YELLING AT CROWS
CHAPTER ONE — YELLING AT CROWS
The shout ripped down the stone corridor like a cannon blast.
“Wake up, you wet dog! You’ve got a visitor!”
The plump Union guard planted himself in front of a wall of black iron bars, boots spread wide on the damp floor. A coarse, unshaved beard smothered his jawline, hiding a fresh shaving nick. His dark blue coat strained across his belly, brass eagle buttons dulled and scratched from years of neglect. Two faded yellow chevrons marked him a corporal—though nothing about him resembled discipline.
He slammed his nightstick against the bars—
CLANG! CLANG!
His voice barked off the stone walls, swallowed only by the slow, steady drip of water from the ceiling.
Inside the cell, nothing stirred.
The air stank of rusted iron, sewage, and rot—thick enough to coat a man’s throat. A tiny one-by-one window bled in a faint gray light, too feeble to drive back the shadows pooling in the corners.
“You!” the guard shouted again.
He struck the bars harder.
“You wet, mangy dog! Answer me or I’ll crack your skull wide open!”
A whisper drifted from the cell’s far corner— low, calm, unmistakably English.
“Boston… looks like the fat guard’s back again.”
Inside the cell, Thomas Corbett lifted his head slightly.
His long hair hung in dirty ropes, half hiding his face. His shoulders rose and fell with slow, measured breaths.
But his lips had not moved.
A thin guard stepped beside the plump one, resting a hand lightly on his shoulder.
“John… leave him,” he muttered. “He hangs at sunrise. Don’t get your stick dirty.”
Another whisper floated from the dark:
“Listen to your mate. He might just save your life one day.”
Thomas slowly turned his gaze toward the bars—quiet, unreadable.
Behind his right shoulder, in the shadowed corner, Thatcher crouched beside him—gaunt, pale, sharp-eyed. He was ghostlike. Unnoticed. Unseen.
Only Thomas felt him. Only Thomas heard him.
“That’s it!” John snarled, face reddening. “You’re a dead man!”
He shoved the thin guard aside, jammed a key into the lock, and kicked the door open.
The hinges shrieked in protest.
“JOHN—don’t go in alone!” the thin guard cried. “The captain didn’t put him in C-block for nothing!”
John stormed inside.
Lantern light bled across the filthy floor.
Thomas sat motionless against the wall. Thatcher crouched beside him, calm as a preacher before a storm.
To John, the cell was empty except for one condemned man. To Thomas, Thatcher’s hand rested on his shoulder.
“Careful,” Thatcher murmured. “That man’s got murder running through him today.”
John lifted his nightstick high.
Thomas didn’t move.
The whisper came again, tight and urgent:
“He’s swinging right—duck. Now.”
John swung.
Thomas slipped left.
The nightstick smashed into stone, splintering its wooden tip.
John stumbled forward.
Thomas rose in one fluid motion and drove his fist upward into John’s groin.
The guard folded with a strangled gasp.
Thatcher’s voice was almost amused.
“Easy work, Boston.”
Thomas picked up the fallen nightstick.
“There are three types of men,” he said softly, almost gently. “Those who hide from death…”
John crawled backward, wheezing.
“Those who run toward it…”
Thomas raised the nightstick high.
“And those who are death.”
He brought the stick down across John’s skull.
The crack echoed in the cell.
The corridor outside erupted with shouts.
Then Thomas’s voice changed—warped, ringing, rising like a fire-lit sermon.
“Tomorrow at sunrise… we will meet Lucifer himself!”
The other prisoners fell silent, hanging on every word.
Thomas stepped over John’s body, nightstick dripping red.
“I failed to walk the path of my Lords! FAILED!”
He laughed—low, broken, monstrous.
John groaned on the floor.
“Go to hell…” he rasped.
From the dark corner, Thatcher whispered:
“No, no, Mr. John… not what he’ll say.”
Thomas turned sharply toward the dying guard.
“No. What I will say to Lucifer is nothing.”
He lifted the nightstick like a preacher raising the Good Book.
“Because we have sent enough souls to Hell… that Lucifer already knows… our name.”
He threw his arms wide toward the low ceiling.
“For I am Thomas Corbett— BUT HELL CALLS ME BOSTON!”
The scream tore through the block.
Prisoners pounded their bars. Men wailed in a chorus of the damned.
Boots thundered down the corridor.
