Anita Mills Read Online Free Page B

to Sheridan, mail delivery had been pretty spotty, with little getting through. The last word he’d heard from her had been more than two months ago, but the tone of it had been better. Ross’s presence had been a big help.
    “Get his gun!” somebody yelled.
    Before he realized what was happening, a figure darted out from a copse of trees to grasp his horse’s bridle, and suddenly he was surrounded. As his hand sought his own revolver, he felt the cold steel of a gun barrel. against his neck. Jerking away, he kicked at the bearded man reaching for his coat.
    “Hold your fire, or I’ll shoot!” Spence shouted, reaching for his gun.
    “Grab his arm! Don’t let him get it!”
    His horse reared, nearly unseating him. As two men rolled away from flailing hooves, he pulled the trigger. His first shot missed, then the gun jammed. Unable to fire again, he clubbed an attacker with the barrel, and kicked his horse’s flank hard. As the animal lunged forward, he was pulled from the saddle and struck from behind. The world went black before his face hit the mud, and he floated in a downward spiral toward oblivion.
    “You all right, mister?”
    A distant voice penetrated the fog in Spence’s brain. For a moment, he was on the battlefield, and the ground beneath him was cold and wet. He must’ve been thrown from the ambulance wagon when a cannonball hit it. But the guns had gone silent, the only sound now that of rain pelting the earth next to his ear. The wagons had gone on, leaving him for dead.
    “He ain’t moving.”
    “Wonder where he’s from—looks like they took his coat, but he’s got butternut pants on. Put that gun away, Will—he ain’t a Yankee.”
    “He ain’t no soldier neither, Jack—he ain’t barefooted.”
    “Come on—we gotta get goin’—ain’t no way we’ll be home iff’n we don’t get goin’.”
    “Just wonder who he is, that’s all.”
    “It don’t matter, I’m tellin’ you. I got a ma and pa to worry over, Will—I ain’t got no time to be carryin’ nobody anywheres.”
    “It don’t seem right to be leavin’ ‘im like that.”
    “We gotta. We ain’t got no horse, and he can’t walk anywhere like that.”
    The voices floated off, leaving him in a fog of pain.
    His fingers dug into the mud, hanging on. He’d fallen into a hole somewhere, and when he felt better, he’d crawl out.
    It was either night out, or he’d gone blind, Spence decided, opening his eyes into the rain. He couldn’t place where he was, and he wasn’t sure how he’d gotten here, but he vaguely realized he had to get up.
    His head throbbed to the beat of his heart, and the rest of his body felt as though he’d been thrown and kicked by a mule. With an effort, he rolled to sit, trying to figure out what had happened to him. The last thing he remembered was falling. Holding his chin up with his palm, he reached up to touch the back of his head. When he drew his fingers back, they were wet with something other than rain. He knew that feeling—it was congealed blood.
    “Hey! What’re you doing sitting in the middle of the road, mister? As dark as it is, somebody’s liable to ride right over you.”
    Looking up through his wet, dripping hair, Spence saw the halo of a lantern moving toward him. Then he could make out a tall, gaunt plow horse as gray as the fog itself. A man swung down to take a closer look at him. Behind the lantern, a wide-brimmed hat and an oiled canvas coat materialized.
    “I’d say you’re in a heap of trouble, or you wouldn’t be out here like this,” the fellow said, dropping to his knees beside Spence. Holding the lantern closer, he said softly, “Well, I’ll be damned.”
    “I already am. My head feels big as a pumpkin, and I could swear something kicked it.”
    “You don’t recognize me, do you?”
    “I can barely see,”
    “Name Taylor mean anything to you? Jesse Taylor?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Army of Tennessee,” the man prompted. “It was after the