Chapter 1

I'd known I was fucking up when I joined the Confederate Army so Late in the war. Hell, I'd been wanting in on the fight since I was twelve, but by the time I was sixteen and a man grown it was mostly over with and I knew it, even if the other dumb bastards didn't.

The only reason we weren't getting the shit kicked out of us now was because Sherman had sucked so many of the Yankee soldiers in on his march to the sea that they didn't have enough to ride herd on the land they'd already conquered.

Our fearless leader was worse than that. He wasn't fearless, he was scared shitless and he wasn't about to move us any closer to the Yankees than he absolutely had to. It didn't make a shit to me anyhow.

I'd already caught on the South was whipped with a capital W. Hell; our soldiers barely had arms and ammunition. In fact, if I hadn't managed to steal a couple of Colt 44 Armies off an officer I'd killed, and if I hadn't been stalking a deer that let me get up close enough to a Yankee Calvary officer to kill him with a fucking bow and arrow I'd stolen off an Indian I'd killed, I'd be fucked for arms and ammunition right now myself

As it was I had a nice US Army Calvary mount, complete with all the tack and weapons the officer had owned and I was making my way out of the conflict through the west end of Tennessee. I figured if I could sneak over into Missouri and leave for points West with a wagon train I'd be in good shape to live over this fucking Civil War.

To my way of thinking there hadn't been one damned thing Civil about it, and then the hard part came up. Everybody pretty much knew the South had had it. Hell, I did. I knew the end was near and I wasn't the only soldier, neither south nor north, which had forsaken his military duty and decided it was time for every man for him-fucking-self. At least I used my head about it.

Just as I'd been sneaking into Tennessee with my Union mount, tack, arms, and ammunition I had run into a small bunch of good old southern boys who'd already lost their commanding officer themselves. Unfortunately they spotted me first. I never thought anything about why four mounted men dressed like Yankees took off after me since I was on an obvious Yankee cavalry mount wearing a just as obvious Rebel uniform.

I did what I could do best, as in, I hid my ass in the thick brambles of the woods and then shot their asses as they came close enough and exposed themselves enough for me to make damned sure of each kill. I might not have had the best weapons I could have, but I was a dead shot with anything I was likely to pick up.

I killed their leader with the same damned bow I'd shot the Union Calvary officer with and when one of his bunch saw him fall he rushed over to help him. Since I was close I attacked him from behind and slit his throat with my own big sharp Bowie knife I'd brought from home on the first day I signed up to join in on this fuckup.

Luckily for me the second one I killed had a double barrel 10 gauge Greener in his saddle scabbard instead of a rifle like any normal soldier would have. I liberated the Greener just in time to hide behind a tree for the other two in the bunch to come riding up. I let go with both barrels as soon as they stopped and my only concession to them was to aim high so as not to harm the horses they were riding.

I couldn't even know for sure whom I was killing or even whom they owed allegiance to since both of them were wearing Union pants and Confederate shirts and jackets. Hell, one of them even had on a Union Calvary boot on one foot and a Confederate one on the other. I decided to get down and cut their throats just to make sure the evil bastards were dead, no matter which side they were on.

My hatred for them even grew as I was stripping their bodies since the biggest and by far ugliest of them had a tobacco pouch made from the skin of a woman's breast. Apparently it was an Indian woman since the skin was dark, but not dark enough to be from a black woman. It really twisted my guts up for a second until I figured out a good payback for the sorry bastard.

I caught up all their horses and tied them to a tree branch with mine and then I striped all four of their bodies off naked. I didn't want their clothes since it was obvious they had been wearing the same ones for a week or more and from the smell I could tell they hadn't bothered with a bath in that time. Unless I was mistaken they hadn't been paying very close attention to wiping their asses after they shit in the woods either.

I did save all their leather belts though and all the mismatched pairs of boots. In fact I saved everything on them made from leather and then I took my Bowie knife to the big ugly one and removed his dick and his ball sack. I took the time to turn his ball sack inside out and scrape the flesh out of it, such as there was. Then I pulled up some grass and stuffed it full so it would dry out for later tanning.

Hell, if he could use the skin off a woman's tit for a tobacco pouch I felt it only fair I get a nice pouch of my own out of the deal. I was careful when I removed his sack though and I left the actual balls hanging out of his body by the chords they were attached to. I would have poked his damned eyes out too but the 00 buckshot had taken care of that detail for me. I did use my bowie knife to open up all their abdomens so the animals would have an easier time eating their sorry guts.

