“Can you stand?” Jesse slung Jack’s arm around his shoulder and lifted. As he struggled with his brother’s weight, the woman came at him with the gun, using it as a club to beat him about the head and shoulders. Jesse grunted as his vision blurred and Jack slid from his grasp. He wrenched the gun from the woman with one hand and slapped her with the other.
“Kill her,” Jack muttered.
“She doesn’t matter. You do,” Jesse said. Blood trickled from his head as he bent once more to the floor. This time he got Jack to his feet. His brother leaned heavily against him as they staggered out the door. Some houses had been set alight and smoke hung in the air. Screams and scattered gunfire chased them along the dusty road as they weaved back to the center where a makeshift infirmary had been set up alongside the corralled prisoners.
One man lay on the ground, dead from the looks of him, while another swore a string of profanities as a doctor pulled a knife from his arm.
“My brother’s been shot!” Jesse laid Jack on a stretcher.
“Put pressure on the wound,” the doctor said. He bandaged his current patient’s arm before turning his attention to Jack. He cut open Jack’s shirt. The bullet had torn through his side, just under the rib cage. “Looks like it went straight through. Best I can do here is to bandage him up and hope the wound doesn’t go bad.”
“Clean it first.”
The doctor wiped a bead of sweat from his brow. “I’ll wipe the blood clear, but I’ve no time to waste. I’m the only doctor here.”
Jesse remembered how insistent Diamond had been about keeping his injury clean. “Give me the bandage and I’ll do it.”
The doctor’s eyes narrowed, but then he shrugged and tossed over a roll of linen. Muttering under his breath he moved on to his next patient, another gunshot victim.
“You heard the doc, just bind it up.”
“It’s important.” Jack tore a section off the roll, doused the wound with water from his canteen and gently dabbed at it.
Jack cried out, twisting in agony.
“Hold still.”
“You trying to kill me? Get your damn hands off me.”
Jesse ignored him, following the same procedure on the entry wound. He placed a wad of linen over the holes and tied a bandage around Jack’s waist. By the time he finished, Jack was gray and sweating.
“Can you ride?”
“Course I can ride. Been riding since before I could walk.” His words slurred together.
“I’ll get our horses.” Jesse cast one last worried look at his brother before jogging to where they had left the horses. A surly looking soldier guarded the animals and he spit a stream of tobacco at Jesse’s feet.
“Leaving so soon. The fun’s barely begun.”
“I’ve had enough fun.” Enough to last him a lifetime. The face of the boy he’d killed would haunt him forever, but his only regret was that the boy had gotten the jump on them. He should have expected resistance and now his brother’s life hung in the balance.
Holding the reins of Jack’s horse, he swung up in the saddle of his own. As he pressed his heel to the horse’s flank, another man ran up, his face red.
The man bent at the waist, catching his breath. “Orders are to move out. Union soldiers on their way.”
“We’re retreating?” The guard spat again.
“How long until they get here?” Jesse asked.
“Infantry’s about an hour out, but cavalry will be here sooner.”
Jesse swore. “Any provision for the wounded?”
“Doubt it. This ain’t like a regular battle. Every man for himself.”
Jesse raced back to Jack. His brother lay where he’d left him, the only sign of life the shallow movement of his chest. He dismounted quickly and gave Jack a gentle shake. “Come on, we’ve got to go.”
Jack roused at his touch. “Let me be.”
“No time. Reinforcements are on their way.”
His words got through. Jack’s mouth firmed. “They can’t get me, Jesse.”
“I know.” Jesse helped his brother onto his horse before mounting his own. “I’ll set the pace. Let me know if you can’t keep up.”
“I’ll keep up.”
If willpower was enough, Jesse knew Jack would make it through. But what if it wasn’t? He dug in his heels and they were off. Other men were fleeing, kicking up a cloud of dust, but the bulk of the force still harried the town. The tobacco-chewing guard had abandoned his post, whether to retreat or join the “fun,” Jesse neither knew nor cared. He followed the dust cloud, pushing Jack as hard as he dared.
It was a pace they couldn’t maintain. Jack held on grimly, but they soon lost sight of the men in front of them and men coming from behind passed them up.
“I think we should head south. Or east,” Jesse said. The army was retreating west. “We can’t keep up.”
“Head for home. We still have friends there.”
Friends and possibly family. “Diamond and Janet might be there by now. In her last letter, Diamond said they were moving back.”
“They will help us.”
Maybe. Diamond had also told him his father had banned Jack from the house and ordered the family to cut all ties to him. He’d never known Janet to cross the old man, but Jack was her brother. Surely blood would prove stronger than familial duty.
Once again he flirted with desertion, taking his brother to safety rather than following orders. As with Diamond, he found he didn’t care. Sometimes one responsibility outweighed another. He’d owed Diamond his life. And Jack was his brother.
This was years of training drilled deep. Family came first. Honor second. Jesse hadn’t always agreed with his father, but as the miles melted beneath their horses’ hooves, he felt the rightness. Besides, he owed Jack, too, for that long ago day when his brother had rescued him from the river.
Though he longed to go full tilt, Jesse kept their pace moderate, still a grueling speed for Jack. After the sack of the town the Union Army would be out
