Inherit the earth? Buck mused as he glanced around. Not much of a patrimony. For evildoers shall be cut off.
The lanky amputee hoisted himself onto a moving flatbed. Buck recovered his voice in time to call out, “Thank you, preacher.” The wagon creaked into the trees.
An eerie stillness settled over the encampment as the forest absorbed the rattling of the wagons and the voices of the departing soldiers. Only a thin wisp of smoke now threaded the sky above the farm across the creek. The field between the shack and the stream was deserted as well. Kentucky remained down by the dying fires preparing his mule.
Mounds of earth scattered over the field marked graves. Some bore crude wooden crosses, others were barren.
Piles of cast-off clothing, ashes from the burned horses, and scattered ration boxes were the final remnants of the agony and death inflicted on this once fertile meadow.
Buck trudged up the incline to the grave on the knoll. At home marble tombstones commemorated the lives of Thomsons. Here Clay’s final resting place was indicated by a rude cross fashioned from rough planks torn from an old building. The inscription read:
CLAY A. THOMPSON
b. Dec. 12, 1843
d. Apr. 12, 1865
John 15:13
Buck stared at the lonely mound of earth. His brother had been twenty-one. He hadn’t had a chance to grow up or grow old. What kind of man would he have made? A distinguished plantation owner? A responsible philanthropist and respected member of the community? Or would he have continued the path of a reckless wastrel? What was it Clay had wanted to tell him? Was there trouble at home? Had something happened to their father? Had the Yankees destroyed Jasmine?
Buck felt a pang of conscience that he couldn’t recall the verse of scripture on the marker. He hadn’t carried a Bible through the campaigns as so many others had. Perhaps Kentucky would know the reference.
Shifting visions flitted through his memory—-Clay as a small boy rearing his horse in the front yard of Jasmine to the terror of their mother and the proud chuckle of their father. The hoop-skirted young ladies giggling behind their fans as they crowded around the strapping adolescent at barbecues and hung onto his every word. Buck did his best to blot out the image of his brother’s abrupt end, but he couldn’t erase it. Ever. Nor could he dispel the almost orgasmic sensation he’d experienced when he executed Zeb Feeney.
He’d never been one for long prayers, even when religion was a more prominent part of his life, so now he simply murmured, “Clay, little brother, I love you. May God help me find the man who killed you. Amen.”
He strode to where Clay’s horse was tethered, picked up a pail of grain, held it in front of him and slowly approached the gelding with a stream of soothing words. Curiosity and hunger overcame the animal’s instinctive apprehension. Soon he was chewing oats while Buck stroked his neck and shoulders.
From there he returned to the shack, still marveling that his own stomach was full, his patients well cared for and being moved to real hospitals, no longer his responsibility. Tonight there’d be no screaming, no sawing, no blood. At last it was time to pack up and leave this accursed place.
Kentucky had cleaned Buck’s surgical instruments and stowed them in a satchel which he could tie to his saddle. Clay’s Henry rifle and Colt pistol lay on the table. The last two bottles of laudanum and a capped half-flask of chloroform were wrapped in torn sheets, ready to be packed in his bags. Tomorrow he would wear his only decent clothes, boots, and hat, and have all of twenty dollars and change in his pockets.
Clay’s saddle sat on the floor of the adjacent room. Kentucky had placed his cavalry hat beside it. Buck stared at it, at the blood matting the yellow plume. He plucked off the top portion and stuck it in his pocket. I’ll give it to Poppa, along with the watch, all that’s left of his favorite son. Then he hurled the hat itself out the window.
Now for the unpleasant task of going through his brother’s possessions. In addition to fifty-five dollars in Confederate paper, he found the scabbard for the Henry, a supply of ammunition for the rifle and the revolver. After reloading the Colt with five cartridges, he lowered the hammer on the empty cylinder. Next he replaced the two spent cartridges in the Henry. With this armory and a good horse his chances of reaching South Carolina substantially improved.
“Sir, it’s ‘most dark,” Kentucky said from the open doorway. “We staying here tonight?”
“Might as well. We both need rest. We’ll use the rooms here and leave early in the morning.”
Buck was bone weary. The accumulated physical strain of the past three years had caught up with him, three years of cutting off hands and feet, arms and legs, of leaving men maimed, lame and sometimes helpless for the rest of their lives—if they chose to survive. Many didn’t.
He wrapped himself in a blanket and lay down on the floor. Soon, like a candle guttering out, he drifted off to sleep. In his dreams he once again felt the heft of a pistol in his hand and pressed the muzzle to the neck of a man with long red hair. He was jolted awake when the man’s head exploded.
For evildoers shall be cut off.
#
The next morning Buck sat on the porch steps with his chin in his hands mulling over the night’s disturbing dream as he watched dawn steal over the treetops along the creek. The insistent chirping of birds began to replace the nocturnal drone of insects. He heard Kentucky rouse.
After feeding and saddling Clay’s horse, Buck stowed his belongings in the saddlebags, added his medical kit and bedroll. The orderly approached with a steaming pot in one hand and leading his saddled mule with the other.
“Coffee, sir? Let me tie this here mule, and I’ll get some cups from the house.”
“I’ll bring them, Kentucky.”
A few minutes later the two men were sitting on the cabin steps, each with his elbows resting on his knees. “I’ve been thinking.” Buck took a sip of his coffee. “The war’s over. I’m no longer an officer, and you’re no longer a sergeant. So why don’t you call me Buck. What do you prefer to be called by? Your nickname or your given name?”
The young man snorted. “I’m so used to Kentucky now, Asa sounds kinda funny to me.”
“Good. It’s Buck and Kentucky, then. Now we need to name our mounts.” Buck paused. When he spoke, his voice was husky. “I have no idea what Clay named his horse. Gypsy sounds like something he would’ve chosen. I’ll use that. What about you?”
“I’m gonna call mine Mule, ‘cause that’s what he is. How long you reckon it’ll take us to get to South Carolina, sir, I mean, Buck?”
“No telling. I suspect we’ll have to go most of the way in the saddle. According to the reports I heard Sherman tore up the railroads. What’s today anyway? I can’t remember.”
“Friday, sir . . . uh . . . Buck. April fourteenth. Good Friday. Sunday’s Easter.”
“Well, Kentucky, Good Friday’s as good a time as any for us to be on our way.”
The younger man rose. “Ain’t nothing left here but sorrow. I’ll be glad to be shed of this place.”
Buck surveyed the scene around him. “This was a farm before we came here. Now it’s a graveyard, like every other place I’ve been to for years now. One graveyard after another.” He stared into space for a moment. “I almost forgot. What do those Bible verses on Clay’s marker mean?”
“Preacher Tate told me. Something about ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that he would lay down his life for his friends.’”
A lump formed in Buck’s throat. “Let’s ride.”
The sun flickered like firelight through the leaves as they traveled east under a sheltering green canopy of oak and hickory. Buck found it hard to believe they weren’t riding to yet another battle and fetid campground. Several miles passed before he broke the silence.