Love and War: The Coltrane Saga, Book 1 (49 page)

Suddenly he heard voices and then saw a pine torch flaring in the darkness.
They’re Rebs,
he thought in panic. The drawl of the voices was deep, slow, and then he heard one say, “I swear, Cap’n, I know it was a Yankee and Zeb shot him and he shot Zeb deader’n hell.”

And now they’re going to find me and finish killing me
deader’n hell
.
Travis silently mocked the Southern accent.
They’ll finish killing me. They won’t take me prisoner
, he thought. They’ll want their revenge. Out here, away from the order and precision of planned battles, few prisoners were taken, he remembered. He’d shot a few Rebs himself rather than fool with taking them prisoner.

He flattened himself in the underbrush, holding his breath as he heard the soldiers pass within a few yards of where he lay. “Go look along the ditch,” someone ordered. Travis was absolutely still.

It seemed like hours but was only a matter of minutes before the Confederate Captain told his men to discontinue their search. “Zeb probably didn’t hit him If he had, he wouldn’t be dead himself. Let’s take his body back and bury him before we move out.”

The footsteps and voices faded away. So they weren’t that far off, Travis thought. When daylight came, he had to be away from here or they would find him. And if he could make it back to camp and report their location, Grierson and the others could attack and clean out a hornet’s nest of Rebs.

Blood seemed to be pouring out of the wound. How much longer did he have? How long was it before a man bled to death? He didn’t know. Maybe he should have called out to the Rebs, taken a chance on them taking him prisoner. He was getting weaker. He would never find his horse and be able to get out of there.

“Coltrane…” it was a barely audible whisper, “you out here?”

If he knows my name, then he has to be one of us
, Travis thought excitedly. “Here,” he answered. “I’m hit.”

Footsteps moved through the brush; a figure squatted down beside him. “How bad?”

“I think the ball went all the way through, but I’m bleeding bad.” It was the man with the patch over his eye, Travis realized, He felt a wet nose nuzzle his cheek. Killer, the old hound dog that the one-eyed man kept at his side at all times, was whimpering his sympathy.

“There’s a nest of Rebs close by,” Travis told him quickly, afraid he might pass out and die before he was able to give the vital information. “Tell the others.”

He felt himself being lifted in the man’s arms, and then closed his eyes.

“You missed all the fun.”

Travis opened his eyes to see the one-eyed man peering down at him, his face covered almost completely by the beard and the patch. One jaw protruded, filled with tobacco juice; he spat on the ground and then turned and held out a tin of coffee. “We routed them Rebs and killed every last one of ‘em. Body count was twenty-three. Even got some right nice guns. Horses, too. Grierson says he’s much obliged to you for finding ‘em, even if you did nearly get killed doing it.”

“How bad am I hit?” Travis moved his left hand to his chest and felt the bandage.

“Clean wound. We got the bleeding stopped, packed you full of lint after filling it with whiskey. You’ll make it. Probably be laid up a few weeks, but the Colonel says there’s a little settlement nearby that our boys have taken over, and we can rest up there for a spell. He’s going to wait for further orders from Grant before moving out.”

Travis sipped at the coffee, wrinkling his nose in distaste. “Damn, what was this brewed out of? I can’t remember the last time I had a decent cup of coffee.”

John Wright chuckled. “I believe they brewed it from potatoes and parched peanuts. You better hope we get to that settlement. I hear supper is going to be stew.”

“That’s not so bad.”

“It is when the meat for it is pulled off a horse so dead that the bones were pulling apart.”

“Suddenly, the coffee tastes real good and I think it will hold me till we get to town.”

Travis was lying on a blanket and covered with another, his head resting on a saddle. He looked around and saw that the other men were working on their rifles or playing cards—relaxing after killing twenty-three Rebs.

“How come you found me?” Travis remembered the night before, when all seemed hopeless. “What were you doing out there and how’d you know where I was?”

John nodded his head to where his dog lay sleeping, head on his paws. “Killer can track anything that walks, even your horse. I got there just before the Rebs did and I hid and heard them talking. When they said a Yankee had shot one of their men, I figured it was you. I’d heard a couple of shots a ways back.”

