
The Soldier
(Legacy Series Book 10)
Available on Audio!
Paranormal Historical Epic
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*America – 1862*
The nation has been torn apart by a war of secession, but not all southerners are alike and fight for their own causes. That’s what Dustin Keith, a werewolf recently liberated from his mentor’s guardianship, saw in Ben Myers, a Georgia farm boy serving in the Confederate Army. Only in the army so he could escape north and then find a way abroad, Dustin never expected to take part in the single bloodiest day in American history. At Antietam, Ben is fatally wounded and Dustin sees that the only way to save this good soul is to turn him into what he is – a werewolf.
With a wife and infant son at home, Ben wants nothing more than to see the end of this terrible war and go home to his own state. But now, freshly turned into a supernatural creature with unbelievable abilities, the long journey home from Virginia has become that much more difficult. If the enemy army, a strict mentor, and sheer distance wasn’t enough, there’s something off about Ben’s condition that will make it nearly impossible for him to enter society ever again.
Excerpt from Chapter 1
The smoke from the dozens of fires sprinkled across the countryside did little to mask the stench of army life. Dustin could still smell the odors of the men who hadn’t bathed in weeks – perhaps months – and the spicy signature of fear that hovered over the camp. Like a constant cloud of dread, it followed the Army of Northern Virginia from Manassas to Leesburg, to Frederick, to South Mountain, and finally here.
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They all knew what would come the following day; more fighting, more blood and whizzing bullets, more death and suffering. If Lee hadn’t heard of Jackson’s good news from Harper’s Ferry, they might have retreated back into Virginia, instead of making this run to Maryland for support, which they had yet to receive.
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But the Confederate army and the generals who commanded it were in good. They were finally in Yankee territory and under Lee, who had been instrumental in the defense of Richmond months earlier, the Confederacy was considered to be well on its way to winning this war in its entirety. What they didn’t know was that they were still outnumbered, and though they had continued to whip their enemy time and time again in this most recent campaign, their winning streak wouldn’t last forever. Not while McClellan had been afforded this particular advantage that Dustin helped to provide.
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Dustin leaned against a tree, just on the edge of the firelight, his hands tearing at a long weed he had pulled from the ground a moment before. Only occasionally did he reach up to scratch behind his ear like an irritated, flea-ridden dog. The lice accompanied the hunger and filth that every soldier was issued once they joined the army. But that was a drop in the bucket compared to the multitude of complaints and grievances amongst the regiments.
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Like the other men, he couldn’t sleep. Not only because of the ominous foreknowledge of what would come at dawn, but because every little sound within a radius of three miles rang so loudly in his ears that sleep was unattainable on nights like this. If the army weren’t so troubled and they could hunker down for the night, then it might have been possible for him to settle onto his army-issued blanket in peace as well. But for a loup-garou - a werewolf - enlisted in the Confederate army, peace and quiet might have been a futile hope.
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Amongst the countless white steeples of tents, he could hear every muttered curse over a lost card game, the soft clattering of the dice as men gambled away at Chuck-A-Luck, every whispered conversation, and the crackling of burning wood. It all kept his mind active and pinging to one sound or another without reason or aim.
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Darren had taught him well over the past ninety years, but fatigue and hunger had worn him thin. He hadn’t forgotten his training. He could still hear his alpha’s words echoing their warnings at every turn. But when his body and wolf were so strained, so ragged like the other men of the fifth Alabama infantry, it was hard to ignore his surroundings. If his stomach wasn’t growling and he had any rabbit left in his haversack, perhaps his senses wouldn’t have been so overwhelmed.
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From where his regiment was bivouacked by the Piper farmhouse, he wandered south to Boonsboro Pike where it seemed slightly quieter. Some fifteen or so yards away, at the nearest campfire, he could hear a group of men under Anderson and Jenkin’s Brigade talking amongst themselves or obsessively cleaning their weapons.
