The Rescue.
The Civil War, between the northern and southerns states may have ended, but the difficulties did not end. They were just beginning. There was still violence and too many undisciplined and uncontrolled men scavenging and posing other dangers as they tried to survive and make their way home. In many ways it was a more dangerous time as the nation, uncomfortably united once more, heaved a collective sigh of relief and went about nursing its wounds and trying to pick up the pieces, but it would take generations to recover from that.
The dangers had not lessened. They had just changed. One could see groups of war-weary men making their way home. Fortunately, the Mississippi provided some food, as well as a highway, and there were crops beginning to grow that they could scavenge. They kept away from others as far as they could. Everyone was nervous. No one trusted anyone else at that time, and a man could get shot all too easily if he interfered in what should not concern him or stray where he should not be.
One Union soldier, Joseph Forrester, an officer, or so his uniform—wrapped away behind him and out of sight—once proclaimed, was returning home. He was heading south, back to Mississippi. He did not travel without care, and did not openly flaunt his earlier affiliation where it might be difficult to know who was friend or enemy. Every man was an enemy until you knew otherwise, and even then, one should be cautious. The killing would not end for some time, and he did not want to be one of those last casualties out of carelessness.
Others were hunting him now, even as they fled, after what he had done to them over the last few days, just as he was hunting them. The war had trained him to do what he was now doing, and to do it well despite the war having ended. It was a lopsided venture with one man hunting so many, and though the odds were strongly against him, he had the advantage of determination and the conviction that what he was doing was not only right, but necessary. He was slowly reducing their numbers as the opportunity was presented. He worked from the dark and from ambush when they least expected it, though now, they did expect it. They did not know who he was, nor why he persisted so doggedly in what he did, risking being killed, though they did know deep in their souls.
They had also hidden their identities too, getting rid of their chevrons from their coats and their characteristic caps.
Feelings still ran high on both sides.
He had followed them for longer than they knew, and had watched them. They were all heading in the same general direction. Home. He had seen nothing to concern him for some time but kept away from them; they were returning Confederates. They had started out as a group of more than twenty men, louder and more careless than they should have been, and angry at the way they had been cheated of victory by Lee’s surrender. They had been ready to continue fighting. The war might be over, but the killing still went on, only less openly. There were those who would not give up so easily, however, and had no intention of surrendering. Like the group that Forrester was following.
They had continued their indiscriminate killing of those who came into their path, endeavoring to cover their trail. Forrester first learned of it when he heard a shot some distance ahead of him and came across signs in the road to indicate that a horse had become scared. Off in the bushes to the side was the body of an older man. He had been shot through the heart and robbed of everything of value.
That was when he became more cautious and turned from observer to hunter. They had killed others too, but he had not known that this group of wandering marauders had been responsible at the time. He did now. They lost two of their group before they were even aware that they had gone. There was no shot fired and no loose horses to give warning, but two men, those bringing up the rear, would never rejoin them. It was assumed that they had fallen behind or had gone off in a different direction.
That night, Forrester passed by them silently and set himself up on a small ridge, well back from the road where it turned away from him, and rested, waiting for them. He might get off only two shots before they scattered, learning where he might be, but he would make those two shots count, as he had learned to do, and then wait for them again where they would least expect him.
About midmorning, they appeared, strung out. He counted. There were twenty of them. One or two had left that group earlier. He let them all pass and head away from him, mostly in a line. He raised his Henry repeating rifle and waited for at least two of them to be in line behind each other and then fired. He did not wait to see what effect his shot might have but reloaded and fired again at a third, and then at a fourth. They did not know where the shots were coming from as they scattered in panic off to the sides leaving five men in the road—three of them badly wounded, if not dead—and a couple of pack mules standing, before they wandered off and started to graze. Having men shot around them was something they were still getting used to. The men could not be sure where the shots had come from in their haste to escape, and the sounds had not told them anything until a third and fourth man had dropped.
In the confusion, Forrester retreated back down the ridge to his horses, crossed the stream, and then rode to get ahead of them before they had chance to regroup. They now certainly knew about him and would be more cautious, but they would assume he was behind them when they thought about it.
They would not sleep well that night, knowing that they were being hunted. He knew that if he stayed out of their way for a day or two, they might become careless again. He would not miss any opportunity, however. Any straggler would never catch up with them again, though his horse might, and there would be no sound of a gunshot to warn them. A man might die just as easily from an arrow or two at short range as a bullet.
He heard a shot behind him. They had decided that one of their wounded could not keep up with them and would slow them down, or was unlikely to survive his wound.
After two days of that, they began to relax once more and became one group again, thankful to have left danger far behind them. That was when they encountered a different kind of trouble.
They heard a light carriage approaching along the road while they were resting off to the side. There was an old man and a relatively young woman, possibly his daughter. They rushed out with guns drawn and stopped the cart, and before anyone might stop them, they had thrown the old man over the bridge into the water, taking shots at him in the water, as they laughed, and had swept the young woman up with them, and ridden off with her struggling, kicking, begging with them, and screaming until they tied and gagged her, and then even blindfolded her.