Travis could tell by the way the man was looking at him that something was on his mind. “You had a reason for following me. What was it?”

He spat again, then looked him straight in the eyes and said, “I’ve been meaning to talk to you for quite a spell, Coltrane, ever since Andy Shaw told me about Kitty…and you.”

Travis sighed, stared up into the branches of the tree above.

It was a hot day and the sun was blazing everywhere but there in the shade. He had known for quite a while that John Wright was Kitty’s father, even before Andy told him. He knew the day he reported to Colonel Grierson and saw the man with the patch over his eye and the hound dog at his side and heard his soft Southern drawl, not quite as deep as that of the men from Alabama and Georgia, but Southern just the same. He had kept his distance for several reasons. First, he hadn’t wanted to discuss Kitty, and he didn’t figure her father would take kindly to him for having kept her a prisoner of sorts instead of sending her home when he raided Luke Tate’s hide-out.

He looked back to meet John’s gaze and he couldn’t tell whether or not he was angry. He just looked like a man who had something he wanted to settle. “I knew who you were, Wright, and I had all ideas you knew about me and your daughter,” he said finally.

John nodded. “I was surprised to see Andy Shaw riding with the Federals, you can be sure of that. I’ve known the boy since he was born. Naturally, I asked him plenty of questions and I felt like he was holding something back. Finally, he had to get it out of him and he told me about Kitty—and about you. At first, I was plenty mad. It hurt like hell to know she was mixed up in this damned war. Sure, I went off and left her and her ma, but a man does what he has to do.”

“She told me about what happened to you.”

John didn’t acknowledge the statement but continued. “I was plenty burned up about Luke Tate kidnapping her. I’m no fool. I know why he did it and what he done to her. If I ever meet up with the son of a bitch, one of us will die, you can bet your life on that. But then I got to thinking about how you didn’t send her home. I know she knows plenty about doctoring. Hell, she followed Doc Musgrave around from the time she could walk, almost. But she’s still a woman, a young woman, and you should have sent her home. And she’s also a
beautiful
young woman and I’ve got my own notions as to why you
didn’t
.”

Now Travis could see anger beginning to smolder in the man’s eyes. He started to speak but decided it best at this point to let him have his say.

“We had a job to do and we did it; and I made up my mind that if I came out of it alive and you did, too, we’d have this talk. I want to know what you did to my girl and where she is now. All Andy knows is what you told him—that she escaped with a Confederate prisoner.”

Travis nodded. “I don’t know what happened to her, John. She tricked me, made me think she might be falling in love with me. I got careless, gave her too much freedom, and the next thing I knew, she’d helped set free a compound full of Reb prisoners. I could have killed her, had a gun right on her, but she kept on riding. I wound up having to kill one of my own men because he was about to do what I couldn’t.”

If he had expected sympathy, Travis was in for a surprise. John laughed. “That sounds like my girl. She’s got more spunk than most men. She would’ve kept on riding no matter what if her mind was made up. And I’m not surprised that she tricked you into thinking she loved you. She’s smart, that one.”

His eyes grew stormy again, and he pointed his finger at Travis. “You better hope she’s alive. You better hope I don’t find out she’s dead. If you’d sent her home when you first found her, she’d be back home in North Carolina where she belongs instead of God only knows where. There’s a war going on now and I turned my back on my people, but I’m not going to turn my back on the army I’ve joined and start shooting at you. But you can believe one thing, when it’s finally over, I’ll settle up with you on the matter of my daughter’s honor. You heed me well, boy.”

Travis tried to sit up but couldn’t. His head fell back and he took a few deep breaths. He was weak, but he had to say what was burning inside. “John, I’m going to admit to you what I haven’t been able to admit to myself. I did fall in love with your daughter, but right now I could kill her myself for using me the way she did. I guess I thought she’d fallen in love with me, too, but I was dead wrong. Now I didn’t hurt your girl, not the way Luke Tate did, and I’m going to settle a score with him, too, if ever we meet.

“As for how you feel about me, I can understand your resentment. But if you want to kill me, you do it now. Don’t shoot me in the back in the middle of a skirmish. I’ve got enough on my mind without worrying about another traitor.”

