CONTINUED: Atonement: The Sequel - Chapters 14 to 23

 

Chapter Fourteen

 As a result of Simon’s desertion, the sheriff arrived late, but not too late to assess what was obviously a hanging offense. Both duelists were now bed ridden in a private one chamber ward of the hospital, and William was bound securely to his cot. Since the professional adventurer had no desire to explain his actions in front of Grant or the others, the former took advantage of his current medical state and pretended to be only semi-conscious and unable to answer questions. But in actuality, his state of mind was clear, and busy with a self assessment.

 He had just grievously assaulted a man named Dirk De Lane. He was an Enforcer  for the most powerful covert criminal organization in the world: The Company. William had run afoul of De Lane the day after he had prevented a lynching back in the Colorado Territory.

(Funny how leaving a bunch of bullet ridden stiffs behind can sometimes attract the wrong kind of attention.)

 The Company  had been running a huge gold mining operation, which William and Kit Carson had decided to thwart. Doing that and getting away scot free was the hardest thing they had every done. (Separately or collectively.) But they somehow managed to pull it off and William was several days onto his homeward route when he came upon a man who, like Simon, worked for The Underground Railroad. Some proslavery men had caught him in the company of a runaway slave and they were fixing to have a necktie party. William didn’t really want to get involved but he just happened to be thinking about the Catholic priest he had killed back in China and so his conscience was primed for heroic action. (Which means he got shoved into it.)

 The attack on the lynch party went exceptionally well and William couldn’t help but feel that his victory against so many adversaries was the result of him pleasing God. But when he left so many bullet ridden bodies behind, it was like a giant arrow pointing the direction he had gone. The Company  was busy recovering from the blow that had been dealt them, but even though their hired gunmen in that area were dead or scattered, they still had an instrument of vengeance at their disposal. De Lane had lost Kit Carson’s trail and was stewing in frustration when he received word that there had been a great deal of shooting some forty miles to the southeast.

 De Lane didn’t have God on his side, but somehow he managed to get on William’s trail a day short of reaching St Louis. When the time of reckoning arrived, De Lane had the element of surprise and blew a canteen out of William’s hand while he was pressing it to his lips. A cross wind had kicked up to throw the Sharps rifle bullet off a hair, and so began a deadly game of hide and seek which ended with William placing a revolver shot in De Lane’s back. But William made one mistake that day. He didn’t finish his opponent off, wrongly assuming that the bullet in the back would eventually prove fatal.

 But he remembered the man’s face, just as surely as De Lane memorized his before passing out. They were both a special breed of men; not the sort a girl would want to bring home to her parents, but the kind that many a common laborer would envy when their backs would go out. Men who would die in their prime after experiencing the best in life, and with few regrets.

 Now De Lane was glaring at William from his hospital bed. He was probably dying because that trigger happy son of a bitch got off a lucky shot. The fact that De Lane would have had said S.O.B killed before the day was over was entirely beside the point. He fully intended to see Longpenance dead before the same thing happened to him. That was another strange thing about professional gunmen. Revenge could be pointless, but when it was all you had left it became important.

 De Lane struggled to get to his feet. He was too weak to bludgeon his fellow patient with an improvised club and he lacked the strength to strangle him as well. But he could gouge out the man’s eyeballs, and then if wouldn’t matter if the bastard lived or not. For appearances sake a real physician had been hired to oversee the hospital and real patients occupied nine of the sixteen bed in the main ward. The private ward had been meant for bathing and surgery but the real  master of the complex had ordered two cots placed at opposite ends of the huge room. Unless Longpenance screamed his head off, De Lane would be able to pull off his grizzly crime and then laugh at a doctor who couldn’t do anything more than bind De Lane’s chest and prescribe laudanum.

 De Lane hovered over his victim like a malevolent spirit. He barely had the strength to stand, but he paused at William’s bed side, savoring his victim’s helplessness. Then he finally placed both hands over the other man’s face and prepared to leave the man with no reason for continued existence. But a second later Grant’s large paws were gripping De Lane’s wrists and forcing him to back away from the cot.

 “Can you make it back to your bed unassisted, Mr. De Lane?”

 The gunman’s look would have frightened Grant if not for the patient’s grievous condition.

 “You can torture a blind man---- just as easily as a sighted one.”

 “Maybe not. Fill a man with enough anger and he can become pretty tough. But if you give him even the slightest hope that he’ll get past his dilemma, and he just might see reason and cooperate.”

 “You don’t know what he’s done---- to the organization. They won’t let him live---- once they find out he’s here.”

 “That sounds very interesting. But you need to conserve your strength and let me handle this matter.”

 De Lane allowed himself to be ushered back to his bed where he laid back down with an effort.

 “Why is he here?” he asked after a bit of coughing.

 “Isn’t it obvious? He’s spying on us. What we need to find out now is who are his contacts. Give me a chance to accomplish that, Mr. De Lane.”

 The gunman was in a great deal of pain, and he realized that was his problem and his problem alone. He had fancy clothes and top grade whiskey and women when he was whole and hale. Now he was just a wounded animal who would be allowed to recover on his own or die. It wouldn’t matter a great deal to his employers. He could easily be replaced, as his kind so often was.

 “I want to be there (cough) when you go to work on him.”

 Grant let out a long sigh.

 “There are no cots in the basement. I appreciate your feelings in this matter but you would be torturing yourself and lessening your own chances for survival.”

 “If I do survive---you don’t want me---angry with you,” the gunman responded with great effort.

 “Grant resented the threat. The Company  was a logically run organization. It was totally profit motivated. People were not killed just become of differences that might exist between it’s members. De Lane was probably bluffing, or at least speaking out of pain and anger. But just to be on the safe side, Grant would indulge the man, and hope that this wouldn’t make him look weak in the eyes of the higher ups.

 Both combatants were taken down into the basemen. A place that smelled like the grave with an earth floor and a mold covered foundation of damp limestone. De Lane gamely volunteered information concerning the prisoner even though it sent him into many a coughing jag. Grant listened attentively, but in truth had allowed the gunman to accompany them into the basement so as to provide the prisoner with a very threatening presence. De Lane was that; coughing spells not withstanding.

 “Mr Longpenance, we must conclude that since you did not steal the gold that our organization was mining in Colorado, you must have been there for another purpose. It is logical to conclude that you are a Federal Marshal, or something along those lines. Obviously the war hasn’t changed that. You are still dedicated to our undoing. I am very curious what branch of the U.S. government has committed itself to our destruction. If we knew, perhaps we could bribe the bureau chief into more tolerant of us. Has it occurred to you that we do not always solve our problems with a gun or knife?”

 Longpenance craved a drink of water, but also the answer to a very important question: What instrument of torture were they prepared to use on him? There was nothing of use in that basement except a supply of crutches and extra furniture that someone in town had donated.

 “I desire information, not revenge,” Grant droned on. “We desire the means to come to a financial arrangement with whoever is warring with us. Now Mr. De Lane on the other hand is focused entirely on you. He doesn’t care where you come from or where you would have gone if you could have escaped. He just wants you dead. His wound is serious but he just might survive. If I thwart his wishes in this matter, I could live to regret it.”

 “Count on it, Mr. Grant,” growled the man in the other chair.

 The interrogator never looked more sincere in his life.

 “The point being, Mr. Longpenance, if you wish to go on living, you will have to take us to your superior. Nothing less could compensate us for the damage you have done.”

 “He’s not that stupid,” put in De Lane.

 “I’m not that stupid,” echoed William. “I know the narcotics that we brought up here is related somehow to Professor Thaddeus Mercier’s experiments. Even if I had never harmed a hair on anyone’s head, I’d still have to die because of that.”

 William was playing a speculation game, but a reasonable one considering that there were very few people addicted to opiates in this part of Louisiana.

 “This is very disconcerting,” admitted Grant. “Our security problem is bigger than I thought. I’m going to have to turn you over to a higher authority.”

 “Is that another way of saying it’s time for me to die?” quipped the prisoner.

 “You can save the gallows humor for my boss, Mr. Longpenance.”

 “If he’s going to be transferred to another location, I’ll be going along,” De Lane declared with anger and pain.

 “Out of the question. The doctor said you are not fit to travel. I might add that I have enough trouble keeping him convinced that this hospital was built with donations from a wealthy New Orleans philanthropist. He continues to beg for the fellow’s name.”

 “What will he do with all the opiates that we brought him?” asked William

 Grant rolled his eyes at that.

 “Mr. Longpenance, you know perfectly well that Dr. Johnson will only receive a portion of the shipment. Eighty percent of it will go to another building in a town where it will be chemically altered and repackaged for shipment down to the city of Vermilionville.”

 (Twenty years later the city would be renamed Lafayette.)

  “More proof that you are going to kill me, and therefore I have no reason to be cooperative with your boss,” said William.

 “There will be no additional shipments sent to that city. The reference will be useless in a few days. In fact you and the modified shipment will reach a joint destination almost at the same time. But for reasons of security we will not transport a prisoner on the same route as the drugs.”

“What does chemically altered  mean exactly?” asked the prisoner.

 “Haven’t the faintest idea, truth to tell. Only the man who alters the shipping boxes knows about that. Basically we’re just shuffling the cards here for a new deal. The shipment is sent to an out of the way place for repackaging, then re-shipped so that if it is discovered by the authorities, there will be no back trail to lead them to the original sender.”

 “Clear as mud.”

 “It is as clear as it needs to be to you sir; and now that I’ve obliged you with a bit of information, I would like you to respond in kind by answering a question.”

 “I’ll oblige you to a point,” said William.

 “And what point would that be?”

 “The point where I start lying.”

 “I don’t think I can listen to much more of this,” growled De Lane.

 “Yes, the fellow is a bit cocky I’ll admit.”

 With that Grant picked up a nearby kerosene lantern and pressed it against the prisoner’s bare and bound forearm. The lantern was not removed until De Lane was treated to a long bellow of pain.

 “I’m not the least bit angry with you Mr. Longpenance,” said Grant as he returned the lantern to it’s rightful spot. “I just need to impress upon you the fact that insolence will only work against you. I admire your style but I don’t see much sense in it really. If you hook us up with your superior, we might be able to negotiate for your release, as well as get the government off our backs by bribing a bureaucrat or two. But if you anger my boss with a display of bravado, you will only earn yourself a great deal of pain, followed by a death that was not necessary.”

 De Land didn’t comment, but both William and Grant knew what he was thinking.

 It didn’t matter. Only the here and now mattered.

 “I’m beginning to develop an appreciation for your point of view Mr. Grant. Go ahead and ask the question you had in mind.”

 “Very good. I would like to know if that colored man was really a slave, or a fellow operative.”

 “You think the U.S. government would use coloreds as operatives?” countered William.

 “Why not?The Company does in other parts of the world. Actually we’re not much like the Confederate States of America. That wouldn’t be practical in an international business world.”

 “That never stopped the British, but getting back to your question: I would categorize the lad as an escaped slave who latched onto the first employer he could find when he realized that it’s a long way to the nearest free state.”

 “And his name?”

 “Jeremiah. Have you ever noticed that those colored people really love the biblical names?”

 With a deadpan expression Grant took a small vile from his pocket as well as a handkerchief.

 “Something for my burn?” queried the prisoner.

 “It will relieve the pain for a time,” confirmed Grant, “and it will also enable us to load you into a wagon without restraints or armed guards. Dr. Johnson is becoming something of a snoop, and I don’t want you speaking to him before we leave.”

 “I’d just slug him over the head,” said De Lane as the prisoner’s face became obscured by the drug soaked cloth.

 “I fear we will need two wagons for transport. I do not believe it would be a good idea to have the both of you in the same wagon.”

“I can ride a horse.”

“A wagon would allow you lie down.”

“A wagon bounces around--- more than a horse--- that’s just walking,” De Lane argued with a face that was more than a little pale.

 Grant deferred to the man’s resiliency and his strength of will. Anyway, if the hired gunman were to die on the road, at least there would be one less thing to worry about in the future. De Lane was something of an odd duck, as killers tended to be.

Chapter Fifteen

 William awoke to find a tarp just an inch above his face; and a smelly one at that. His head pounded and his stomach was queasy from the anesthetic that had been applied, but he was still alive and heading toward a place that would most likely provide a great deal of important information (and hopefully not prove to be the local of his death.)

 Vermilionville was closer to the Union sphere of influence but still well away from the fighting. It was another sleepy little wayside town that sported a hospital that had been built by some distant kindly soul. But this hospital didn’t need a modest basement to accommodate special guests like William. Everyone in the building belonged to The Company; even a few fraudulent patients to keep the beds from being occupied by locals that might suffer an injury.

