Edge: Killer's Breed

For M.H.

who was in at the start but is

now with the opposition.

WARNING!

This is not for the fainthearted reader!

AUTHOR'S NOTE

This is a fictional story set against a background of the American Civil War which did, of course, actually happen. Although the sequence of actual events is correct, it has been found necessary to alter certain details so that the man now called Edge could play his part in the battles of the Shenandoah Valley, Bull Run and Shiloh. I trust war historians will forgive me.

CHAPTER ONE

THE man called Edge was sick and he was tired and as he crossed the Kansas-Missouri Stateline he thought he might die before he reached the place that had once been his home. He couldn't recall how long he had been riding on the box seat of the flatbed wagon: how many hours, days, weeks, he had looked at little else but the hindquarters of the four big horses which had valiantly hauled him all the way from the massacre at Rainbow towards a dream that had turned into a nightmare. Once the wagon had been weighed down on its springs by a fortune in Mexican gold, but the army had not allowed Edge to claim it for his own. The cavalry troop which had galloped into Rainbow too late to prevent its annihilation by Apaches had seized upon the gold as a substitute victory, the commanding officer hopeful that Washington would accept a million dollars worth of bullion as a fair if not humane exchange for the lives of eighty troopers and their officers and every citizen who had lived in Rainbow, Arizona Territory.1 (1 See - Edge: Apache Death)

Edge, the entire back of his head seeming to be on fire from the blood-encrusted furrow which a bullet had gouged across his neck, and surrounded by a company of cavalrymen suspicious of the reason for his survival, was in no position and had little inclination to argue his case. If he were a man to have any belief in the vagaries of fortune he might have considered himself lucky to be allowed to leave Rainbow with the wagon and horses and a Winchester 66 with a full load of ammunition. In point of fact, being the kind of man he was, he felt that the circumstances in which he left the ravaged town were the best that he could expect.

It was not the first time he had been within moments of obtaining a fortune only to have it snatched from him and he had .learned to accept such defeat philosophically. He was alive when all the rest were dead and. if this were not enough, the future held as many alternatives as a man had time to explore them. So Edge drove the wagon and team away from Rainbow with a mind which had already blotted out all thoughts of what had happened and what he had lost there. He was a man alone again—the way he preferred to be—and if, as he headed north over the arid mountain country, a mind vacated by the past did not concern itself with the future and the courses it opened, this too was characteristic of the man. For, in truth, he had nothing to live for, unless it be the day, and this day was fined with pain.

The pain got worse, spreading like a flame to engulf his entire head and as the days passed it ate its way downwards, through his shoulders and chest and into his stomach. Then numbness set in and he could bathe the bullet wound without setting off fresh waves of agony. For a day and a half as he crossed the Continental Divide in the northern region of the New Mexico Territory and started down towards the Rio Grande, experiencing the falling temperatures of approaching winter, he felt almost fit, but refused to allow himself to acknowledge hope. For he knew that the wound, untreated except by un-boiled stream water and the application of a soiled kerchief, had become gangrenous. His exploring fingers could feel the ugly swelling of poison at the edges of the wound, and his nose could detect the stink of it.

The searing pain had begun shortly after that, and rode with him like a demon spirit across the southeastern comer of Colorado and into Kansas. The further north he travelled the lower the temperature dropped and Edge knew this, despite the fact that his own body was burning with fever, for as the sweat formed on his body it was immediately chilled by the brisk air. He was on the plains now, the great sprawling flatlands of the Middle West: cattle and farming country and the settlements and towns became more numerous as the land became richer. But Edge, ignoring them, sometimes drove the team through them, blind to the curious stares of bystanders; otherwise he skirted them. For his dream had been born. Created by lightheadedness and fed with involuntary, disjointed memories of inter-mingled peace and violence, it was a vision of home. A beautiful Iowa landscape peopled with wonderful parents and a hero-worshipping kid brother contributing to a rich and full life for a man named Josiah Carl Hedges. Although Edge struggled to hold on to this mind picture, the blood from a hundred gaping wounds kept washing across it to the sound of gunfire and the swish of a flashing blade. He saw his parents dead, countless mutilated men in uniforms of blue or gray, a man who was no longer a man swinging at the end of a rope, a woman's crumpled body at the foot of a cliff, another woman with bloodied patches where her young breasts had been, the head of a man with no body and no eyelids swinging in the morning sunlight.

Then, finally, as the blood was wiped clean, he saw the farm again, but not as it used to be before the war and the aftermath of violence. Now it was merely a burned-out shell of a house surrounded by vast expanses of fired wheatfields. This was a picture to which the tortuously sick Edge could cling, for he was determined to see it in reality. This was his dream, for he knew that the pain which rode the wagon with him was a messenger of death and before he died he wanted desperately to see the place where, in life, he had been most happy.

He did not trouble to eat or rest any more as he felt the time running out and it was an instinct, like that of a wounded animal, which communicated his desire to the team as it toiled due north out of Missouri and into Iowa.

The fever increased, spreading across the man's pale face a waxy redness out of which his blue eyes shone with a brilliance too bright, too intense so that those who saw the wagon roll past were certain it was driven by a man who was insane. With this sudden, dangerous rise in temperature, there came also a fire in his mind, at first flickering, then bursting into a raging flame. Edge was willing himself not to die and with this determination the dream became a nightmare, not springing from the past, but threatening from out of the future. He wanted to live because now he was certain that if he could get back to the farm, he would have a chance to start afresh. It seemed an eternity ago that he had last ridden towards the farm with hope filling his heart: an earnest desire that there he could forget the horrors of war and revert to the man he had once been. But violence had preceded him and he had gone forth to reap revenge with like violence. His lust for vengeance had been assuaged now and from the depths of his sickness he saw a chance to turn back the clock and grasp again at the opportunity for peace.

But the nightmare of death threatened to rob him and in a mind contorted by fever he was certain that death would be defeated if only he could reach the farm in time. He was unable to reason out an explanation for his faith but he had never been more certain of anything in his life before. When the rain came, gusted across the rolling plain by a north wind and lashing directly into his face, he experienced it only as a further weapon in death's armory and he urged the team into greater efforts, cursing at the almost exhausted beasts as they strained to force themselves and their burden through the mire into which the rain had transformed the grassland.

Edge wore no topcoat and the teeming, wind powered rain quickly soaked his black shirt and pants, pasting his underwear to his burning skin. His hat had blown off in the first gust and his shoulder-length black hair danced about his head in turmoil. But he drove on relentlessly through the gathering gloom of the storm, eyes blazing and teeth gleaming between lips curled back in a sneer which challenged the elements. And then, as a fork of lightning slashed across the grey sky and an instantaneous clap of thunder cut through the hiss of the rain, the horses bolted in terror and Edge laughed insanely, triumphantly, as the sudden speed strengthened his hand against the passage of time.

But the horses had little reserves left upon which to call and their pace slackened. When the skies were next split asunder by lightning and its accompanying thunder they could do no more than whinny and roll their eyes, white in their terror. Then; as Edge screamed his demand for further speed, one of the lead horses put a hoof in a gopher hole and the shinbone broke with a sharp crack, like a distant rifle shot. The other lead horse veered sharply to the left and the wagon slewed round, a rear wheel hit a rock and the rim sheared off the spokes. As the wagon canted sharply Edge was rocketed from the seat and in his deranged mind experienced a sensation of exhilaration as his body sailed through the rain-streaked air. He thudded in the rain-softened ground and lay still on his back for several moments, his mouth open to drink from the storm. This period of inactivity seemed to have a calming effect on his mind and there was a sense of logical purpose in the movements of his mud-covered body, an expression of impassive intent as he picked himself up and moved slowly towards the overturned wagon and pathetically struggling horses. The lid of the box seat was still shut and he grunted with surprise when he discovered the extent of his weakness. But eventually he raised the lid and took out the Winchester. Terror left the eyes of the injured horse as he approached it and the animal looked at the man with trust. It did not move as the rifle muzzle pressed against its head. The crack of the rifle was lost in a clap of thunder and in the blue flash of lightning the eyes of the horse became glazed. The animal's final breath gushed from its nostrils and then the horse collapsed, setting off the others into renewed struggles. Edge's hand was slow going to the back of his neck, but the movement was sure. The reaching fingers avoided the purple and yellow swelling of the festering wound and closed upon the handle of the cut-throat razor. He jerked it clear of the pouch and then began to slice through the traces which held the other three horses in the wagon shafts. As each animal was freed it moved a few paces away and there waited patiently as if expecting some new demand from the man. But the next stab of blue lightning and the smash of the thunderclap sent the animals into a stumbling gallop that would not end until physical fatigue overtook mental anguish.

Edge watched them out of sight, then turned to follow his instinct home, and instinct was all that kept him going now. The elation of the team's terror-fed dash, the exhilaration of the crash and the smashing of his body into the ground had robbed his mind of the last vestiges of unreality. His body was wracked with pain, fatigue was an unbearable weight on every muscle and his brain communicated only defeat. There was no longer any vision to lure him on nor any abstract struggle with the angels of death to drive him forward. He was just a terribly sick man in search of relief, forced on by sheer determination to get to where he was going.

Thus, when another lightning streak bathed the country ahead of him with an instant of blue brilliance, he knew that what he had seen was true. There really was a house where, when he had last been here, there had been only blackened timber. And there was a new barn, too, over to the right of where the old one had been. The picket fencing enclosing the yard might have been the same one Edge and his brother had put up so long ago, but it had been painted since—perhaps more than once. And the fields spread out around the farmstead, last seen as the sooted remains of a wheat crop, were now either golden with stubble or black with ploughing for the next planting.

What made it so real, confirmed to Edge that he had come home at last, was the big live oak inside the yard, not far from the gate in the fence. It was almost leafless now, surrendering its foliage to the onslaught of fall, but Edge had seen the tree in every season and he recognized it instantly. If every other feature of the country had been wiped out by a natural disaster, providing the oak tree had survived, Edge would have known he was home.

He moved forward at a faster pace now, the view blotted out by the rain, but the position of the oak had been impressed into his retina. His feet felt like lead as he dragged them through the mud and he staggered from side to side as his head swayed drunkenly on his stooped shoulders. He cannoned into the fence several yards wide of the gate but was reluctant to waver from his chosen course. He hauled his protesting body up on to the fence and then pitched forward into the sea of mud on the other side. His breathing was ragged from his demented haste and at first he could not haul himself to his feet. He crawled on all fours for several yards, until he arrived in the inadequate shelter of the leafless branches of the tree. He used the rough bark of the oak and the additional leverage of the Winchester to drag himself upright and then, still relying upon the support of the tree, moved around to the far side.

The mound of Jamie's grave had grass on it now, neatly trimmed and with a cleanly cut edging. The crudely formed cross with the boy's name and the date of his death upon it was at the head of the mound, weathered but still legible. New, in the center of the mound was a tin pot, rusted but serviceable, empty of flowers when Edge first saw it. But then a pair of delicate finely-boned hands reached out and tenderly placed a posy of blood-red roses into the pot.

Edge forced his head up off his chest, his hooded eyes taking in the stooping figure of somebody in a yellow waterproof to the left of the grave. He cracked his mouth to say something but all that emerged was a pained grunt as every ache in his burning body was drawn into his skull to gather into a single lump which exploded with tremendous force. The world lit up and he saw the terrified face of a beautiful girl. Darkness rushed at him and he fell forward into it.

*****

Grace Hope screamed with all the power in her lungs as she saw what she firmly believed to be an apparition rising from the grave. For the tall man was covered from head to foot in black mud and in his head she could see two gleaming rows of teeth and the wildly staring eyes of a skull. Then, as he fell forward she was certain the ghoul was leaping at her and the scream ripping from her parted lips rose to a crescendo and was abruptly swamped by a new crash of thunder.

After the brilliance of the lightning flash she was temporarily blinded but when the instant had passed she could see the form slumped at her feet and watched, trembling, as the teeming rain pelted upon the man's face and washed it clean from forehead to stubbled jaw. Her mouth was still wide in the attitude of a scream, but now she stepped forward and stooped over the man, reaching out a shaking hand to touch the white cheek, almost luminescent against the surrounding darkness. The flesh was burning and the sound she uttered now was a low-keyed cry of alarm.

"Mother!" she called, remaining in the stoop and looking over her shoulder, through the curtain of falling rain to where the dark form of the house loomed against the grayness of the afternoon.

In the house the woman at the sink continued with her task of preparing the vegetables for the evening meal. She could hear the rain hitting the roof and rushing down the drain pipe into the perpetually overflowing barrel. And she could hear the intermittent crack of thunder as the windows gleamed with blue fire. But no other sounds could pierce this barrage.

"Mother!" Grace called again, louder but once more failing to attract the attention of the woman in the house. She probed with her fingers through the mud on the man's throat and for a moment thought he was dead. She came erect, turned and ran through the mire of the yard towards the house.

"Grace, you'll catch your death," her mother rebuked as she heard the door open. "You didn't even know whoever's buried in that grave. Don't see why you have to tend it so regular, and in all weathers, too."

"There's a man in the yard," Grace blurted out as she caught her breath.

Her mother turned then, and saw the fear inscribed upon her daughter's pretty features. The older woman had been brought up in the wilderness on lonely farmsteads and learned from bitter experience that fast action was often the only way to survive. Thus she strode across the room to where a fully-loaded Spencer rifle was hung over the mantelshelf and was reaching up for the gun before her daughter caught her breath to explain further.

"He's sick, mother. He's out there lying in the mud and burning up with fever."

Margaret Hope stayed her hands for a moment, then continued, lifting the rifle down from its resting place and cocking it as she turned. "No sense in being careless," she said, heading for the door. "My father and yours always told me never to trust a man alone. Just 'cause he's sick don't mean he ain't up to no good. Come on, girl."

As if fearing that her mother might act hastily with the rifle, Grace hurried to be first outside and then ran again through the mud with a warning to take care ringing in her ears. Edge had not moved from the position in which he had fallen, prone with his head on one side. But the washing action of the rain had run the mud from his back .now and the two women could see his black shirt and pants and the gun belt with a holster tied down to the right thigh and a knife pouch at the back, both empty.

"Big feller, ain't he?" Margaret Hope pronounced.

"Please, mother," Grace pleaded. "Let's get him in the house. He's on fire with the fever."

Her mother nodded. "You're right, gir1. He ain't likely to cause no trouble in his condition."

She rested the Spencer against the trunk of the oak, then spotted Edge's muddy Winchester and placed it beside her own gun. "He carries a lot of weight as well," she opined as she rolled Edge over on to his back and lifted his shoulders while Grace took hold of his ankles. "And not an ounce of fat, either." They started to struggle through the mud with their burden. "Sickness hits a man like this harder than it does the runts. Ain't used to feeling puny, see."

Grace didn't answer. The shock of the man's appearance from under the tree, the rush to and from the house and now the exertion of carrying the dead weight had drained her and she began to pant before the journey was half completed. Margaret, too, began to feel the strain and fell silent. It was a blessed relief when they had struggled through the doorway into the dry of the house and were able to set the man down on the rug in front of the hearth.

"Shouldn't we put him in bed?" Grace asked breathlessly.

"Not before he's cleaned up some and we get those wet clothes off him," her mother said, picking up two logs from an alcove and tossing them on to the embers in the fireplace. "Fill three kettles, girl."

As Grace went to comply, her mother lit the two kerosene lamps which supplied light for the room. When Grace returned to set the kettles on the hob she saw that her mother had already removed the stranger's shirt and was beginning to unbuckle his gunbelt.

She drew in her breath sharply. "It doesn't seem decent," she said.

"When somebody's sick, it ain't a matter of decency," Margaret Hope snapped. "Seems they taught you to talk and act like a lady at that Eastern school you went to, but your education was lacking in other things. When a man's hurting he don't care much who looks at him, as long, as they're helping him." She smiled suddenly. "And you're twenty-three years old now, Grace. 'Bout time you learned a man ain't only different from a woman 'cause he shaves. Holy Mother of God, look at that?"

Edge had groaned and rolled his head to one side, so that the light from one of the lamps shone directly on to the ugly, pus-filled swelling at the back of his neck. The girl's mouth fell open in horror.

"What is it?" she shrieked.

"He's been cut with a knife, or shot," her mother answered with a grimace. "He ain't just sick, girl. He's dying. He needs a doctor. A good one."

"I'll go for Doctor Patterson," Grace, said, turning towards the door.

"No!" her mother snapped, "You ain't riding no ten miles to town, in weather like this. Stranger landed himself on us and he'll have to take his chances with us. Maybe if there ain't no bullet in the wound, he might make it. Can't tell until we drain off the poison. Put some more logs on the fire, girl. We need hot water fast, and a lot of it."

Edge heard voices and cracked open his eyes. He saw a woman bending over him, perhaps middle-aged but looking old because the hard life of frontier farming quickly sapped the juices of youth. But behind the lined, shell-like texture of her time and weather-worn features he could see traces of a former beauty. And there was, also, visible in steady gray eyes and set of the finely sculptured mouth, an intrinsic kindliness about the woman which would survive long after the mere physical beauty had been lost without trace. As he looked at her, the woman unaware of his study, she raised a hand, back of it to her forehead and brushed a strand of gray hair from her eyes. It was a gesture that flooded Edge's mind with memories, for this had been a frequent, unconscious action by his mother. But the hair which fell into her eyes was golden, the color of ripened wheat shining with morning dew. Then, as if by command of his imagination, his eyes fastened upon such hair, wet and plastered to the head of Grace Hope. He knew this was not his mother, for the face was too young and the eyes were brown. And the face was pretty rather than beautiful. But he had seen her somewhere before, her expression showing fear instead of the tender concern it now depicted. His mind, verging on delirium, struggled to recall the circumstances, but failed. It was too much effort to pin down one fragment of memory when a thousand others were crowding in on him, scrambling to be acknowledged and savored.

Then, as he closed his eyes, blotting out the faces of two women without knowing whether or not they were real or figments of his tormented imagination; he saw the smile of Jeannie and he fastened upon this. Because Jeannie had been real and it seemed very important to cling to reality as the yawning cavern of darkness opened again. But this time he did not fall into it alone. Jeannie took his hand in hers and went with him, the smile becoming a laugh as they tumbled together, down into space and backwards through time.

CHAPTER TWO

LIEUTENANT JOE HEDGES was uncomfortable in his uniform as he endeavored to walk in a straight line down the main street of Parkersburg just across the Ohio Stateline in West Virginia. The weather in that June of eighteen sixty-one was warm, even though it was late at night, but it was not only the early summer heat that caused him to unfasten the top three buttons of the blue tunic of his Union cavalryman's uniform. He had lost count of the number of drinks he had taken and he could, not even remember how many saloons he had taken them in. He only knew, as he staggered towards the edge of town, that there had been too many saloons and too many drinks. For the hard liquor was swilling against the inner wall of his taut stomach and the alcohol was coursing through his bloodstream, making him sweat more with each step he took and attacking his brain to play havoc with his co-ordination.

But, he thought, as he blinked and tried to focus his eyes upon a lamp which hung outside the dry goods store at the eastern end of town, it had been a good night. Reckless and stupid, but a man of twenty-five away from home for the first time in his life was entitled to kick over the traces provided he was willing to accept the consequences. Especially a man who had been among the first to volunteer after the rebel attack on Fort Sumter, expecting to see action immediately but instead only to experience long weeks of dull, routine camp duty. Relief from this daily round only came with marches eastwards, rendezvousing with other volunteers, making camp and then breaking it again to move on.

