“Kentucky, we’ve been working together now for over a year and all I know about you is your name and that you’re not from Kentucky, that you like mules, make good coffee, and you’re the best damn orderly I’ve ever worked with.”
“I’m not sure about that best part, but the rest is about right. I was born on a farm about halfway between Charleston and Savannah. My mother died, of consumption I think, when I was two or three. Daddy never would talk about her. He stayed busy working, raising our food and some cotton for cash. Then a rich family by the name of Bryce bought up our place and most of the farms around us. They named it Portland Plantation, and we commenced sharecropping for ‘em. The owners liked Daddy well enough, so after a while he was made overseer. We were living better then. I liked farming. Worked for the Bryces till I was old enough to join up after the war started. I kinda got pushed into being a hospital orderly when there was so many sick and wounded.”
“As I said, you’re damn good at taking care of people. Is that what you’d like to do when you get home, work in a hospital?”
“I did what I had to do but I don’t want to do it no more.”
“I understand. So what would you like to do?”
“Go back to Portland and work with my daddy. I like farming, making things grow.”
“It’s hard work, but you’re young. By the way, how old are you?”
“Can’t rightly say . . . Buck.” A wide grin split his face. “I got your name right. Nineteen or twenty, best I can tell. Most times I feel a lot older.”
Buck nodded. “This accursed war’s aged us all.”
“Sure has. Even them little drummer boys come to look like tiny old men.”
“Sending children off to war like that.” Buck growled. “The ones who aren’t killed will probably go crazy after all they’ve been through. A disgrace, I tell you. Those boys can never be children again.”
“Yessir.” They rode on a few paces. “You’re sure right about that.”
Over the next three hours they left the thick underbrush and towering trees of south central Virginia behind. Buck noted his companion seemed to be as uncomfortable in the saddle as he was. It had been a long while since either of them had ridden for more than a few minutes at a time. When they’d moved from camp to camp it was usually on foot beside wagons or riding in them.
They topped a rise, then descended into a valley and started to cross a stream. Buck noticed circling vultures swooping lower and lower a short distance ahead. As they approached a flock of the carrion-eaters, massed on the ground, reluctantly abandoned their feeding and flapped their wings to lift their swollen bodies into the nearby trees.
Kentucky pointed to an emaciated gelding standing beside an empty wagon. Its slashed harness was draped over the shafts. “Sir, ain’t that the Hewitt’s rig? But . . . that ain’t their mare.”
Something was wrong. “Do you see them?”
“No, sir.”
Buck dismounted and walked cautiously toward the bay. Drawing closer he noticed the animal kept its right foreleg raised. Mrs. Hewitt said the red-haired man was riding a crippled horse. A feeling of dread coursed through him.
Kentucky dismounted. “Sir, there’s blood . . . a trail of blood going into the bushes.”
“Wait,” Buck told him. “Let me get my pistol first.”
But his friend had already started into the brush.
“Oh no, no, no. Oh God.”
Buck raced to join him and found his orderly had dropped to his knees and was retching. What could cause such a violent reaction from a man who’d seen so much death and mayhem?
He searched more closely and immediately understood. His own gorge rose and he began to tremble.
“Sweet Jesus,” he mumbled. “It’s Martha Hewitt and her children.”
The three bodies were sprawled in the undergrowth as if they’d been casually discarded. The vultures had already gouged out the eyeballs and shredded their faces. Congealed blood matted the woman’s thighs and her torn dress. He stared at the body of the girl. Hannah too had been violated. Martha’s throat and the throats of her two children had been slashed from ear to ear, almost decapitating them. He tasted vomit. He’d never witnessed such desecration and horror.
Overhead, cynical buzzards orbited patiently from a safe distance.
Billy’s new crutch, now broken, had been tossed twenty feet away and lay on top of a cedar bush. His forearms were slashed to the bone, obviously defensive wounds. The crippled boy had taken his role seriously and clearly fought to protect his mother and sister. Buck wondered if he’d died before or after them.
“No-o-o,” Kentucky wailed again. “This can’t be. Who could have done such a thing? Oh, God.”
Buck bent down and picked up a blood-soaked bandana. “Damn him. Damn him. Damn him.”
“Who?” Kentucky rose to his feet and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
“Damn him to hell.” It was clear to Buck now. “He killed them all just to get a horse.”
“Who’re you talking about?”
“The redheaded man. The man who killed my brother. The man who killed Clay.”
“You sure?”
“Mrs. Hewitt said he was riding a lame horse and had a rag around his neck.” He held up the blood-stiffened cloth, then flung it into the bushes. “That cowardly bastard, raping and killing a woman and her children. I’ll kill him. I’ll find the son of a bitch and I’ll kill him.”
A minute of tense silence followed. Finally Kentucky spoke.
“We’ve got to bury these folks, sir. We can’t just leave ‘em like this. But we don’t have no shovels, and this ground’s hard as stone.”
It took a moment for Buck to reply, but when he did he spoke with an eerie calmness. “We’ll have to burn ‘em.” He glanced around “There’s plenty of dry brush for kindling. You collect it while I put this horse out of its misery. Then we’ll lift the bodies into the wagon and pull it over the carcass.”
#
By noon the next day the funeral pyre had consumed the profaned bodies of Martha Hewitt and her children. All that remained were ashes, metal fittings, wheel rims . . . and mental images that even time would not erase. Kentucky had mumbled a few words in prayer while Buck stared at the flames, his face grim. The vultures, deprived of their feast, had departed reluctantly.
They mounted and rode without speaking. Kentucky tried periodically to initiate a conversation, but Buck answered only in monosyllables while he stared fixedly ahead as though in a trance.
The miles passed. They headed southeast towards the railroad junction at Burkeville. Abandoned wagons, cartridge cases, dented canteens, and discarded clothing littered the road. Scattered mounds with crude markers mutely testified to the cost in lives for liberty and sovereignty. The war was over, but this torn and bruised land would be a long time healing.
Near Burkeville they stopped and watered their mounts at a shallow brook, then washed the road dust from their hands and faces. A massive oak with low-hanging horizontal branches shaded an old campground by the stream. Rusty cups and canteens, pieces of harness leather and rags were scattered over the otherwise peaceful scene.
After a brief conversation, they decided Kentucky would remain at the site and build a campfire while Buck rode into town to purchase civilian clothes and food. He offered to leave the Colt but Kentucky allowed that he’d be more likely to shoot his own foot than anything else. Buck returned the handgun to his saddlebag, lifted the Henry from its scabbard, and handed it to his friend.