Beaudry's Ghost Read online

  “Mornin’, Lieutenant. The accommodations were quite adequate, thank you.” Something flickered in Harris’s face. No. Wrong. Not neutral enough.

  “So I hear.” Harris, casually drew his sword and examined its flawless edge. Jared recognized the weapon as something the cavalry had thrown away as useless in battle, though a few kept it for the dashing figure it cut.

  The smoke of a breakfast fire drifted into Jared’s face and stung his eyes. All around him, the men stirred, gathered their belongings and scrounged for food. A few looked his way, but stayed prudently in the background. The noise was gradually drowned out by the blood rushing in Jared’s ears as he focused all his attention on the sword.

  “Sir?” He modulated his question as carefully as his building anger and pounding heart would let him.

  Harris let the point of the sword swing down, and let it drop close to Jared’s foot. He alternated small lifts and drops, coming closer and closer to Jared’s shoe, playing a macabre game of mumbly peg with a prisoner who couldn’t move no matter how chicken he got. A familiar, ominous tingle sizzled down Jared’s right leg—the same way his wrist had simmered before exploding in pain—and sweat broke out on his face. He wasn’t sure why this was happening—maybe healing was meant to be more painful than injury—but it was damned unpleasant.

  “I hear,” continued Harris, “that one of our boys was kind enough to let you rest a bit on the wagon during last night’s march.”

  To lie about it would do him no good. Jared clenched his jaw, shifted his gaze to the ground and willed the muscles in his leg to relax as the phantom pain in his leg mounted. Don’t push him. Let him think he has control. Damn, I hate this.

  Quick as thought, the sword point flashed and took a sample of fabric from Jared’s right trouser leg. The skin was untouched, but now lay exposed.

  “That’s all right, Mr. Beaudry,” said Harris pleasantly, spearing and lifting the bit of fabric to examine it. “If you prefer to ride while my men walk, we can arrange it so there’s no need to feel guilty.”

  Jared’s resolve crumbled as his natural reflexes begged to be let loose. Verbal defense was all he had left to him; to strike out physically was impossible. His muscles jerked involuntarily as Harris rid the saber of the bit of fabric, using the side of Jared’s knee.

  His ropes gave. Ever since Harris’s initial greeting, Jared had unconsciously exerted steady pressure on them, and it came as quite a surprise to feel them give. Only a little, but just enough… Taylor.

  The sword point flashed again, and Jared swallowed hard. This time a real sting of pain joined the phantom tingle in his leg, and a real trickle of blood ran warm and sticky down his shin.

  “I think your information may be biased, Lieutenant,” gritted Jared, determined to show no weakness. His stomach turned to acid with the effort. “Could be some of your men have in it for Bluebellies in general, and are venting their frustrations on me.” There. That sounded reasonable. Jared risked a quick glance away from Harris’s sword and found Taylor. Lije had a hand on her arm, and he was keeping up a steady stream of talk in her ear while forcibly restraining her. For a fleeting second their eyes locked.

  He saw her blink, and he hoped to God she had somehow heard his silent plea for her to stay away.

  Harris had seen their exchange. “Worried about your little friend, Beaudry?” He laid the edge of the sword on Jared’s wound and made it precisely a quarter inch wider, watching for some kind of reaction on the Yankee’s face, frowning when Jared allowed none. “You shouldn’t worry. I’ll deal with Private Taylor in my own good time.”

  White sparks of rage spouted behind his eyelids as he clenched his eyes shut, fighting to control the urge to yank his loosened bonds free and lunge for Harris’s throat. He must not…must not. If he didn’t react, Harris might grow bored and leave him alone.

  “Right now,” Harris continued, “we need every man for when your gallant comrades make their pitiful appearance. With any luck, you’ll still be alive to watch.” He moved his sword point to the other side of the wound and made another cut. This time he smiled in satisfaction when Jared’s breath hissed between his teeth, taking the reaction for fear, and not for the boiling rage it concealed.

