Chapter 1

Leland and I had been riding for the past week, our old life as we knew it was past and we were now on our own. Since we were bastards of union rapists both now being the age of majority. Grandfather Beauregard Jennings having done his right Christian duty in raising us; cast our bastard asses off his property and into the world.

Grandpa Bo had come back from serving at Andersonville prison to find his wife and fifteen year old daughter raped and pregnant with union bastards in their bellies. He had not been there to protect them when Sherman's troops had marched on Atlanta. Even though they lived back in the hills near Coal Mountain they were not hidden from all of the war.

A cavalry unit came through and both of the women had suffered at their hands. By the time he was back home their bellies were swelled and that was a personal defeat that he lived seeing every day until he tossed us off his land.

That Leland and I were as black as the ace of spades with light eyes and straight hair and it ate at him. He would continually grouse that there was no reason to teach us to be southern gentlemen when we were bastards born.

One morning he woke us with the barrel of his gun pointed our way. He had us get dressed and walked us out the door. There he had tied the horses we had come to think of as ours, bedrolls and rations and tossed us each a set of saddlebags. Inside we would later find out was quite a bit more money than we thought he had. He had side arms on the porch there unloaded for us to take. The weapons were not new but he had gotten them during the war, kept them in perfect repair and they still worked.

"I have done my Christian duty. I didn't drown you when you were born but I'll not have you on my place any longer. Next time you show yourselves here I'll kill you soon as look at ya," with that he walked back in the house closing the door behind him.

I guess we were lucky that he had let us live. We were also blessed that he had seen fit to include in our education the art of survival both in the woods and in defending ourselves.

Leland's mother, Bo's wife and my grandmother had died shortly after his birth. My mother died slowly as Bo's litany of words zapped the life out of her. She had lasted until we were fourteen. Life was tougher after that as he would use those words he had for her with us then. He took to the bottle more then and Leland and I would find ways to make ourselves scarce when he had been drinking.

I had no doubt that he would die shortly after we were gone with his duty done and everyone he cared about now dead. That he would most likely accomplish by his own hand. He was a hard and bitter man with every right to be. What had been done could not be undone and because of that he'd always been heavy handed with us, never uttering a good word. It was like he only had one goal in mind; to get us ready to move on, out of his sight.

As we rode alone that first week, I heard his gruff voice, "Plow in a straight line, boy. Dumb as you are, you got more sense than that mule."

I always thought he was harder on me than he was on Leland. He never admitted it, but I was his flesh and blood. Leland was just some black bastard his dead wife had hatched out.

My maw told me he was giving me a lesson for life. "It ain't important to him that you keep the furrow straight. He's telling you to always watch where you're heading. Once you've decided where you want to be, don't be letting noth'in hold you back."

Maw did her best to make it a happy home. While she was alive, she tried to teach us our letters, and told us times would be better. It was her that told us about the day the soldiers came, and what they'd done to her and my Grandma. I could tell that she didn't like talking about it, and never asked her to repeat the story. She gave me a picture of her when she was about fourteen. I still carry that picture to this day.

There was no life for us in the south with everything still in the hands of union politicians installed for the victors benefit and the rest just scalawags or carpetbaggers. Everyone could tell by our looks what we were and how we had come to be. So Leland and I decided we were going to head west and look to make a new life together.

We survived off the land and kept to ourselves, keeping our money we had for emergencies and our new life in the west. Georgia was still in a state of shambles as we rode along. It was twenty-one years since Lee had surrendered and most of what we passed looked like nothing had been repaired in all of that time.

Leland and I were young and full of life, but it was like we were riding past the dead at times. The old timers many missing limbs or bearing scars were just scratching out an existence and the sharecroppers were not much better off. They had fought a war and it put them all in poverty and there was no escape to freedom for them.

We were on the outskirts of Roswell having set up our camp for the night when we heard a shrill scream, out back by the creek near where we had camped.

Up with our colts in hand we headed back through the woods at a quick pace, stopping to make sure we were not running or walking into an ambush. There was another scream and then laughing could be heard. There were men ahead and a woman who was on the ground naked as a jay who was not laughing with them. She looked to be younger than us and was likely one of the civilized tribes. Grandpa Bo's had told us how the government had taken the Indians out to the Oklahoma territory down what he called the trail of tears long before the war. Grandpa Bo wasn't one to talk much. I think he told us about the trail of tears to show us how lucky we were to be sheltered under his roof.

