Mankillers

He laid his weapon on the ground. The only sound in the black night was the blubbering of the whip-man as he rocked back and forth, clutching the raw end of his forearm. Instinctively, Buck noted his vice-like grip formed a tourniquet.

He raced to the torture tree. “Hang on, Kentucky. Hang on. They won’t hurt you anymore.”

He removed the gag from his friend’s mouth and with infinite care cut the bindings from his arms. Gently he lowered him, first to a sitting position on the ground, then onto his stomach. Kentucky’s back was raw flesh. If he survived, it would be with scars resembling those of the most abused slaves.

“Lie as still as you can. I’ll get the laudanum. Then I’ll fix you up.”

Kentucky blinked slowly, then jerked uncontrollably as a spasm of pain ripped through him.

From the corner of his eye Buck spied the whip-man—Amos—slithering toward the cast-off gun. Buck weighed his options. He could retrieve his weapon before the one-eyed sadist reached it. With the pull of the trigger he could send the devil’s soul to its eternal reward.

For evildoers shall be cut off.

But not yet.

Buck snatched up the whip, scraped off the bloody remnants of the man’s hand, quickly assessed its balance and, in one fluid motion, cracked it over the miscreant’s head.

“Next time I take out your other eye,” he told the man on the ground. Buck picked up the Colt, tucked it in his belt and hurried to Gypsy.

Returning with his medical kit to the campfire a minute later, he found Kentucky in a pain-induced stupor. His breathing was shallow, his pulse thready. He didn’t respond to questions. Buck knew his life was ebbing.

Working rapidly, he tore remnants of the young man’s clothes into strips and padded his rectum until the hemorrhage had ceased. With some difficulty he raised him into enough of an upright position for him to swallow the laudanum. Only when the narcotic had taken effect did Buck proceed to dress his lacerated flesh with cloth strips. For the moment, there was little more he could do.

Leaving him, Buck searched the bodies of the two dead men and found a hundred dollars in gold coins in one of their pockets.

“How about you, Amos, you got any money?”

The whip man hadn’t moved from where Buck left him. Still clutching his shattered stump, his eyes wide with fear, he said nothing. Buck roughly emptied his pockets and found almost $300 in gold and silver and a single gold nugget about the size of a butterbean.

Sweet Jesus. The nugget that Martha Hewitt found in Feeney’s mash.

“Where’d you boys get all this money? You rob a bank? Anybody else in this gang of yours hiding off somewhere?”

“I’m dying. Help me.”

“Where’d you get this nugget?”

“Pegleg give it to me.”

“Where’d he get it?” Buck stood over him, the toe of his boot poised a few inches from the man’s groin.

“The woman had it.”

“He rape her?”

“That’s how he found the nugget. It was in her drawers.”

Buck saw white. His finger twitched on the trigger of the Colt. “Why’d you cut their throats?”

The whip man sucked in a breath. “We was low on bullets.”

Inexpressible rage welled inside Buck. As Martha Hewitt had said, some men deserved to die, and this man qualified, but still not quite yet. “Tell me about the red-headed man—” he nodded toward the nearly headless corpse a few yards away “—the one your friend mentioned.”

“Ain’t one of us. He was switching horses with the woman when we rode up. She was begging him not to take their nag, but he paid her no mind and rode off on it.”

“Describe him.”

“Little feller, long red hair. None of us never seen him before. Had a bandage ‘round his neck, headed east.” The man’s breathing was labored. “I swear that’s all I know, mister. Now help me. You go

“No, I’m not.” Buck leveled the pistol at his head and pulled the trigger.

For evildoers shall be cut off.

He returned to Kentucky’s side. The rectal bleeding had ceased; his breathing had improved; and his heartbeat was stronger. Buck sighed with relief and adjusted the blankets.

Through the night he sat by his friend, monitored his pulse, watched for recurrent bleeding and tended the fire.

Who are these men? Where do such beings come from? Were they once simple farmers, blacksmiths, draymen, who’d been so shattered by war that they’d degenerated into beasts? Or were they diseased from birth, and spent a lifetime as prowling vultures feeding on the carrion of war and the misfortunes of others? Is death the only answer for such people?

And have I been chosen to rid the world of such vermin?

He gazed at the three bodies scattered around the campsite. He had no regrets.

And what of the redheaded man? He stole a horse and left a woman and her children to the merciless depredations of these sadistic murderers.

His time will come.

#

As dawn broke, Buck shrugged off his blanket and moved closer to Kentucky’s side. His breathing was deep and regular, there was no evidence of further blood loss, and his color was good.

Buck stirred the coals of the smoldering fire to a warm glow and put coffee on to boil while he washed up at the stream. He watered and saddled their mounts then packed the saddlebags.

Kentucky began to stir.

“Good morning.” Buck tried to sound positive, but his voice was husky as he stooped to examine his patient. “Last night you had me worried, but you’re still with us, and that’s a good sign.”

Kentucky turned his head.

“Don’t try to talk now. There’ll be time for that later. Right now what you have to do is get well. And you will. Give yourself time. It’ll get better. I promise.”

Mindful of the young man’s anguish and humiliation, Buck gently but thoroughly palpated his abdomen. “You’re not tender down here but you have a lot of healing to do. No solid food for a while.”

Buck cleansed and redressed the lacerated flesh. Occasionally Kentucky flinched but never uttered a sound.

“I realize it’s painful for you to move, but it’s too dangerous for us to stay here. I’ll make it as easy for you as I can, but we have to leave this place. Do you understand?”

Kentucky nodded.

Buck helped him into the clothes he’d bought in Burkeville. Aware of how miserable the coming journey would be, he gave him another dose of laudanum, then set about padding Mule’s saddle with the dead men’s blankets. Carefully he helped the sweating, trembling rider onto it.

Their procession into Burkeville was slow but attracted no more interest than Buck’s visit had the day before. They followed the directions they received from a stranger on the street to the town’s sole remaining apothecary’s shop to buy salve and dressings. Rather than dismount and then have to remount, Kentucky remained on Mule while Buck went inside to make the purchases.

“Ever been on a steamboat, Kentucky?” he asked after they were again underway.

No answer.

“Seems to me the deck chair of a paddle-wheeler will be easier on your backside than the saddle on Mule. What say we get a buggy and go to Norfolk, then take a steamship from there to Charleston?”

No response.

They proceeded to a livery stable where, after brief negotiations Buck was able to purchase a well-used but serviceable high-wheeled buggy. The grumbling of his stomach a