Love and War: The Coltrane Saga, Book 1 (19 page)

She nodded. It was difficult to hear everything he said, exactly, because Nathan was talking to her just then, but she knew it was important to obey this man, to acknowledge him when he spoke to her. Fight back? Why, no, why should she? None of this was really happening. She wasn’t here. She was at home, lying in Nathan’s arms, laughing over a redbird that hopped on the grass outside the weeping willow’s shroud, oblivious to their presence. She had never seen -a redbird so close up…and Nathan was motioning for her to be very quiet, lest she frighten the bird away.

“Did you hear me, damn you?” Luke gave her a shake, and she choked and gagged. The bird flew away, frightened.

“Yes, I hear you,” she whispered. “I’ll do anything you say. Don’t hurt me again, please…”

He threw back his head and laughed. “I figured I could tame you, you little spitfire. All it took was a real man…”

She stood there naked. Several of the others were also watching, lust making their eyes water hungrily.

Luke saw them watching, also, and he walked over to where some supplies were piled, rummaged around until he found what he was after, then returned and threw some clothing at her feet. “Put these on. Probably be too big, but that’s okay. When we’re riding, I want that long hair of yours tucked up into that hat, so’s folks won’t notice you’re a woman.”

She held the garments in her hand and stared at them—dark blue—a Yankee uniform—and bloodstained. Her eyes went to Luke questioningly. Shrugging, he said, “The blue-boys didn’t want to give up their uniforms without a fight, so we had to cut their throats. Couldn’t put a hole in ‘em, could we?” He laughed. She still stared at him, and his eyes narrowed angrily as he snapped, “Come on, damnit, get into that uniform—unless you like standing around a campful of men stark naked.”

She stepped into the uniform trousers, which were much too big. Luke had a belt, which he tightened until the waist of the trousers was snug about her slender lines. The shirt was big and bulky, and the bloodstains around the collar made the cotton cloth stiff and scratchy. She imagined she could even smell it. “I want to wash the blood out of the shirt,” she said quietly, head bowed, not wanting to get Luke riled up.

“After we eat,” he thundered. “Right now, you get over to that fire and rustle us up some decent food. You had flour and bacon in your wagon, and we unloaded it. Now get busy…and remember what I told you about my men.”

Remember? Remember what? All she could remember was a young man’s kisses and words of love. The ugly man ordering her around was only part of the nightmare, and when she awoke, he would be gone. She would not let him exist.

Kitty found the food supplies she and Doc had packed, and fried bacon and potatoes together into a mushy type of stew. The men devoured it eagerly, complimenting her on the pot of coffee she had brewed along with the stew over the open fire.

“How’d you manage to pick a gal who knows how to cook on a campfire?” one of the men asked Luke with admiration.

Luke looked at Kitty, who was slowly spooning food into her silent lips, eyes staring straight ahead as though in a daze. “Dunno. But I’m glad I did. Her daddy freed his slaves. They were also a poor family. I reckon she had to know how to cook, but how she learned to do it so well over a campfire beats me.”

He reached over and touched her shoulder with the tip of a greasy fork. “Hey, how’d you learn to cook on a campfire? Didn’t your daddy have one of the cookstoves?”

She couldn’t hear him. How could she hear him when he didn’t really exist? She didn’t want to tell him, anyway, not wanting to share the precious memories of the trips hunting with Poppa, camping in the woods, how he taught her the skills she knew. That was her memory—hers and hers alone—and she was not about to share such things with the terrifying character in a horrible nightmare.

When she did not respond Luke stretched out his left leg and kicked at her with his foot. “Hey, woman, I’m talkin’ to you. You show me some respect.”

She continued to stare straight ahead, slowly spooning the food into her mouth, chewing slowly.

“Goddamn you—I said answer me!” Luke threw his tin plate at her, the remainder of the stew splatting as it hit across her chest, knocking her own dish to her lap. She stared down at the mess silently.

Luke leaped to his feet, reaching to twist a handful of her long hair in his fingers and yank as she cried out in pain. “You’re gonna learn to jump when I speak, unless you want me to beat that pretty face of yours to a bloody…”

“Luke, somebody’s comin’,” someone cried. Luke released Kitty and reached for his Enfield. The men scattered for cover, and Luke jerked Kitty to her feet and gave her a shove in the direction of the cave, hissing at her to get down and keep quiet.