I examined the horses carefully and found one, which wasn't branded either Union or Confederate. I moved my own saddle to this one since it was the best of all five in my possession now. My Mc McClellan saddle was a slight giveaway that I'd been in the Union Army but then again, by this late date such things were often used by who ever came upon them.

Finally I had most of my ill-gotten gains loaded onto the unbranded horse, a big sorrel stallion, and my original bay gelding. The bay looked a little funny with four saddle scabbards attached to its tack but I disguised my work by tying the clothes and boots onto each of the other saddles. I was pretty sure if anyone saw me they'd think something was up, but in this day and time I figured it would give them pause before fucking with me since I was one man leading the horses of four dead men.

I had packed the Greener and the fifty 00 buckshot ten gauge shells for it on my newly acquired riding horse and I'd also attached one of my other newfound treasures to him. It was a Sharp's rifle and must have been stolen from a real live, at one time, Sharp shooter, since it had a William Malcolm telescopic sight on it. It was 50-90 Sharps and if it was as accurate as I'd heard I'd be set up for any long shots I needed to make.

I also hung another Sharps onto my saddle in its scabbard. It was a carbine model using 45-70 ammunition and while it wasn't the long range solution the other Sharps was, it would do quite well since every Sharps I'd ever seen or heard of was a quality weapon.

In fact all of the weapons I found on them were excellent. One of them had a brace of .36 Pattersons, commonly called Navy for the .36 caliber of the lead balls they used. I didn't have any idea where the scroungy looking turd had come up with them since they were presentation grade and they were well kept and looked almost new.

The Pattersons had been in a dual holster belt rig and I strapped them on before leaving and after pulling their bullets and reloading every hole in every cylinder. I spent nearly two hours fucking with the things they'd bequeathed to me without really intending to and when I finally mounted up leading my newly elected packhorse closest and with the others strung out behind me on a lariat I'd converted into a long lead rope I headed out, after I'd reloaded every weapon I now had.

It didn't take long for me to know I had found a good road headed west. It was wider than most and showed a pretty good bit of travel. I was following a large wagon about two hundred yards behind it and trying to look as innocent as I could, being one man riding a horse and leading five more.

Out of nowhere a tree fell down into the road in front of the wagon and caused it to stop. It didn't cause me to stop though since I had an idea of what was about to happen. I dropped the lead rope I'd cobbled up and spurred the big sorrel I was riding, pulling the Sharps rifle as I went.

I wasn't in time to stop the robbers from shooting someone in the wagon, but I was in time to show the shooter what it felt like with the Sharps.

When the 50 caliber bullet hit him it was a show stopper since the other three who had come boiling out of the wood line for the attack stopped what they were doing and began looking around to see where the shot had come from. I just had time to put the Sharps away and pull the nicest Henry repeater I'd come upon. Five shots from me later they were all on the ground and most of them weren't moving much.

When I came up to the wagon there was a woman in the seat trying to help an older gentleman who'd been shot in the chest. I didn't bother to even say anything since I knew she was working on a cause as lost as the one I'd started the war hoping to accomplish.

I pulled out the Colt 44 I now had in a cross-draw position on my waist and began giving the final touches to any of the robbers I thought might be able to give me shit later. Two were only hit in the hip and I put a bullet between their eyes post haste. It left one I'd hit high in the chest and of course their leader who I'd basically decapitated with the Sharps.

I grabbed up the pistol the wounded one was reaching for and kicked him solidly in the ribs.

"Hell, fellar, looks like you're the only one left alive and I'm glad to have you," I said to him as he lay groaning in pain from either the chest shot or the kicks I'd delivered.

"Yeh, why is that?" he asked, in a voice I figured he thought was imposing. Of course his voice didn't scare me since he was now wounded and disarmed and I was neither.

"Hell, so we'll have someone left to scream while we're torturing you for this shitass trick you pulled on this wagon. In fact, I wonder just how loud you're going to yell when I cut your ball sack off to make a tobacco pouch out of it," I said, and I could tell he wasn't trying to sound so tough now.

"Why you want to do something like that, mister?" he asked.

"Cause killing you is too good for your nasty ass. What was so important you had to attack a wagon coming down the road that weren't bothering you? Did you think you had to become a mad dog killer after the war? No matter, I'm betting you won't sound like such a rough tough killer while I'm cutting parts off your ass. I just hope the lady in that wagon has a dog so you won't go completely to waster after you're dead. You weren't hoping for a decent burial were you?" I asked, and then laughed as mean and nasty as I could manage.

I didn't need another candidate for a tobacco pouch, but it didn't hurt to give him a hint and you never could tell. If he had a big sack it would be better to hold more tobacco.