Compounding Hedges' discontent with this new phase of his life, from which he had expected so much, was his low opinion of most of the men around him. There was just a nucleus of regular soldiers in his company, the majority of them inept and malingers while the bulk of the troopers and infantrymen were volunteers, like himself, with all the faults and virtues of enthusiastic amateurs. With training, he felt, the large proportion of them would make good soldiers. But a training program did not exist. Symptomatic of what was wrong with the Union army—at least that part of it which Hedges had experienced—was the method by which he had gained a commission. He was a crack-shot with his own .52 caliber Spencer repeater rifle and with the .44 caliber Colt revolver issued by the army and this ability immediately gained him sergeant's chevrons. Then, as soon as his group joined up with the main force of General McClellan and a staff officer discovered Hedges could read and write he was promoted to lieutenant. No account had been taken of whether he possessed the qualities of leadership.

And, in truth, Hedges had his own very strong doubts upon this matter. He came from farming stock and had played his part in protecting the Iowa spread from the savagery of the Sioux and greed of the white land-grabbers. But in such affrays he had fought alongside his father, mother and younger brother, all of them putting into effect the disciplined skills taught so patiently by Thomas Hedges. Thus, father and elder son had been able to meet each attack confident that as a gun was emptied at the enemy, there would be another ready, fully-loaded by a woman and a young boy who had learned to complete such a task at great speed. Then, when his father had been killed by a nester and his mother died of a broken heart, Joe Hedges had been able to hold the farm safe with Jamie at his side.

But the obedience of a young boy who hung on every word from his elder brother was hardly a test for leadership and the more Joe Hedges saw of the uniformed rabble under McClellan's command the less he relished going into battle with them. And it was this feeling of foreboding—perhaps, he was willing to admit to himself, of fear—as much as the disenchantment with army life that had driven him into the saloons of Parkersburg.

Hedges was one of the twenty thousand men whom McClellan had brought across the Ohio River and who were bivouacked outside of town, resting before the eastward march along the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and into the Shenandoah Valley. And, as Hedges reeled drunkenly back towards camp, it seemed to him that every soldier in McClellan's army had descended upon the town to let off steam. Certainly every saloon had been packed to bursting point with blue-uniformed figures, drinking whiskey with the haste of inexperience, trying to smart talk the whores and dancehall girls who had heard it all before and proving their readiness for war by picking fights among themselves on the slightest of provocations.

He had done his drinking alone, from choice and, in fact, of necessity—for the enlisted men's distrust of officers extended beyond the boundaries of camp while regular troopers of similar rank had a strong dislike for commissioned volunteers. Thus, after drinking alone, Hedges headed back to camp on his own, eyes fastened upon the lamp to give him bearings. It was very late, after two o'clock, and the raucous sounds of merrymaking had diminished to a jangling piano and a dozen off-key voices singing drunkenly far down at the other end of the street. Parkersburg, a quiet railroad town, had entertained its unwanted guests as lavishly as possible and was now seeking sleep, hopeful that by sunup the army would have moved on. Hedges held out the same hope and knew that there was a strong possibility of realizing it. For intelligence reports indicated that there were contingents of Confederate infantry positioned east of Parkersburg and there were strong rumors that McClellan had already formulated a plan to deal with them.

The lamp began to waver and Hedges halted and shook his head from side to side, then grinned. The lamp's movement was a trick of his befuddled mind.

"Never again," he muttered and, the grin became a low laugh as he recalled his father's frequent use of the expression and his mother's skepticism.

"Enjoying yourself, soldier?"

Hedges turned to look across the shadowed sidewalk at the girl who stood there, smiling at him out of the darkness.

"Just something I thought of," he answered and was aware that the words slurred into each other.

"Deeds are better than thoughts if you really want to have fun," she answered.

"I've had my fun."

She laughed. "What ain't you got left—money or balls?"

Hedges grimaced with disgust. "Ladies don't talk that way where I come from."

The whore spat on to the sidewalk, "Christ, another backwoods virgin looking for glory."

Hedges blinked, then felt the anger rise as he realized the truth of the woman's words and experienced a hot flush which he knew to be embarrassment. He had a strong urge to hurl insults at the woman who was belittling him, but suddenly turned away from her and continued his staggering progress down the street.

"I hope some reb shoots it off!" the whore hurled after him.

He quickened his pace, seeing that the kerosene lamp hung, steadily now and knowing that the incident with the woman had had a more sobering, effect upon him than a gallon of black coffee. There was an alley between the dry goods store and the stage depot next door and it was as he passed the mouth of it that he heard the voice of another woman.

"No, please don't!"

He almost went on without glancing down the alley, for he did not really hear the words; merely recognized they were spoken by a woman and for a moment he thought he was being propositioned again. But then the man's voice issued from the shadows and Hedges was pulled up short.

"Come on, sister, you got what I need and I got what you'll enjoy. Two dollars, I'll pay. It's all I got left and you can have it all."

"Please, I'm not a … I have to get to the doctor. My sister's sick. Please let me go. There are a lot of girls like that in Parkersburg."

"You don't fool me!" The man had ceased pleading and his voice was a snarl. "You been getting more than a couple of bucks from all the others and you ain't prepared to put out for less. But you're gonna do it, sister. I'm goin' off to fight a war for you and least you can do is show a little appreciation."

There was the harsh sound of material being tom apart and the woman screamed, the sound becoming a muffled sob.

Hedges spun on his heels and went into the alley on the run, eyes trying to pierce the inky blackness. Then he saw them, their position marked by the milky whiteness of the woman's naked upper body from which the bodice of her dress had been ripped. The uniformed man was bending down before her, one hand over her mouth and pressing her head back against the wall of the stage depot while the other fumbled to rip free the remainder of the dress. As Hedges slackened his pace to creep up behind the attacker, the man lowered his head, mouth opening to engulf the woman's erect nipple.

The rending of material sounded again and the tattered remains of the woman's dress fell to a crumpled heap around her feet and she shook her head free of the grip and screamed in pain as the man's teeth sank into her breast. Hedges fist traveled no more than twelve inches but behind it was every ounce of power he could summon and as the knuckles sank into the area of the man's kidneys his mouth came wide in a silent scream and every nerve in his body was numbed, releasing his grip on the woman. As she flattened herself against the wall, seeming to want to press herself through it, the man half turned, but never completed the movement as the same fist which had landed the first blow, smashed into his jaw at the end of a swinging uppercut. He was lifted two inches clear of the ground and came down unconscious so that his knees buckled, his pelvis swiveled and neck twisted, corkscrewing him into an untidy heap in front of the near-naked woman.

Hedges glanced down at him and saw him as merely another faceless soldier with no badges of rank. Then he looked at the woman and saw that, in fact, she was no more than a girl, trembling and afraid and for several moments too deeply shocked to attempt to conceal her slim, almost fragile figure from his gaze. Then, when she did try, she found her hands and arms only adequate to hide the firm half spheres of her young breasts. She pressed her slender legs tightly together and began to quake again as she dug fingers into the soft flesh of her shoulders.

"I've already had the offer and turned it down," Hedges said and tried to form his features into a gentle smile. Then he rolled the unconscious man over with his foot and stooped to pick up the tattered dress. "You'll catch cold," he said softly as he handed it to her.

She seemed reluctant to take it, and when she did it was almost a snatching movement and she held it tightly to her, like a child with a favorite toy.

"He made a mess of it, miss," Hedges said. "It won't cover you much better than you're hiding yourself." He looked down at the man. "Got an idea." He bent down and unbuttoned the tunic, then the belt on the pants. The man wasn't very tall, but he was fat and it was awkward trying to get the clothes off under his dead weight. But Hedges' well-honed muscles served him well and within a minute the unconscious man was down to his grubby underwear. Hedges grinned at the girl as he held out the uniform. "You won't exactly be the best dressed lady in Parkersburg, miss, but they'll keep out the cold and protect your modesty until you get home."

Again she hesitated before reaching out to him and once more she clasped the garments tightly against her body, making no move to put them on. Hedges sighed and turned his back towards her. There was silence for several moments, then there were some scuffling sounds and he smiled, knowing she was putting on the uniform.

"It's all right now," she said at length and when he turned to look at her he had to suppress a guffaw. Two girls with her build could have got inside the tunic and the pants cuffs had been folded up twice to clear the ground. She had to have a hand under the tunic to hold the pants up. "I'm very grateful to you, Mr..."

"Hedges," he answered, touching his cap. "Joe Hedges. Not mister anymore. Lieutenant."

"My name's Jeannie Fisher," she said softly. "I'm sorry to have caused you trouble."

"You didn't," he answered. "I ought to apologize for his behavior. He's in the same army I am."

"I'm glad you're not all like him. Thank you again. I must get to the doctor now."

"I'll take you," Hedges said quickly.

She shook her head. "You've done enough. It's not far." She smiled now, the expression lighting her dark eyes and showing rows of white teeth between full lips. "I'm hardly likely to attract any more of that kind of attention, dressed like this."

"Maybe not if you don't smile like that," Hedges said, then suddenly stooped and picked up the unconscious man's cap. He stepped forward and the girl did not draw back or protest as he gathered up her soft red hair and tucked it under the cap.

"You're very thoughtful, lieutenant," she said. "Thank you again."

She had to go on to her toes to gain enough height to brush her lips across Hedges' mouth. Then she turned suddenly and ran off down the alley to where the railroad tracks gleamed silver in the moonlight, the spare material of the uniform flapping about her. Hedges ran the tips of his fingers along his lips and felt a stirring in his loins as his mind conjured up the picture of her near-nakedness. Then the man at his feet groaned and he was reminded of the ugliness of the circumstances; experienced a strong desire to kill the girl's tormentor.

He grinned suddenly and crouched down to remove the man's shoes, finding the two dollars in the left one. Then he grabbed the man by the feet and started to haul him out of the alley and into the street. His undershirt was dragged up, baring his bulging belly and very white, hairless chest. Hedges hauled his burden back down the street to the doorway where the whore had been standing.

"You still open for business?" he called into the shadows.

"Sure am, mister," the familiar voice answered. "Oh, it's you?" Her tone was suddenly derisive. "Change your mind, soldier boy? I got a special rate for first timers."

"It's not for me," Hedges answered. "He's got two dollars."

The whore gasped as Hedges dragged the groaning man into view. "He was so anxious he couldn't wait to get undressed," Hedges told her. "Is two dollars enough?"

"This some kind of joke?" the whore demanded.

Hedges dropped the feet of the man and held up the two bills. "He does look kind of funny, doesn't he? And for two dollars the joke can be on you,"

A hand reached out of the darkness and long fingers with scarlet-painted nails closed around the money and snatched it away. The whore laughed harshly. "They aren't usually in that state until they leave me, but I guess in wartime a girl's got to take what she can get. Bring him inside."

Hedges turned away. "I've given you your oats, lady," he called to her. "I'm not about to feed them to you."

"Screw you!" she shrieked after him.

"No, him," Hedges said as he walked away, able to maintain a straight line without effort now.

He heard the door slam and as he again neared the edge of town he turned to look over his shoulder and saw the man still lying in the street. "Should have known," he muttered. "Pa always told me never to trust a woman with painted nails." He tried to remember whether Jeannie Fisher had colored her nails.

*****

EDGE was naked and lying face down on the big double bed in the master bedroom of the farmhouse, his body from shoulder blades to feet covered with a sheet and six blankets. He was clean of mud except for that which clung among his long hair. But replacing the mud was a fine sheen of sweat, forced from his pores by the bed covering, the fire which roared in the hearth and his own dangerously high body heat.

"I wish father and Allen were here," Grace said as she sat by the fire, watching steam rise from a large pan on the hob.

Her mother was sitting at the head of the bed, stropping Edge's own razor on leather. The storm had passed now and except for when the women spoke it was very quiet in the room, the stillness marred only by the consistent splash of rain on the roof and the regular, pained breathing of the man on the bed.

"Your father wouldn't he much help," Margaret Hope answered. "He's strong and he's brave, sure enough, but he's got no stomach for this kind of thing. Your brother's probably the same."

"But they could go and get Doctor Patterson," Grace argued. "You can't be sure you're doing the right thing."

The elder woman eyed the ugly, venomous ridge across the neck of the unconscious man and grimaced, then tested the sharpness of the razor. She nodded as the slightest of pressure nicked the skin of her thumb and drew a hairline of blood.

"Wound's poisoned, you got to get the poison out," she proclaimed. "That's commonsense and I don't need no medical training to tell me that. And time anyone got to town and brought Doc Patterson back, this feller would be past helping."

She got to her feet and crossed to the fire, there to squat down before it and, protecting her hand from the heat with her apron, thrust the blade of the razor into the flames.

"I think I feel sick," Grace said, swallowing hard, her wide eyes staring in horrified fascination at the flames licking up the blade.

Margaret Hope looked at the pale face of her daughter and smiled to take the harshness out of her words. "It was you who found him, so you've got to help me. Bring that bowl and be ready to mop up the mess when it bursts out. Likely to smell a bit which won't help your stomach none but now you know about it, you'll expect it. That water looks to be boiling, girl. Let's get it over with and see if he's toting a bullet in there."

There was already a heap of clean clothes on the bed—shreds of tom-up sheet—and Margaret Hope arranged these around the wound as her daughter set down the steaming pan on a nearby chair.

"At least he won't feel it." Grace said.

"Course he won't," her mother snapped, her sudden anger revealing for the first time her own distaste for what lay ahead. She was immediately penitent for the slip and reached out to brush gentle fingers down her daughter's forearm. "Be brave, Grace," she murmured. "It must be done."

Her hand trembled as she lowered the blade of the razor, but became abruptly steady as the point touched and then sank into the sliver-thin, septic skin. Grace swayed but fought for self-control as the first spout of pus erupted, then gasped in horror as the blade travelled the length of the wound and the man's neck was suddenly running with yellow and green poison which gave off a nauseating odor.

"Wet cloths, girl," her mother demanded and Grace scalded her hand without feeling pain as she complied. The razor dropped to the floor, and the first swab followed it, white with an ugly stain. Working with haste and feminine gentleness, the elder woman accepted each new soaking cloth from her daughter, bathed the poison from the wound and discarded it. And soon the staining changed color, from the subdued tones of venom to the bright scarlet of fresh, clean blood. The man did not move or make a sound, but his body reacted with great beads of sweat which oozed from each pore to soak the bed-linen.

Margaret Hope sighed as she looked at the cleaned wound, bright red at the center with a darker coloration of inflammation along each side. "It was a bullet," she pronounced. "Creased him deep but didn't stay."

Grace had kept her eyes averted during the primitive surgery. Now she looked at the man and drew in her breath sharply. "It still looks..."

"I know," her mother answered. "He's still making poison, but we won't get at it like this. Bring the medicine chest, girl. All we can do now is put some salve on him, cover it and then keep him sweating to kill the fever." She used the back of a hand to brush sweat from her own forehead. "Then it's up to him. I reckon if he's got the spirit to live, he'll pull through."

"We could pray for him," Grace murmured.

Her mother nodded. "Reckon we could, Grace. We ain't no doctors but we did pretty good. So maybe we could pray and it won't matter that we ain't been to church since last Christmas. You say the words, daughter. You speak prettier than me and the Lord's a man."

As Grace sank to her knees and began to move her lips in silent prayer, her mother continued to stand by the bedside, clasping her hands together. The rain seemed to slacken during the appeal for mercy, but when it was over, came down with an increasing intensity.

"Weather’ll slow down your father and brother," Margaret Hope said pensively. "Kansas City ain't no Sunday ride at the best of times."

"Wonder where he comes from?" Grace asked, nodding to the man on the bed.

"Somewhere I want no part of," Margaret answered. "That's just one more wound he's got. He's been shot lots of times before. I don't think he's a good man, Grace. Feller who carries a razor like he does don't only use it for shaving."

The two women looked down at Edge, each with her own thoughts about the kind of man he was.

CHAPTER THREE

HEDGES and Captain Gordon Leaman, each with a party of twenty troopers, rode three miles ahead of the main body of McClellan's army. Leaman's group was north of the railroad tracks while Hedges kept to the south. As they pushed eastwards in the pale light of pre-dawn they were sometimes lost to each other behind low rises of areas of timber. But for the most part each group had sight of the soldiers in the other as they scouted the route for the main body.

Hedges had the first hangover of his life and was not enjoying the dull ache behind his eyes, the insistent thirst that irritated his dry throat and the cramps in his stomach. But counteracting his discomfort was a taut feeling of excitement compounded by the thrill of impending action and a nagging doubt, amounting almost to fear, of how he might react to it. He sensed that the men who rode behind him were experiencing a similar set of emotions. Previous troop movements had been made in the safe knowledge that the territory they covered held no dangers and inevitably the monotony of the circumstances had whetted the appetite for a confrontation with the enemy. But this period was now over and every man under McClellan's command was aware of this. To anticipate danger from a distance and face it bravely was easy to view it at close quarters with the awareness that the courageous sentiments had to be supported by deeds was a situation many men found hard to bear.

Not least a man like Hedges who recognized, for the first time since donning his officer's insignia, that the men at his back were placing a great deal of trust in him. Blind trust, since he was as untried in war as they were. And because of his own self-doubt, Hedges felt the responsibility heavily upon his aching shoulders but not weighty enough to dull the keen edge of his anticipation.

"Looks like a town ahead, sir."

The sergeant was older than Hedges. He was about thirty-five, a farmer with a wife pregnant for the fifth time. He was not an intelligent man, and this showed in the dull flatness of his widely spaced eyes and the narrowness of his brows. But he was a hard man, expert with a rifle. Until today Hedges had considered him too stupid to experience fear, but now as the sergeant pointed ahead to where three columns of white smoke rose in the clear, still air, the man's forefinger was shaking. Hedges looked into the dull, sallow complexioned face of the man and saw the features were set in a stiff mask that emphasized rather than concealed his inner torment.

"Philippi," Hedges answered with a nod, not having to consult a map. "Last report we had indicated a group of fifty rebels there."

His tone was soft and even and the sergeant looked hard into the face of his officer. It was not a handsome quality that commanded attention. Beneath a head of thickly growing, short-cut black hair the forehead sloped to prominent brows which jutted out above deep-set, ocean blue eyes. The eyelids were slung low over the eyes, hooding them so that the man seemed to view the world about him with a close, suspicious scrutiny. The nose flared wide at the nostrils and the mouth, as if complementing the eyes, was thin and when the lips curled back it was difficult to decide whether he was smiling or sneering. The clean-shaven jawline was finely chiseled and resolute, completing the appearance of a man who looked and probably was as hard as the situation demanded. The sergeant hoped that he was.

"Just us and Captain Leaman's troop going in?"

Hedges' smile was like morning sunlight on fresh fall of snow. It looked warm but the sergeant could feel the chillness. "First we've got to figure out the odds. No sense in troubling the general if there's only a handful of Johnnie Rebs holed up in Philippi."

The sergeant didn't like the plan but before he could voice his opinion hoofbeats sounded and both men turned at the approach of Leaman and his troopers. Leaman was the same age as Hedges but shorter and thinner. He had a fresh, eager-looking face with bright, honest eyes and an easy smile. He was a regular soldier, a West Point graduate with an ambition to emulate his father who was a general in Washington. He and Hedges had not met until the morning briefing.

"Looks like it," he said as he halted his horse. The easy smile was not in evidence now as he tried to conceal his nervousness with a facade of toughness. On such a face the expression was incongruous.

Hedges nodded. "How do you figure it?" He remembered army protocol, but the "Sir", was rather late.

