Raiding With Morgan (25 page)

Without warning, Shawn Shannon heaved up in protest, for he loathed the Smallpox Hospital as much as Ty did. His strength failed him and he toppled back into his bunk. Dr. Craig closed his bag, turned to Ty, and said, “It's his best chance of surviving. We have medicines that help you fight the disease. They may well work with him.”

Though he shared a sincere friendship with the remaining Morgan men and was battle scarred, it surprised Ty that the prospect of barrack life without Shawn Shannon petrified him. Not until that moment had he realized just how much he leaned on the former Texas Ranger for inspiration and counted on his ability to read men and their intentions and keep their prison existence on an even keel. He'd watched Shannon's extraordinary calm prevail in tense situations and restore order again and again—a trait vital to survival in an overcrowded stockade housing eleven thousand frustrated Confederate prisoners of war.

“Can I visit him?” Ty pressured the doctor.

Dr. Craig frowned. “Possibly, but be advised, we don't encourage visits. We isolate patients to isolate the disease. The exceptions we normally make are for the nurses.”

Ty was assisting E.J. in the kitchen when the ambulance came and Shawn Shannon was away before word reached him. He spent the balance of the day in a grumpy mood, which had his fellow prisoners avoiding him. He sought his bunk right after supper and endured a restless night. What if he never saw Shawn Shannon again? Had he been yanked from Ty's life as swiftly as Jack Stedman's bullet had taken his father from him?

He vowed he would ignore the horror stories he'd heard about the Smallpox Hospital and somehow obtain a visitor's pass. If Shawn Shannon was meant to die, Ty refused to countenance letting him die with his final wishes unheard. He owed the former Ranger more than he could repay in a dozen decades.

Ty believed a man was privileged to meet and know but a few people who profoundly impacted his life, and he needed to cherish, thank, and remember each one of them. The Lord had gifted him with three such men: his father, his grandfather, and Shawn Shannon. And he would do anything to help Shawn Shannon stay alive, including praying with all his heart for his recovery.

When he dropped from his bunk the following morning, Ty's legs felt weak for a few steps. He was on the morning detail with Given Campbell. Their assignment before roll call was to fetch a barrel of water for the sinks. The shinbone-deep mud of the prison yard added to their burden. Before they reached the sinks with the heavy barrel, Ty's strength evaporated. A case of the blind staggers beset him and he came within a whisker of passing out on his feet.

The weakness of limbs persisted. During roll call each morning, Ty requested and received permission to leave the line. He rested in his bunk until breakfast. Once at the table, he discovered he had no appetite, so he limped back to his bunk and tried to catch some sleep.

On day four, his forehead became damp with a feverish sweat and chills continued to wrack his body after he donned his winter coat. He remained prone the entire day, unable to consume any kind of nourishment. By the next morning, he felt a tad better and secured a basin, intending to wash his face and hands at the outside water hydrant.

Ebb White stopped him at the door. “Let's have a gander at your face, Corporal.”

Rough fingers pulled and probed at the skin of Ty's cheeks. “You can barely see the spots, but you're coming down with the pox. You don't dare wash. Get back to your bunk and stay off your feet till Dr. Craig makes his morning rounds.”

Ty couldn't determine whether he should be afraid or excited. If Dr. Craig confirmed he had contracted the disease, the problem of visiting Shawn Shannon was resolved. On the other hand, many people died of the pox, and it was not a pretty death, if there was such a thing.

The doctor confirmed Ebb White's diagnosis and squashed Ty's misgivings. “You have a light case of smallpox. You should recover. I'll call for an ambulance.”

Ty almost smiled. He was undoubtedly the first prisoner in the history of Camp Douglas delighted that he was bound for the Smallpox Hospital as a patient.

 

Leaving his new coat in Given Campbell's custody, Ty donned the tattered garment Shawn Shannon had provided him earlier and waited at the door for the smallpox ambulance. He spied the vehicle at a distance, for it was painted a brilliant red to distinguish it from regular prison vehicles and warn the healthy to stand clear, a waste of paint given the prevalence of the affliction throughout the barracks.

