Immortal

39

Ethan flinched and instantly hit the ground, rolling as the blast roared in his ears. He glimpsed Lopez disappearing in the opposite direction and he saw, through the flaps of the tent, the ranks of soldiers outside, their artillery pieces spewing flame and gray smoke.

Lee Carson leapt past Ethan and smashed Zamora out of the way as he bolted out of the tent.

‘Carson, wait!’

Ethan leapt to his feet and rushed outside in pursuit. A thick bank of rolling cordite smoke drifted across the ranks of the soldiers now marching away from them across the open field, Carson having vanished amongst them.

‘What the hell happened?’ Zamora demanded, getting back onto to his feet.

‘He bolted,’ Ethan said. ‘Get out there and find him!’

Lopez joined Ethan, surveying the wide, deep ranks of men now marching across the fields as another deafening artillery volley rang out.

‘We’ll never find him in that!’

Ethan saw a small number of soldiers falling onto the grass, emulating men killed in the advance.

‘He could end up dead if his comrades are here and they’ve seen him talking to us,’ Ethan said. ‘Take the right flank, I’ll take the left. Try to get to the front lines and pick him out before he passes!’

Ethan broke into a run, dashing past men twisting and falling as imaginary musket balls plowed through their flesh. If the bullets were fantasy, the thick clouds of choking smoke were not. Ethan’s eyes began to stream as the dense and swirling fog hung on the heavy air, ranks of soldiers marching stoically through to the sound of rolling drums.

As he sprinted around the Union army’s left flank, he saw ranks of Confederate troops closing head-on, shrouded in their own clouds of smoke and with hundreds of bayonets glittering in the sunlight. He cursed, realizing that when the advance became a general charge and melee their chances of finding Lee Carson in the confusion would be drastically reduced. He turned right as he reached the front rank, jogging down the line and peering through the dense lines of troops. Men glanced at him as he moved past, expressions of surprise on their faces as he ran directly in front of their muskets.

‘To the front, fire!’ The bellowed command of an officer rang out, and Ethan instinctively ducked as the front rank’s muskets whipped up and a blast of smoke and noise billowed over his head. In quick order, the second and third ranks let fly with their musket volleys and then the commanding officer, still astride his magnificent palomino, raised his saber high in the air.

‘General charge!’

There was just enough time for Ethan to utter a curse and then, with a thousand war cries, the Union army broke ranks and charged, bursting from the clouds of smoke and thundering across the field. He dodged left and right as they rushed at him from out of the gloomy fog, as at the same time the rebel troops opposite broke their line and charged in response.

Ethan turned and ran with the Union forces, looking left and right for Lee Carson through the confusion and noise. His eyes lit upon a man perhaps twenty yards away, running with his rifle held in gloved hands. Ethan changed course, smashing sideways through the ranks of charging soldiers, stumbling over and around them to a volley of irritated shouts and curses.

He saw the gloved man glance in the direction of the shouts, saw Carson’s features flare with recognition. Ethan shouted out above the noise, ‘Carson, stand still! It’s too dangerous!’

Carson ignored him and accelerated into a sprint. Ethan raced after him when suddenly a huge figure loomed up on his right, his rifle raised high so that the butt was aiming at Ethan’s head. The weapon smashed down toward him as he caught a glimpse of a drooping gray moustache and furious eyes sheened with a misty glaze. Ethan recognized the man he’d seen leaving the elevators at the Hilary Falls apartments. He dodged right, under the man’s charge and the wildly swinging rifle as he drove his shoulder into the man’s chest. The man’s bulk slammed hard into Ethan’s shoulder, spinning him aside as the big soldier charged through. Ethan whirled and slammed down onto the grass, rolling and covering his head as Union troops dashed past or jumped over his body. He struggled to his feet and saw the big man vanish into a dense tangle of screaming bodies as the two armies smashed together in the center of the field. The sound of clattering bayonets and clashing swords rang out, a flickering sea of metal flashing across the field amidst roiling blue and gray uniforms.

Ethan sprinted after the big man, cursing his heavy jacket and pants as he shoved his way through writhing bodies and drifting whorls of smoke, searching for Carson once more. He could see the distant figures of the crowd watching from the edge of the field, and knew that if Carson made a break for it he would be seen almost immediately. He had to stay with his army until they broke off the battle.

A Confederate soldier appeared in front of Ethan, raising his musket and shooting a wiry-looking man in a Union uniform. The Union soldier made a show of clasping his stomach in agony, then toppled onto the grass, his rifle falling by his side. Ethan whirled as someone rushed at him, and he saw a short, podgy man in Confederate dress with a flushed face take aim and fire his musket directly at Ethan’s chest. A cloud of smoke billowed into Ethan’s face, his eyes watering and a sudden terror rippling through his belly at the sight of a weapon discharged at him from point-blank range. He stood rooted to the spot, his hands instinctively flying to his chest to search for injuries.

The smoke cleared and the Confederate soldier stared at Ethan in outrage.

‘Hey, you’re dead! That’s cheating!’

Ethan took one stride forward, grabbed the rifle’s stock and yanked the man holding it toward him, as he punched his other fist straight into the rotund soldier’s face. The soldier squealed, grabbed his nose and rolled away onto the grass as Ethan tossed the rifle at him and squinted through the rolling smoke.

