Night of the Wolves

Cody kept his face impassive, but Aldridge’s knowledge of his past had taken him by surprise.

“I took part in a number of reconnaissance missions as part of Lee’s army, Lieutenant, if that’s what you’re referring to,” he said carefully. “I was given a medical discharge and sent back to New Orleans when I was wounded—initially declared dead, actually. I’ve been here, helping the wounded of both armies and minding my own business, since my recovery.”

Aldridge stared at him and flipped the file shut again. He didn’t have to read from it; he apparently knew what it contained. “A series of bizarre murders took place in northern Alexandria in 1859. You were friends with a certain law enforcement officer, Dean Brentford, and you started patrolling with him at night. You apprehended the murderer when no other constable could catch up with him. And when he tore through the force trying to subdue him, you managed to decapitate him with a single one-handed swing of your sword.” Aldridge pointed a finger at him. “President Lincoln himself asked you to perform intelligence work for him, but you politely refused, saying your remaining kin were in Louisiana, and you couldn’t rightly accept such a position.”

Cody lifted his hands. “My mother died the year after the war started, but I’m sure you understand that … I come from here. I was born here. And as to the … incident to which you refer … The brutality of the murders took everyone by surprise, and I’m simply glad I was able to help.”

Aldridge leaned forward. “Help? Fox, to all intents and purposes you and you alone stopped them. More to the point, we’ve just had a similar case here, down on Conti. My officers are at their wits’ end, and I don’t want this city going mad because the Yanks think the Rebs have gone sick or vice versa. This isn’t a battleground anymore, it’s a city where people are picking up the pieces of their lives. It may take decades before true peace is achieved, but I’ll be damned if I’ll allow the citizens to start killing one another because one man is sick in the head.”

Cody stared straight across the desk at the man and didn’t say a word.

“You got yourself a medical degree, son, then you went off to ride with the cavalry and wound up in intelligence.” Aldridge stared back at Cody, hazel eyes intent. “You can help me. I don’t give a damn where you came from or what your folks did or whose side you fought on. I just want to catch a killer. Because it sounds like a bloodthirsty madman just like the one you killed is on the loose—in my city—and I want him stopped.”

“HOW DID YOU KNOW about the attack?”

Alexandra Gordon was sitting in a hardwood chair, presumably before a desk, but she didn’t have any actual idea where she was, since the officers who had come to her house had thrown a canvas bag over her head, and she was still blinded by it. She was stunned by the treatment she had received and continued to receive, especially since she had put herself in great peril to warn the small scouting contingent that there would be bloodshed if they crossed the Potomac.

Apparently she was a deadly spy.

They had tied her hands behind her back, but the officer in charge had whispered furiously to the others, and her hands were once again free. Despite that small courtesy, he seemed to be the descendent of a member of the Spanish Inquisition. He slammed his hands on the table, and his voice rose as he repeated the question. “How did you know? And don’t say again that it was a dream. You are a spy, and you will tell me where you’re gaining your information!”

She shook her head beneath the canvas bag, praying for the ability to stay calm. “I merely tried to save Union lives, sir, as well as Confederate. What, I ask you, was gained by this raid? Nothing. What was lost? The lives of at least twenty young men. I went to the encampment to speak with the sergeant and tell him that he mustn’t make the foray. He ignored my warning, and now he and his men are dead, along with a number of my Southern brothers.”

“I have the power to imprison you for the rest of your life—or hang you,” her inquisitor warned.

She heard the sound of a door opening. Someone else spoke, a man with a low, well-modulated voice. “Lieutenant Green,” he said, “I would like to speak with Ms. Gordon myself.”

“But, sir!” Green was shocked.

“Please,” the new voice said politely, but there was authority in the tone.

Alex heard a chair scrape back and was aware of the newcomer taking a seat across from her.

“My wife has dreams,” he said after a moment. “In fact, I have had dreams. Please, tell me, what did you see in your dream, and how did you know when and where the slaughter would occur?”

“I know the place,” she said softly. “I used to play in that hollow when I was a child, when we had a farm there. My father worked in Washington then, but we would steal away to the countryside whenever he was free.”

