Mankillers

“Then that banker noticed me and nudged the doc.” Rufus realized too late he should have ignored them. The oversized hat would have shielded his face.

“Well, if the doc didn’t know he was being followed before,” Hank commented between gulps of warm beer, “he does now.”

“Don’t matter,” Rufus told him. “I know where the doc is, but he don’t know where I am.”

“Why didn’t he go after you?” Zeke wondered.

Rufus had been thinking about that too. “Maybe ‘cause he didn’t want to upset his friend’s funeral.”

“To go after his brother’s killer?” Hank obviously didn’t cotton to the notion. “So he interrupts a funeral. Big deal. The dead don’t care, and he could always explain it to the living.”

“Maybe he didn’t have a gun with him and thought Rufus did,” Zeke suggested.

Hank put his finger to the side of his nose. “I like that better.”

Rufus smiled. “If that’s the case, I reckon I ought to arrange another funeral for him to go to.” He snickered. “Make it his funeral too.”

Shifty brought him another tankard of beer. Time to think.

Doc Thomson knew Rufus was watching him.

Thomson was an expert marksman.

Except for maybe church, even Jewish churches, and funerals, he probably wouldn’t go anywhere without a gun, and he was supposed to be every bit as good with a pistol as he was with a rifle. Rufus knew how good that was.

Should be easy enough to follow him wherever he went, but shooting him in town probably wasn’t a good idea. The locals might catch him, but worse, them damn Yankees might, and they wouldn’t hesitate to shoot him on the spot or take him somewhere and hang him, or at least treat him real bad.

Better for him to pick the time and place, rather than waiting for a chance that might never come. But now that the doc had seen him, it would be too dangerous to go after him alone.

“Think the boys might be willing to help me out, Hank?”

“Told you, everybody liked Floyd and Fat Man. They want their killer almost as much as you do. What do you need?”

Chapter ELEVEN

The following morning after breakfast in the hotel dining room, attended to by a slow-moving but remarkably efficient old black man, Buck went directly to the stage office. The next coach to Charleston wouldn’t be leaving for three days. Good timing. He sent a messenger to Sarah informing her of the schedule, then spent the next couple of hours searching for better clothing at a price he was willing to pay. Confederate money was worthless. Federal currency was in short supply. Most commerce for ordinary people was conducted at the rudimentary barter level. Even the barest of necessities were in short supply. Everything above mere subsistence was now considered a luxury.

Buck was at an unexpected advantage. Asa had refused to even touch the gold and silver Buck had collected from the men who’d attacked him, and as much as Buck loathed its source, he realized it would be foolish to ignore it. Instead, he hoarded it in a way his upbringing never taught him and haggled in a ma

It was close to noon by the time he set out on a journey he knew would be as unsettling as his father’s written farewell. It had been nearly six years since he’d left Jasmine, seemingly at peace with his resolution to never set eyes on it or his father again. But learning his father was dead, he realized he’d undergone a sea change. It was one thing to resent and hold at arm’s length a living man with whom there was still the possibility of reconciliation, and quite another when that person was dead. The same was true but in reverse regarding Jasmine. Dissociating himself from something that was sacred to another member of the family was much easier when he didn’t expect to own it. Now, as the sole heir of the ancestral estate, he had no choice but to return, even if it was for the last time.

Mounting Gypsy, he set off for the plantation, fifteen miles away.

The day was bright and su

At last he came to the long, canopied drive to Jasmine, the Thomson family home. By some miracle the stately oaks had escaped the Yankee vendetta. As Gypsy’s shod hoofs clattered along the red-brick pavement, Buck’s mind slipped back to the last time he’d seen his father, a memory he wished his mind could erase.

#

April, 1859

Jasmine Plantation

South Carolina:

Buck rapped on the door of his father’s study and entered before there was time for a response. Raleigh, seated behind the desk writing in a ledger, looked up. His a

“Welcome home, son,” he said cheerfully. “How was Columbia?”

“Hot and humid. But I’m not here to talk about the weather. Mose just told me Claudius was whipped to death by that son of a bitch overseer of yours.”

Raleigh’s face reddened. “Don’t use that kind of language in my house, son. You know I don’t allow it. Claudius was whipped . . . and then he died. I’ve already fired Snead.”

“Fired! You ought to have shot the son of a . . . that man long ago. He’s been nothing but trouble.”

“He was responsible for a good deal of the success we’ve enjoyed here. He worked hard and expected others to do the same.”

Buck put his hands on his father’s desk and leaned forward. “He beat those people unmercifully, Father. He’s done it for years. I’ve seen the results of his beatings and treated them myself. I’ve told you this many times before, but you wouldn’t listen. Now you’re culpable in a murder.”

Raleigh stood up suddenly. His face was close to Buck’s. “How dare you speak to me that way. I told you Snead’s gone. That’s the end of it.”

“Hell it is. Claudius’s blood is on your hands. You can’t wash it off this time.” He pulled away from the desk, turned his back, then spun around to face his father. He would have liked to shout, but the breeding of good ma

“Now you listen to me, young man. You sound like one of those damn abolitionists.” Raleigh Thomson was livid, shaking with rage. “Those high and mighty Yankees condemn us for having slaves, but they’re the ones who buy them in Africa, build the ships to bring them here, and sell them in Charleston. They’re willing enough to purchase our cotton, picked by those same slaves, for their factories—factories where they employ children and immigrants unable to speak English, to whom they pay starvation wages.” He took a deep breath. “That’s their form of slavery.”

“But they don’t beat them to death!” Buck retorted, his voice finally raised. “They don’t sell them or rip their families apart for profit.” He headed for the door. “Slavery. I’m sick of this whole damn business.”