Whether we were born and bred Southern gentlemen or bastards this was simply not right. And the thoughts of what my Grandmother and mother had suffered came rushing back to me. Leland looked at me and then headed off to the other side of them I watched as they continued to work on getting her in position to be their folly for the night. We were bastards by circumstances and birth but these four were by choice and acts. I had no doubt that they would be answering to their maker for their lives actions shortly.

With Leland in position I moved in closer just some ten feet away. The largest of them was unhitching his pants now. I was lining up a shot when the sound of Leland's pistol coming to bear was heard and the bear of a man had his head explode in a blast of hair and brains. The other three stood to look at where the shot had come from when I shot the one who had been holding her down by her hands. He dropped like a stone to the side of her and then Leland dropped another and I did the last.

The girl was screaming and unable to move as the first bastard was now lying across her body, his corpse too heavy for her to get out from under, and blood pouring from what was left of his head that was covering her. I moved from where I had fired and hoped that Leland had also. If they had others in their party I wanted to make sure they didn't come and shoot us from behind.

After a few minutes it was apparent that there wasn't anyone else and I got up and went over to the woman. She had stopped screaming and was almost free from underneath the man on top of her. I helped her up while Leland was looking for her clothes. He held them up for me to see; they were more like rags now having been torn or cut from her. At first, she had a wild look in her eyes, like she reckoned we were going to take over where the other four left off. I spoke to her in a calm voice, telling her to not be afraid. From the way she was acting, I wondered if she understood English.

She didn't try and cover herself instead went looking through the man's pockets who had been the first to die. She pulled out a knife from one, cut open his drawers and then started to castrate him.

This was not the first naked woman we'd ever seen as our escapes from Grandpa Bo's drinking had us wandering far afield. We had come to find a spot where some women would come to bathe now and again. We never worked up the courage to approach them, but this one looked mighty fine to me. Even with the blood stains, I could see that her feminine charms were agreeable to my eyes. She kept watching us from time to time, as she moved from corpse to corpse. I looked over at Leland and gave him a shrug as she continued her castration of each corpse. If she was part of the civilized tribes I wondered what uncivilized would be.

I stood guard as she continued to take her revenge on the still bodies while Leland left to look for their horses and anything else they might have with them. She had just about finished when he called out to me. His call to me was interrupted by her shrill war hoop. I looked over and the rage in her eyes was blood-curdling, grabbing for her arm and she started to swing that knife my way. I put the barrel of the gun to the side of her head and down she went.

Leland came back then and saw her laid out on the ground. He gave me a glance and I simply shrugged my shoulders and said. "I went to garb her and she took out after me with the knife. I introduced her to the barrel of the colt."

"That will smart some in the morning. Well, we better take her back to that camp where they were first and then back to ours. There is another one there, but she is tied still."

So I picked this one up and carried her back over my shoulder. She was a tiny thing and likely didn't weigh more than one hundred pounds. The other girl was black, she was tied and gagged but was looking at us wide eyed as we got to the camp.

While we had lived in the Georgia Grandpa Bo had never owned slaves before the war. He didn't volunteer to go and fight either but was recruited at gun point to go and guard the prisoners at Andersonville as he told it. That we were born black his women suffering at the hands of men he had never harmed only served to set the pain deeper for him no doubt.

I deposited the girl on my shoulder onto one the ground while Leland helped to release the other one. This one was excited, but didn't show fright like the Indian girl. She looked grateful for Leland's help. The first thing out of her mouth was "Where are they? We have to get away," she whispered. She was also small, blacker than us, with short, kinky hair, bright eyes, wide nostrils, and thick lips. Her white teeth lit up her dark beauty as she spoke.

"How many of them were there?" Leland asked her.

"Four," she answered, as Leland cut away the rest of the ropes.

"They are all dead on the other side of the creek," I said.

"What happened to Moon Rising? Why is she covered in blood?" she asked then, showing concern.

"They were going to rape her. We killed them before they could. The first one we shot fell on her and bled all over her but once she was freed from under him, she was using a knife on them. I went to bring her here and she swung the knife at me. So I knocked her out."

"Those bastards have been raping both of us for the past week," she replied the raspy scorn now apparent in her voice.

"What is your name?" I asked

"I'm Sally Thomas," she replied, proudly, like it was suppose to mean something to us.

"Well Sally, I'm Jeb Jennings and that clod standing there staring at your charms is my uncle Leland Jennings"

She gave a funny look at me and then Leland and then back at me trying to figure out how someone who was just as old as me was my uncle. Then she looked back at Leland and he had a funny little smile as she caught him staring at her exposed thighs. Of course once caught he turned around and then came over to me after having helped her to her feet.

