"Bradley Denton - The Territory" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bradley Denton)

"That suit you, Colonel?" he asked.
Quantrill nodded. "That suits me fine, Captain," he said. Then he faced the men. "Remember this, boys," he cried, "and serve the men of Lawrence the same! Kill! Kill, and you'll make no mistake! Now push on, or it'll be daylight before we get there!"
"You heard the man," Taylor said to Sam.
"That I did," Sam said. His voice was hoarse. He thought it might stay hoarse forever.
The raiders pushed on, leaving Mrs. Stone and her child to weep over the scrap of flesh in their yard.
As the column reformed, Sam found himself near its head, riding not far behind Gregg, Todd, Anderson, and Quantrill himself. It was as if God wanted to be sure that Sam had another good view when the next man died.
#
The eastern sky was turning from black to purplish-gray as Quantrill's raiders reached the crest of the hill southeast of Lawrence. Colonel Quantrill raised his right hand, and the column halted.
Below them, less than two miles ahead, Lawrence lay as silent as death.
Fletch Taylor cackled. "Look at 'em! Damn Yankees are curled up with their thumbs in their mouths!"
Sam nodded, sick at heart.
Quantrill brought out a spyglass and trained it on the sleeping town. "It looks ripe," he said. "But I can't see the river; it's still too dark." He lowered the glass and turned to Captain Gregg. "Bill, take five men and reconnoiter. The rest of us will wait fifteen minutes and then follow. If you spot trouble, run back and warn us."
Gregg gave Quantrill a salute, then pointed at each of the five men closest to him. "James, Younger, McCorkle, Taylor, and -- " He was looking right at Sam.
Sam couldn't speak. His tongue was as cold and heavy as clay. He stared at Frank James.
"Clemens," Taylor said.
"Right," Gregg said. "Clemens. Come on, boys." He kicked his horse and started down the hillside.
"Let's get to it, Sam," Taylor said. He reached over and swatted Bixby on the rump, and Bixby lurched forward.
Despite the steep slope and the trees that dotted it, Gregg set a rapid pace. All Sam could do was hang on to Bixby's reins and let the horse find its own way. He wished that Bixby would stumble and that he would be thrown and break an arm or leg. But Bixby was too agile for that. Sam would be in on the Lawrence raid from beginning to end.
Halfway down the hill, Gregg stopped his horse, and James, Younger, McCorkle, and Taylor did the same. Bixby stopped on his own, almost throwing Sam against the pommel of his saddle.
"What's wrong, Captain?" Taylor asked.
Gregg put a finger to his lips and then extended that finger to point.
A few hundred feet farther down the hillside, a mule carrying a lone figure in a white shirt was making its way up through the trees. The mule and rider were just visible in the predawn light.
"What's someone doing out here this early?" Taylor whispered.
"Doesn't matter," Gregg whispered back. "If he sees us and we let him escape, we're as good as dead."
"But, but a shot would wake up the town, Captain," Sam stammered.
Gregg gave him a glance. "Then we won't fire a shot that can be heard in the town." He turned toward Frank James. "Go kill him, Frank. Use your knife, or put your pistol in his belly to muffle the noise. Or knock his brains out. I don't care, so long as you keep it quiet."
James drew his pistol, cocked it, and started his horse down the hill.
The figure on the mule came around a tree. He was alone and unarmed. Sam could see his face now. He was the printer's devil from the Lawrence Journal.
Henry.
Frank James plunged downward, his right arm outstretched, pointing the finger of Death at an innocent.
And in that instant, Sam saw everything that was to come, and the truth of everything that had been. He saw it all as clearly as any of his dreams:
The boy would be lying on his back on the ground. His white shirt would be soaked with blood. Sam would be down on his knees beside him, stroking his forehead, begging his forgiveness. He would want to give anything to undo what had been done. But it would be too late.
Henry would mumble about his family, about the loved ones who would never see him again. And then he would look up at Sam with reproachful eyes, and die.
Just as it had happened before.
Not when Sam's brother Henry had died. Henry had given him no reproachful look, and all he had said was "Thank you, Sam."
Not when Orion had died, either. Orion had said, "Get out of here, Sam," and there had been no reproach in the words. Only concern. Only love.
Frank James plunged downward, his right arm outstretched, pointing the finger of Death at an innocent.
An innocent like the one Sam had killed.
It had been more than just a dream.
He had told himself that he wasn't the only one of the Marion Rangers who had fired. He never hit anything he aimed at anyway. But in his heart he had known that wasn't true this time. He had known that he was guilty of murder, and of the grief that an innocent, unarmed man's family had suffered because of it.
All of his guilt, all of his need to make amends --
It wasn't because of his dead brothers at all.
It was because he had killed a man who had done nothing to him.
Sam had tried to escape that truth by fleeing West with Orion. But then, when Orion had been murdered, he had tried instead to bury his guilt by embracing it and by telling himself that the war made killing honorable if it was done in a just cause. And vengeance, he had told himself, was such a cause.
But the family of the man he had killed might well have thought the same thing.
Frank James plunged downward, his right arm outstretched, pointing the finger of Death at an innocent.
And Sam couldn't stand it anymore.
He yelled like a madman, and then Bixby was charging down the hill, flashing past the trees with a speed no other horse in Quantrill's band could equal. When Bixby came alongside James's horse, Sam jerked the reins. Bixby slammed into James's horse and forced it into a tree. James was knocked from his saddle, and his pistol fired.
Henry's mule collapsed, and Henry tumbled to the ground.
Sam reined Bixby to a halt before the dying mule, leaped down, and dropped to his knees beside the boy.