Lincoln's Ransom Read online

  LINCOLN’S RANSOM

  A Western Story

  TIM CHAMPLIN

  Copyright 1999 by Tim Champlin

  Smashwords Edition

  For my granddaughter, Abigail, on whose day of birth this novel was begun

  Cover design by R. Kent Rasmussen

  Ebook design by www.Longharecontent.com

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Author’s Note

  This book is a work of fiction, but the theft of Lincoln’s body is based on an actual event. A special thanks to Mrs. Nanette Holbrook for graciously allowing her charming personality and appearance to be borrowed and twisted by the author into the fictional character of Janice Kinealy

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fiveteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Other Titles by Tim Champlin

  Chapter One from Tim Champlin's Wayfaring Strangers

  Prologue

  SEPTEMBER 18, 1863

  NORTH GEORGIA

  “Double quick! Close up in the rear!”

  Sterling Packard scrambled into line with the other men, fumbling to fix the bayonet to his musket. Scattered banging of small-arms fire increased.

  “Guide center!” The sergeant swung his arm. “Forward at a....” The boom of artillery blotted out the rest of his words as he pointed toward the federal line some three hundred yards away through the woods and across a meadow.

  Packard glanced to his left at the pale face of a recent conscript from Mount Pleasant. His own stomach was in a knot, but he tried to smile and nod reassuringly as the skirmish line started forward among the trees. Packard gripped his musket and broke into a trot, part of a ragged line abreast. A yell burst from his lips as taut nerves gave way. The shout was taken up by other men to his left and right. A few paused to shoot and reload, but the range was not yet effective, and experience told him to hold his fire and ignore the spent leaden hail falling all around. Thirty yards. Sixty yards. A hundred jogging steps sweeping them toward the line of cannon that bucked and thundered, belching great clouds of white smoke. The earth quaked and trembled with the concussion, and grapeshot screamed overhead, showering them with shredded leaves and twigs. Balls whistled around their ears like the escape valves of ten thousand steam engines. Bullets were thwacking against tree trunks with that peculiar thudding sound he had come to know so well.

  General Forrest’s cavalry had opened the battle and now needed support, but infantry stood no chance across an open meadow into the maws of six-pounders and Parrott guns. The terrible cacophony numbed his senses, and he felt as if all the fires of hell had been turned loose in one mighty roar to devour the opposing forces of men.

  Just ahead of him a man dropped his musket and pitched forward. Packard knew he shouldn’t stop but, on impulse, crouched to aid the stricken man. He rolled his fallen comrade onto his back and instantly saw it was too late. Shrapnel had disemboweled the man. Packard had no time to be appalled or sickened by the bloody sight. Just as he started to rise, a bullet struck his left side like a red-hot hornet.

  “Aaaahhh!” The shock spun him half around, and he sat down hard, dropping his musket. Surprise, as much as pain, jarred his mind for a few seconds, so that he was unable to grasp what had happened. After many weeks and many battles without a scratch, he’d almost begun to feel he was immune from injury. But then his mind started to function again, and his imagination leapt suddenly out of control with wild forebodings, even as his hand sought his side. Warm blood was already soaking his cotton shirt under the threadbare woolen jacket. Yanking the shirt-tail out, he twisted around to squint at the wound in the uncertain, pale-green light filtering through the canopy of trees. There was so much blood he couldn’t see the hole, but his probing fingers told him there was no exit wound.

  Packard hoped the slug had missed his kidney as he pressed the soggy shirt back against the wound and looked around for someone to help. But the line of skirmishers had swept on ahead into the meadow and were too far away to hear him shout above the roar. The booming artillery barrage slackened, and he could hear the ripping sound of musketry, as if someone had touched off a string of Chinese firecrackers. The clashing armies moved away, leaving only the smell of burnt gunpowder drifting on the light breeze. No one was left behind to assist him, he realized as he looked around. Bodies of the slain lay here and there in his field of vision, their clothing clawed and rumpled, as if someone had littered the woods with sacks of dirty laundry.

  He got to his knees, then carefully to his feet, feeling the warm wetness flowing down inside his belt. Leaning against a tree, he came to the hard, clear realization that he might be joining his dead comrades shortly as life continued to drain out of the hole in his side. The thought made him suddenly queasy, and, in spite of the September heat, a cold sweat burst from the pores all over his body. He began to feel faint, and slid to a sitting position. Taking deep, slow breaths to calm himself, he leaned back against the rough bark of an oak and closed his eyes. He had to stop the bleeding before he got too weak to move, or passed out. Packard stirred himself to action and struggled to a big tree a few feet away, ripped a handful of moss from its north side, and pressed it to the wound. The cool moss felt good, and he didn’t care how many bugs might be in it. He forced himself to sit quietly for a minute, then added another handful of moss, as the process seemed to be working. He fervently hoped the bullet hadn’t clipped a blood vessel.