Sally went over and looked at Moon Rising covered in blood. She was turning her head to see the bump that had risen from where I had hit her. "Get me a blanket Jeb she needs to be covered. Her head is going to be hurting in the morning."

The concern Sally showed for her friend was touching. I wondered how the two girls knew each other. Had they only met when they fell into the hands of the rapist, or did their friendship go back in time?

I grabbed the blanket and Leland said. "I'll go back to our camp and bring everything here."

"We can search their bodies in the morning," I replied.

"Not like they're going anywhere," was his retort.

I laughed, and saw Sally show her teeth for a second in what no doubt was a smile.

"Nope, we done sent them to hell already."

He left to go and get our things. I walked over to Sally and told her I would be looking over their horses. She didn't want me to leave them at first, but after she was certain that Moon Rising was all right she calmed down some and I went over and looked at what they had.

The horses were in fair shape, the saddles and tact looked to have been repaired recently. Their horses were still saddled which I found interesting so I unsaddled them and then hobbled all four of them.

I brought back two of the saddles for Sally and Moon Rising to use as head rests. Leland was just crossing the creek with our stock and supplies.

He looked at me as I was setting the saddles down.

"Horses were still saddled," I said.

Sally filled in what had happened. "Moon Rising scurried off right as they were getting off their horses. She took off running and they chased after her. She had found a knife and cut herself free. Rune the big man just tossed me to the ground and went riding after her. One of the others tied me to the tree and then went out after them."

"Well, you are safe now, Leland and I won't let anything happen to either of you again," I replied.

"That's for certain," Leland added.

Sally looked from me to Leland, and back to me before nodding. She didn't say anything, but I saw her shoulders relax, like she felt safe for a welcome change.

We worked on making supper and then bedded down for the night. Sally worked on cleaning the blood and bits off Moon, and then she slept right next to her. Leland and I took turns watching over the camp.

We had breakfast the next morning, and then headed back and searched the corpses. Moon was still asleep so we left her with Sally and headed back over. Nothing had bothered them, but it wouldn't take the varmints long to discover them. We recovered twelve Yankee dollars, six bits along with four pennies from the bodies.

We brought all of their weapons which besides their side arms included a wide assortment of knives and derringers. These were obviously fighting men from all of the weapons that we had and just shooting them without giving them a chance to use their weapons was the right approach.

We took everything worth anything and I had a new pair of boots that fit my feet. He wouldn't be a needing them anytime soon.

Moon was awake and holding her head when we returned. "Why did you hit me?" She asked.

This was the first time I'd heard her voice since the war cry, and I was a little surprised that she knew English. Her question was accusing, but her voice was soft, and pleasing to my ears.

"You swung your knife at me," I replied.

"I thought you were going to attack me."

"I had just rescued you. Why would I attack?"

"They had been raping Sally and me for days. I thought you were just going to do that now instead of them," there were tears flowing down her cheeks as she stared into my eyes.

"Leland and I won't let anything happen to you like that again," I replied.

Sally looked at her friend, and hugged her. Moon smiled for the first time since we'd met her, and there were tears streaming down Sally's face.

"Thank you, what are we going to do now?" Sally asked with a quivering lip.

I looked at Leland, and saw him nod his approval for me to speak of what we had discussed during the middle of the night as we stood guard over them.

"Well you're welcome to come with us. Leland and I are going west."

The two girls looked at each other, silently. It only took seconds for them to reach a silent agreement with the nod of their heads to each other.

"We might as well join you, but I would like some clothes first," Moon said.

I liked her spunk. She and her friend had just been rescued from rapists, yet she was not afraid to speak her mind. In fact up to this point with the exception of her swinging the knife my way, I liked everything about her.

"All of your things from the other side of the creek were destroyed." Leland replied.

"We'll look through the things we own now and find something for me to wear," Moon ordered, speaking to Sally.

She and Sally went over and rummaged around and Moon came back wearing a shirt that was long enough to work as a dress. I wouldn't tell her but I liked her naked a whole lot more than in that shirt.

She would have to tuck it under her to ride until we could find her some more clothes. We searched the saddle bags and bed rolls before we put them back on the horses. We were rewarded with one hundred double eagles along with an assortment of odds and ends. These were no doubt scalawags of the first order taking money for others' pain.

This was the most money any of us had ever seen. Leland and I talked about the best way to conceal it from strangers. Although we didn't put it into words, we were also concealing it from the girls. We didn't know them well enough to trust them. There was no doubt in my mind, that if given the opportunity, they would make off with our loot in the middle of the night. We put all of it in my bedroll, vowing to never let it out of our sight.

