Surrender the Wind (14 page)

A well-aimed fist for John’s head came from a meaty assailant and if it had landed, might easily have crushed the side of his skull. But John was too swift and, dropping beneath the strike, delivered a mighty blow into the pit of the giant’s stomach.

“Boys!” Mallory ordered, and out of nowhere, more fell on John.

Before he could wrench free again, ten men lunged, seized him in their arms. Pure opposing numbers his undoing. Grappling him to the floor, they kicked and punched and manacled him. When he was physically subdued, they stood him up with his legs and arms spread wide, none of them brave enough to be near him alone. Several more men held guns on him, keeping their distance after witnessing what he had vented on their comrades.

Catherine ran to Rourke. Mallory snapped her back so hard she thought her teeth would break. “Remember your part, my dear. We don’t want things to get too messy.”

“General Rourke, since we haven’t been introduced, I’ll do the honors. I’m Francis Mallory, Director for United States Intelligence,” he lied, giving himself a title. “Of course, you’ve already had the honor of meeting Miss Catherine Fitzgerald, our cleverest spy.”

As the words sunk in, John stood stock still, shock crossing his face. Then, consumed with rage, he charged like a mad bull, fighting against his chains…wild, untamed, savage.

“You deceitful bitch!” He shouted from the porch. The goons closed in on him and Catherine cringed, one of them giving him a short, hard jab in the side, and as he doubled over, the other brought his fist down on the back of his neck. John crumpled to the floor, his breath coming out in short, painful gasps. The goons gloated over him, ready to use their wares again.

“Stop it,” Catherine screamed.

Broken-hearted, there was nothing she could do but stand there and listen to John’s verbal abuse echo through her head. Mallory’s skill for the dramatic had done the trick—his ruse irreparably damned her in John’s eyes. Of course, he toyed with them, sadistic, like when he was in the ring and crippled men for his sick pleasure
.

She again took a step toward John. Mallory yanked her back. “Remember your uncle, my sweet.” Her skin crawled. How could she have ever thought this man charming at one time?

But it was when she looked at John that she wanted to flee. When he lifted his head and glared at her, his eyes, that moments before held such warmth, were cold shards of ice. How he hated her. And she thought for one awful second that if, turned loose, his long sinewy fingers would wrap around her throat.

“General Rourke,” Mallory called from a safe distance. “You’re a fine catch. As a true Son of the South and guest of the United States, we wish to thank you for all you have divulged.”

“She’s our best, General Rourke,” Mallory taunted. “But don’t be too down in the mouth. Miss Fitzgerald’s craft has been long practiced, and may I add, she is our most treacherous strategist in intelligence gathering. Many have confided in and fallen prey to her charms.”

“This isn’t finished, Catherine.” John growled between clenched teeth. “Even if I have to go to the ends of the earth, I’ll hunt you down.”

Mallory snorted. “I think not, General Rourke. However, we are going to release you. In time, of course, after our northern newspapers full of your secrets have reported the vulnerabilities of General Lee’s army. Interesting, isn’t it? The end game has always been won with seduction and spying. They go hand in hand. Am I not correct to assume so, General?”

“Let me go, and I’ll show you an end game, Mallory.”

“Impertinent fellow.” Mallory smirked. He placed his fingers over Catherine’s shoulders, pushing her in front of John. “Lovely is she not?”

John’s eyes blazed through her. Nausea rolled in the pit of her stomach. How Mallory relished his new role. How twisted and warped he was. She wanted to kill him.

Mallory continued his speech. “The North’s most prized possession and weapon is our beautiful seductress, Catherine. Like I said before, General Rourke, you are not the first to be enticed by our finest skilled intelligence operative.”

She stared straight ahead. A veritable liar, Mallory had painted her as a very clever, complicit whore, succeeding in sowing distrust and hatred. Oh, why hadn’t she told John about Mallory? Because she was too afraid he’d hold her in contempt for her family’s fortune was steeped on the South’s blood.

She could not look at her husband. He had loved her and for that love he was betrayed. Never would he forgive her. Her head drooped. Time had slipped through her fingers. Not telling him her secret was like a cancer to the soul, eating away what was good and reaping destruction.

