The King Hill War (5 page)

“I UNDERSTAND THAT YOU AND MRS. MACGREGOR
are old friends,” Emerson said as he drove the buckboard from town toward the Macgregor ranch.

“Yes, back in Georgia, before the war, our families had adjacent farms,” Hawke said.

“Have you met Ian?”

Hawke nodded. “I’ve known him for a long time as well. I didn’t know he and Cynthia were married, though, until I got the letter.”

“I’m a little concerned as to how he is going to take to having you show up like this,” Emerson said. “I mean, him not knowing anything about it.”

Hawke glanced over at Emerson. “Wait a minute, what are you talking about? Are you telling me that the sergeant major doesn’t even know I’m coming?”

“Sergeant major?”

“During the war, Ian was the sergeant major of our regiment,” Hawke said.

Emerson chuckled. “He never talks about the war, so I didn’t know that,” he said, then nodded. “But now that you mention it, I could see Ian as a sergeant major. He certainly has that kind of leadership quality.”

“And you say he doesn’t know I’m coming?”

“No. I think Mrs. Macgregor thought he would be too proud to ask for help, so she took it on herself to write to you.”

“I expect she’s right,” Hawke said. “The Ian Macgregor I remember is a proud man and not someone who asks for help very easily.”

“Yes, sir, that’s Ian Macgregor, all right,” Emerson said.

As the buckboard proceeded along the long, straight, road, Hawke sat warming in the sun, recalling the last time he had seen Ian Macgregor.

It was in late April 1865, and the Georgia 15th had boarded a train for its run south over the bucking strap-iron and rotted cross ties of the railroad. Since both Colonel Jefferson Hawke, the original commander, and Major Gordon Hawke, the next commander, had been killed, the regiment was no longer referred to as Hawke’s Regiment except by some of the older soldiers who had been with it from the beginning.

The Georgia 15th was now part of the army of Richard Taylor, a Confederate general who also happened to be the son of Zachary Taylor, hero of the Mexican War, and former President of the United States.

The regiment that boarded the train was less than thirty percent of its mustering-in strength when it had gathered so proudly at the home of Charles Brubaker for a predeploy
ment barbecue. Of the thirty-five officers who had taken to the field with the regiment, all had been killed except for Edward Rathbone and Mason Hawke. Captains both, the men had started the war as second lieutenants.

Major James Coleman was now in command of the regiment, having been put in that position by General Taylor.

Though Coleman was officially in command, everyone in the regiment, Coleman included, deferred to Sergeant Major Ian Macgregor, who had held that same rank since the beginning of the war. Macgregor had been offered a commission but declined, stating that he believed he could best serve the regiment by staying in his current position.

When the explosion took the engine off the tracks, the first three cars of the train telescoped in on themselves, causing a tremendous number of casualties, killing Major Coleman and five other regimental officers.

Hawke was riding in one of the rear cars, and his only indication that something had happened was in the fact that the train came to an almost immediate stop, throwing men into the floor. Even as some of the men were swearing about the incompetence of the engineer, Hawke realized what had happened, and he started urging the men to get off the cars.

The train had been hit by a bomb that was placed on the track by Federal soldiers. These same soldiers were waiting in ambush, and they opened fire as soon as the men of the regiment began pouring off the train.

Hawke, Rathbone, and Sergeant Major Macgregor rallied the regiment.

“Take cover in the train wreckage!” Hawke shouted, and the men scrambled to do so.

The Yankees had one artillery piece, a 12-pounder, which fired an explosive round every couple of minutes. Fortunately, the position of the gun was such that the Fed
erals could not get the proper angle to drop the shells in on Hawke’s men. Though the incoming rounds were loud, they weren’t threatening, or even frightening, to men who had already been through four long, bloody years of war.

“Why don’t they attack?” Rathbone asked. “Don’t they realize how easily they could overrun us?”

“I think they are new troops,” Hawke replied. “They got lucky when they blew up the train, but they don’t have the experience to follow it up.”

They heard the swooshing sound of another shell coming in, and were easily able to follow its path by the sputtering, smoking fuse that traced its arc through the sky. It hit about forty yards away, booming loudly, but sending the shrapnel out in an ineffective cone.

“Mason, I’m going to take that gun out!” Rathbone said.

“Eddie, no, why bother?” Hawke asked. “They aren’t even coming close. It’s not worth the risk.”

“Yes, it is worth the risk,” Eddie replied. “Think about it, Mason. You said it yourself, they are green troops. If they lose that gun, I think they will also lose their confidence. They may just pull up stakes and leave.”

Hawke didn’t argue with him anymore. The two were equal in rank, and Hawke had no authority to stop him. He also knew that Rathbone was right. If the Yankees lost the gun, they might perceive they had also lost the advantage and leave.

