Only the Gallant (25 page)

Milo overturned the oaken table in the kitchen and used it for a barricade. He propped his elbows on the edge and the rifle in his hands spat flames. It thundered twice and belched acrid black smoke that soon obscured the big man as he continued to fire through the haze.

Titus liked the idea of taking cover within the house. He took off after Doc, who had already climbed the back steps and ducked inside. About twenty-five feet from the plantation house, Titus howled in agony as a chance shot from Jesse’s navy Colt shattered his knee and dropped him in the dust. He groaned and rose up on his good leg and took aim. Jesse slipped from horseback. Titus held his fire. The riderless animal blocked his view. Jesse rolled to the left and, belly down in the dirt, shot twice. The first shot doubled Titus over. He straightened and tried to bring his revolver to bear and took Jesse’s second slug alongside the first. He clutched at his belly and emptied his revolver as he fell forward, blasting a furrow in the black earth as he died.

Bon Tyrone’s horse staggered, shot through the heart, and went down. The Rebel tried to kick free, but his boot caught in the stirrup as the animal collapsed and rolled on its side, pinning the Confederate officer to the ground. Bon groaned and tried to pull himself out from under. He spat dirt and gulped in a lungful of air and renewed his attempt to work his leg free. He didn’t think it was broken, though his ankle hurt like the devil. A lead slug thudded into the belly of the horse. Bon sank back, gripped the LeMat with both hands, and looked up as Milo stood with the Colt revolving rifle in his hand.

Bon flicked the hammer on his gun, squeezed the trigger, and blasted a load of shot that knocked Milo backward over the table. The rifle went flying from his fingertips and clattered off the brick hearth behind him.

Bon propped himself up on an elbow and waved Jesse away as the man started toward him.

“I’m all right. Help my sister!”

Jesse waved at Bon, turned, and loped toward the house. The back door looked too inviting. Jesse resisted the temptation, altered his course, and headed for the front drive and the horses the deserters had left tethered to a hitching post. He rounded the corner of the house as Doc Stark limped onto the porch between the whitewashed pillars.

“Jesse!” Ophelia shouted, and aimed her shoulder into Stark just as he fired. Again, she spoiled his aim, the bullet shattered the study window.

Jesse flinched and brought up his gun, but all he saw was Ophelia in his sights as Stark ducked back inside and dragged the woman with him.

Ophelia struggled and twisted until Doc lost his hold on her. She wrenched free in the foyer and grabbed a cane from a stand by the door and cracked Doc across the side of his neck. The cane shattered. Stark howled and lashed out with his gun hand. The barrel of his Colt clipped her temple. Ophelia sagged in the double doorway to the dining room. The world spun and she tried to hold on as blackness engulfed her. Doc Stark caught her as she fell and carried her into the dining room and deposited her on top of the long table.

He grabbed a crystal oil lamp from a sideboard, lit the wick, turned up a nice flame, then hurled the vessel against the wall. Flames sprang up along the floor and engulfed the curtains and lapped at the ceiling. Doc studied his handiwork and the girl sprawled helplessly on the table.

“This ought to distract you, Jesse,” he muttered.

He heard the front door crash open as Jesse kicked it in. Doc grinned and took up his position.

Bon began to claw at the dirt beneath his leg. His hands dug deep in the Mississippi soil. He strained and worked his foot back and forth as best he could. Finally he felt the leg slide an inch, then another. YES, he thought. And bit his lip to keep from crying out. He dug and pulled and continued to work his leg and gained another few inches. He sensed motion out of the corner of his eye and stared in dismay as Milo Stark crawled across the overturned table and stumbled toward him. Blood streamed from half a dozen flesh wounds, and his skull was bloody where he struck a table leg as he fell.

Milo pulled a broad-bladed carving knife that he had found near one of the ovens. There was nothing subtle about his approach. He gripped the carving knife in one meaty paw as he advanced on his helpless prey. Bon grabbed for the LeMat and Milo hesitated until he heard the hammer strike an empty cylinder.

“Just you wait, Johnny Reb,” he muttered. “I got something for you.” Fifteen feet, then ten, his heavy frame plodded onward, the knife before him, raised now and ready to slash the pinned man.