John snarled at him, “Goddamn you, boy, you better be glad you’re flat on your back wounded, or I’d whip you with my bare hands for calling me a traitor.”

“You raised one.” Travis grinned. “I figured you two were alike.”

“You’ll probably have to answer to someone else besides me,” John warned him then. “Kitty was betrothed to someone, and he won’t take kindly…”

“Nathan Collins,” Travis sneered. “I’ve heard about him from Kitty. I’m not worried. I doubt any of us will ever meet again anyway unless it’s in hell.”

They were silent for several moments. Then John lifted an eyebrow curiously and asked, “You still love my girl?”

“The resentment over what she did is too fresh, too bitter, for me to think of much else. Maybe it’s best things turned out like they did. I’m not the marrying kind.”

“Can’t say as I’d want my daughter marrying your kind anyway.”

Travis retorted angrily, “What in hell makes you think you can look down on me, Wright? You walked out on your wife and your daughter, never looked back. Andy tells me your wife was turning into a drunk when he left to join the war. Don’t you care?”

“Man does what he has to.”

“You’ve said that before.”

“I’ll say it again. You’re from the South. How come you’re killing your own kind?”

“That’s my business.”

“Then don’t pry into mine. Just remember, we’ve got a score to settle one day.”

“Just let me know when.”

They glared at each other. John got to his feet. His dog got up also. They started walking away and Travis called out, “By the way, thanks for saving my life.”

John kept on walking and Travis closed his eyes wearily. Well, it had finally happened, he thought with some semblance of relief. He had known it would come sooner or later—the time when it would come out about Kitty. Damn Andy Shaw. Why did he have to go and tell John about it anyway? But it was only natural, he supposed. Well, at least he didn’t have to dread anything any time soon. They both knew where the other stood and neither was afraid. Travis had great admiration for John Wright’s courage and bravery. He’d seen him in battle, knew he was every bit the fighter people said he was. But he had a good name, too, he reminded himself. If they ever did have it out, it would be a match all right.

Someone came to tell him that the Colonel was moving out, and. Travis was grateful. Maybe in the little town they would find a bed for him, a real bed, where he could rest and regain his strength.

When they moved him, he cried out in pain and the trip into town was rough and uncomfortable. Colonel Grierson came and told him there was a young woman in town who was caring for sick soldiers. The only doctor around had been killed a few weeks before, She agreed to take Travis in and look after him. Her cabin was small and shabby, but there were a few beds. Anything, he figured, was better than sleeping on the ground.

When Travis first laid eyes on Bonnie Pelham, if he had been a praying man, he would have given thanks right then and there for his good fortune.

“Just bring him right on in here,” she had said, grinning at the soldiers carrying the stretcher. “I’ll take extra good care of him because my last patient reported back to duty this morning. Less’n some of you get sick, he’ll be all alone here.”

“Make sure you bastards stay well,” Travis had quipped.

One of them laughed, saying, “You won’t be up to any action for a while, Captain. And we’ll see to it you have plenty of visitors.”

Bonnie tucked him into bed and he looked around the room. It was sparsely furnished and smelled of pine wood.

“You like my little cabin?” she asked as she handed him a cup of fresh cool water. “Me and my husband built it with the help of our neighbors before he went off to war and got himself killed.”

Travis sipped the water, looked up into her big, brown eyes, and said bluntly, “You don’t sound like a grieving widow.”

“Oh, you know how it is,” she replied. “You grow up in the mountains and you don’t have much say-so about who you marry up with. It’s mostly always arranged by the old folks. I knew I was gonna have to marry Bill-Bob by the time I was old enough to know what marrying was.”

“Didn’t you love him?”

She shrugged. “Don’t rightly know. I never really knew much about love. I was told a proper girl gets herself proper-married, has babies, and takes care of her husband. That’s what I was aiming to do, but Bill-Bob went off and got himself killed and now I reckon I’m about the youngest widow in the mountains.”

She walked around the room as she told him how she’d used a mixture of flour and water to paste paper over the boards to keep out the winter chill. In the corner there was an oak chair that her father had carved and a dressing table that her husband had made from cherrywood that had since lost its redness. There was a bench of hickory and propped in one corner, a broom made of hickory splits.