I went ahead and stripped his pants and drawers off him just to make sure he wasn't carrying a big tobacco pouch candidate between his legs. I was sorely disappointed with what I found though. He was hung like a Chihuahua. I laughed at his shrunk up dick when I saw it.

"Well, fellar, that's one way to get out of torture. That ball sack you got ain't big enough to make a wrapper for my best marble and I guess nobody ever lied to you and told you that was a dick you had swinging," I said, and laughed again.

I heard the man in the wagon give a big sigh then and I figured it was his last so I went over to check on the woman. She was looking lost, but when I asked her if he had expired she said he had and asked me if I could bury him.

I told her I could if she had a shovel and then she helped me get him out of the wagon and I took him off into the woods a little way and laid him out near a fairly clear spot.

She was waiting for me to help her down when I got back and so I did and she told me where to find their shovel.

She told me her name was Janet Campbell and then she allowed she had been supposed to marry the dead man when they got to Independence Missouri. I told her how sorry I was for her loss and then she said the strangest thing.

"I guess I should be crying over him and all, but I just can't. He more or less bought me from my pa since he said he'd need a wife when he got to Oregon. In fact him and me was arguing when they came out of the woods. I'd done told him we weren't doing it until we were married and he was trying to bully me into it.

I guess I should have given in since if I had we'd have pulled off the road about five miles back and set up camp for the night. I don't know what I'm gonna do now," she said, and it was the first time I'd seen her even near tears.

"Well ma'am. I know something you can do to help you get some back on the bastards who killed your man. I took care of the actual shooter with my first shot, but I've got one of the attackers over here and he's only wounded. If you want a little revenge I've got a sharp Bowie knife and he's already naked from the waist down." I said.

"Well, it ain't such a terrible loss to me, but Jim was kinda nice and now I'm down here in Tennessee with damned little prospects. I might as well take it out on somebody," she said, and I handed her the Bowie knife as she walked toward our wounded prisoner.

He tried to roll himself up in a ball when she came to look at him, especially since the Bowie knife was the most noticeable thing on her. I kicked him right in his ear on one side and it knocked him out and he went limp.

"You know, this would be easier if we tied his arms and legs to some stakes driven into the ground. It won't hurt him much if you have to keep knocking him out to keep him still enough," she said.

Hell, it sounded good to me and so I helped all I could. First I tied his hands together with the lead rope I was using and after nudging around on the horses I got them to drag him out into the woods. I found an axe in her wagon and managed to cut down a young post oak and cut it into four stakes and sharpened the ends. She told me about a sledgehammer they had in their wagon and after I fetched it I drove the stakes into a square and dragged him into the middle of it.

There was a lariat on his saddle and so I took it, tied one of his hands to a stake and then tied off around his opposite foot and stretched him all I could before I tied him off tight. It worked so well I repeated it on his other hand and foot and soon he was tied off, spread-eagle, as they say and he was stretched out good.

I just knew, from the way her eyes lit up when he was stretched out, that Janet had a mean streak hidden insider herself somewhere. She walked directly over to the owl hoot and cut his ears off even with the side of his head. He howled loudly about it and so she told him to shut up and cut a big chunk of his nose off.

"If you make much more noise I'm gonna find some pliers, clamp onto your tongue, the stretch it out long and cut it plumb off," she told him and he stayed quiet until she reached down, grabbed his dickhead with her left hand, and stretched his dick out about like she threatened to do his tongue.

No matter how she'd threatened to cut out his tongue, when she sliced his dick off up near where it started he set up a pitiful howling.

She must not have minded the noise so bad though since she got a little creative with what she did next. She picked up the axe I'd used and removed his fingers, one at a time, and saved his thumbs for last. She didn't do his toes the same though. She gathered up some kindling and started a small fire down around each of his feet.

"Might as well get you used to what it's going to feel like in hell, you bastard. You're sure going right there as soon as we kill you," she told him.

I knew one thing, I liked Janet Campbell. Make that two things though. I knew better than to ever make her really mad at me.

She asked me to pull the wagon up out of the road and into the woods so we could set up camp for the night. I did it and when I got it situated I went back to where our prisoner was staked out.

"He's dead already. I shoulda known he'd bleed to death too fast when I cut his dick off and damned if he didn't. Might as well pull his body off into the woods so it don't smell up our camp," she said.

"I never was the kind of boy or man who wouldn't listen when a woman told me something to do, especially when she was making good sense. I dragged the body off and then went back out on the road and collected everything worth anything from the other bodies and used one of their horses to pull them off into the woods too.

When I made it back to the cook fire Janet had a supper cooked and at once I was even gladder I'd found her. She had pulled a fold up table out of her wagon and set a table for us to eat on. She even had two chairs from in there.