“Should have stayed a prisoner, Tyrone,” Milo said with a rueful wag of his head. Bon grabbed the pistol by the barrel and swiped at his assailant, but the Gray Fox was at a distinct disadvantage. Milo had no trouble avoiding the blow. In fact, the attempt amused him.

“Gonna carve you like a Sunday chicken.” The man with the knife chuckled. He jabbed and slashed Bon’s shoulder.

A single gunshot thundered. Milo stiffened, squared his shoulders, and puffed out his chest. His mouth formed an “O” as the knife slipped from his grasp. He rose up on his toes then fell forward, sprawling across Bon and the dead horse. Bon shoved him aside and looked across the yard at Cicero, who sat with his back to the well, legs straight out before him, blood-drenched, the life ebbing from him. But the black man held the Patterson Colt with both hands, smoke curling from the barrel.

The two men faced one another, former owner, former slave. Bon nodded his thanks. Cicero weakly smiled. He lowered the gun. It was too heavy for him to hold any longer. He choked and coughed blood, then whispered in an anguished voice, “Now I be free.” And he died.

Jesse entered the main house of Dunsinane crouched low, his reloaded navy Colt cocked and ready to blast Doc Stark out of existence once and for all. He squinted through a haze of smoke, swung his gun to cover the study to his left, then the stairway straight ahead, and then the dining room. Heat fanned his face as he eased to the doorway and peered into the room. About a third of the room was engulfed in flames. The blaze was spreading fast. In minutes the entire room would be an inferno, with Ophelia stretched out upon the table like a dead queen upon her funeral pyre.

Jesse, reacting on instinct, lunged through the doorway and hurried to the unconscious woman’s side. He shoved the chairs out of the way and reached out to scoop her in his arms. Smoke seared his lungs. Flames singed the back of his coat.

He sensed a danger other than the flames and whirled about to face the kitchen as Doc Stark’s burly frame filled the doorway. His gun bucked in his hand. The slug knocked Jesse to the floor. His navy Colt skidded across the floor and beneath the armoire in the corner whose china display was framed in fire. The stained cabinet went up like kindling.

“Too bad, Jesse,” Doc said, holding a damp cloth over his nose and mouth as he entered the room. He leveled the gun at the man lying helpless on the floor. The pain in his left shoulder kept Jesse conscious. He concentrated on the pain and the darkness receded from the fringes of his vision. Doc kicked McQueen’s left foot. Jesse groaned and looked up.

“Wake up. I want you to see this coming.” Doc steadied the revolver. He chuckled, looming over the wounded man sprawled at his feet. “You and your high-and-mighty family. Well now, who’s lookin’ down at who, eh?” His finger tightened on the trigger.

Beneath the armoire, a tendril of fire ignited the loaded chambers of the Colt .36. Three chambers exploded in rapid succession. Doc Stark glanced up, distracted by the gunshots, thinking himself under attack.

Jesse reached to his right boot and palmed the Smith & Wesson. When Doc turned to finish him, Jesse fired up into the deserter’s face. Doc screamed and clutched at the blood spewing from the socket where his right eye had been. He staggered back and Jesse emptied the .22-caliber pistol into him. Doc shuddered under the impact of each bullet, then with a hand to his face and the other flailing wildly, he toppled back through the window and fell through a shower of glass and a rush of fire and smoke into a flower bed.

Jesse rolled on his stomach and brought his knees up under him. He heard coughing, then two slender, soot-smeared arms encircled his waist and helped him to stand.

“A Yankee. Somehow I knew it,” Ophelia said in a hoarse voice. She was bruised and bloody and more than a little dazed. But she saw Stark die and saw who killed him.

“I wanted to tell you,” Jesse yelled, striving to be heard above the roar of the fire. He glanced around and added, “Maybe we ought to talk outside.”

Bon watched in horror as the flames exploded the upstairs windows. A fireball swept up over the cedar-shingled roof. He gave one final herculean effort and pulled clear of the dead horse. He attempted to stand, but his twisted ankle refused to accept his weight. No matter. He’d crawl, by heaven, and started to do it when he spied Jesse and Ophelia stumble around the side of the house. They were both battered and singed but alive. And beyond them, riding at a gallop down the” drive to Dunsinane, came Spider Boudreaux and a dozen men of the First Mississippi Volunteers.