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South Carolinians and Georgians exchanged stories about their time marching through Virginia and Tennessee. Not a single one of them spoke of the battles, or the bloody fights against the Federals. No one wanted to talk about those things, because no one wanted to hear them. As long as their rifles were propped up against one another in that typical tent-like fashion with their bayonets fixed, they didn’t want to think about the fighting and moments of pure terror they experienced as they were fired upon.
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Dustin didn’t want to hear them either. The average soldier was only aware of what was happening directly in front of them during any given battle or skirmish. Unfortunately for him and his acute sense of hearing, he was aware of much more than the enemy he engaged. He heard the death wails of men across the field, well out of sight and human earshot. He smelled the blood of hundreds of soldiers cut down in their advance or retreat from the field. The gunpowder, the trodden grass, the loosed bowels of the boys who would become men by the time the fight was over.
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He hated it. All of it. The only reason he was even here, enlisted as an infantry volunteer, was because he wanted out. Out of America, out of the south, out of the Confederacy and the Union alike. When he had told Darren that he was ready to leave and see the world, his alpha released him with more than a little grumbling. He said it was foolish to try and cross enemy lines, but it would have been equally foolish to try and smuggle his way past the Yankee blockade that encased the south.
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If only they hadn’t left France fifty years ago when they’d answered the call for volunteers to help a new settlement in what was now lower Alabama. He would have rather stayed in France and butcher the language every time he tried to speak it than suffocate his Irish accent to appear just as southern as the men in his company.
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This would be his last battle. The commander of the sixty-ninth New York infantry was expecting him as soon as McClellan was done destroying Lee’s army. The arrangements had been made, his betrayal of the Confederacy complete. All he had to do was fake his death tomorrow and he could gain safe passage to Washington. From there, he’d make his plans and buy his ticket for the next Atlantic voyage to Europe. He’d come back after the war, but as he told Darren, now that he had a firm hold of his abilities, he wanted to explore and travel. He couldn’t do that in Devia, Alabama.
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“If only I had taken that job with my cousin with the railroad,” one private griped, “I could’ve stayed home.”
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“What would that have done any?” another asked chidingly. “Ol’ Jeff still woulda conscripted ya.”
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The first private, one he recognized as a Palmetto Sharpshooter, reclined against his knapsack. “Nope,” he said. “Any man doin’ some job for the Confederacy was exempt from the Conscription Act. My paw read it in the papers to me.”
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“Well, hell!” another from across the campfire exclaimed. “If that was true, I don’t deserve to be here. I gots a big ol’ farm to run down south. I’d be doin’ heaps for the Confederacy.”
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“Bull shit!” another called out. “You can’t have a farm. You ain’t got no brains for farmin’.”
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The soldier pinched up a bit of dirt and flung it at the other man from the sixth South Carolina Infantry. A few of the men chuckled and began tossing around good-natured insults. Some of these men had been with their companies from the start of the war, enlisting as soon as their states called for volunteers. Others were fresh recruits, hoping to revel in what false glory a soldier received during his enlistment term.
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Parading through towns and basking in the cheers of its citizens was the only glorious part that Dustin could see. Everything else, the marching, the deplorable rations, the drilling, the harsh generals and commanders that would sooner shoot a man for a small infraction than build up his morale, all of it was far from the preconceived image most citizens held of their proud boys in gray or blue.
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“Didn’t you have a farm, Ben?” one soldier from a Georgia company asked. “You coulda gotten out of gettin’ conscripted, right? Bet you’ve got a ton of darkies waitin’ on ya back home.”
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Dustin glanced up and let his tired eyes focus on the one soldier who had yet to speak. He sat quietly, his gray kepi wrinkled between his hands, wringing it until the wool was worn in places. It was the kind of fretful, nervous habit that he had seen amongst many soldiers, especially young ones who didn’t want to fight again.
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The young man’s face, however, was smooth and free of the worried lines that was usually paired with this kind of mindless behavior. The orange glow of the fire brought out the golden hue of his thin, slightly curly hair. The light twinkled in a set of light brown eyes that still retained a distant, faraway look after the other soldier had addressed him.