A few minutes later Rathbone had three volunteers prepared to go with him. He gave the signal to Hawke that he was ready.

“All right, men, keep Captain Rathbone covered!” Hawke shouted to the others.

Muskets roared and gun smoke billowed up from the Confederate soldiers in the wrecked train, answered by the
Union soldiers who had taken up their own positions in the tree line across the open field. Eddie Rathbone and three volunteers started across the field, disappearing quickly into the clouds of billowing smoke.

For the next thirty minutes the gunfire continued at such a pace that Hawke was afraid they would soon run out of ammunition. Then he noticed that the artillery fire had stopped.

“The cannon has stopped!” Ian said, putting to words what Hawke had only thought. “Captain Rathbone must’ve gotten through.”

“Yes,” Hawke agreed. “Let’s just pray that he and his men get back all right. Keep firing men, keep firing,” he called.

“Cap’n, we’re runnin’ low on powder and bullets,” one of the men said. “Don’t you think we should ease up a bit?”

“No,” Hawke said. “Keep firing.”

Although Hawke didn’t explain his reasoning, he was keeping up a brisk rate of fire as much to feed the cloud of gun smoke as to inflict any damage upon the enemy.

Then, out of the cloud of gun smoke that obscured the field, they saw the volunteers returning. Only this time, one of the men was being carried. Even from his vantage point, Hawke could tell that the wounded man was Captain Rathbone.

“Sergeant Major,” Hawke said.

“Yes, sir?”

“Set fire to the grass. As soon as the smoke has built up, order the men to pull back. Captain Rathbone bought us some time…let’s take advantage of it.”

“Yes, sir,” Ian replied.

Within moments the smoke from a dozen grass fires mixed with the gun smoke to completely blot out the field.
Then, outnumbered and outgunned, Hawke withdrew his men, thus avoiding the necessity of surrender.

Some five miles away from the point of the ambush, Hawke called a halt to the retreat. Looking around, he counted eighty-seven men. Just eighty-seven from a regiment that had once been six hundred strong.

“Captain Hawke,” Ian said, a bloody bandage around his right arm and another around his head.

“Yes, Sergeant Major?”

“I thought I ought to tell you, sir. Captain Rathbone just died.”

“Damn,” Hawke said with an expulsion of breath. He and Eddie Rathbone had fished and hunted together as children.

“What do you want to do now?” Ian asked.

“Nothing,” Hawke said.

“Nothing, sir?” Ian asked, surprised by the response.

“That’s right, Sergeant Major. I want to do absolutely nothing. Major Coleman told me, yesterday, that General Lee had already surrendered and General Taylor was just trying to reposition us to get better terms. As far as I’m concerned, we’ll make our own terms, right here, right now. I’ve only got one last order for you. That is, if you are willing to carry it out.”

“Give me the order, sir, I’ll carry it out,” Ian said.

Hawke opened his knapsack and took out a piece of paper and a pencil, then began writing.

“You are hereby discharged from the army,” Hawke said, handing the paper to Ian. “If anyone is actually still looking for deserters, this should clear the way for you. I want you to take Captain Rathbone’s body back to what is left of his family.”

Ian nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I’d be proud to do that. But I’ll be coming back. I wouldn’t feel right abandoning
the regiment.”

“There’s no regiment to abandon, Sergeant Major. I’m going to release them all and tell them to go home and try and put their lives together again.”

“What about you, Captain? What are you going to do?”

“I have no idea what I’m going to do, Ian,” he said. “I have no life to put together.”

CYNTHIA WAS COOKING SUPPER WHEN IAN
rolled himself into the kitchen.

“Something smells awfully good,” he said, sniffing.

“I’m baking a hen,” she replied. “And I’m making dressing and dumplings.”

“Whoa, a hen? Dressing and dumplings? That’s a lot of food for three of us, isn’t it?”

“There will be five.”

“Five?”

“Mr. Booker will be here with Mason Hawke by suppertime.”

“Captain Hawke is coming here? How about that? I haven’t seen him since the war. It’ll be good seeing him again. How did you find out he was here?”

“I sent him a letter, Ian. He is here because I asked him to come,” Cynthia said as she put a pan of biscuits in the oven.

“You asked him to come? Why?”

“I thought he might be able to help us.”

“Help us do what? Tomas and the others are doing a good job of running the ranch right now.”

“I asked him to help us fight the cattlemen,” Cynthia said.

Ian was quiet for a long moment before he spoke. “Cynthia, don’t you think you should have asked me about this?” he said.

“Would you have agreed to it?”

“Definitely not,” Ian said emphatically.

“That’s why I didn’t ask you.”