 The physician who was in charge of the medical facility did in fact have a medical degree, but he had only practiced medicine for a couple of years before moving on to a more lucrative occupation. His job was to pretend to care for the sick, while administering a drug smuggling operation that was highly mobile. He had been at the hospital for eight months now, and soon he would move back to New Orleans where he could get some decent sea food. He was a young man, and handsome enough. Very often forced to hide from the local husband hunters in the community. (Temporary women being another reason to look forward to New Orleans.)

 He marched into the small room where William had been placed with an easy air and a boyish smile.

 “Welcome to the Samuel Bates Memorial Hospital, Mr. Longpenance. My name is Dr. Curt Denison and I am very pleased that you could stay alive long enough to visit with us. I thought it prudent to give Mr. De Lane a bed on the opposite side of the building. As I understand it, the two of you shot each other. All available evidence would indicate that you are the better marksman, but I’m not certain that will matter in the future.”

 “He a tough one,” acknowledged the prisoner, “but I would also regard him as a poor loser.”

 “Well, he has a fifty-fifty chance of surviving his wounds. You  on the other hand are in a more precarious position. The Company  is quite adapt at making deals, Mr. Longpenance. We can even forgive a killing or two if the casualties are mere foot soldiers, but the men who run the American section of the organization hate to leave loose ends unattended to. Assuming that you would be willing to tell us everything you know about our organization, we would then wonder if you might have left something out. I’m sure Mr. Grant explained to you that the option of you buying your freedom with information is always open. But---you will have to do a remarkable bit of selling I’m afraid.”

 “You boys are a forthright bunch for a secret society,” said William. “I couldn’t believe all the talking Grant did. It was all very interesting, but when the opposition volunteers so much information, you just can’t help but think that they got a hole already dug for you someplace nearby.”

 “Well as I said, we are accustomed to making all sorts of deals with people. We trade in information all the time. Sometimes it is the most valuable commodity there is believe it or not.”

 “You’re certainly no slouch in the narcotics trade sir. I’ve never seen so much merchandize of that type in one place.”

 “At the risk of flattering you, Mr. Longpenance; the shipment was intended to draw you out into the open so to speak. True, we needed to relocate and repackage the drugs for security reasons, but normally our drug shipments average about twenty pounds. Our reasoning was that only an exceptionally large piece of cheese would bring you out of your hole. We desperately need information concerning your bureau. It’s activities have become quite alarming as of late. Mr. De Lane was assigned to protect the unusually large shipment as well as interview a few prospective couriers that be of use to us when the old Natchitoches trade route reopens. Of course you altercation with him was a big surprise to one and all. Would you care to discuss it with me?”

 “He didn’t tell you about it?”

 “Actually he fell off his horse and is currently unconscious. I suppose he should have taken Mr. Grant’s advice and ridden in a wagon.”

 The prisoner did some quick thinking. Obviously this fellow didn’t know about his exploits in Colorado. That information would certainly put William in even hotter water than he was in now. (If such a thing was possible.) On the other hand, if he confessed to being part of what happened out west, he could distort the tale and give himself a smaller role in what happened. Certainly De Lane would be talking about it if he regained consciousness; and William had an ugly feeling that De Lane would not do anything helpful like slip into a coma and then croak.

 “Well, I for one am glad he chose the horse. Two wagons mean twice the possibility of a break down, and one wagon would have meant us riding side by side. I might have accidentally smothered or something under those travel conditions.”

 “Grant alluded to the same thing, but I would like to know why, specifically.”

 “If you check him for old bullet wounds you’ll find out why. He came after me out west and it wasn’t his lucky day. Do your people tell you about the gold mining operation that they going near Pike’s Peak?”

 “Word of that fiasco wasn’t supposed to leave the territory but of course it did. Are you saying that you had something to do with that?”

 “I was what you would call a soldier taking my orders from a government agent who parted company with us after the smoke cleared. We all followed a dispersal plan that was designed to throw your boys off the track, but it didn’t work too well in my case. De Lane tracked me down and tried to kill me just short of St. Louee. That was a bad day for both of us but at least it wasn’t the last. Anyway, when I ran into him back at that last little hospital, I knew I had to take him down even if it meant stirring up a hornet’s nest. De Lane isn’t in the capturing business after all. He just snuffs out lives and doesn’t get very philosophical about failure.”

 “Could we focus on Colorado, Mr. Longpenance? What is the name of the man who lead that operation against us?”

 “Well, he called himself Jenkins but that doesn’t mean that his mom and dad went by that name. He said that if our services were needed in the future we would be recruited the same way as last time. In my case, I was eventually offered a position that would last at least until the war ends. But I’m not working with Jenkins; my new boss isn’t a field man and is considerably fatter.”

 Denison forced himself to remain patient and asked, “How many men were in your team and what are you willing to tell me about them in order to save your life?”

 “Well hell---everything, but we were recruited in different parts of the state Jenkins made it crystal clear that we being paid to follow orders, fight, and keep our mouths shut during the down times.”

 “Down times?” queried the captor.

 “Yea, you know: when you’re sitting around the campfire eating or waiting for a scouting report. There were sixteen of us, and we had snake our way past mounted patrols and even a few Indians. Basically we just followed our leader and open fired on command. Nothing personal in it. No different than shooting Johnny Rebs as far as I can see it.”

 “Would it also be impersonal of you to give me the name and location of your current boss?”

 “Past info or present; I’ll tell you everything I know. But you’ll have to give me a reason to believe that once I’ve spilled my guts, you won’t do anything to put a smile on De Lane’s face.”

 “There is a thing that might work out to our mutual advantage,” said Denison. “Have you heard of General John C. Breckinridge?”

 “No. My mother knew a few generals but---“

 “My co-worker and I will be meeting with him the day after tomorrow,” interrupted Denison while blissfully ignorant of the prisoner’s thoughts. “We’ll find you a gray uniform that fits reasonably well and you can accompany us as an aid. When there is an entire host of Confederate soldiers around us, you can give us the information we desire. Two other men who you will not know will be watching you while your information is corroborated. If you try and flee, you will be shot while trying to desert. If we are not satisfied with you information you will die, supposedly in battle. But if we are pleased with your information, you will be sent off on a mock errand and then perhaps Mr. De Lane will never find you again.”

 “I think if I could give you all the Union’s battle plans for the next campaign, I’d still end up dead,” responded William.

 “We don’t want anything from the Union Army. We want to know who in the Federal government is waging a war against The Company. Nothing else matters. We must be clear on that point.”

 “I am that. So will I meet your co-worker before we leave?”

 “I see no reason you shouldn’t meet him right now.”

 William was ushered by three men to another small room where an elderly gentleman was pouring over a mountain of papers. The man looked, tired. The man looked unhappy, but only until he glanced up and saw who was handcuffed and standing before him.

 “I may have to rethink my position on the existence of God,” said the man of letters.

 William tried to come up with a mirthful expression but he couldn’t quite make it. As a sailor and gentleman of fortune he had learned long ago to make sport of misfortune, even when it took the form of death. But this was almost as bad as running into De Lane. Not quite, but almost.

 “Professor Mercier. What a small world we live in. I hope you not harboring ill feelings toward me.”

 “Not at all my good fellow. Actually you did me something of a favor. You convinced my superiors that I should be given more resources and better protection. I’ve been living something of a nomadic existence since we last met, but soon this hospital will become the most important place of scientific research on the planet. But first we need to try out my new discoveries in the field.”

 “Do you have anyplace specific in mind?”

 “Baton Rouge of course. We can’t just surrender the capital of the state without some effort to retake it after all.”

 “Excuse me for interrupting this reunion of sorts,” put in Denison, “but I am surprised to learn that you two gentlemen have met before.”

 “This is the man who invaded my first safe house. But I hold no grudge against him. Would you like to know why Mr. Denison?”

 “Why yes, that would please me very much.”

  “In our haste to evacuate the property my serum was heated by a lantern that had been shipped beside it. It had a most amazing effect on the primary binding compound. Oh that reminds me: do you recall that escaped slave you were so concerned about, Mr. Longpenance?”

  “Daniel?”

 “Ah yes, Daniel. I had forgotten the name and my subject is no longer capable of refreshing my memory.”

 “Because he never had a chance to survive,” William muttered half to himself.

 “What? Heavens no Man. That’s not the reason. Would you like to meet him?” asked the professor.

 The prisoner stood in shock for a moment and then asked, “Without dying?”

 The professor got up from his desk and gestured for the four men to follow him. Denison knew where they were going but William and the guards only knew that if would be to a room. When they reached the special room on the west side of the hospital, two other guards were still standing on opposite sides of the doorway. Clearly, whatever was in that room, needed to be protected from prying eyes.

 Without instruction the additional guards took up ready positions on the other side of the hallway. It was understood by everyone in the building that only Mercier and Denison were allowed to enter the room. William would be the first exception to the rule, and now more than ever, Denison was convinced that the prisoner would surely have to be eliminated. William figured it that way too, but he’d just have to cross that bridge when he came to it. At the moment he was too preoccupied with a true wonder in all respects. The ex-slave Daniel was on his feet. His eyes were glazed over and he looked thinner than he did the last time they met.

 “Daniel---do you remember me?” asked William after he regained his voice.

 The black continued to stare straight ahead. He wasn’t in any sort of trance, he simply didn’t care about the man who was now trying to communicate with him.

 “Does he understand me?” asked William.

 “Oh yes, but you’re not providing the proper stimulus. Here, let me show you how this game is played.”

 The professor stepped up beside the black man and said, “Daniel, freedom is beyond that door. You must pass through it if you wish to gain your liberty.”

 Daniel lurched forward on shaky legs and was intercepted by the four guards outside. William was fascinated by the fact that it took all four men to subdue the black man, even though he was thinner and weaker looking than before. With an effort the ex-slave was forced back into the room and secured to a bed with heavy straps.

 “That wasn’t very nice---but I suppose I should focus on the fact that you healed his bullet wound. Now if you could only do as much with his brain. Is he mad or just messed up on some kind of drug?”

 “He has become simple minded,”  conceded the professor while ushering William back out of the room. “What is more, I have not truly cured his intestinal wound. He is incapable of taking solid food and even liquids have an adverse side effect on him. He will die of malnutrition eventually, but we have made great scientific strides with that subject so I am very pleased with the way things are progressing.”

 “So the next step is to test your most recent serum on the battle field?” speculated William.

 “Sad but true, Mr. Longpenance. The organization that is funding my research intends to sell the drug to world leaders that are not so very squeamish about the disposition of their wounded soldiers. But that cannot happen unless we conduct tests on an actual battle field. Of course, I dream of where this might take us in the distant future. No physician enjoys the sound of a patient screaming because the anesthetic wore off.”

 “But do you have conduct your research with humans? What if someday you collect irrefutable evidence that you serum can only work at the expense of a man’s wits? Then you’ll look back on all those murders and realize that it was all for nothing.”

 “Not if it gives some General a tactical edge in war,” put in Denison. “Guns make us money, but a soldier that can be recycled after receiving a grievous wound; that will make The Company  rich.”

 “None if this is original thinking,” said William. “The Moros of the Philippines used drugs to keep wounded fighting men on their feet. In fact such things have always existed somewhere in history.”

 “More and more I am convinced that this man was no lackey back in Colorado,” said Denison.

 Mercier was about to ask what Colorado had to do with anything when suddenly an orderly appeared in the hallway.

 “Dr. Denison, Mr. De Lane is taking a turn for the worse.”

 Denison glanced at the professor who took that as a meaningful sign. The scientists marched briskly to where De Lane was struggling to stay alive.

 “Smith, have you gotten a stool sample yet?” asked Denison.

 “Had to scoop it out, Doctor. It was black as coal,” reported the orderly.

 “Yea, there’s a bleeder in there that just won’t quit. Whether or not that’s good news for you Longpenance will depend on what information you give me when we’re amongst Breckinridge’s bunch.”

 Mercier was about to inquire about that but decided to stay focused on the more important topic at hand.

 “How long do you think he has?”

 Denison shrugged and said, “hard to say with his constitution. Certainly not more than a few weeks. Of course there is still the possibility that the bleeder will close but I rather doubt it.”

 “Then perhaps we should use him as a test subject when vital signs are low enough to justify it.”

 “That might be unwise. He is a company man---and his replacement will be interested in how we treated a fallen associate.”

 “We don’t have to run any trauma tests on him. We will simply observe how the latest batch works on his heart.”

