MANKILLERS
By
Ken Casper and Pres Darby
ISBN 978-0-982-78170-8
Copyright © 2011 by Kenneth Casper and John Preston Darby
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors’ rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Published by Delphi Books
www.DelphiBooks.us
Published simultaneously in Canada and the United Kingdom
Book design and composition by Just Your Type
--_______________________________________________________
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Casper, K. N.
Mankillers / by Ken Casper and Pres Darby.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-9827817-0-8 (trade pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Physicians--Fiction. 2. Brothers--Fiction. 3. Slaves--Fiction. 4. South Carolina--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Fiction. I. Darby, Preston. II. Title.
PS3603.A8675M36 2011
813’.6--dc22
2010027026
Printed in the United States of America
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
While the authors have made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the authors assume any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Our special thanks to:
Linda Barrett
Garda Parker
Douglas Holden
Fran Baker
For all their help and encouragement
Chapter ONE
Southwestern Virginia, 1865
With the first pale glimmer of another gray dawn, Doctor Elijah Buchanan Thomson could see severed arms and legs piled outside higher than the windowsill. Beyond the porch of the shack that served as his field hospital the ground was clotted with lumps of men, moaning and gritting their teeth. They cursed their pain or called for water and loved ones. Through the mist the names echoed, the pleas of tortured spirits seeking escape from this ring of Hell.
Feeling considerably older than his twenty-six years, Doctor Thomson shuffled through the doorway, removed his apron, arched his back, yawned and rubbed his eyes. The coppery smell of blood, the grating of his bone saw, and the warmth of slippery flesh had dulled his senses. He’d cut, sawed and stitched for over twelve hours. How many had lived? How many died? There’d be more today.
The crack of a rifle not far away brought him to full alert. He looked around. Nobody paid it any heed. He was descending the steps when his attention was drawn to another sound: hoof beats. He looked up.
A black steed leapt the creek and raced toward him, hurling gouts of mud from its hooves. Just short of the house the horseman pulled back on the reins. The animal slid to a halt, reared and pawed the air. The rider, dressed in a gray cavalry officer’s uniform slid from the saddle and saluted.
“Well, Buck, you look bloodier than your patients. Been a long night?”
It seemed forever since Elijah Thomson had heard his nickname. He stared. Fatigue fell from him like a silken garment. “By God, Clay, is it really you?”
The men embraced, pounding each other on the back.
“How’d you find me, little brother?”
“Learned only today you were the surgeon assigned to Kershaw’s outfit.”
Buck stepped back. “You still ride like a fool. You got Yankees on your tail or is it a jealous husband?”
Clay grinned. “If I could handle a gun as well as you, Buck, I wouldn’t have to ride so fast. But it’s neither this time.” He pulled a bandanna from a pocket and wiped his face.
“Then what is it?”
“Lee surrendered two days ago at Appomattox. It’s over, Buck. The war’s over!”
“Over? Really over?”
The killing’s stopped. No more wounded? No more cutting off men’s arms and legs? No more seeing men die before my eyes while I try to salvage what’s left of them?
“Thank God, Clay. Thank God.”
Tears leaked from his brother’s blue eyes. “We tried so hard, Buck.”
“I know. We plumb wore ourselves out whipping them.” He took in the length of his handsome brother. “Lord, you’ve grown up since I saw you last. How long’s it been now? Four, five years?”
“A while, and a lot’s happened since you left Jasmine.”
“Sounds like we have some catching up to do.”
“You bet.” Clay frowned and turned his hat in his hands. “But first I need to talk to you about a mankiller.”
Mankiller. Buck hated the very term, conjuring up, as it did, images of madness, of fiends who killed for the sheer pleasure of it. Since the first shots of the War Between the States, soldiers of both armies had feared sharpshooters, snipers who struck from a distance without warning or mercy. As the war dragged on, rifles and ammunition improved; their skills did too. Now they could fire with deadly accuracy from distances of up to a thousand yards. The only protection for columns of foot soldiers was the patrolling of their perimeters by cavalry. Soon, however, these outriders themselves became targets. Mounted officers in their distinctive uniforms were particularly vulnerable.
“Sit down here with me a minute, Buck.”
They settled on the porch steps, elbows on knees. Down by the creek campfires were flickering to life around metal pots. Cooks began boiling the breakfast gruel, a watery concoction of corn, flour, squirrels, birds and anything else brought in by foragers.