She heard someone snort. Green. “Her father was a traitor,” the lieutenant said. “He went out West and was murdered. Indians, I heard. Good riddance.”

She stiffened at that. “My father was no traitor. He loved the West and chose to move us there to avoid a war he thought unjust. He went looking for a home where everyone was equal. He didn’t care about a man’s birth or color. He was a brilliant man,” she said passionately. “He worked for the government, for the people.”

“It’s all right, I know of him, Miss Gordon,” the newcomer said softly, soothingly. “And I was deeply sorry to hear about his death. Now, tell me, what did you see?”

“I saw the hollow in the woods. I heard the horses coming, and I saw movement in the trees. And then the men stepped out, thin, haggard, like starving dogs. And starving dogs can be desperate. When the horses came, the men were ready to attack. And then … it was as if a fog suddenly settled over the daylight, but the mist was red, the color of the blood being spilled…. I saw … I saw them die. Some were shot, others skewered through by bayonets. Then I saw the riderless horses cantering away, and I saw the ground, strewn with the dead, one atop another, as if in death enemies had at last made amends.”

“Do you dream often?” he asked.

She longed to see the face of the man who had come to speak so kindly to her. “No.”

“But you have done so before?”

“Yes.”

“And when you have these dreams, what you see comes true?”

“Unless it is somehow stopped,” she said. “I tried so hard … but no one would listen.”

She was startled, but not frightened, when he took her hands.

His hands were very large, callused and clumsy, but warm, and offering great strength.

“She’s a Confederate spy,” someone muttered venomously.

“Gentleman, a spy does not warn the enemy in an attempt to prevent death,” he said. “A spy would let the enemy march to their doom. Tell me,” he said to her, “do you wish to bring us down?”

“No. I am not a spy. I came home to marry—”

“A Reb,” the inquisitor interrupted.

“And instead I watched my fiancé and what was left here of my family die. But I do not pray for either side. I pray for an end to war. I teach—”

“Sedition,” the lieutenant stated.

“Piano,” she corrected dryly. “And I run a library and bookshop. My father was a great teacher, and I’m proud to say I learned everything I know from him.”

The gentle man spoke to her again. “Do you consort with the enemy?”

“If I do, I have nothing to tell them. And I consort with those who are not your enemy, as well,” she said, an edge to her tone.

“I believe you,” he said. “But now I would like to return to the subject of your dreams.”

“I believe that dreams come to warn us, but that if we learn to heed them, we can change the course of events.”

She heard the other man sniggering. “Did your dreams warn you about your father’s death, Miss Gordon?” the lieutenant asked, mocking her.

“Dreams do not always tell us what we might most wish to know,” she said.

“Tell me, Miss Gordon, have you ever changed the outcome of events after you dreamed them?”

“Yes. I … stopped a young man who was wounded from rejoining his unit. I had seen him lying on the battlefield, staring up at the sky with sightless eyes on the battlefield. He has since been reassigned to communications work.”

“Spying!” Lieutenant Green said.

She laughed. “He was a Union soldier, so …”

The quiet man spoke again. “What if we are not intended to change fate,” the soft-spoken man said.

“We are creatures of free will,” she said. “I believe that God helps those who help themselves. We read books. Perhaps we can learn to read our dreams, as well,” she said.

“Perhaps.” She heard him move his chair back. “It’s my belief, Lieutenant Green, that we are violating the rights of this young woman,” he said.

She didn’t know what she had said, but she had somehow satisfied him.

“What are your plans, Miss Gordon?” he asked, surprising her.

“I’ve been planning—to head west, to Texas. I want to find out what happened to my father,” she said.

“I think you’d do better to stay here,” the man said. “Safer.”

“I have to go,” she said simply.

“Have you received guidance on that matter in your dreams?” he asked.

“No. But I know in my heart that I must search out the truth,” she said.

“I understand. At any rate … Lieutenant Green, get that ridiculous hood off the young lady’s head.”

“I can manage, sir,” she said, shuddering at the thought of Green touching her. She quickly pulled the canvas sack from her head.