 Denison paused for a moment and then said, “Smith, leave us alone for a moment please.”

 After the orderly was out of ear shot the facility chief said, “Well, most likely we’ll be with the General’s group when it comes to that. I suppose you could leave instructions to test De Lane IF he turns critical after we are long gone. Then we could say that we ordered a very small dose used and the orderly got it wrong.”

 The professor nodded silently and William smirked to himself.

 “Well, I suppose I should be happy that I’m not hanging from my thumbs someplace,”  thought the prisoner while staring down at a man who had tried to kill him.

Chapter Sixteen

 General John C. Breckinridge was commanding the counter invasion of Baton Rouge the hard way. A dense fog had rolled into the city suburbs on the morning of August 5^th. It slowed down messengers and group assemblies alike. The low visibility would aid the invaders more than the Union forces but only if they could maintain the element of surprise until everyone was set for the big rush.

 That didn’t happen. The Union pickets found the fog a trifle bit unnerving, so instead of relaxing and gabbing to each other, they remained vigilant. Perhaps on guard for swamp monsters and other figments of the imagination, but whatever their fears might have been, they didn’t fail to detect the enemy when it approached. Things didn’t really heat up until the invaders got as far as Florida Street. The Union forces were set up in the middle of town but eventually would get pushed all the way back to the river dock area. But to do that a large number of men needed a great many shooting positions from which they could shoot in relative safety.

 Magnolia Cemetery was perfect for their needs, with so many lovely headstones on which to rest a musket barrel. It also provided the men in gray with a useful psychological advantage. The invaders came out of the fog like a bad dream. Upon many acres of hollowed ground, Johnny Reb gave many a fatigued Blue Belly cause to doubt his own senses. Additional units under Breckinridge performed flanking sweeps on both sides of the graveyard, but the center units were grimly content to shelter behind the tombstones and fight like snipers.

 Mercier and Denison pretended as doctors to be giving last minute instructions to field orderlies in charge of a medical wagon. William and his keepers were all wearing Confederate gray; some of them would watch over the prisoner while others would be dispatched to verify the information that William would now have to dream up. He knew that he would have to remain with the regiment he had been assigned to, and he would live only until word got back that everything he said was a lie. He would therefore have to escape in the next few days. But his captors would be ready for that, and once he made his break, he would be a hunted man all over his home state.

 Once their interview with the prisoner was completed, the two field doctors took up their traditional black bags and began the grim task of searching for the closest men to drop from the action taking place ahead of them. They only bothered with wounded who still retained the use of their limbs, heart and at least one lung. But many a soldier soon struggled back to his feet with ghastly abdominal wounds or perhaps half a jaw bone shot away. Those men selected no longer bothered to seek shelter while seeking opportunities to carefully advance. They clenched a musket that might very well be empty, and advanced with a bayonet extended for killing.

 On the Union side General Thomas Williams was trying to coordinate men who had gotten used to working with shovels. New Orleans was considered the front door to the swamp riddled state. Vicksburg was the backdoor and everything in between was regarded as a place where a soldier could write letters without spilling much blood upon the paper. Breckinridge’s assault out of a fog enshrouded morning was proceeding well enough, and Williams didn’t relish the idea of being backed up all the way to where the Union gunboats were docked.

 Like any brave commander, he hurried his horse up and down a most uneven front line and was more focused on the location of his own men rather than the positions of the men trying to unleash hell from the north side of town. The 21^st Indiana Regiment was at the center of that piece of real-estate that William’s needed to shore up at the moment. The regiment’s commander was being carried out of the fight and the general didn’t have time to figure out who should step forward to lead what was left of that unit.

 Shouting from his horse he said, “Boys, your field officers are all gone; I will lead you.”

 That only sufficed for a moment, then the general was slapped in the chest by a musket ball and sent crashing to the ground stone dead. His executive officer Col. Thomas Cahill was no less brave but the gray invaders enjoyed a distinct tactical advantage. Even when the fog began to lift, the Confederates had the advantage of superior firing positions. The cemetery was one thing, but there was also the fact that the Union army had set up their tent camp in the largest undeveloped clearing that existed within the city limits.

The combined actions of defending an open camp and running to reinforce the town proper placed the Union troops in a way and the Confederates were fighting for home turf. The steady advance of gray was not to be stopped by muskets alone. So the order was given to fall back to the riverbanks where the Union gunboats could add their firepower. There the Navy turned the tide not only with gunboats but with field artillery that had been kept where it could reinforce the Navy. But the Union soldiers farthest from the river saw much more than an enemy that was being routed.

 Some of the men in gray displayed uncommon tenacity as they advanced with crimson stains upon their uniforms. At first the Union troop felt a degree of compassion and respect for men who would not lie down with their wounds. But as the men in gray grew nearer the men in blue began to discern that something unnatural was taking place. Sometimes you look into a man’s eyes and fear. Most of the time you see a built up determination to bull down on your adversary. But the expressions that became clear as the two forces closed with one another seemed strangely empty. They would have seemed natural enough at a poker table or maybe even in church, but on the battle field they seemed odd as all get out.

  But the brutal reality of their situation didn’t slam home until the bayonets did. Many a Union musket was empty and many more could believe that they missed  when they busted a cap on a man and he just kept on a coming. But when the Union pig stickers drove into soft flesh, dozens of North Men all along the front went wide eyed in shock as their victims continued to push forward, sometimes successfully overpowering men who had every reason to expect victory in that fight.

 Two men administering drugs could hardly take responsibility for the Union withdrawal, and the only documented fact was that the employment of artillery eventually won the day for the north. But there were two men out among the retreating host who were very much elated by what they had experienced. No less than seventeen Confederate soldiers had successfully over powered their Union opponents while carrying mortal wounds. The North Men who had prevailed did so because they administered a severe blow to the brain; and in one case a decapitation had taken place.

 Some of the men would remember to their dying days how the graveyard had been so errie that the fighting men emerging from it played tricks on everyone’s imagination. Only two men knew the truth, and they almost crippled their horses getting back to the hospital so that they could get to work on the next batch of serum. The long ride ended at 3:00 a.m. leaving them exhausted but still elated over their level of success. The men had different visions of what their drug would accomplish, but both believed that they would be at the center of a turning point in history. Wealth, power and fame would become their daily staple. All they needed to do now was plan how to produce the drug on a large scale. Then The Company would buy onto a pharmaceutical company that would send cargos sailing to the four corners of the Earth. This would happen long before anyone could come up with a peaceful application for the drug.

 In the dead of night it did not surprise the two men that all was dark and quiet in the large building. Mercier was the main reason the new building existed and when he and Denison were gone there was little to do after sundown. A couple of the orderlies had risked getting into trouble by visiting the Parish’s only house of ill repute, but everyone else would be asleep, perhaps with the help of a little bourbon. Denison took out a candle and lead the way in. They had agreed to sleep until dawn and then regardless of how they felt they would get up and get cracking on their all important project.

 The old man was so engrossed in his thoughts that he slipped on something wet while proceeding half blind across the reception room.

 “Damn those drunken scoundrels. I don’t mind them taking a nip after hours but if they’re so far in the bad that they spill their drinks, the least they can do is clean up after themselves,” declared the professor.

Denison waved his portable light toward the section of flooring that was indicated and frowned.

 “What the….”

 The stain on the floor was dark. Wine? The orderlies only drank the hard stuff as far he was aware. The man wasted no more time getting a proper lantern ignited to replace the feeble glow of the candle. Then he returned to the spot while the professor was lighting his own kerosene burner. The stain was actually the end of a trail. The grizzly origin was lying under an end table.

 “Mary Mother Of God,”  Denison breathed while picking up a man’s hand.

 Heavy droplets of blood were found on the other side of the table and constituted another trail that led into the next room. There a one handed man was found lying a couple of feet away from a Navy Colt revolver that was only half cocked. His head was still on his shoulders but his cervical spinal cord had been partially gouged out of position. When Denison finally averted his gaze from the objects on the floor he noted that Mercier was just standing there with a look of total befuddlement.

 “Haskell tried to use his teeth,” the old man muttered half to himself.

 Denison spared another glance at the strange neck wound and swallowed hard. Then he picked up the revolver and proceeded to a room that all the orderlies used as a joint sleeping          quarters. Three beds were empty, but a fourth was not. The man in it might have been sleeping when someone twisted his heard all the way around. Without a word Denison rushed to the chamber where De Lane’s bed had been set up. It was empty. Then he went to the regular ward where company men were posing as patients. All the beds were empty.

 “Grant is also missing,” reported the old man a moment later.

 “He must have formed a search party. But where are they searching?” Denison muttered half to himself.

 “Not in town. Probably the outskirts on this end,” said Mercier. “It was the same with Haskell. He couldn’t think clearly but he instinctively knew that he had to get away from a populated area.”

 “We’re talking about De Lane now aren’t we,” Denison stated with absolute certainty.

 “Of course we’re talking about De Lane. Let us hope that the drug was not administered by one of the men lying dead. We need to find out exactly what was done different in this case.”

 “I would settle for knowing where the hell everyone is,” snapped the young man.

 “I rather doubt that Grant has gone for the sheriff yet. He’s probably hoping to get our latest subject back in custody before calling attention to this place.”

 “Well, we’re going to call attention to this place before daylight comes. Gather all your notes and your most important equipment, Professor. Once it’s well away from here I’m going to torch this place?”

 “Are you mad?” Mercier asked incredulously. “Your precious organization spent a great deal of money building this hospital and you want to burn it down while the paint is still wet?”

 “We don’t have time to dispose of the bodies properly, not to mention the blood stains. I don’t know anything about the local sheriff but we dare not assume that he’s going to be as easy to handle as the last one.”

 “Very risky though; burning the place down before we speak with the others,” Mercier pointed out.

 “Risky but necessary. Now let’s not waste any more time. Dawn is not that far off, and the folks around here get up with the chickens.”

 An hour later the two men were back on their horses watching the flames as they rose into the last of the night shrouded sky.

 “I’ll show a farm nearby where I’ve made emergency arrangement. You and your notes will be safe there until we can get you relocated. I’ll need to make myself seen at the sheriff’s office in case Grant arrives. But before we part company there is one thing I’d like to know: why do they end up wanting to bite people. They’re not turning into cannibals are they?”

 “No. Many of the subjects weren’t physically capable of digesting food in any case. No, the desire to bite seems to be a psychological regression of a sort. The mind is reduced to the same primitive level we were at half a million years ago,” explained the professor.

 “And you’re sure the saliva in the subjects is harmless?”

 “The subject’s condition is not contagious if that is what you’re getting at,” responded Mercier.

 Denison didn’t make eye contact, and silently admonished himself for listening to all those stupid zombie stories that were thrown about by the more superstitious natives of the region.

 “Let’s get a move on before we’re spotted.”

Chapter Seventeen

 William waited a good two days before making his move. He calculated that he’d have at least that much time before his captors found out that he had fed them crap and therefore should be eliminated. The ex sailor still couldn’t get over his good fortune.

 “How could they be such chumps?”  he thought to himself.

 It has often been said that there is no honor among thieves. William wasn’t entirely certain that was true, but it was true that crime bosses were awfully damn hard to lie to. So how did he manage to pull it off? Did it have anything to do with the fact that he had cheated death many times since the accidental killing of a priest? He wasn’t a praying man, and he sure as hell wasn’t receiving any visions like maybe a burning bush or some such thing, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being directed.

 One thing was painfully obvious: since returning to the United States, he had managed to get on the bad side of the most dangerous criminal organization in the world, yet there was something surreal about it. The risks and even the punitive experiences seemed unreal. He was almost ready to accept the belief that he wasn’t as frightened as he should be because fate was carrying him across frontier America as a survivor; as a man who was destined to live so long as there was great evil that needed to be dealt with in his time.

 Only problem was: the idea never stopped being ridiculous.

  William had been assigned two companions  to complete a three man cargo hauling detail that never really did anything. He knew there was another man out about someplace. Probably a sniper with orders to nail him if he strayed too far from the wagon team. But snipers aren’t too effective at night, and that’s when men tend to lose vigilance to heavy eyelids. William’s war buddies had a system: They would use his legs as a pillow. Somewhat undignified but effective. Of course William would be provided with a nice rain tarp in case it might rain, and said covering would keep any passing soldier from noticing that his hands were tied in the night.

