On the Path of Vengeance (Preview)

Chapter One

The mustang galloped around the swarm of battling humans. Men screamed out as others thrust their bayonets into their bellies, their chests. They fell to the muddy ground wailing, joining others who writhed in pools of their own blood, crying out words the mustang didn’t recognize.

“Momma! Help me, Momma!”

“They took my leg, Momma, took my leg!”

They passed quickly under the mustang’s hooves as it raced toward the west, its commander pulling the reins and calling out commands. Every pull on the bridle, every kick into the beast’s flanks told the mustang where to go and when and how fast.

But this wasn’t the mustang’s first battle, and its commander was long and well known to him. He was a man of bearing, respected by his fellows. Like the mustang himself, the others followed where his master led, his bellowing directions echoing over the burst of the cannon fire, the ground shaking with the explosions which followed. A great explosion of earth and blood and bone leapt up only a few yards to the mustang’s left and he turned hard, the wave of hot energy pulsing through the air and nearly pushing it off its hooves.

But the mustang knew to stay on its footing, that to fall was to risk breaking a leg, the beginning of a long and painful death.

The mustang’s muscles stretched and contracted, heart beating strong in his chest. Gunpowder was heavy in the horse’s nostrils, filling his lungs, smoke burning his eyes, the cacophony of screaming men and their weapons of war filling the cool Virginia air over what the men called Marshall’s Crossroads.

The men were at war again; it’s all they ever seemed to do. And it was a function of the Mustang, whom his master called Ghost, to ride into such a battle. The years of training and fighting had made Ghost perfectly suited to the terrible task. His instincts were honed, there was no fear of those explosions, save for the need to survive. But Ghost had been raised to fight, and he had a need for that too.

Run, Ghost thought, run and run and run again, keep moving forward, never tire, never fall.

Bang!

Ghost thought nothing of the burst of fire, much like all the crackling and popping and screaming, though closer than the rest. Ghost’s body began pulling to the left, balance suddenly succumbing to the natural pull of the Earth.

Am I hit? Has my time come?

Ghost had seen so many of his fellow steeds die in these battles; quarter horses, paints, palominos, it didn’t matter. But Ghost felt no different in his body, no pain as when they dug that hot iron thing into his flesh to scar it forever. The pressure on Ghost relieved and so did the weight. His commander fell from above, sliding off the saddle and falling into the mud.

No, not me, my master, he’s been drawn to the ground, like so many others.

Ghost kept running, the battle pitched, heated.

What do these tribes fight for, Ghost wondered, what drives them to this endless bloodshed? They do not eat their prey, and they seem to bring others who do not die back to life. Why do such a thing? It makes no sense. What is to be gained? I’ve heard that others, animals that are not humans but are like humans, they make war like this too. And those tiniest of creatures, innumerable underfoot, crawling and biting in their little red swarms; they make war. How like them these human creatures are; no better, no worse.

Ghost felt light, fast, free, filled with his own strength and sense of power.

How is it that they are our masters? They cannot run nor jump, they have no peace in mind, no calm; always scrambling to predate and then waste what they destroy. They seem to exist outside of nature’s ways and methods, her perfect purpose. What place do they have among us? What reason do they have to be here at all, much less lording over the land as they do?

The men screamed and died; massive guns Ghost had heard the humans call cannons ruptured smoke and flame to be followed by eruptions in the ground, men lifted off their feet and thrown thirty feet into the grass.

Run, Ghost told himself, leave this place, and leave these creatures to their own. Find a new home, a new purpose, a mate, a home in this beautiful world! Turn away from this pointless death, these smells and the hideous things they promise. Run, now, before one of these fingers of death accidentally taps my own shoulder, pushing me to the ground as well.

Ghost rode hard, but another force hit him hard from the side, pushing him to one side while pulling him toward the other. Ghost struggled with the sudden shift of weight, but he knew right away that it was not the hand of his ancestors upon him. A human had grabbed him, and he pulled himself onto Ghost and into the suddenly empty saddle. The man kicked hard, and Ghost had no option but to obey. The man turned them both back into the battle.

Ghost couldn’t see the man, and in fact they all looked alike to him, save for the color of their manes, the different colors they wore. But he could tell right away that this was a man the others feared. He was impulsive, swept away by the passion of battle. He was following his instincts just as Ghost was following his own, both carried away by their pasts, swept up in the present, and sucked into their future.

*

First Private Ross Barrow rode the mustang back into the battle. The men under General Richard Anderson had ventured out to drive back George Crook’s Confederate forces near Sailor’s Field, but he already knew it was a losing battle.

