Prologue

Nevada Territory

October 1861

I wonder where I’ll be next week at this time. Will I be facing a Confederate soldier? Lying dead in a field of corpses? Will I ever see home again?

“How about you, Roy? Where you from?”

Roy Carson startled at the gravelly-voiced man sitting beside him. Blinking, he studied the other soldiers riding with him in the troop transport wagon. They had met one another in Virginia City, signing with Charles D. Douglas to enlist in the Union army. After joining a California Cavalry unit, Roy and his companions had boarded this wagon to nearby Fort Churchill to be mustered out.

“You look like you’re a million miles away, son,” the older man chuckled. He’d introduced himself earlier as Johnny Beiler from Carson City.

“Sorry, just woolgathering,” Roy answered. “I’m from Genoa, Nevada. Thinking about the day I found out about the war…” He trailed off, staring over the side of the wagon at the well-traveled road. A cloud of dust blew behind the iron-shod wheels as they rolled closer and closer to whatever destiny awaited them in battle. “My mind was a few months away, anyway.”

A lean, strong man, Roy Carson knew others judged him older by his tanned face, which usually wore a serious expression. Grandma often said he’d been born an ‘old soul.’ At twenty-eight, Roy no longer considered himself young. Roy studied his companions intently with dark eyes, almost as black as the walnuts Ma prized for her applesauce cake. Although he wore his chestnut hair long, it was tied neatly down his neck. He wore his beard trimmed and had often been compared to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in his youth. The notion filled Roy with pride.

“That was a memorable day, all righty,” Johnny said. He chawed off a plug of tobacco and spoke around the wad in his mouth. “Remember it like it were yesterday. I was out sowin’ my wheat seed when a boy came running from town, hollerin’ loud enough to open the graves in the cemetery. ‘The South fired on Fort Sumter! We’re at war!’”

Johnny laughed, a loud heehaw. “True be told, fellers, I wasn’t sure whereabouts Fort Sumter was! Ran in the house an’ got my musket, sure the rebs was crossing the river near the house.”

Two men seated on the rough plank seats across from Roy and Johnny laughed at the story. The McAllisters were brothers from Carson City, where they’d worked as clerks in a store. Both had boyish faces, eager blue eyes, and shocks of wheat-colored hair under their new kepis. Their Union blues were pressed and starched, the creased pant legs tucked into knee-high leather boots polished to a gleam—what Grandpa Jim would call ‘dandies.’ “I’d just sold the last pair of silk garters to a lady from Clifton,” Ian McAllister recalled. An earnest smile widened his apple-red cheeks. “Right after, Alex ran into the store with the news he’d heard at the telegraph office.”

Alex smiled a toothy grin, displaying two front teeth overlapping one another. “As soon as we heard, we wanted to join up. Sure did chaff having to wait until this fall.”

“Why did you?” Johnny asked.

“We promised the store owner we’d stay on until harvest,” Alex said.

“Yup,” Johnny agreed. “I had to wait to get in the harvest too. How about you, Roy? What were you doing on April twelfth?”

Roy stretched against the rough boards of the wagon bed and shifted his legs. “As I recall, I was helping Pa and Grandpa out in the fields, too. We had figured to put out more corn. Then, Pete… well, one of the ranch hands came riding in with the news.”

And why wasn’t Pete out there in the blazing sun helping us that spring?

Roy let the bitter thought pass.

“Did you figure on joining up right off—after your harvest?” Ian asked.

“Not right off.” Roy pondered his indecision. “I’d just been elected as deputy to the town sheriff. He was looking to retire soon, hoping I’d take over in a year or so.”

“Well now, a deputy! I respect you for that, Roy. Not a job for the fainthearted.”

Roy grinned. “I’d never wanted to do anything else from the time I was a little shaver: help on the ranch and be a sheriff someday. Deputy was just one step in that direction. So that kind of gave me pause—that and the ranch. Pa and Grandpa are getting up in years. Told them I’d help bring in the harvest before I made a decision. Sheriff convinced me to join up and fight for the Union.”

“You have a big ranch?” Ian asked.

“Sure enough.” Roy reached into the knapsack at his feet and pulled out a daguerreotype. “Grandma had a photographer come out from town to take a picture of the house and family before I left.”

“We want you to take a little piece of us with you,” Grandma had said, tears in her gentle eyes.

Roy leaned forward so the other three could see the picture. “This here’s the house, and you can see some of the fields.”

“Woo-wee, mighty fine house!” Johnny whistled. “Sure is grand.”

Embarrassed, Roy shrugged. The farmhouse was fine, a large two-story house made of bought lumber, not timber, freshly whitewashed every spring like clockwork.