 But during the course of the day he had managed to slip a little something into the wagon’s water barrel; a natural laxative that he learned about while growing up in swamp country. He had also found a straight edge razor on the ground while gathering fire wood. Frogs and insects indicated that a rain was coming and that would help as well. As it turned out, the precipitation rolled in off the gulf as a first class storm. By 2:30 a.m. both of William’s watchdogs were under the wagon cursing and crapping. (Not necessarily in that order.)

 The wagon team had selected a spot that was two-hundred yards away from the next campsite. If queried by any passing officer they would present a special order penned by the chief medical officer of the unit. He was also a member of The Company, but the only thing that mattered to the guards that night was that they had the luxury of being sick in relative privacy.

 “You guys don’t know how long we’ll be camped here. Maybe you should perform your necessaries someplace other than under the wagon.”

 “We’re not fretting that,” growled one of the guards from his squatting position. “Who the hell do you think is going to be shoveling this out come morning?”

  William drew out his razor and was about to get to work on his bonds when a flash of lightning heralded a most unwelcome arrival. Standing big as life; albeit significantly reduced in weight was Dirk De Lane. The prisoner quickly slipped the razor back into it’s hiding place. His only hope right now was to have his captors maintain their current status.

 (Preferably with their pants up.)

 “Hey Guys, Mr. De Lane is here to make sure that you do a good job of guarding me until Denison or Mercier return.”

 One of the men squatting simply frowned in puzzlement. He had heard that name before but couldn’t recall who it belonged to. But the other man hitched up his britches and stood up in the rain to receive a man who upon last report, was supposed to be dying.

 “Hey Mr. De Lane, sorry we can’t offer you a cup of coffee. This rain has us kind of hunkered down. Jess and me have come down with a touch of the runs to boot but we got the prisoner well secured. Nothing to fear there.”

 The prisoner was a trifle dismayed by all the brown nosing. It suggested that maybe De Lane could walk off with William and his babysitters would just go back to fertilizing what the horses had missed. William was further dismayed by the fact that his enemy had approached the wagon site without a horse, meaning that he was in much better shape than he was earlier. Not perfect mind you. The loss of weight was obvious, and the man’s foot work was a tad unstable, as well as a bit stiff. He was drenched by the rain and deathly pale, but his eyes looked free of pain and William could only take comfort in the fact that he didn’t look particularly hostile at the moment.

 The other guard got his pants up but remained on his side of the wagon. He was hoping really hard that this big shot would just nod his approval and then get the hell back to wherever he came from. Both men’s guts were a mess and they certainly weren’t expecting company in the middle of a night shrouded rain storm. De Lane closed on the first man as if to get a better look at him between lightning flashes. The guard was wearing a silly grin, with water dripping off a scraggly beard. That grin disappeared  when a powerful hand grabbed a fist full of testicles. The man let out a wail and then fainted dead away from the pain. He was the lucky one in a manner of speaking. William got out his razor and got to work on his bonds while the second guard closed in with a musket and bayonet.

 “Mister, I’m right sorry if we ain’t all you was hoping for, but I got to tell ya, you best keep yer distance from me cause I ain’t one to take hurt delivered by nobody.”

 De Lane didn’t seem to hear that and his silence was more than a bit unnerving.

 “I’m warning ya. I don’t care who ya are. You ain’t gunna lay a hand on me.”

 The guard didn’t fire his musket. He tried to use the bayonet to keep his adversary at bay. He allowed an inch of steel to penetrate, and the bizarre creature in front of him did in fact stop so that the stabbing would not be more severe. But then it grabbed hold of the pig sticker and pulled it out of its stomach. Then with just a bit more effort it wrenched the entire weapon from the astonished guard’s grasp. If the guard had chosen to run at that precise moment, he would have lived. The thing that used to be De Lane didn’t care about obstacles that were willing to remove themselves. But as soon as the guard lost his weapon, he opted to boot the man thing in the testicles before the spear like weapon could be brought completely around for use.

 The heavily leathered foot struck center but it had no effect that could be seen in the semi darkness. The bayonet then pointed like a finger of doom and an instant later half the guard’s face exploded in perfect unison with the thunder. All the while the man in the wagon was frantically trying to get his bonds cut by holding the handle of the razor in his teeth. De Lane showed no concern as he stepped over the remains of his last opponent. He had strength and he seemed invulnerable to attack, but he lacked alacrity, and perhaps the ability to perceive what will come next.

 William oblivious to everything except the rawhide that had to be sawed with the pressure generated from his aching teeth. He dully realized that accomplish this with two men squatting directly underneath him probably would have been tougher than what he had envisioned. In any case his wrists separated in time to grab a king bolt that the guards had never given an thought to. The bayonet was deflected just long enough for William to leap from the wagon and land inside his opponent’s reach. Then he gouged at the De Lane’s eyes and one of the eyeballs was successfully dislodged from its socket.

 That would have taken the fight out of most men, but with one eye still functional De Lane brought the rifle butt around and scored a less than perfect blow to William’s chin. All the will power in the world couldn’t keep him from crashing onto his back. But he was able to shake the cobwebs from his brain in time to roll to one side as De Lane drove the tip of the bayonet into the water soaked earth. William grabbed the musket barrel and held on as the bayonet was extracted from the moss covered earth. He was promptly raised to his feet and pushed back until he was against the back side of the wagon.

 William had fought over guns before in this manner, but the strength of his opponent was unbelievable. Still he risked letting go with one hand long enough to pluck the musket cap off the nipple of the musket. Now he only had to fear the bayonet----or so he thought. Some deep seated intelligence in the recesses of De Lane’s mind reminded him that if there is no percussion cap on the gun, then there is no gun. Releasing his finger from the trigger guard, the zombie like fighting man grasped his own section of the barrel with his trigger hand and brought his unhappy opponent closer to him.

 William tried to remove the bayonet but that gave De Lane the opportunity to grab hold of William’s wrist. The flesh was as cold and clammy as one would expect, and it was the strongest grip William had ever experienced. He tried to get at his opponent’s other eye but De Lane had learned his lesson and was now effectively protecting his face. Then William resorted to kicks to the side of other man’s knee caps, but that was no more effective than kicking at the groin. Then the bayonet was abandoned by both parties and the struggle became an all out wrestling match that was very much to De Lane’s advantage.

 William was slammed against the wagon over and over and his strength was draining from him at an alarming rate. Suddenly a cold claw got hold of his throat and removing it was like trying to remove an iron collar. But fortunately the struggle was noticed by a sergeant who had gotten up to check on the area sentry. Not realizing that he was witnessing a life and death struggle, he ran over to the wagon with the intention of knocking a couple of skulls together.

 “What kind of damn fool behavior is this?” he shouted as he approached. “I don’t care if you numbskulls do have special permission to camp by yourselves like you’re royalty or something. The Blue Bellies just kicked us the hell out of the capital for the second time and we ain’t----“

 The sergeant’s lecture came to an abrupt end when he got to the other side of the wagon and saw the true nature of the struggle taking place.

 “Lord Almighty,”  he breathed out before fumbling for his revolver.

 The sergeant had no idea what was going on, but two men were lying on the dark ground and a third was being throttled, therefore it was logical to assume that the man doing the choking had assaulted the group as only an out of control lunatic would do.

 “Release that man right now!” the sergeant commanded.

 De Lane ignored him, and William allowed himself to go limp, but the zombie man held him up by the throat.

 Much to William’s relief the sergeant’s revolver discharged in the rain. De Lane’s right bicep was punctured by the ball and William was allowed to sink completely to the ground. Then the sergeant advanced closer and was able to make out De Lane’s ruined eye.

 “Aw shit, what were you all fighting about? Alright, you march out ahead of me that way. We’ll report to the lieutenant and then we’ll get you sent over to the infirmary, such as it is. You on the ground, get your ass up and check on those other men. You’ll be telling your side of this before dawn and I’d say you’re in a fix no matter who did what.”

 The sergeant was about to order De Lane to get a move on when suddenly the one eyed man came at the sergeant.

 “Don’t you try it,” growled the non-com. But De Lane was already past the trying part.

 He grabbed the pistol barrel and wrenched it out its owner’s hand in an instant. The sergeant inhaled in a rush. It was the last breath he would ever take. William bolted off in the muddy tracks made by the sergeant on the way to his doom. A second shot cracked through a curtain of rain and then a forth. But De Lane’s good eye had to contend with the pouring rain, as well sights that worked poorly in the dark. The only thing William had going for him was speed and he made the most of it. True, De Lane could untie one of the pulling horses that were tethered thirty yards away but running was still a very good idea.

 When he made it to his closest neighbors he paused to catch his breath and peer grimly back the way he had come. There was no sign of De Lane nor any hint that a horse was coming his way.

 “What in tarnation is going on?” asked a wagon driver who stuck his head out of his tent and resented the need.

 “Lunatic showed up at our site. Killed maybe three men including a sergeant. Which tent belongs to the officer in charge?”

 “I ain’t rightly certain,” answered the driver as he reached for his musket.

 “Be ready to shoot anyone coming from that direction. He’s got an eyeball out. That’s how you can recognize him.”

 Then William resumed his run and didn’t stop until he reached a larger group of tents. All the men in them were still asleep but that was fine with William. There were a number of horses confined in a temporary coral and that was more important to him than any damn officer.

 “Halt, who goes there?” a sentry challenged as William reached the rope that closed off part of the coral.

 “Didn’t you hear the shots?” asked William. “Go find the officer in charge and wake him.”

 “I’ll wake him alright, but with you walking ahead of me. Get going that way Private.”

 William thought about that for an instant and then decided that he didn’t want to have anything further to do with the matter. No matter how this got handled it would keep him from leaving the unit and that was precisely what he wanted to do. So he promptly sucker punched the sentry and helped himself to a horse without the benefit of a saddle. Luckily he was at least able to spot a bridle on one of the sapling trees that made up the barriers of the coral. It seemed to take forever to get away from all the encampments but eventually he gained solitude in the Louisiana country side with nothing but the rain and the dark to occupy his thoughts. He didn’t push his horse with so much unsure footing around him, but he kept the animal moving. He would be looking over shoulder for a very long time to come. He had a long way to go and more than a few miles would be wasted blundering towards bogs that needed to be circumnavigated.

 Would his pursuer have the same problem? Of course he would. Just the same, there was a cold chill on his back that told him there was something following  him that could not get lost. Something driven by an unnatural hate that would never fail to zero in on his location.

 Burdened with this obsession, he had a long way to go, and he would be hounded by his own fears every step of the way. The rain water seemed to be getting colder and the one good thing about it was that it would help to keep him awake. He had heard stories of men who could actually sleep in the saddle. Well, he wasn’t one of them. Besides---he didn’t have a saddle. Somehow he needed to keep going until dawn. That was all that mattered; moving his tired mount forward until this damn night was over.

 His mind eventually touched on the edge of a light sleep, and the horse placed a foot wrong as the rider lilted slightly to the right. Suddenly William’s body was making hard contact with the muddy earth and the damn horse kept going as if happy to be rid of any human that would make it travel during prime sleeping hours. William needed to get up but didn’t really feel like it. He had been under a lot of stress being a captive and all, and fighting a zombie had taken all the strength he had left. Placing both hands in the mud so as to gain purchase, he prepared to raise himself, but stopped short when the impossible materialized out of a night shrouded country side. William wanted to scream at it; curse it for being so insufferably good at hounding a man who had the benefit of a horse.

 “Damn horse must have been going in circles,” William muttered to himself as the specter closed the distance between them. 

Chapter Eighteen

The zombie had caught up with him. It didn’t seem possible but to deny the fact was to deny his sanity and William wasn’t ready to do that just yet. How the De Lane thing managed to get past so many Confederate troops didn’t matter. Nor did it matter how he managed to find William in the dark vastness of the semi swamp land. The only thing that mattered was that it was standing between William and his stolen mount. Yes, he could out run the scarecrow of a man that was approaching, but it would catch up with him after his blind unreasoning panic had done its work. Somehow he knew this. Somehow he knew there was no point in running.

 The man thing drew closer, and it was a psychological mercy when the gaunt one eyed creature finally ended its long and eerie silence.

 “Have you been praying for help, Longpenance? Have you chosen to believe that God will help you after what you did back in China? This is all a preview of what awaits men like you, Longpenance. No fiery underworld, but something bad enough. You will have monsters to content with Longpenance, because they are fit company for you now. On the inside Longpenance, you look exactly like me.”

 Then the wretched creature suddenly gained the powers of a swamp cat and leapt forward with blood stained hands reaching to regain their grip on a tired man’s throat.