Leaman chewed his lower lip. It looked swollen, as if he had been worrying it ever since the ride began. "I've been expecting to run into trouble since we started out. The intelligence has been too consistent to be wrong. They have to be somewhere in the area and my guess is in Philippi."

Hedges realized the captain was stating the obvious to gain time. He didn't help him out, but waited impassively for the decision to be made. Leaman glanced at the smoke, then turned in his saddle to look at the men. The steady rise of the smoke and the nervous expectancy of the men offered no assistance. Yellow rays of sunlight stabbed out of the east.

"I'll take six men and close in," he said at length, pulling down his cap to shade his eyes. "With any luck we'll be able to get close enough to make an estimate and then back again without being spotted. You wait here with the rest, unless you hear gunshots. Then come at the gallop. If I consider we need more help I'll send one of my group back to McClellan."

Hedges nodded, accepting the order without question and, in truth; finding no fault with it. Leaman picked the scouting party from his own troop and immediately led them off in a column, slanting southeast from the railroad and following a rutted trail towards a wooded hillock from behind which the smoke was rising.

"Dismount," Hedges commanded as soon as Leaman's party had gone from sight and the. Men obeyed gratefully, many of them beginning to roll cigarettes. Hedges slid from the saddle and while holding the reins of his horse with one hand, drew a sealed envelope from his hip pocket.

It was addressed in small, neat handwriting to: Lieutenant J. Hedges, Army Camp Parkersburg. It had been handed to him by one of the sentries just before the advance groups had left camp and. this had been his first opportunity to open the envelope. Inside was a single sheet of notepaper, folded twice, and a few lines in the same neat handwriting as on the envelope: Just to say thank you once more for your gallantry last night. Because of what you did my opinion of soldiers has been changed a lot. My sister is much better after her medicine. We live in the house behind the stage depot and you will always be welcome to visit us there. Gratefully yours, Jeannie Fisher.

Hedges read the note through three times; savoring every word, feeling as indebted towards the girl as she was obviously beholden to him. It was the first letter he had ever received from a woman. He recalled her gentle smile and felt a warm glow spread across his face, but then her naked body intruded and the warmth sank to his loins and became a burning heat. Suddenly he was ashamed and glanced guiltily around the men, as if fearing they could read his thoughts. But they were sitting or lying in attitudes of strained relaxation, not talking, but concentrating upon the hill shielding Philippi as they tried not to show their fear. Hedges refolded the letter in its creases and put it back in the envelope. He was just pushing this into his hip pocket when the volley of gunfire sounded distant and almost innocent in its muted key. But unmistakable for what it was and the direction from which it came.

"Mount up!" Hedges yelled as he leapt astride his own horse and dug his heels into the mare's flanks.

The animal broke at once into a gallop and the men streamed in her wake; faces tense and some yelling—as much to urge themselves forward as their horses. As he entered the fringe of the trees covering the hillside, Hedges unbooted the Spencer repeater and rode with it across his chest. Behind him some of the men unholstered sidearms while others made ready with the motley selection of muzzle and breech loading rifles they had brought into the war with them. It was hard riding up the west side of the hill, following the trail which meandered through the trees like a wild stream, but when they reached the crest and started down the going made for greater speed. It was warmer now, with the sun streaming through the foliage on to the troopers. And the rifle fire was louder; then became a cacophony as the troopers burst from the trees to race across the stretch of open ground to the town. They had passed no messenger. It was only a small settlement of houses and shacks, a church, a saloon and a few business premises. There was no sign of human life among the buildings, but three bodies were sprawled in the center of the town's single street, two dressed in blue and one in gray. Three chimneys continued to give out smoke from early morning fires, but other smoke, puffing from the center of orange bursts of exploding powder, could be seen dotting the town.

As the sound of hoofbeats reached the ears of Philippi's defenders the rate of rifle fire increased and Hedges stooped low in the saddle, ducking behind the neck of his mount as he heard the whine of bullets and ballshot. He heard a man scream and snatched a glance over his shoulder in time to see one of the youngest troopers slide from his saddle. The trooper's horse bolted in terror and swept ahead of Hedges with the man's boot still trapped in a stirrup. The man had received a superficial shoulder wound but screamed in agony as the flesh was scraped from his hands and face by the rough ground over which he was dragged. The trooper immediately behind Hedges was sickened by the sight and vomit gushed from his open mouth to spatter into the faces of the three men behind him. One of these opened his mouth to shout his disgust and a bullet zinged between his lips and ripped out through his, cheek. Blinded by blood, and vomit the man continued to dash forward, into the town street as Hedges led the rest to the right and skidded to a halt. A dozen Confederate bullets entered the trooper's body, dyeing his uniform red as he was lifted from the saddle and slammed into the wall of a building.

The survivors of the charge followed Hedges' lead in leaping from their horses behind the shelter of a two story house, and then clustered around him, waiting for orders. For several moments he said nothing as he struggled to rid himself of the mind picture of the young boy being dragged by the horse.

"Sir!" the sallow faced sergeant prompted, having to shout to be heard above the rifle fire and get through to Hedges' preoccupied mind. Hedges blinked and then raked his hooded eyes around the group of more than thirty men. He had to shake his head to clear it and bring about the realization that they were awaiting instructions from him.

"We divide into two groups," he snapped, his voice hoarse. "Sergeant, stay this side of the street and cover the rest of us until we get over there." He pointed across the street and quickly brought down his hand as he saw it was shaking, "As soon as we're over there, move through the town building by building."

The sergeant nodded and walked through the center of the soldiers, dividing them into two groups of approximately the same number. "Let the horses go," he yelled against the din of gunfire. "Until this is over you're infantrymen."

"Not all of them," Hedges countermanded. "Three men, behind me."

He led his horse towards the comer of the building, with the animal between himself and the town. Five other troopers placed themselves in a similar position behind him and the remainder of the men in Hedges' group stood in back of their comrades. At an order from the sergeant three men crouched at the comer of the building and the others formed up behind them, rifles at the ready.

"Go!" Hedges yelled and jerked on the reins of his horse as he broke into a run. For a moment the gunfire ceased as an apparently loose horse appeared in the street. But then another one came into view and the legs of the Union troopers were spotted. Bullets were suddenly thick in the air from both attacking and covering rifles. Hedges' horse was killed instantly by a ball smashing through the mare's eye, but he and the three men behind him dashed unharmed into cover on the opposite side of the street, The next four men made it into safety with themselves and the horses unmarked but the third horse was panicked by the racket and bolted. One of the men flung himself down behind the dead horse but the other two stood rooted to the spot by the shock of their predicament.

"Cover them!" Hedges yelled and three of his men began to fire wildly along the street as three more under the sergeant's command also loosed off bullets.

One of the unshielded men recovered his senses and ducked behind the next horse in the line. The other dropped his rifle and raised his hands in the air.

"Don't shoot!" he cried pitifully. "Please don't shoot. I surrender."

"Cease fire!" Hedges ordered, and immediately countermanded it with: "Blast them."

For one of the defenseless man's arms was blown off at the shoulder by a concentration of rifle fire and as he watched it failing he died, taking one bullet in the eye and another in his stomach. The rest of the men selected to follow Hedges reached the safety of the building and there only remained the man behind the dead horse. He was curled up in a fetal position, trying to make himself into less of a target as bullets and ballshot ripped countless wounds into the flesh of the animal.

"What's his name?" Hedges demanded, his voice shaking as he tried to control a spasm that was causing his right arm to tremble.

"Phil Stowe, sir," one of the men supplied.

"Stowe!" Hedges yelled. "Make a run for it. We'll cover you."

The trooper looked up and all the men behind the building could see, the tears coursing white trails down his dusty face. "Help me, lieutenant," the man called, the words rasping out of an arid throat. "Please help me."

"Soon as you hear us firing, run."

"I can't. My legs won't move. I'm too scared."

Another fusillade of shots sprayed horse's blood on to the trooper's uniform and he yelled in terror and hid his head under his arms again.

"I'll go get him," a man said from behind Hedges and before the lieutenant could turn and order him to stay where he was, the trooper had sprung forward at the run.

"Fire, fire, fire!" Hedges yelled and both his men and those of the sergeant on the other side of the street brought up rifles and sent a hail of hot lead down the street. Hedges watched with bated breath as the rescuer went into a stoop with hands formed into claws which drove under the armpits of his terrified comrade and lifted him bodily from the ground. The man pulled up short, turned and started back, bullets whining past his head and kicking up spurts of dust around his feet. The man he was dragging began to sob like a frightened child, but the sound was halted abruptly as a bullet went through the back of his neck and up into his brain.

"Oh my God," Hedges breathed.

"Drop him, he's dead," a man screamed, but the trooper continued to grasp his burden, only letting go when he was hit in the side and pitched headlong, reaching out towards the waiting men.

"I tried," he said, the words almost a sigh as blood from a punctured lung dribbled out of the side of his mouth. His hands scrabbled at the ground as he endeavored to drag himself the final yard into cover, his wide, pain-filled eyes pleading for assistance. But a fresh spurt of gunfire exploded and a row of jagged, red-tinged holes travelled up the man's back from buttocks to neck. He lay still.

"Christ, they're murdering us!" a middle-aged trooper with a pocked skin protested. "We ain't got no chance."

The trembling had now advanced from Hedges' arm to his shoulder and as he glanced across the street and saw the sergeant leading his men around the rear of the building, he experienced a twitching in his neck. When he first opened his mouth, no words would issue, but then he looked into the faces of his men, half afraid, half angry, and was able to quell his own horror.

"Move out," he said, making a fast count and discovering he had thirteen men in the group with only three repeaters, including his own, among them. "You and you," he ordered, pointing to the men with the rapid fire rifles, "take four men into the first two houses. The rest come with me into the next one. Stay calm. They look to have Captain Leaman and his men pinned down in the livery stable halfway down the street. That's where we'll head for. But I don't want any rebels left alive between here and there. Let's go."

The shooting had started again in the area of the livery stable and as Hedges' group moved off there came the sound of other shots from across the street as the sergeant and his men began their raids on individual buildings. Hedges stayed close to the walls of the buildings, ducking low under window sills and dashing across doorways, indicating with hand signals that each group of men should hold their positions in silence until all were ready. The first two buildings were houses, the third a barber's shop with living accommodation on the upper story. There was an outside stairway slanting up at the back and Hedges led two men aloft while the other three stayed on the ground. He had climbed only half the steps when the door at the top cracked open and the muzzle of a rifle was thrust out. Two shots rang out from below, a man screamed and the door burst wide. A gray-uniformed figure staggered out, blood gushing from a shattered jaw. As the troopers at the other houses accepted the shots as a signal to attack and a volley of gunfire rang out, the Confederate soldier folded over the stairway rail and pitched down to the ground.

"Hey, we killed one of the bastards!" a trooper yelled in delight as Hedges bounded up the remaining steps and went through the open, blood-spattered doorway, fighting once more to control the quaking which had now spread to both arms and both shoulders.

He was in a hallway with three doors leading off it and an inside staircase slanting off at an angle at the far end. He used the heel of his boot to kick open the first door and aimed the Spencer through it as the room came into view. The two troopers pushed past him towards the other doors as Hedges looked at the terrified faces of an elderly man and woman who were sitting up in bed, still dressed in night attire.

"Don't shoot!" the woman pleaded, holding up her hands as if she thought they would stop a bullet. "It's not our war."

There was a shot and a scream from downstairs, then the shattering of glass.

"Broke their way in," the man croaked.

"How many?" Hedges demanded as the troopers down the hallway kicked open the other doors and entered the rooms with guns blazing.

A woman screamed and a man cursed. The old crone in the bed closed her eyes and fell sideways in a faint.

"Only saw the one," her husband answered, holding her limp head to his chest. "Honest, mister. Just the one up here. He told us to stay in bed. We don't want no trouble. Don't hurt us or Sarah or John."

Hedges shook his head, reached for the handle and slammed the door closed before he moved down the hallway. There was nobody in the next room, but the bed was littered with glass where flying bullets had shattered a religious painting hung on the wall above. More gunfire exploded from below as the two troopers came out of the third upstairs room, both looking pale and sick.

"I heard a noise, lieutenant," one of the men whined. "I seen what happened out on the streets. I didn't want to take no chances."

Hedges looked over their shoulders. The woman was in her mid-twenties and had never been pretty. The bullet had smashed up into her skull after entering through her nose to make her very ugly. The boy—probably her son—was no more than six years old. He had taken it in the head, too, through his small right ear. Both wounds were still pumping out blood to spread stains on the sheets.

"Christ, he looks like my son," the second trooper exclaimed, his face twisted into a bitter grimace.

"Lieutenant?" a voice whispered from below. "You okay up there?"

Hedges was glad to be able to turn away from the horrible tableau of senseless death. "Yeah," he called and started down the stairs, beckoning for the two troopers to follow him. The stairway gave directly on to the barber's shop which was fitted out with two chairs before washbasins with wall mirrors above, and a bench for customers who had to wait their turn. Now the bench was overturned and two uniformed figures were sprawled across it, one in blue and one in grey. Another Confederate soldier was folded across one of the chairs. Through a doorway which gave on to a back room Hedges could see one of his troopers doubled over a window sill.

"Weren't easy, sir," the survivor reported, his lower lip trembling. "Christ, war is a stinking business."

Hedges thought about the dead mother and son upstairs and nodded. Then his expression hardened. "But we're in it. Let's go."

He led the way through into the back room and gently removed the body of the dead Union soldier from the window before climbing out. A bullet smashed into the frame and he went headlong to the ground.

"Hell, I thought you was a reb," somebody called.

He looked up and saw four men running towards him, all in blue uniforms. The one with a smoking Colt helped Hedges get to his feet. The lieutenant shook free of his grasp angrily.

"I told you to keep calm!" he bellowed.

The expression of another man changed suddenly from fear to rage and he sprayed spittle as he yelled at Hedges. "There was eight of us went in there. My best friend had gone to meet his maker without a face and the other three are just as dead. This ain't no hunting party. I'm gonna shoot at anything that moves before it has a chance to shoot at me."

Hedges held the other man's blazing glare. "What's your name, trooper?" he demanded when the man paused to draw breath.

"Morgan. Why!"

"Ninety day volunteer?"

The cold tone and impassive expression of Hedges were beginning to get through to the thin-faced, sandy-haired youngster, driving back his rage and replacing it with anxiety. The man nodded.

Hedges spat against the wall of the building he had just left. "I got a feeling this war's going to last a lot longer than ninety days, Morgan. But you won't if you don't get a hold of yourself. So cut out the yakking and let's get on with doing what we came here for."

With this he spun on his heels and headed across the alley separating the barber's shop from the stage depot. He had not taken four paces before a man loomed up on the roof of the building and loosed off a shot. Hedges felt a searing pain in his right hip and started to fall as his head snapped up. He saw the man who had, shot him, then heard a volley of gunshots from behind him. He hit the ground and rolled on to his back. He had a crazy, upside-down view of the Confederate soldier throwing his rifle into the air before pitching forward off the edge of the roof.

"That calm enough for you?" somebody said as Hedges was lifted and carried hastily into shelter at the rear of the stage depot.

Hedges put a hand under his tunic and grimaced as he withdrew it, coated with blood.

"Can you stand, sir?"

He tried, using the wall and helping hands from two of the men. His side felt as if it were on fire, but his legs could support his weight.

"Morgan?" He didn't know the names of any of the other men.

"Sir."

"If 1 can't make it, you take over."

"Me, sir?"

"You."

"Jesus."

Hedges shook free of the hands and snaked around the corner and along the side of the building. Down at the end of the alley and across the street he could see a house with its windows smashed and through them the flashes of exploding powder as rifles and revolvers were fired at close range. He gritted his teeth against the pain and stopped short at a window. He peered through and saw the office of the depot with six Confederate soldiers inside—three at each of two open windows—firing in turn.

"Morgan, take three men and get in from the back," he ordered.

The young trooper, still uncertain of himself in his new position of authority, waved his Colt at the nearest trio of soldiers and started back down the alley. Hedges looked at the other, three and drew back from, the window, indicating that they should take up position there.

"As soon as the rebs look like they know Morgan and the others are breaking in, blast them."

"Lieutenant?" The speaker was the soldier who had mistakenly shot the young boy and his mother. Hedges looked at the back of the man's head. He was concentrating his attention through the window.

"Something you want?" He winced at a new stab of pain from his side.

"Answer to a question, sir."

There was a sudden, violent increase in the rate of rifle fire out on the street and from the soldiers at the front windows of the stage depot offices, and then a lull.

Hedges spoke in a whisper. "What?"

"I'd much prefer a repeater to this old Springfield rifle I got, sir," the man said, his own voice low. "And since you don't appear to want, to use that there Spencer, I'd be obliged to exchange mine for it."

Hedges was grateful that all three troopers were concentrating their attention on the side of the office, for he knew that the flush of shame and anger was sending a deep redness across his face, generating almost as much heat as the bullet wound in his hip.

"Attend to your duty, soldier," he hissed.

"Yes, sir!" the man said derisively.

"Ought to know better," one of his companions muttered. "You're an enlisted man and he's an officer. Officers give the orders and enlisted men fight."

Hedges struggled to form an answer, but at that moment one of the Confederate soldiers fell, the life blood draining from a wound in the back of his neck. The other five turned with terror-stricken faces and the side window shattered as the three men kneeling outside squeezed their rifle triggers. Inside, Morgan and his men opened up. The stench of burnt powder wafted out through the broken window to the accompaniment of the screams of the dying. The men at the window drew revolvers and showered the office with rapid fire.

"Hold it," a man called from inside. "They're all dead."

The three troopers scrambled in, not offering to help Hedges, who felt fresh blood pumping out of his wound with each movement as he hauled himself through the window.

"Any casualties?" he demanded, peering through the layers of grey gunsmoke, seeing the sprawled bodies of the gray uniformed men.

"Not a one, sir," Morgan said with a note of pride. "We blasted them Rebs good."

"So let's not push our luck," somebody said. "McClellan must get here soon. Let's hole up and wait. What d'you say, lieutenant?"

"Hedges! Can you hear me Lieutenant Hedges?"

The voice was faint, almost every word separated from the next by a gunshot. Hedges went to one of the front windows and pressed his back against the wall to peer out. There were more bodies on the street now, obscene in the stillness of death. But nothing else had changed out there since he had first seen it—except perhaps that the shadows had shortened as the sun inched up the eastward wall of the cloudless sky.

"Captain?" he yelled and ducked back as a bullet splintered wood from the window frame.

"Did Mitchell get to you?" All shooting ceased.

"Who's Mitchell?" The question to his own men.

"One of the troopers who the Captain took with him," Morgan answered.

"Hey, Yankees?" The voice came from the far side of the street, further down than the sergeant or his group could have reached. "Here comes Mitchell."

There was the sound of a slap and a horse whinnied, then bolted out from between two buildings, dragging something on the end of a rope tied to the saddle horn. It was a man, stripped naked, the stark whiteness of his flesh turning red as his body scraped along the street surface, each yard of the journey ripping off another area of skin. A burst of laughter sounded from each side of the street and was drowned in gunfire as bullets were pumped into the speeding body of the screaming man. He was dead before he passed in front of Hedges' horror-filled eyes.

"That make you feel like blasting those no-good southerners, sir?" the familiar, taunting voice inquired, spitting out the courtesy title as if it were a curse.