A single crow landed on the tiny window bar above Thomas’s head.
Tap… Tap… Tap…
Thatcher whispered:
“Here comes the punishment.”
The guards crashed inside.
Nightsticks rained down.
Thomas fell beneath them, laughing—not at the men beating him, but at the man who stood untouched in the corner.
The man only he could see.
As darkness crept in, Thomas murmured:
“Still here…?”
A whisper brushed his ear:
“Always.”
Everything went black.
Darkness rolled over him like heavy soil on a grave.
Bootsteps. Metal clattering. Voices drifting in and out like fading dreams.
A breath stirred the air beside him.
“Easy… now, Boston,” Thatcher whispered. “You’re not dead. Not yet.”
Thomas groaned.
The world returned in fragments:
• A throbbing ache in his ribs • The copper taste of blood • Cold stone beneath his cheek • The faint tapping of a crow on the iron window bar
He opened his eyes.
Someone had thrown water across the floor to wash away blood. A cold draft carried the smell of winter rain.
Thatcher crouched beside him, knees drawn up casually.
“You made a mess,” Thatcher said. “They don’t like mess. Makes them skittish.”
“Feels like they broke every bone…” Thomas muttered.
Thatcher chuckled softly. “Only the ones you don’t need.”
Bootsteps approached.
Not frantic. Not hurried.
Measured. Precise.
Thatcher tilted his head.
“Well now… this one’s different.”
A tall man stepped into the doorway.
Long black frock coat. Polished boots. Gloves. A wide-brimmed hat.
Eyes like cold glass.
He looked completely out of place. Like a crow among barn hens.
“Mr. Thomas Corbett?” he asked calmly.
Thomas pushed himself up on one elbow.
“Who’s asking?”
The man stepped inside, careful not to brush the filthy walls.
“My name is Mr. Black.”
Thatcher rose behind Thomas, whispering:
“That’s not his real name. He smells of secrets.”
Mr. Black’s gaze swept the cell—blood, broken wood, unconscious guard.
“You caused quite a commotion,” he said. “Corporal John may yet live… though I cannot guarantee his mind will follow.”
Thomas shrugged a bruised shoulder.
“If he lives, he’ll think twice before yelling through bars.”
Mr. Black’s lips twitched. Almost a smile.
“I understand you are scheduled for execution at dawn.”
“Then you wasted a trip.”
“On the contrary,” Black said. “I am here to offer you a reprieve.”
Thomas’s eyes narrowed.
“And what do you want for it?”
Mr. Black clasped his gloved hands.
“There are men in very high offices who find you… uniquely useful.”
He continued, smooth as polished stone.
“If you accept the task we offer, you will be freed immediately. When completed, you will receive twenty-five thousand dollars.”
He paused.
His voice hardened like iron:
“If you refuse, you will be shot. If you accept and fail, you will be shot. If you run or attempt escape… you will be shot.”
Thomas tilted his head.
Thatcher whispered:
“Ask him… ask who he wants dead.”
Thomas spoke:
“Who do you want me to kill?”
His gaze drifted to the window, where the crow tapped again.
“I’d forgotten what it feels like to have the sun hit me face,” he murmured. “Or dry clothes on me back.”
He let out a hollow laugh.
“But I never forgot the feel of a wool Union uniform. Burns the skin. Stinks of sweat and sin.”
He smiled faintly.
“I’d rather wear Johnny gray. A Confederate man gives more to the Lord than a Northerner ever did.”
Thatcher whispered:
“Careful… he’s listening.”
Thomas turned back to Mr. Black.
“Now tell me,” he said quietly, “whose blood is worth twenty-five thousand dollars?”
Mr. Black exhaled.
“You will learn the name when you step beyond this cell.”
He turned toward the guards.
“Clean him,” he ordered. “He leaves in one hour.”
He paused in the doorway.
“Mr. Corbett,” he said softly, “you may be a madman… but you are a useful one. And useful men are in short supply in Washington these days.”
Thatcher leaned close to Thomas’s ear.
“He’ll regret that.”
The crow outside cawed once and vanished into the gray.
Thomas whispered toward the corner:
“Looks like we’re walking out of here, Thatcher.”
Thatcher’s voice answered— quiet, steady, always there:
“Never said I’d leave, Boston.”
Thomas closed his eyes.
And for the first time in days… he smiled.