But the South had been plagued by deserters; by men for whom the rigors of war, the sorrows of longing for family, the faithless selfishness of childhood, were too much to resist. But Ross had no thoughts of such things, at least not then. He wasn’t at Farmerville to think about his family or to contemplate his own physical discomfort. Like the mustang beneath him, Ross was there to obey, to fight, to kill or to be killed. And neither was going to shirk from their shared duty.

Ross had jumped onto the horse with his Colt new army revolver in his hand, another, stolen from a dead Union soldier, tucked into his vest.

Bang, bang!

The horse didn’t flinch beneath him, the battle chaotic around them both. But Ross was a careful aim and he watched to see the deadly results of his marksmanship; one man thrown from his horse, another man’s gun hand vanishing from his arm in a cloud of red mist and flecks of bone and flesh.

Ross pulled back the hammer and rode deeper into the battle, looking for a good shot and blasting as soon as his instincts told him he’d found it. The mustang rode fast toward two men in mortal combat, wrestling with a rifle locked between them. Ross pulled his foot out of the holster and kicked the Union brawler in the head, throwing him to the ground and ending the contest.

Bang! The shot missed a Confederate rider crossing in front of Ross, but a second shot took off the top of the man’s head. He remained on his mount as if his body hadn’t realized that it no longer had function. The headless rider disappeared in the fight.

The mustang’s gate became quickly staggered and unstable, moving forward too fast to correct its course, and too badly damaged to maintain his gallop. The mustang fell, forward and to the side until it threw itself and Ross to the grass. Ross hit the ground hard, his leg pinned beneath the fallen horse, a massive red and black wound in its flank.

Ross tried to push the horse up off his left leg, but the weight of the wriggling creature only ground his limb into the hard ground. Ross pulled his other leg back and pressed his foot against the saddle to push himself free. Finally, the horse bucked at just the right time to give Ross enough clearance to get free of the dying mustang.

Ross stood up and pulled the other Colt from his vest. He stood in the froth of the battle, carefully aiming and firing, bringing down another Union soldier on horseback, then one on foot. But there was a terrific scream behind him, and Ross turned in time to see a Union soldier running at him with a knife in his hand. Ross shot again, and the man fell forward, his knife nearly plunging into Ross’ shoulder. Ross grabbed the man’s stabbing arm, but he fell over Ross’ gun hand.

A hard pound strike landed on the back of Ross’ head. Pain shot through his head and then down his body, arms suddenly lacking their former strength. Ross tried to turn to see the man assaulting him from behind. But the dying man in front of him weighed Ross down, and the blow to his head was followed by another.

Ross spun the dying man around and smashed him into the man behind him. It took all his strength, but the flung weight of the dying man fell upon Ross’ other adversary, the two of them toppling backward. Ross raised his gun to fire upon the two men, but there just wasn’t time.

Boom!

An invisible wave slammed into Ross on his left side, but he felt no pain from it at all. A tingling on his cheeks told him that he’d been pelted with rocks, and he knew right away they’d been kicked up by a cannonball hitting the ground nearby.

Ross hit the ground hard, leg pulsing, ears ringing. The loudness of the battle was replaced by a muffled drone, a thousand sounds becoming one long atonal note filling the back of his ears. His body was motionless beneath him, no strength left to push himself up. Ross tried to roll over but lacked the strength even for that.

Not dead yet, Ross told himself, close enough. I’ll be trampled soon enough, or bleed to death.

Visions filled Ross’ imagination in those last few moments, recollections of familiar faces, beloved smiles. His mother and brothers, the ranch he had to leave in order to protect. Maybelle Shaughnessy smiled at him from years past, soft and sweet with those big, beautiful blue eyes. Her father, the good man Ambrose, robust and aging, expanding just like the country he called home.

Ross’ strength waned, the flickering visions fading to be replaced by blackness, ears going silent as if the hands of death were finally embracing him.

Goodbye, friends, family, all whom I’ve loved and known but shall never know again. I will always love you. Perhaps we’ll meet again … someday.

Chapter Two

Sara Gillespie held down the man’s leg while the doctors did the cutting, bone saw slowly making its way through his femur. The chloroform didn’t quite work the way everybody said. It dulled the patients; it lessened their pain. But the rumors of people passing out from a mere whiff and sleeping like an angel through the worst pains and travails was poppycock, Sara had learned from long, hard experience.

This man bit into the piece of wood placed between his teeth to prevent him from biting through his own tongue. Another nurse pinned his shoulders, his wrists bound to the operating table. He clamped his eyes shut, shook his head, sweat pouring from his thinning brown hair.