In those few moments, as he watched the brutal slaughter of the trooper and listened to the sardonic accusation from behind him, Hedges experienced a vital adjustment taking place within his mind. He felt it physically in a dulling of the pain in his side, as mental anguish became too powerful to accommodate outside influence, and in a sudden cessation of the nervous tics which had been causing his body to quake ever since the attack on Philippi was launched. It was visible to the troopers as he turned to look at them, in a face that seemed to age as they stared at Hedges. The narrowed eyes, ever cold, were now icy enough to chill the very air that had been humid in the fetid room. And the flesh of the face seemed to be stretched more taut over the high cheekbones, emphasizing the natural leanness, giving the man an almost animalistic look. Hedges, who a few moments before had been a disillusioned farm boy scared by a war that contained none of the glory he had been seeking, was suddenly a man who had recognized the reality of a situation he had chosen to become involved in. Not one of the men who met his steady gaze understood what was happening, but they did recognize the flicker of fear that flared in themselves.

He continued to look around the half circle of faces, wanting to explain, but not, having discovered this new facet of his character, acknowledging the necessity. It was enough that he understood his own actions. That in killing Indians and land grabbers he had been protecting what was his, thereby justifying his violence. But in attacking the town he had been the aggressor and his gun barrels had stayed cold because, whatever the Rebels rights were to the town, there was nothing of his there. Now he knew there was—he was there and it was his life he had to protect. Mitchell had probably been aware of that fact in relation to his life—and all the other troopers who had been killed in the attack. But it had taken Hedges this long to reach the realization. It was not, he thought, how a soldier was supposed to think, but if he held any respect for patriotism of beliefs in abstract ideals of liberty and human rights, they had gone the way of his hopes for glory. He was fighting for his life and the surest way to win was to take the lives of the enemy.

"That's the last crack I'll take from any of you men," he barked and each word was like a chip of rock splitting from his narrowed mouth. "We all came into this war as amateurs and some of us have paid the price of our own and Washington's stupidity. I got some gold braid that means I've got to accept some of the responsibility for those men getting killed." He spat into the agonized expression on the face of one of the dead Confederate soldiers. "I accept it. Also, I'll personally kill any man who smart-talks me or don't do exactly what I tell him when 1 tell him."

The men shuffled their feet as their eyes retreated from the lieutenant's penetrating stare. Every one of them believed what Hedges had said.

"Okay," he announced when he had completed his study. "Morgan, you and you,"—he pointed to two other men—"stay by these windows and keep blasting the rebs. The rest of you come with me. Let's see if there's any spare whiskey in the saloon."

He received some puzzled looks, but no one questioned his comment.

"You all right, sir?" a trooper asked as Hedges hobbled towards the rear of the office, the pain flooding back through his body.

"Am I complaining?" he snapped.

"No, sir."

"When I fall down and don't get up; ask me again."

As the men by the windows started to fire, he led the way through the storeroom and out of the open door by which Morgan and his men had entered. The saloon was the biggest building they had reached so far, twice as long as it was wide, stretching more than two hundred feet back from the street. The livery stable was on the other side and the Rebels were deployed at the front and side of the saloon, covering the street and alleyway to prevent Leaman's escape, So Hedges was able to lead his men to the back without interference as the sergeant, Leaman and Morgan and their men engaged the enemy. The same gunfire that distracted attention from their progress also covered the sound of the forced entry through the rear door.

It gave on to a small bedroom, untidy and smelling. The source of the odor was a man in middle years who was squatting on the bed, his eyes wide with fear and a finger pressed to his lips.

"I'll keep quiet," he whispered hoarsely.

"Owner?" Hedges asked as he approached the bed, aiming the Spencer at the man. He shook his head.

"I just clean up the place. Don't like those Johnnie Rebs no more than you do. You gonna kill them?"

Hedges nodded.

The man grinned. "I'll keep quiet."

"I know," Hedges said and smashed the rifle barrel across his temple.

The man toppled sideways with a gentle sigh. Another doorway gave on to a storeroom, stacked high with bottles, most of them filled with whiskey.

"Man, will you look at all this redeye," one of the troopers muttered.

"And not a drop to drink," Hedges hissed, pressing his ear against a door opposite the one by which they had entered. He could hear conversation interspersed with gunshots and guessed the barroom was on the other side of the panel. He turned to the men. "Take a crate each back into the stage office. If I find one of you has even smelled a cork I'll pour the whole bottle down your throat and set light to your tongue."

The troopers began to haul out the crates, the sounds of the battle acting as a screen for the small noises they made. When the last man had gone Hedges uncorked a bottle and poured the contents around the room. He wasn't satisfied and emptied two more bottles in a like manner before striking a match and throwing it to the floor. Flames licked and then gripped, giving off a sour smell and as Hedges backed out of the door, wood began to crackle in the blaze, sending up plumes of dense black smoke. As Hedges re-entered the stage depot smoke and flames were belching from the open door at the rear of the saloon.

The storeroom of the depot was cluttered with inflammable material, but Hedges chose a bale of hay, which he dragged through into the office, staying at the rear behind a long counter as bullets ricocheted around the room. All the troopers were positioned near the windows, firing out into the street. Hedges beckoned to the nearest man and instructed him to begin uncorking the bottles while he broke open the bale and stuffed hay into the necks.

"We gonna hot things up, sir?" the man asked.

"Fire!" a shout rang out as Hedges nodded, and it was not an instruction to the riflemen. "The saloon's on fire."

"Roof," Hedges snapped, indicating that the man helping him should lift the crate of prepared fire bombs and follow him. "You men, take care of the rest of these and stay put till we come back."

The depot was only one story and the stairway went up in an alcove between the office and the back room. A trap door at the top gave access to the flat roof and a wooden sign at the front provided cover as Hedges and the trooper moved forward. Hedges worked the action of the Spencer to feed a shell into the breech.

"Whatever's left of the other group is in the house right across the street," he muttered. "Reckon you can reach the building next door?"

The man rose into a crouch to peer over the top of the depot sign. He nodded. "The funeral parlor. Think I could get the bank next door to that as well, sir."

"Don't be ambitious till the parlor's burning," Hedges said. "Get fire raising. I'll cover you."

His hip transmitted waves of pain as he went down to one knee behind the sign and rested his cheek against the stock of the rifle, preparing to fire his first shot of the war. As the trooper set fire, to the first bottle and swung his arm in a powerful arc to hurl it across the street, smoke from the saloon billowed up on to the roof, The bottle hit the front wall of the funeral parlor and poured down with liquid fire.

"Try for the windows," Hedges instructed.

The second bottle bounced off the roof but the third smashed through the window with the gold leaf printing on it. A man cried out in alarm and Hedges curled back his lips in a cold grin as he saw the orange glow which told of success. "You just turned the funeral parlor into a crematorium," he said. "Let's see if the bank's got money to burn."

A cheer rose from the troopers in the office below, and, seemed to encourage the fire bomb thrower into giving of his best. There was an iron grill behind the plate glass window of the bank, but it could not prevent the burning whiskey from spraying inside as the first bottle found its mark.

"What’s your name, soldier?" Hedges asked.

"Mantle, sir," the man replied, arcing another bottle across the street as billowing black smoke darkened the sun.

"You're ahead of your time," Hedges said and squeezed the Spencer's trigger.

Like the stage depot, the funeral parlor had a trap door on to the roof. A man escaping from the fire had only got his head and shoulders clear when Hedges' bullet drilled a hole in his temple.

"Heads, you lose," Hedges muttered as the dead man slumped back down the stairway.

The bank had no rear exit and the four Confederate soldiers had no alternative but to make a rush through the double doors at the front. The street was now heavily blanketed with smoke and Hedges got only one clear shot at the escapers. The gray uniformed figure clutched at his chest and pitched headlong into the street. A volley of rifle fire sounded from further along the street and in a fleeting moment when a ray of sunlight pierced the smoke, Hedges saw the three other men fall.

Leaman or some of his men had survived the hail of bullets sent into the livery, and when soldiers began to run from the saloon, the sergeant's group also made their presence known.

"I got one to spare, sir," Mantle reported.

"Light it," Hedges told him, reaching out a hand. He took the bottle with its flaring fuse, leaned out over the depot sign and tossed it down among the still and writhing bodies in front of the saloon as a murderous barrage of gunfire continued to emit from the house across the street. The flames from burning gray uniforms rose high. The screams of the victims went higher, and then diminished as the frantic note of a bugle cut through the acrid, smoke laden air.

"Think that's the general calling," Hedges said.

"Lieutenant?" a voice called from below,

"What is it?"

"You all through burning things?"

"I reckon," he answered as he watched the sergeant lead five men from the house across the street, then looked in the other direction to see Leaman emerge from the smoke with three men behind him. Edge had only seven men left. He didn't do the subtraction. Men had died and he knew a lot more would meet the same end before this war was over. It was not his job to tally. The smell of burning flesh stressed that, in terms of war, the men had not died in vain.

The pain in his hip seemed to bum hotter than any of the fires raging around him.

*****

EDGE spent a restless night. Although he was unconscious his body reacted involuntarily to the pain of the neck wound and the burning heat of the raging fever. His muscles twitched and his limbs thrashed and sometimes his nostrils flared and his mouth came wide in a silent scream.

Margaret Hope and Grace took two-hourly turns at watching over him, to ensure that the fire was maintained at a roaring pitch and each bedcover was replaced on his naked body after he had kicked or pulled it clear.

Outside the warmth of the farmhouse the rain continued to lash from low cloud, sometimes smashing at the stout walls and shuttered windows like an attacking force as a gust of cold wind sprang across the prairie.

Although the mother and daughter shared the night nursing duty, neither of them slept during the two hourly rest periods for in addition to their anxiety over the injured stranger, they were deeply concerned about the progress of Thomas and Allen Hope.

"How's he been?" Margaret asked as she emerged from her daughter's bedroom, rubbing her reddened yes.

"Restless," Grace answered. "Most of the time he thrashes about. I think he's dreaming."

"Wish I could," her mother answered, going to the fire and pouring a cup of coffee from the pot kept warm by the flames. "Bad enough for men to have to look after themselves on a night like this. Fifty head of steer won't make it easier none."

"I don't feel tired," Grace said, and her own tired eyes gave the lie to the statement. "You go back to bed and try to sleep."

The elder woman smiled and sat on the edge of the bed, looking down at the pallor of the injured man's face. "Wouldn't be fair on me, daughter," she said. "In here the stranger helps to keep the mind off other things." She sipped at the hot coffee. "Not a bad looking feller when you see him from here."

"I think he's handsome," Grace said quickly, then blushed.

"In a mean sort of way, I guess," her mother answered thoughtfully, then smiled again as she looked at Grace. "Handsome as that young deputy in town?"

The blush deepened in color. "They're different types. I wish you wouldn't keep talking about Billy West, mother."

"You're a young woman now, Grace. Time you started to encourage somebody like Billy."

"Please, mother," Grace pleaded as she got to her feet. "If you're going to go on like that, I'm going to bed."

"It's your turn," her mother answered gently. "It'll be light soon. I'll make breakfast later and then we'll change the dressing and try to get some broth down his throat."

Grace nodded and went through to her bedroom, feeling her face still suffused by a flush. For a long time, as she lay in the bed, her thoughts were distracted from worry about her father and brother as she compared the physical attractions of Billy West and the stranger. And the knowledge that it was the stranger who set her heart beating faster sent the warm glow from her cheeks to every part of her body.

CHAPTER FOUR

THEY were crossing the Appalachians now and morale was high; Reports of the small victory at Philippi had reached Washington and had there been magnified by a jubilant press into a colossal triumph over the Confederacy. McClellan and a large proportion of his men were pleased to believe the wild stories and found it easy to forget the twisted and blood-spattered bodies of their comrades who fell during the battle as they pushed on eagerly towards the next confrontation with the rebels.

Hedges felt neither, elated nor depressed as he allowed his horse free rein through the mountains, at the head of one column of men and in the wake of another. If he experienced any emotion it was one of low-keyed satisfaction that he had made mistakes at Philippi, but had learned from them. That men had died during the lesson was no fault of his, rather of the circumstances which allowed for no school of war except war itself. Neither did he concern himself with the rumor that McCellan was considering his promotion to captain as soon as a vacancy occurred. When the general had personally commended him, after hearing Leaman's report of the battle, Hedges had been taciturn in his response. He had done what was necessary in the best way he knew how and in his own mind this was what was expected of him and therefore merited no reward.

"Understand you're in line for promotion, lieutenant?" Captain Oliver Jordan was a tall, thin man of forty with an arrogantly handsome face and the manner of an educated hog. Before the taking of Fort Sumter he had been second-in-command of a fort in the south western Territories. He was always willing to regale, and bore, his fellow officers in McClellan's army with tales of his exploits, the details of which were apt to be embroidered at each telling to the point where little credence could be placed in them. Of all the West Pointers Hedges had come across, Jordan had the greatest aversion to ninety-day officers. As he slowed his horse to match pace with Hedges, the captain's eyes displayed a sardonic light and his teeth shone in a supercilious smile.

"So everyone keeps telling me," Hedges answered with merely a glance in the other's direction.

There was a low murmuring of discontent from the men in Hedges' column. While fellow officers disliked the boastful Jordan, the enlisted men hated him for his overbearing attitude and unbending brand of discipline.

"You're still a lieutenant," Jordan reminded.

"Sir," Hedges supplied.

Jordan nodded. "One skirmish doesn't make a soldier."

Hedges continued to ride, eyes to the front, looking across the heads of the troopers towards the rising ground that was beginning to slow the pace. "No, sir," he said.

"You don't say a lot, do you?" A note of irritation had crept into Jordan's voice.

"I've only got one skirmish to talk about, sir," Hedges replied and spat into the lush green grass they were riding over. "Said all I want to about that."

A cackle of laughter sounded from the men behind the officers and was abruptly silenced as Jordan turned in his saddle, his expression hardening. His eyes were still flat with an accusing glare as they returned to Hedges' profile.

"You don't impress me as officer material," he said with soft reproach. "I've got the ear of the general and I'll be watching you, lieutenant."

"I'll try to give you something to see, sir," Hedges came back evenly.

Jordan grunted and heeled his horse into a wheel away from the column of cavalry to return to his position. Another cackle of laughter followed him and was not ended until the men had drained the situation dry of amusement.

They crested one peak and then another in the push towards the Shenandoah Valley before a halt was called and McClellan assembled his senior officers. Hedges made use of the pause to read again the letter from Jeannie Fisher and then scrawled a letter of his own to his brother Jamie. He folded five dollars into the envelope before sealing it and putting the envelope in his pocket to await an opportunity to place it aboard a west-bound stage. C Troop, the designation for the men under Leaman's command, were in a glade and Hedges did his reading and writing under the spreading bows of a gnarled oak which reminded him of the tree standing outside the house of his Iowa spread. Leaman found him there, reading yet again the short note from the girl in Parkersburg.

"See there?" the Captain asked, pointing out of the glade and up the rise to where the side of a mountain could be seen between the trees.

Hedges nodded as he put the letter away.

Leaman lowered his voice to cheat the ears of the nearby troopers who strained to pick up information. "Rich Mountain. Indications are that there are between four and five thousand Confederates dug in up there. They've been waiting there a long time and have thrown up some good defenses.

"Hedges grinned coldly.” You asking for volunteers?"

Leaman attempted to form his boyish features into a cynical grin. "In this war you only volunteer once—to join. After that it's orders all the way. McClellan wants to push on north east with the main body. Jordan's Troop, C Troop and A Troop are going up Rich Mountain."

"When?" Hedges asked.

"Mount up!" a cry rang through the timber, to be followed by identical orders from all around.

"One guess," Leaman replied.

Hedges took off his cap, ran his hand through his lengthening black hair and replaced it. "Before the rebs have time to dig in any deeper."

As Leaman nodded, Hedges signaled to the sallow-faced sergeant. He gave the order and the men stamped out their cigarettes or came up out of reclining positions to pull themselves into their saddles. Hedges mounted his own horse and waited impassively for the command to move forward. When it came, shouted down the line like an echo in a narrow canyon, the column of blue coated figures divided into two, one group sheering to the north into the mouth of a valley as the remainder headed up the rising ground of low foothills.

The shot from the sharpshooter perched high in the elm tree was like a whipcrack, just loud enough to cut across the thud of hooves at the walk and the jingle of harness. But the cry of the wounded man was magnified by the minds of frightened troopers who were thrown into panic by the harsh volley of rifle fire that followed the first shot.

"Charge!"

"Charge!"

"Charge!"

The timber had become sparser as the Union cavalry had climbed and now as the men heeled their mounts into a gallop they broke into open ground and thundered into a murderous barrage of rifle fire from a trench directly in their path. As they came out from cover the troopers rode into an echelon formation, the ranks of which became split by wide gaps as horses and men stumbled under the hail of bullets and ballshot. The screams of the wounded were drowned by the gunfire and the battle-cries of the advancing troopers.

Hedges rode with his body bent forward in the saddle as the headlong rush sent off a wave of pain from the wound in his hip. That bullet had merely creased him, cutting a three inch groove in his side and had seemed to be on the mend but now as he galloped toward the Confederate line he expected each orange plume and grey puff to signal a wound in a vital organ. It never happened, He reached the edge of, the trench unscathed, in the second wave of cavalrymen, and as his mount launched into a jump he kicked free of the stirrups and slid from the saddle.

The first rebel was in a half crouch, ramming powder into the muzzle of his musket as the hind hooves of the horse made contact with his forehead and he was jerked over backwards, pouring blood from a split skull. The second man, just bringing up his loaded musket for a hip shot, folded double as Hedges' boot heels thudded into his stomach. Then Hedges cracked his skull too, with the stock of the Spencer. Hedges hit the ground with a tremendous impact and heard a cry tear from his throat as the jolt wrenched at his wound. A gun exploded close to his right ear and a blue-coated form slumped into the trench beside him. Before a curtain of blood came down from his forehead wound to veil the features, Hedges recognized the sallow face of the sergeant. He turned to see who had fired the lethal shot and saw a young boy—no more than sixteen—struggling to reload an ancient Starr .54 muzzle loader.

"Ain't a healthy time to be young in, kid," he said as he fired the Spencer at point-blank range into the boy's terrified face. The bullet exited from the back of his head amid a great spray of blood and brain tissue.

To both sides of Hedges, along the entire line of the trench, blue, and gray-clad figures were locked in vicious hand-to-hand fighting as they rolled over dead comrades and tried to strike down their opponents with revolver shots or knife blades. He saw Morgan plunge a knife into the throat of a rebel and shouted a warning. But it was too late. Morgan whirled towards a fresh attacker and had his face turned to a pu1p by a charge of buckshot fired from two feet away. Hedges squeezed the trigger of the Spencer and the man with the scattergun pitched across the body of his victim.

"Forward," a voice shouted as Hedges recognized the excited tones of Leaman.

While those still engaged in the trench fighting remained to kill or be killed, the large proportion of the attackers scrambled clear of the blood-soaked ground and started up the mountain again, crouching and moving on a zigzag course as rifle fire erupted from more rebels concealed in the brush and trees ahead. There was no order in the advance now, as the men ran in terror and rage, many of them fighting as individuals with no concern for others. Hedges saw two Union troopers fling their arms high and fall forward in death throes with bullets in their backs, fired wildly by other Union men behind them. Then he saw three more veer away from the advance, tossing aside their rifles and stripping off their tunics as they fled from the fight.

He reached a patch of tall growing grass and flung himself into it, hearing several other bodies thud to the ground about him. Bullets and ballshot whined overhead or rusted through the grass.

A man screamed.

"God, Deveen's caught one," somebody said in horror.

"Figure he's lucky to be out of it," came a reply. "Listen to those guys."