Francis pinched her. “Look alive, girl, act the part.”
Would Mallory release John?
Uncle Charlie?

“I’ll leave no stone unturned to find and repay you, Catherine, for your deceit.” John seethed his words.

“Enough,” shouted Mallory and the butt end of a rifle cracked against John’s skull.

* * *

“Mallory wants him done, Joseph. You ready with the hole?”

John came to attention. Every part of his body ached. He swung his head to the side and peered out an opening between the slats in Catherine’s barn. Five to six strange looking guards, dressed more like thugs than Union soldiers. The North must be reaping from the bottom of the barrel. He sank against the wall. Slivered light filtered through the gaps in the siding. He’d give them a fight to remember before they laid him to eternal rest. In fact, he’d take a few of them with him.

Suddenly a barrage of gunshots cracked and scattered over the outside of his dwelling, spraying up dust and splinters over him. He ducked, holding his manacled hands over his head. Who the hell was out there? Too heady to believe he was being rescued by Rebel troops. In agonized moans and cries of surprise, the guards hit the ground. He peered out the slit again. In a matter of seconds, the guards were immobilized. The door burst open. Light poured in, blinding him, and silhouetting the lines of a Union uniform.

“Well brother, what kind of mess have you gotten yourself into now? The Scourge of the South has to have me bail him out of trouble.”

“Lucas!” He could not have been more surprised if St. Peter had walked through the door. “How—”

“Tell you the how’s later. I don’t know how many others may return to help their friends.”

Once outside, John surveyed the six bodies on the ground. “Remarkable for someone who polishes his rear in Washington. Almost as well as myself.”

Lucas grinned. “Had lots of practice on my older brother.”

“Indeed.”

“They won’t be walking for a long time. I shot them in the legs. They’ll have an awful headache when they wake.” Lucas smoothed the butt end of his gun, retrieved keys from a fallen guard and unlocked John’s chains.

Samuel brought around two horses. “This young man apprised me of your situation,” Lucas said.

John held his hand out. Odd the war he was fighting. He was freed by an escaped slave. “I owe you a great debt, Samuel.” John rubbed his wrists. “Very fine mounts.”

“Fast,” Lucas said.

Lucas like their brother, Ryan, a colonel in the Confederate Calvary, had a good eye for horseflesh. Lucas tossed a bag of gold dollar pieces to the boy. “Thanks, Samuel.”

Spurring their horses into a swift gallop, both brothers headed into the mountains. From Pleasant Valley, they rode hard in a westerly direction in case anybody was following them, careful to lose their trail. Then doubling back east, they rode to a railway station in Elmira. Uneasy in a new suit of clothes his brother had procured, John looked like any other civilian traveling with a Union soldier.

“Limp, so it looks like you’ve been wounded and are out of action. Otherwise people will speculate why a big ugly brute like you is not in the war. What’s more, don’t talk. Your accent is heavier than mine and sure to draw attention. Your face is another problem, highly recognizable, so keep your hat pulled low. I’m taking a great risk to be hanged for treason, and you, hanged for a spy out of uniform.”

John gritted his teeth. The witch had burned his uniform.

Lucas paid for their tickets and they boarded a train. They passed the North’s infamous
Hellmira
prisoner of war camp, the worst of the Northern camps with a survival rate worse than the South’s Andersonville, and John’s original destination. Rail thin men stared blankly out a fence, starved and left to lie in thin canvas tents with no blankets, little clothes, and no shoes, exposed to the severest of northern winters. High above, latrines drained into the camp’s water supply, an incubator for smallpox and dysentery to descend.

The ride was uneventful except for two young ladies sitting across from them. Enamored with the brothers, they took all kinds of elaborate pains to capture them in conversation. John had enough of women to last a hundred lifetimes. He left the conversation up to his brother in the
adorable
Yank uniform. Feigning illness, he pulled his hat down over his eyes and tried to sleep. He dreamed wonderful dreams of revenge—once he got his hands on Catherine Fitzgerald.

