He knew he should feel something more uplifting.Happiness at his release.Relief.But he didn’t.Every human feeling had been systematically ripped from him during the past ten years.Pride.Dignity.Everything except hate.
Three years into his sentence, Rafe had been stunned when Clint Edwards had appeared one day.Clint had just heard, he’d said, and knew there wasn’t a damn word of truth in the charges.
It had been difficult to comprehend that someone believed him at last, that some human soul gave a tinker’s damn.He had seized Clint’s offer of help like a drowning man seizing a rope.He had quickly banished his reservations about involving Clint and his brother Ben in his quest for vengeance.
Clint had been a corporal under him during the second year of the war, and Ben a wet-behind-the-ears private.At Vicksburg, Rafe had saved both of their lives.Ben was shot in an open position, and Clint had crawled out to help him.Rafe had disobeyed orders and followed Clint, had given him cover as he dragged his brother back.Rafe had been shot as he turned back to his own lines.Clint and Ben thought they owed him, and Rafe would use anyone to accomplish his aim.Honor was a commodity he couldn’t afford.It had been burned away with the branding iron.
Another passerby walked down the street, crossing when he saw Rafe standing in front of the prison.He knew he had changed, that his face had changed.Hate was an ugly emotion, and it left ugly trails.Bitter lines etched out from his eyes now, and a sprinkling of gray mixed with his sandy hair.The once-vivid green of his eyes had dulled; they no longer showed any emotion at all.He had learned that in the first year of prison: Never let a guard know what you’re thinking.
He’d learned other things: how long a man could exist in the punishment box, a pitch-black cell with no furniture, not even a slop pail.Later, when he’d been transferred into a cell that was three-and-a-half feet wide, seven feet long, seven feet high, he’d learned how many bricks comprised the walls, how many iron strips barred the gate.For ten years his home had been that cell, with the cot attached to the wall, a night bucket, a spittoon.He’d learned to endure, but he’d never learned to accept.
Where was Ben?he wondered, wanting to get away from here, from these walls, from the stench of caged men.
He gazed up at the sky.It appeared different from outside.He had stopped looking upward since his first weeks in prison; it hurt too damn much.He couldn’t think of open spaces or he would go crazy, and he couldn’t do that.Not and finish what had been started, what he had been planning for years.Only those plans and hatred sustained him through the endless days and sleepless nights.
An hour went by.Something must have held up Ben.The warden had given Rafe ten dollars, but where could he go with ten dollars?Even without the brand on his hand, everyone in Columbus would recognize the prison-issue clothes.No job here.Probably no job anywhere with that damned hand.
He’d saved some money before his court-martial, money he’d planned to use to build a future with Allison.But he had authorized its transfer to Clint to investigate Randall’s past and to seed the beginning of their plans.
A horseman appeared down the street, leading another mount.Rafe felt the first tingling of expectation in a very long time.…
He’d remembered Ben Edwards as little more than a boy, barely into shaving, but now there was no mistaking the man.Ben’s face was hard, tempered too early by pain and war.He and Clint had wandered after the war, driving cattle for a while, scouting for wagon trains.They’d been farm boys before the war, but the fighting had ruined them for that.The Edwards brothers had seen too much of the world to settle on a small plot of earth and take up plowing.They’d left the small Illinois farm in the hands of a third brother who’d stayed home and who loved the land.
They’d gathered others, too, Clint had written him.Men who had been in the ragtag unit Rafe took over when the war started.Men who had never been able to settle down after the war, whose restlessness drove them from one job to another.Johnny Green, Bill Smith, Cary Thompson, Simon Ford, and Skinny Ware.They’d needed another cause, and Rafe’s had become theirs, because there was nothing else.Rafe didn’t kid himself about that.Still, he was grateful.
Ben reached him and leaned over to shake his hand, searching his face as Rafe searched his, to find all the changes in ten years.Ben’s gaze fell to the back of his hand, to the brand, and Rafe heard the indrawn breath.
It was an awkward moment.Rafe had gotten used to the brand, as had others in the prison.He’d realized it would be more difficult outside, but he wasn’t prepared for the reaction of someone who expected it.
“Sorry I’m late,” Ben said, trying to cover his reaction.“I took the train, and the damned thing was late.I bought the horses here.”He hesitated.“I brought you some clothes, and Clint said you would want some gloves.”
Rafe nodded as his throat tightened.He was unwilling to acknowledge the scar with words.
“Want to stop first for a drink or anything?”
“I want the hell out of here,” Rafe said.
Ben grinned.“Well, I brought a flask just in that event.You’ll find the gloves and clothes in those saddlebags on the bay.”
Rafe nodded and went to the horse, stopping to run his hand along the horse’s neck.Christ, that felt good.He had to wait a moment before mounting.Ten goddamn years.Suddenly, it was almost too much.He was paralyzed by the feelings that flooded him.
“Captain …?”
The word revitalized him.Revitalized his purpose.“Not captain anymore, Ben.Just Rafe.”
Ben hesitated.“I think of you that way.”
“Don’t.”It was said too sharply, and Rafe knew it.But the reminder hurt.Rafe felt the ache of loss, the diminishment of his manhood, the erosion of who and what he once had been and could be no longer, as he swung up on the bay.He sat there in the saddle, feeling the animal’s muscles underneath him.He fought back the despair and tried to relish this moment alone.He concentrated on it, fed on it, letting it block out all the other feelings.
He lifted his face to catch the dry, hot wind, unblocked now by the high walls of the prison.His eyes caught some lazy clouds drifting overhead, and his legs tightened around the sides of the horse.He was free.
Christ, he was free!
His mind couldn’t comprehend it, couldn’t accept it.Not yet.He would wake up in the tiny dark cell, the three walls of brick and the door that was grated with iron bars.
No, he would never be truly free again.Not as he once had been.
But vengeance would help.Randall’s destruction and his own vindication.And then squaring the account with Sergeant Sam McClary, who had also been involved in framing him.