The hideous crunch of the saw finally softened a bit, and Sara knew it had made its way through the bone. But it was about to hit the nerve, and Sara braced herself and her patient.

He screamed into that wood as his body rose up off the operating table, Sara leaning down with all her weight and strength. The man’s sobs poured up past his nearly unconscious state, no modern fix for his excruciating agony.

The leg finally came free, mangled remains of a horse’s trampling. Sara picked up the heavy mass of shattered bone, wet with blood, and removed it to a box near the table, already half-filled with lower legs, hands, arms.

The doctor was quick in cauterizing the wound with a hot iron, already in the metal bin of hot coals. The wound was too big to sew closed without losing the man to massive blood loss, despite being tied off just below the groin.

The smell of burning flesh raced up Sara’s nostrils, hot and fatty with a sickening sizzle. She looked away, trying to blot out the horror of their life-saving efforts, her stomach turning with nausea.

After dressing the wound, Sara stepped out of the operating room of what had become Chimborazo hospital. One hundred and twenty wooden barracks had been built for Confederate soldiers on the top of a low-lying mountain of the same name; the former cradle of war had become its sick bed. The muffled screaming and sobs echoed only in Sara’s memory, the quiet of the Virginia night calming her, the heat of the day becoming balmy evening.

Longleaf pine and balsam fir stood in clusters as far as Sara could see, a red-tailed hawk crying out as it flew overhead.

Sara reached up and pulled a strand of her own graying black hair, a chill running up her spine to see her hand holding more of her hair than usual. She didn’t need to see her own reflection to know what she looked like; she didn’t dare look into a mirror. She’d been pretty, before being conscripted into service for the Confederacy, taken from her family by soldiers of her own home state, her parents gunned down trying to prevent the ordeal.

And things had only gotten worse from there.

The parade of the injured and dying had become a living nightmare, bettered only by the horror which created that parade. The War Between the States, she thought, what manner of propaganda was that? This has been a war between brothers, the struggle of a single nation to find its own soul. The good, the bad, the indifferent, the passive and the aggressive, conscripted and enlisted and officer, politician and president alike; the bloodletting here has nearly drowned us all.

And what of those who survive? The lucky few, or the unlucky? What nation will we find in the ashy echo of this horrid conflict? Will the savages regain control of the land and turn us all into slaves? Has this struggle over one enslaved race only made certain the existence of another? What government can exist here, if not the one we have? If not this, what? If not now, then … ever?

Sara closed her eyes and tried to rid her mind of the puzzle which constantly seemed to ensnare her. The pain of her predicament, of the nation’s throws, seemed to infest her every moment, both chaotic and calm, but quiet and clamoring. There seemed to be no respite, and it seemed even more clearly that there never would be.

Sara walked into the nearest patients’ barrack to make a quick round and check on the patients. In that first big, wooden building, she found sixty cots, thirty on each side, lined up side by side.

Hardly a single cot available, Sara thought, walking quietly down the aisle between the feet of the cots on either side. Thank God there won’t be any more of them, now that the conflict is over. The men moaned, heads rolling in their pillows as they slept, hands gripping the sweat-soaked and bloodstained sheets around them. Several men lay motionless, one attracting Sara’s attention. She stepped over to his cot, standing in the slim area between that cot and the one next to it. The patient looked to be no more than fifteen years old, cheeks still soft, chin and cheeks still growing, pulse expired.

Sara tried to ignore the pain in her stomach as she stepped away from the cot. She’d been told by all to avoid being emotionally moved by what was happening around her, warned that it would consume her if she did. Her falling hair was proof that they were right, but she just couldn’t help it. To not feel was to not live, and Sara had been cursed with life among the dead and dying. Even those who lived would face lives as cripples, deformed, some more cursed with the spectacle of survival than with the release of merciful death.

Is this hospital even the Godly pursuit I thought it was? I’d wanted to heal people, not to cheat death and leave staggering, mutilated mockeries of the men who’d come before. Sometimes, isn’t death preferable? Are we doing more harm than good?

Sara stepped up to one particular cot, a man known to her as Ross Barrow, a first private late of service at Sailor’s Creek. He’d been in and out of consciousness, but as the spring waned and June arrived, he had begun to regain his strength. Leveled by a cannonball blast, his left side had been damaged, and white bandages dressed that side of his face and body, bandaged arm over the sheets, and bandaged leg invisible to her under the sheet.

