Confederate Gold Ch. 03

Equally steeped in the culture of the South, in his own place in the order of things, and in a worship of Singleton that went beyond affection, Eaton didn't think any of this was untoward either—this despite the start of a hint in the back of his mind that changes were coming.

* * * *

"What is this place? We traveled on the wagon nearly two hours and came straight here. You knew where you were coming here, didn't you?"

Eaton was standing next to Captain Singleton while men were digging to place the ten leather cases they had hauled a good ten miles from the camouflaged train on a siding west of the town of Lynchburg. It was April 7th, the third day from their nighttime escape from Richmond. They were a day behind schedule, as the three trains had been set to meet in Danville on the 6th, but the third train had left Richmond several hours after the others.

Singleton stopped carving a symbol into a tree and looked through the trees and up to a low-lying brick villa in an octagon shape. "This here is Popular Forest, the retreat estate of Thomas Jefferson," Singleton replied. "And, yes, this is one of the set places where we were to hide the gold to be retrieved when the South needed it to rise again. A prominent leader in the KGC lives nearby, in Lynchburg."

"I understand this place as a recognized location—and what you said about the Hessian Hills above Charlottesville too," Eaton said. "But the first place—Goochland—I don't—"

"It seemed a sleepy small town near but not near enough to Richmond to have any import, didn't it?" Singleton asked, interrupting. "Looks can be deceiving. I told you of the Knights of the Gold Circle—the KGC. It has to center somewhere. Where better than a small, seemingly sleepy town near but not near enough to Richmond to seem to have any import? We have had contingency plans for some time for a resurgence, if our first fight with the Yanks didn't put them off. Goochland will probably always be a small town off the beaten path—for those who don't know what is sleeping and waiting there. If Lee doesn't defeat Grant here in Virginia—and there's every reason to believe he will, being the better soldier of the two—we will have the means to rise again—from the center at Goochland. Maybe not this year or the next. Maybe not in this century. But memories are long and the determination of the sons of the South runs deep."

A soldier came over to tell Singleton that the burial was complete and the site had been covered with pine branches. The captain turned, completed the carving on the tree, and took one last, long look at the Popular Forest house, dark and brooding, no doubt mourning the pillage of the land around it by the interlopers from the north.

"Come, Eaton," he said, putting his arm around the shoulder of the young black man. "Time to go back to the train and to sleep eventually." At this he gave Eaton a knowing look and the young slave shuddered in anticipation of what new and fully satisfying invasion of his body the virile young army officer would perform on him following their dinner. "Tomorrow we will join up with President Davis and the others in Danville, and our mission will be completed."

"What then?" Eaton asked.

"Why, on to Georgia, I assume, unless we receive word of Lee's defeat of Grant. Then we will remain in Danville for a few days and return, triumphant to Richmond, I suppose."

"And unearth the treasury again, as we go?"

"I suppose that depends on how assured the sovereignty of the South is. I wouldn't put it past Lincoln to have yet another army to unleash on us."

"And me, when you go to Georgia?"

"I'll take you with me. Unless, of course, like so many of the other darkies have done, you wish to evaporate into the night. I won't shoot you if you do. It is your decision. You have served me well. Do you wish to melt into the trees right here? Or closer to Lynchburg, when we return to the train? Or perhaps in the night, from the moving train as we near Danville? I wouldn't suggest waiting until Danville. I no longer will be in command when we get there. It won't be my choice how to respond to your deserting. Tell me, what is freedom to you and when do you want to grasp it?"

Eaton thought for a moment—not about what he felt but about what he would say. "Freedom is you—lying under you, with you deep inside me," he finally said. "I've never been to Georgia. I think it is time for me to see what Georgia looks like."

"Wise choice," Singleton said. "You darkies aren't made to stand on your own. As long as you serve me as you do—give me release as well as you do—I will protect you. It's wise of you to realize that you will always need a master and to be mastered."

"Yes, sah," Eaton murmured, lowering his eyes in submission, taking comfort in the memory of how closely the muscular captain embraced him, breathing heavily in his ear at the effort of moving as deeply inside Eaton's passage as possible, building up to fully possessing and seeding him. Eaton knew that he needed the master; but he also knew how much the master needed him. He didn't really think he wasn't made to stand on his own. He'd survived this far by doing what he needed to do to survive. He rather thought it was the white Southerners who weren't going to be able to endure well without their "darkies" doing the work they did. He's certainly do what he had to do to survive this—at least until he was safely someplace where men didn't own other men.

"You know you give me great pleasure," Singleton murmured, nuzzling Eaton's cheek with his. Eaton was about to speak, to express his love for the white officer, when Singleton added, "No man's passage fits me like a glove as yours does." Eaton just smiled and said nothing, realizing that the two of them were speaking on different levels.

As the others returned to the wagon, Singleton took Eaton into his arms and they kissed before joining the others. When they got back to the train, they found that yet more of the soldiers and slaves had departed—and taken leather cases of the Confederate treasury with them. Less than half of the assets of the Confederacy that had been placed under Singleton's charge remained in the train. Still, enough had been cached to seed the resurgence of the South that Singleton fervently believed would happen.

Eaton had very carefully kept the locations of what had been buried in his mind toward the possible day when someone other than the Confederacy could make use of it.

* * * *

Singleton was stroking to the rhythm of the clack-clacking of the engine's wheels and the mesmerizing sway of the carriage as the train picked up speed in the night, reaching out for Danville to get there before the break of dawn. The two men were locked in an embrace, Eaton pushed into the seat, his ankles on the top of the seat in front of him, as Singleton hunched over him, arms around Eaton's neck, lips plastered to Eaton's lips, and took long, deep thrusts up into Eaton's anal canal. The carriage had been cleared of all other men so that the couple need show no inhibitions in the visuals or sound of their fucking.

