Mercy

The thought they might be going in the wrong direction began to gnaw at Cooper. They had been walking for close to two hours through waist-deep water and hadn't come across any signs they were heading in the right direction. In the distance was a dry patch of forest. Cooper wanted a short rest. He climbed out of the foul-smelling swamp, took a seat on the ground, and reached for his canteen. Hawkins joined him. Instead of taking a break, the sergeant dropped to one knee and picked up a twig lying on the ground.

  "This has been broken recently," said Hawkins, holding up the stick. His voice grew excited. "Captain, look on the ground, there are tracks leading away from here."

  Cooper stood up. There were several sets of prints in the dirt. It was easy to see the boot imprints left by the three hostages. Alongside them were several sets of human footprints.

  "That should end any more talk about a swamp devil," said Cooper, "Those were left by men."

  "I count five different sets of footprints," said Hawkins.

  "At least we know our people were alive when they walked out of the swamp."

  Hawkins lifted his head and took in a deep breath through his nostrils. "Do you smell that?"

  Cooper shook his head. All he could smell was the fetid odor coming off the water.

  "Sir, it's faint, but I can smell wood burning coming from that direction," said Hawkins, pointing at a narrow game track which led deeper into the thicket.

  "Okay, let's go, but be careful. I don't want us to stumble into another ambush."

  They had walked for less than a minute when Hawkins brought up his hand. Cooper moved up beside his friend and whispered, "Can you see something?"

  "There's a cabin about thirty feet in front of us," replied Hawkins.

  Cooper raised his head slightly. "Aye, I see it now."

  From where they were standing, they could see the side of a log cabin. A door at the back of the shack opened and a man with a long, thick beard walked out. The man spat out a mouthful of tobacco juice before pulling up his baggy pants and strolling out of sight.

  Cooper said, "We need to get closer."

  Hawkins nodded and stepped off the trail. He picked a route through the woods which brought them to the far side of a clearing. They got on their bellies and crawled forward to the edge of the underbrush and peered out. There were two cabins built next to a river. In between the shacks was a long, metal rotisserie over a stone fire pit. On it was a piece of charred meat which looked like a human ribcage. Further back from the cabins was a pen filled with wild boars which were sleeping under the noonday sun.

  Cooper counted six large dogs chained a post. With large heads and muscular necks, the animals looked like they had been bred for hunting. Most were sleeping, but two of them were chewing on bones with their large, sharp teeth. The next thing Cooper observed sent a chill down his spine. Jammed on a couple of poles were the heads of their missing men. Wide-eyed, Solomon and Nathaniel's severed heads stared blankly out over the fire pit.

  "Cannibals," mouthed Hawkins when he saw the heads.

  Cooper nodded. He'd suspected as much after they had found Cyrus' body with his internal organs gone. He couldn't see their missing compatriots and began to fear they had arrived too late to help them. The bearded man strolled back into view. In his right hand was a bucket of water. He walked over to a wooden tripod in the middle of the clearing and attached the bucket to a rope and lowered it down.

  "Sir, look, there must be a pit dug into the ground," said Hawkins.

  "And that's where we'll find our people," replied Cooper. He hoped he wasn't being too optimistic and that some of them were still alive.

  "What do you want to do, Captain?"

  "I doubt that man is all alone. You counted five sets of footprints so we have to assume there are at least that many people living here. Since no one seems to be in any danger right now and we don't have a lot of ammunition on us, I say we wait here for a while to study their habits and determine how many of them there really are."

  For over an hour, they laid still trying to ignore the swarm of mosquitoes which mercilessly bit at their exposed flesh. They identified five different men. To help him keep track of the men, in his mind, Cooper gave them names. There was the bearded man, whom he unoriginally called the Bearded Man. There was another one who walked around in his pants without his shirt on, exposing his dirty, red underclothes. He was nicknamed Red. A man with a belly hanging over his belt earned the name of the Fat Man. It was easy to call the fourth man Tiny as he stood well over six feet tall and must have weighed well over three hundred pounds. Lastly, he termed one of the cannibals, Blondie, for his long curly blond hair which hung down past his shoulders. Like Maclean's men, they were dressed in a mix of civilian clothes and shabby-looking Confederate uniforms.

  "I think we've seen them all," said Hawkins.

  "I don't know, there still could be more of them resting in those cabins," said Cooper. "I'd rather not get into a fight with them until we're positive how many of them there are."

  As if hearing their conversation, the door to one of the shacks opened up and a man stepped outside. He said something which Cooper couldn't hear, but by the laughter coming from inside the cabin, there was still a handful of men they had yet to see. Right away, Cooper knew the man had to be their leader. He just under six-foot-tall and looked to be in good health. He had short black hair and a clean-shaven face. Cooper recognized the rank on the man's collar as a Confederate Army lieutenant colonel.

  "Captain, look, it's Moses," said Hawkins.

  Moses ran out of the cabin and walked behind the colonel as if he were his aide. Cooper hadn't expected to see the boy alive, yet there he was with a stupid grin on his face, holding Rose's Bible in his hands.

  The colonel walked over to the hostage pit, rested his hands on his hips and looked down. Cooper strained to hear what the man was saying.

  "Hello down there. My name is Colonel Taylor. I bet right about now, you're all wishing you had never set eyes on my men and me? Well, it's too late for that. Just so you all understand, you can't plead or bargain with me for your lives. You're going to die. Not all at once, but you will over the next couple of days. So the sooner you come to terms with that, the easier it will be for you."

  Moses ran to the man's side. He held his Bible high above his head and waved it in the air. "The good book says we can eat sinners and I see four miserable sinners staring up at me. Colonel Taylor, God bless him, says I get to pick the next one of you to meet God."

