"Damn you, look at me!" Forrest bellowed, raising his hand for another blow.
"She can't," Hedges said softly, as he suddenly realized the reason for the girl's apparent narcosis. "The kid's blind."
Forrest swung around angrily to face Hedges, bringing up his fists as if he intended to rush across the room and lash out at him.
"Blind. Jesus!" Hedges felt the pressure relieved from his hip as Seward muttered the words and lowered his gun.
Scott turned to face the wall and emptied his stomach of the neat whiskey he had drunk downstairs.
"Bastard!" Bell exclaimed.
Hedges took, a step forward, away from Bell's gun, his blue eyes boring into Forrest's face. The power of the accusation forced back the big man's rage like a physical force ramming into a tangible energy.
He dropped his gaze. "How'd I know?"
Hedges turned away and went to the smashed window, to look out across the sweet-smelling porchway with the dead man on it, over the body of the equally dead trooper and into the green distance. He stood there for several moments, breathing deeply of the clean air, ridding his lungs of the putrescence of gunsmoke, whiskey, vomit and sex. Then a movement caught his attention and he focused on the group of huts to one side of the yard. Two Negroes stood there, a man and a woman, both in middle years.
"It's over," he called down to them. "There's a girl here needs your help." The slaves looked at each other, exchanged a few words and then advanced slowly across the yard. Hedges turned from the window and saw that each man was concentrating on the simple process of straightening his clothing. None would meet his gaze. He crossed to retrieve his arms and then went to the side of the bed. The girl had released her grip on the covers and had placed her hands over her bloodied loins; otherwise she had remained the same. Her dress was in tatters so Hedges went to the window again, ripped down one of the drape curtains and spread it over her nakedness.
Then he left the room and without a word the men shuffled out in his wake. The Negro couple were in the hallway below, the woman crying softly, the man holding his hat in front of his body as they looked into the room containing the two dead whites.
"They was good people, sir," the man said softly. "Mister Lincoln, he might be right about some slaves, but these was good people. We didn't want no freedom, sir."
"No way of telling the good from the bad," Hedges answered and glanced at Forrest. "Not even when they wear a uniform."
"How'd we know?" Forrest, demanded, his tone harder now, as he shared the responsibility for what had happened. "She didn't say anything."
"Right," Seward attested. "She could have said. She wasn't dumb."
"No, just proud," Hedges said softly as he watched the Negro couple start up the stairway. "We're the dumb ones." He went out then, and the others followed him, to round up their scattered horses.
*****
GRACE harnessed the big gray to the buggy while her mother gazed with concern at the low cloud and tried to decide if the brightness in the south was a sign of the sun breaking through or a new storm brewing.
"If it starts to look bad, you turn back, you hear," she said at length.
"It's not going to rain any more, mother," Grace answered. "I'm sure of it. I'll be back with the sheriff before you even know it."
"That means you intend to drive fast," the elder woman came back quickly. "You be careful, child. No telling what the rain's done to the trail. Easy enough for a horse to break a leg or a buggy to crack a wheel at the best of times. This is no country to be stranded in."
Grace sighed as she tightened the final strap and patted the horse on the nose. "Nor to be, alone with a murderer," she countered. "Certainly I'm going to hurry, but I won't be reckless." Her boots made sucking sounds as they came free of the yard mud and she climbed up into the buggy. "You have to be careful, too."
She made clucking noises with her tongue and flicked the reins. Her mother moved on ahead to open the gate and then waved as Grace drove the buggy through. She watched its lurching, splashing progress for a full minute before turning to go back to the house. Then she spotted the two guns leaning against the live oak—the stranger's Winchester and the old 'Spencer' from above the mantelshelf. She detoured to get them and took them into the house with her.
A glance into the bedroom showed the stranger was sleeping peacefully after a restless period during which he had cursed aloud at a man named Forrest. In repose his lean features looked more cruel and, at the same time, more handsome than ever.
"Yeah, I reckon you're a mean critter," she muttered. "Might have done the world a favor to let you die."
Then she got some rags from the cupboard beneath the stone sink and sat before the fire as she started to clean the guns. The tall case clock to the right of the fireplace showed the time as one-thirty. By her reckoning, it should take Grace a little over three hours to get to town and return. If the sheriff rode on ahead with his posse, leaving the slower buggy to follow, the waiting time would be less, of course. But the first minute seemed to take an hour and Margaret guessed this was the way it was sure to be.
But then she heard a painful groan from the next room and she got to her feet hurriedly and bustled over to the doorway. The stranger was bathed in sweat again and his facial muscles bulged as his body came as stiff as a ramrod.
"This is it, feller," she said as she went to the bed. "Appears you've fought harder battles than this. Little old fever ain't going to get the better of a man like you."
Edge groaned again, thrashing his arms against the constricting sheets and blankets and tossing his head from side to side as if he was trying to shake it free of his shoulders.
"Jesus, will you look at those stupid bastards!" he shouted at the top of his voice.
"Such language!" Margaret Hope exclaimed."
CHAPTER SEVEN
IF Margaret Hope had been at Bull Run even her strong opinion of foul language may not have been able to withstand the test of frustrating events over which she had no control.
It was July twenty-first and one of the hottest days of a long hot summer. A good day—if such there can be—for a battle, which was a deciding factor in the result.
The speed tempered by caution tactics which Hedges had adopted on the push through the mountains had succeeded in one aspect and failed in another. News of the troop's approach had not preceded its arrival but the battle had begun, with McDowell's Union army engaging Beauregard's Confederates, spread out in an eight mile defensive line.
The rebel general, a great admirer of Napoleon, had modeled his tactics upon the battle plan, at Austerlitz and launched an attack at McDowell's left flank. But this had gone badly wrong as a result of orders which either went astray or were misunderstood: McDowell replied with a thrust at the Confederate left and a large number of Union infantry crossed Bull Run at Sudley Church and moved along the river towards the rebels. It was as the opposing armies clashed at Stone Bridge that Hedges led his men at full charge into the heat of the battle and received his initiation into the full horrors of a war of amateurs.
"Who the hell's on our side?" Douglas yelled as the troopers galloped up behind the Union line, riding with heads down as rifle and artillery fire was directed at them.
As Hedges looked ahead and then across the river to where the main force was located, he drew in his breath and let it out with a stream of obscenity. The corporal had posed a valid question. The regular soldiers of the Union army were correctly attired in blue but the ninety-day militia men had been allowed to wear whatever took their fancy. Many of the soldiers wore gray while others were dressed in garishly bright colors, some patterning their uniforms after the French infantry, with red breeches, blue coats, scarlet sashes and turbans.