Deserter (6 page)

It was no longer a deer in Jake's sights. It was now a man in a blue uniform, a saber at his side, a dull black telescope raised to his eye. Jake's sights were on his head, nose high. Jake heard the oiled click as his trigger touched home and the hammer of his rifle
snapped forward—and he saw that the man in the uniform was Uriah Toole and it was too late to stop the bullet he'd fired—

“Looks like I got me a nekkid run-off here,” a voice that was neither Jake's father's nor Uriah's rasped. Jake's eyes opened. A massive figure stood in front of Sinclair with his back to the stream. Even in the murky, cloud-obscured light of night it was easy enough to see that he held a rifle in his hands, pointed at Jake's chest. “Don't think about movin',” the voice said. “You do an' you're dead.”

Jake straightened his back but otherwise remained motionless. The big man spat to the side, and the earthy smell of cut plug tobacco reached Jake, mixed with the after-scent of whiskey.

“No reason to hold that rifle on me,” Jake said. The man took a step closer as a string of clouds moved away from the full moon's face. A thin shaft of light that penetrated the leaves of the oak showed Jake the size of the man, his full, unkempt beard that reached halfway down his abdomen, the profusion of dark hair on his bare chest and arms, and the bush of greasy hair that surrounded his head. He looked like a bear and stood like a grizzly, feet apart, body leaning slightly forward, head upright.

“Like I said,” Jake repeated, “you have no reason to hold that rifle on me. I don't have anything worth taking.”

“That horse back there is worth taking—a hell of a lot better than the crow bait I been ridin'.” After a moment he added, “You ain't gonna be needin' no horse.”

Jake squinted, making sure of the distance between them. His right arm had tensed. He forced it to relax
until the muscle of his forearm was no longer tight, until it would move smoothly when he needed it to.

The bear spit again, this time directing the stream of saliva and bits of tobacco next to Jake. “You Reb or Union?”

Jake didn't answer. He took in a breath and held it.

“Don't much matter to me,” the bear said. “Either one, you're dead. I never had no use for a soljer—wearin' blue or gray. An' a coward what would run off ain't hardly worth the bullet it takes to kill him.”

The click as the bear drew back the hammer of his rifle was as loud as a thunderclap. Jake made his move. His arm flashed out as if he were pitching a ball, and at the same time he threw his body to his left. The jagged white flame that erupted from the barrel of the rifle lit the scene for half of a heartbeat, the bullet slamming into the ground behind Jake. The bear gurgled wetly, dropped his rifle, and clutched at his neck with both hands. Blood that appeared as black and glistening as oil pumped from around the six inches of blade that pierced his throat. He gurgled again, fell to his knees, and dragged the knife free. He may have cost himself a few seconds of life; the flow of blood increased until it gushed several inches in front of him, spattering to the ground. His eyes, Jake saw, glowed hotly for a part of a second and then that light was gone and the bear fell forward, the top of his shaggy head inches from Jake's feet, a river of blood flowing toward him over the sand. Jake shoved himself back and got to his feet.

Behind him and off to the side the mare reared, startled by the gunshot and now the scent of spilled
blood. The belt-hobbles held and she stood breathing fast and hard, the whites of her eyes exposed in the moonlight. Jake walked to her, hand extended.

“Hey, mare,” he coaxed the horse, “no reason to get all fired up. You settle down now, mare. You're OK—no more surprises. You're fine, mare—nothing to worry about.” He continued the quiet, assuring babble, moving until he stood in front of the horse. He stroked her neck until he felt the muscles relax and the quivering slow and then stop. Jake continued to stroke her until she dropped her head to graze, fear forgotten. He was pleased with how quickly she'd calmed, but not surprised.
Cavalry horses are trained to keep their heads under gunfire—but not at midnight with no fight going on, no other sounds of battle. And yesterday this mare had her owner shot off her back in the most horrendous engagement she'd ever see. She's a good horse, OK. A fine horse.