She looked up and found herself rising. She had never suspected … She had seen President Lincoln many times, and she had heard that he was haunted by dreams and sometimes driven to distraction by his wife’s obsession with the occult. But then, the poor man had lost two sons, and the challenge of keeping a nation together did not lessen a father’s grief or a mother’s desperation.

He stretched out a hand. She accepted it. “You will be in my prayers, young lady.”

“And you, sir, will be in mine.”

“That is something for which I will be eternally grateful.”

“Sir!” Green protested.

“Please see to it that Miss Gordon is escorted home. And if she needs help in any way, I know that you will be kind enough to see that she receives it. Right, Lieutenant?”

Green looked as if he were about to explode.

“Right, Lieutenant?” Lincoln repeated softly.

“Right, sir,” Green said.

Lincoln tipped his hat to her. “I wish you could meet Mary. She might be greatly encouraged by knowing you.”

“I am here for another fortnight, sir, and it would be my great pleasure to help you in any way.”

“Then I shall make the arrangements. You have my thanks.”

MARY LINCOLN DID NOT have her husband’s calm disposition.

Alex felt she had to be honest and explain that she had no way to communicate with the dead, but she also found herself desperate to ease the woman’s suffering if she could. “Sometimes,” she said, “those who have gone before us appear in our dreams, and I believe that is their way of letting us know that they are happy in the next world.”

“Has your father, or perhaps your fiancé, appeared in your dreams?” Mary asked anxiously.

“No. But I have heard of it happening. Mrs. Lincoln, I know that your little ones are with God. You must find peace here on earth, and know that you will be reunited with them when the time is right.”

She saw a peacefulness enter Mary Lincoln’s eyes then, and she left feeling that, in some small way, she had helped.

DAYS LATER, WHEN SHE was actually leaving for her long journey, she saw the president again.

He was riding in a carriage with his wife, as he often did on a Sunday. He didn’t see her, though. He was leaning back, his eyes closed, his expression that of a man pushed past the point of exhaustion. As she stepped into her own carriage, she wondered what dreams were plaguing the president as he wearily rested his head. Dreams were such unreliable messengers.

No dream had warned her of her father’s death, when she had left him to return to her fiancé in the East.

And no dream had come to alert her to what lay ahead.

CHAPTER TWO

IT WAS JUST SUNSET when Alex started toward the stairs of the boardinghouse that, following her father’s death, was now hers—despite the fact that he had left behind a new young wife, a woman named Linda Alex had yet to meet and couldn’t say she thought much of.

She was shaking the dust of travel from her skirt before heading back up to her room, where clean clothes awaited after the long trip from the capital. She’d walked around the house, making note of the changes——some of them very strange—that had been made in her absence. Now she was looking forward to cleaning up and resting.

That was when she heard the shots.

Dozens of them, along with the sounds of horses’ hooves, and the whooping and hollering that came along with the sudden rush of men into town.

“Oh, no!” Bert, the jack-of-all-trades her father had hired right after their arrival in Victory, Texas, came rushing into the entry hall and made his way to the front window. He peered carefully beyond the lace drapes, the color draining from his coffee-colored face. “It’s … them,” he said, shuddering.

“What’s going on?” Alex demanded, turning. She felt a surge of fear streak through her, but she headed straight to the gun rack in the library. She had heard strange stories ever since her return, but she wasn’t one to put stock in spooky tales, not when she had a gun in her hand.

Her father’s Colt automatic was right where it had always been, and it was loaded. She might go down in a hail of bullets, but she wasn’t going down without a fight.

Bert turned to stare at her, and she realized she’d never seen him afraid before. “Alex, leave that thing be. It won’t help you any. These folks are—they’re animals. We’ve got to get down in the basement and hide. Don’t you see? There just ain’t no point in fighting these days.”

No point in fighting? That was ridiculous. Victory had a sheriff, a deputy, and a town banker, three shopkeepers and a stable master—all of whom had fought in the war or on the frontier and knew how to defend themselves. Not to mention the fact that the saloon had several bartenders and “song and dance” girls who were tough as nails.