But the part of his face which was not covered intrigued her. He had oil-black hair and hazel eyes, cheekbones high and sculpted, a strong chin under his pearl-white teeth. He lay on that cot, his body athletic and impressive. He was six feet and four inches tall, and they were caked with muscle, a chest thick and broad. And there didn’t seem to be a speck of fat anywhere on him, though Sara was careful not to be seen taking such close notice.

Sara stood in that big barrack, unable to take her eyes off that sleeping soldier. Well, she told herself, not a soldier anymore, thank God.

But the vision of him in that bed asleep only reminded her of the time they’d spent while he was awake. He was quiet, solemn, given to long moments of silence and reflection. She’d offered her ear to him, and he’d shared stories of his family, his ranch, his concern for them.

He never mentioned having a wife.

He was also courteous and charming, gentlemanly in a way she expected of any Southern man. He took his medication and was friendly when she had no mail to give him. She knew he was sad, but he never took that out on her or anyone. Still, that intensity was never far away, the notion that he could burst out of his revelry and into some kind of bold and violent action. He seemed capable of anything, and that was as thrilling to Sara as it was troubling.

Sara’s imagination got ahead of her, as it had been doing more and more in Ross’ company. She recalled his rare smile and dared to imagine it as not so rare. She recalled sitting by his bedside and couldn’t deny imagining sleeping by his side, and for the rest of her life.

But the horror of war made her fantasies seem foolish, even dangerous. Nobody found happiness on Chimborazo Hill. They found death, they found life, but they never found love. Sara had to look back at her long thirty years of life, unable to recognize in it the love she’d heard of and seen so often in the lives of others. She’d seen men come and go, some in carriages, some on horseback, and some in coffins en route to the cemetery. But none had ever stayed, and Sara didn’t dare suggest to herself that this one actually might.

There was another way, she knew, that they might leave together. The war was over. But he still needs to recover, Sara told herself, and by that time, who knows? If he’s not heard from his family, perhaps … perhaps he’ll be of mind to … to create a new family? It doesn’t have to be here. I’ll go with him anywhere he desires or … or back to North Carolina, to rejoin my own family! They’ll have him, and with a ready glee! Just to think of returning with him to their open arms and broad smiles …

Then the images of their murder returned to Sara’s memory, the feeling of being torn away from them as their dying screams called her name one last time.

No, Sara thought, not back to North Carolina, never back to North Carolina.

There was no answer in her musings but one; there was no joy in her life, and there never would be. But she could still bring joy, and life, to others, and that was fair recompense.

Maybe in the next world, Sara thought, stepping away from Ross’ cot and further into the room. God willing.

*

Ross sat at the desk in the corner of the big barrack building. The quill was dulled and the ink grainy, but the words came smoothly enough, and his strength more than ample to illustrate them:

My dearest sister, Rosaline:

Greetings once again from the older brother you’ve never met. When I left, you were but a sparkle in our mother’s eye, and by now I imagine you to be growing into a fine and strong ‘big girl’! Though I can also imagine you on our mother’s knee, her sweet and strong voice reading these words to you. That is how I choose to imagine it. When I come home, and that will be soon, I hope, we shall finally meet face to face.

How are you? I think of you often, and of our brothers Ashleigh and Clay. I’m glad they took our father’s advice and avoided conscription. I look back on my volunteerism and wonder what had possessed me. Mother and Father were right that I am prone to impulse, but I never imagined where that might lead me. I’ll spare you any description of the things I’ve seen, and of the things I’ve done. But I hope and pray that they’ve been for the greater good of the nation, and of men and women all over the world, if possible. I think the future of our whole kind may be found in the result of this long and bloody conflict, and I shudder to think what that future holds.

For myself, I’m relieved that the fighting is over, and I will return home as soon as I am strong enough to travel and can find some resources for the journey back to Texas. My injuries did not infect, and created no amputations, though my nurse confided in me that this outcome was in no way certain.

To forget my own travails, I worry for you and our whole family, Rosie. I’ve written often from the field and received no answer. I know I’ve been traveling, but other men under Anderson’s command got mail, and how they were my envy! I miss you terribly, and I am concerned for your safety; Mother’s especially, as she can be fragile as you well know.

Won’t you find the time to write and reassure me that you are well? I can be reached at the Chimborazo Hospital in Virginia for the time being. I know this is far from the great State of Texas, but horses are fast and men reliable. If you are reading these words, you must know this to be true. If not, I can only despair that you are still there. Yet I cannot imagine you anywhere else, and the only solace I can find is in reassuring myself that road agents and other catastrophe has interrupted my messages to you and yours to me as well. As often as word gets through, I know it does not get through just as often. So I will not let go of my fondest hopes of coming home soon and seeing you all there, happy and healthy. But know that my journey home will be neither easy nor brief. But know also that I will make that journey as soon as I can and as quickly as possible to hasten my return.