The screams and cries of the wounded sprawled in the trench below acted as a horrifying counterpoint to the ominous crack of gunfire. Somewhere a voice was intoning a prayer and it was impossible to tell whether he was wounded or not. The grass rustled beside Hedges and he turned to see Leaman crawling towards him, favoring his right arm. The sleeve was torn and coated with blood.

"Seen Captain Jordan?" he asked.

Hedges shook his head and both men ducked as three shots whined over them.

"He held back, sir," a voice called from nearby, the speaker hidden by the grass.

"He's as yellow as he's stupid," somebody else said vindictively.

"It ain't stupid to be scared in this war," came an answering call.

"I'm so scared I'm shitting myself, but I didn't stay hiding behind no tree."

"Hold your tongues," Leaman yelled, and attracted a fresh fusillade of shots. "We have to get into the trees," he hissed to Hedges. "Take as many men as you can and make a rush. I'll get the word to as many as I can to cover you. With a bit of luck Jordan might consider it's safe enough to move his troop forward. If he does it will help to distract the rebels from your advance. I want you to keep them occupied so we can get up there. Okay?"

Hedges grinned coldly. "As long as it's understood I'm not volunteering."

Leaman's arm hurt too much for him to force a smile. "You're not. And don't ask for any."

Hedges moved forward, keeping his head down and hauling himself along on his elbows. He chose a diagonal course, away from the center of the rebels' defensive line and tapped on the shoulder of each man he came upon.

"Move," he told each of them. "And if you make a sound I'll kill you before a reb can draw a bead."

He had only seven men by the time the grass began to get too short for adequate cover and he was peering out across a field which had once been ploughed but had been allowed to lie fallow. Weeds grew thickly in the furrows.

"We got to cross that?" a trooper said as he crawled up alongside the lieutenant. His face was pale.

"We haven't got to," Hedges replied, his clear blue eyes studying the trees on the far side of the field, "but if we don't a lot of people ain't going to be happy. Most of them will be dead."

Hedges grinned knowingly at the trooper, who swallowed hard. "Including us?"

"Especially us," Hedges told him. "Because we're going to try to cross the field."

There had been spasmodic firing as Hedges gathered his men together, but suddenly the rate picked up to a continuous chatter, accompanied by frantic shouting. The Lieutenant raised his head for a moment to glance down the slope and saw a barrage of smoke and flashes from the area where he had left Leaman, backed up by cavalrymen shooting at the gallop as they raced up the slope. He recognized the pennant of Jordan's troop but could not see the captain himself. He had time for only I quick glance before he turned and jerked his head to the men in the grass.

"Time to go," he snapped and sprang up out of the grass to break into a run across the uneven ground. He carried his rifle at the hip, finger on the trigger. The men grinding along in his wake did likewise, conserving their ammunition for as long as the rebel guns were concentrating their fire power on the pinned-down troopers and the advancing cavalry. But as they reached the three-quarter point on the run, legs threatening to collapse under the strain and throats throbbing with the effort of sucking in air for overworked lungs, a section of the Confederate riflemen opened up on them. Two of the Union men went down, one killed instantly by a bullet in his heart, the second clawing at his blood-soaked thigh. Hedges pushed the wounded men into a deep furrow as the five uninjured men began to fire, with no targets except imagined forms along the screen of trees. But it was sufficient to hinder the rebels in taking aim and as Hedges broke into a crouching run and dived headlong into cover all five crowded safely in behind him. The hillside became broken among the trees, with thickets of brush providing additional cover to the close-growing columns of trunks and the rises and indentations of the ground. One of the men snapped off a shot and grunted with satisfaction as a gray clad figure tumbled from high in a tree.

"That's what we do," Hedges whispered as the men crowded around him, keeping low as lead whined over their heads. "Spread out and take your time. Only shoot when you have a target, then get your damn heads down. We've got to blast a hole in their line to let Jordan and the rest through."

"Don't think Jordan wants any part of this, sir," a man said in disgust.

Hedges snatched a cautious glance down the slope, over the sprawled and crouched Union soldiers, across the trench and into the trees on the far side of the battlefield. He could see a mounted figure waiting there, stroking the horse's neck as if to calm the beast. There was no other cavalry in sight and Hedges guessed that Jordan's troop had all made it to the trench or fallen as they tried to reach it.

"Probably charge his men with deserting him under fire," a trooper said cynically.

"Maybe he's missing his mother," another suggested and tried to laugh. It was just a hoarse rasping in his throat.

Hedges fixed him with a stee1y-eyed glare. "Guess you'd rather be eating your ma's apple pie right this moment?" he said.

"But I ain't," the man replied.

"And you ain't doing a hell of a lot towards winning this war," Hedges countered. "Let's move." He indicated with hand movements that the five men should spread out in a line facing the end of the Confederate defenses. Gunfire continued to sound across the battlefield from both sides and was punctuated spasmodically by a scream as a soldier was hit. But Hedges' group had been unmolested for several minutes, as if the enemy soldiers thought they had wiped out the infiltrators. Hedges urged caution as he signaled the advance and the men complied, their frightened eyes flicking over every inch of ground before them and then examining the trees, thick with summer leaf.

Hedges saw a rifle muzzle pushed out from a clump of shrubbery and aimed an inch above it as he squeezed the trigger of the Spencer. The man yelled and stood up in full view, showing the surprised Union men a bloody wound in his cheek. Five guns exploded and the wounded man's chest was dissolved in a sea of blood.

"Kill them!" Hedges roared. "You don't have to blow them to bits."

He and the rest flattened themselves into the ground as a hail of answering fire was thrown at them. Hedges spotted a powder flash from halfway up a beech tree and was preparing to loose off a shot when the trooper closest to him fired. The sniper died without a sound and crashed through the tree's branches.

"Like that, sir?"

"You're learning," Hedges answered, and pulled himself along on his elbows, then got to his feet behind a tree trunk, grimacing as a half dozen bullets thudded into the bark on the other side.

There was a renewed barrage of gunfire out in the open ground and he glanced that way and saw Leaman leading an advance up the slope, running, diving to the ground, firing and running again. He moved then, emerging from behind the tree and drawing fire. He and the men returned it and threw themselves to the ground after a half dozen yards.

"We gotta have a guardian angel," one of the troopers hissed, then made a croaking sound.

Hedges looked in his direction and saw the man begin to rise as his hands went to his face. Another bullet hit him in the chest and he dropped his hands. His jaw had been blown away.

"Called tempting providence," Hedges muttered, throwing himself up into a crouch and charging forward, firing the Spencer from the hip as he ran.

He saw a gray uniform in front of him and spotted the swinging butt of a musket. He shot the man in the shoulder and fell down behind his crumpled body as a half dozen rebel bullets tore into the injured man's body. He rolled quickly away, into the more substantial cover of an indentation in the ground. Bullets kicked up earth close to him and he loosed off three shots into the tree tops. A man screamed and fell.

"Get the bastards!" a voice called, followed by an outbreak of screamed obscenities and a fresh fusillade of shots. A man crashed through the undergrowth to dive into the dip beside Hedges and the lieutenant almost blasted him in flight before he saw the soldier was wearing a blue uniform.

"This where the action is?" the man asked, as he loosed off a shot from one of the two Colts he held.

Hedges glanced at him and didn't recognize the cruel lines of the man's face. It wasn't one (If the troopers he had selected for the diversionary raid. The man fired again and a rebel threw his rifle in the air and pitched out from behind a tree, streaming blood from a hole where his right eye had been.

"Damn gun pulls to the left," the man said with disgust. "Aimed for his snout."

"They broken through?" Hedges asked.

"I did," came the response. He grinned. "No disrespect, sir, but I been looking at the yellow streak down Jordan's back for too long since the shooting started. Me and my buddies been itching for some action."

"You found it," Hedges answered, ducking his head as bullets whined across the dip. There were several thudding sounds close to him, accompanied by a series of shots so close together they merged into one sound. He looked up and around and saw five other troopers had successfully made the run into the trees and were blasting into the rebel line at close quarters.

"I'm Frank Forrest, lieutenant," the cruel faced man announced. "My buddies Hal Douglas, Billy Seward, John Scott, Roger Bell and Bob Rhett."

Hedges had time only for a quick glance over the newcomers, noting that Douglas wore corporal's chevrons, before another burst of gunfire forced his attention back to the fight. He and the men returned the fire, Seward laughing uproariously as he loosed off each shot from his Spencer repeater. Hedges glanced to his right and saw that only three of his original seven men were actively engaged in the fight.

"I figure a charge, lieutenant," Forrest said coldly as he surveyed the ground ahead.

"Not me," the man named Rhett disagreed.

"Ignore him," Forrest told Hedges. "He's like Jordan. They're only here for the fear. He'll follow wherever I go."

Hedges fixed Forrest with a cold eye. "You want to give the orders, soldier, you should have stayed down the hill."

Forrest seemed on the point of taking up the challenge to argue, but suddenly dropped his eyes and shrugged. "Just trying to help," he muttered.

"Frank done a lot of fighting down in the Arizona Territory," Seward put in as he continued to fire into the trees. "He knows about fighting."

"This ain't no bar-room brawl," Rhett said. "I heard what Lieutenant Hedges did at Philippi. I reckon we ought to do like he says."

Scott spat. "Bet he didn't take Phillipi by sitting on his ass in a hole in the ground." He ducked low as a bullet whined over his head. "Jesus, this ain't a healthy place to be."

"Charge!"

The call to action came from beyond the screen of trees and was followed by the crackle of snapping twigs.

"Shit, they want to die," Roger Bell yelled as a group of ten rebel soldiers burst from the undergrowth, firing as they came. Scott, Bell and Douglas were reloading their weapons, but Hedges, Forrest, Seward and Rhett took out four of the attackers before the group reached the edge of the dip and leapt into it.

Hedges laid the hot barrel of the Spencer across the skull of one attacker, as he worked the action, and shot into the throat of another. Forrest drew a knife and thrust it into the open mouth of a rebel and then had to struggle to pull it free of the man's clenched teeth. Two attacked Seward, using their expended muskets as clubs. He fired his Colt at point blank range into the lower stomach of one man and reeled away as the other caught him a stunning blow on the temple with the musket stock. Rhett was cowering on the ground, covering his head with his hands and screaming. The man who had dazed Seward turned to the terrified Rhett and began to bring down the musket again.

Hedges turned at the crouch and squeezed the trigger of the Spencer. The bullet drilled into the attacker's neck and blood from the severed jugular vein poured down on to the cowering Rhett, causing him to scream louder as he saw the spray and thought he had been hit himself. One man of the attacking force remained unscathed and he abruptly dropped his musket and revolver and thrust his hands into the air. He was a good looking youngster of no more than sixteen. Hedges covered him with the Spencer and took a step towards the man.

"I've had enough," he stammered, his teeth clattering his fear.

"Almost," Forrest countered from behind Hedges and released his blood-stained knife. The power of the throw sank the blade deep into the youngster's chest. He fell to his knees and then pitched forward across the writhing body of the man Seward had shot in the stomach. As Hedges spun around, rage turning his face almost purple, Douglas finished reloading his gun and sent a bullet smashing through the forehead of the wounded man.

As gunfire on the hillside rose to a violent crescendo, with warcries mingling among the screams of the wounded, the dip with its litter of bloodstained bodies and panting victors became an oasis of tense silence.

"You fools!" Hedges hissed as he looked from Forrest to Douglas, forcing each to look away from his angry, hard-eyed stare. "You two know something I don't?"

"What's that, lieutenant?" Forrest drawled, trying to match the toughness of the other's tone.

"Like how many rebels are deployed on this mountain, where they are and what they plan to do under attack? One of those guys might have been able to tell us!"

Rhett got up from his defensive position and began to scrub with his sleeve at the blood of the dead rebel. Seward giggled insanely.

"Figure there's a hell of a lot of them all over the slope and I reckon they'll shoot at us," Forrest answered laconically.

Two men thudded into the dip, one of them bleeding profusely from a shoulder wound. Tears of pain and fear coursed down his cheeks.

"Jesus, all the others are dead, sir," he cried.

"How many?" Seward demanded.

"Five," the man answered with a tremor as a spasm of shivering shook his body, causing more blood to flow.

Seward glanced around at the dead rebels and giggled. "We evened the score and some." He rubbed his injured head ruefully. "Unfriendly bastards, ain't they?"

"Any other man surrenders, you capture him," Hedges snapped, and looked into the face of each trooper, not moving on until he had received a nod of acknowledgement. "Now, let's move out."

He led the way up out of the dip, keeping low, but although there was still a great deal of shooting, none of it was in their direction and a glance down the hill showed that the Confederates were concentrating their fire on the final thrust of the Union assault. Captain Jordan had reached the trench and its litter of sprawled bodies. He had dismounted and was stooping down, examining the right foreleg of his horse.

"Christ, will you look at that line-shooter," Bell muttered. "He must be the biggest load of crap West Point ever turned out."

"He'll get his one of these days," Forrest answered with low-key venom.

Hedges glanced at him and saw the hatred shining in the cruel eyes.

"Be a real pleasure to blast that crud."

"He's got the wrong color uniform, Frank," Seward said. "And there ain't no bounty on his head."

Forrest's grin was as hard as granite and as mirthless as a widow's tears. "Some things a man's got to do, Billy," he said softly. "Ain't a question of money."

"Forrest?" Hedges called.

"Yeah, lieutenant?"

"I ever hear Jordan bought it, I'll be sure to take a look at the body. If he's hit in the back, you'll be in front of a firing squad."

"That ain't fair," Rhett put in, recovering his courage now that he was not being fired upon. "Jordan ever, gets shot, it'll be in the back 'cause he'll be running away."

Seward giggled.

"Right," Douglas agreed.

Hedges' expression showed no sign of softening as he crept forward, eyes raking the trees and undergrowth for movement.

"He'll never get close enough to the enemy to have to run away."

Forrest grunted. "You don't like him much; either?"

Hedges shot a glance over his shoulder. "Lot of men I don't like. But there's a war on."

"Wondered what all the shooting was about," Rhett said lightly. "Isn't he a funny man, lieutenant?" Forrest asked with a grin.

"Yeah," Hedges answered. "I saw him shaking with laughter back there."

"Yellow, but funny," Forrest agreed as Rhett's face became flushed. "Jordan ain't funny."

"Neither is a firing squad," Hedges returned as he spun at great speed and knocked the Colt from Seward's hand.

The man's finger had been curled around the trigger and the revolver exploded into sound, sending a bullet thudding into the ground as Captain Leaman and a group of troopers burst through the trees ahead.

Color blind?" Hedges snapped.

A giggle burst from the trembling mouth. "How'd I know?"

Forrest lashed out a fist which smashed into Seward's jaw and knocked him sideways. "Idiot!" he spat out.

"I couldn't see," Seward protested as he scrambled to his feet.

"That could have been me coming out there," Forrest hissed.

"We've got them on the run," Leaman called, brandishing a saber, his excited eyes flashing almost as brightly as the blade caught in the sunlight shining through the trees. "Take these men and any more you can find and keep on this side. I'm going up the center and Jordan will lead the attack on the left flank."

Leaman ducked back into the trees as the men he had brought with him crossed the open ground towards where Hedges and his group waited.

"He's got a lot of faith, that feller," Forrest muttered. "If Jordan's leading it, we ain't got a left flank."

"He's your troop commander," Hedges pointed out. "You want to go over there and tell him how to fight this war?"

Forrest grinned. "All the same to you, lieutenant, I'll stick with what I've got and take my chances."

Hedges looked around him as the other men formed up and he saw he had close to forty troopers under his command. Most of them had just experienced their first taste of war without glory and the horror they felt was reflected in haunted eyes and trembling hands. Notable exceptions were Forrest and the five men who seemed to regard his as their leader. Excluding Rhett, whose weak features were set in a mere facade of grim resolution, they seemed to be the most determined of all the troopers to see the battle through. As a distant command from Leaman signaled the advance further up the mountain and Hedges moved his troop forward, he tried to conceal a flicker of admiration for Forrest and the others. For although he respected their proven ability in battle, he knew they were little better than dangerous animals. A few short weeks ago he would have regarded such men with distrust and, probably, a little fear. But history was in the process of changing the world and men had to change with it. Hedges had changed, his new character wrought by the traumatic baptism of fire at Philippi. And the man he was now recognized in other men only those qualities useful in killing.

Thus, as the next line in the Confederate defenses of Rich Mountain opened up with artillery pieces, Hedges was glad that Forrest and his group were backing him.

"That weren't no six-shooter," Seward yelled when a mortar shell whistled through the trees and decapitated a young trooper.

"So let's go see what those rebs are using," Forrest came back, and looked at Hedges.

Hedges nodded and broke into a run. The others lumbered after him up the sharply inclining slope, as another man went down, taking a mortar shell full in his middle. His entrails spilled put on to the mossy ground beneath a tree and two men vomited violently as they trotted through the squelchy pulp.

"Some fellers got no stomach for fighting," Forrest shouted.

Seward giggled.

Hedges retched, but fought down the bile. His hip was hurting again but his mind was able to overcome the pain as he saw a severed arm fly in front of his face and looked into the surprised eyes of the man who had been maimed. The scream of agony rang in his ears as he continued up the slope at a run, struggling to rid himself of the frightening image of Jamie with a bloodied stump where his arm had been.

*****

JAMIE!"

It was morning and still raining. Margaret Hope was in the barn milking the two cows after having changed the dressing on the stranger's neck wound. He had been quiet and unmoving when she left to do the chores while Grace washed the breakfast dishes and swept the living room floor.

He had been like that since dawn had changed the rain's backdrop from black to grey and the women had considered it safe to leave him alone and wise not to try to force food into his unresponsive mouth. Margaret suspected that he was nearing the crisis point of his fever and knew that when that came there would be little time to spare for the farm. So she and Grace hurried through what needed to be done and allowed wishful thoughts to conjure signs that the rain was letting up.

As Edge shouted the name of his brother, Grace ran into the bedroom, wiping wet hands on her apron and calling for her mother. She found he had rolled onto his side and was in danger of falling out of the bed and on to the floor as his legs and arms continued to thrash at the restricting covers.

"Christ. Your arm. Jamie, your arm."

"Hush," Grace whispered, placing a cool hand on the man's burning forehead, feeling the sweat warm and sticky under her fingers.

"Get that mortar, Forrest."

"Shush, you're safe, mister." As she spoke Grace placed her free hand on the man's hip and urged him gently on to his back in the center of the bed.

"What's wrong, Grace?" her mother demanded as she entered the house, quickly set down the pails and rushed into the bedroom.

"Gotta stop them getting Jamie," Edge yelled, thrashing his head from side to side on the sweat-soaked pillow, breaking free of the girl's tender caress.

"He's having a nightmare," Grace said, a helpless look in her beautiful eyes. "He won't be quiet."

"Delirious," her mother diagnosed. "Let him tire himself. He has little enough strength. It won't last long."

Grace drew back and both women watched anxiously as his body continued to writhe and fresh beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead with each new flood of words, which grew gradually less comprehensible until they were little more than rasping, disjointed phrases with no meaning. And as this inane rambling diminished into mere movements of the almost colorless lips, tired muscles gave up their struggle and his body became limp again.

"Was that the crisis?" Grace asked, not taking her eyes from the wan face of the stranger.

Margaret shook her head. "No, girl. Seems this feller has some bad memories. He was just fighting them. Reckon he won."

"Could we try him with some broth, now?"

The elder woman nodded. "Reckon so. Man like him is bound to have a lot in the past he'd rather forget. He'll have to be strong to keep winning."

Her daughter nodded and went into the other room, where a pot was already steaming on the fire. "Mother," she called as she ladled the thin soup into a bowl.