  Finally, he felt the blood returning to his face as the pain and shock began subsiding to a deep, dull ache. What now? He carefully eased out of his jacket and shirt and tied the shirt around his waist tightly to hold the moss in place. He slipped the jacket back on over his bare torso and, removing the bayonet so he could use his musket as a walking stick, made his way slowly back toward the Confederate lines. But there were no Confederate lines. This battle, opening that morning a few miles south of Chattanooga, was just a series of disconnected clashes with units surging back and forth through the thick timber, now and then bursting out into sunny meadows. In this wild disarray, litter-bearers were few and scattered, and field hospitals were usually some tent or commandeered cabin with a table where a surgeon could practice his bloody trade.

  But the fortunes of war did not concern Packard at the moment. It was personal survival. Everything in his being wanted to live, to keep from sinking down and rotting away into the earth like the hundreds of other men he’d seen die around him in the past few months. His natural instinct made toward life. His intellect accepted the fact that he would eventually cease to be. Yet his fear of pain and the unknown made
him shudder at the empty eyes and cold breath of the grinning death’s head that dogged his halting steps.

  Leaning on the musket cane, he scuffed on through the dead leaves, tripping over creepers and fallen branches, detouring around massive rotting logs and clumps of blackberry vines. Gradually, the noise of battle faded until it only fringed his consciousness.

  The early afternoon sun was still high, screened by thick foliage, and gave him no hint of direction. He tried to backtrack but was confused as the featureless forest stretched away on every side. He felt light-headed, and his mind began to drift. He ceased to be an injured refugee from a war and became, instead, the last man on earth, wandering, lost and alone, through a never-ending forest. Like hovering giants, pines and cottonwoods and oaks towered more than a hundred feet over his head. No birds cheered the day. No squirrels or rabbits scampered through the decaying humus on the forest floor. He was totally alone.

  Suddenly a deer came crashing through the dry leaves and bounded past, not twenty yards away, fleeing the terrible human commotion. Packard’s heart pounded in sudden alarm, causing the wound to throb and jarring him back to reality. His clothes were damp with terrified sweating. Excessive perspiration and loss of blood had brought on a terrible thirst. But he’d dropped his canteen along with his blanket roll when he was shot. The wound was burning and aching fearfully as he steadied himself against a tree and slowly straightened up. If he could find Chickamauga Creek, he could not only slake his thirst but could possibly follow the stream to find help, if the Yankees didn’t have control of the creek.

  A thin, high-pitched screaming drew his eyes upward. Through a break in the elms and tall pines overhead, a hawk wheeled away from a closely pursuing black crow that was cawing raucously. Then the two birds disappeared, and he could still hear them for several more seconds. Even nature was at war, he reflected, but probably for a better reason than the armies of men.

  Packard remembered wanting to serve under General Patrick Cleburne, the dashing, Irish-born leader who was so popular with his soldiers. But a man could be killed whether he was following one commander or another, on horse or afoot, in the Army of Tennessee or Virginia. He’d seen thousands fall, or die of mortified wounds in “hospitals” during the past few months, and he wondered idly if there would be anybody left alive when this war was over. It was a war of attrition, more than of conquest. His befuddled mind saw the dispossessed Cherokees and Creeks once more filtering back onto the depopulated land, wondering at these insane white men who had killed each other off. For some reason, this image struck him as hilarious, and he laughed aloud. He was so light-headed he began to lose his balance and stumbled onto a clear, well-defined trail curving away through the silent woods. The dead leaves and pine needles of the path had been torn up here and there by the sharp hoofs of horses. But the spider webs he clawed from his mouth and eyes every few yards told him no one had been down this trail for at least a couple of hours, and probably longer, so the chances of encountering another soldier of either side were slim.

  Once more Packard’s mind slipped a cog in time. He saw himself standing in front of the small classroom of students, chalk dust on his hands, explaining, cajoling, encouraging. Over time, he had brought forth reading and writing skills, and even an appreciation of literature to a few of the older students. Teaching was often more frustration than satisfaction, but now it seemed a peaceful haven. Too soon the hands of the clock had spun off the busy hours and days to be followed by the fiery tornado of war that had swept everything away. Maybe it was his fate to end his life now, at the age of twenty-five, in this hellish green wood that was so hot and dry, and where he couldn’t seem to get enough air, where crazed men rained fire and brimstone and screeching canister on one another.

  The sun was farther down the sky. A breeze sprang up, combing dead leaves from the limbs of the forest giants and sending down a cascade of red and brown and gold. He welcomed the cooling wind on his feverish face. He didn’t remember sitting down, but found himself resting against a tree. His mouth and throat were parched as he struggled to his feet, body aching, head reeling. When his vision steadied, he started down the trail once more.