On the Baltimore and Ohio railroad they made steady progress south. Baltimore. Frederick. Harper’s Ferry. In many of these places, he had fought during the course of the war. All were Union controlled now. He shifted in his seat when more men in Union uniforms crowded the train, replacing the two women across from them. Lucas wove a tale, suggesting his brother of having peculiar and strange symptoms, similar to consumption, but of course—not consumption. He even went so far as to keep them in the strictest of confidence by leaning over and whispering loud enough for the benefit of all the passengers that his brother had a monstrous rash. However, he couldn’t tell where for the delicacy of ladies present. For this, Lucas received a sharp elbow in the side from him. Lucas had overplayed his part.

“Is it itching you again, brother?” Lucas turned to him with all the sympathy he could muster. For his concern, Lucas obtained a cold warning glare. Lucas turned again to his horrified audience. “Terrible affliction. Sometimes the itching turns to horrible fits. Been to all kinds of doctors. Why one time—”

The two soldiers across from them moved away. John kept coughing to add to the horrors of the tale.

They disembarked in Martinsburg, Maryland, bought fresh mounts and headed south. Out on a lone country road, they were able to speak.

“How did you find me?” John asked.

“I received a telegram from Catherine Callahan, cryptic in wording, but I gleaned the intention was for me to come and get my older brother. Since you were missing, I was curious and made the trip. Once in Pleasant Valley, I was pointed out of town to the schoolmarm’s home, and then headed off by Samuel who apprised me of your situation.”

Catherine Fitzgerald. Betrayal.
Her name floated sourly over his tongue.

So soon…my plan…
Cryptic at the time, her last words went round and round inside his head as he tried to piece events together. She’d been interrupted, upset with her superiors moving in on the complicated operation too soon, wanted to ferret more information from him. What a fool he’d been.

Nothing, I have to go.
The letter was the signal, lured him outside, knowing he’d come to her. Like Mallory said, the cleverest of Northern agents. He closed his eyes, her hair, her lips, her breasts, everything about her spelled seduction. Had given herself to him, figuring a general was worth the prize.

“Get it out, John,” Lucas ordered. “It’ll eat you alive if you don’t. We may be on opposite sides, but I know that it can’t all be me.”

They had said little on how they parted before the war, and it was the first mention of those strong feelings that had so fiercely divided them.

“We’re brothers, after all. It’s blood that counts.” Lucas goaded. “Maybe we should get off our horses and have us a good boxing match to loosen things up. Like the old days. Remember Billy on the farm next to ours. He disappeared and no one knows where.”

“It’s not you, little brother. I’ve come to terms with your views a long time ago. I don’t agree with your position, but I respect it.” Billy was a master at boxing, had grown into a legend, and the Rourke boys had cut their teeth under his hard lessons. Those golden days were long past. Billy was a runaway slave.

I will not let you go.
Catherine had told him before they made love one last time in the glen. She had meant every word. Standing next to Mallory, she never flinched, stared straight ahead, impassive and indifferent—a heartless triumph. He’d seen a long line of battles, maiming, killing, and death, yet, on her porch wrapped in shackles and beaten, he had stood on the coldest place on earth.

“You’re a changed man, John.” Lucas tried to throw wide the doors.

The war had changed all of them. They passed under the welcomed shade of trees that canopied over the road. “Thank you.”

“I know you’d do the same for me. How were Mother and Father when you last saw them?”

Lucas needed to catch up. He had not been home since the war started and he missed everyone. “I was home a few days during Christmas. They are doing well. Fairhaven could be in better care, but the war has taken its toll on everyone’s economy.”

Lucas turned serious eyes on him. “What happened to you up North? And don’t clam up on me. I have big shoulders. Maybe not as big or as revolting as yours, but I’m a good listener.”

John stared forward over his horse’s ears. When they were younger, they shared all sorts of things, but as they became older, he kept his own counsel.

From the beginning of time, women had been the downfall of men, ever since Adam and Eve. Wasn’t he one more notch in the annals of history? Duped again by a woman, except this time, it was worse. His men and the Confederacy were at stake. How he itched to get his hands on her.

Hadn’t he always measured the pros and cons, drilling his instincts, creating an image of his adversary’s reasoning, logic and motives? As a general, his recurring triumphs in circumventing the enemy had been his judgment of the nature of his enemy, yet to have been blindsided?