Out in the yard he heard a dog barking. It was so normal a sound for a day and a place that would never be normal again.
“It all went wrong from there,” said Grey. “I was still two miles from the abandoned farmhouse when I saw the smoke and heard the gunshots.”
“God.”
“I had my own horse trailing the wagon, and I left the supplies and rode hard for the farm. When I got there, though, the place was on fire and there had to be two hundred Confederate soldiers in the woods. My men were putting up a fight, but they had no chance. They even had a white flag hung out of the front window. A sheet tied to a musket. They were trying to surrender.”
“Were they taken?”
“No,” said Grey, “they were slaughtered. The soldiers kept firing and firing. I wanted to help them, but there were so many of them. I could hear my men screaming inside the house. Screaming and begging and praying to God. I heard them calling my name, too. Shouting it out and damning me. If I’d gotten back sooner I might have saved them. We might have gotten out and gotten away. Instead, I watched them die. I watched from some coward’s hole in the ground and saw those soldiers drag the last of my men out and cut them to pieces. They heaped the bodies in the yard and some of the soldiers pissed on them. They didn’t even bury the dead. They left them all to rot. And it’s all my fault, because I didn’t get back in time.”
“No,” said Looks Away. “If you’d gotten back sooner you’d have died with them.”
“You don’t know that. They were my men, damn it. They counted on me, relied on me. Instead of bringing them back the supplies they needed, I was dallying with a woman. I let what I wanted be more important than what they needed. That makes me a disgrace as an officer and a failure as a man. Don’t try to tell me I’m wrong.”
Silence washed back and forth between them.
“What about the woman?” asked Looks Away after a time. “What about Annabelle?”
Grey had a hard time answering that. “I… I… ah… God.”
Looks Away came over and sat down on the bed next to him. He placed his hand on Grey’s back. “She died?”
Grey nodded. “The people in town… they figured it out. With Union soldiers hiding out in the bayou and a stranger in town to buy supplies… they figured it out. I thought I was being so clever, but I was just a clumsy, arrogant fool.”
“What happened?”
“They came for her the next day. They dragged her out of her house. A dozen men.” He wiped at his eyes. “You know what they did. You know what men do.”
They sat together as the sunlight burned through the windows and threw their shadows on the wall.
“I found her after. After…” Grey sniffed and hung his head. “Since then I’ve felt them. Following me. Hunting me.”
“Who? The soldiers?”
“No — my soldiers. My men. And… Annabelle.”
“Following you?”
“Haunting me. That’s why I left. That’s why I keep moving. They’re always there on my backtrail. At first I thought it was just me being crazy, that I’d lost my mind when I found her that day. But then we met Mircalla.”
“And Veronica.”
“And Veronica.”
“I read enough books about spirits and hauntings since then,” said Grey. “I’m being followed by what they call ‘vengeance ghosts.’ They want revenge for what I did to them.”
“Dear lord,” breathed Looks Away. “But, wait, that’s not all Veronica’s spirit said to you, old chap. She said that ‘not all who walk in shadows are evil.’ That ‘not all of the lonely spirits of the dead wish you harm.’”
“Don’t ask me what she meant by that,” said Grey bitterly. “I know that I’m doomed and probably damned. If I wasn’t such a coward I’ve had stopped and let them catch up to me.”
“You’re no coward, Grey.”
“Really? Tell that to Annabelle and my men.”
“You could be wrong about why they’re following you.”
“I’m not.” Grey stood up. “Come on, Jenny and Doctor Saint are waiting for us. We have a war to fight.”
“You don’t have to fight,” said Looks Away, glancing up at him. “You’ve done your part. You saved lives here in town. You saved Jenny a couple of times. Let that be enough.”
“Meaning what?”
“If you’re afraid of ghosts, old boy, then bugger off. Ride away. Put half a world between you and the dead. Go.”
Grey picked up his gunbelt and strapped it on. “No,” he said heavily. “I’m done running.”
“But—.”
“A man can only be afraid for so long,” said Grey. “A man can only be ashamed so much and then he hits a point. I’m there. If it’s my destiny to die and let my ghosts drag me down to hell, then so be it. If it helps them, if that’s what will give them rest, then okay. I want them to rest. I can’t be the cause of their pain anymore.”
He crossed to the door and stood with his hand on the knob, then turned to Looks Away.
“We probably can’t win this fight,” he said quietly. “You know that, right?”
Looks Away sighed and nodded.
“But I promise you this… I won’t die easy and I won’t die alone. If we’re all going to hell, then let’s take as many of these bastards with us as possible.”
The Sioux stood up. “Just remember that Deray is mine.”
Grey smiled. “No promises.”
“As long as he dies,” said Looks Away.
“As long as he dies,” agreed Grey.
They shook hands and went out to prepare for war.
Chapter Seventy-Six
They all met in the barn Percival Saint used for a lab.
Grey was surprised to find that Brother Joe had joined Jenny and Saint, but not surprised to find that the monk was haranguing them about the possibility of violence.
“We need to find another way,” implored the monk.
Doctor Saint wore a kindly smile and he patted Brother Joe’s shoulder in a tolerant way. “I appreciate and even respect your compassion, my friend. I admire you for it, and believe me when I tell you that if there was any other way to resolve this, I would be the first to volunteer to lead a peace delegation. But Lord Deray is not a reasonable person. He is not offering or asking for terms. He is a conqueror. He is very possibly a madman. And he is, by any practical definition of the word, evil.”
“Even so, we must practice tolerance and—.”
“And what, padre?” asked Grey as he and Looks Away walked over to where the others stood around a big table. “And martyrdom? Sorry, but as noble as that seems when saints do it, none of us here are saints. And I don’t recall a single case, even in the Bible, where martyrdom stopped a war from happening. Can’t recall when it saved innocent lives.”
“Jesus Christ gave his life for—.”
“Let me stop you right there, padre,” said Grey. “You can preach about turning the other cheek until you’re blue in the face, but in this instance you are not preaching to the choir. We’re going to war. We’re here in this room to talk about going to war. We are going to talk about how we’re going to try our absolute damndest to kill Aleksander Deray. That’s what we’re going to do. If you don’t want to hear that conversation, there’s the door. If you want to help us, then by all means go and pray. We could use the help, although at the risk of getting another black mark on my soul, I got to tell you that I haven’t seen much of what you’d call divine protection. Not feeling the love of God right now. So, either help us or hush up.”