Ride With the Devil Read Online Free

expenses.”
    “Very good, Colonel, I’ll take care of it,” Welch replied. “Thank you.”
    Hawke was sure he had heard that voice before, and when the man appeared out of the crowd, he recognized him.
    “Mason Hawke,” the man said. “It’s been a long time.”
    “Titus Culpepper,” Hawke replied, nodding toward him. “Indeed it has been a long time.”
    “All right, folks,” Culpepper called to the others. “The excitement is all over. You folks tend to your business now, and let Mr. Welch tend to his.”
    “Yes, sir, Colonel Culpepper, thank you,” Welch said. He looked toward a couple of men in the front row of the crowd. “You men, help me get Delaney back to my embalming table.”
    “Hawke, come on down to the Golden Calf with me. Let me buy you a drink,” Titus Culpepper offered.
    “Don’t mind if I do,” Hawke replied.
    The Golden Calf was unremarkable in every respect. Just inside the bat-wing doors, a dozen round tables occupied the wide-plank floor, each one surrounded by half a dozen chairs. They showed the scars, burn marks, and spill stains of an establishment that stayed busy, as evidenced by the fact that twenty or more customers were now occupying the tables or standing at the bar.
    On one side of the room, a wood-burning stove, cold at the moment, was redolent with the smell of last winter’s fires. And on the other side, from front to back, was a barconstructed of unpainted wood. It had a brass foot rail at the bottom and brass rings attached about every ten feet, from which hung hand towels for the customers. There was a mirror behind the bar, and in front of it, glass shelves containing bottles of liquor, their numbers doubled by the reflection. Above the mirror was a painting of a golden calf, the saloon’s namesake. At the rear of the saloon was an upright piano, the cover pulled down over the keys.
    “The beer isn’t bad here,” Culpepper said. “The whiskey is good only if you really need something stronger. It’s green as grass and flavored with rusty nails,” he added with a laugh.
    Hawke laughed with him. “Listen, after several weeks of trail dust, a beer would be like the finest wine right now.”
    “As I recall, you did have a taste for fine wine. Your father had a pretty good wine cellar, I believe.”
    “The best in Georgia,” Hawke said.
    “Two beers, Paddy,” Culpepper ordered.
    “Yes, sir, Colonel, two beers coming up,” the bartender said, and a moment later hurried over with two mugs, the amber liquid crowned by high-rising heads of foam.
    “Mr. O’Neil, here, isn’t just a bartender,” Culpepper explained. “No sir, he’s one of Salcedo’s leading businessmen. He owns this place, don’t you, Paddy?”
    “Or it owns me,” Paddy replied with a chuckle as he sat the glasses before the two men.
    Culpepper blew off some of the foam. “Here’s to you,” he said, holding his mug out.
    Hawke held his mug out as well, then took a swallow.
    “So, Hawke, how long has it been?” Culpepper asked.
    “I don’t know. Chickamauga, perhaps?” Hawke replied, wiping some of the foam from his lip. “You were wounded at Chickamauga as I recall.”
    Culpepper nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess you could call it a wound.” His voice sounded bitter.
    “I lost track of you after that. What happened to you? Where did you go?”
    “Once I got out of that butcher shop they called a hospital, I took my discharge and went west. That’s when I joined up with Quantrill and Bloody Bill Anderson. They were the real fighters. If Jeff Davis had put one of them in command instead of Lee, the South would have won the war. I should have joined them a lot earlier.”
    “Yes, well, I’m glad you didn’t leave before Gettysburg. As I recall, you saved my life there.”
    “I was just paying you back for what you did at Shiloh.”
    “I had to. You owed me two dollars,” Hawke said.
    Culpepper laughed. “Yeah, I did, didn’t I? By the way, did I ever pay