 William sat bolt upright on the damp ground. A bright morning sun shining down on a man who was chilled, aching and covered in mud. The horse was gone; probably back with its rightful owner and a nice bag of grain. Well perhaps it was just as well. Horse thievery was founded upon even in times of war. Hunger in a land that abounded with crawling creatures was easier to contend with than nightmare zombies. He would get to where he needed to be. It would take better than a week but he would get there.

 The mud encrusted hiker was almost glad to be alone with his thoughts at that time. The dream had given him much to ponder. Back in China he had accidentally killed a Catholic priest who had tried to thwart a weapons smuggling operation. William had merely punched the old man in the jaw, but that had been enough to kill. The man from New Orleans had spent his entire life straddling the line between good and bad. After being raised in Louisiana, he was certainly no stranger to the Catholic ways that could be found in every corner of the world. But he had come to believe that if Jesus wanted all mankind to walk the straight and narrow, then he did a piss poor of hammering the lessons home.

 How many thieves, whores and drunks had been baptized into the faith? The Muslims didn’t stand for any misbehavior in their parts of the globe, but the Catholics spent a great deal of time looking the other way so long as the local parishes functioned within accepted parameters. But what mattered most to William was the fact that he was now strangely torn between the logic he gained in his travels and the superstition that was part of his birth right. Ever since that accidental killing, he had experienced an unbelievable number of near death episodes that convinced him that he had gotten the attention of someone upstairs. His original fear was that he would be punished on Earth even before the main act that would commence as soon as somebody finally learned to shoot straight at him. But then an interesting change came to pass. He began to find himself in situations where victims of injustice needed a champion, and William’s ended up with the job without any formality of enlistment.

 Unfortunately for this professional adventurer, helping others became considerably more complicated than just saving a damsel in distress. The Company was the most ambitious criminal organization in the world, and if you had something they could use, they might come knocking on your door with knuckles well suited for pounding on many things. They tried to take over half of California a while back, and the Colorado gold streams after that.

 William had a hand in stopping them, but still had trouble believing that God wanted crime busters working for him. But his fates were undeniably weird and the turning point had been on a moon lit dock back in China. He could question his nightmare existence all he wanted to, but each and every day he needed to keep himself or someone else alive, while thousands of men slaughtered each other in civil war that added another dimension to his already topsy-turvy world. Now if only a cardinal or maybe even the Pope would show up and make him a straight forward proposition that would gain him absolution. That would be nice.

 William stole some civilian clothes and worked his way back to semi familiar stomping grounds. All throughout that part of the state people were hungry for news that might come with the passing of a traveler from other parishes. He would chop wood for a chunk of smoked bacon or load a wagon for a loaf of bread. Sleep on the ground where it was least likely he would roll over on a snake and stay ever vigilant for men who might be looking for him. It took a while, but eventually he gained a spot on the back of a wagon that took him all the way to Brashear City.

 MacDonald rushed forward to shake William’s hand when the spy turned vagabond came shuffling through the front door.

 “Well I’ll be damned. I pretty much gave you up for dead.”

 “There were a few close calls, but I’m all done being amazed by things like that,” responded William.

 “Well sir, I’ll take a brief report from you now and we’ll go into more detail after you’ve had a proper bath.”

 “Are you saying that I smell bad?”

 “Did they break your nose while you were in captivity?” MacDonald countered with a grin.

  “You get used to your own smell after a time, but I didn’t trudge over half the state to teach you that. You need to know that Mercier has accidentally come up with a drug that gives a wounded man the constitution of a grizzly. I’m not saying that he’ll win the war administering the stuff to Confederate wounded, but The Company  will likely become richer and more powerful than they could have with gold coming from Midas’ rear end.”

 “What? Oh.”

 “Bottom line: you need to get your hands on Mercier and his notes. Do whatever you have to do MacDonald. Call Lincoln if you have to.”

 “My boss could get hold of his barber maybe,” muttered the older man.

 “Well you’ve got some important stuff on your hands. What you do with it is your business. I’m ready to head back to sea. Things have gotten too hot for me around here.”

 “What does that mean?”

 “I mean The Company  is going to be out to get me now. This is the third time I’ve run afoul of them and I’ve got a hunch that no one has ever done that before and lived. So let me go back to my ship before they zero in on me.”

 “We’ll have to compromise on that William. My boss will get send word to Farragut that we need a squad of Marines to hit a thus far undisclosed location. But we need you to bird dog this thing for us.”

 “MARINES?! Have you been sniffing invisible ink or something?” William asked with frustration leaking out of his ears. “Mercier’s new hideout could be one to six days west of the Mississippi. The Company  will pick a new location that’s lightly populated. Then they will recruit enough of the locals to spot any strangers that come into the area. Even if those Leather Necks were dressed like Cajun laborers, they would still arouse suspicion if they got within a quarter mile of the safe house. Believe me, the men in charge of the Mercier operation will be wide awake from now on.”

 MacDonald’s expression was deadpan but he was actually quite pleased with how the conversation was going.

 “Yes, well---that knowledge of yours won’t do us any good once you are back aboard your ship, will it? So tell me, how should we go about moving a strike force through hostile territory?”

 “Did Simon Douglas make it back alright?”

 “Yes, no thanks to your shoot first and think second policy.”

 “To answer your question: you need another black operative like Simon. He would be at the center of a kind of Trojan Horse  operation.”

 “Sounds interesting. Let’s have the details.”

 “When you find the damn safe house, you have the Negro show up begging for food. Likely he will be taken in. Your Marines show up impersonating a pack of slave hunters on the trail of the fugitive who has been taken inside. Like I said, any tough looking strangers will be reported as soon as they enter a city or township, but if a fugitive slave is running ahead of them, they’ll likely be excepted as slave hunters and not Federal guys.”

 “Yes, well, that sounds like an interesting plan but we only have one Negro working for us, and he has as much reason to leave the south as you do, wouldn’t you agree?”

 “I would, but maybe Simon knows someone who could be recruited. It would give him something to do while waiting for news on Mercier.”

 “I’ll run it by him,” MacDonald promised.

 “You just did,” said the black man as he entered the reception room. “I’ll take the job if William will don something for me.”

 “What would that be?” asked William.

 “Explain how you got yourself out of the mess you put us in.”

 William ran through the whole series of events in detail. It was the least he could do for a man willing to go back into the lion’s den.

 “Lordy----you’re saying that this Mercier created a real life zombie? In that case I want a guarantee that my rescuers will come for me before  that evil old man can do anything unnatural to me.”

 “I make it clear to the strike force leader that he’s to attack within twenty minutes after you are taken inside,” MacDonald promised, “but I’m afraid that I can’t guarantee anything. William’s plan sounds like its feasible, but The Company  is a unpredictable bunch; even more so now that they know that the government is out to do them great harm.”

 “William can guarantee it,” said Simon.

 “Like hell. Weren’t you eavesdropping long enough to hear that there will be a hunt on for me? Any strangers seen with me will automatically be considered enemy. I am the last thing the strike force wants on their side.”

 “Bull, all you need is a fake beard and smoked glasses.”

 “Oh sure, then I’ll blend right in with the local famers and merchants,” scoffed William.

 “Now  you’re the one who’s forgetting his very own words,” chided the Negro. “You said that a gang of slave hunters would be ignored IF a fugitive slave showed up at the enemies’ door step to prove that a real slave hunt was on.”

 MacDonald nodded as if to settle the matter and said, “You’re both in then. You’ll both get moving as soon as we find out where Mercier has fled to. In the meantime I need to set up my own early warning system and put together a plan to collect our valuables and evacuate within minutes. The Company might be compared to an animal that prefers flight to combat, but if harassed to a great extend will go on the offensive, even against the United States government.”

 “Oh yea,” agreed William, “now if you two will excuse me, I’m going to go visit the local cat house and forget for a while that being me really stinks.”

 With that the professional adventurer marched off in a huff.

 MacDonald stared after him in amazement.

 “I am impressed Simon. I thought the only way I would get that man to go back into the field would be by reminding him that I have absolute authority over him.”

 “He’s going back because a black man is going back and he doesn’t want to be outdone by a black man,” explained Simon.

 “I suppose there is that possibility,” conceded the white man, “but I think it is more likely that he feels guilty that he almost got you killed and now you’re volunteering to go back right under his very nose.”

 “Boils down to the same thing---needing to be the equal of whoever is standing next to him,” said the colored man.

 “And you trust him more than any man Farragut might send us? I am intrigued by that.”

 The black man hesitated for a moment and then said, “I have a gut feeling about the man. He has done poorly by me so far, but there is something about him that makes me want to try again.”

 “Well, let’s hope we don’t have to wait long for the chance.”

 “Don’t ever rush into anything that only benefits others---that’s what every slave knows.”

 “Yes but the cat house activity goes on my expense account,” explained the government worker.

Chapter Nineteen

Cesar Rodriguez, Albert Dousette, Carlos Rivera and Lorenzo Riero were back together again after a corporate separation of nearly ten months. Each man had been totally focused on his own underworld standing and each had gone to great efforts to make certain that no matter how the war ended, life would go on in the manner they were accustomed to. Rivera didn’t really out rank anyone, but since he was the owner of the small hotel that stood on the outskirts of Natchez, he was allowed to officiate as well as play host.

 “You’ve all witnessed a demonstration of Professor Mercier’s latest refinement. We are all in agreement that this new narcotic is worthy of whatever resources we put into it Testing on a large scale is something that can best be done in wartime conditions, so I have made arrangements for Mercier to conduct another battle field experiment, this one at the siege of Vicksburg.”

 Every man present was familiar with the reference that had been made. Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton was defending the fortress city of Vicksburg with thirty-thousand half starved men. The siege was being maintained by Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and one-hundred thousand reasonably well fed troops. The outcome was easy enough to predict at that point in time. The Confederate defenders were doomed.

 “I think such experiments should take place at Port Hudson,” put in Cesar Rodriguez. “I predict that Port Hudson, which is also under siege, will outlast Vicksburg. Besides which, it is closer.”

 Rivera bristled at this last minute suggestion.

 “Pemberton is not a very popular general. He will hold out as long as possible in order to erase any smear to his good name,” explained Rivera. “Many of our agents in Missouri are on their way to the siege. Some of them impersonating medical workers and others posing as journalists. It is too late to even consider a change of plans, and I can assure you all that Vicksburg will suit our purpose well enough.”

 “And what of this rogue Longpenance---has he been found yet?” asked Piero.

 “He is a curiosity,” admitted Rivera. “I have been trying to find out why he is conducting his one man war against us. We think the Feds have some kind of satrap set up in Brashear City and that he has been to that place at least once. But we have kept our people away from it so as to give the government no hint that we are on to them.”

 “So we know that the government is recruiting people with foreign travel experience to work against us,” put in Dousette.

 “Yes, and now we have reason to suspect that he contributed to our failure in California, as well as the Colorado venture. He’s hiding from us---just as we have been hiding from him and his government allies. Yes, he is a thorn in our side that will have to be plucked sooner or later. But he is helpless enough for the time being. Abraham Lincoln is the main problem. He is of the opinion that some chains are made from poppies. A rather narrow minded view considering his wife’s personal habits. Oh that reminds me: one of my spies has informed me that Mercier is working on a new delivery system for his drug. I don’t suppose any of you gentlemen could contribute to that subject?”

 The other three men were the picture of innocence. (Which was a real effort for them.)

 “I thought not. Just remember Gentlemen---we are but one arm on the octopus. If our grip should prove insufficient because we are not functioning as a cohesive unit---we could easily find ourselves out of the loop.”

 With that Rivera gave everyone a slight nod and made his way out of the reception chamber.

 “He better not bill us when we leave,” Piero half muttered to himself.

Chapter Twenty

 William Longpenance wasn’t what you could call happy, but at least he had the deck of a water craft under his feet again. The Company had done such a splendid job of hiding Mercier over the past ten months that MacDonald had been ordered to cut William loose and send him back to his beloved ship. But his beloved ship didn’t need him, and the river fleet under Rear Adm. David Porter did, so he was briefly assigned to an iron clad river boat named The Cairo. Such boats were usually five-hundred tons and about one-hundred and seventy feet in length. There was no romance to them like a sailing ship. They were soulless metal monstrosities designed for killing and nothing else.

 The only thing that mattered to the new arrival with the funny name was that they had provided adequate escort for the troop transports that General Grant needed in order to successfully lay siege to Vicksburg. Now that the operation was coming to a close, maybe he would get sent back to the gulf where proper deep water fighting men belonged. (Even if there was nothing to fight there.) Alas, since there was a respectable number of Rebs on both sides of the Mississippi River, the Union river fleet would not be disbanded anytime soon. This was especially bad new since William had discovered that shooting a large gun inside an ironclad is even more deafening than working a big gun on the deck of a ship.