A large man, the same soldier who had barged past him, got down onto one knee amid the endlessly running and screaming soldiers and lifted his rifle, taking careful aim. Ethan realized that he was aiming into his own troops and suddenly spotted Carson in amongst the mayhem.

‘Carson, get down!’

Lee Carson turned, looking straight at Ethan for a split second before the man with the rifle fired. Ethan saw the bullet hit Carson in the chest. Carson flew backwards from the impact and toppled over two men engaged in a bayonet battle behind him. Ethan sprinted forward as the big man ran past Carson’s body, lying among hundreds of others on the grass. Ethan slid down beside Carson and saw thick blood matting his shirt. Carson’s eyes were infected now with fear, as though he were once again a twenty-year-old kid. He grabbed Ethan’s shirt and gritted his teeth.

‘I’m done bad, ain’t I?’ he gasped with a conviction Ethan couldn’t deny.

‘You’re going to be fine,’ Ethan assured him. ‘Hang in there.’ But Carson’s face had turned a pale and sickly white, his gaze drifting as he lost focus on Ethan. ‘Stay with me, Lee!’

Carson focused briefly, still gripping Ethan’s shirt, his voice a ragged whisper. ‘Saffron Oppenheimer,’ he rasped. ‘Let… you… kill… her.’

Ethan held Carson in his arms and struggled to hear his words over the chaos of the battle around them.

‘What? What about Saffron?’

Carson’s reply was an inaudible rasp as his grip on Ethan’s shirt weakened and he sank back onto the grass. Ethan saw that the blood staining Carson’s shirt was no longer flowing, and he realized that the man’s heart had given out.

The cries of battle turned to a sudden flurry of gasps and exclamations that filtered through the soldiers around Ethan as they realized that Carson was not acting.

‘He’s been shot!’ a trooper shouted. ‘Somebody’s got a real gun!’

Panic erupted around Ethan as men began shouting and running from the field. Ethan lurched to his feet and sprinted in pursuit of the large man who had shot Carson. The realization that somebody had actually been killed raced through the ranks almost as fast as Ethan was running, and the soldiers began breaking away from each other, dashing for the safety of their tents.

Ethan saw the officer on the big palomino, swinging his sword at men around him as though swatting flies. As he swished the weapon at a nearby Confederate soldier, Ethan grabbed his wrist and with a yank and a twist hauled the officer out of his saddle to land with a thump on the grass in a tangle of limbs. Ethan grabbed the saddle and hauled himself up to survey the chaotic battlefield, taking the reins and turning the horse full circle.

The big man stood out like a sore thumb among the hundreds of troops, standing head and shoulders above them as he dashed for the edge of the field.

Ethan kicked the horse’s flanks, hanging on as the animal dug in and accelerated across the field as though possessed. Ethan bellowed at bewildered re-enactors to get out of the way as the palomino thundered toward them. He saw Lopez and Zamora appearing from the hordes, their faces flushed with exhaustion and surprise as Ethan rode up to them and hauled the horse to a halt.

‘Call for police and an ambulance,’ Ethan said to Zamora. ‘Carson’s been shot.’

‘Where’s the shooter?’ Zamora asked, pulling out his radio.

Ethan pointed across the field.

‘That way, a real big guy.’ He reached down to Lopez. ‘Coming along?’

Lopez took two paces, grabbed Ethan’s proffered hand and swung herself up into the saddle behind him.

‘Who the hell are you now?’ she asked over his shoulder. ‘The Lone Ranger?’

Ethan didn’t answer, driving the stallion forward again. The horse thundered across the field through veils of cordite smoke as Ethan pulled the reins to avoid trampling oblivious re-enactors lying in the grass clasping their various imagined wounds. Ahead, he saw the big man duck under a rope partition separating the spectators from the battle, and flee through the crowd toward the exits.

‘Can you jump that?’ Lopez shouted above the thundering hooves and wind.

‘I’m not worried about the fence,’ Ethan replied. ‘I’m worried about the crowd.’

Ahead, lines of excited faces clapped and nudged each other, pointing at the palomino with its Union rider galloping toward them. Ethan swung his arm at them, trying to get them to move. Several parents and children started waving back at him.

‘Get out of the goddamned way!’

Faces started falling as the spectators became dimly aware that the horse bearing down upon them wasn’t showing any signs of slowing down. Suddenly there was a parting of the crowd as people stumbled over each other to get out of the way. Ethan lifted the horse up, the stallion clawing the air as it hurled itself over the partition and landed safely on the other side, angry spectators bellowing at Ethan as they galloped past.

‘A touch more realistic than they would have liked,’ Lopez shouted.

Ethan concentrated on guiding the horse as they reached the edge of the fields, where the big man was running toward a beaten-up old Crown Victoria parked by the sidewalk. Ethan saw him clamber in and the car pulled away.

‘Hang on!’ he shouted, and yanked the reins to the left.

The stallion responded eagerly as it followed the car, the thunder of hooves on grass giving way to the clatter of iron on asphalt as they burst out onto California Street between lanes of traffic.