"Yes?"

"He kept calling out the name Jamie," Grace answered pensively.

"So what?"

"Maybe that's why he came here, him being so sick."

"Now it's you who are rambling, child," her mother accused. Grace carried the bowl of steaming broth into the bedroom.

"The name on the grave marker in the yard, mother," she said softly. "Its Jamie."

Margaret Hope caught her breath and stared hard into the lean face of the man on the bed. She swallowed hard. "It could be a different Jamie," she said without conviction.

"Perhaps," her daughter answered in a similar tone.

The eider woman continued to stare at the stranger for another few seconds, then shrugged and took the bowl from her daughter. "Well, even if this is Josiah Hedges and he's wanted for murder, that don't make him any less of a sick man. We gotta keep helping him, child."

"But I'll be glad when father and Allen get back," Grace said, shuddering as she recalled her shameless, night-time thoughts about the man.

"Amen to that," her mother replied.

CHAPTER FIVE

FOUR thousand five hundred men of the Confederate army had been routed at Rich Mountain and western Virginia seemed to be secure for the Union. Hedges did not know the tally, nor was he concerned with the political ramifications of the victory. To him it had been another lesson and if he derived any satisfaction at all from the bloody affray it arose from the fact that for some of the time he had been the teacher. He had gone on to the mountain as part of a rabble and when he came down from it he headed a group of men who, under his instruction, had learned to kill not merely with skill—many were already adept at the art—but with a purpose. And if he had any regrets they arose from the regrouping of these men into their own troops as the push to the Shenandoah Valley continued. Rich Mountain had proved that an officer was only at his best when he trusted the men under his command and Hedges had seen enough during the battle to realize that there were a great many troopers in Union blue too scared or too obstinate to accept the discipline of organized fighting. Inevitably Leaman's troop bad its fair share of these and Hedges did not relish the prospect of superintending further practical instruction in the heat of conflict. But, as the two sections of McClellan's army joined up and made camp in the valley, Hedges did not voice his opinion or his reservations. His parents better teachers than any army—had instilled in him the futility of complaint.

Not so Frank Forrest and his five compadres. Unwilling to accept the situation as it was, they gathered in their bell-tent close to the perimeter of the camp and soon the air was as blue as their uniforms as they vented their dissatisfaction with Captain Jordan's leadership. They were the type of men who resented authority of any kind, but they could recognize and respect fearlessness and strength in another and to such qualities there was due an allegiance which no mere insignia of rank could command. Thus it was that the power of Forrest's personality over-ruled Douglas's" chevrons and the big man with the cruel smile outlined the plan with which the others unhesitatingly concurred.

Forrest ran through it twice more, looking in turn at each man clustered around the flickering flame of the candle, drawing from every gaunt and grizzled face a look of excited anticipation.

"All right, Bob," he said at length. "Do your stuff and do it good." He leaned close to Rhett and grinned evilly. "Ain't no danger in this part, so you ought to be good."

Rhett drew back and stood up. "Why must you always malign me so, Frank?" he asked.

Forrest made a sound of disgust. "Go and use your Princeton words on the Captain."

Rhett could smile now, but made sure Forrest could not see and take exception to the expression as he went out through the tent flap. He was a shallowly handsome man with clean-cut features and bright eyes, the latter emphasizing his good looks and reflecting his natural intelligence. But it was easy for the more than simply casual observer to penetrate the thin facade and recognize the character defect that made him a cheat, liar and coward. But many who saw this found themselves charmed into disregarding it by the wit and charm of the man. This was a fact that had saved Rhett's life on more than one occasion.

He had a foppish, almost mincing gait and as he meandered among the tents, heading down to the bank of the river a number of ribald remarks were slung in his direction. He smiled lightly in reply to some and tossed back a verbal rebuttal to others. Rhett had long ago learned to accept such slights without taking offense and the men, drained by the fighting on Rich Mountain, welcomed the injection of humor and laughed too loudly at the New England dandy. Hedges, sitting on a tree stump outside his tent and smoking a cigarette as he cleaned his Spencer and Colt, watched Rhett come into view. He wondered idly whether Rhett was seeking a partner and found himself surprised that the idea did not disgust him. It seemed incredible that only a few short weeks ago the merest suggestion of an unnatural association would have generated a deep sense of shock. Hedges sighed and continued with the cleaning chore, resigned to the fact that when a man's character was changed, it altered in more than one aspect.

Jordan was inside his tent, stretched out on his blankets.

But it was a warm night and the flap was pulled back.

"Sir?" Rhett called softly.

The captain had been dozing, lulled to the edge of sleep by the gentle sounds of the flowing river.

"Captain Jordan?" Louder.

He came awake abruptly, his body jerking into a sitting position, his arrogant features showing alarm. Rhett knew precisely how the officer felt, but experienced no sympathy for him. Cowards, when they are in a position of strength, bear the most malice. He smiled into the mouth of the tent, enjoying the sight of the trembling Jordan trying to regain his composure.

"You want me, soldier?"

Rhett executed a limp-handed salute and forced himself to appear humble under the steady scrutiny of his superior. "Begging your pardon, sir. My buddies have captured a Confederate infantry officer. We feel it would be..."

"You've done what?" Jordan snapped, getting to his feet.

"A rebel officer, sir. Up the river in some trees. He's wounded and we think he must have been left behind in the retreat from Beverly or Rich Mountain."

For his rest Jordan had removed only his boots and tunic and now he began to put them back on. Rhett continued with his bogus report. "Since you are our troop commander, we felt it incumbent upon us to report the incident to you, sir."

"What were you doing outside the picket line?" Jordan demanded as he buttoned his tunic with one hand while he reached for his cap.

Rhett hesitated.

"Well, soldier?" It was a bellow in low key.

Rhett stammered. "We heard there were some women up river, sir. And a man with whiskey for sale."

Jordan sneered at the trooper. "What kind of man?"

"My private life is my own, sir," Rhett answered with a touch of resentment. Then he smiled ingratiatingly. "Anyway, I like whiskey as much as the next man."

"You shouldn't ever compare yourself with a man," Jordan came back, as he emerged from the tent, resetting his belt so that the sheathed saber swung more comfortably at his hip. "Consider yourself under open arrest. Rhett, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Give me the names of every other trooper who went with you."

"We captured an enemy officer, sir;" Rhett pretested.

"You arguing with me, trooper?"

Rhett shook his head sadly and began to intone the names of Forrest's group as Jordan led the way through the encampment.

"Will you look at that?" a voice called from out of the warm darkness of the early July night.

"Yeah," came another. "Rhett ain't so fussy no more, is he?"

Jordan's head snapped this way and that, his eyes boring into the night but finding in the men closest to him nothing upon which he could vent his rage.

"He's run out of the real McCoy," the first voice answered. "Now he's goin' to lay it on a horse's ass!"

"Dirty bugger!"

Purple in the face, Jordan gave Rhett a vicious shove in the back to speed him onwards, along an overgrown turnpike that followed the course of the river out of the camp.

"Who goes there?" a voice demanded sharply.

"Nobody but us chickens," Rhett answered softly.

"Captain Jordan," the officer snapped.

The sentry lowered his musket and threw up a salute, then formed the raised hand into a sign of abuse when the two men had passed. The moon was high and large and refracted light from the calm waters of the river added its own illumination, making progress easy mover the open ground. But then the road turned sharply away from the bank to enter the edge of a small wood and the tall timber crowded in around the men and seemed to spring to life with a thousand moving shadows. Both Rhett and Jordan, although they would have been loath to admit it, welcomed the presence of the other.

"Far from here?" Jordan asked in a hushed whisper, clutching at the hilt of his saber.

"It all looks different now," Rhett answered in a similar tone, looking about nervously, not trusting Forrest and the others.

"That you, Bob?" It was Hal Douglas's voice, from ahead and to the right.

"Yes." Rhett's relief was evident in the single word.

"Show yourselves," Jordan demanded harshly, again using anger to conceal his fear.

"Over here, Captain," Roger Bell called, from a different direction. Billy Seward giggled and Jordan started to swing into a fast turn, suspecting something was wrong as he realized he was surrounded. He stared into the grinning face of Frank Forrest and it was as if he were rooted to the spot by the glittering hatred in the humorless eyes. Seward giggled again and Jordan felt his body begin to quake.

"Where's the captured..." Jordan started.

"Made a mistake," Forrest cut in coldly. "Easy to make a mistake in the dark, Captain. Reb turned out to be nothing but a dead polecat." The lips drew back further, widening the grin, making it more evil. "But now we got us a live skunk."

"He sure enough smells like one," John Scott said, close to Jordan's ear.

The captain snatched a glance around and saw the five men were closing in on him.

"Nah," Forrest corrected. "Real skunks don't smell as bad as he does. Ain't nothing that cures the constipation like a dose of fear."

"Captain's shot," Douglas said, holding his nose.

Jordan swallowed hard and took a step backwards, bouncing into Rhett. The dandy faked a feminine squeal of delight. "You offering, Oliver?"

All the taunters broke into laughter.

"You'll all be court-martialed," Jordan said, his tone rising.

Forrest curtailed his amusement and smashed an iron hard fist into the captain's stomach. Jordan gasped and bent double.

"He is!" Rhett squealed. "He is offering. I don't wish to boast, but how about a foot to start?"

Laughing, Rhett stepped back and then brought his leg forward in a fast swing. The toe of his boot landed hard, with a squelching sound, between Jordan's buttocks and as the officer shot forward Forrest stepped to the side and brought the heel of his hand crashing down upon the exposed neck. The captain pitched to the ground, his breathing ragged as he hovered on the verge of unconsciousness.

"We really gain' to kill him, Frank?" he heard Scott ask. The words seemed to come from a great distance and have no connection with him.

"Scared?" Forrest's tone was derisive.

"Won't be us," Douglas muttered. "Be the rebs."

"What if they don't believe us?" Scott again, still nervous.

"They will," Forrest answered. "Long as we make it look good. String him up. Gag him, first. Don't want the damn army to come running till we're ready."

Realization fought through the pain as Jordan felt himself lifted up by the armpits and he opened his mouth to plead for his life, to promise that the men would be rewarded if they spared him. But as his lower lip dropped a vile-tasting sock was thrust into his mouth and fastened there by a kerchief stretched across the lower half of his face and knotted tightly against the swelling on the back of his neck. His leg muscles refused to function and Scott and Rhett had to hold him upright as Seward tied his hands in front of him. He was then carried to the foot of an elm and Forrest drew his saber as Seward tossed the loose end of the rope over the tree's lowest branch.

"Couple of feet is all," Forrest instructed as Bell scrambled up the tree and out along the branch. Jordan, his eyes bulging, cheeks bulbous over the constricting kerchief, felt himself held aloft by his captors. Bell knotted the rope, whistled, and the hands which had supported Jordan, released him. His arms jerked painfully in their sockets as his body dropped through space and jerked to a halt as the rope became taut. He rotated helplessly in midair, the sounds of his pain mere muffled croaks through the gag.

Forrest tested the sharpness of the saber against his thumb and grinned when he drew blood. Seward giggled inanely, his boyish features a mask of evil anticipation.

"What you goin' a do, Frank?" he asked with high excitement.

"Teach this crud a lesson he won't forget," Forrest answered.

"Probably because he won't have much time in which to forget it," Rhett suggested.

Forrest had waited patiently for Jordan's body to stop turning. Now he set the captain swinging with a vicious two-handed shove in his stomach. "Education is a marvelous thing, Bob," he said evenly, watching the pendulum movement of the captive's body. Suddenly he shot out a hand and, as Jordan's legs came forward the saber blade swished. Every ounce of Forrest's strength was behind the blow and the blade cut cleanly through Jordan's right ankle, power and sharpness slicing leather, worsted, flesh and bone.

The dismembered foot dropped to the ground like a stone. "I went to a tougher school."

"Jesus," Scott whispered a moment before he retched.

Jordan's muffled scream was no more than a pathetic gurgle. Seward giggled, waited for the swing to carry the captain back and then launched out with a mighty kick that sent the severed foot sailing into the trees.

"Turns?" Rhett shrieked in a paroxysm of delight.

Forrest grinned as he surrendered the saber, and then gave the swinging body another shove as Rhett moved behind Jordan. He raised the weapon and held it rock still, allowing the momentum of the captain's body to bring the flesh on to the point. Jordan's agony was shown by a violent jerking on the end of the rope as the blade sank between his buttocks.

"Old Bob always gets to the bottom of things," Seward yelled as he snatched the saber from Jordan's flesh, turned the blade edge on to the dangling form and sent a hacking blow into the back of the left knee.

Merciful unconsciousness snatched Jordan from his torment as Seward's strength failed to completely sever the joint and the leg swung on a few stretched tendons, pouring more blood on the already drenched earth.

"You can't never do nothing right," Douglas accused, grasping the hanging leg and wrenching it free, then tossing it after the foot.

Scott, his nausea finished, looked up through the darkness into Jordan's face. The captain's head hung forward between his raised arms, resting on his chest. "I think he's dead, Frank," he said.

Bell spat. "I never get to have any fun," he complained.

Forrest snatched the saber from the giggling Seward and tossed it to Bell. Blood sprayed from the blade as Bell caught it. "Finish off the bastard, Rog." He shrugged. "He might be fooling us."

"Swing him, Frank."

Forrest nodded and shoved at the dead weight. He and the others stepped back as Bell moved into line, waited a few moments as he savored the kill, then sprang into a short run. The point sank into Jordan's stomach low down and then the curved blade drove up through his intestines and burst out at the small of his back.

Rhett winced, "Bet that hurt."

"Only when he laughs," Douglas countered.

"He ain't even smiling," Forrest pointed out, decorating his own grizzled countenance with an evil grin. "Reckon that's it. Captain Oliver Jordan won't be throwing his weight around and then riding out on us no more."

"How we goin' a tell it, Frank?" Seward said when they had all looked at Jordan's body, slowing in its swing, for several moments. "You didn't tell us about that part."

Forrest turned his glittering eyes towards Rhett and the others followed the direction of his gaze. The dandy suddenly realized he had become the focus of attention and swallowed hard as he recognized the omen in Forrest's expression.

"Guess some of the guys saw you leave camp with the captain?" His tone was even more ominous.

"Hey, Frank," Rhett stammered. "You said you had a plan to arrange this so it would appear the rebels were responsible."

Forrest nodded. "I have, Bob. But it needs a guy with brains to act it out so it'll be believed. Why I picked you, buddy. It might hurt you a little, but you ain't so yellow as he was, so you don't have to die..." The grin was wiped away, to be replaced by a hard-faced scowl. "...not unless you don't act your part right and make McClellan believe it was the rebs attacked you and your sweetheart. You tell it like this..."

It was very quiet in the wood now and since they were upwind of the Union Camp it was just possible to pick up the occasional sound—a burst of laughter or a rattle of tin bowls. But the men only had ears for Forrest's quiet words, each one of which sent a new spasm of trembling through Rhett's thin body.

"Get the point?" Forrest concluded, his eyes boring into those of Rhett.

The New Englander swallowed hard and nodded. Forrest grinned and slapped him on the shoulder. At this signal Douglas stepped in close behind Rhett and drove a knife hard into an area just right of center between the shoulder blades. As Rhett opened his mouth to scream, Forrest landed a vicious uppercut, turning the cry into a hiss of escaping air. The unconscious man fell into his arms and he tossed him roughly to the ground.

"Yeah, he got it," Douglas said softly.

"Not dead?"

Douglas shook his head. "Dead men tell no tales. He better get found quick, though."

"So let's go find him," Forrest said, and led the men away from the hanging, mutilated body of Jordan and the crumpled figure of Rhett.

The Union army was as inept at sentry duty as in any other facet of war and getting back into camp unseen was no harder than it had been getting out.

It was less than an hour later when Hedges was roused by a corporal on McClellan's staff and summoned to the commander-in-chief’s quarters. There was a litter resting on the ground close to the large tent, with a blanket thrown over it, following lines which were unmistakably those of a human form. It was not the first such draped body Hedges had seen. In the nearby field hospital tent he could see several figures moving about, their shadows thrown against the inner canvas by oil lamps. Then the corporal held open the flap and stood side to allow Hedges access to the general. The commanding officer was seated behind a small table covered with maps and papers scrawled with ciphers. He looked smaller than Hedges remembered him: and older. His eyes were red with fatigue and his response to Hedges' salute seemed to require a disproportionate amount of effort. His expression was grave.

"At ease, Hedges," he murmured. "I'm afraid I've got some bad news. Unsavory and sad."

The lieutenant felt he was expected to offer a comment, but confined his acknowledgement to a mere nod. McClellan cleared his throat.

"Captain Jordan is dead. He was murdered in a most horrible fashion by a Confederate raiding party. He met his death whilst preparing to take part in an unnatural act with a soldier in his troop."

Hedges showed emotion by narrowing his eyes a fraction more as he recalled Rhett's mincing progress through the camp earlier that night. McClellan seemed irritated by the lieutenant's silence. "Do you understand what I'm saying, man?" he barked.

"Yes, sir," Hedges answered, snapping back to ramrod attention.

The general nodded. "Good. The trooper was wounded but survived. A search party of the Headquarters Troop discovered the man and Jordan after they had been reported missing. The man is of no consequence. His wound will render him incapable of active service for some time to come and I have already dismissed him from my mind. Captain Jordan will be buried without military honors."

"Yes, sir," Hedges said again when McClellan paused.

"I am telling you this, Hedges, because the more senior the officer in my regiment, the more he must understand my thinking. I am promoting you to captain and putting you in command of D Troop—replacing Jordan. I am not a puritan, but there are some facets of the darker side of human nature which revolt me. You will convey to the men under your command that any trooper discovered engaging in unnatural practices, will receive the severest punishment it is in my power to impose."

"Does that mean you'll shoot them, sir?" Hedges asked.

McClellan allowed the tiniest smile to angle up the corners of his mouth. "You catch on quick, Captain Hedges. Any questions?"

"No, sir."

The general delved beneath the papers on his desk and held out the insignia of the new rank. Hedges took them without changing his impassive expression. "That's all, Captain."

"Obliged." He saluted; executed an about-turn and left the commander-in-chief's tent. Outside he glanced down at the blanket-draped form of the dead Jordan. "It's an ill wind," he muttered before he moved away, thinking that Jamie would be able to put the extra money to good use at the farm.

*****

"I OUGHT to go and get the sheriff, mother," Grace Hope insisted. It was midday and the rain was still lancing from a low, slate-grey sky, exploding into beads against the windows, screening their view of the yard and the surrounding plainsland which had been turned into a sea of mud by the incessant downpour. The girl was at the stone sink, peeling vegetables while her mother stoked the range fire to roast the meat.

The elder woman sniffed. "If there's a horse in the country couId haul a buggy through a storm like this, we ain't got it, child," she answered.

"But you do agree that he's Josiah Hedges?" Grace asked.

"Not you nor me can be sure of that, Grace," came the reply. "Neither of us ever saw a wanted poster for that feller. All we know is that the stranger keeps rambling about Jamie and a farm."

"He's wanted in two states, mother," Grace pointed out. "He killed a man called Rhett in that very yard out there and then he shot a man named Tombs in Kansas."

Margaret Hope was sweating as the fire burned hotter and she drew the back of her hand across her shining forehead. "I ain't disputing that a man named Hedges done that," she said. "And you could very well be right that the stranger is that very man. But he ain't in no fit state to cause any more trouble for awhile. He ain't even been through his crisis yet."

"But he's getting better."

