Ride Proud, Rebel! Page 13

  13

  _Disaster_

  Simmy's animallike howling filled the room. Jas', his hand bleedingafresh, sopping through the bandage his captors had twisted about thewound, sprawled forward, clawing with those reddened fingers for theSpencer. While Hatch, eyes and upper portions of his hair-matted cheeksbulging over the gag, kicked out, striving to come at Drew with thefrenzy of a man making a last desperate play.

  The brand Jas' had hurled was smoldering on Boyd's blankets. Drew sentit flying with the toe of his boot and made a quick movement to stampout a small spurt of flame. Then he kicked it again, spinning theSpencer back against the wall.

  Simmy's cry died to a whimper. A wide stain spread over his nondescriptcoat just above the belt, and Drew knew that his first shot had foundthat target. But he was in charge of the situation once again. BothHatch and Jas' had subsided, the one eyeing the threat of Drew's weapon,the other again nursing his hand, his face drawn into a grin of agony.

  The smell of burning cloth was a sour stench. Drew moved to beat out anew blaze in the bedcovers. He coughed in acrid smoke and felt thesmart of the burn along his neck and jaw where the brand had hit him.Simmy rolled on the floor, bent double.

  "Drew!" Boyd was struggling free of his blankets, up on one elbow,staring about him as one who had wakened into a nightmare rather thanhaving come out of such a dream.

  "It's all right...."

  But was it? Hatch had subsided. Jas' was quiet; there was nothing tofear from Simmy. Only that same sense which was part of any scout'sequipment nagged at Drew, warning him that the crisis was not over.

  He went down on one knee beside Simmy, endeavoring to roll him over toexamine his wound. The guerrilla's mouth was slackly open, his small,predator's eyes were oddly bewildered, as if he could not comprehendwhat had happened to him or why. As Drew fumbled with his clothing tolay bare the wound, Simmy twisted, his legs pulling up a little. Thenhis head rolled, and Drew sat back on his heels. There was no longer anyneed for aid.

  Boyd still rested on his elbow, listening. He could hear Hatch's thickbreathing and Jas's, a crack of charred wood breaking on the hearth, aslashing against the broken window ... the storm had begun again. Onlythose were not the sounds they were listening for.

  Drew visited in turn each of the flimsy barricades he had erected afterKirby left. He had no way of telling time. How long had it been sincethe Texan left? It could not be too far from morning now, yet the skyoutside the windows was still as black as night.

  "Drew!" Boyd pulled his other hand free, pointing to the ceiling overtheir heads.

  The loft! And the route Weatherby had made use of when he had gone upthat ladder, dropped out of a window above, and returned with hisprisoner through the front door. But if the Cherokee had come back tothe cabin, surely the disturbance in the room below would have broughthim down. Unless he was otherwise occupied.... How? And by whom?

  Drew went to the foot of the ladder, not looking up to show hissuspicion, but only to listen. He was certain he heard a scraping sound.Was it someone making his way through a small window? No one who hadbeen weeks in Weatherby's company could believe that the Indian wouldbetray his movements in that manner.

  Drew left the ladder, collected the Spencer, and joined Boyd. The restof the weapons lay at hand, and Drew sorted them out swiftly, pilingthem between Boyd and his own post. From here, as he had earlierplanned, they had both doors, two windows, and the ladder to the loftunder surveillance. The other window was over the level of their heads.As long as they kept below its sill, anyone shooting through it couldnot touch them.

  Boyd hitched his shoulders higher against the wall. He was stillflushed, his eyes too bright, but he was certainly more himself than hehad been any time since they had brought him here. Now he reached forone of the Colts, resting it on his body at chest level.

  "Who are they?" he whispered, glancing at the prisoners.

  "Guerrillas," Drew replied.

  "More company comin'?"

  "Might be. Anse went for the boys."

  But Boyd's chin lifted an inch or two, a slight gesture to indicate theceiling again. He brought his other hand up, and using both, cocked theColt, that click carrying with almost a shot's sharp twang through theroom.

  Jas' was again staring at Drew, his lips a silent snarl. But the scoutbelieved that as long as he was alert, weapons in hand, he had nothingmore to fear from his prisoners. They had made their reckless gamble andhad lost.

  The opening at the top of the ladder was a square of dark, hardlytouched by the flickering light of the dying fire.

  "You theah...." The barking hail came from without, strident, startling."We have you surrounded."

  It was the voice of an educated man with the regional softening ofvowels. Simmy's cap'n? What then had happened to Weatherby? Boyd bracedthe barrel of his Colt on a bent knee, its sights centered on the frontdoor. But Drew still watched the loft opening.

  "Last chance ... come out with your hands up!" The voice was very closenow. And the unknown apparently knew at least part of the situation inthe cabin. Which meant either very clever scouting, or that they hadtaken Weatherby. But Drew, knowing the habits of the guerrillas, darednot follow that last thought far. He tried to locate the man outside; hewas in front all right, but surely not directly in line with the door.

  "Cap'n!" Jas' called, his gaze daring Drew to shoot. "There's only twoof 'em, and one's sick."

  There was a flicker of movement in the trap opening. Drew fired, to beanswered by a yelp of pain and surprise. Perhaps he had not entirelyremoved one of the attackers from the effective list, but the fellowwould be more cautious from now on.

  There was only a short second between his shot and an answeringfusillade from outside. The panes in the other windows shattered andHatch, gurgling incoherently behind his gag, kicked to roll himselfbehind the flimsy protection of the bedstead.

  "You almost got one of your own men then!" Drew called. Feverishly hetried to think of a way to play for time. Weatherby might be dead, butKirby could have reached the headquarters camp and already be well onhis way back with reinforcements.