We got on our way and were talking as we rode. Sally said that we should be careful going into Roswell as Rune and the one they called Red had gone to town to get some supplies and see some of Red's kin.

That became the topics of discussion. We wanted to sell the extra horses and get Moon some drawers, but if Red had kin there then we might have a fight on our hands. We were after all the lowest of the order and having their horses would open us up to attack by any of his kin.

The bastards didn't want the town to know that they had Moon and Sally so the other two had taken them around and waited for Rune and Red to join them. You wouldn't want your extended family to know what type of man you really were.

It was a gamble if we could sell their horses and no one raise a question about it. Then we could go to the store and find some things. There would be issues taking both Sally and Moon into the store, but I reckoned that the store owner would either take our cash willingly when they shopped or with some encouragement on Leland's and my part.

It was two days ride back to Roswell and we made our way at an easy pace. Leland and I would trade off riding point now that we had these two with us. As we rode, I saw a trend beginning to form. If I was out front, Moon Rising would be riding behind me. When I turned to make sure a limb was not going to hit her in the face, she would smile shyly at me. If I was bringing up the rear, she would be directly in front of me. Every so often, she would turn in her saddle with a questioning look in her eyes, as if to make sure I was still behind her. I confess that I enjoyed the view a lot more when she was riding in front of me.

Supper times were the best. If we were able to build a fire, it was fun watching Moon Rising get up to pour a cup of coffee for me. The shirt she wore was short enough for me to see her thighs. She never tried to hide them from my eyes.

We talked about how each of them had been kidnapped. They were from the same region, way back in the hills. Sally's family had been free for generations. The Thomas name meant something. That's why she'd been so proud the first time she told us her name, like we'd recognize who she was. One day four strangers showed up at the small farm where the Thomas family scratched out a meager living. They said they wanted to be fed, and when Mr. Thomas resisted, they shot him right off. Then they killed Sally's brother, and demanded to be fed. Sally and her mother rustled up some grub, but the strangers were not satisfied. They raped Mrs. Thomas before they shot her in the heart. Sally cried when she told us how they'd carried her off.

"That's the last I saw of my family or the farm where I was born and lived for sixteen years, she said, crying.

I noticed that Leland put his arm around her, and Sally dipped her head on his chest, still weeping.

It was Moon Rising's turn to tell her story. She said she didn't know how old she was, but that she'd lived with a family of white people since her mother's death, many years before. All she knew was that her grandparents had escaped the rounding up of the Cherokee in 1838, and been sheltered by hill people. Her mother had married a reneged Cherokee, who had left one day and never returned.

Her life had not been a bed of roses. While Sally had learned her letters, Moon Rising had been enslaved and then sold to a family in Georgia, picking cotton and working in the fields from sunup to sunset. She didn't know how good she'd had it. News of the fate of the Cherokee had not reached the hills of Georgia where she'd lived in slavery or was it discussed by the ones that owned her. It still didn't register that she'd been fortunate when we told her what Bo had said about the trail of tears. She had no doubt cried her own trail of tears many times over all the years she had been enslaved.

The two girls had traveled with the band of scallywags for two days before they were allowed to talk. It was after they'd been raped for the first time that they weep in each others' arms. That was the night they'd formed a bond, promising to look out for each other as long as they were alive. Now free from them that bond continued to grow.

Once she'd told her story, Moon Rising slumped forward, singing a soft song to herself and shaking uncontrollably. I placed my hand on her shoulder, only to be attacked with a drawn knife. I backed off, and let her go back to her mournful song.

At this point neither of them had anywhere to go back to. Sally cried as she thought that no one decent would want them back because of the rapes. I knew we hadn't known each other long, and that she was not disrespecting us with her comments. It simply didn't register with her thoughts that Leland and I might actually be decent.

The night before we entered Roswell, we spoke again of going west. We wanted to make sure that the women wanted to come with us still. Both Leland and I were for it, but we didn't want them to feel forced to come along unless they still wanted to. The thoughts that they might want to share our bedrolls along the way played no part in our decision I thought of course. Leland and I had a grin that told the women otherwise.

We showed that we were not trying to hide anything by telling them the story of our lives, how our mothers had been raped, and why we had light eyes and straight hair.

Sally spoke for both of them, saying they would be happy to come with us. Moon Rising was back to smiling shyly, but she didn't appear overly happy about the decision. She nodded solemnly to show her agreement with the plan.

Roswell was a good sized city and there were a number of shops to purchase what we needed. We stopped off at the mercantile first.