Two competing sensations were woven around the two groaning, grunting men. The sounds of the wheels and sway of the carriage were enough to dull the senses and send the men into a doze—which they undoubtedly believed would finally arrive—but Singleton was coming ever closer to an ejaculation, one that Eaton had already experienced, so the thrusting had become more frenetic and was beginning to double-time the rhythm of the wheels.

It was this more than anything else that made Eaton hone in on the application of the brakes of the engine in time to pull the captain, preoccupied by releasing his cum, down to the floor with him as the wooden wall behind the seat of the carriage shattered and the coal car came barreling over their heads, followed by the back half of the locomotive engine, which, miraculously surged up and over them rather than down on them.

The train teetered there for the longest second before turning on its side and sliding off the track and down an incline into a deep ravine.

Eaton, who had landed under Singleton, clutched the inert body of the captain as they slid across the aisle and under the seat on the opposite side of the carriage as it slid down the hill and came to a rest.

"Captain? Are you all right?" Eaton asked when he could catch his breath.

The captain obviously wasn't all right. He didn't respond. He lay on Eaton as a dead weight—a dead weight that, however, had protected the smaller man from blows from the collapsing seats around them.

"I smell fire, Captain. We need to get out of here," Eaton said, as he struggled up from under Singleton. The man had a gash in his head, but he was breathing. The wood of the carriage was alight with the flicker of flames, though, and the tender car had released coal into the carriage. The wooden railcar could go up in flames at any moment.

Finding strength he had no idea he had in reserve and climbing up sections of crushed seating, Eaton dragged the body of the captain straight up toward the windows on the opposite side of the carriage. With his last ounce of strength, after resting for a few seconds from the effort of pushing Singleton's body out of the window and onto the side of the carriage that now was its roof, Eaton pulled himself up beside Singleton. He raised his face to the sky and nearly let out a cry of Hallelujah upon the discovery that it had started to rain hard.

* * * *

Singleton came to shortly after Eaton had cleaned and bandaged his head wound. The surviving soldiers from the other two carriages—those who were able to move—had already started to bring order to the chaos. There had been remarkably few fatalities. Three of the horses had even survived the slide undamaged. One of the others had suffered a fatal broken neck, though, and another one had broken legs and had to be shot. One of the soldiers had worked his way back up to the tracks to discover that a barrier of logs had been placed across the line just around a bend. Looking down into the ravine, though, all he could see of the five rail cars and engine was the flickering of fire that the rain had not yet put out. Most of the side of the ravine the train had slid down was shale rock. There was no obvious snapping of large trees.

The rain lasted only long enough to aid the survivors in stamping out any evidence of fire.

"We need to spend the rest of the hours of darkness covering the train with foliage so it can't be seen from above," Singleton said, regaining command quickly. Eaton sat off to the side, shivering and wondering how he had managed to pull both of them from the train. In passing, the captain whispered to him, "I know what you did to save me," but he moved on then, all business.

The men groaned at the command and one even said, "The men who died. Shouldn't we—?"

"We all are likely to die from Yankee sharpshooter fire come daylight if we don't hide that we've gone over the side," Singleton retorted. "We can care for the dead tomorrow. Otis, you and Earl go see what you can do to reconstruct the barrier they set up so it isn't obvious something hit it. You, there, get up there and rake the side of the ravine so it's not so evident the train went over the side. The rest of you, cut branches . . . cover the side of the train."

"What about me?" Eaton asked.

"Tend to the horses. Quiet them down and feed and water them. Take care of the living first. And then see to the bodies. Make sure they're all out of the train and laid out at the side. Find something to cover them until we can get them buried tomorrow."

If any Union troops came by that day or the next five days while those at the train hid by day and buried their dead and a cache of the treasure by night, they hadn't seen anything amiss and raised the alarm. On Monday, April 10th, Singleton sent his two most trusted soldiers, Lyle and John, to Danville on two of the horses, the men's clothes changed for those of a couple of slaves who had died in the train wreck so that they wouldn't be recognized as Confederate soldiers if any Union forces were lurking about. They were to make contact with President Davis' government if it was still in Danville and request wagons to take away the rest of the treasury assets in the wrecked train.

Singleton had almost given up hope that they were going to return and was saddling the third horse to attempt the contact with Danville himself, when the two men returned.

"No sign of Confederate forces in Danville," one reported. "President Davis and the cabinet went farther south on the two other trains on the 6th, we're told. The town is defenseless and expecting Union troops to occupy it at any moment."

"Union troops occupy it? Lee's forces are—" Singleton responded.

"Defeated," the second soldier said, in a tremulous voice. "Surrendered to Grant at Appomattox three days ago."

Singleton stood there, stunned. His shoulders fell and he stumbled, leaning into Eaton, who helped him remain standing.

"Captain?" the first soldier said.

"What do we do now, Captain?" the second one chimed in.

Singleton hesitated, but only for a moment. He shook his head and said, "We need two wagons for what is left of the freight. Then we head out."

"South for Georgia to meet up with Davis?" one of the soldiers asked.

"No, Danville at first, among friends, to see if we are called to Georgia. If not, then across the Dan River and then east, to Henderson, to Warrenton."

"Warrenton?" one of the soldiers asked.

"Warrenton. My sister's plantation. What we need now more than anything else is refuge. I'll only take two . . . and Eaton, of course. And two wagons. If it's you two, that's fine with me. You are my most trusted men. If not, I'll take other volunteers. The rest need to tend to themselves now—to try to get to safety, if any there be. Our war as soldiers is over unless President Davis can find strength to rise again. Our trials are just beginning."