Seven others joined him for the trip to the hospital. They were counted at the guard post, passed into Garrison Square, where a Yankee doctor reexamined them, and then driven through the south gate out of Camp Douglas to the hospital, standing seventy yards away, near the Douglas Institute and Monument.

The passengers tumbled out of the ambulance under their own power and sought the warmth of the hospital stove to escape the raw cold of the late-April wind blowing off Lake Michigan. To the stockade-imprisoned Ty, the open expanse of the lake's blue waters was breathtaking. It was his first clear, unimpeded view in seven months of how beautiful the outside world was.

Ty was the last prisoner up the porch steps. He went through the door with a hurried stride. There, across the room, beside the stove fire they sought, dressed in the brown smock issued to Rebel nurses and puffing on a corncob pipe, stood Jack Stedman's son.

T
y looked left and right and saw open doors in both directions that led to additional wards. He chose the ward to his left, walked past the stove down the center aisle between patient cots, and kept his gaze focused straight ahead. He gave no indication he'd recognized his father's murderer.

The hospital's atmosphere was meaner than Ty had expected. It was a ghoulish nightmare of humans in wretched physical condition, eerie mutterings, and ghastly smells. Flies covered patient faces and hands awash with swollen pustules. Groans and grunts mixed with the ravings of patients bereft of their senses. A black patient begged the wall next to his bunk not to hang him. A brute of a fellow sobbed uncontrollably. A slim patient with red hair like Ty's was proposing marriage to an invisible sweetheart.

The rancid smell of infected flesh, unwashed bodies, filthy blankets, untended spit boxes, slop buckets waiting to be emptied, and dried urine and feces on patients too sick to visit the slop buckets made Ty's stomach turn. He squelched a powerful urge to flee and take his chances in the barracks—no paradise, either, but heavenly quarters compared to where he was standing.

Ty's strength was sufficient to undertake a search for Shawn Shannon. If Dr. Craig's diagnosis was wrong and he was to perish in that god-awful place, it would be next to a friend.

With a stroke of luck, he found the lieutenant next to the exit door in the last ward at the north end of the hospital. Though the lieutenant's features were haggard and swollen, he managed a wan smile when he spied Ty. “Come closer, you young pup,” whispered Shawn Shannon, his voice a forced wheeze. His own vigor fading, Ty seated himself on the wooden rail of Shawn Shannon's cot.

“Are you here to visit?”

“No,” Ty answered. “The doctor says I have a light case of the pox.”

“That's good to hear,” Shawn Shannon said. “No sense both of us dying in this rotten Yankee armpit.”

The lieutenant's assertion that he was anticipating death had Ty shedding tears before he could hold them back. Thoroughly embarrassed, he quickly swiped his cheeks dry with his sleeve and hoped Shawn Shannon, whose own eyes were shut momentarily, hadn't noticed. Ty did keep his voice from cracking. “What did the doctor say?”

With monumental effort, Shawn Shannon, voice barely audible, said, “My vaccination didn't take. I have full-blown pox. The kind that sends you to meet your Maker.”

Those words shattered Ty's heart. He and the lieutenant had been wrong in washing and squeezing the vaccine dose out of their arms. To feel better immediately, they had endangered themselves—risky behavior in light of Shawn Shannon's usual levelheaded approach to things.

To keep himself together, Ty put his mouth to Shawn Shannon's ear and said, “I won't leave you. I promise.”

Ty wasn't good at thinking in other men's shoes and had no way of knowing if his presence meant that much to the grievously ill Shawn Shannon, a strong man capable of dealing with his demise in any circumstance. Maybe he preferred that Ty let him die peacefully without drawing undue attention to his plight.

Shawn Shannon's blanket fell away and his hand clasped Ty's forearm, grip weak but solid with no shaking. His lips moved and Ty lowered his head. “Thank you. That would be the same as having Owen with me. I need to sleep, pup.”