 Always looking for an opportunity to improve himself, he informed his commander that he had friends down river who could be of assistance to the Union Navy, and would offer their services for gold or silver coin. (Discreetly of course.) All combat commanders had been ordered long ago to be on the lookout for persons who could provide intelligence or any other information pertaining to facilities in the south. William was off loaded at a nearby coaling station and directed to await a transport that would be bound for Baton Rouge. There he was to make his way to the local commander and hope that transportation further south would be forthcoming.

 None of that happened. The Company  had many operations going simultaneously and that included the selling of coal. After all, if you’re going to smuggle things you need to also engage in respectable activities, and its easier to secure the services of a boat captain if you can offer him hard to get fuel. William just happened to glance to the left while tying a shoe lace and recognized an intern that had helped to provide security in the first bogus hospital he had been taken to as a prisoner. The man was now driving a coal wagon. Obviously someone at the coal station had been bribed to share a bit of the fuel with a specified receiver.

 William turned his back on the man perched upon the coal wagon and smirked at the thought that the man had been demoted to the point of doing manual labor. But then it occurred to him that if he followed the wagon he would gain at least some bit of information that might prove useful to MacDonald. It was a hard decision to make. Technically there could be no excuse for him running off on his own, and the coal driver might head for a perfectly legitimate address that would be worthless to any intelligence gatherer. Still---MacDonald and his people hadn’t come up with a lead in nearly a year, so this long shot gamble might be worth a try. Taking car to remain at least one-hundred yards behind him, William tailed the wagon when it finally rolled away from the station.

 Interestingly enough, the wagon kept on rolling past farms long into the night. Around 1:00 a.m. it stopped at a small plantation that looked to be abandoned. William didn’t much like the looks of it. He had known two kinds of property owners while living in Louisiana. Most of them  were very proud of their land and worked hard to stay on top of the vegetation that creeps out of a wet soil and the never ending wood rot. But some men became slaves to their own vices and squandered money that activities that kept them away from necessary work. Alcohol was the most common of these character flaws.

 William saw many signs of neglect that proceeded all out abandonment. He had always felt that such neglect left a certain mark on the property. As though the land was telling everyone something about its former master. It could be a creepy kind of thing at certain times of the year, but the AWOL sailor now had more important things on his mind. The wagon had been driven to the back of the house, which could be described as a impressive conventional house or a someone mediocre mansion depending on how you wanted to look at it.

 Whoever had lived there in the past had owned slaves for certain, but probably had no standing in the upper social circles of the parish. A tributary of the Mississippi ran through the land, which made it even stranger that the original owner couldn’t make a go of something. There were no neighboring plantations, only lower class farm sites that were an average of a mile away. That was probably why it was now important to someone capable of purchasing bootleg coal. William decided it was time to stop speculating and start collecting answers. When the driver was through shoveling the coal down the delivery ramp, he moved the wagon and unhitched the horse team. He then walked the animals to a nearby barn that had a kerosene lantern hanging next to the main door.

 The driver lit the lamp and brought it into the barn in order to select a pair of stalls for the animals. William waited until the animals were inside the building before introducing the worker to five tightly packed knuckles. No rope was available but William wasn’t overly concerned with that. He secured the unconscious man’s wrists to a portion of the harness and coaxed one of the horses to drag the driver back out of the barn and into a patch of woods some one-hundred yards distant. The next step was to remove the man’s shirt and stuff a portion if it into his mouth. The man woke with a confused look that was changed into something else when, without ceremony, William stomped down hard on the side of one knee cap.

 The man’s muted screen only registered to the edge of the woods and then William had his undivided attention.

 “Call for help and I’ll kick your head in. Just tell me what’s going on in that house.”

 William pulled out the rag and got ready to round kick the man in the temple if necessary.

 “It’s Professor Mercier’s new hideout. I ain’t allowed inside anymore cause me and my buddies didn’t provide good enough security last time.”

 “No, you didn’t. So what’s all the coal for?”

 “They gotta heat something or other to brew some concoction that makes the drug work better,” explained the pain racked man on the ground.

 “Glad you didn’t get technical with me. You and I might have had the same science teacher.”

 A look of puzzlement briefly replaced a look of pain, which could barely be recognized as the moon drifted briefly between clouds. Then a trip hammer straight punch put the injured man back to sleep. William briefly considered the idea of killing the man but rejected it. He was not a murderer, and certainly not one since leaving China. In any case, he was through being a one man army. It was time for him to use his brains instead of his martial arts training. He would make it look as though he had sensibly run off to get reinforcements, but in fact he would find himself a good spot where he could watch the road.

 They would move Mercier again and they would do it before any Union Navy personnel could be mustered for a land assignment. William would bide his time and simply follow the evacuation party to a place where they would be more vulnerable. What else could he do? As a sailor he had not been issued a firearm of his own and the driver wasn’t packing either. It just made sense to remember that discretion is the better part of valor.

 William tethered his horse three-hundred yards further out from where he intended to monitor the approach to the property. It clouded up and started to rain again but it was a warmer rain than the previous storm had brought and since he hadn’t bathed in three weeks, he was willing to shrug off the discomfort. Around 4:00 a.m. two wagons and three escort riders materialized from the direction of the plantation. William was almost positive that he was looking at the coal hauling wagon that was now loaded with trunks and some furniture.

 One of the men on the other wagon was cloaked and wearing a wide brimmed hat. That was probably Mercier and he would have his notes on the rig with him. Such a procession would be easy enough to follow at a safe distance. They would have a large boat stashed someplace no doubt and the ability to travel under the careless scrutiny of Union officers. But William would turn them over before they could cover any distance on The Big Muddy. He was absolutely certain of that. He stalked his quarry with grim satisfaction, slightly amused at how often now he had forced members of The Company to pack up and run just when they thought they had something good working.

 That daydream betrayed him. Too late he detected the sound of four riders on his trail. They were trying to close the distance as quietly as possible. The sound of their hoof beats only slightly masked by the falling rain.

 “Shit,” thought William when he realized that he had fallen into a trap.

 He was not an outstanding rider, and he lacked a saddle on top of it. But without a gun, he was forced to choose between fleeing and surrender, and he wasn’t quite ready for that last option. Hopefully their proximity to the river would discourage gunfire, but in any case William urged the wagon horse forward while praying for just one more miracle to come his way.

 It didn’t.

 He managed to round a single bend only to discover that both wagons he had been trailing were now set up across the road as a very effective road block. He cut to the right but the land on both sides of the raised roadway was bog like and made worse now by the current rains. The wagon horse decreased its speed from unremarkable  to snail like. His pursuers got to within pistol range in no time.

 “Stop or I’ll shoot!” one of them commanded.

 The quarry heaved a sigh of resignation and allowed his miserable excuse for a horse to come to a complete stop.

 “Mercier isn’t in that wagon is he,” William stated with certainty.

 “No. The trap was dreamed up soon after our coal hauler told us what had happened to him,” said an average looking thug with a nose that looked like it had been broken at least twice.

 “Mercier’s idea or Denison’s?”

 “Neither,” came a reply from behind.

 William turned his mount around and watched the man’s face materialize out of the darkness.

 “I’ll be damned,” muttered the prisoner.

 “We’ll do our best,” promised none other than Yancy Lamont himself.

  “So you’re a Company man after all.”

 “Never heard of the outfit before we met. But you’ve raised so much hell with them that they went and hired every gun that is too smart to bother playing soldier boy. You are worth twenty-thousand dollars in bounty money and I am the one who will be collecting it.”

 “So all those knife throwing lessons will pay off after all huh? Well, I hope I get to see what’s going on in the house before I cash in my chips. You can write on my tombstone that I was inquisitive to the end.”

 “There won’t be any tombstone, but I can promise you that you learn everything there is to know about----it,” Lamont said without a bit of humor.

Despite the darkness and the rain, William perceived that something very bad was going on; something that would support that old axiom, ignorance is bliss. But if anything could be said about William Longpenance, it was that he never ran away from anything. Too much pride, perhaps because he was the son of a whore.

 So he silently endured the bounty hunter’s clucking all the way back to the plantation, where he was escorted through a front door that had been boarded shut along with the windows until recently. Professor Mercier was there to greet him; looking much older (if such a thing was possible) but happy that this thorn in the company’s side was finally under control.

 “Mr. Longpenance, it is good to see you again. Admittedly that would not have been my point of view a month ago but that is neither here nor there. Now your arrival is most apropos. I what to show you something that I’m sure will fascinate you. Oh, huh, please excuse the décor. We keep trying to avoid prying eyes. I’m sure I don’t need to explain that to you.”

 With a candle opera for light, William and his four guards walked slowly behind the old man as if in a funeral procession. The similarity was certainly not lost on the prisoner, who gazed about at the interior of the hollow mansion, only making out a small percentage of the cobwebs and mouse droppings that were everywhere. Obviously this particular satrap was entirely subterranean.

 Sure enough, they descended a stairway that lead to a root cellar where there was naught but an old potato sack lying on an earthen floor. Lemont quickly move ahead of the old man and pushed hard on a fake wall section that obediently swung inward and showed a huge chamber that was lit by dozens of lanterns. The set up was similar to what he had stumbled upon back in New Orleans, but the particulars didn’t matter. What mattered was that there was an gaunt figure standing against a far stone wall. How this huge basement managed to stay dry didn’t matter to William. How Lemont managed to make his dream come true was also irrelevant. The only thing that mattered at that precise moment was the fact that Dirk De Lane was the man against the wall. He looked like shit, but he seemed to be very much alive.

 Mercier went to stand beside the emaciated creature, who’s trousers were shredded below the knee and who’s filthy shirt was missing the lower section so as to permanently expose a heavily scared waist that was damp with puss.

 “How is it that he hasn’t starved by now?” William inquired while plainly awestruck.

 The professor fearlessly placed  a forefinger on a cleft of flesh and pulled it back to reveal a fleshy tube like object that had been hidden by the flap. The tube opening was perhaps a quarter inch in diameter. Fresh blood began to seep out so the old man pushed the flap back over the tube and wiped his hand with a nearby towel.

 “That tube is connected to the lower end of the stomach. My method feeding him is crude and to be honest with you, ultimately bound to fail. I predict that he will lose most of his strength in a few weeks. But you must admit, he’s doing remarkably considering.”

 “Uh---yea. Er---does he remember me?” asked the prisoner.

 “Actually I’m rather counting on it. You see, it is very important that the subject retain a goal in mind up to the very end. It must be determined to destroy it’s enemy until such time that its head is cut off or perhaps a leg. It isn’t enough that the soldier not die when inflicted with a wound; he must continue to attack as long as his body is able to provide locomotion.”

“That wasn’t your original idea, was it.”

 “No,” the scientist admitted, “but war serves very well as a testing ground.”

 “What you are doing is against the laws of God and man. Sooner or later you’ll stretch a rope for it. I’ll see it happen; in this life or the next,” promised William.

 “I wouldn’t have taken you for a Bible Thumper,”  said Lamont after a prolonged silence.

 “I’m not, but you don’t have to believe in a holy book in order to accept the existence of a God that will kick your ass if you do evil things.”

 Lamont let out a belly laugh, but Mercier turned his attention back to what was left of De Lane.

   “This man was and in some ways still is a murderer. What I learn from him will benefit the scientific community whether there is a God or not.”

 “He is the first test subject that actually deserves what’s happening to him?” William countered.

 “Slaves do not deserve to die, but they just barely qualify as being alive,” muttered the professor.

 “That’s bull shit, but in any case, James Haskell wasn’t a slave.”

 “He was an accident.”

 “One that did not discourage you from further experimentation.”

 The old man seemed to wrestle with his conscience for an instant---but only for an instant.

 “Yes, the experimentation has to go on. Lamont, we shall implement your suggestion. Please supervise the project yourself. I only require a detailed report on the outcome.”

 With that the old man proceeded through one of several doorways that existed around the centralized main chamber.

 “He’s taking advice from a swamp rat like you?” William asked fearlessly. “I can’t help but doubt that his sponsors would disapprove, if they knew you as well as I do.”

 “You don’t know shit about me. You think I’m low scuff because I don’t dress fancy or work in a nice clean office?” growled the bounty hunter.

 “Nope. I think you’re trash because you live by the same rules as the animals in the swamps. I’ve known men like you all over the world. If no one puts a knife or a bullet in you, you’ll die of liver disease or syphilis---and at no time will you ever entertain a higher thought than what crossed the mind of a gator when his jaws clamp shut.”