The sound of bushes moving and a soft snort told Sinclair that the man he'd just killed had left his horse a distance back in the scrub and had come upon Jake on foot.
He must have been following me—waiting until I went to sleep to get a drop on me.
He returned to the facedown body and stood looking at it. The bear had been tall—approaching six and a half feet, it looked like—and broad, heavy, with wide shoulders. A bandolier was draped over the man's shoulder and must have crossed his naked chest. Moonlight glinted softly on the brass of the cartridges. A military holster held a sidearm at his hip. Jake could use the gun, and the rifle, too. But he didn't take them now. The morning would be plenty of time. Just now, the fetid odor of death and warm blood permeated the air around the
corpse and Jake felt his gorge rising in his throat. He moved away, finding the bush upon which he'd left his clothes, and pulled on his pants and shirt. The fabric was dry and slightly stiff and felt good next to his skin. His boots weren't far from the dead man. They'd be there in the morning.

Lots of these crazies around,
Jake thought as he walked down the stream.
They follow the campaigns, watch the battles, strip what they can from the dead of either side, killing and robbing soldiers who wander off—or desert—from camps.
They were like vultures, carrion eaters, defilers of the dead, the dying. Men on both sides of the conflict shot them down with impunity, just as they'd kill rattlesnakes or rabid dogs.

Sinclair sat with his back against the cool surface of a boulder, waiting for his heartbeat to return to normal, hunger again gnawing at him. The man whose life he'd just ended was his first close kill—the term soldiers gave to the killing of an enemy close enough so that his eyes could be seen.
Sharpshooting's a different proposition—not real far from target shooting. So is firing into a bunch of Yanks, knowing the slug would take down at least one of them. There was none of the smell of blood or the dying sounds or the extinguishing of the light of life in the man's eyes.
He sighed.
A rifle's cleaner and a long shot cleaner yet. That damned knife . . .
He sighed again.
Him or me,
he thought.
It was him or me.

The flow of the water and the gentle night sounds had a calming effect on Jake Sinclair. He stretched his bare feet out in front of him and his fingers found the wound on his face and then that on the side of his head. Both were dry, the flesh coming together well.
There was no heat, no indication of infection. Thoughts and images flickered and flashed in Jake's mind as his body relaxed. Already he'd begun building a wall around the Battle of Gettysburg and the death of Uriah—a self-protective device that he believed—hoped—would allow him to retain the vestiges of sanity he still possessed. He found it remarkable, quite strange, that his desertion had so little real impact on his feelings. His simple
I've had enough
seemed to cover it, both emotionally and intellectually. The Confederacy, the Union, the war itself, had become abstractions, like thoughts not fully shaped, concepts without definitions. He wondered, for a very brief moment, how far back south the Army of Northern Virginia had gotten in the past day. Then he slept.

Jake hauled his boots onto his sockless feet, tugging and cursing. The morning sun sparkled in the stream and the forest seemed to be a place of calm and peace. The only discordant note was the sprawled corpse of the man Jake had killed the night before. Flies had already gathered in the stream of blood and on and around the body's face and the rend in its throat. The dead man smelled, not yet of death and decomposition, but of moldy pants, sweat, stale whiskey, and tobacco juice. Jake crouched, grabbed at a shoulder, and turned the corpse over, faceup. Jake's bowie knife, sticky with blood, had spent the night under the body. Jake picked it up carefully, making as little contact with the drying blood as he could, took it to the stream, and rinsed it, scrubbed it with sand, wiped the blade on his pants, and slid it back into the sheath. He
put the sheath in his side pocket; his belt was serving temporary duty as a set of hobbles.

Sinclair returned to the body and stripped off the holster and belt. The pistol, mismatched to the army holster with the Union symbol of the eagle embossed on its black leather flap, was a converted Colt .44 revolver with bone grips. The weapon appeared to be in very good shape. It was clean and gave off a faint aroma of gun oil. When Jake spun the cylinder it revolved smoothly with a quiet whirring sound. He noticed that the cartridges in the loops of the gun belt were Colt issue, not army-contracted ammunition. He strapped the belt around his waist and buckled it so that the pistol hung comfortably at his side. He tapped at the dead man's packets, which held nothing.

Jake's gaze stopped at a strange-looking necklace the bearlike corpse wore. A dozen or more clumps of flesh of various sizes and in varying degrees of desiccation hung from a rawhide cord around the man's chest and now rested on the blood-soaked and matted hair of his chest. Jake leaned forward for a closer look, and then recoiled as if struck by an unanticipated, invisible punch to the face. Two of the lumps of flesh were fresh. They were human tongues. Hot bile rose in Jake's throat as he backed away, scrambling, almost losing his balance. He turned his back on the body and took a series of deep breaths to attempt to quell his revulsion. It didn't work.