  After what seemed an interminable time, the trail curved and Chickamauga Creek appeared, shining in the dappled sunshine. The sight gave him a surge of energy, and he staggered off the path toward the water, half rolling down the foot-high bank into a clear, shallow pool. Splashing the cool water over his face and head gave blessed relief. Then he put his lips to the surface and drank deeply, coughing and sputtering in his haste.

  Finally he was sated and crawled up to lie, face down, in the shade on a gravel bar, his legs still in the creek. He would just rest a minute to calm the queasiness in his too-full stomach, then he would see about cleaning his wound. One minute became five, then ten. His limbs were heavy, the wet gravel cool to his cheek.

  * * *

  Long, fearful nightmares tortured Packard before he opened his eyes again. It took several seconds for him to realize he was lying on his back, staring at a board ceiling about eight feet above him. His boots had been removed.

  “Ah, you’re finally back with us,” a cheery female voice said. A woman moved into his view, and a cool, smooth hand covered his forehead. “Good. Your fever’s gone.” She leaned over, and he got his first view of a young woman with flowing brown hair. The slight pain and physical heaviness when he moved told him he wasn’t dead.

  “Where am I?” he asked weakly.

  Briefly she told him that she had gone to the creek for water less than a half mile from this log house, had found him on the gravel bar, and determined he was still alive. She had left her water kegs, wrestled him across the back of her mule, and brought him here.

  “Who are you?”

  “Janice Kinealy,” she said, regarding him with concerned brown eyes.

  “Oh,” he replied, as if this explained everything. He tried to focus his thoughts. “My name’s Sterling Packard.”

  She took his hand, and he tried to converse with her. But his eyes were heavy. The breaking fever had left him very weary, and shortly he fell into a restful sleep.

  * * *

  When he awoke again, it was dark outside, and she was dozing in a chair by his bed with a lamp turned low on the table. When he stirred, she awoke, and they began to talk in low tones. He asked her about the severity of his wound.

  “Looked like it was probably a spent ball that hit you in the side,” she said, “because it went through and lodged just under the skin of your back. Only had to slit the skin and pop it out.” She brushed back his hair and felt his forehead. “Still cool. Good. It wasn’t the bullet that almost did you in. It was the fever and the infection.”

  “I’m thirsty.”

  She took a canteen from the table and helped him drink. “Take it easy, now. Not too much.”

  “How long have I been out?” he asked when she pulled the canteen away.

  “The better part of two days. You missed the second day of the battle. The Yankees have retreated toward Chattanooga.”

  The running fight, the din of battle, the shock of the wound — it all seemed unreal and distant, until he moved and felt the catch in his side.

  “I’m still tired.” He lay back and closed his eyes.

  “That’s good. Get some rest. I’ll be in the next room, sleeping, if you need anything.”

  He wasn’t even aware when she left.

  * * *

  Packard was awake but a little groggy, when Janice entered the room. The sun was up, and a warm breeze blew fitfully across the bed from the window.

  “Well, you’ve got some color back,” she greeted him. “Ready to have that bandage changed?”

  Without waiting for an answer, she got briskly to work, easing him over on his side. The pain was now more of a sore-muscle ache, when he moved. She loosened the cotton bandage that was tied around his body and, very gently, pulled the wide bandage away from his left flank. She examined it cl
osely, then sniffed the bloody stain on the white cotton. A slight smile stretched her full lips. “So far, so good,” she said, straightening up. “No putrefaction. If we can keep it clean, you should heal up fine. Here, want to take a look?” she asked. Her shoulder-length chestnut hair brushed his face as she slid an arm behind his back and raised him just enough so he could get a look at his left side. The wound was still raw but had been cleaned, and there was no sign of infection.

  “Did you clean it with carbolic?” he asked.

  “No. Didn’t have any. Just washed it off with some lye soap as best I could, then sprinkled some black powder in the wound, and lit it.”

  “What?”

  “Sure. Cauterized and sterilized it at the same time.”

  “I’m glad I wasn’t awake for that,” he said with a wan smile.

  “So am I. But it usually works when you have nothing else. By the way,” she added, admonishing him with a mock frown, “next time you’re shot, don’t be stuffing that dirty moss in the wound.”

  “I hope there isn’t a next time. And it was the only thing I could find at the moment.”

  “Best thing to stop the bleeding is spider webs. There are lots of them in the woods this time of year.”

  “Ugh. Spider spit.” He grimaced.

  She smiled at him while testing the dryness of some strips of white cloth fluttering lazily in the breeze on a makeshift cord clothesline at the open window. Apparently satisfied, she took them down and proceeded to re-bandage his side. Some remaining edges of lace told Packard the dressings had probably been torn from her petticoat. When she finished, the wrappings felt snug and comfortable around his bare torso.

  “Now, for some food,” she said, walking out of the room. She returned a minute later with a bowl of soup, and Packard recognized the delicious aroma he had been smelling since he had awakened.