Hunt at the Well of Eternity by Gabriel Hunt, James Reasoner Read Free Book Online

helped form the Fifth Georgia when the war began and had risen to command it by the time of the battle at Olustee in 1864.
    There was nothing in the brief account to explain the events of the past day. Gabriel felt a twinge of frustration.
    “Did Fargo contribute one of the accounts of the battle that are in this book?” he asked.
    Krakowski shook his head. “No, that wouldn’t have been possible.”
    “Why not? Was he killed in the fighting?” Gabriel glanced at the biographical sketch again and saw that it listed no date of death.
    “Oh, no, General Fargo survived the battle and the war itself. But then…he disappeared.”
    Gabriel frowned. “What do you mean?”
    “Most people think that the war was completely over once General Lee signed the surrender terms at Appomattox,” Krakowski said. “But that’s not actually the case. There were Confederate army forces spread out all over the South, and some of them refused to concede defeat. That’s what happened with General Fargo and some of his men. Most of the regiment went home once they got word of Lee’s surrender, but General Fargo wasn’t ready to give up. Instead of going back to Georgia, he and the other holdouts went west instead, across Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. The last anyone knows for sure, they were in Texas, heading south to the Rio Grande.”
    “They were going to Mexico,” Gabriel guessed.
    “Probably. A number of Confederate officers believed that if they fled to Mexico or even further, to South America, they could keep the dream of the Confederacy alive down there. General Fargo was one of that group.” Krakowski shrugged. “Most of them eventually gave up and came home, but not General Fargo. He was never heard from again.”
    If the man had ended up in Mexico or South America, that might at least be a tenuous link between the Fifth Georgia Cavalry and Mariella Montez, Gabriel thought. If she was from that area, her family could have wound up somehow with the general’s battle flag and passed it on down through the generations. Fargo might well have had that bottle of Old Pinebark whiskey with him, too, and the empty bottle could have become another family keepsake.
    This theory didn’t answer a hell of a lot—it didn’t explain why she’d thought Michael would be interested in these relics, or why anyone else would be willing to kill over them—but it was a start.
    “Would you happen to know anything about the Fifth Georgia’s battle flag?” he asked Krakowski.
    “Which one?”
    “They had more than one?”
    Krakowski nodded. “They had two. They had the standard regimental battle flag, the one I’m sure you’ve seen, the flag known as the Stars and Bars.” The man made a face, as if a bad taste had suddenly filled his mouth. “You know, the one that everyone hates because all the skinheads and white supremacist groups like it so much.”
    “Of course.”
    “They’ve got the Fifth Georgia’s regimental in a museum in Mexico City. That’s one of the reasons people are fairly sure General Fargo made it at least that far. We’ve been in contact with the museum to see if perhaps they might be willing to return it to us, but so far that arrangement hasn’t been worked out.”
    “Got it,” Gabriel said. “And the other flag?”
    “That’s one I’m pretty sure you haven’t seen,” Krakowski said, and Gabriel restrained himself from saying, Don’t be so sure . “That one was General Fargo’s personal standard. I’ve seen a drawing of it made during the war, but the actual flag itself has never been found.”
    “What did it look like?”
    “I wish I could draw it for you,” Krakowski said, “it was really quite impressive. But I’m no good at all with a pencil. It had a red background with crossed sabers in the corners, and a circular painting in the middle with a cavalryman on a rearing horse in the foreground. Very striking. It must have been something to see, flying at the front of the