Afterward he walked past the corpse, eyes averted, to where the rifle lay in the scrub, an inch or so of its stock protruding onto the sand. It was a Henry repeating 44.40, in decent condition. Jake held the butt to his
shoulder and the sun-warmed weapon felt good and natural as he peered down the sights.

Removing the bandolier of ammunition from the corpse left Jake with the sour taste of vomit in his mouth and a sheen of sweat on his face. He had no more thought of burying the body than he would have had the corpse been that of a cottonmouth.

As he rinsed blood from the bandolier and the cartridges it held, a skinny roan horse clambered out of the brush and into the stream and began to suck water. One of the animal's reins dragged a thin, wrenched-away branch. Even from ten feet away, Jake could see the gauntness of the animal and the raw spur marks on its flanks. The horse carried a highly polished, full double-rigged Western stock saddle that looked as out of place as a diamond tiara would on a gin-mill whore. Jake waded out into the stream and grabbed a rein before the horse noticed him, and even then, didn't look up or slow its drinking. Jake give the animal another minute and then led him back to shore and onto the sand. The obviously fatigued gelding followed docilely. When Jake stopped and raised a hand to stroke the emaciated neck, the horse flinched and attempted, weakly, to rear. The roan's flanks trembled in fear as Jake approached from the side. He quickly released the two cinches and tugged the saddle and blanket from the horse's back, revealing several festering saddle sores.

Jake dumped the saddle to the side and examined the sores more closely. They were fresh and wet, but now that they were exposed to the air and given that they wouldn't be abraded further by a blanket and saddle, they'd heal. Jake led the roan into the stream again
to drink, and again, after a few minutes led him out. After one more such repetition, Jake worked the buckle on the bridle and removed the bit and headset from the roan. When Jake slapped him on the rump, the horse skittered into the stream, crossed it to the far bank, and disappeared into the woods. Jake smiled and set out to fetch his mare.

While she drank, Jake released the cinch on the army pancake saddle and eased it and the blanket off the mare's back. There were no saddle sores. He tossed the saddle aside. As the bay grazed, hobbled once again with Jake's belt, he went through the saddlebags attached to either side of the Western saddle with lengths of latigo. They were survival treasure chests, bringing a broad smile to Jake's face. One was half filled with strips and thick knots of jerky. When he tasted it he grinned again: It was beef jerky, not venison, and it was no more difficult to chew than a tough steak. Under the dried meat was an unlabeled quart bottle of amber-colored whiskey. Jake pulled the cork and filled his mouth with the warm liquid. When he swallowed, the heat traveled down his gullet and into his gut as smoothly as silk over a fine lady's shoulder, washing away the bitterness of the bile that had arisen earlier. A cloth sack of rifle ammunition had rested against the bottle. A pocketknife—a Barlow with a well-sharpened blade—went directly into Sinclair's pocket.

The second saddlebag held a ten-foot loop of horsehair rope, more jerky, a sack of tobacco and papers, and a real find—a cylindrical tin container of lucifers with a tight cap that would keep them dry in any weather. A few .44 cartridges, a bandana that stank of
sweat, and a single lady's leather glove comprised the final yield.

Jake carried the bottle, a handful of jerky, and the horsehair rope to a shady spot and went to work fashioning a pair of hobbles for his mare. He left the saddle in the direct sun, at least for a while—he swore he could still smell the stink of the dead man on it. He hated to cut the rope. It was a fine piece of work and it'd taken someone a good long time to put it together. As he worked with his knife and the rope, he lowered the level in the bottle a good three inches and finished and replenished his handful of the jerked beef. After an hour or so he walked, not too steadily, to the saddle, hefted it, and brought it into the shade. If there had been vestiges of the odor of the bearlike killer, there no longer were. The saddle smelled of itself—of perfectly tanned, blemish-free leather cut and assembled by a true craftsman. He ran a finger over the ornately rendered initials cut into the inside of the left fender of the saddle: JTW.
A man who knows quality
, he mused.