Until then, give my best to all the family, and rest assured that God’s plan for us all is certain and perfect. If we have the courage to rise to the occasion, we may yet revel in His great rewards.

Your loving brother,

Ross.

Chapter Three

Ross Barrow turned from the desk in the corner of the barrack as the nurse, Sara Gillespie, approached with a gentle smile on her pale, aging face.

“How are you feeling today, First Private Barrow?”

“Better, thank you … and thanks to you. But I suppose it’s Mr. Barrow now.”

“I know you’ll thrive once back to … where was it?”

“Texas, El Paso. It’s lovely there … but it’s no Chimborazo Hill.”

She smiled and turned away just a bit. Sara lingered by him, as she seemed to do more and more as he slowly recovered. Ross could tell that she was attracted to him, but with his face still half-bandaged, he knew that she was deceiving herself. When she finally saw how hideous he would be, any attraction would soon fade, Ross was certain.

What woman would ever give her heart to a man with the disfigured face of a monster?

Weeks passed, and Ross slowly got stronger. Summer was coming to Virginia, the big-leaf maples bursting with greens and yellows, the sky a rich pale blue. A warm breeze pushed over Chimborazo Hill. Ross limped along with Sara, his left leg healed but still not at full strength. It still hurt where the shrapnel had struck him, taking out a massive chunk of muscle and shattering his femur.

“You’ll be leaving soon, I suppose.” Ross nodded, and Sara went on, “I’m glad to see you’re healing so well.” Ross smiled, the warm breeze soothing against his scarred face. They’d removed the bandages, and the damage hadn’t been quite as bad as Ross had expected. But he knew he wasn’t healing well; the nurturing nurse was only being kind, something he would always appreciate. But there were other things he had to do, other places he had to go.

“I have to get back to Texas,” he said, eyes surveying the lowlands surrounding Chimborazo Hill. “Back to my family.”

Sara sighed. “If a letter ever comes for you, where shall I forward it?”

But Ross just shook his head. “No letter is going to come for me. That’s why I have to get back. I’m worried, something’s wrong, something’s happened. My brothers, my sister, somebody would have responded by now, if they could.”

“Perhaps they … I mean, when you get back, you … you might not like what you find, or … or what you don’t find.”

Ross had given that dark thought plenty of consideration but wiped it from his mind at every turn. “It doesn’t matter. Whatever the truth is, I have to know. They could be in dire straits even now, needing my help, unable to reach out.”

Sara nodded. “I understand, of course. I only wish I could … give you something to help on your journey, a horse or some money.”

“What resources do you have to share, Sara? You’ve nothing to survive on here as it is! Men are still recovering; I know you’re getting nothing from the Confederacy. I wouldn’t take your last horse even if you had one.”

“But … what are you going to do? How are you going to travel? You can’t walk from Virginia to Texas, especially not on that leg.”

“It’s serviceable enough,” Ross said with a shrug. “I’ll come across somebody with a cart, help me along.” An awkward silence passed between them as Ross looked around the hospital. “Are you going to be okay here?”

Sara could only shake her head. “I don’t know. More men are leaving, no funds. I suppose somebody from the government will come along and send us all on our way. After that … I don’t know.”

Ross paused before asking, “You’ve no … no husband to go home to?”

Sara broke a sad smile and turned away, shaking her head. “There was a young man, a long time ago, back in Raleigh, where I’m from. He went off to fight, just the way you did. Richard, his name was, Richard Caldwell. I was to be Mrs. Richard Caldwell, once the war was over. But I was … conscripted, they say, into service as a nurse. I’d never even been a nurse before, but the Confederacy needed hospitals, and they weren’t waiting for volunteers.”

Ross nodded, respectfully somber. “Perhaps he’s still out there. Letters get lost, as we both know.”

But Sara had to shake her head. “No, I … we were reunited, actually, in sixty-two, after the second battle of Bull Run. They brought Richard in, after a cannonball had taken his right leg. He was …” Sara sighed, and Ross was certain that the hideous recollections were flashing across her memory as they were across his own imagination; the sheet of sweat over his face, eyes round and wild, body trembling as they strapped him down to the operating table. “The other leg had been mangled and had to be removed,” she finally said. “He didn’t even recognize me, and I was standing right by his side. He didn’t survive the operation, I’m afraid.”

After a respectful pause, Ross said simply, “I’m sorry.” She nodded to accept his condolences. Ross gave it a little thought. “I don’t mean to be forward or … or disrespectful, but … would you like to join me, come out to Texas? Good place to start a new life, and I could use the help in getting there, like you said.”