“Cynthia, I can’t believe that you would just do something like that without first talking to me about it.”

“I’m sorry, Ian, perhaps I should have. But at any rate it’s too late to talk about it now,” she said. “I see them coming up the lane now.”

Shaking his head in quiet anger, Ian turned his chair around and rolled out of the kitchen.

“Ian,” Cynthia called to him. “Please, understand that I did this for you.”

“I’ll try to understand, Cynthia,” Ian said. “I’ll try.”

“Would you go on the porch and meet them? I want Mason to know that he is welcome.”

“Ah, good,” Emerson said as he drove the team into the front yard. “I see that Ian is out on the front porch. She must’ve told him about you.”

“I’m glad,” Hawke said. “I hope he took it all right.”

“He must have,” Emerson replied with a chuckle. “He’s not holding a shotgun.”

Hawke laughed with him.

“Hello, Emerson,” Ian greeted.

“Ian,” Emerson replied.

“And, Captain Hawke. It is good to see you again after all these years.”

“You too, Sergeant Major,” Hawke said.

Ian laughed. “I suppose we can drop the ‘Sergeant Major’ and ‘Captain’ now, can’t we?”

“Lord, I hope so. I’d hate to think I was going back into the army.”

“Me too,” Ian replied with a chuckle. “Well, climb down, the two of you, and come on in. The wife has fixed us a big supper and I’ve been smellin’ it all afternoon. It’s got me so hungry I could eat a horse.”

“Best invitation I’ve had all day,” Emerson said, climbing down from the buckboard and tying off the team.

“Cynthia,” Ian called when they went into the house. “Come into the parlor and greet our guests.”

Cynthia came at Ian’s bidding, and when she reached the parlor she stopped. For a long moment she said nothing. She just stared at Hawke. He looked so much like she remembered Gordon that it took her breath away.

“Well, are you just going to stand there and gawk, or are you going to speak to him?” Ian asked.

“Hello, Mason,” Cynthia said. “I can call you Mason, can’t I?”

“Of course you can,” Hawke replied.

Hawke hadn’t noticed her staring at him, because he had been staring back. Cynthia and Tamara had always looked alike, and it didn’t take much imagination for him to think that he could be looking at Tamara now, had Tamara lived.

“It is so good to see you again after all these years,” Cynthia said. “And so wonderful of you to answer my plea for help.”

“Hawke, I want it well understood that sending for you was all Cynthia’s idea,” Ian said, “I knew nothing about it,
and would have never presumed to get you mixed up in all this.”

“Ian, my good friend,” Hawke said. “You saved my backside more times than I can remember during the war. And Cynthia has been a friend since we were both children. Do you think, for one minute, I would hesitate if I thought I could help you in any way?”

“I know,” Ian said. “You are a good man, and of course you would do anything you could to help us if you knew we were in trouble. But it is important to me that you know I didn’t want to get you involved in this. I also want you to know that it could get very dangerous.”

“All the more reason I should be here,” Hawke replied. “Now…are we going to eat some of this delicious food I smell? Or are we just going to stand here and talk all day?”

Everyone laughed, and Cynthia issued the invitation for them to go to the dining room.

Entering that room, Hawke saw a very pretty young girl setting the table.

“You must be Hannah,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” Hannah replied demurely.

“Well, now, what a beautiful young lady you are. Ian, Cynthia, you must be very proud of her.”

Ian and Cynthia exchanged a quick glance, then Ian nodded. “She is a wonderful daughter. I can’t tell you how much I love her, or how proud I am of her.”

Hannah went over to the wheelchair and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I love you too, Papa,” she said.

“I can see why you are so proud of her,” Hawke said.

“Oh, by the way, Mrs. Macgregor,” Emerson put in, “you are right about Mr. Hawke being a pianist. I had the pleasure of hearing him play when I picked him up in town.”

“Mama told me that you were very good,” Hannah said. “We have a piano in the parlor.”

Hawke nodded. “Yes, I saw it when I came in.”

“I took lessons for a while, but I’m not very good.”

“It takes a while to learn,” Hawke said.

“Would you play something for us?”

“Hannah, I’m sure Mr. Hawke is tired from his long journey,” Ian admonished her. “Don’t be pestering him to play the piano.”

“It’s no problem, Ian,” Hawke said. “I’d love to play the piano for Hannah. That is, if it isn’t an imposition.”

“Imposition? Of course not,” Ian said. “I would love to hear you play.”

The dinner over, everyone went into the parlor where Hawke saw an upright piano, similar to many of the same kind of instruments he had played in saloons across the West for the last sixteen years. The only difference was, this piano was in much better condition than many of the pianos he had been forced to play.

Hawke sat down, then played Consolation Number Three, a composition of Franz Liszt, his old music teacher.