“Now who’s this?” Alex pointed to a couple standing on the porch steps.

“That’s Ma and Pa.” Roy pointed to his parents with pride. “Then there’s Grandma.” His finger tapped the short dumpling of a woman seated in a chair with a blurred spot in her lap—Tim, the tabby cat. “Grandpa Jim is standing behind her.”

“Who’s this young blade over here?” Ian pointed to Pete, sitting on the porch railing with a devil-may-care grin. “This your brother? Did he join up too?”

“I’m an only child,” Roy lied quickly, uncomfortable talking about Pete. “That’s Pete. He’s just one of the ranch hands. Grandpa’s kind of fond of him. He has a way with horses.”

Red-faced, Roy tucked the daguerreotype back into the knapsack. A guilty thump of his heart condemned him, as it always did when he spoke about Pete.

It wasn’t really a lie. Pete isn’t my brother.

Even if Grandma always called Pete Roy’s ‘stepbrother,’ there were no blood ties between them. Taking in an orphan didn’t make him family, did it?

Roy turned to stare over the wagon side again. Truth was, he missed Pete at times—especially now, with Pete off who knew where—but he couldn’t stop his resentment from bubbling over.

Pete should be doing his duty to preserve the union. Why should I protect his reputation?

Suddenly, the driver shouted from the front of the wagon. “Whoa, now! What’s this? Men in the road—looks like a hold up!”

All four horses slowed to a shuddering stop as the man yanked on the harness. The sudden jolting of the wagon pitched Roy forward, then back against the side of the wagon bed. Next to him, Johnny fell off his seat, hit his elbow, and rent the air with curses.

“What’s going on here?” Roy demanded. His piercing eyes found three masked men astride swaybacked farm horses.

“Hold up, Mister,” a young man hollered, an old musket loader trembling in his boyish hand.

“We’re men going to fight in the Union army.” Roy spoke in a stern voice, one he’d used on more than one ruffian. “You let us pass.”

“Sure enough,” another bandit said in a quavery voice, “just as soon as you pass out your money an’ valuables.”

The third boy snickered. His red bandana slipped a little from his face, and he nudged it back up quickly—but not before Roy got a good look at the boy’s hollow cheeks and dull eyes.

Just a couple of hungry kids.

“What if we say no?” Roy drew his Colt and aimed it over the side of the wagon. “You boys go on home before you get in real trouble.”

The first bandit answered with a raised pistol and a shot at Roy’s dark, wide-brimmed hat. The hat sailed into the air as Roy ducked. He didn’t know if the boy was that terrible a shot or if he’d been aiming for the hat.

Roy fired off a warning shot; Alex and Ian had both drawn guns too.

“Scare them off,” Roy murmured. “They’re just boys.”

Roy aimed for—and hit—the red-bandana bandit’s pistol, knocking the gun from his grip.

The boy yowled in fear and hightailed it down the road. “I’m dyin’!” he hollered, although Roy hadn’t drawn a drop of blood. “Jed! Leon! Run!”

In the same instant, Alex shot a bedraggled straw hat off the boy with carrot-colored curls. The boy’s startled eyes opened wide as the hat sailed off and was quickly trampled under his horse’s hooves.

Jed and Leon obviously hadn’t expected to be fired on; they galloped away to regroup.

“Driver,” Roy hollered, “go! Go! Outrun them. Just a couple of hungry boys.”

The driver nodded over his shoulder and shook the reins, urging the team forward.

The would-be bandits followed for a mile or so, riding along, shooting. They nicked the wagon once, but most of their shots went wild. After a while, they ran out of ammunition—that, and their old horses slowed, heaving at the race. Roy wouldn’t have been surprised to see the old paint fall over dead. One boy tossed a straw hat into the air, spewing curses, then turned and headed down the road.

“I’m mighty glad you were along, Roy,” Alex said. “Those boys might have been planted six feet under. I’d have thought they were real outlaws.”

Roy sat down, breathing hard. “Naw, just some hungry boys.”

For some reason, he was reminded of the orphan boy his family’d taken in.

Just where are you, Pete?

Chapter One

One year later

May 1862

Battle of Deep Gulley, North Carolina

John Brown’s body lies a molderin’ in the grave, John Brown’s body…

The tune Roy whistled had been stuck in his head for the last hour. Shivering in his damp uniform, he lay on a mossy bank, tucked into the hollowed-out space of a decayed tree trunk. A chill drizzle dampened his dark hair as loose tendrils splayed his wet cheeks. Raindrops dripped from his eyelashes and dribbled down his long nose.

He’d gone from wet and miserable to praying he’d survive to dry out again. All around, Roy heard the continuing sounds of battle. Sometimes near, other times distant. Horses whinnying or snorting in fear. Every so often, the click clack of horseshoes clattering up and over a nearby rocky path.