Sara’s attention was drawn to Ross’ face, his eyes, and it seemed as if she didn’t see the scars at all. What looked like a brighter expression took her face, eyes going wide, a smile stretching. But as the moment passed, so, it seemed, did her hope for the future.

“Oh, I’d … I’d like that, Ross, very much, but … I can’t. I have to stay here and see to these men. We’ve only got three nurses on duty, and a lot of these patients still need help.”

“Of course,” Ross said, “I understand. It’s a matter of duty.”

“Yes.”

“Honor.”

Sara paused, then said simply, “Yes.”

“The same reasons I must go.”

After another sad pause: “Yes.”

*

Sara watched Ross limping away from the hospital, making his way slowly down Chimborazo Hill. His tall build moved with a more even gate, a bit more healing having given him more strength for his long journey. He didn’t look back as he walked away, a duffle bag of clothes and meager supplies over his shoulder. She’d managed to collect a blanket and some things to ease his travel, but she was struck with the notion that he’d never make it all the way to Texas.

Should I have gone with him? Perhaps two nurses here would be enough? After all, to leave a man in Ross’ condition to travel alone, it’s as cruel and harmful as anything else.

Ross got smaller and smaller as he got further away. But Sara knew she was only trying to convince herself of something that could not be true. She knew she couldn’t wander away from her patients, from her duty.

But she also knew, deep in her heart, that Ross was as close a chance as she’d ever have at a true friend, maybe even more. And she had to stand there and watch him disappear forever.

Wait, she wanted to cry out, don’t go without me; take me with you! I don’t want to stay here!

But the words caught in her throat. Lips quivering, wanting to speak, they still said nothing.

It doesn’t matter. In the end, he’d never have me, he’d never love me. What man would want a woman so past her prime, a shadow of the woman I could have been? Time and war have robbed me of my youth and beauty, however much of either I may have possessed.

Now it’s too late.

Sara turned and shuffled back to the hospital, a cold numbness in her limbs, her belly, and her heart. She returned to her patients, a world of loneliness and pain and sorrow, a place with a bloodied past, a waning present, and no future at all.

With a sad sigh, Sara looked up at the big wooden barrack in front of her and realized that she’d already found her home after all, a place that was not only a suitable refuge for her, but a perfect reflection of her; her home, and her mausoleum.

Chapter Four

Willie Whitehead pulled at the tobacco leaves, the autumn sky bringing rain and mold and another severe beating at the hands of foreman Bo McGurk. Willie’s fingers were numb and bloody, one holding the tobacco stalks while its partner hacked away at the base with that dulled machete. These weapons were rendered nearly useless for anything other than harvesting, but the reedy stalks were resistant to the deliberately dulled blades, making the work long and arduous.

But never in Willie’s life as a slave on the Whitehead plantation had he even imagined that the whites would give him or any slave a weapon that could be used against them. Of course, he never imagined a war, of whites against whites no less, would ever have granted him his freedom.

Willie shook his head as he hacked at that tobacco plant, pulling and twisting it with the other to hasten the task.

He couldn’t help thinking of Jesse and Jimbo and Flatfoot and his other friends, brothers of the chain as they thought of themselves. Each had been born and raised on the plantation, while so many others were sold off and never seen again.

“All the more reason to stay together now,” Willie remembered saying to them just a few months before when news of Appomattox and the end of the war changed everything for everyone. “We’ll be scattered out there, but this is a place we know!”

“Willie, we been here all our lives ’cause’n we had to be. What’s the point of bein’ free if’n we don’t go an’ be free?”

“Free to do what? Get beat to death, or starve in the swamps? Just ’cause we’s free, that don’t mean we’s safe! We’s safer here an’ just as free!”

But they didn’t listen, and they were long gone. Only a few chose to remain, like Willie. And Willie couldn’t help thinking about his brothers of the chain out there. Are they still alive? What did they find? Should I gone with them after all? Is I really any better off here than out there, better off now than before?

Do it really matter? I got work, which I’d only be looking for out there. I got food and shelter, which I’d have to scramble for anywhere but here. I’d be lucky to find there what I got here, so what’s the difference? A man’s gotta work, a man’s gotta eat, that’s true for freeman and slave, black man or white. Out there or right here, I’m a slave either way; ain’t we all?

“Willie!” McGurk’s voice sent a shiver up Willie’s spine. It was the angry bark of a vicious guard dog, and his bite was the sting of the whip. “Willie, you lazy dog! What’re you sittin’ ’round fer?”

