Ride With the Devil Read Online Free Page A

you?”
    “Yes, in Confederate money.”
    Culpepper laughed again. “Well, I was just being patriotic. Hey, whatever happened to that girl you used to sniff around all the time? What was her name? Tamara Snell-grove? She was a pretty thing, as I recall.”
    The smile left Hawke’s face and his features tightened. He took another swallow before he answered.
    “She took a fever and died.”
    “That’s a shame,” Culpepper said. “You were…wait, as I recall, you were going to marry her, weren’t you?”
    “Yeah,” Hawke said without elaboration.
    “I’m sorry to hear about that. So, what are you doing out here? I figured you’d be back in Georgia, running Goldcrest. I mean, after all, it is the biggest plantation in the county.”
    “It was the biggest,” Hawke said. “But no more. Taxes took it. After Pa and my brother were killed in the war, myma just gave up living and died of heartbreak. It stood fallow for two years, piling up debts.” He was quiet for a moment. “At least none of them lived long enough to see me lose land that had been in the family for over a hundred years.”
    “You can’t take that too hard, Hawke. My family lost Trailbreak. A lot of county people lost everything,” Culpepper said. “Hell, that’s why I didn’t even go back home. I haven’t seen Georgia since I left for the war.”
    “You were smart. I shouldn’t have gone back,” Hawke said.
    “So, you have become one of the wanderers, have you?” Culpepper asked. “One of the dispossessed. Well, join the crowd, my friend. Just join the crowd.”
    “You seem to have found your place. I notice it’s ‘Colonel Culpepper’ here and ‘Yes, sir’ there. What are you, the mayor?”
    “No, not the mayor. I’m just the head of the Salcedo Regulator Brigade.”
    “I figured it was something like that. That slab-toothed, pox-faced son of a bitch called you colonel. And you seemed to be calling the shots.”
    Culpepper laughed out loud and slapped the tabletop in good humor. “Slab-toothed, pox-faced son of a bitch,” he said. “A rather good description of Rufus Vox, I must say.”
    “So, when did you make colonel? Last time I saw you, you were a sergeant.”
    “The Confederate army had its promotion schedule and I have mine,” Culpepper said, smiling. “When I formed the Salcedo Regulators Brigade, I just appointed myself colonel.”
    “Well, why not?” Hawke answered. “It worked for Napoleon when he appointed himself Emperor. What exactly is this regulators’ brigade, anyway?”
    “Some might call us vigilantes,” Culpepper said. “But Iprefer to think of us as a group of concerned citizens who are enforcing the law.”
    “What about the sheriff, or marshal? Wouldn’t enforcing the law be his job?”
    Hawke’s position at the table afforded him a good view of the piano. There were cobwebs over the closed keylid, and that told him that the saloon had no regular piano player. He wondered how long it had been since the piano was last used.
    “It would be the sheriff or marshal’s job if we had a sheriff or a marshal. But we do not. The Dawson brothers killed our town marshal about a year ago. We hired two more marshals, but the Dawson brothers made things too hot for them as well, so they ran out on us.”
    “Who are the Dawson brothers?”
    Culpepper chuckled. “Better you should ask who were the Dawson brothers. Frank and Earl Dawson were two of the lowest, no-count sons of bitches you ever saw in your life. They made Salcedo their headquarters while they robbed and murdered innocent citizens for miles around. But just because Salcedo was their headquarters didn’t mean the town got a pass. No, sir, they ran roughshod over the citizens here too.”
    “You are talking about them in the past tense.”
    “That’s because they are past tense. They, and six of their men, are lying buried in the town cemetery right now.”
    “From the tone of the conversation, may I assume that was the work of the