They rode fast after that.
It turned out to be another costly blunder they had made.
When they next stopped, after an hour or so, and early in the evening, intending to make camp, with their captive being their unwilling and often-abused guest, they hid off to the side between the track and the river. They pulled the woman down off the horse she had been on, and then held her as they began to eagerly remove her little remaining clothing by pulling it, tearing it, and cutting it off her in their impatience to be at her, and throwing it off to one side, as others watched the road. There was no way she could stop them with so many holding her from fighting them. Their intent was more than obvious, but what then, after that? Her futile struggling and loud complaints—even gagged—and objections to what they were doing with her were ignored as they pulled her around, giving her fair warning by their already personal attention to parts of her body, what they had planned for her for the rest of that night.
When she was entirely naked, after suffering numerous indignities at their eager hands, caressing her body, kissing, intruding, they pushed and pulled her to the ground, even by her hair, and three of them held her there, intending that they would all take turns raping her. One man held her arms above her head, kneeling upon them, while another held one leg down to stop her kicking. The third man undid himself as he held the other leg securely, forcing it to one side to open her up for his invasion of her.
He pushed his trousers to his ankles with his free hand, and dropped to his knees between her legs, still holding her leg, moving to engage her, and as eager and as ready as any man could be, as his friends held her spread-eagled for him. They were eager for him to go forward and push into her, and then to finish with her, and for their turn to come. That was as far as he got. His head exploded in a shower of blood and bone as he fell across her, lifeless, causing her to flinch, not knowing what had just happened. She had expected something else, and had braced herself for the real pain to begin. She had heard the shot soon after the man had fallen on her, but did not know what it meant. She was tense, unable to scream and had waited for the agony of degradation to begin and to continue for the rest of that night as they had her staked out by their campfire as they each took turns, repeatedly with her throughout the night.
It didn’t happen.
That man was certainly dead, but she did not know that. The same bullet, or fragments of it, hit the man holding both of her arms. He did not move either, after falling away from her.
They scattered for their horses after that, leaving the naked woman behind, lying still, underneath that heavy body, afraid and unable to move, not sure what had happened, unable to see. Forrester put bullets into two others before they had reached their horses, and then calmly picked off one of those left to watch the road, and who had begun to raise his own rifle to shoot back at him, having discovered where he was shooting from, by the noise, and the sudden disturbance of the birds.
They wasted no time yet again in putting distance between themselves and a man who seemed able to pick them off at his leisure. They thought they had left him far behind them.
Forrester, mounted his horse and urged it over to where the young woman was, passing the body of that one man in the road, checking that he was indeed dead. He was cautious about those he had shot, ready to put another bullet into any of them if necessary, but he had not missed. He dismounted. The man who had been holding her arms had been hit in the spine and lay still, gasping for air, and paralyzed. Forrester took the man’s own knife from his belt, and drove it through the bottom of his chin and into his brain, feeling the bone splintering as the knife drove up into his head, killing him instantly. At least she had not witnessed him do that.
She had heard what had happened but did not understand it. He pulled the body off her, undid her gag and took off her blindfold. He pulled the naked woman to her feet and got her to hold onto his stirrup until she collected her wits about what had happened and what still might happen. He hoped she would not begin to scream as she looked about, wildly. There was no point in trying to recover her clothing with it lying in tatters, cut off and thrown about, and he was not about to let her obvious concern over her nakedness hold him there to be shot at if those men doubled back. She was more concerned for her safety, fortunately, than about her lack of clothing and did not try to cover herself with her hands, but looked about in horror wondering what had changed, and able to see the bodies of two of her would-be rapists one of them almost naked, but also practically headless, with his trousers around his ankles.
“Can you stand by yourself?” She could not speak, but was in shock, sobbing at what was happening to her, and now trying to protect and cover herself with her hands now free. Her wrists and ankles were bruised where she had been tied, and cruelly held, and there was bruising on her body.
“Time for that later. They might return.” That sobered her up, and she forgot about protecting her modesty once more. They could not wait here. The others would not go far before they might return after that first shock, and try to kill him while he might be tending to her. He picked up the dead man’s coat and threw it around her shoulders, where she held it tight, partially covering her before putting her arms into the sleeves. It would have to do. He mounted his horse and then pulled her bodily up behind him. She realized what he was doing, and helped him after that as she put her foot into his stirrup, vacated so she could do that, and then threw her leg up and over the horse behind his saddle without further consideration for her modesty or how she was exposed. She knew where the greater danger lay, and it was not with this one man, no matter what he intended with her. She rode behind him, hanging on to him with one arm around his waist, and clutching the coat about her with the other, as he put some distance between them and her attackers.
He noticed that one of the horses was following them, so he paused, gathered that up too, by the reins, and then freed the horse of the man he had shot on the road; taking that one with them also. He would need one or both of them, and the packs they carried. He picked up another two horses that he had hidden in the woods, dismounting briefly only to secure them one to the other as he rode off at the head of a string of horses. They went slowly, unfortunately, but those others would be cautious before they might decide to try and follow them.