The loud whiz-bang of cannon fire echoed from a field about a half mile away. Roy had left several men from his unit engaged in battle while he crawled, belly down, to scout out where the rebs were hiding.

That had been hours ago.

The sharp retort of rifles filled the air, along with the screams of the wounded. The carnage had been going on for what seemed like an eternity. Each rifle blast frustrated Roy as he lay injured, unable to return fire.

He heard voices shouting orders. Others called out names—words spoken in fear or sudden jubilation. Most of the sounds came to his ear as gibberish, like the chattering of strange animals hiding in the forest.

“Darn you, Roy Carson,” he scolded himself as he lay in the decaying tree. “If you hadn’t gotten busted up, you’d be there fighting alongside your men. But, no, had to go stumble over a root like a durn fool and get a bullet in the knee.”

That rebel sure got off a lucky shot.

Roy didn’t even think about why he’d stumbled over the root. It hadn’t been out of clumsiness, but concern for a younger soldier. The boy had been seconds from death when Roy charged forward, tripped, and shoved the young man to safety. Instead of the soldier’s heart, the bullet had pierced Roy’s knee, shattering bone and spraying out a bloody mess.

Roy was more angry than embarrassed. While his unit fought to the death to hold back a regiment of Confederates—stuck tight as leeches to their position on top of a hill—Roy lay here, useless. Defenseless. Alone, except for a younger man’s lifeless body. He’d saved the soldier in his command but fallen near another boy who hadn’t been so lucky.

Mere inches away, the young soldier had died a long, drawn-out death with a Minie ball stuck in his throat. He’d bled out bit by bit, unable to speak, as his blue-gray eyes stared at Roy’s face in terror. The boy’s bloodless hands had clutched desperately at his throat as tears trickled from the corners of his eyes.

Roy had sat beside the boy, prayed with him—encouraged him, even though they’d both known his seconds were numbered. Though he’d feared Confederate fire, Roy had not left the boy to die alone.

I don’t even know his name.

After the boy had spent his last breath, Roy’d managed to crawl a short distance away. He’d tried to stand using a large branch as a crutch, but pain stabbed knives from his knee to his ankle. He couldn’t be certain, but it felt like the bullet was lodged right behind his kneecap. Shuffling through the woods, Roy knew he’d be an easy target.

I’d rather not die today.

Finding the hollowed-out tree had been a blessing, even if rain seeped through the splinters of wood. As the gloomy, gray day drizzled toward dusk, Roy watched flashes of uniforms—mostly blue—like birds fluttering through the leaves.

However, he dare not call out for help. The incessant gunfire never stopped, and Roy didn’t want to be the reason someone’s attention shifted from the battle at hand.

“Da—blast you, Johnny Rebs,” he muttered as he tried to plan.

Most of his unit had gone over the hill or down past the creek. When he’d been hit, Roy’s carbine had clattered down a rocky outcropping and landed somewhere in a deep pool of water beside the bank. Gone.

He’d hoped to salvage the dying soldier’s weapon, but one glance at the wobbly Sharps rifle told Roy it was useless, rusty, and older than Washington. Washington might even have used it.

He clenched his jaw tight with anger at the thought of sending a young man off to fight with such a useless weapon. Unfortunately, it was an injustice Roy had seen more than once since he’d signed enlistment papers.

“You hold it right there, you blue-belly,” a Southern-accented voice ordered from above Roy’s hiding place.

Roy squinted into the shimmers of rain and saw his death.

A gray-uniformed Confederate stood on the rise, his gun pointed straight at Roy’s head.

Oddly, Roy knew felt no fear, only a deep sense of loss that his family would never know what happened to him.

“I’d tell ya to greet your maker,” the rebel taunted as he cocked his gun, the click loud and ominous in Roy’s ears, “’cepting you union boys is headed as far from heaven as you can go. You’ll all be burnin’ in hellfire tonight—you’n all them rebellious slaves you’re so all-fired set on pertactin.”

He gave off a deep belly laugh, his mouth wide, trigger finger poised.

Roy closed his eyes to await death.

The loud retort of a Minie ball shattered his eardrums. Roy flinched, anticipating the bullet to strike. Instead, he felt nothing. No impact. No pain.

Roy opened his eyes, shocked.

On the rise, the Confederate’s body wove back and forth. The gun in his hand tipped and chunked to the ground as his fingers splayed open. His body seemed to crumple in on itself, a spectral figure tumbling to the mossy ground. The lips formed a word, but it was never uttered; the man pitched forward and rolled down the bank toward Roy, eyes wide and unseeing.