The lieutenant dozed off with the speed of a rock striking the ground. Ty sat watching him. He had just received the biggest compliment of his life. If everything else he was to experience journeying to the grave went haywire, he would savor Shawn Shannon's sentiments with each step he took.

Ty pulled his legs beneath him, preparing to stand, and a hand grabbed his sleeve. A woozy Shawn Shannon wanted to say something else. Ty leaned down again. “A few of the Reb nurses are planning to escape soon.... Jack Stedman's ugly boy may be one of them.... I overheard them. They thought I was delirious. After dark, take the stiletto hidden in my boot. Keep it out of sight, no matter what. Trust no one, ever.”

The lieutenant's warning wasn't lost on Ty. If he needed a knife handy, Shawn Shannon was telling him acute danger lurked within the hospital. He couldn't help but wonder if a chance to escape was the reason Jack Stedman's son had become a volunteer nurse. It was common knowledge in the barracks that the absence of a stockade fence at the hospital had helped Confederate nurses escape in the past.

Ty remembered Jack Stedman's son had seen him with his father at the bridge building outside Chester, Ohio, and when he'd ambushed the two of them at Buffington Island. If he didn't recognize Ty straightaway, but heard the Mattson name aloud, or saw Ty's name, regiment, and rank on the hospital roll, he would quickly identify him and realize he hadn't killed both his victims as he'd intended. The question was, would Jack Stedman's son still want to extract a final measure of revenge from the Mattson family? Given his determined tone months ago at the sinks following Ty's meeting with General Morgan, Ty was certain he wouldn't hesitate, given the opportunity.

Movement behind him drew his attention. He looked over his shoulder and a Confederate burial detail was lifting a body from a close-by cot on the same side of the ward as Shawn Shannon's. Exhausted and emotionally spent, he lurched to his feet. “May I lie down there?”

Ty couldn't help but notice the straggly blond hair of the brown-smocked nurse with his back to him. The nurse turned about and Ty had his second up-close look at his archenemy since arriving at Camp Douglas. Bleak gray eyes as cold as wood ashes studied him from brow to heel. A smirk curled the lips of the bear trap jaw. Ty felt in his bones that his would-be assassin had already identified him. Shawn Shannon's stiletto would be his bedmate as soon as the night lanterns were out.

Ty kept a straight face and repeated his question. “May I have that cot?”

The smirk on the bear trap jaw widened. “She's yours,” the rasping voice forever etched in Ty's memory said. “I'll tell Lyle, the ward nurse, and the doctor where you are.”

The burial crew departed with their burden, followed by Nurse Stedman. The fact he hadn't been asked his name confirmed Ty's suspicions. Jack Stedman's son knew who he was and where he was, making him an inviting, bedridden target, bringing home Shawn Shannon's warning full bore.

He limped to the empty cot on wobbly knees. His little remaining strength was fading rapidly. He lifted the cot's filthy blanket and discovered it was ripe with black scales from the deceased's body and damp sticky spots he couldn't identify. He gagged and would have thrown up if he'd eaten breakfast.

Had Ty not wanted to stay near Shawn Shannon, he would have sought another cot or accommodations in another ward. He removed his tattered winter coat, eased down onto the canvas cot, and pulled the crusty blanket over him. He wrapped the sleeves of the coat around his neck, covering his nose in a vain attempt to distance himself from the gut-wrenching stink, fully appreciating in retrospect the stark cleanliness of Dr. Horatio Gates's Pomeroy hospital.

He looked up and saw the sky, courtesy of two holes in the roof big enough for him to crawl through. One of the two ward stoves was missing a flue pipe, indicating cold nights awaited him until the Chicago weather warmed considerably.

During his walk through the hospital, Ty had spotted a few patients who appeared to have light cases of the pox similar to his. That wasn't true of the patients on either side of them. Both were desperately ill, pestered by swarms of flies, talked incoherently, and stank like week-old fish. Death was near for them. Ty had been in tight, demanding situations while riding with General Morgan and had survived two gunshot wounds. Nothing had prepared him for this ugly scene.

