Zina Abbott - Abilene Gamble (Gamble On Judgment 01)

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Abilene Gamble

Gamble on Judgment

Book 1

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By Zina Abbott

Copyright 2022 Robyn Echols writing as Zina Abbott

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

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Dedication

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This book is dedicated to my husband, Dinnie Echols, who educated me regarding post-traumatic stress disorder, and how he worked to overcome his.

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Acknowledgements

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I greatly appreciate Linda Carroll-Bradd of Lustre Editing for copy editing this book to help it be as error-free as possible. Any errors you find are those of the author. I appreciate receiving a private message regarding any grammatical, punctuation or spelling errors so that I might correct them. My contact information is at the end of the book.

I express my gratitude to the late Rosemary Smith who performed the initial proofreading on this book, as well as Janet Hendricks, who beta-read this book in 2018.

I also express my appreciation to my current advance and beta readers for their assistance and insight.

Cover Robyn Echols, all rights reserved

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Disclaimer

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Publishers Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the authors imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental and unintended.

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Prologue

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Memphis, Tennessee April 1865

H arry struggled to escape the nightmare that bound him to the scene of horror in his minds eye. Because of night terrors, he resisted the sleep he needed to heal. Unfortunately, his escape to consciousness only led to being immersed in pain.

His days and nights for the past several weeks had been a continuous cycle of sleep, interrupted by his dreams. Those were followed by a wakefulness dominated by the burning agony on the left side of his face and body down to just above his knee. That he endured until, not often enough for his liking, a physician administered morphineif he had itor laudanum, to be followed by the blessed oblivion of nothingness. Then the nightmares returned.

There was no rhythm or order to when each dream invaded the peaceful darkness of his sleep, only to take over and overwhelm him until, groaning and thrashing in his bed, just to escape it, he reached for consciousness and the pain that came with it. There were dreams of battle, most of them only skirmishes. Still, he had seen men wounded and killed, some in a gut-wrenching, destructive manner. Prior to his enlistment, it would have been impossible for his imagination to have pictured such terrible images.

Dreams of the prison camp came, where mens bodies festered from poorly treated wounds. Men suffered from dysentery, scurvy, and all manner of diseases associated with too many people crowded into too small of an area with inadequate food and unsanitary drinking water. Men had wasted away before his eyes. Many men died. Even though Harry had only been a prisoner for six months, he had lost more weight than he thought was possible and still live.

Harry gradually grew aware of the weight of somebodys hand on his shoulderhis good shoulder, thankfullynot the shoulder that had been dislocated and cracked by something heavy. Not the shoulder where his coat and shirt had been burned away and the flesh scorched. When, in his few brief moments of clarity, he mulled over what had struck him, he guessed it to have been a piece of metal or dense wood. Whatever it was, it smashed into him immediately following an explosion. An explosion of what, he could not recall.

Harry. Harry, can you hear me?

Harry knew without looking to whom the tired, pleading voice belonged, even though it had been over two years since he had heard Edward Bradford, Sr. speak.

Its your father, Harry. I finally found you. There are so many here in such a bad state. I hear many more men, who at first survived the explosion, have since died. I thank God you are still with us. I cant believe you were so close to coming home, only to have this happen.

Harry hazily recalled being released from the Cahaba Prison in Alabama. Although General Robert E. Lee had not officially surrendered until April ninth, and pockets of Southern resistance continued to fight the rest of the month, negotiations to parole prisoners of war began in March. Particularly in the South, there was not enough food for the Confederacy to feed its own soldiers. Harry knew firsthand that they did not have enough for even minimal rations for Union prisoners. And so, in the belief the war would soon be over, an agreement had been reached. The prisoners held in Confederate prisons were released to the Union Army on the condition that they be paroled and sent home to their native states to fight no more. As if we could have fought in our emaciated and diseased condition .

The day of release had been one of excitement for Harry and the other surviving prisoners. Although food was also scarce and down to the basics for the Union Army, the men had been fed more plentifully than they had experienced since being captured. All ate as much as their shrunken stomachs allowed. Like Harry, they fought the sick feeling that came from eating too much too soon while their bodies, in their innate desires to be restored to their former healthy weights, craved more.

The repatriated prisoners hailing from the Great Lakes region had finally made their way to Vicksburg, Mississippi. There, they were to wait to board a steamboat that would take them up the Mississippi River, then the Ohio River, to home. Harry had quickly learned most of the paroled prisoners were from Ohio. Like him, a goodly number were also from Indiana.

Along with other steamboats, the Army had contracted with the S.S. Sultana to transport the men. At the prospect of returning to their families, spirits were high among the parolees. The officers in charge told them that the soldiers mustering-out papers would be completed once everyone was on board. Most eagerly climbed onto the boat.

Although he recalled feeling reluctant about being ordered by officers anxious to be released from the responsibility of caring for the paroled soldiers aboard the steamboat, Harry now could not remember what happened after the ship began steaming up the river.

Drink some water, Harry. I worry about you getting dehydrated. Let me lift your shoulders a little.

In response to his fathers admonishment, Harry lifted his head and eased his mouth open a crack, only to experience an intense stab of pain along his left jaw.

I know it hurts, Harry, but you have to try. Ill spoon it, if its easier. And try not to move that left shoulder. They say it was dislocated, and they put it back in place. However, I suspect the upper part of the bone has been cracked, too. Something in there tore. Im not sure yet how were going to bind your arm to your body so it wont flop around when we get you up and walking. You have enough burn blisters on your side that it wont be pleasant.

His shoulder already did not feel pleasant, and that was with his arm resting at his side without touching his chest. Harry managed to open his mouth wide enough to sip from the tin cup his father held to his lips.

While you were deep under the morphine, I worked a little on that big gash along your jawbone. You had a few spots that were getting putrid, so I cleaned out the infection. I tried to suture it so it will heal more evenly.

Harry half-listened to his father. A part of his consciousness recognized Edwards voice revealed his unsettled feelings over discovering the extent of Harrys injuries. Not as unsettled as I am, and I cannot even see myself.