Roy glanced up. A dark-skinned man, thankfully wearing Union blues, stood there, holding a LeMat revolver. A ghostly waft of smoke rose from its barrel.

Wordlessly, the soldier hurried to Roy’s side.

He glanced at the dead man without recognition and shook his head. Again, without speaking, he motioned Roy to follow him.

“I got a bullet in the knee,” Roy whispered, curious about the man’s silence.

He only nodded. Holding out a hand, the man helped Roy up.

Roy managed to sling an arm around the man’s shoulders and shuffle along, dragging his injured leg. When he tried to speak, the man shook his head and put a finger to his lips.

Danger nearby.

Walking was agony, but Roy knew better than to take off his boot before he could sit down. In any case, with the way his foot kept swelling, the boot might need to be cut off. His pants were stiff where the blood from his wound had hardened.

They walked—well, stumbled—along for a good half-mile, darting behind trees, and once, crawling under a fence before they reached a makeshift camp. Only then did Roy’s rescuer speak.“You’s hurt bad, suh?” The man’s deep voice sounded as if he’d spent years in the South, but his hazel eyes were filled with compassion.

“Bad enough,” Roy said as he eased down on a fallen log.

“You be okay here.” The man knelt and began to ease off the tight boot from Roy’s swollen leg.

Pain sent waves of nausea through Roy’s belly.

He gritted his teeth, gripping the log with both hands.

The man ripped up the seam of Roy’s trousers, exposing the knee.

Although the pain was considerable, once the pressure from his pants was off his leg, it didn’t ache as much. He could wiggle his toes—painfully—so maybe the wound wasn’t as severe as he’d feared.“Confederates is gone on south—done their damage here. There be a doctor here if you want one… or I can help you out.”

Roy glanced toward a tent, where a bucket of bloody limbs waited for burial, and his stomach heaved.

A doctor in a blood-stained apron came outside and called to several wounded men swathed in bandages nearby. “Who’s next?”

Looking at the bloody hatchet in the doctor’s hand, Roy saw reluctance cross more than one face. Finally, a man stood and spoke. “I-I just got a cut from a bayonet. Sergeant says to get it sawdered—”

“Private!” the doctor hollered to another soldier. “Heat up a rod and cauterize that wound!”

The dark-skinned man laughed at the expression of fear that flickered across Roy’s face. “You won’t be goin’ to join them folks. It don’t look too bad. Bullet’s lodged right near the bone—I can dig it out with my knife, pour some alcohol over it. Done some doctoring in my time.”

Even as he spoke, the man grabbed a strip of clean linen from his knapsack and tore it into a bandage. Taking a wicked-looking knife from a sheath at his waist, the man waited for Roy’s approval.

“Go ahead.” Roy braced himself against the log, grateful when the man handed him a small branch to bite. Roy winced in anticipation, and the knife slit into his knee, prodding the Minie ball out. Fresh blood poured from the wound, but already, Roy could sense he’d not been mortally wounded.

“Come out slick.” After a stinging swash of alcohol from a bottle in his haversack, Roy’s companion washed the blood from the knife. He wound the linen around and around Roy’s knee. “You set a few days, you be jus’ fine.”

A loud scream of agony came from the tent, accompanied by the sound of sizzling flesh.

Rod shuddered in sympathy, then looked at his rescuer. “I hope you’re right. Thanks for helping me.” He held out a hand. “My name’s Roy. Roy Carson.”

“Barry King.” He shook Roy’s outstretched hand.

“Nice to meet you, Barry. We haven’t met before, have we?”

“No, suh, got separated from my unit awhile back. Lieutenant Willis said I was to just stick with y’all for now.”“Are you a free man?” Roy asked, then realized how stupid the words sounded. “Forgive me. I guess I was asking when you joined up?”

Barry arranged a few sticks of kindling into a campfire and soon had a welcome blaze going. Scooting closer to the warmth, Roy scooted shrugged out of his damp, dirty jacket.

“Joined up when Frederick Douglas told us we should fight for full citizenship. Said it was our duty. Born a slave and figured to die one—until the war started.” Barry stared into the flames. “Didn’t dare get my hopes up for anything better. Weren’t no use. Then, old master died, and his wife said we was all to go free. Give us papers an’ ev’rythin’.”

“Then your family is free now, too?” Roy asked.

Barry’s face closed as tight as shutters on a house. His dark eyes focused on the glowing coals of the fire. “Family’s all dead. Only me left.”

His eyes haunted, Barry repeated himself, whispering without looking at Roy.

“Only me left.”

Roy stared into the campfire, thinking hard about Barry’s predicament.

Will this war ever end? Or will I be the only one of my family left one day?

It didn’t bear dwelling on too long.