  Jared spotted Taylor as she jerked free of Lije’s grip and made a move for her musket, useless as it was. Jared’s body went cold. With all his heart and mind he willed her to stop, but this time she didn’t seem to hear. Musket clasped in her slim, strong hands, she bore down on Harris with a look in her eye Jared knew and dreaded. He let his chin drop a notch. He had failed. Taylor was again going to get between him and Harris, and this time she was going to die.

  The sight and the smell of his blood only seemed to egg Harris on. “Your friends seem reluctant to join us, though, so I fear I will have to extend that invitation after all…”

  Instinct finally took over and Jared gave a mighty tug at his ropes. They gave a little more, but not enough, not nearly enough, for him to get out of the way.

  Metal clanged against metal when the descending edge of the sword met an obstruction. Harris was forced to take a step back as Taylor whipped the muzzle of her gun up and back, nearly twisting the sword out of his hands. Unfortunately, he retained his grip and swiftly brought the point back to rest at the base of her throat.

  “Ah, Private Taylor. We were just talking about you. How kind of you to join…”

  “General Wise will hear about this, Lt. Harris.” Taylor felt the sword point press against her flesh, but felt oddly calm. At this point in time and space, she stood planted exactly where she was supposed to be—between Jared and eternal suffering without his limbs. She recognized the weapon as one passed down through several generations of Stephen Powell’s family. Suddenly she wondered if Zachariah Harris was indeed a member of Stephen’s family tree. Now, if she could only—only what? Where did she go from here?

  She had two answers in less than a second. Quiet shuffling sounds behind her told her Jared was using her distraction to work on freeing himself. And Lije Gulley’s round, bearded face appeared behind Harris’s shoulder, several paces back. His black eyes were hard to read, but there was a flicker of something in his face…

  Leon, you are in there, aren’t you? Lije might follow his leader blindly, but not you. You won’t let anything happen to me.

  From behind, Jared’s molten rage spiraled up her spine. She didn’t even have to touch him to feel it, it was so strong. At once frightening and thrilling, it gave her a wholly inappropriate urge to laugh.

  “What are you smiling about, Private?” snarled Harris.

  Taylor quickly wiped away the smile she hadn’t realized was there.

  K-krak!

  The cool morning shattered with the sound of musket fire. Taylor turned and saw a picket appear, running flat out from between two sand dunes, gesturing frantically to his rear and shouting something about “Bluebellies! Dozens of ’em!” Instantly, every man in grey scrambled for their weapons. All except Harris, who stood with this sword still pointed at Taylor, staring incredulously into the face of a possibly fatal mistake. Out of an opportune patch of morning mist, Union troops appeared, moving smartly up the beach from the south.

  Not the north, as Lt. Harris expected. The south, as the re-enactment schedule dictated.

  She squinted through the mist and saw the Union commanding officer holding a quick consult with two sergeants, one of them holding a piece of paper, pointing to it as the other two read over his shoulder. Undoubtedly it was their copy of the schedule and they were trying to figure out if the Rebel unit had moved early, or if theirs was late.

  With a low, animal sound, Harris shoved Taylor aside and bent to take Jared’s collar in a savage grip.

  “I should have known you would lie to me, you Yankee scum. There never was a brigade of cavalry coming down from the north, was there? They came ashore south of here, probably at Oregon Inlet, correct?”

  Jared met Harris’s icy grey eyes and grinne
d. Taylor’s silent pleas for him to shut up went unheeded, as usual.

  “I never lied to you, Lieutenant,” he said reasonably. “I simply withheld a small bit of vital information. A perfectly normal thing to do in wartime, is it not?”

  Harris’s face went white. “You are a dead man, Mr. Beaudry. A very, very dead man.”

  Holding Jared’s narrowed gaze, Harris slowly, deliberately wiped his bloody sword on the side of Jared’s neck, then strode away, waving it like a directional flag and shouting orders for his men to form up. Jared held perfectly still for a few seconds, then sagged to the left with a groan that sounded like he was in pain.

  With an abrupt snap, the pole that served as both his prison and his prop gave way. Jared flopped ignominiously to his side, and lay there like a turtle on its back. Though a turtle probably would only be mildly irritated, not as enraged as Beaudry.

