An Outlaw's Redemption

Chapter Fifteen

Late Summer 1861

Weston sighed as he read the headline in the paper:

"War Declared!! Friends of South and Justices to arms!"

He'd heard the rumors of war but had hoped it was just that...a rumor. It seemed now he would have to choose a side. One way or the other war was here, and his involvement was unavoidable. He glanced at Jimmy and questioned, "What's your take on this?"

James shook his head, "Seems like it's someone else's fight."

Yes, it did seem like someone else's fight, but that mattered very little now. This war was inevitable regardless of one's feelings on the issue. It seemed that it had always been this way, either you were wrong or right; there was never a middle ground. No side could overlook their own feelings and opinions long enough to hear the other side out.

It didn't take long to see the effects of the war. If you chose to remain neutral and did not choose a side, you were shunned from both...suddenly an outcast without a home, family, or country. Jimmy and Weston stuck together for the most part throughout the gruesomeness of the war...they fought, just as they were told to. They even took their own fair share wounds for the other, but somehow, they survived.

"God must have a special plan for the two of you," one officer would say, while another said, "Luck like that is bound to run out."

Weston was beginning to wonder if being shunned wasn't such a bad thing after all, but Jimmy would caution him saying, "Keep the status quo." Though Weston wasn't sure how long the "status quo" would be in their favor. With each passing day, more and more lives were lost, and more sorrow laced the heart of the nation. Both sides had their reasons, but soon it was impossible to remember why they were fighting at all. Everything they had begun fighting for had changed and somewhere along the way things became mixed up and confused.

A breaking point was coming, Weston could feel it. People would only take so much for so long before they broke. Something had to give sooner or later.

~September 1861~

Jimmy had been sent to Lexington while Weston had been sent to Centralia. The Siege of Lexington, also known as the Battle of First Lexington, was a minor conflict between the Union Army and the pro-Confederate Missouri State Guard right in the county seat of Lafayette County, Missouri; it lasted from the thirteenth day of the month to the twentieth.

Jimmy wrote Weston a letter and it was a miracle it got to him at all. It arrived seven days after the siege. The train car carrying Weston, and twenty-four other soldiers on leave, rattled and shook as it bounced along the track as he read the remaining lines of the blood-stained letter:

We are hanging in as best can be expected. I am well, I hope you are too. Lt. Grover was wounded by a musket ball in his thigh. He is weak and the doctor does not seem to think he will survive.

The remaining lines blurred as Weston blinked against the moisture building in his eyes. Why is there so much pain in this world?

Pain seemed to be the very theme of this life. Weston had seen his plenty of it in his twenty-seven years, caused some of it, too; but still he couldn't understand why life had to be this way. Standing, Weston headed toward the back of the train. He needed to get a breath of fresh air. Folding the letter, he pocketed it and stepped out onto the viewing deck. Firmly his hands twisted around the rail, causing his knuckles to turn a starch white as he inhaled a breath.

As the train pulled into the center of town with a screeching halt, a man on horseback neared Weston. He wore a tattered gray uniform, the color of the Confederacy. Weston drew for his gun but remembered it had been removed from him at the train depot, as well as the other twenty-four men in his platoon. The General had thought it best to remove all firearms from his men before sending them on a much needed two days leave. Much to Weston's objection, the General did not see the need for him to keep his pistols. The man in gray shook his head and held up a hand toward Weston as he whispered, "Come with me if you want to live, friend."