trust in his men to spot them and deal with them. If not . . . He refused to even think they would fail. Too much was at stake. Whatever the Secessionist League was plotting, it would put the antislavery faction to rout. Or so his informant had been told by a League member who talked too much while under the influence of too much ale.
The sentry by the barn started to turn. Instantly, Captain Colter flattened. The man came slowly toward him, but it was obvious by his relaxed posture that he was unaware anyone was near.
Colter tensed his legs, placed his left hand on the ground, and waited. Another six or seven steps and the sentry would be close enough. Colter glanced past him just as two dark silhouettes materialized out of the night and pounced on the man pacing in front of the porch. They overwhelmed him so quickly he had no chance to cry out.
Even so, the sentry by the barn heard something. Jerking his Sharps up, he spun and called out, “Jeb? What was that?”
Colter was in motion before the question was out of the sentry’s mouth. He swept his right arm in an arc, smashing the Colt against the man’s temple and felling him like a poled ox. Colter struck the prone figure again, as a precaution, then picked up the Sharps, carried it to a patch of high weeds, and hid it.
Sergeant Pearson and Private Fiske were standing over the second sentry, their revolvers glinting dully. Judging by the disjointed heap, the sentry would not awaken for many hours.
“Those were the only two, sir,” Pearson whispered. He had blond hair, cut short, and the predatory air of a hawk.
Shadows moved on either side of the farmhouse. The rest of Colter’s men were taking their positions.
Motioning to Pearson, Captain Colter crept to the porch. One of the steps creaked loudly when he put his weight on it. He imitated a post, but there were no shouts of alarm. No one came to the door or peered out. Encouraged, he stalked to a window and crouched. The curtains were drawn, but an inch-wide gap enabled Colter to see into a parlor. At a circular table sat six men. Well-to-do men, by the looks of them. Leaders of the Secessionist League, according to his informant.
A tingle of excitement rippled through Colter. This was the closest he had come to nabbing those at the top. With them in custody, he stood to learn a great deal, not the least of which would be the details of their plot.
A white-haired gentleman in a white suit was addressing the others. Colter placed an ear to the pane, but he could not quite hear what the man was saying. He saw the white-haired man take a sheet of paper from a pocket and unfold it.
Time to move in, Colter decided, then abruptly stiffened. Six men were at the table, but there were seven chairs. The seventh, on the other side, was empty.
The broomstick closed the door and turned to go down the steps. His eyes fell on Colter. For a few moments the man was transfixed with shock. Then he glanced toward where the sentry should be and saw Sergeant Pearson and Private Fiske awaiting the command to close in.
The broomstick threw back his head to shout a warning.
Captain Colter was on him in a twinkling, driving his fist into the man’s gut. Breath whooshed from the broomstick’s lungs as he doubled over in agony. Colter slugged him again, on the jaw. Normally that was enough to drop a foe, but the man was tougher than he seemed. On his elbows and knees, dribbling spittle and wheezing for breath, he let out with a high-pitched keen: “Federals!”
How he knew, Captain Colter couldn’t say. The next moment the man’s right hand rose. In it he clutched a derringer.
The boom of Sergeant Pearson’s revolver heralded a shriek and a fervid curse as the broomstick, severely wounded, scrabbled toward the front door to get back inside. He pointed the derringer at Colter and hissed, “Damn you Yankees all to hell!”
Colter shot him through the head. As the body crumpled, shouts broke out inside. The League members were in an uproar. The curtains parted, and the white-haired man in the white suit took one look at Colter, whirled, and ran.
“Is the back door covered?” Captain Colter shouted. Pearson replied that it was.
Colter sprang to the door as the window he had been standing next to dissolved under a hail of lead. He flung the door open and beheld a League member, aiming a revolver, midway down a narrow hall. Colter darted aside as the muzzle spat lead and smoke. He heard Private Fiske cry out sharply.
More shots erupted from the rear of the farmhouse, laced with yells and oaths. After that, silence fell.
Captain Colter risked a peek inside. The hallway was empty now, but a commotion farther back suggested the conspirators were up to something.
A boot scuffed the porch, and Sergeant Pearson bounded to the other side of the doorway. His back to the wall, he whispered, “Fiske was wounded in the arm, but it’s not serious, sir.”
“We have them boxed in,” Colter declared with a confidence he did not feel. His men had the doors covered, but there were not enough of them to cover all the ground-floor windows as well.
“Should I call on them to surrender, sir?” Sergeant Pearson asked.
“I will,” Captain Colter said. Raising his voice, he identified himself, adding, “My men have the house surrounded. You would be well advised to throw down your arms and come out with your hands over your heads!”
“Go to hell!” came a taunt in a distinct Southern drawl.
“Northern trash!” another cried defiantly.
Sergeant Pearson glanced at Colter. “Just give the order, sir, and we will rush them.”
But Colter did no such thing. There was no telling how many League members were inside. There might be more that he had not seen.
Glass tinkled, and an upstairs window burst outward. A rifle spat, but its target, Private Fiske, had gone to ground behind a rosebush.
“Maybe we should burn them out, sir,” Sergeant Pearson proposed.
“We want them alive if possible—remember?” Captain Colter said. The key phrase was “if possible.” Clearing his throat, he yelled, “You, in the house! Can you hear me in there?”
After a bit, someone—Colter suspected it was the white-haired gentleman—responded, “We can hear you just fine. What do you want?”
“To avoid bloodshed,” Captain Colter said. “Give yourselves up and I promise no harm will come to you.”
A cold chuckle greeted the offer. “You would like that, wouldn’t you? But mark my words. You will not get your hands on a single one of us. We will gladly die rather than let you take us.”
Colter had been afraid of that. Fanatics and politics made for a rabid mix. Somehow he must convince them that they should deny their loyalty to a cause they valued more than life itself.
“Did you hear me?” the man demanded when Colter did not answer soon enough to suit him.
“I believe you,” Colter shouted. “But don’t do anything rash! We can talk this out!”
“Like hell!”
A minute passed. Then every window on the ground floor abruptly crashed into shards. Chairs had been hurled against them. Through the windows scrambled the occupants. Shots were exchanged. Shouts added to the bedlam.
Colter had been right. There were more than six, and they were making a frantic break for the woods. He ran to the end of the porch in time to see several fleeing shadows. One man turned and fired. Colter returned lead for lead. The man missed. Colter did not.
The white suit gave Colter a clue who it was. Vaulting over the rail, Colter ran and covered him. “Don’t try anything.”
The white-haired man coughed and spat blood. His eyes opened and could not seem to focus, but finally they did. His face twisted in a hateful grimace. “You have murdered me, you son of a bitch.”
“What are you planning?” Captain Colter asked. “What is the Secessionist League up to?”
A contemptuous laugh gurgled from the man’s throat and with it, a copious amount of blood. “You would like that, wouldn’t you? For me to turn traitor against the cause I believe in?” He had more to say, but a violent coughing fit interfered.