Bert turned from the window to stare at her. “We’ve got to get into the basement. All of us. We’ve got to hide, and be real quiet. We’ll be safe down there.”

“I’m not hiding in the basement. This town has guts, and if we fight, others will, too.”

Beulah, the cook, appeared, running from the kitchen. “Come on! We’ve got to go hide.” She turned, calling for Tess and Jewell, the maids.

It was crazy, Alex thought, but all this panic was giving her chills.

Fighting her growing fear, Alex strode over and took Bert by the shoulders. “Stop it! We need to stand up and fight.”

“No!” Bert shook off her hold and grabbed her in return. “Alex, you don’t know these outlaws. It’s the Beauville gang. I’ve seen what they done, back in Brigsby.”

“What happened in Brigsby?”

“They murdered everyone and now the place is a ghost town. Now, you go down in the basement and—”

He never got to finish his sentence. The door to the boardinghouse burst open and revealed three outlaws standing on the front steps, guns drawn.

Alex’s heart stuttered, then resumed beating as she told herself that they were just outlaws. Murderers shooting into the air and shouting to create fear and confusion, but men. Just men.

But it was three against one, because only she was armed.

Bert was a courageous man. Despite his fear, he stepped forward, ready to protect her. But the first of the outlaws, a tall man with a gaunt face and black eyes, laughed as, with a single swift blow, he sent Bert crashing against the wall. She heard the crack as his head hit the wood, then saw him slump unconscious to the floor.

“You must be the Alexandra Gordon I’ve heard so much about,” the outlaw mocked, sweeping off his hat and bowing in greeting. The two behind him laughed, and one spat chewing tobacco on her newly swept hardwood floor. “Milo Roundtree, at your service,” the first man said, then, “No, that’s wrong. I believe you will be at my service.”

“I don’t think so.” She lifted the Colt. “I know exactly how to use this.”

A short man with scruffy, tangled blond hair laughed uproariously. “She’ll be at our service? All right! She’s a damn sight cleaner than them whores we’re always stuck with.”

“Didn’t you hear me? I said I’ll shoot you,” Alex announced.

“No, you’ll come with us,” Milo said, and grinned. It was then she saw that two other men, who must have come in through the back door, had caught up with Tess and Jewell before they could reach the basement and were holding knives at the girls’ throats.

Alex was filled with sudden terror, but somehow she managed to stay upright and keep her face as defiant as her words. “Let my friends go this instant, and I won’t blow your brains out.”

“Aren’t you the feisty beauty?” Milo said. “I think you’ll be for me. Just for me.”

“Not in this lifetime,” she said.

“That’s all right, too, little darling,” he drawled. The words were not reassuring.

“I’ll shoot you before I let you lay a hand on me,” she said to Milo.

He merely nodded toward the ruffian who held Tess. The man brought his knife closer to her flesh, and a low moan escaped her.

Milo looked at her challengingly, and Alex lowered her gun.

Milo stepped forward and grabbed her, slamming her up against him. She was immediately aware that there was something very odd about the man. He felt … cold, his flesh where it touched her like icy stone. She struggled, trying to wrench her arm away, but she was certain she would wrench it from its socket before she would break the man’s hold on her. She looked up and met his eyes, strange eyes, and pitch-black.

More shots, cries and taunting came from the street. Alex didn’t even fight or scream as Milo dragged her out. Where would be the sense in it? she thought.

There were eight men in all, she saw once she was outside: three who had remained out on the street with the horses and were the source of the most recent ruckus, the two who had Jewell and Tess, and the three, including Milo, who had accosted her.

“Round ‘em up!” chortled one of the men with the horses.

Jewell let out a terrified cry as she was sent flying out the door and into the arms of another man.

Where the hell was the sheriff?

Where were any of the men?

“Get them across the street, into the saloon. We’ve got some more business in town before we leave with our spoils,” Milo said to the others.

They were herded into the saloon, where several of the song-and-dance girls were huddled together by the piano.

The only man in the room was Jigs, the piano player.

Milo let go of Alex at last, so he could go behind the bar and open the cash register. Several of his men joined him, breaking open bottles of alcohol and shouting raucously.