  Taylor grabbed two handfuls of his coat and pulled him upright, and she wondered incongruously how much longer his coat was going to hold up under these repeated assaults. Soldiers in grey passed them to form a line of defense as Taylor pulled her pocketknife and made a quick swipe at his ropes, cutting the main one partway through.

  “Stop that! Are you crazy?” He jerked away. “Get in line with the others before Harris sees you!”

  “Harris is busy.” Her hands shook, and she paused to draw a breath to steady them before she cut more than just rope. She took a second to examine the wound on his leg. It ran with blood, but it wasn’t deep. She wondered if Stephen had successfully restrained his spiritual captor from doing more extensive damage.

  “I…said…no!” Jared moved away as far as his bonds would allow. They matched glare for glare for a long moment, just long enough for Lije to grab the back of her coat and lift her bodily to her feet.

  “Ye’re just beggin’ fer a firin’ squad, ain’t you boy?” he growled. “Ain’t nobody in my platoon as troublesome as you.”

  She found herself propelled toward the front line, where the Confederates were using pots, pans, rifle butts and hands to dig a shallow trench in the sand. No one suggested taking cover in the dunes, for that would have led to a deadly game of hide and seek no one would win. The Union troops halted less than fifty yards away. They quickly formed two lines, one kneeling in front, the second standing behind. A classic formation. The first line would fire, then reload while the second line took its turn.

  Even Jared’s quest faded to the back of her mind as her own personal moment of truth approached. Her own brother had died, presumably in a firefight, though the actual cause of death was “classified”. He had died before she’d had a chance for good-byes and fence mending. Since that one blinding stab of pain, she had felt nothing from him. Where he was concerned, her psychometric powers seemed stuck in neutral, as if he awaited some signal. Well, she hoped this was it. She had deliberately placed herself in a combat situation, albeit a radically different one, to see if this was what Troy wanted. For her to experience what he had.

  Still, there really wasn’t much to actually fear, save for Harris’s fascination with sharp objects. Luck had twice been with her in that respect, and she was beginning to feel downright invincible. She let the giddy feelings build, helping dig a section of shallow trench, while keeping herself open for some signal from Troy.

  She settled in next to Lije and shouldered her Enfield, secure in the knowledge that with all the guns loaded with blanks, no one would get hurt.

  Jared stared at the Union blue uniforms a hundred yards away, fading in and out of drifting patches sea mist. He worked at getting his loosened ropes the rest of the way off. Those men over there had no idea of the dark events taking place in this Confederate camp. Men from two different centuries were about to clash, and neither side had the faintest idea it was happening. The collision of time could be fatal.

  His heart rate sped up in a familiar rhythm, spurred by memories of past battles and by the fact that he sat in the line of Union fire. He knew Taylor had said no one used live ammunition, but hell, he technically wasn’t live either. No telling what a stray phantom bullet could do to him. All the more reason to move.

  Harris strode up and down behind his men, issuing orders and encouragement, looking more like a general than a lowly lieutenant. The man had no fear. He offered a clear target for Union bullets, but his erect posture mocked any possibility of death. No wonder his men admired him. Jared had to begrudge a small bit of admiration himself for the man’s visceral fortitude. Or arrogant stupidity. Jared had never shrank from his duty, had even gone beyond it at times; but at the same time, he’d never willingly given the enemy such a clear target.

  He couldn’t suppress a groan as his leg warned him that the same pain that had earlier pierced his hand threatened to make a return visit. Before it did, he wanted his limbs free. The thought of being crushed under the pain while tied down twisted his gut.

  He frowned as the lieutenant halted behind Taylor and drew his pistol. At that range, the pistol would be useless for firing at the Yankees. Only one other reason would cause him to use it. And at this point Jared had no faith that the weapon remained loaded with blanks.

  Taylor didn’t see Harris, her back to him as she fit her rifle to her shoulder and took aim like a practiced soldier. Someone had taught her well—Troy, undoubtedly. Harris’s pistol remained at his side, pointing down. But waiting. Waiting.

  “Fire!”