Bo McGurk strode up to Willie, a beefy man with greasy blond hair tied back, sweat stains on his shirt. “Season’s runnin’ out, can’t you see that?”

“I’s workin’, suh. Knife won’t cut through the plant, suh.”

“Knife won’t cut? S’pose you’d rather we give all y’all good enough weapons to rise up and kill us all? You are one dumb tar baby, you know that?”

“Yes, suh.”

McGurk shook his head. “So dumb y’don’t know if yer comin’ or goin’. You a slave still, Willie? Wouldn’t know to look at ’cha that anything done transpired at all. What’d all those good white men die for, Willie?” Willie’s blood ran cold as McGurk went on, Willie’s mouth going dry. But it was just as well because he knew Bo wasn’t expecting an answer.

Even a single word could get Willie killed.

“They died so you could be free, Willie,” McGurk said with a sneer, “free. Just like you was just the same as a white man. Ain’t that somethin’?” His voice got even lower and colder when he repeated, “Ain’t … that … somethin’.”

Willie said nothing, and McGurk began pacing around him. Willie did not even rise up off his knees for fear that McGurk would take it as provocation to do what he was obviously itching to do.

“But you ain’t no better off, still workin’ fer food an’ shelter, same as before. Now ain’t that somethin’! In fact, ’stead of bein’ better off, ’stead of even bein’ same as before, yer a lot worse off now’n before. But I reckon yer too damn stupid to see how that’s so.” Willie said nothing, but he had previously considered it, and he already knew that what McGurk was saying was not only true, but it was about to demonstrate itself in a bloody and perhaps deadly fashion.

“See, when you was a slave, you cost somethin’, you had value, see? Like a horse or a good dog. Now it’s true that you gotta train a good dog, sometimes give him a whop on the snout. And you gotta break a horse if’n it’s gonna be any good t’you. But you gotta take care of your dogs and your horses … and your slaves … on account of them bein’ valuable, and expensive to replace. You follow my meaning, Willie? Willie Whitehead?”

This truth had been rattling around in the back of Willie’s brain. His only wonder was when it would occur to the likes of Bo McGurk, and then, of course, what would happen next. But Willie knew with horrible dread that he was about to find out.

“Y’take a look around us here, ain’t hardly a black in any of the fields. Way out here, s’hard to tell. Used to be you coons was all over the fields, now ain’t hardly anyone at all to do the work. Hell, we got whites doin’ work you and them others did. And they work fer the same wage too, food an’ shelter. All this mess didn’t make you any better off, it just made a whole lotta whites a whole lot worse off. And that means you … well, you really ain’t hardly got not value t’all.”

“I keep workin’, suh.”

McGurk pulled the lash off his belt, a wooden handle with nine lengths of rope tied at one end, each piece tied into knots at different lengths. Brought down with enough power, it could shatter bone, though it was designed for prolonged use.

“I never did like you, Willie.”

“I’s so sorry, suh, I’s workin’ best I can!”

“I know y’are, Willie, I know it. But that just ain’t good enough. Never was, ain’t never gonna be.” He pulled the cat of nine tails back, up high over his head, before bringing down that first punishing blow, Willie’s head and back nearly exploding with pain.

*

Ross had been working in the Whitehead tobacco fields when he saw the foreman McGurk stomping toward the ex-slave working about thirty yards off. Other workers toiled at a comparable distance, tall tobacco plants obscuring most of them from view. But both Ross and Willie had been working on one side of a clearing, so Ross could see that McGurk was taunting the black man, now free but still working as he had before.

Hairs stood up on the back of Ross’ neck to see the white man pull out his cat of nine tails and begin to throttle the man. He’d been working the plantation for weeks, and he came to know how miserable the lives of the slaves were, how poorly treated they’d been. Ross thought of his own volunteerism, on the side of the Confederacy. The war had been controversial in Texas, with some fighting on one side and some another. Ross reviewed his reasons for choosing one side, but knew it had been impulse, a passion not to be lorded over by some artificial king in the north. Why escape the rule of one distant tyrant, he’d convinced himself, only to fall under the rule of another? What freedom is there in that, where is the democracy there?

Ross had allowed himself to believe he’d been fighting for states’ rights, but he could see more and more that the rights of the state had come at the expense of the people in the state, and black people were still people, and not a fraction thereof. He’d come to know them in his weeks on the plantation as he’d never known them before. He’d found them to be decent and reasonable and nothing like the perception some whites had; wide-eyed murderous savages desperate for the blood of white men and the loins of white women.