He was much like the other soldiers. It was clear that his boyhood years had been spent in labor. His uniform jacket was laid across his lap, allowing Dustin to fully see the strong curve of his back and shoulders. Ben wasn’t a stranger to work, and that’s why his answer didn’t surprise him.
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“We didn’t work with darkies,” he said, his gaze fixed on the fire with a lazy kind of concentration.
At this, several of the other soldiers looked to Ben in bafflement that such a statement shouldn’t have inspired. It was as if none of the others could even fathom a farm that didn’t have at least a few slaves working its fields. To his own chagrin, Dustin might have understood their confusion. Even in the deep south, it was rare to come across a wealthy landowner or merchant who didn’t have at least one African bound to him through the unjust practice.
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In the stunned silence, Ben finally blinked and looked up, which broke the spell of bewilderment over his comrades.
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“Who picked your cotton?” the other Georgian asked. “Y’all did grow cotton, right?”
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Ben nodded. “We grew it, but it wasn’t ours.”
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It was then that Dustin understood, along with the rest.
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“And you get paid to do that?”
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The farm boy nodded again, but showed no shame or pride in the admission. “Our employer didn’t own any slaves. He had two-hundred acres of cotton and paid plenty of other folks to help him pick it.”
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Some gasped at the sheer amount of acreage, others were still too puzzled to believe Ben was telling the truth. Dustin, however, knew he wasn’t lying. What reason did he have to lie about his job when it was a more prestigious thing to own another human being and force them to toil away without pay?
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“Ya some kinda darkie-lover?” asked one of the more ignorant of the South Carolinians. “Like one of them abolitionists?”
Rather than offended or riled by the question, Ben just shrugged. “I’ll admit they make it hard for a farmhand to earn a livin’, but I don’t hate ‘em or love ‘em.”
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“Then why are ya even fightin’?” his neighbor asked, just as incredulous as the others. “Don’t ya know the Yankees wanna come and free all the slaves?”
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“Ain’t nonna my concern,” Ben said. “But I don’t reckon they can do that from what I been hearin’.”
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“They ain’t gonna free the slaves,” another soldier drawled. “They just wanna take away our constitutional right to have ‘em.”
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At this, a fervent argument erupted around the fire. All the while, Ben remained mute on the subject and resumed his study of the smoldering and popping logs in front of him. Dustin, though thoroughly amused by the turn this gathering had taken, watched the Georgia farmer. In one moment of honest confession, he set himself apart amongst his fellow Confederates. He wasn’t a slave owner, nor did he seem to endorse the system. He didn’t join in the debate over what they were fighting for, and he didn’t respond to any of the somewhat biting comments that could have been linked to his apathetic attitude toward slavery and the southern cause.
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Before he could realize it, Dustin had pushed himself off the tree and slowly started toward the congregation around the fire. The soldier who had been sitting next to Ben had risen from his seat and was now in a hot verbal sparring match with another man. This left Dustin a spot to slip in and sit beside the farmer.
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“So, if you’re not fighting for slavery,” Dustin began after leaning back on his hands and stretching his feet out toward the edge of the fire, “then what are you fighting for?”
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Ben, probably startled by his arrival into the circle, looked to Dustin with blonde brows arched. “Same as what everyone else is really fightin’ for, I guess. States’ rights and all that. I don’t have a head for politics, but I don’t get why the people in Washington are makin’ a big fuss about the slaves. It maybe ain’t right, but it sure as hell ain’t why we fired on Fort Sumter.”
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“So you’re fighting for Georgia?”
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Again, he nodded, making the tips of his curls bounce with the movement. “It’s my home. Who wouldn’t fight for their home?”
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A feeling of envy rose up in Dustin. His boyhood country, Ireland, was nothing more than a distant memory. It was his Eden and he had been cast out from its gardens forever. If he could return home, he would. Though Dustin could lift a house off its foundation, he didn’t have the strength to go back to Glengarriff.
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Ben, however, could point to a specific spot on the map and claim it as his. His hometown, wherever that may be, was filled with memories and a family that waited for his safe return.
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(End of Excerpt)