She had cooked us both a big T-bone steak and she'd made mashed potatoes and even cooked some cathead biscuits to go with it. It was the best meal I'd had in a long time and I dug in without talking much, but I damned sure liked looking at Janet.

In the first place I'd always liked redheads and especially green-eyed examples. She also had ample evidence of plenty of titty under her dress's top and they jiggled when she moved this way and that. As she'd been bending down and stooping around while she'd cut up the now dead guy I'd also noticed she had a round and firm looking ass and I just wished for a way to get a look at her legs to see if they were as pretty as I thought they must be. Finally I couldn't stand the silence and so I asked her.

"Where were y'all headed Janet?"

"We were going to Independence Missouri to catch on with a wagon train. I know this ain't the kind of wagon that's best for a trip West, but it was what was handy and Tom had some gold to buy another one with if we ran across one," she said.

"What about you? Where were you headed?" she asked.

"Well, I hate to say after you've just told me your story." I said.

"Why?" she asked.

"Cause it'll sound like I'm just making up a tale, but I was heading to the same place you were. I was hoping to get hired on as a driver or a scout for a wagon train." I said.

"Well, if you ask the right question to me you might get to go along anyway," She said, and then smiled so bright I thought the sun was coming up again and it had just now gone down.

"Well, Janet, could I go west with you?" I asked.

"You ain't asked the right question yet, but you did come awfully close," she said, and then giggled.

I had never been a good hand at talking with girls and especially not such pretty women, as I now considered Janet. No matter how hard I thought about it I couldn't figure out which question I should have asked.

"Do you give up yet?" she asked me, and then giggled again.

"I guess I'll have to. I can't figure out which question I should have asked." I said.

"Let me give you a hint or two so I can see if you'll catch onto it yourself," she said, and I nodded in agreement.

"Where was I headed when you came up on me? Better yet what was I going to do when I got there?" she asked.

Hell, I knew she'd been headed to Independence Missouri, but that was just a waypoint and she'd told me they were going to Oregon. She'd also told me they were going to get married when they got there. She couldn't mean that could she? Hell, I was fool enough to ask her and see.

"Janet, I know we ain't known each other long, but will you marry me?" I asked, and I must have made it sound as sincere as I meant it to.

"Got it right without even much hinting. Yes, I'll marry you, but we ain't waiting all the way till we get to Oregon. I'd done made up my mind before those assholes stopped us that I couldn't hold off on Tom until we got clean across the country. Hell, I ain't even sure I can hold out on you until we find a preacher. The more I think about it I guess we'd better start our honeymoon tonight and let a preacher get us hitched catch as catch can," she said, and then she shook her titties inside her dress at me.

Speechless is what I was, and a little bit anxious. I'd kissed girls before and hugged them plenty, but I'd never really done it before even if I had peeped around and seen others at it. I figured I'd better explain myself and I blurted it out before I lost my nerve.

"Oh Goody. I never have either of course, but I've watched it done by ma and pa and I've talked to other girls who got begged in the tatter patch and they told me about it. It was one of the things I didn't like about Tom, because he told me he knew how from doing it with whores at the saloon."

"I can hardly believe how lucky you turned out for me. First you killed those bastards, who killed Tom, and now you ain't never done it before either and here you've asked me to marry you.

"Let's get the camp and the dishes cleaned up and then get into the wagon to start our honeymoon. Just make sure you don't forget you asked me to marry you and I've accepted." she said.

I had hell helping clean up around the campsite and then helping her clean up the dishes what with my dick so hard, but we got it done.

She wanted to get into the wagon first to get ready she said, and after a few minutes she called me on inside.

She had got ready for real. She'd changed the sheets on their mattress. I could tell since the ones on it now were so clean and barely wrinkled at all. There were two big lumps in it though and they were where she had the sheet pulled up around her neck.

She hurried me along and off my staring though by telling me to get undressed and into the bed with her. Hell, she'd even lit a small kerosene lamp and there was plenty of light in there.

I felt my face and ears get a little red when I started out of my clothes but finally it was time to drop my drawers and get in beside her. When they hit the floor she surprised me.

"MY God, what a dick," she said, when she first saw it.

I slipped in under the covers with her and hugged her to me right away.

"If you ain't never done it before how did you know mine was a big one?" I asked her, teasing.

"I told you I'd seen people doing it before and Tom even showed me his while he was trying to talk me into it. Pa's wasn't nearly as long as yours is and not as big around either. Tom's didn't even come close. If you've got a dick all Tom had was a wee wee," she said, and then giggled again.