Suddenly they heard the sound of clicking spurs.

Someone was coming at last. Alex let herself breathe an almost silent sigh of relief.

The slatted saloon doors were thrown open, crashing back against the walls loudly enough to arrest the attention even of the men behind the bar.

For a moment he was framed there in silhouette, a tall man in a wide-brimmed hat, wearing a railroad duster and cowboy boots, a rifle carried easily at his side.

He hadn’t come alone. Behind him stood another man, a shade shorter but otherwise a twin of the dark silhouette in appearance.

The first man stepped closer and nudged his hat up, revealing eyes that seemed to glow with a golden light. He looked around the room and sized up the situation.

His gaze lit upon Milo, who still had his hand in the till. He seemed to be amazed that anyone had had the nerve to enter the saloon. Alex saw his hand inching toward the gun holstered at his waist.

The newcomer with the golden eyes fixed his stare on Milo.

“I wouldn’t do that,” he said. “I really wouldn’t do that.”

Milo ignored him.

And suddenly, gunfire blazed.

IN SECONDS THE AIR filled with a fog of gunpowder so thick that it obscured the action. Finally the roar of bullets died, replaced by coughing, followed by … a hard thud.

The smoke began to clear, and Alex saw the man with the shaggy blond hair lying on the floor, dead, blood pooling around his head. The others—outlaws and hostages alike—slowly began to emerge from hiding places behind tables, chairs, the bar and the piano. The sight was surreal, the settling gun smoke wrapping everything in an air of otherworldliness.

Milo was still standing.

And so was the newcomer with the eerie golden eyes.

The two men stared at each other.

Neither one had moved, Alex realized. In the hail of bullets, neither one had moved.

And neither one had been touched.

Milo smiled slowly. “Well, well, what do we have here?”

“That’s not really the question, is it?” the newcomer asked quietly. “The real question is, what are you doing here? And the answer is ‘running’—because that’s the only way you’ll leave here alive.”

Milo guffawed, but to Alex’s surprise, there was something missing now. The absolute confidence the man had emitted before was gone. Even so, he stood dead still—apparently not in the least disturbed by the death of his friend—and continued to stare at the newcomer speculatively.

“I can take you down,” Milo assured the man.

“Maybe, maybe not. You just don’t know for certain, do you?”

“I can have my men slit the throats of a half-dozen women before you can move … friend,” Milo countered smoothly.

“Can you?” the newcomer asked.

Alex never actually saw him move. There was simply a blur in the air, and then the golden-eyed man was behind Milo, holding a glittering bowie knife at the outlaw’s throat. “Don’t doubt me, friend. I know just how deep I have to slide this blade. Now, tell your men to release the women and step outside.”

“Get that knife away from my neck first,” Milo said.

“No. When your men are on their way to the door, then I let you go. And then you get the hell out of this town.”

“Even with your handy-dandy sidekick over there,” Milo said, indicating the older man who had entered behind the newcomer, “you’re outnumbered.”

“Doesn’t matter. If you don’t let those women go and get the hell out of here, I’ll show you what two men can do.”

“The girls will die.”

“So will you.”

Milo’s eyes gleamed with a fury that seemed to glow red, but he was clearly aware of the blade at his throat. He growled a command.

His gang began releasing the women and heading for the door. “Not outside!” Milo bellowed. “Not until I’m with you.”

If not for the deadliness of the situation, it might have been amusing to see the way they collided with one another in an effort to stop and turn around. Finally the tall newcomer removed the blade from Milo’s throat and pushed him toward his comrades. “Get out now, and leave this town be,” he said quietly.

At the door, Milo turned back. “No one tells me what to do.”

“No one can stop a man bent on sheer stupidity,” the newcomer returned. “But I’m warning you—stay the hell away from here—or else.”

“I don’t take kindly to threats, friend,” Milo said.

But apparently he’d wanted only to get in the last word, because he turned and left, his gang of outlaws following quickly.

For a moment there was dead silence in the saloon. It was as if everyone were waiting, listening for hoofbeats, the assurance that the outlaws were really gone.