He was thirsty as a caravan camel abandoned in the middle of the desert, but he did not ask for water after hearing Nurse Lyle warn other pox victims that they were killing themselves by drinking it. Dinner was served from a small table in the middle of the ward by Reb nurses and a Yankee steward called Croswell. The slim meal consisted of a slice of baker's bread and weak coffee for those able to sit up and eat from a tray. The nurse assisted the worst cases and provided them a cracker or roasted potato.

Ty struggled into a sitting position and found he had a decent appetite. He wolfed down his food. Afterward, he made himself as comfortable as he could and tried to sleep.

He sensed he was out of sorts. The light-headedness that had beset him earlier returned. He didn't feel sick, but he feared he was going out of his mind when the rain stains on the walls transformed themselves into armed assassins. He closed his eyes and was jolted by a vision of his own funeral—a freshly dug grave surrounded not by family members and friends, but by a slack-faced Confederate burial detail. A different funeral vision intervened and he was in the graveyard of the Elizabethtown Baptist Church, the crowd composed of church elders and parishioners listening raptly to a solemn, pastoral eulogy beneath a bright sunny sky. The name on the gravestone read,
Enoch Wentsell Mattson.
Ty popped his eyes open and the would be assassins were gone, replaced on the wall by the outline of a woman dressed in black, with a black mourning veil hiding her face.

Ty's body quaked. He kept his eyes open, wanting nothing more to do with visions of funerals and mourners. Was what he'd imagined a portent of the future? Would he die at Camp Douglas and be dumped into a mass grave? Had he lost his grandfather? Was Dana Bainbridge the mourning woman? If so, how had she learned of his death?

It was too much to grasp at once. To keep from screaming aloud, he concentrated on an entirely different subject—the stiletto in Shawn Shannon's boot, thrilled he could center his whole attention on something real.

Mind locked, feelings numbed, he stared at the holes in the ceiling, waiting for lights-out. At midnight, a tall beanpole in a Yankee uniform extinguished the wicks of the two oil lanterns hanging from ceiling beams. Ty scanned the ward and noted that Nurse Lyle and the guards were out of the room.

Not trusting his legs, he rolled off the cot and came to rest on his knees. Fortunately, the patients between Ty's bunk and Shawn Shannon's were either asleep or too sick to care what Ty was about.

As weak as a newborn calf, the crawling Ty reached the lieutenant's cot and pulled his boots from beneath it. Ty ran his hands over them and found what felt like a stiff rod inside the right boot. His probing forefinger encountered a hard knob. The stiletto was sheathed in a cloth pouch sewn into the leather. He knew instinctively that locating the stiletto on the outward side of the leg allowed a right-handed person to retrieve it with a quick bend and grab.

With his thumb and two fingers, he slid the long, thin knife from its sheath. Careful not to cut himself, Ty inspected the stiletto. The narrow blade was razor sharp, its tip pointed as a needle, and the guard an inch wider than the blade. It was a lethal weapon, with which Ty had no experience.

At that moment, he was resting on his knees, hunched down, facing the wall behind Shawn Shannon's cot. Without any warning, someone grabbed his shoulder. Certain a guard had discovered him, Ty dropped the stiletto into the lieutenant's boot, thinking he would act delirious and avoid any stronger charge than stealing from a fellow patient, if that.

“That you, pup?” the lieutenant asked in his wheezing whisper, tightening his grip on Ty.

Ty stopped holding his breath before his lungs burst. “Yes, sir,” he whispered in return, raising his head above the rail of Shawn Shannon's cot.

The lieutenant tugged on Ty's sleeve, signaling Ty needed to bring his ear closer to the lieutenant's mouth. “The stiletto is a wicked blade. Aim for the bottom of the breastbone and thrust upward hard as you can. Hit the heart and your attacker's a goner. Understand?”

“Yes, sir, bottom of the breastbone, thrust hard.”

Shawn Shannon clung to Ty. “I'm poorer every hour. Don't fret over me . . . and don't quit on that Bainbridge daughter. She's got more sand . . . than the two of us together.”

“I won't, sir,” Ty responded. “I won't.”