Caudell nodded again, now with assurance—this was business. As Lang got out the knife, he scooped up the Rivington man’s rifle. He did not relax his vigilance, not one bit; after the Richmond Massacre, could a member of America Will Break be trusted to honor a parole?
But Benny Lang did only what he’d promised, slicing his pants leg so he could see the wound in the outside of his thigh. Had it been to the inside, he would have bled to death in short order. As it was, Caudell, who had enough experience with gunshot wounds to make a fair judge, thought he would recover if fever didn’t carry him off.
Lang might have been reading his mind. “I carry medicine to keep wounds from going bad. I’m going to get that now, and a pressure bandage.” Again he moved with slow care. The medicine came in a little packet. He tore it open, sprinkled some powder onto his leg, and slapped on the bandage. Then he held the packet out to Caudell. “There’s some left. You may need it in a while, or—or your Mollie.”
Caudell took the medicine packet, grunted gruffly as he stuck it in his pocket. He didn’t want to feel beholden to Benny Lang, not any which way. Gruff still, he said, “Stay here. Someone will take you back to the surgeons pretty soon.”
“Spare me that,” Lang said. “It’s a through-and-through wound; so your doctors won’t have to dig the bullet out—not bloody likely you’ll take me to one of ours, is it? I know your men mean well, but—” He shuddered at the very idea, then shook his head. “It all went so well for us, till Lee was elected. Since then, everything’s been buggered up.” He put a hand on the bandage, as if still unwilling to believe ruination could have chosen to visit him personally.
“He’s as settled as he’s going to be,” Caudell said to Mollie. “Let’s get moving.”
But before they could leave, something in Benny Lang’s pocket let out a flatulent burst of noise and then words: “Report your position and status, Lang. Over.”
Nate’s rifle came up again. “What the devil is that?”
“It’s called a radio,” the Rivington man answered. “Think of it as a talking telegraph without wires. May I answer?”
Curiosity and caution fought within Caudell. Curiosity won, barely. “Go ahead, but if you betray us, it’ll be the last thing you ever do.” He jerked the AK-47 to emphasize his words.
“Right.” Lang eyed the rifle’s muzzle with respect. He took out something a little smaller than a low-cut shoe, extended a telescoping metal rod from one end, spoke into the other: “Lang here. I am wounded and captured. Out.”
“You can talk with your people on that—radio, did you say?—any time you want, can’t you?” Caudell asked. When the Rivington man nodded, Nate held out a hand. “Give it here.”
Lang scowled. Instead of obeying, he smashed the radio against a good-sized rock, as hard as he could. Pieces flew in every direction. He said, “Do what you want with me. I won’t let you spy on us.” Caudell’s blood had cooled. After a moment’s anger, he reluctantly lowered his rifle. If he’d been in the Rivington man’s place, he hoped he’d have had the courage to do as Lang had.
Mollie thought of something else: “You’ve had these radio things all along, haven’t you? Ever since you came here?”
Benny Lang nodded again. Caudell saw what Mollie was driving at.” And you never let on, did you? Having these things would have helped us almost as much as our repeaters, I reckon. But you never let on. Why not?”
“If we’d needed to badly enough, I think we would have,” the Rivington man answered. “But we always thought it was a good idea to keep a few secrets of our own. You play poker?”
“Yes,” Nate said.
“Then think of them as an ace in the hole.”
“Fat lot of good they did you.” Caudell took a couple of steps toward the crackle of gunfire ahead. Mollie started to follow.
Benny Lang grimaced when he saw that. “You be careful, Moll. Bullets have no chivalry.”
“Found that out at Gettysburg,” she told him. “I hope you make it, I do.” But after that, she quickly turned back to Caudell. “I’m ready, Nate.” She left Lang without looking behind her.
As they pushed on, Caudell said, “So I’m your intended, am I?” He thought he kept his voice light.
It must not have been light enough; Mollie turned and looked at him through frightened eyes. “Well, ain’t you?”
He wondered how many battlefields had known arguments like this one. Precious few, he thought. Then he realized he had to answer Mollie. “Yup, reckon I am,” he said, “long as we both come out of this alive.”
Her face glowed with that special shine that could make her beautiful, even if she was not particularly pretty. Seeing her expression, Caudell felt himself grinning, too. Now that the words were said, he found he rather liked the idea of being an intended; it gave him a feeling of purpose conspicuously missing from combat.
But he’d said other words as well, and coming out of the fight alive was by no means guaranteed, for him or for Mollie. The woods ended so abruptly that he had to bring himself up short to keep from blundering into open country. Swearing at himself, he peered from behind a tree at the estate ahead.
The colonnaded big house, with wings spreading out to either side, would not have shamed any successful planter in the state. The rows of clapboard slave cabins also argued for extravagant prosperity. But Caudell scratched his head. The slaves had their garden plots, and there was a barn for livestock, but where were the broad acres of corn or cotton or tobacco needed to support such a grand estate?
When he asked that aloud, Mollie said, “The Rivington men ain’t all planters, Nate, but they all live like they was. Why not? They got the gold for it, remember, maybe from sellin’ all our rifles to the gov’ment.”
“Maybe,” Caudell said, though vivid memory reminded him the Confederate government had been a lot longer on promises than hard cash in 1864. But however they came by it, gold the Rivington men certainly had; he could almost feel the sweet heaviness of the one-ounce coins he’d got from the Rivington bank just after war’s end.
He shrugged: one more answer he’d never know. How the Rivington men got their money didn’t matter, not in the middle of a fight. What did matter was that for the moment, anyway, no one was shooting from the big house. Caudell rubbed his chin. The nearest slave hut was hardly more than fifty yards away. He pointed toward it. Mollie nodded. Nate dashed forward, bent at the waist to make as small a target as possible. He dove behind the hut, fetched up against it with a thump. As soon as he was safe, Mollie sprinted up beside him.
They lay there panting for a few seconds, then got to their feet—they still stooped, for the roof was too low to offer much cover—and sidled around toward the front of the cabin. They almost ran into a tall, skinny Negro man hurrying the other way—and almost killed him, too, for Caudell’s heart leaped into his mouth and his finger tightened on the trigger of his rifle. By Mollie’s gasp, the unexpected meeting frightened her just as badly.
If they were frightened, the slave was terrified. He jumped backwards, screaming like a woman, and threw his hands high over his head. “Don’ shoot me!” he squealed. “Don’ shoot poor ol’ raggedy Shadrach who ain’t done you no harm!” Then he seemed to see the uniforms Caudell and Mollie were wearing, instead of merely the AK-47s they carried. His eyes widened till they looked like splashes of whitewash on his black face. “Lawd God,” he said, “you ain’t them devils what owns us? You gummint sojers?”
“That’s right,” Caudell said, thinking that raggedy was a word that fit Shadrach like a second skin. Plenty of his first skin was plain to see, for his gray cotton jacket and trousers were little more than rags. By the ladder of ribs thus exposed, Caudell guessed he was fed no better than he was clothed.