 “You’re right as rain,” acknowledged the bounty man, “but them high sounding sentiments won’t help you out in the yard. To stay alive out there, you’re going to have to be just like me; and I’m betting that you will be.”

 Lamont then instructed four men to secure the zombie like De Lane with restraining straps that would allow the men to move De Lane up the stairs and out into the remainder of the night. William was ordered to follow. He didn’t know what was going to happen next, but was mindful of the fact that De Lane had been staring at him ever since he had been brought into yet another Company rat hole. Memories of their last contest were fresh in his mind, and he was pretty sure that this next exercise would go uninterrupted.

Chapter Twenty-One

 The two combatants were taken out to a section of yard that had gone unnoticed during William’s incident with the coal hauler. A wire gate was opened and the security procession entered a compound that measured twenty feet wide and one-hundred feet long. William studied the enclosure fencing with interest. The wire material possessed sharp little barbs every couple of inches. Any attempt to climb the twelve foot barrier material would result in badly punctured hands.

 As an added precaution, a guard armed with an ax handle was instructed to pound on any fingers that would present themselves if the prisoner tried to climb the pain inducing barrier. William was given an Enfield musket minus the bayonet. Another musket was brought into the enclosure but that one did have a pig sticker attached. William was not surprised that he was about to be subjected to a kind of gladiatorial contest. What did surprise him was the fact that there was a tree standing in the compound.

 “Why’d you fence in a tree? Aren’t you afraid I’ll keep it between me and my dancing partner?”

 Lamont smiled at the idea and said, “Fence posts were already there. I’m thinking that the previous owner of this place had a pack of hound dogs that were kept here. Course the new tangle wire was put up by us. Anyway, the lower branches have been cut off and if you want to dodge instead of fight, so be it. Me and the boys will get entertained one way or the other.”

 “Well, that’s what I live for,” joked William.

 “No, that’s what you’ll die for,” corrected Lamont. “We’re giving you enough elbow room so as to simulate open battle field conditions, but there’s no place to run. My advice is to stove your opponent’s head in with the musket butt. Of course you could also talk to De Lane about God and how he should prepare his soul for the hereafter.”

 That got a laugh from the five men who were with the bounty hunter.

 “What if I win?”

 “Well, you sure as hell won’t go free. You gotta realize that. We’ll just have to kill you and report to Mercier that his monster soldier juice ain’t quite perfected yet. Doesn’t matter I suppose. The war is gunna end anytime soon. Plenty of testing opportunities after this one.”

 With that De Lane was released like a mad bull with his assigned weapon at his feet. With a great deal of stiffness, the zombie gladiator picked up his weapon and advanced on a very unhappy Longpenance. Although it pained him to do so, he decided to heed Lamont’s suggestion and use his musket butt. Crossing his barrel muzzle with the far deadlier bayonet, he pushed it aside and swung in from his right in order to bring the thick wooden portion of the musket up against his opponent’s head. De Lane was slower than he would have been a month ago, but he was fast enough to react to such a broad sweeping action. What is more, he was able to bring the bayonet back on center with an earnestness that forced William to give ground. The all important thing was to deny De Lane the use of that pig sticker. It was the greatest threat and needed to be addressed forthwith.

 Swinging the musket like a battle ax William struck his opponent’s barrel with enough force to turn it about seventy degrees aside. He then abandoned his second rate club and got hold of the bayonet. He was able to yank it from the barrel but in the process he blundered into De Lane’s reach. Near panic threatened William’s thinking processes as an icy hand got hold of William’s throat. The sailor turned spy frantically stabbed the offending arm over and over until it finally let go. William then backed off and scooped up his musket. He attached the bayonet to his barrel and lunged in aiming for the heart.

 De Lane managed to parry the steel and grab hold of the blade, but William quickly pulled back with all his might and the bayonet slipped from De Lane’s grasp. Then the zombie like fighter grinned silently at his adversary, like a mute drunk, but infinitely more dangerous. It was then that William did some quick thinking. He might prevail with a weapon still in his hand but then what? He needed to escape, and beating De Lane wouldn’t bring him any closer to that. Besides, there was no telling exactly how good De Lane was, and William really didn’t need to find out.

 Doing a quick about face William charged the tree with his bayonet and the tip bit into the wood with acceptable force. One of the men was about to make a joke about that when suddenly the prisoner used the embedded weapon as a stepping platform to gain hold of the tree’s lowest branch. Of course there was still no reason for alarm. The human squirrel remained within the enclosure, albeit somewhat above the enclosure. Predictably, De Lane chose to follow after his quarry. All he needed to do was get an iron grip on one ankle and bring his weight to bear. Even at a now one-hundred and forty pounds, the prisoner would lose his perch and fall to the ground.

 Now all the men were laughing uproariously except Lamont. He had a feeling. Nothing he could put his finger on, but he had a feeling. Now most of the locals would tell you that according to legend, zombies cannot climb trees. But the human part of De Lane would not allow himself to be thwarted by a coward who would rather imitate a squirrel than fight like a man. So while the witnesses looked on incredulously, the half starved De Lane followed his quarry’s example and made his way up into the tree.

 William went as high as he could, and then leaned in the direction of the wire. He had climbed to the top of more than one main mast in his sailing days and this young tree was nothing compared to that.

 “Look at the cute little monkey coming up to visit me,” taunted the man on top.

 “I’d say you both look like monkeys,” the man with the club said between guffaws.

  Suddenly the top of the tree began to bow with a slight groan. De Lane didn’t seem to care as he continued up the network of branches.

 “Right now, if I could be any kind of critter---I’m thinking I’d like to be a flying squirrel,” said William as his perch leaned just a bit more over the fence.

  “Being a bird would be nice if I could be a hawk or eagle. Wouldn’t want to be a bird that eats bugs or worms of course.”

 Then just when De Lane was about to grab an ankle, William launched himself into space. When he hit the ground his legs gave way and his entire body took a measure of the impact. The man with the club was on him in an instant, but the man on the ground showed no hint of hostility.

 “Get up,” growled the hired thug.

 “My back,” grunted William. “I think, I’ve hurt my back.”

 One of the gunmen reached them and didn’t stand on ceremony. Grabbing an arm he tried to lift the prisoner into a standing position.

 “Ahhhh!” the prisoner wailed without any thought to his dignity.

 “What an idiot. Alright, I’ll go tell Mercier that the great experiment is over. Maybe he’ll value the knowledge that De Lane can climb trees. Jones, see if you can find something that can be used as a stretcher. What a stupid night this turned out to be,” Lamont said with a shake of his head.

 But the guard with the pistol wasn’t willing to give up on the idea of getting the prisoner to walk. He gave the arm another tug and when he did he suddenly found himself a pistol short. An explosion shoved him back and his last thought on Earth was that his chest felt as tough he had been clubbed there. The man with the ax handle got it next; right in the forehead so there was no thought to go out with.

 Lamont swore a blue streak; more angry with himself than his opponent. He should have known that even after a fall like that, you don’t assume a damn thing about a prisoner’s injuries. He quickly dove behind an old birdbath sculpture that had been shot up by a vandal a few months ago. The other men simply flattened out on the damp earth wherever they were along the fencing. William likewise went to ground and tried to creep to a more defensible position.

 De Lane watched his quarry fade into darkness and in his drug besotted consciousness a low burning hate was rekindled. Jumping from his tree top perch, he landed on the very top of the wire enclosure. Barbs tore into soft clammy flesh in dozens of places and old blood stains were replaced with new ones. None of that mattered to the man who once wore silk shirts and fine boots. Now he was just a dream like hate needing to kill something from another life.

 By the time he got free of the cruel barbs the rest of the security squad was ready to apprehend him. Lamont was heedless of that. He was now creeping cautiously in the last known direction of Longpenance, not realizing what was going on behind him. The guards had orders not to use lethal force on De Lane because he was a test subject. In point of fact that rule should have been thrown aside when De Lane turned into monkey willing to climb over thorns. But true to their instructions the guards tried to overpower De Lane with brute strength alone, and that decision proved unfortunate.

 The first guard had his eyes gouged out. The second ended up with his head twisted around backwards. The third and fourth were smart enough to attack together, but De Lane got a fist full of hair in each grim covered hand and smashed two skulls together. Reinforcements were called for, but all they found was injured or dead men lying in the yard.

 Lamont had his big rifle cradled in his arms and was crawling carefully forward. His hunter’s instincts told him that Longpenance was probably some one-hundred feet ahead and moving to outflank him. The hunter actually smiled at this turn of events. Longpenance was no dunce as a fight man, but Lamont would bet on himself. This exercise in stealth was something that the swamp rat was born to. He would come across his opponent’s trail very soon, then get behind him. Lamont was still working on that when his hyper alert senses told him that something stiff legged was coming up behind him.

 “Shit, De Lane, I wish you’d hurry up an croak so we won’t have to babysit you anymore,” growled the hunter.

 The scarecrow ignored him and trudged on in the very direction that Lamont had been crawling.

 “Dam your rotting carcass!” Lamont exploded. “Jones! Olsen! You stupid bastards, the stiff is over here God damn it to hell! Get over here with some rope and get the piece of shit back to the basement. Then you can explain to Mercier why you couldn’t even guard this piece of crap retard.”

 Lamont waited for a response while the zombie man continued to march away into the night.

 “Oh shit and damn!” the hunter exploded again as he realized that he was going to have to stop De Lane alone.

 Running up to the zombie he struck the stiff legged creature in the left kidney with his rifle butt. De Lane lost his balance and dropped to one knee.

 “You get yourself turned around! I know you got enough brains left to understand who’s boss here. You head back to the house or I’ll blow your brains out.  Mercier’s gotten all he’s gunna get from you. You’re dead and you’re just too damn stubborn to deal with it!”

 De Lane struggled to regain his balance. The blow to the kidney apparently has some effect on him but on Lamont’s sense of compassion.

 “Where the hell is everybody?!” the hunter shouted into the night.

 De Lane stumbled again and Lamont aimed his rifle butt at him for the second time. But before he could deliver a blow the zombie brought forth some of his old agility and whirled about with a great deal of speed. As if in a bad dream Lamont tried to retreat a step but he was now a victim of his own frustration. An iron claw took him by the throat and all four fingers and thumb sunk into flesh causing the hunter’s eyes to bulge out in disbelief.

 Then Lamont was allowed to drop to the ground while suffocating from a crushed windpipe. De Lane proceeded on, straight on towards William who was thirty yards away and watching the whole thing with disbelieving eyes.

 “Good God. The Company wants a super soldier drug and it sure as hell looks like Mercier finally came up with one. Or maybe De Lane is just in top form with all that pain killer in him,”  William mused in the privacy of his own thoughts while abandoning his hiding spot.

 The now free prisoner decided enough was enough. He would run across the property to the river road well away from the house. Then he would jog to the Union docks and get a proper clean up force to deal with whatever was back behind him. De Lane had demonstrated remarkable agility getting out of the compound, but he wasn’t a good enough runner to catch a man determined to keep up a pace all the way back to the river bank. Let the man made monster follow; that would be fine with William. Let the blood thirsty scarecrow follow him to where a hundred Union muskets could turn him into Swiss cheese.

 William didn’t have the best foot gear on for what he had to do but he didn’t care. He was free; both of captors and of any wounds so he had to be optimistic. He would get this thing wrapped up and then get his ass back on a deep water sailing ship. He would do it by God, because he had had enough of this business and didn’t want any more.

 Dawn came and the rain went. By then William figured to be about three miles short of his destination. That’s when five riders appeared from the direction of the river. They weren’t wearing uniforms but they didn’t quite look like swamp folk and William eased down into a walk that allowed him to regain his wind. Then suddenly things brightened up considerably as the lead rider became recognized.

 “MacDonald? Lord if you aren’t a sight for sore eyes. How did you find me?”

 “Don’t get mad Longpenance, but you’ve been like a roped out goat since your transfer up river. We hoped that The Company  would find you and show their hand so to speak. When you went and ran off without a word our surveillance man figured that something was up and came and got me. My the way: the sugar plant got blown up. Since sugar cane isn’t particularly volatile, I concluded that our secret operation stopped being secret. Fortunately my production gang and I were all sacked out when the place was destroyed.”

 “Funny they’d do it that way,” mused William. “You’d think they’d want to get rid of you guys in the bargain.”

 “Well, they did go snitching to the Confederacy, saying that we’re Union spies. Worked out well for you though because without an operation to oversee, I could be transferred farther north to help you any way I can. So---do you want some help or are you just exercising for your health?”