Kitty crouched inside the mouth of the cave, peering out as the sound of horses grew louder and closer. Then she saw them—about twelve Yankee soldiers in dark-blue uniforms, riding their mounts slowly into camp.

One of them, wearing a slouch hat that almost covered his face, called out, “Hey, Luke, I gave the signal…don’t shoot!”

Luke stepped out from behind the tree where he’d been hiding, his rifle pointed at the men. “Better learn to make a louder noise, Joe. That’s a damn good way to get a ball between your eyes.”

The men dismounted, moving anxiously toward the campfire and the simmering coffee. “It’s over,” the one called Joe was telling Luke. “We took the forts.”

“It was quite a battle,” one of the other men, an officer, spoke excitedly. “They say that Rebel Colonel Martin only had four hundred men or less.”

Kitty listened painfully to each word as the Yankee soldiers recounted the battle that had led to victory on North Carolina’s outer banks.

A Federal squadron consisting of seven warships mounting 149 guns had steamed out of Hampton Roads on August 26th. Accompanying the squadron was a fleet of transports that carried about 880 troops that belonged to the Ninth and Twentieth New York Volunteers. By the next afternoon they had arrived off Hatteras Inlet. The Confederates, under Colonel W. F. Martin, had less than four hundred men. The Yankees had been sent to clean up what they called the “Hatteras Hornet’s Nest”.

The Federals began their assault on the 28th with a heavy bombardment of Fort Clark. Colonel Max Weber took over three hundred men and two guns and landed up the beach. The surf was high, and they were afraid to try for more landings, but before noon, the Confederates at Fort Clark ran out’ of ammunition, so they spiked their guns and abandoned tie fort and withdrew to Hatteras. Colonel Weber’s men took the fort.

“We were afraid all night that the Confederates had us beaten,” the Yankee officer said. “Two ships—
Harriet Lane
and the
Pawnee
—were supposed to lie near the beach, but this storm we’ve had forced them to withdraw for fear of wrecking them on the coast. Weber’s men were left at the mercy of the Rebels, and we all knew it. We figured we were beaten—and that during the night the Rebels would regroup and reinforce their forts and repair damages and take our soldiers prisoner and whip the hell out of us when the sun came up.

“Well, when the sun came up, we moved the ships into position and started shelling the fort. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the sea was calm, and our flag was still waving over Fort Clark. We shelled the hell out of our guns and poured them on Fort Hatteras, and after three hours Commodore Barron surrendered the fort and over seven hundred men! Can you believe it?”

A round of triumphant cheers went up from the Yankees, as well as the Confederate traitors dressed in stolen uniforms. “Those stupid bastards had seven- or eight-hundred men, and they spent the night within six hundred yards of our troops—and we only had three- or four-hundred men—and they let us walk right in and take them. I think this war is going to be easier than we ever thought,” the officer finished proudly.

Joe grinned at Luke. “I rode out there, just like you told me, and showed ‘em where that farmer lived that had the horses they could confiscate. I told them we had supplies if they needed them.”

“We don’t need your supplies, presently,” the officer interrupted, “and if you’ll allow me to introduce myself—Lieutenant Herman Benyo of the Ninth New York Volunteers.” He leaned forward to shake hands with Luke. “I wanted to come here when this…gentleman, told me about your band of men, how your company in Virginia sent you to scout for us when we made our landing. I wasn’t aware that anyone was being sent, but we are very grateful since we don’t know this land at all.”

“Just tell us where you want to go.” Luke smiled, arid Kitty wondered how the Yankee officer could be so foolish as to think the ugly, snaggletoothed creature could be telling the truth. She was ashamed such a man was even from the South—how could the gentleman Yankee believe he was one of his kind, either?

“We were told to abandon the outer banks once we blocked the inlet, but General Butler has reassessed the situation and feels forced to disobey his instructions and will leave behind a force to hold the inlet.” Lieutenant Benyo glanced about at Luke’s men. “We plan to do some scouting on our own and report directly back to Colonel Hawkins at Fortress Monroe, so if you will be good enough to draw us some kind of map, showing us any nearby communities or the location of any Confederate troops—you can then be on your way back to your own troop. We hear the fighting is heavy in Virginia, and I’m sure you’re needed there.”