  Hawkins muttered, "If that man's an honest to God colonel, I'm Bobby Lee."

  Cooper chuckled. The thought that his friend could be confused with the commander of the Confederate Army made him smile.

  Moses continued. "We got plenty of food and whiskey for tonight but come the morning, I'll be back to see you. Yes, I will, and one of you will be chosen by me to die. You'll be strung up over by the fire and cut open like a deer so we can make some pies."

  Cooper heard the pastor swear at Moses, who laughed and danced around the top of the pit tormenting the people trapped below ground.

  "It sounds like they're going to be okay until the morning," said Cooper. "I say we wait until it's good and dark to deal with these degenerates before we rescue our friends and get the hell out of here."

  Hawkins nudged Cooper's arm. "Sir, look, there are a couple of canoes pulled out of the water over beside the nearest cabin."

  "I guess we just found our way out of here."

  No sooner had the sun gone down did the clouds roll in. Toward midnight, the heavens opened, drenching Cooper and Hawkins where they lay. They waited until both cabins were silent and dark.

  "What do you say, Captain, shall we get to work?" said Hawkins, pulling his knife from its sheath on his belt.

  Cooper nodded. "First off, I'll let our people know we're here and then we'll deal with their captors. You take the closest cabin and I'll take the other one. If they're as drunk as I hope they are, this shouldn't take long."

  "Si
r, I know you've never had to kill a man with a knife before," said Hawkins. "It's a lot harder to do than shooting a man in the heat of battle. A knife makes it personal. It may seem like murder to slit the throat of a sleeping man, but they're not men, they're animals. Just think of our people trapped in the pit and not what you're about to do. Be quick and move to the next man before any of them wake up and realize what's going on."

  Cooper cleared his mind and drew his blade.

  Both men got up off the ground and crouched down as they ran across the open ground toward the pit. Cooper was almost there when he stepped into a noose hidden in the tall grass and pulled it with his leg. In an instant, the noose tightened around his ankle, tripping him. He landed face-first in the mud and broke out in a cold sweat when he heard the dogs staked to a pole, not more than twenty yards away, wake up and begin barking.

  Hawkins ran to Cooper's side to cut the rope.

  The door to the closet shack flew open and several men ran outside. One of them brought up a shotgun and discharged both barrels in the direction of the pit without aiming. The pellets flew over Cooper's head.

  "Leave me," said Cooper. "Get to the canoes and go for help."

  Hawkins hesitated.

  Cooper pushed his colleague way from him. "Now, Sergeant!"

  Hawkins swore as he jammed his knife back in its sheath, spun around, and sprinted back toward the woods.

  The sound of the dogs being let free sent a shudder down Cooper's spine. The massive beasts ran past Cooper and took off after Hawkins.

  A light shone in Cooper's face as a man walked toward him. A shot pierced the night as he reached for his carbine lying in the mud. Dirt and grass inches from his hand flew up into the air.

  "Don't go for your gun, Yankee," warned a voice. "I think I've just shown you I'm a good shot."

  Cooper lifted his hands in surrender. The man stepped closer. The light in his hand blinded Cooper.

  "You know I had those traps placed there to prevent anyone from escaping," said the man. "I never thought they be useful in catching someone stupid enough to try sneaking in."

  "I know that man," said Moses as he ran over. "He's a blue-belly officer and a sinner. The almighty Lord has delivered him to us."

  Before Cooper could tell Moses where to go, a man stepped out of the dark and brought his shotgun butt down on the back of Cooper's neck, knocking him out cold.

  Hawkins ran for his life. He could hear the dogs charging through the woods trying to catch him. In the dark, it was hard to see anything until he almost ran into it. Hawkins held his right hand up in front of his face to protect it from the branches which seemed to have come alive and were trying to reach out and grab him. As he ran, his foot caught under a tree root. He felt himself fly through the air. A second later, he landed in the cold water of the swamp. Hawkins hurried to get to his feet. The howling and barking dogs sounded as if they were less than a few yards away when he realized he had lost his carbine when he fell into the water. Hawkins knew there was no time to look for it and ran as best he could through the thigh-deep water.

  If he thought the water would deter the dogs, he was wrong. Without hesitation, they jumped in and began to swim after him.

  "Keep after him!" hollered a man, following behind the dogs.

  Hawkins' heart raced in his chest. When he had run away from his master, he been pursued by hunting dogs. The memories flooded back of his friend, Adam, who couldn't keep up and was brought down and mauled to death by the animals. He scrambled up onto a small island of dry land, unaware a swamp rabbit was resting there. It leaped up, startling Hawkins, and fell in the water. With it head held high, it swam away.

  The dogs saw something moving in the water and turned to chase the rabbit.

  With seconds to go before the man with the dogs appeared, Hawkins slid back into the swamp all the way up to his neck and moved back until he was hidden behind a clump of bulrushes. He held his breath as the man moved within an arm's reach of him. Hawkins wanted to reach out and kill the man. But his absence would surely be noticed and more men would come out into the swamp looking for him. He reasoned it was better for him to remain hidden and wait for another opportunity to strike.

  "Where'd you go, you damned stupid dogs?" hollered the man.

  After what seemed like an eternity, Hawkins let out his breath as the man continued to wade through the water after his dogs. He waited until the sound of the dogs faded into the distance before moving from his hiding spot. He stood up and checked his belt. Tonight his luck was all bad. Not only had he lost his carbine, but he had also lost his pistol. All he had left to fight with was his knife. He drew it from its sheath and made his way back to the woods where the cannibal's camp was hidden. Hawkins pondered what he was going to do next. All he knew for sure was he had no intention of leaving Captain Cooper or anyone else behind.

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