 “There’s a Company  satrap several miles back down the road. An old abandoned plantation. I’m thinking that since you’re heading in that direction, maybe you’d like to stop over for a visit and see if they could use any help burning the place to the ground.”

 “What?”

 “Extensive experience has taught me that when a satrap’s security is compromised, they destroy all trace of their activities and then relocate their operation. I don’t see any reason this place will be any different. But I don’t think they’ll head for any river bank that’s in the hands of the Union. Once we figure out where they plan to run to, you can decide on your next move.”

 “Jenson, give Longpenance your mount. You run back to the river and bring every man with a musket down this road to the place directed. Understood?”

 “Yes sir,” responded the soldier, who didn’t relish the idea of double timing it in warm muggy weather.

 “Alright Longpenance, lead the way in.”

 “If they’re still there we’ll have to hang back and wait for the reinforcements,” William stated quite unnecessarily. “There might be quite a few of them.”

 “What, you didn’t do a head count?”

 MacDonald shook his head in mock disapproval.

 “Longpenance, you have to learn to be more methodical.

 

Chapter Twenty-Two

 From a distance of two-hundred yards William and his small scouting party watched as eight men scrambled to load a wagon with what was deemed valuable.

 “Just like I said,” muttered William. “The cockroaches are fixing to move again.”

 “But this time we’ll make them wish they had done a better job of hiding. We’re going to take them.”

 “No, they outnumber us and have a defensible position. We have to wait for our reinforcements,” said William.

 “By then they’ll be on some emergency escape route and the house will be burning,” responded MacDonald.

 “Agreed, but I like to play this damn game by rules that allow us to live to play another day. Or perhaps I should say you guys can play another day because I’m going back to sea.”

 “Fine, after today you can have it any way you want it. But right now we’re going on offense. We’re going to get capture whatever is in that building and here’s how we’re going to do it.”

 The older man ordered his men to draw their carbines from their horse scabbards. William immediately noted a design difference in the weapons.

 “New model of Sharps? It won’t make enough of a difference.”

 “The rifle is called a Spencer. It holds more rounds than a revolver and uses a metallic cartridge. We have a fighting chance with these.”

 “How’d you get them?”

 “Did you forget who I’m working for?” MacDonald asked with just a ghost of a smile.

 Then he turned to the soldiers and said, “Men, this is the most important thing you’ll ever do for you country. Mr. Longpenance is correct when you points out that this will be a dangerous undertaking, but we cannot allow the enemy to destroy all the records and equipment that we believe is in that house. We need to capture it all intact. So I’m going to have to ask you men to charge in there like demons possessed, and if its any comfort---this fat old man will be just two steps behind you.”

 “It wouldn’t comfort me,” thought William.

 Then MacDonald brought out a pair of Navy Colts and handed them to William.

 “You best stick to what you’re used to for today. Like I said, we need to be in top form.”

 “Yea, top form,” muttered Longpenance as the men all mounted their horses.

 Then when the laborers reentered the house for another load, MacDonald licked his lips and said, “alright boys, now is the time for it.”

 The men charged across the open ground and didn’t stop until they were just a few yards from the front door. With carbines at the ready they lined up on both sides of the entrance and then filed in. William allowed the soldiers with the fancy guns to take point since he was tired and not all that enthusiastic about the frontal assault. Their luck held until they reached the top of the stairway leading down to the basement complex. There, the inevitable took place, and as one would expect, it was noisy.

 Both movers were caught with their hands full of heavy furniture. The soldiers showed great wisdom. They didn’t ask for anyone to surrender, they just shot the men down and rushed down the steps while the movers withered on the earthen floor in their death throws. But that was all the other occupants needed in the way of a warning. Six men drew Navy Colts as one and made instant barrack aides of over turned tables and thick support pillars. The two soldiers who flanked the entrance to the large underground chamber were brave but not suicidal. First ones through that doorway would get ventilated; not much doubt about it.

 “The table, it’s marble top. We could use it as a shield,” said MacDonald.

 “They could shoot at feet,” William pointed out.

 “They’re probably forty feet on the other side. All we need is cover as far as that old cistern on the right. I’ll carry one side. O’Neil, since you’re the biggest man here I’ll need you to be my partner of the other end.”

 The big Irishman swallowed hard but then nodded.

 “Your nuts, but we’ll follow up and open fire when you get to the cistern,” promised William.

 “Alright, let’s get it done before they start burning papers.” 

 “Like to shove those papers  up your ass,”  MacDonald’s comrades thought in unison, but they sprung into action all the same.

 Each step forward and to the right could be measured in heartbeats drowned out by an earsplitting roll of man made thunder. The hair brained plan, truly born of desperation, only worked because so much smoke was thrown into the confines of the basement battle field. Only one soldier was killed during the entering tactic. In his determination to fire just barely to the left of MacDonald, he forgot that in order to operate the loading lever of the Spencer, you first have to place the hammer on the half cock position.

 (A most understandable yet fatal mistake while operating under stress.)

 With the smoke and the swearing and the sweating, exactly forty-six seconds of madness engulfed them. When it was over, only MacDonald and William were still alive, and only William was unhurt. The older man was now clutching a ruined foot. The sight would have been comical under other circumstances.

 “Get in there! Get in there!” MacDonald shouted as if he were some sort of athletic coach.

 William only had one ball left in one of his pistols but he charged ahead not knowing what would greet him inside Mercier’s office. He was somewhat relieved to discover a secret passage that had taken Mercier from the basement to a small Johnny boat  parked on the bank of the tributary. Mercier had opted on the water route only because he assumed that a small army now occupied the grounds and the river was impossible to view from anyplace except along the banks.

 William cursed and rushed back into the basement. He snatched up a Spencer and also a pouch of the new type ammunition.

“What’s that for?” queried the wounded man as he struggled to get himself to a near by chair.

 William didn’t answer. He rushed back out the secret exit and didn’t stop until he was on a section of the river bank that stood off some fifty feet from a silly scientist attempting to flee in a boat he could barely row in a straight line. Taking aim a few inches below the water line he fired the carbine at the bow section. The .56 caliber rifle punched a hole in the wood that was bigger than the projectile itself.

 “I can keep pace with you and turn that thing into a bath tub,” warned the man on the bank.

 “Why don’t you just swim out and grab me,” taunted the clumsy boatman.

 “Can’t swim,” joked William. “Now be sensible and heave to.”

 “I am being sensible. If I surrender I’ll be killed.”

 “No  you won’t. Maybe a lot of our constitutional rights have been set aside until the war is over, but I can guarantee you that you’ll live to stand trial.”

 Mercier’s laugh was like the bark of an old wolf. He then paused from his rowing long enough to throw a bundle of papers into the water.

“There, now if I die, my latest discoveries die with me.”

 “You’re not a good listener are you. All that gunfire must have made you deaf.”

 “Can you hear me?”  the professor shot back. “You don’t work for the United States government. You’ve been working for The Company  all this while and you knew it!”

 “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

 “Just be quiet and listen. The organization consists of two factions: the larger international body and the American branch. MacDonald is chief of the American section. I on the other hand have been working for the world organization because they are the future in my opinion. There are two civil wars in progress my young friend. You’re in the middle of both but the thing you want to understand is this: you pulled the company’s beard in California and Colorado before coming here. The only reason you are still alive is because the American branch of the organization has had need of you. They have presumed all this time that you work for someone, but they haven’t been able to ascertain who it might be.”

 William paused for a moment and then fired five more shots into the little wooden boat.

 “You’ll never make it to the Mississippi. Bring the damn thing in.”

 “No. I won’t go like a lamb to the slaughter.”

 “You don’t have to. You and I can walk out of here. MacDonald is crippled and the others are dead. We can bypass the house and get to the horses without trouble.”

 “I’ll make you a counter offer,” Mercier responded. “You go get a pair of mounts and bring them to the river. Then I’ll believe that this place isn’t crawling with MacDonald’s men. I’ll just drift with the current. You’ll have no trouble catching up with me.”

 “Your boat will be filled up with water by then.”

 “It doesn’t matter. I can swim and the shore is close enough.”

 William let out a long suffering sigh.

 “I lied to you. I know how to swim myself, but I’m going into the water. You see that log over yonder that’s stuck in the mud? Well it’s not stuck and it’s not a log. It’s a granddaddy gator and it’s pacing with you. Now get your silly ass to the bank while you can still move that tub.”

 “I think perhaps you have a point,” conceded the old man who then began to pull toward shore.

 But as the boat filled with water, the keel began to float lower and lower. Not enough to sink the tiny craft, but low enough to get it hung up on a sandbar that was in the middle of the river.

 “Drat. Now what?” exclaimed the old man.

 “Push off with an oar. Back the way you came,” instructed William.

 “I---I can budge it,” reported Mercier after a long effort. “I’ll have to get out and drag it off.”

 “Better not. Just keep working with the oar.”

 “I’m not strong enough to do it that way damn it. Just shoot the beast and I’ll tend to the boat.”

 William shrugged and reloaded the carbine, but when he placed his eyes back on the river, the large reptile was gone and the professor was already placing one foot outside the boat.

 “I can’t see the gator anymore. Stay put and I’ll get a horse and an rope.”

 “This will only take a second,” responded Mercier, who then promptly sunk one leg up to his hip in mud.

 “Hold on to that boat,” cautioned William, but the old man was already in the process of losing his balance and falling away from the hull.

 William was about to chance the water when suddenly there was a deafening scream. He couldn’t see anything because the boat obstructed his view, but apparently the gator was introducing himself to a vastly more intelligent food source.

 With a heavy sigh William returned to the basement and found MacDonald trying to bandage his foot.

“Sorry Mac, looks like you out one miracle worker. Damn monster gator just made off with him. Mercier dumped his papers before that happened.”

 “Shit,” the injured man muttered to himself.

 “Well, maybe they’ll have you start up another blind for the research work that our side still needs to do.”

 “Yes, I suppose that is an ongoing necessity,” responded the older man. “However, it is possible that at least a portion of Mercier’s research information was forwarded to The Company. I can’t believe that Mercier would be allowed to keep all his data to himself.”

 “Probably not,” acknowledged William.

 Then after a pause he asked, “Say when you took over that sugar plant, did old man Severson stay on as a technical consultant or did he just leave town?”

 “He left town,” answered MacDonald.

 William nodded half to himself and then said, “I met him when I visited the town as a kid. Just a change meeting you understand. He was talking to some other local business men and I had just delivered a package. But I remember him saying that the only way he would leave his factory was in pine box.”

 Then William drew out his remaining colt and fired his last round. MacDonald fell over with a neat crimson hole in the middle of his forehead. Then he set fire to the place and returned to the river where he grabbed a transport that was heading south. That night he thought he saw a figure standing in waist high brush partially cloaked in shadows that moved with the trees on that windy evening. But he decided it was just his imagination. He was camped thirty miles down river and De Lane was likely under a tree someplace waiting for his stubborn life force to finally leave him. All the same he didn’t sleep much that following night, and he didn’t get over the habit of looking over his shoulder until he was half way back to his ship.

 

Chapter Twenty-Three

 The Pinkerton man swallowed hard and gazed apprehensively at the very dangerous story teller.

 “So you’re hiding out here?”

 “Sort of. There are better places; places that could provide better creature comforts. But this is a place where a man can do a lot of thinking.”

 “About all the places you’ve been to, or just the experiences you’ve had here in the states?”

 “Both---and considerably more.”

 “Um---I really hate to bring this up Mr. Longpenance, but now that I know more about you, I could be considered a bit of a security risk.”

 “Oh yes. My guess is that if you could arrange a meeting with The Company, you could earn yourself some money letting them know where I am.”

 “That’s a logical possibility alright.”

 “But you’d be entering a world where only a few men ever leave while standing up. Besides, I don’t kill people anymore and I can’t hold you prisoner forever. So you leave now.”

 The younger man sat and pondered his situation for a moment and then asked, “Why did you bother to share all that with me?”

 “Loneliness I suppose. I’ve got a lot to keep inside of me.”

 “And you are now truly retired from the business of fighting bad men?”

 “Looks like it. But I can’t really be sure. Sometimes I still have bad dreams about the priest, and then I wonder if my penance is really at an end.”

 “You really believe that your adventures were about something like that?” the detective asked with a grin that was part amusement and part relief.

 “Yea, I’m pretty sure of that, young fella. And you might want to reevaluate how you look at adventure.”

 With that both men stood up and prepared to go their separate paths.


The End