Margaret nodded. "Yes, he is, child. Nature will have her way and try to drive him to his limit when she figures he's least likely to fight it. But he's stronger already and he'll win."

Grace sighed and went to the window, rubbing at the smear of condensation with a clenched fist. By pressing her face hard against the damp pane she could just make out the oak tree with the mound and grave marker beneath it. When she had last looked, the rain had veiled every feature more than a few feet from the cottage.

"I believe it's brightening a little," she opined.

"About time it did," her mother answered.

"As soon as it stops, I'm going to town." The girl's tone was brittle, challenging.

"We'll see. Now get those peas shelled, child. Then attend to the bedroom fire."

Grace took a final look out into the yard, feeling that the tree and the grave beneath it became sharper in outline as she watched. Then she returned to the pre-mealtime chores. She wanted desperately for the stranger to be taken away from the house, for every second he remained, naked and helpless a few feet from her, she felt her emotions drawn towards him with a powerful, invisible force.

In the next room, unaware of the ambivalence his presence aroused in the mind of Grace Hope, Edge approached the high point of his fever as the angels of death gathered. It was not the first time they had hovered above him.

CHAPTER SIX

HEDGES was heading a six-man patrol over the Blue Ridge, out of the Shenandoah Valley. It was mid-July now and the Virginia summer was proving it could be as hot as that which turned the wheat from green to gold in Iowa. The men who rode in a column behind Hedges—Forrest, Douglas, Bell, Scott, Seward and a youngster named Haskins—were valuable, if in a muttering key, in their low opinion of the heat and the harsh pace set by the newly promoted captain. Hedges chose to ignore their complaints, recognizing the need for them to express their discontent and deciding that harsh words provided a harmless outlet for their resentment.

And resentment there was in full measure among the men comprising D Troop for although they saw in their new captain qualities of leadership far superior to those Jordan had possessed, he had proved just as much a disciplinarian as his predecessor. More so, in fact, because he was not content simply to insure the men were smartly turned out. Hedges insisted on regular attention to the horses and supervise daily drill parades and target practice.

It was said by the men of D Troop, that when next the enemy was engaged they would be sitting ducks, blinded by the gleam of buttons and shine of their horse harness. Certainly, as the patrol started down the eastern slope of the Ridge, the men and their mounts had never looked so clean and well turned out, with shaven jaws incongruously pale minus the protection of several days' growth of beard.

D Troop was one of a number of units which had been dethatched from McClellan's army and ordered to push eastwards in all haste, towards a point known as Manassas Junction on the southwest bank of a Potomac River tributary called Bull Run. Intelligence reports indicated that a Confederate general named Beauregard had massed an army of some twenty thousand men in the area, squarely across the railroad route between Washington and the rebel capital of Richmond.

The splintering of McClellan's army into small units, with instructions to take separate routes across the mountains and thus attract less attention from rebel agents, had been synchronized with the movement of thirty-five thousand Union soldiers south from Washington towards Manassas Junction.

The briefing session had been as disorganized and handled as incompetently as every other aspect of the war so far. But from the maps he had seen spread upon McClellan's table, Hedges gathered that a rather unbalanced pincer-movement was planned, with the scattered troops coming down from the mountains to harass Beauregard's left flank while the army moving out of Washington under General McDowell hit hard at the front. He could recognize the basic soundness of such a plan but was concerned at the lack of co-ordination and his speed over the Blue Ridge was aimed at reaching Manassas before the battle commenced, perhaps enabling him to confer with McDowell's staff on tactics.

Buildings ahead, captain."

It was Corporal Douglas, riding immediately behind Hedges, who jerked the officer from his thoughts, drawing his attention to a small settlement in front of them. Hedges raised his hand to halt the patrol and narrowed his eyes as he examined what lay ahead. The purpose of the patrol, some two miles in advance of the main body of the troop, was to blaze a trail across the mountains, preferably in secrecy and therefore finding detours round habitations. They had several times swung wide of a direct path to avoid isolated farms and small villages, but the detours had all used up valuable time. As Hedges examined this new obstacle to their progress, he had to weigh the possible dangers it held against the certain delay in taking a longer route.

"Hell Captain, we ain't seen a reb since we chased them off Rich Mountain," Forrest called from the end of the line.

"And Virginia ain't seceded from the Union," Douglas put in. "Civilians won't give us no trouble."

Hedges was well aware of these points and as Douglas completed his contribution, the captain nodded. "We go in slow and careful," he said, not taking his eyes off the large farmhouse, its barns and the surrounding huts of the field workers. "You keep your eyes open and your weapons at the ready. But I don't want no shooting unless we're attacked first."

He didn't turn to see what reaction his instructions had drawn, but heeled his horse forward, down a narrow bridle path and on to the wide shelf upon which the farm was spread out. Trees, thinly placed, provided inadequate cover for a few yards, but then the path forded a shallow stream and cut a course between two fields of maize, taking them into wide open space.

"Hey, Captain?" Just above a whisper.

"Yeah, Forrest." Hedges didn't turn around.

"Where's the people?"

"You noticed that, too.

Smart." Seward giggled: "Maybe they heard we was coming and took it on the lam."

"Or maybe they're holed up and got us in their gun-sights," Scott suggested.

"Happy guy." Bell.

"It's past noon," Hedges muttered. "Eating time."

Bell clicked his tongue against his teeth and rubbed sweat from his forehead. "I like that better."

They had covered half the distance to the first building; a barn separated from the fields by a wire fence with a five-bar gate where the pathway intersected it. With workers in the fields and smoke rising from the big house chimney the farm would have appeared idyllic and innocent in the bright, early afternoon sunshine. The atmosphere of desertion which clung to it impregnated the very air with a sense of the ominous.

At the gate Hedges leaned down to unfasten the latch and the scrape of metal was very loud, magnified by the silence. The gate did not creak as it swung wide; the oil on the hinges was still fresh enough to have a shine. The troopers filed through, into the deep shade of the barn. It was old but in a good state of repair, as were the other buildings spread around the big, well kept yard. The main house had a porch heavy with magnolia blossom. At the side was a neat kitchen garden.

"Nice place," the spotty faced Haskins murmured, a little enviously.

Hedges led the way around the blind side of the barn, then dismounted to peer out from the corner. His horse whinnied softly and an answering call came from within the barn.

"Where there's horses, I figure there's people," Forrest said evenly.

Hedges narrowed his eyes, scanning the front of the house, caught the slight movement of a lace curtain swinging back into place. "You figure right," he muttered and raised both hands to his face, cupping them around his mouth to shout.

But at that moment, Haskins' skittish mare saw a rat dart from under the barn and streak out into the sunlit yard. The horse reared and bolted into the open, the sudden movement causing the youngster's finger to jerk against the trigger of his musket. The sound of the report seemed to continue for an excruciating length of time and although the ball-shot whined harmlessly into the air, the cause proved more catastrophic than the effect. As Haskins' horse bucked across the yard three more gunshots rang out. Windows sprayed shards of glass across the sweet-smelling porch and three bullets smashed into the young trooper's chest, killing him instantly and lifting him clear off the saddle. The sound of his body thudding against the hard ground was somehow more horrifying than anything which had gone before.

"The sneaky shits!" Seward yelled and heeled his horse forward.

Hedges turned to face the trooper and leapt high to snatch him out of the saddle as he passed. Seward came clear and smashed into the side of the barn as his horse ran clear and keeled over, blood spouting from body and head, wounds, The reports of the defenders' guns were still ringing in Hedges’ ears as he glared down at the winded Seward.

"Frank, you see what he done to me?" Seward gasped.

Forrest spat, "Yeah, he saved your worthless hide, lunkhead. And it weren't 'cause he loves you."

Hedges stared hard and long into the shocked eyes of Seward. "I'll let you know when it's your turn to die, Seward," he said with quiet anger. "You want to commit suicide, you wait until I've got a replacement I can call on." He turned away and flattened himself against the side of the barn, raising his hands to his mouth again. "You in there, can you hear me?"

In the ensuing silence he looked at the crumpled figure of Haskins still spilling blood into the rich earth. The pause lengthened and he could hear the tense breathing of the men behind him.

Then: "What you want with us?" The speaker sounded old—but tough and determined.

"Just to pass through. Us and some men coming up behind."

"We don't want no part of the war."

"So why'd you blast Haskins," Seward muttered as be picked himself up, rubbing a bruised shoulder.

"So let us through."

"Hold hard for a minute." Silence returned to the farm. Hedges removed his hat and drew a sleeve across his hairline. He had experienced hotter weather than this and not sweated so much.

"Hey, soldier?"

"Yeah?" he called.

"Shooting that man and the horse was accidents. We thought you were attacking. We got women and property to protect." The troopers began to whisper.

"Those things are past," Hedges answered through his hands. "How about a safe conduct for the rest of us."

"We decided. You can go through."

"Obliged," Hedges answered and drew back from the corner to mount his horse.

"You trust 'em, Captain?" Douglas asked.

Hedges grinned coldly. "No, but you got any better ideas? I'll go first. Wait until I'm behind that group of huts over there and then follow me—one at a time."

Douglas nodded without enthusiasm and then looked nervously at the others before turning to follow Hedges' progress across the yard. The captain kept his horse down to a slow, even walk, deviating slightly from a direct line to swing around the carcass of Seward's horse and the sprawled body of the dead Haskins. He flicked an occasional glance towards the house and saw three broken windows, two on the lower floor and one above. Lace curtains, unmarked by the gun blasts, screened the insides of the rooms. He thought he heard—but could not be sure—the quiet sobs of a woman. His right ear itched but he suffered it, unwilling to make a move with his right hand, which was curled loosely around the stock and trigger guard of the Spencer. Sweat was sticky in his palms, armpits, behind his knees and at the small of his back. Fear rode with him and he was grateful he could still experience its power; a man without fear was a fool.

"Hey, Captain?"

Hedges cursed and almost reined his horse as he recognized Seward's whining tone.

"I ain't got a horse, Captain."

"So damn well walk," he heard Forrest hiss.

In the house a woman gasped and a few moments later Hedges was among the field workers' huts. He screwed up his eyes tightly and steeled himself against the threat of trembling muscles. Then he turned his horse and dismounted to look back across the yard, in time to see Forrest urge his horse forward into the open. He cursed softly when Bell came out only a yard behind him, followed by Douglas, then Scott, with Seward taking nervous steps at the rear. He cursed again, louder, and looked towards the broken windows as Forrest led the men around the dead horse and trooper. On his lone ride he had purposely taken a course which swung him wide away from the house. The men chose to veer in the opposite direction, angling towards the house. His angry eyes snapped back to the troopers and became mere glittering slits when he saw that each of the riders held their Colts low on their left, the blind side from the house. He opened his mouth to shout an order, but held back, realizing that any unexpected sound could signal the crack of gunfire.

But it was Forrest who provided the signal, kicking free of his stirrups and going sideways in a dive from the saddle, bringing up the revolver and sending bullets flying into the already smashed window to the left of the doorway. The others left their horses in the same way, Bell aiming for the same window as Forrest while Douglas and Scott poured lead into the lower story window. Seward grabbed the Spencer from Scott's saddle boot and broke into a run, firing at the position of the upstairs marksman. Surprise and concentrated fire power got all five men on to the porch and flattened against the house front before the defenders could loose off a single shot. The horses bolted and gunsmoke drifted across the yard like morning mist. But the smell was wrong.

"Hey, Captain," Forrest yelled.

Hedges looked in his direction and saw the stained teeth shown in a satisfied grin.

"We didn't trust 'em. This was our better idea."

He suddenly came away from the wall, pivoted in front of the window and fanned the Colt to send four bullets smashing into the room. A scream sounded from inside and he covered his head with his hands and dived through what remained of the glass. Bell went after him in a like manner as, on the other side of the porch, Douglas and Scott poured lead into their window and then crashed through. Seward kicked open the door with the heel of his boot and ran inside, the Spencer held low, his hands working the action and squeezing the trigger with the dexterity of long practice. Gunfire, screams and curses issued from the house as Hedges snatched up his own rifle and broke across the yard on the-run, He saw a muzzle jabbed out from the upper floor window and snapped, off a shot as a bullet kicked up dust only inches from his flying feet. A man screamed, a rifle sailed out of the window and then a body slumped forward across the ledge, held poised for a moment before tipping forward and crashing down onto the roof of the porch. The jolt showered Hedges with magnolia blossom as he leapt up on to the porch and loped into the house.

"Pretty," Forrest said as he and Bell emerged from a doorway on the left.

Hedges pushed between them and into the room, the stench of burnt powder harsh in his nostrils. A man was sprawled in the center of an expensive carpet, his head and chest a mass of torn flesh soaked with blood. An elderly woman sat upright in a winged chair, not moving, even to breathe. Her eyes were open but unseeing. Blood trickled down in an inverted vee from a neat hole just above her white hairline.

"Frank, I've got me something real good,"

It was Seward, shouting from upstairs and as Hedges turned out of the room he saw Forrest and Bell heading up the elegant stairway at the end of the hall. A girl screamed and then made a choking sound as the crack of a harsh slap accompanied a curse from Seward. Hedges took time to glance into the room across the hall and saw Douglas and Scott raising bottles to their lips. Between them lay the crumpled form of a woman, the front of her dress turning from white to red. He was about to vent his anger upon the men but another scream from above, followed by raucous laughter, sent him hurrying up the stairway. He found them in a bedroom at the front of the house, the three men advancing on a pretty young girl of no more than sixteen who was backing into a comer, stark terror leaving her eyes blank but pulling her mouth wide as she continued to scream.

"Hold it!" Hedges barked.

The girl pressed her slender body into the angle of the corner, clawing at the walls with her hands as the three men spun to face the cold anger of their commander. Forrest replaced his look of lust with a cold grin.

"You want first go, Captain," he asked quietly. "Might be messy. Looks like fresh meat to me."

Hedges forced his tone to a low key. "She's no Arizona hicktown whore."

"Right. Right, Captain," Forrest agreed, still grinning and nodding his head enthusiastically as the girl began to whimper and stare blankly at Hedges. "I ain't had nothing like this since I don't know when."

"I'll kill any man who touches her," Hedges warned.

"Spoils of war," Bell insisted. "If I don't get me some soon, I'll burst clean out of my pants," Seward shrieked.

"Why, you ain't got enough to fill a Colt barrel," Bell said with a burst of laughter, ducking as Seward threw a punch at his head.

"Ain't I just!" the younger man yelled, reaching under his tunic for his belt buckle.

"Whatever you got; I'll blast it clean off soon as I see it," Hedges warned him.

Seward jerked his hands away as Bell laughed. "You'd have to be a good shot, Captain."

Hedges spat. "I'm good."

"Enough to outgun three of us?" Forrest said in a menacing tone.

Hedges flicked his attention to the big man and saw a Colt leveled at him. He looked at the other two and found them staring at Forrest with open-mouthed amazement, making no move to back the play.

He grinned. "You're two guns short," he said, bringing up the Spencer.

Forrest shook his head. "I can count, captain. And I got a better view than you;"

Hedges' body swayed forward an inch as the muzzles of two guns were jabbed into the small of his back. "You aren't being smart," he said, glancing to left and right over his shoulders, into the glazed eyes of Douglas and Scott.

"Man never is when he's got an ache between the legs, Captain," Forrest answered. "Only one way to cure that ache and we got the doc right here."

The girl's body shuddered and she cried out.

"Get his guns, Billy," Forrest ordered.

Seward hesitated, then moved, being sure to keep out of the line of fire. "Gee, I'm sorry," he muttered as Hedges surrendered the Spencer and made no attempt to stop him removing the holstered Colt and the saber.

Seward tossed the weapons into a comer and Douglas and Scott hustled Hedges into the room. Forrest licked his lips, spat and returned the Colt to its holster. He turned sideways, took two shuffling steps and then reached out a hand. His fingers curled over the neckline of the girl's dress and the harsh sound of the material ripping was almost as loud as her cry of alarm. Her body was pale and slender, with breasts only just beginning to develop.

"Ain't a hell of a lot of woman," Forrest complained as he clasped a breast in one of his grimed hands and dug his nails into the flesh.

Douglas and Scott had moved to the side of Hedges now and when the captain seemed about to take a step forward they lunged their Colts into his hips. Scott's gun hit dead center on his wound and he grimaced with pain.

"She ain't goin' a get any bigger while we're waiting here, Frank," Bell pointed out, his eyes examining every minute detail of the girl's exposed body.

"Please, you're hurting me." Her voice was no more than a hoarse whisper as she reached up to clasp Forrest's wrist. Forrest laughed.

"Lot of people get hurt in a war," he told her. "That's why men like a few home comforts before they go and risk getting killed or crippled."

"Yeah, that's right," Seward yelled" glancing at Hedges as if he considered Forrest had justified what was going to happen to the girl. "You ought to be happy to put out for us. We're fighting for you."

Forrest suddenly lifted the girl and tossed her on to the bed. "You first, Billy," he snapped. "Never did like riding an animal that wasn't broke in."

"Whiskey downstairs, Frank," Douglas said as Seward fumbled for his belt.

"Get it, Rog," Forrest commanded.

Bell held back and only went finally, and with reluctance, after Seward had dropped his pants and underwear and thrown himself on to the unprotesting girl. She cried out once, as the thrusting male hardness seared into her and then she lay still, fingers digging into the bedcover and blank eyes staring at the ceiling while Seward grunted and sweated out his lust. Bell returned with an armful of bottles as Seward sighed and rolled clear of the girl's splayed body. At a nod from Forrest he set down the bottles on the floor and hurried to the bed, his face made ugly by the keenness of his excited anticipation as he tore at his restraining clothing. As Bell entered the girl Forrest crossed the room, picked up a bottle of whiskey and broke off the neck on the edge of a lowboy. He held the shattered bottle aloft and allowed the liquor to cascade down, catching some in his mouth.

"Watch the Captain," Douglas demanded of Seward as it became obvious Bell was reaching his climax.

Seward moved forward with reluctance, drawing his Colt and his expression showed something close to shame as he leveled it at Hedges. But Hedges paid no attention to him. He found himself fascinated by the look on the girl's features. Her lips had begun to move, mouthing silent words, he guessed in prayer. But there was no play in her green-gray eyes, which continued to be fastened on the ceiling above the creaking bed, as if she had induced a trance.

Douglas flung himself between her legs, emptied his loins and made way for Scott while Bell took over the guard duty on Hedges. Finally, his cruel eyes glazed by the liquor, his lower jaw hung loose and low, Forrest stumbled over to the bed and stood, swaying as he glared down at the abused body and blank face.

"Look at me, girl," he demanded as he fumbled to loosen his uniform. "I like my women to look at me so they can see what they're getting."

The dull eyes continued to stare at the ceiling as the lips moved in their silent plea. Forrest lashed out. A hand, slapping her hard across the cheek, rocking her head to one side. She whimpered, but remained impassive.

"Damn you, look at me!" Forrest bellowed, raising his hand for another blow.

"She can't," Hedges said softly, as he suddenly realized the reason for the girl's apparent narcosis. "The kid's blind."

Forrest swung around angrily to face Hedges, bringing up his fists as if he intended to rush across the room and lash out at him.

"Blind. Jesus!" Hedges felt the pressure relieved from his hip as Seward muttered the words and lowered his gun.

Scott turned to face the wall and emptied his stomach of the neat whiskey he had drunk downstairs.

"Bastard!" Bell exclaimed.

Hedges took, a step forward, away from Bell's gun, his blue eyes boring into Forrest's face. The power of the accusation forced back the big man's rage like a physical force ramming into a tangible energy.

