Butler slapped the reins, yelling, “Giddup there, Jake!”
For long seconds the mule resisted, then finally started forward, sloshing through a floating sea of hail. As the lightning flashed again, Butler could see that they were still in the road, the hail there flowing as the water slowly drained.
“Doc?” Butler called, shivering against the cold. “You all right?”
No answer.
Butler turned, staring at the damp mass where Doc had curled into a ball under his hail-covered blanket. Rain was inexorably washing hailstones from the bed, leaving it black and shining in the lightning flashes.
“We’ll get there, Doc. You’ll see.”
No answer came from the blanketed form.
“Son of a bloody bitch,” Butler muttered, turning forward.
Had to be close to midnight. The storm was rolling off to the northwest, lightning now more intermittent, the darkness deeper, blacker.
“Think he’s gonna make it?” Kershaw asked unexpectedly.
“Where’ve you been?” Violent shivers ran through Butler’s shoulders. “Could have used some help in the storm.”
“Gone scoutin’, Cap’n. Fort’s just ahead. C’est bon.”
“Thank God.” Butler wiped at the water leaking through his hat and down the sides of his face. “Doc’s worse. The cough’s bad enough. He’s been fevered and raving all day. Talking about Ann Marie, and James, and letters being burned. And the farm being lost.”
“Y’all think he about t’ give up?”
“I don’t know, Sergeant.” Butler gritted his teeth against a spasm of shivering.
At the same time, Doc broke into violent coughing, causing Butler to look back, unable to see anything in the inky blackness.
“I hate Kansas,” Kershaw muttered from behind Butler’s ear. “And going into some damn Yankee fort? Dat be foolishness if’n you ask me.”
“They have a doctor.”
“Dey gots more’n that, Cap’n. Fort Scott’s a supply depot. Reckon dey all got the kind of supply we gonna need for to cross the Plains.”
Lightning flashed again in the distance, and this time Butler could see buildings in the momentary flicker. Within a matter of yards they passed out of the pale, glowing hail zone, the air warming by ten degrees or more.
The tired mule plodded forward, each step accompanied by the sucking of mud around its hooves.
On the outskirts of Fort Scott the ramshackle buildings and tents they passed were dark; most had animals tied or staked close by. Dogs barked. These were mostly the saloons, cribs, and gambling dens that popped up around any military post—no matter whose army.
The military road turned into the town’s main street. After what Butler and the men had seen in Arkansas, the dark houses, stores, liveries, and carriage houses spoke of a prosperity they hadn’t seen since leaving Saint Louis.
“Looks to be a lot of people,” Kershaw muttered.
Doc broke into a coughing fit in the wagon box, the tearing sound of it wrenching.
“There will be a physician at the fort. He’ll know what to do.”
“You better hope them damn Yankees’ll take a sick Reb, Cap’n,” Pettigrew called from where he walked beside the wagon.
Butler had no more than entered the parade ground when a voice up ahead called, “Halt. Who goes there?”
Butler pulled the tired mule to a stop. “I’m Captain Butler Hancock. I’ve got a sick man in need of the physician.”
Dark forms appeared out of the night. “How bad is he, Captain?”
“Bad. Fevered, raving, coughing. That rain and hail didn’t help.”
“Silas, escort the captain to the hospital.”
“Yes, suh.” The accented voice sounded distinctly like a Negro’s. Butler smiled. Funny how the world had changed.
One of the forms took the mule’s bit and started forward. A break in the clouds provided just enough starlight that Butler could see the buildings in the darkness around him. Only here and there did he see a window backlit by the glow of an oil lamp. Fort Scott had played a pivotal role in the border war, a bustling supply depot that kept the Yankee juggernaut in constant motion against the ragged, half-starved Rebels.
“Dis be the den of the enemy, Cap’n,” Kershaw whispered softly. “Reckon the men better be right careful.”
“Sergeant, you have no idea.”
The man leading the mule called back, “I’m just a private, suh.” A pause. “But, suh, I’s gonna make sergeant someday. All I gots t’ do is be better than the next man. Last two years, I done taught myseff to read. I know the Army Manual by heart. Gonna reenlist until I make sergeant and retire with a pension.”
“Where were you from?”
“Arkansas, suh. I’s a slave till Gen’ral Curtis come. Got a chance to make something of myseff, and I swear, I gonna do it. We heah, suh.”
The colored soldier let loose of the bridle and hurried past the stone pillars supporting the second-story porch. The building was massive, with two rising chimneys.
“Got a sick man. Need a litter out heah,” Silas called at the door.
Butler groaned, shivered, and stepped down, his blanket drizzling water. His stiff legs almost failed him.
The black private stopped, no doubt mistaking Butler’s rain-slouched hat and dark blanket for a Federal uniform, and snapped off a salute. “Cap’n.”
Butler pulled himself straight and returned his best salute, saying, “Carry on, Private. Dismissed.”
He grinned to himself as he watched the man’s form disappear into the darkness. Then in poetic cadence, said, “What manner of fools can men be … that they resort to sword, blood, and mayhem to keep other men from being free.”
“Excuse me, Captain?” asked one of the orderlies who had emerged from the hospital with a litter.
“Thinking of the idiotic reasons human beings have for killing each other.” Butler gestured toward the back of the wagon. “My brother’s sick. An irony since he’s the regimental surgeon for Neely’s regiment. That’s the Fourth, you know. Bad cough, fever, hot and cold spells, delirium. His name is Philip.”
“With respect, Captain, just who are you?” the second of the men asked as the two of them shifted the shivering Philip to the litter.
“Captain Butler Hancock. Late of Company A, the Second Arkansas.”
“Ah, the colored regiment. No wonder the