And he’d come to hate the whites who went on abusing the blacks who’d chosen to stay, who still put their shoulders to the hard labor of keeping the plantation, and the entire nation, alive. He knew he had no real place interfering, but he also knew he could no longer ignore such violence of race, or of any sort. He’d sinned without knowing it, but Ross knew that he had to make amends, spend the rest of his life if necessary undoing the evil he unwittingly served. No man would beat another, abuse his power for nothing other than his devilish delight; not in Ross Barrow’s purview.

McGurk was still beating Willie by the time Ross came upon them. Without a word, Ross swung his blunted blade down onto McGurk’s whipping arm. It hit with a loud clack, and McGurk turned with a shocked grunt. But he didn’t drop the lash. Instead, he turned it on Ross.

McGurk was too close to Ross to use the cat to its maximum effect, but he did strike a blow against Ross’ still tender left side, several knots of the rope striking him on the spine and shoulder blades.

Ross rushed McGurk, the two men stumbling away from the cowering Willie. McGurk spun and threw Ross off him. Ross retained his footing and spun to face McGurk, raising his dull machete as McGurk did the same with his wood-handled lash. The two weapons clashed as each man swung at the other. The ropes of the cat wrapped around the blade of the machete, which couldn’t cut through. With a hard tug, McGurk wrenched the machete from Ross’ hand, leaving him unarmed.

But that gave Ross two free hands to McGurk’s one, his adversary holding a basically useless weapon until one could be untangled from the other. Ross wasn’t about to give him that opportunity.

Ross charged McGurk again, pulling his fist back and throwing a hard punch into the foreman’s face. McGurk’s head snapped to the side, his legs pedaling him backward as Ross charged, another perfect contact of knuckles and nose bringing a stream of blood flowing down McGurk’s face.

A third blow finally put McGurk on his back. Ross fell on top of him, one knee planted on each side of McGurk’s torso. Another two punches to McGurk’s face shattered his teeth and jawbone.

Ross didn’t stop; he couldn’t stop. The moment had carried him away, as such moments so often did. And Ross felt helpless against himself, against his own impulses. Punch after punch rained down onto McGurk’s face until he was barely recognizable.

Finally, Ross managed to exert some will over himself, panting as he looked down at the mashed, bloody pulp beneath him. Ross pushed himself to his feet, stepping away from McGurk. Ross stepped over to Willie and extended his hand. Willie looked up, confused, then took Ross’ hand and slowly rose to his feet.

McGurk lay on his back, head rolling in the grass, muttering, “I’ll kill ya, I’ll kill ya both I swear t’God I will, kill you both …”

Ross said to Willie, “Still think sticking around’s a good idea?”

Willie looked back down at McGurk, still mumbling his bloodied threats. “No, suh,” Willie answered Ross, “I don’t reckon t’is, could be never was.”

Ross nodded and turned to start walking away. “I’m going southwest, to Texas, if yer interested.”

“You … you would travel with a black man, suh?” Ross nodded, not even taking a moment to think about it. Willie seemed to give this a good amount of thought before saying, “I reckon I should head north, where my friends done gone, suh. But thank you, suh, fer everythin’. God bless ya, suh.”

Ross cracked a little smile. “We’ll see. Good luck, Willie.”

“And to you, suh, and t’you.”

Ross looked down at the muttering McGurk, spitting blood and vitriol. “I think we’re both gonna need it.”

---

“On the Path of Vengeance” is an Amazon Best-Selling novel, check it out here!

Ross Barrow returns from the Civil War only to find his father dead, his two brothers missing, his sister nowhere to be found and his mother, a raving lunatic dying in the streets of El Paso. Soon he discovers that a man called Ambrose Shaughnessy owns the family ranch now,and he’s raising Ross’ baby sister as his own. He immediately cooks up a plan to work on the ranch undercover for a chance to investigate his family’s mysterious fate and get revenge for everything he’s lost.

Even the best-laid plans can go astray though. When things do not turn out to be what they appear, Ross is left to question his motives for revenge. On top of that, he unexpectedly finds himself falling for Shaughnessy’s sweet, caring daughter. Will Ross be able to discover what happened to his family and bring justice to those responsible, or will his judgement be clouded by unexpected forces? Will the two lovers unite, or will they have to repeat the cursed events that brought them together, and might still put them both in the ground?

An action-packed story of deception and delusion, love and lust, violence and compassion, featuring fascinating characters and twists that will leave the reader breathless. A must-read for fans of Western action and romance.

“On the Path of Vengeance” is a historical western adventure novel of approximately 80,000 words. No cliffhangers, only pure unadulterated action.

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