Jesse managed to reach Bon a minute ahead of the Confederate column. He stood swaying a moment. “Looks like you win,” he said. He left Ophelia at her brother’s side and staggered over to the summer kitchen. He turned the table upright and slumped down onto a bench seat. Ophelia hurried over to him and began to bandage his wound. The slug had ripped his shoulder across the top, but it had missed the bone. It was painful though not fatal.

“Why did you come back here?” she asked.

“You ought to know.”

Ophelia shook her head. The complexities of war were one thing, the intricacies of the human heart quite another. Yes, she did know. And that was the reason why she could not bring herself to hate him.

Jesse watched as Spider and the others circled Bon. Some of the men noticed McQueen and the color of his uniform and covered him with their carbines and dragoon pistols.

“What the hell happened here?” Spider said. “We seen the smoke and come at a gallop. Looks like we missed the whole blasted ball.”

“We had a bit of trouble.” The roof crumbled inward in a shower of sparks.

“Trouble hell, it looks like Armageddon,” the Cajun replied, the glare of the flames reflected against his grizzled features. “Johnston’s pulled out of the capital. Vicksburg’s on its own. We been ordered to the east. Looks like we’ll fight the Yankees another day, I reckon.” Spider frowned and looked at Jesse. “What about him?”

“I’ll handle it,” Bon said, and limped past his men, who at a glance from the Gray Fox retreated from the summer kitchen. Jesse stood as the Confederate officer approached.

Ophelia glared defiantly at both her brother and Jesse. “The first one who starts something will have to answer to me!” she warned.

Her outburst broke the tension. Bon shook his head, and despite all that had happened he had to smile. “By God, she means it.”

“I believe her,” Jesse added. Then he looked at Bon. And waited.

“I’ll take Ophelia to Richmond. She can stay with her aunt,” Bon told him.

“I’m not going anywhere. I can live in the tutor’s cottage until we can rebuild.” Ophelia sounded determined. “This is my home. And the old ones need me. I’m staying.”

“I’ll hang around to bury the dead and … to help out,” Jesse said to Bon. “Unless you figure to try and take me with you.”

Bon looked from his sister to McQueen and threw up his arms in exasperation. His options were clear; he’d have to kidnap his sister and kill Jesse.

“Ahhh … ” he growled, and limped over to one of the horses the deserters had stolen from the Union camp. He climbed into the saddle, not without effort and taking care not to further injure his ankle.

“What about General Grant? You’ve got a lot of explaining to do,” Bon said, settling astride the horse. Another of his men retrieved his pistol.

“These deserters will help smooth things over,” Jesse replied. “I’ll leave the rest for Major Abbot to handle.”

The Gray Fox glowered. It still galled him to think he had been tricked not once but twice.

“So be it,” he said, and turning to Ophelia, reached down to take her hand in his. “I’ll be back from time to time. Just keep watch for me, sister.” He kissed her hand.

“I will. Take care.”

Bon looked at Jesse. “I aim to plague you Yankees yet.”

“No doubt you will,” Jesse told him. “Though for today let it be said of us that we met as enemies but parted as friends.” Captain Jesse Redbow McQueen offered his hand. Captain Bon Tyrone clasped it in a firm and honest grip.

And as the Gray Fox rode away at the head of his column Ophelia stood at Jesse’s side and wondered aloud, “What will happen now?”

Jesse put his arm around her. “Who can tell?” he answered.

A kind of peace had returned to Dunsinane, marred only by the crackling flames as something old gave way to something new.

G
ENERAL GRANT TOOK JACKSON
on the fourteenth of May. Four days later he had brought his army to the fortifications around Vicksburg. After a siege of forty-seven days the city surrendered on the Fourth of July in the year 1863. It was a blow from which the Confederacy never recovered.

Although the McQueens are a fictitious family, some of the exploits depicted in this story are grounded in fact. A Union agent whose name has been lost to history allowed himself to be publicly court-martialed and drummed out of the army. He became an officer in the Confederacy and acted as a courier for General Joe Johnston. Throughout the invasion of Mississippi, this daring agent kept General Grant supplied with plans of attack and defense personally drafted by the Confederate military hierarchy. But he was only one of many brave and gallant souls who fought and sacrificed and endured that dark and bloody time we call the Civil War.

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