The Lieutenant seemed to be seeing the men for the first time, Kitty thought excitedly.
Perhaps he realizes what they are—traitors to both sides—out to kill and rob and plunder, with allegiance to no one but Luke Tate.

She counted the Yankees—with the officer there were eleven of them. Her eyes darted back to Luke, and she could almost read his mind as he looked at the clean, unstained uniforms, the handsome leather saddles they had brought with them to use on the confiscated horses, the sword the Lieutenant carried—the new-looking guns the soldiers bore. Kitty had never seen such a model, and they looked expensive.

“We found a civilian a little ways back,” the officer went on. “We found papers on him identifying him as a doctor. We were wondering why it was necessary to kill a doctor—they are desperately needed by both sides, you know.”

“It was him or us.” Luke’s eyes had narrowed, his voice was low, even, no longer solicitous.

“Couldn’t you take him prisoner? There were many of you—and obviously only one of him—it appears he was shot in the back.”

“Don’t tell me how to run my goddamn war!” Luke roared then, “Don’t tell me what to do.”

“How dare you speak to an officer that way.” The Lieutenant whipped out his sword menacingly. “State your rank and your company commander’s name. I intend to see that you’re properly reprimanded, soldier, both for your disrespect and insubordination here—and your obvious misconduct previously in the unnecessary killing of a civilian. I’m taking you back to the fort to stand before Colonel Hawkins.”

The soldiers had been milling about the campfire, eating the remains of the stew, drinking coffee and relaxing. They were caught off guard by the sudden stand their commanding officer had taken. But Luke’s men had been waiting for just such a moment. As the soldiers realized what was happening and began to move toward their horses—and the rifles they had left there—Luke’s men went into action, Orville Shaw fired the first shot, hitting the Lieutenant, who clutched at his stomach and slumped to his knees.

The others never made it to their horses—they were cut down by the rapid fire, and Kitty’s screams could not be heard above those of the dying—and the thundering gunfire.

Covering her face, she turned away as Luke snatched the sword from the dying Lieutenant and plunged it into the back of his neck, blood gushing upward. “Kill them all!” she heard Luke shrieking. “Use your knives…don’t waste your balls…slit their throats and finish it up.”

The shrieks of death filled the air as knives sliced into flesh. Kitty forced herself to turn and watch. She had to become hardened to this, she realized. If she were to survive, if she were to nurture her smoldering spirit and be ready when the time came to fight for her own life, she had to learn not to weaken at the sight of blood and flesh being gouged and torn, and lives being hacked away into the dirt and muck of the earth below.

One last soldier remained, his arm dangling by a thread of flesh and muscle from the shoulder where a ball fired at close-range had ripped into it. “Don’t…” He was on the ground, writhing in pain, holding up his remaining arm to fend off Luke, who was advancing toward him with the Lieutenant’s bloodied sword. “Please, God, have mercy.”

With one swift blow, Luke brought the sword down and around in a swishing arc, hacking into the pleading soldier’s neck. Bile gushed into Kitty’s throat and out past her lips, as the soldier’s head jerked sideways like the trunk of an ax-hacked tree, blood spurting, white neck bone shining amidst the crimson flow.

Luke screamed triumphantly, “We got ‘em all. Every last one of ‘em. Look at these guns. I’ve heard about them—Sharps carbines…accurate to six hundred yards…it’ll fire ten rounds a minute…and we got all of ‘em.”

“Hey, this one’s got a gold watch,” Orville Shaw cried excitedly, waving it in the air. “Look at this. Solid gold! Worth a couple of hundred dollars in Yankee gold, I’ll bet.”

Kitty saw another prying open the mouth of a dead soldier, peering inside. “A gold tooth!” he yelled. “Hey, check their teeth.”

“Get anything you want,” Luke roared. “That’s what we’re here for. When this war is over, we’ll be the winners, ‘cause we’ll be rich!”

Kitty vomited again, stumbling backward as she clutched her stomach. It had to be a nightmare. Out there—those dead, mutilated bodies—they couldn’t be real. She could even see one of Luke’s men hacking at a dead soldier’s finger, because he could not remove the gold ring he wore. Holding up the bloodied stub, he yelled happily and waved it for all to see.

She backed into the cave wall, sliding downward. It couldn’t be real. If she allowed herself to believe it was true and not a horrible illusion, she would lose all sanity. She knew she would.