He dropped his gaze. "How'd I know?"

Hedges turned away and went to the smashed window, to look out across the sweet-smelling porchway with the dead man on it, over the body of the equally dead trooper and into the green distance. He stood there for several moments, breathing deeply of the clean air, ridding his lungs of the putrescence of gunsmoke, whiskey, vomit and sex. Then a movement caught his attention and he focused on the group of huts to one side of the yard. Two Negroes stood there, a man and a woman, both in middle years.

"It's over," he called down to them. "There's a girl here needs your help." The slaves looked at each other, exchanged a few words and then advanced slowly across the yard. Hedges turned from the window and saw that each man was concentrating on the simple process of straightening his clothing. None would meet his gaze. He crossed to retrieve his arms and then went to the side of the bed. The girl had released her grip on the covers and had placed her hands over her bloodied loins; otherwise she had remained the same. Her dress was in tatters so Hedges went to the window again, ripped down one of the drape curtains and spread it over her nakedness.

Then he left the room and without a word the men shuffled out in his wake. The Negro couple were in the hallway below, the woman crying softly, the man holding his hat in front of his body as they looked into the room containing the two dead whites.

"They was good people, sir," the man said softly. "Mister Lincoln, he might be right about some slaves, but these was good people. We didn't want no freedom, sir."

"No way of telling the good from the bad," Hedges answered and glanced at Forrest. "Not even when they wear a uniform."

"How'd we know?" Forrest, demanded, his tone harder now, as he shared the responsibility for what had happened. "She didn't say anything."

"Right," Seward attested. "She could have said. She wasn't dumb."

"No, just proud," Hedges said softly as he watched the Negro couple start up the stairway. "We're the dumb ones." He went out then, and the others followed him, to round up their scattered horses.

*****

GRACE harnessed the big gray to the buggy while her mother gazed with concern at the low cloud and tried to decide if the brightness in the south was a sign of the sun breaking through or a new storm brewing.

"If it starts to look bad, you turn back, you hear," she said at length.

"It's not going to rain any more, mother," Grace answered. "I'm sure of it. I'll be back with the sheriff before you even know it."

"That means you intend to drive fast," the elder woman came back quickly. "You be careful, child. No telling what the rain's done to the trail. Easy enough for a horse to break a leg or a buggy to crack a wheel at the best of times. This is no country to be stranded in."

Grace sighed as she tightened the final strap and patted the horse on the nose. "Nor to be, alone with a murderer," she countered. "Certainly I'm going to hurry, but I won't be reckless." Her boots made sucking sounds as they came free of the yard mud and she climbed up into the buggy. "You have to be careful, too."

She made clucking noises with her tongue and flicked the reins. Her mother moved on ahead to open the gate and then waved as Grace drove the buggy through. She watched its lurching, splashing progress for a full minute before turning to go back to the house. Then she spotted the two guns leaning against the live oak—the stranger's Winchester and the old 'Spencer' from above the mantelshelf. She detoured to get them and took them into the house with her.

A glance into the bedroom showed the stranger was sleeping peacefully after a restless period during which he had cursed aloud at a man named Forrest. In repose his lean features looked more cruel and, at the same time, more handsome than ever.

"Yeah, I reckon you're a mean critter," she muttered. "Might have done the world a favor to let you die."

Then she got some rags from the cupboard beneath the stone sink and sat before the fire as she started to clean the guns. The tall case clock to the right of the fireplace showed the time as one-thirty. By her reckoning, it should take Grace a little over three hours to get to town and return. If the sheriff rode on ahead with his posse, leaving the slower buggy to follow, the waiting time would be less, of course. But the first minute seemed to take an hour and Margaret guessed this was the way it was sure to be.

But then she heard a painful groan from the next room and she got to her feet hurriedly and bustled over to the doorway. The stranger was bathed in sweat again and his facial muscles bulged as his body came as stiff as a ramrod.

"This is it, feller," she said as she went to the bed. "Appears you've fought harder battles than this. Little old fever ain't going to get the better of a man like you."

Edge groaned again, thrashing his arms against the constricting sheets and blankets and tossing his head from side to side as if he was trying to shake it free of his shoulders.

"Jesus, will you look at those stupid bastards!" he shouted at the top of his voice.

"Such language!" Margaret Hope exclaimed."

CHAPTER SEVEN

IF Margaret Hope had been at Bull Run even her strong opinion of foul language may not have been able to withstand the test of frustrating events over which she had no control.

It was July twenty-first and one of the hottest days of a long hot summer. A good day—if such there can be—for a battle, which was a deciding factor in the result.

The speed tempered by caution tactics which Hedges had adopted on the push through the mountains had succeeded in one aspect and failed in another. News of the troop's approach had not preceded its arrival but the battle had begun, with McDowell's Union army engaging Beauregard's Confederates, spread out in an eight mile defensive line.

The rebel general, a great admirer of Napoleon, had modeled his tactics upon the battle plan, at Austerlitz and launched an attack at McDowell's left flank. But this had gone badly wrong as a result of orders which either went astray or were misunderstood: McDowell replied with a thrust at the Confederate left and a large number of Union infantry crossed Bull Run at Sudley Church and moved along the river towards the rebels. It was as the opposing armies clashed at Stone Bridge that Hedges led his men at full charge into the heat of the battle and received his initiation into the full horrors of a war of amateurs.

"Who the hell's on our side?" Douglas yelled as the troopers galloped up behind the Union line, riding with heads down as rifle and artillery fire was directed at them.

As Hedges looked ahead and then across the river to where the main force was located, he drew in his breath and let it out with a stream of obscenity. The corporal had posed a valid question. The regular soldiers of the Union army were correctly attired in blue but the ninety-day militia men had been allowed to wear whatever took their fancy. Many of the soldiers wore gray while others were dressed in garishly bright colors, some patterning their uniforms after the French infantry, with red breeches, blue coats, scarlet sashes and turbans.

"The ones shooting at you are the enemy," Hedges yelled back as a rebel artillery shell dug a crater immediately in his path.

His horse reared and took three bullets in the neck. As the animal came down in its death throes, the rider slumped sideways and did a head-roll across the hard baked ground. A battery of rebel mortars opened up and Hedges lay still, Spencer clutched in his hands, protecting his head as great clods of earth and splinters of shattered rock rained down upon him. Small arms fire chattered and men screamed their agonies. Something thudded down at the side of Hedges' head and when he turned to look at it he screwed up his eyes tightly and felt the bitter taste of nausea in his throat It was a complete arm and half a shoulder, the shattered bone gleaming with an incredible whiteness against the oozing red of the torn flesh.

There was a sudden lull in the artillery barrage and he took advantage of it to scramble across the open, shell-scarred ground and into the fast running water of a narrow creek feeding the river. The water felt cool on his sweating body and he dipped his cupped hands to scoop some of it into his mouth. But then he threw the water from him, his face a mask of horror as he saw the pink tint in the liquid, turning a deeper shade as he watched. He looked to his right, along the creek and met the agonized eyes of one of his own troopers. The man was sitting in the water, resting his back against the bank, trailing his hands and making no attempt to move. Further along the creek men were lying in the water, firing towards the enemy lines. It ran clear where they were.

"I didn't think it would be like this, Captain," the injured trooper murmured, pressing his back into the bank as a new artillery barrage sounded, the shells arcing low over the creek.

Where does it hurt?" Hedges asked as he splashed along the creek bed, keeping his head below the level of the bank.

"All over, sir." He sighed. "Except my legs. My legs don't hurt." He abruptly closed his eyes and fell forward, toppling like a sack of potatoes. The creek gripped him and sent his body floating down towards the river outlet and Hedges caught his breath. Both the troopers' legs had been blown off.

For a few moments the creek ran clear, but then two infantrymen collapsed with gaping head wounds and Hedges, experiencing a stronger urge to empty his stomach, scrambled clear of the water and ran in a fast crouch towards a low stone wall. He heard shouting from behind him and glanced over his shoulder to see infantrymen and dismounted troopers streaming in his wake. Many others were running in the opposite direction, shedding their identifying uniform tunics and discarding their rifles and muskets.

As Hedges dived behind the wall another man thudded down beside him and began to loose off bullets at the deserters, bringing down three in quick succession.

"Chicken-hearted bastards," Forrest yelled, and spat in disgust as the men ran out of range.

"Anyone you wouldn't kill, Forrest?" Hedges asked as he watched the survivors of the advance sink behind the wall and begin to fire at the rebels near the bridge. He saw Douglas, Bell and Scott with several other members of his troop. There were many he could not see, but this. did not indicate they had been killed or injured, for the Union line was spread wide and rifle fire sounded from behind every form of cover.

Forrest grinned as he reloaded his rifle. "Don't reckon there is, Captain," he drawled. "Man gets in my way, he's just asking to get blasted."

"They weren't in your way," Hedges pointed out, going up into a crouch and pumping four shots towards the rebel position.

"Oh, my dear God," a man screamed near the end of the wall. Then he gurgled and slumped forward, choking up a great spout of blood.

"They weren't men," Forrest countered. "Just rats. I shoot rats for fun." He went up against the wall, stood erect and sprayed the Confederates with rapid repeater fire. He sank back again to reload.

"Those guys are in my way." He and every other man at the wall threw themselves to the ground as a half dozen shells arced in to spray up earth only a few yards behind them. "And their guns are bigger than mine," he continued as he wiped dirt from his face. "I don't like that."

"Me neither," Hedges answered, and looked along the line of Union men, able to ignore the bloodied bodies of the dead and the cries of the wounded as the anger inside him swamped the last vestiges of pity. "Is there a bugler here?" he called.

"Sir!" a young voice answered, and a brass bugle was held aloft, glistening in the bright sun as it wavered in a trembling hand.

"Sound the advance!" As the first notes of the clarion call split across the other sounds of battle it seemed to arouse in the men the same degree of anger which had gripped Hedges. Fear, despair, compassion, frustration and every other shade of emotion which can be generated by war was suddenly swamped by an irresistible rage to kill. The men rose in a single, synchronized movement and hesitated for only a split second, as a stray mortar shell smashed the bugle into a mass of twisted metal and drove this into the face of the musician with enough force to decapitate him.

"They shouldn't have shot him," Forrest muttered as the final note urged the men into a headlong dash for the rebel line. "He was doin' his best."

As other mortars zeroed in on what had been the Union line, the Yankees streamed forward, yelling their enraged hatred and firing as rapidly as their gunmanship allowed, having no time to aim but successful in harassing most of the rebels into an equally wild and inaccurate defensive fusillade. Inevitably, however, stray bullets and ballshot found their marks in vulnerable flesh and blue-coated men pitched to the ground at a rate matched only by the piling up of grey clad forms at the bridge.

Hedges felt invincible as he ran, emptying the rifle and then the Colt, drawing exhilaration from the whine of lead about his ears. He transferred both guns to his left hand and drew his saber as a Confederate lieutenant seemed to materialize ten feet in front of him.

The man aimed a revolver at him and the hammer fell with a dry click against an empty shell case.

"Sickening, ain't it," Hedges said as he lashed out with the saber, then twisted it.

The point sliced through one eye, carved a path through the bridge of the nose and gouged out the other eye. The man screamed and fell to his knees, clawing at his face.

"See what he means?" Forrest yelled as he launched a mighty kick at the jaw of the kneeling man, sending him over backwards.

"Aye, aye!" Seward said with a shriek of laughter, veering to run alongside the two men.

Three rebels came towards them, swinging their empty muskets around their heads like clubs. Forrest threw his knife into the throat of the man on the left. Seward fired his Colt into the stomach of the right marker. Hedges went in below the swinging musket of the center man and lashed sideways with the saber, severing the wrist.

"Guess he'll have to finish the war single-handed," he muttered as he leapt over the falling man, and slowed his pace as he peered through the smoke of battle. There were a great many grey-clad figures in evidence, out they were no longer standing up to face the advancing Union men. They were fleeing.

"We got 'em on the run!" Seward yelled in delight, surging forward, waving is empty Colt.

Hedges halted and dropped into an exhausted crouch, breathing deeply and feeling the strain of the advance for the first time now that he was no longer under fire. As he glanced around he saw other men were experiencing a similar degree of fatigue. But all were following his example by reloading their rifles and revolvers. Ahead, Seward, suddenly realized he was alone in chasing the fleeing rebels and abruptly halted, turned, and came back to the position of Hedges and Forrest, a shame-faced expression on his immature features.

"Forward to Richmond, Frank?" he said breathlessly, voicing the slogan dreamed up by some chairbound staff officer in Washington.

Hedges' hooded eyes examined the battlefield, with its many bodies sprawled in attitudes of death, and the greater number of writhing wounded calling for help. "You reckon it'll be worth it?" he asked of nobody in particular.

"Only if I get there alive," Forrest answered.

Hedges looked into his hard, cruel grin. He nodded. "Guess that's the only way to look at it," he said softly, as a supply wagon trundled across the Stone Bridge and the men gathered around it to receive an issue of ammunition.

A hospital wagon was immediately behind it and then, as the wounded were put aboard, a column of artillery moved forward and was hauled in the wake of the rebel retreat. Captain Leaman and the remnants of his troop followed the big guns. His arm was still in a sling from the wound he had received on Rich Mountain, but the gauntness of his face, which seemed to have aged ten years since Hedges had last seen him, told of a mind scarred more deeply than his flesh.

"The rebs are massing at a place called Henry House, downriver," he told Hedges. "Looks like they intend to make a stand there. We're going to throw everything we've got at them."

And indeed, as he spoke, a second battery of heavy artillery crossed the Bull Run.

"We winning, Captain?" Seward asked, as he finished loading his guns and packing his ammunition pouch.

Leaman grimaced. "Any man still alive must be winning," he answered softly, clasping his hands together to stop them from trembling. He turned to his men. "Right, let's go."

Hedges gave no instruction to his own troopers or the infantrymen who had lost their own officers and chose to follow him. He simply set off and they straggled along behind him. Douglas, Bell and Scott were among them and Hedges began to wonder if somehow Forrest and his henchmen were immune to hurt and death. Whether their individual toughness and amorality fused into a single, penetrable shield against enemy bullets, protecting them while men with the higher attributes of humanity were killed and maimed. It was a futile and fruitless line of thought, but it enabled Hedges to occupy his mind as the Union army swelled around him on the forward push.

The Henry House stood on a wooded plateau under the crest of a hill and it was on the high ground that the Union batteries were positioned, commanding a good view of the green Virginia countryside spread out below. When they opened up their first barrage, the sound provided a spur to the mixed cavalry troops and infantry units bringing up the rear and the men surged forward with enthusiasm, sensing victory and anxious to achieve it so there would be time for rest.

But as the rebels retreated from the plateau the officers commanding the Union batteries were too hasty in ordering the gunners to follow. The cannon and mortars were hauled down the hill too far in advance of the supporting infantry. The error was realized and the forward movement was halted, the guns set up to lay a barrage into the retreating Confederates while the Union foot soldiers had time to join the battle.

Hedges crested the hill and looked down the tree-covered incline just as the guns ceased their firing. Coming up the hill, wheeling from the left in a read formation, were several hundred blue-coated figures and 120 from where Hedges stood he could hear the artillery men yelling at the foot soldiers to clear the line of fire.

"Clear the way there!" a man shouted from behind Hedges and he jumped aside as a supply wagon rolled forward.

At the same moment rifles crackled and the men at the top of the hill looked down in amazement as those coming up the hill increased the pace and began to fire.

"They're goddamn rebs," Forrest screamed in anger. "They look like us, but they're rebs."

As the blue-coated Confederates closed on the first line of artillery, dropping the gunners with a murderous hail of bullets, the counter-attack began in earnest, with many hundreds of enemy soldiers breaking from cover and streaming up the hill.

"Retreat!" an officer shouted and several buglers blared the command.

The gunners were already turning to flee in the face of the savage counter-attack and they communicated their panic to the men on the hilltop. The rout was on, but Hedges wanted none of it and neither did Forrest and his henchmen. They lumbered along behind the captain as he headed for the supply wagon which had been abandoned by its terrified driver.

Hedges leapt up on to the seat and Forrest thudded into a position beside him. The others scrambled over the tailgate as Hedges whipped the four horse team into a gallop down the hill, through the scattering of fleeing gunners. The wagon careened into the trees, low branches ripping through its canvas top, and then skidded into a sliding, rocking turn as Hedges hauled on the reins, halting it close to the rearmost field gun.

"Get that aboard!" Hedges ordered as he jumped down and stood behind a tree, peering through the undergrowth for a view of the rebel advance. "Tie it down and load as many shells as you can."

"You're getting to like this killing business, uh?" Forrest said with a grin as he led the men to the gun and they started to haul it towards the wagon.

Hedges shot at a rebel sergeant and saw the man's high crowned hat scale off his head. A second bullet struck high in the chest and the man fell. "I don't like losing," he muttered and snatched a glance over his shoulder to see the gun being manhandled up into the rear of the wagon.

He returned to his self-appointed task of supplying covering fire as Seward clambered aboard the wagon and started to toss out cases of ammunition while Scott and Douglas took care of the artillery shells. Forrest and Bell moved across to Hedges and began to loose off rifle fire as more rebels came within range.

"Ready, Captain!" Douglas yelled and the three men backed towards the wagon, firing as they went.

"Get it tied down!" Hedges shouted as he blazed away in a final burst to empty the Spencer and then leapt up on to the wagon seat, and whipped the team into movement.

The wagon came around in a tight turn and started up the hill under a barrage of small arms fire. Forrest and Bell stood their ground for as long as their ammunition lasted and then pivoted and ran after the wagon, to be hauled over the tailgate by the giggling Seward and grim-faced Douglas. Scott was lashing the wheels of the field gun to side struts on the wagon.

"Hey!" Forrest yelled in excitement as he slapped his hand on the barrel of the piece. "We got a bigger gun than the rebs now."

"Don't talk about it!" Hedges shouted above the racket of the rifle fire and whine of flying bullets. "Use it."

"Boom!" Seward said with the delight of a child as he watched Douglas feed in a shell.

Cuuuruunch… The sound was deafening and the recoil of the gun rocked the wagon. Smoke belched from the wide muzzle, hot and evil smelling. The Union men peered through it and saw bodies and dismembered limbs sailing across blackened ground.

"That broke 'em up!" Forrest yelled, just as the wagon jolted over the crest of the hill and the pursuers were lost to sight.

From his vantage point Hedges had an uninterrupted view of the river and the thousands of men, streaming across it in full, disorganized retreat. They were on foot and on horseback and many clung to the sides of trundling wagons. Their shouts and screams were answered by rifle fire and the boom of heavy artillery as the jubilant Confederates gave chase. Men fell individually and in groups as bullets and shells found random targets.

A small unit of cavalrymen crested the hill behind the wagon and the mounted gun spoke again. Six horses and their riders went down, mingling their blood in the rich Virginia earth.

"I want to join the artillery!" Seward shrieked as the survivors from the cavalry unit veered away.

"How about the navy?" Hedges asked him as he whipped the horses at full gallop into the Bull Run, trusting to luck that he had picked a shallow place.

"I can't swim," Scott screamed as spray from the flailing hooves of the team showered over the wagon. He didn't have to. The wagon sank to the level of its floor, but the horses, driven by the bite of the whip and their own fear of the gun exploding behind them, used every ounce of their considerable collective power to drag their burden against the pull of the water and burst into a full gallop as it came clear. There were no longer any pursuers hard on the heels of the escaping wagon, but Forrest continued to supervise the loading and firing of the field gun and with each report and recoil the horses were terrified into greater speed.