We were certainly a strange sight for the townspeople. Two black men no doubt the product of white women, a black woman and an Indian all together. Leland and I with guns in plane sight plus our scruffy appearance alone was enough to make store owner reluctant to let us enter until I gave him a glimpse of our cold hard cash. Cold hard cash settled the store owner right down about our appearance and color. That and Leland stood at the door with his hand near his colt. Watching for anything out of place made the transaction easier.

We got a little of this and some more of that along with the rest of the things we needed. The women added some women's necessities as they told us before we were finished. All told we spent three dollars and four bits.

We stopped at the gun shop and worked out some trades for the extra pieces and added a couple of scatter guns that the women could learn to use along with the derringers we had kept for them. We loaded up on ammunition and finished off the trade for our colts to be serviced and cleaned as part of the deal. Leland and I took turns standing guard at the door as each of the colts was cleaned. If anyone was going to come in to harass us it wouldn't be when we were unarmed.

As we were mounting up to head to the livery a number of the locals started looking us over. Deciding that keeping the extra horses would likely be a better idea than selling at this point. We lit out of town as fast as possible without looking like we were doing just that.

We didn't ride out hard but we didn't dawdle either. Once we were far enough away we rode harder for about an hour. It would have been nice to have stayed at the hotel and had a chance to clean up but safety was a bigger concern. We made our way and found a place to camp off the road a ways about an hour before sun down.

Once we stopped, we all let down our hair for a few minutes. We were excited about the experiences, the things we'd seen, and how the townspeople had looked us over. Although we didn't put it into words, there was a general recognition among us that we were outcasts. The girls were ecstatic about their new purchases. We let them laugh and carry on before it was time to become serious.

Tonight we would have a cold camp and hide the best we could. I didn't like the looks of those men who were eyeing us, and it was best to let trouble pass with us unseen. We don't always get what we want and we certainly didn't need any of this but we were just too tempting of a target for them to pass up.

We were vigilant while we made the best of our cold meal. We whispered, assuring each other that better days were coming. And that our journey west would bring us the freedom we truly wanted.

We heard them long before they got anywhere near us. Their voices carried through the damp air as they came looking for us. Leland and Sally circled left while Moon and I moved right and forward from where we were. We could see six of them coming towards us. We were at the edge of the trees and they were crossing the meadow we had crossed earlier looking to find us.

One man was on foot holding a lantern as he tracked us while five others were following behind him on their horses. They continued on coming closer to the woods following our path. Moon had the scatter gun cradled in her arms watching them as she sat next to me.

I whispered. "You use that if they rush us when they are close, shoot their horses if necessary," she nodded her understanding.

I could only hope that Leland was in place with Sally. The man on the ground would stop and turn to talk to one of the men right behind him. I figured that had to be the leader so he was who I would shoot. They were about twenty feet from the woods when I heard Leland fire.

The man I had planned to shoot was on the ground now. I opened up as they started to shoot at Leland and Sally. Since they were shooting the sound from my colt just blended in. The third one screaming as he fell forward hitting the ground must have alerted them that someone was behind them.

Since they hadn't seen where we were they were just firing blindly. That gave Leland the opportunity to fire unobstructed and he dropped a couple more. That left the man who had been holding the lantern as the last one unaccounted for.

The problem was who he was coming for. Moon and I sat there and waited listening for any sound. I don't know if she heard or saw him, but she pointed the scatter gun and fired. I heard a scream as the pellets hit him and then some more rustling as he was likely making his escape. He screamed out one more time as Leland fired his colt.

We waited and listened as the night got quieter, and the sounds of the men who were wounded faded with them no doubt dying.

If they were all dead as we hoped, we had killed ten men now. That thought must have been shared by Moon as a shiver crossed her body. She didn't resist when I put my arm around her. Moon and I held on to each other to keep us warm all during that night. We didn't dare sleep, and we didn't talk, but from the way she responded to my touches, I knew she was accepting me as her man. We didn't hear anything move and we waited for the dawn to let us know what had happened. As the false dawn approached we walked towards where I had heard Leland firing and he and Sally stepped out to meet us. We kept our eyes on the men as Sally and Moon went around checking on them.

We had been very fortunate to have escaped without being hurt. That could not be said of the ones on the ground. The colts make a very large hole going in and bigger ones as it exited. No doubt a number of the men had bled to death while we waited for the night to pass. That they wanted to rob and kill us made me not care that was how they had died. Moon Rising spitting on the corpses told me that she shared my feeling.

They didn't have much on them and we dragged their bodies into the woods. We found an open hole where the ground had parted and tossed them in. The horse flesh wasn't in the best shape and the tact matched that. While he had a couple of extra horses having another six would draw attention to us.