, and I told you I spoke with a captain last night who’s willing to try and get you through the blockade. He says the navy has been somewhat tolerant of fishermen once they search their boat and make sure they’re only out for food, and not smuggling goods to the Confederates.

“But that’s not the point, Miss Sinclair. I told you. The latest word is that those two forts guarding the mouth of the Mississippi and New Orleans are under heavy bombardment by the Union navy, and once they fall, there’s nothing to stop the fleet from taking New Orleans. It’s a bad time for you to try and make it there. If you won’t go back with me, at least let me settle you into a nice hotel where you can wait till things calm down a bit.”

Anjele refused even to consider such a delay. The closer the ship had got to America, the more she’d felt the burning, driving need to get home as fast as possible. If New Orleans, and BelleClair, were destined to fall to the enemy, she wanted to be with her father when it happened. With her mother dead, he had no one, for well she knew Claudia would be no comfort.

She took a deep, resigned breath, looked him squarely in the eye, and fiercely, finally, declared, “I’m going. And you can’t stop me.”

Captain Drew rolled his eyes, threw up his hands in surrender but could not resist the proclamation, “And God help the Yankees if they dare to try.”

Chapter Fourteen

Leo tipped the bottle straight up to get the last drop of wine. He was drunk. Otherwise, he would not have let darkness catch him inside the gates of the cemetery. But he’d had to steal the wine, and just as he was slipping it off the store shelf and into his pocket, he was spotted. He took off running and wound up hiding in the cemetery, figuring to lay low awhile till they stopped looking for him. But there was so much turmoil he doubted the storekeeper had reported the theft. So he had made himself comfortable, leaning back against a tombstone, and proceeded to drink the entire bottle. Let the rest of New Orleans get hysterical over the Yankees coming, he laughed to himself more than once. He didn’t give a damn, as long as he had something to drink.

Only now he didn’t, he brooded, wondering what to do next. He could hear bells ringing, shouts and screams—the sounds of panic. The sky toward the waterfront was glowing from the fires blazing along the pier. Dizzily, he remembered someone talking about how the Yankees couldn’t be stopped, so thousands of bales of cotton had been hauled from warehouses to the levee and set on fire.

Sugar and tobacco warehouses were also ablaze.

Leo didn’t care. The whole damn city could burn to the ground for all he cared. He was going to close his eyes in hope the spinning would stop, and maybe he’d fall asleep. When he woke up, he’d go out there, and with everybody in a panic, he could steal some more wine, and nobody would even notice.

Seth White gave the iron door of the tomb a tug, and it opened with only a mild grating sound. From the glow of the crimson sky, he could tell the others were already inside. “It’s mass hysteria out there,” he said to no one in particular. “New Orleans is a smoking inferno. People have gone crazy.”

“Of course they have,” Millard DuBose remarked drily. “What do you expect? When Lovell withdrew his troops, it left us defenseless.”

Hardy Maxwell said, “Hell, yes, and nearly every Confederate soldier in southern Louisiana and Mississippi was sent off to Virginia last month.”

Dr. Vinson Duval, sitting in the rocking chair Alma Tutwiler unfortunately never got to use, surveyed his surroundings as the others raged on about the crisis. Two coffins, set in brick vaults and covered with a large concrete slab, dominated the small, square room. The stained-glass window at the rear and the two rectangular windows set in the iron door provided light by day, but with no ventilation the air was stale, almost fetid. He would much have preferred to meet elsewhere but agreed with the others this was the safest place. Joining his cohorts’ conversation, he pointed out, “We knew once the Federal fleet sailed past the forts, New Orleans was doomed, gentlemen, just as we knew General Lovell had been busy making plans to evacuate. He ordered all light artillery and shells to be hauled away, as well as clothing, blankets, medicine, wagons, harnesses, and leather. Dear God.” He shook his head in dismay. “He took everything but the heavy guns on the levee, which are useless without shot. There’s nothing for New Orleans to do but avoid bloodshed and surrender.”

Tobias Radford cried, “Have you been to the levees? Have any of you?” He glanced about wildly in the darkness, straining to see their faces. “It’s a howling mob of old men, women, and children, all armed with knives and pistols. They know they haven’t got a chance, but it’s their way of showing contempt for the goddamned Yankees.”

Seth kicked the side of the concrete vault and grimaced with pain but nonetheless raged, “And it’s all because of overconfidence, inept military strategy, cowardice, lack of preparation, and Richmond’s bullheaded determination to protect Virginia, goddamn it!”

“Well, we can’t do anything about any of it now, gentlemen,” Millard DuBose calmly interjected, “except to remember why this meeting was called and get to the business at hand so we can finish and get back to try and protect our homes and families, shall we?”

“A hell of a lot of good it’s gonna do,” Hardy said with a snort. “If we do succeed in setting up communication to get information to the Confederates as to what’s going on, what difference will it make?”

Dr. Duval reminded, “We can’t be cut off from the rest of the world, Hardy. We’ve got to let our forces know what’s happening here. And I haven’t given up hope of an eventual counterattack.

“And Millard is right,” he added. “We do need to get to the business at hand. It was dangerous for us to come here tonight. I fear there’re going to be turncoats seeking favors from the enemy, who’ll be eager to tell them they saw a group of prominent businessmen heading into the St. Louis cemetery after dark. It won’t take much of an imagination to figure out what we were doing here.”

“Exactly,” Seth chimed in to agree, then suddenly remembered, “There was a man slumped against a tombstone as I came in. He appeared to be drunk, passed out, but I find it unusual for a man to come into the cemetery at night to do his drinking. Did anyone else see him?”

Millard spoke up. “Yes, and he’s harmless. That’s Leo Cody. Several years ago he worked for Elton as an overseer. They had a falling out over something. Elton never said why.”

“I remember that,” Tobias offered. “He came to me looking for work. I checked with Elton, and he said not to hire him, so I didn’t. That was awhile back, come to think of it. Since then, I’ve noticed him from time to time, usually drunk in a gutter. I don’t think he’s a spy,” he added with a chuckle.

Millard said, “He hates Elton. Remember when I told you-all about following him here to try and get him to come to a meeting? Well, Leo was here that day, too. Elton didn’t notice him, but Leo saw him. Cursed him and threw a bottle at him after he’d passed. Maybe it’s a good thing Elton didn’t come tonight. Leo might have thrown another bottle.”

Finally deciding they were safe, the men settled down to business.

Outside, several rows away, Leo had succumbed to drunken slumber. No one else was about, for those who had not evacuated New Orleans were either huddled fearfully in their homes, or had joined the motley crowd at the levees in a futile effort to resist the invaders.

He awoke sometime later with a start. Sitting upright, he glanced about wildly, trying to remember where he was. He ignored the grinding headache as he told himself it had to be a dream—no one had really spoken to him, called him by name. And damn it, he was getting out of here as fast as his trembling legs would carry him.

“Yes, Leo, I’m talking to you.”

He’d been about to hit the ground running, but froze. The voice was coming from behind the large tombstone directly in front of him. He couldn’t see anything except the ghostly white of the marker framed against the glow coming from the flaming waterfront. Choked by the soot-filled air, he coughed, and begged, “Leave me be. I ain’t done nothin’…”