The music filled the parlor with the repeating bass theme and the soaring melody. When he finished, he saw tears in Hannah’s eyes.

“Darlin’, what is it?” Ian asked. “Is something wrong?”

“Wrong? Papa, what could be wrong?” Hannah asked. “I have just heard the music of angels.”

“Matthew Tilghman,” Joshua Creed said as the sheriff rode up to his front porch and dismounted. “Come on in, you are here just in time for supper.”

“Thank you, Mr. Creed, but this isn’t exactly a social call,” the sheriff replied.

“Yes, I heard about the little fracas in town today between Lonnie and some eastern dude. And I don’t blame
you for breaking it up. But Lonnie’s young…hell, we were all young once. You know what it’s like when you’re all full of piss and vinegar. He was just having a little fun with the tenderfoot, that’s all.”

“Is that what he told you? That he was just having a little fun with a tenderfoot?”

“Well, yes. That, and the fact that you came in to break it up. And, like I said, I don’t blame you for that. I don’t blame you one bit.”

“Mr. Creed, if I hadn’t broken it up when I did, Lonnie might well be dead now.”

“What?” Creed said, surprised. “What do you mean Lonnie might be dead now? What are you talking about?”

“Is Lonnie here?”

“Yes, he’s inside.”

“Call him out,” Tilghman said. “Call him out and ask him, in front of me, to tell you exactly what happened in town today.”

Creed stared at Sheriff Tilghman for a long moment, then called back over his shoulder.

“Lonnie! Lonnie, are you in there?”

“Yeah, Pa, I’m here,” a voice sounded from inside the house.

“Get out here,” Creed said.

A moment later Lonnie appeared on the porch, where he saw the sheriff but seemed unconcerned over his presence. “What do you want, Pa?”

“Tell me what happened in town today,” Creed said.

“Well, nothing really,” his son replied. “Like I told you, I was just having a little fun with some Fancy Dan is all.”

Sheriff Tilghman produced Lonnie’s knife. He threw it, and stuck it in the floor of the porch. The handle quivered for a second or two.

“What the…?” Creed said, then looking more closely
at the knife, registered recognition. “Wait a minute, Lonnie, isn’t that your knife?”

“Yeah,” Lonnie said. “It’s mine.”

“What did you do, Sheriff? Take his knife away from him? Well, good for you. He’s too damn handy with that knife as it is.”

“I didn’t take it away from him,” Tilghman said. “The dude did.”

“What?” He looked at Lonnie. “You let someone take your knife from you?”

“I was just playin’ around, Pa,” Lonnie said again. “Hell, I never thought Fancy Dan was going to take it so serious, so I wasn’t paying that much attention. One minute I was just teasing him, all in fun, like, and the next moment he had my knife. I’m not even sure how he got it.”

“Well, now, that’s a little different than the story you told me when you got back home,” Creed said. “The sheriff didn’t break up your fun, he saved your life, didn’t he?”

“Ah, I don’t think Fancy Dan would have actually used it. He was about to wet his pants, he was so scared. I doubt he’s ever even seen a dead man.”

“Oh, he’s seen dead men before,” Sheriff Tilghman said. “And a lot of them he has seen are dead because of him. You’d do well to stay away from him.”

“Really?” the elder Creed said. “Tell me, Sheriff, just who is this man Lonnie ran into today?”

“His name is Mason Hawke,” the sheriff said.

“Mason Hawke? I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of him.”

“Well, I have,” Tilghman said. “And trust me when I tell you this, he is as dangerous as any man alive.”

“Are you kidding?” Lonnie asked with a little laugh. “Why, he dresses like a…a Nancy Boy.”

“Like I said, Lonnie, you’d do well to stay away from him,” the sheriff said. He remounted.

“Sheriff,” Creed called.

“Yes?”

“Do you have any idea why he’s here?”

“I’ve got an idea, yes,” Tilghman said. “But it would only be speculation.”

“What would that be?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t want to speculate. But he did say he is a friend of the Macgregors,” Tilghman said. “So I’ll let you figure out for yourself why he might be here.”

“Thanks,” Creed said.

Creed and his son stood on the porch, watching as Sheriff Tilghman passed under the Crown Gate.

“Lonnie?” Creed said.

“Yes, sir?”

“Don’t you ever embarrass me like that again.”

“Pa, it’s like I said—” Lonnie started, but before he could finish, Joshua Creed reached out, unexpectedly, and back-handed him, hard. Lonnie went reeling across the porch, preventing himself from falling only by grabbing one of the supporting posts.

“If you ever pull a knife or a gun on a man again, kill him,” Creed said.

Lonnie used the back of his hand to wipe the blood away from his lip as he watched his father go back into the house.