  Half the Rebel line fired, a great ripping crackle tearing into the air, a sulphurous cloud of white smoke catching hold of the rising breeze and drifting landward.

  Hard on the heels of the discharge, a shout of frustration went up from the trench.

  Lije Gulley flipped to his back and screamed, “Suh, these here cartridges is empty as my momma’s cradle!”

  “What!” roared Harris, not flinching as the Union forces returned fire. Jared noted that no one in the blue lines seemed to notice their own guns were firing blanks. Obviously, they had no idea whom they were up against.

  Harris wasted no time on anger or blame. “Men, check your ammunition supply! Follet, get fresh cartridges in the wagon box and distribute them! Sgt. Howard, you and Pierce get up in those dunes see if you can find a spot to fire down into those Bluebellies.”

  Jared began to tear at his ropes. The live rounds are locked in the wagon box, Taylor had said. He sought and found her eyes, wide and sparkling with new terror. In that instant, he knew that she had never fired a fully loaded Enfield at another human being.

  And that now, she might have no other choice.

  Chapter Six

  A box of live rounds landed on the sand beside Taylor’s prone body as the other half of the Confederate lines fired to empty their chambers. On either side of her, the men tore into the fresh ammunition and began the laborious process of loading their guns. She stared at the box and made no move to reach for it. Instead, she took a quick look around and reached for the leather cartridge case on her belt, fishing for a blank.

  “Not so fast, Private Taylor.”

  She rolled to her left side and looked up. Lt. Harris stood directly behind her, the morning sun radiating off his skin, shiny with sweat despite the chill. His Colt pistol dangled casually in his hand.

  “Load your weapon, Private.”

  “I was, sir,” she said cautiously.

  “Not with those.” He took a step forward and toed the cartridge box closer to her elbow. “With these.”

  She clamped down on every muscle so he wouldn’t see her shaking. Wildly her eyes searched for Beaudry, and found him wrestling hard to free himself of his ropes. She hoped she’d left them loose enough, and that the partial cut she’d made would break under his strength. She didn’t know what had changed his mind and made him decide to escape after all. Unless… She frowned. Unless he had some chivalrous idea about coming to her rescue, for a change. Don’t be a hero, Beaudry. Get out of here! At the very least, if he escaped, perhaps the time bubble would be broken and this madnes
s would stop.

  “This is a test, Private,” continued Harris, tapping his thigh with the pistol. “A test of your loyalty to the Cause. And if you fail, you won’t have to worry about your relative, General Wise, hearing about it and incurring his wrath, because I will already have shot you dead for refusing a direct order. He’ll understand. He may even decorate me for it.”

  Taylor tore her eyes away from Jared and stared again at the box. Even as she reached for it, in her mind she screamed at him to run. She counted to five between each movement of her hands, praying for strength, praying that she gave him enough time to escape while Harris concentrated on her alone.

  “Good…good,” observed Harris as she removed a cartridge from the box and tore it open with her teeth. She spat the scrap aside and poured the contents down the barrel, feeling sick at the sound of the ball rattling its way down to the firing chamber. Then she rolled to her back, placed the butt of the gun between her feet, drew the rammer and packed the charge home. Harris loomed over her like a pending storm.

  “Lieutenant! We’re loaded an’ ready!” shouted Lije, aiming his rifle and twitching with adrenaline.

  Harris looked up as if he’d forgotten anyone else was there. The instant he took his eyes from her, Taylor froze. He waved a hand dismissively. “Fire at will. It seems I must nursemaid our young newcomer through his first engagement.” The Rebels let loose another volley of fire and let out the Southerner’s distinctive yell as several Union soldiers went down.

  She couldn’t help herself. She turned and looked. She bit back a cry and closed her eyes against the sight, but she couldn’t shut out the cries of the Union wounded, the roared epithets of their commanding officer as the horror dawned on him.

  She opened her eyes, and found Harris frowning and pointing his pistol at her head. She broke out into a sweat, and heartily wished she could know for sure if that pistol was loaded with a live charge. She’d have to go on the assumption it was. A knot formed in her throat. Never, in all her life, had someone pointed a loaded gun at her.