  Hatch's gurgling was louder. And now Jas' had transferred his attentionto the broken windows and what might be beyond them. There was acreaking above. Drew tried to deduce from those sounds whether one manor two moved overhead. The fire was dying fast. Should he try to urge itinto new life with the last of the wood, or would the dark be more tohis benefit?

  Shots again, but not crashing through the windows now; these wereoutside. A man screamed shrilly. Then a horse cried in pain. Drew heardthe pounding of hoofs, and in the loft a quick shuffling. More shots....

  Boyd laughed hysterically, and then coughed, until he bent over the Colthe still grasped, gasping. Drew steadied him against his shoulder,trying to picture for himself what was happening outside. It soundedvery much as if Kirby's relief force had arrived and that the "cap'n"and his gang were in retreat.

  "Drew! Everythin' all right?" There was no mistaking Kirby's voice.

  He had brought not only four other scouts from the camp, but alsoLieutenant Traggart and the doctor. And as the major portion of thatrelief force crowded into the room Drew leaned back against the wall,very glad to let other authority take over.

  "Guerrilla scum," was the lieutenant's verdict on their prisoners. "Theysay they're Union ... or ours, whichever works best at the time. There'sanother one dead out there, and he's wearing one of _our_ cavalryjackets!"

  "Officer's?" Drew wondered if they had picked off the "cap'n."

  "No, you thinkin' he was this renegade officer Kirby was talkin' about?I don't think this is the one. He's a pretty nasty-lookin' specimen,though. Four of 'em at least got away. We'll take these two into campand see what they can tell us. The General will be interested. I'd saythis one's a Yankee deserter." He studied Jas'.

  The young man in the blue jacket spat, and one of the scouts hooked hisfingers in the other's collar, jerking him roughly to his feet.

  "
Mount and start back with them!" Traggart ordered. "How's the boy,suh?"

  Boyd had wilted back into his blankets when the stimulation of the fightwas gone. He was still conscious, but his coughing shook his whole body.

  "Lung fever, unless he gets the right care." The surgeon was going abouthis business with dispatch. "I hate to move him, but there's no sense inremaining here as a target for more of this trash." He glanced at Jas'and Hatch impersonally. "Lucky we brought the wagon. Tell Henderson tobring it up. We'll take him to the Letterworth house for now--"

  Reeling a little when he tried to walk, Drew found himself sharing theaccommodation of the wagon with Boyd, a canvas slung across them to keepoff the gusts of rain. He fell asleep as they bumped along, unable tofight off exhaustion any longer.

  Twenty-four hours later he was back on duty with the advance. Boyd washoused in such comfort as any could hope to find, and the cavalry was onthe move. Buford's men were to picket along the Cumberland River. Therewas a new feel to the army. Drew sensed it as he rode with the smallheadquarters detachment. Empty saddles, too many of them, and thegrowing belief--evidenced in mutters passed from man to man--that theywere engaged in a nearly hopeless bid.

  Franklin, which for Drew had been a wild gallop across some fields, astrip of cloth seized from the enemy to set beneath a guidon of theirown, had been a major disaster for the Army of the Tennessee. Forrest'senergy and drive kept the cavalry a sharp-edged weapon, still to be usedwith telling effect. But they all sensed the clouds gathering over theirheads, not those laden with the eternal chill rain, but ones whichcarried with them a coming night.

  It was so cold that men had to use both hands to cock their revolvers.And Drew saw Croff swing from the saddle, draw his belt knife to cut thehoof from a dead horse. The Cherokee glanced up as he looped his grislytrophy to his saddle horn.

  "Need the shoe," he explained briefly. "Runner has one worn prettythin." He patted the drooping neck of his mount.

  Hannibal walked around the dead horse carefully. The mule was only askeleton copy of the sturdy, well-cared-for animal Drew had ridden outof Cadiz. But he would keep going until he dropped, and his rider knewit.

  "Any trace of Weatherby?" Drew asked. The disappearance of the otherCherokee scout at the cabin battle had continued as a mystery for theirown small company. None of those who had known him could credit theIndian being taken unawares by the guerrilla force. He had vanishedsomewhere in the dark of the night, and none of their searching a daylater, interrupted by orders to move, had turned up a clue.

  "Not yet," Croff answered. "He may have made too wide a circle and runinto a Yankee picket. Someday, perhaps, we shall know. Look there!"

  From their screen of cover they watched a blue cavalry patrol trot alonga lane.

  "Headin' for th' home corral, an' lookin' twice over each shoulder whilethey do it," commented Kirby. "Was we to let out a yell now, they'd dragit so fast they'd dig their hoofs in clear down to the stirrupleathers."

  Drew shook his head. "Those are General Wilson's men ... can't be surewith them that they wouldn't come poundin' up, sabers out, tryin' totake a prisoner or two. Anyway, we don't stir them up, that's orders."

  Kirby sighed. "Too bad. Cold as it is, a little fightin' would warm anhombre up some. You know, for sure, the only way we're gonna git outtathis heah war is to fight our way out."

  Croff reined his patient mount around. "The big fight is comin'--"

  "Nashville?" Drew asked, aware of a somber shadow closing in on themall.

  The Cherokee shrugged. "Nashville? Maybe. The signs are not good."

  "It's when the signs ain't good," Kirby observed, "that fellas lean ontheir hardware twice as hard. Heard tell of gunfighters knotchin' theirirons for each man they take in a shootout. Me, I'm kinda workin' thesame idea for battles. An' I have me a pretty good tally--Shiloh,Lebanon, Chickamauga, Cynthiana twice, Harrisburg, an' a mixed herd o'little ones. Gittin' pretty long, that line o' knotches." His voicetrailed away as he watched the disappearing Yankee cavalrymen, butsomehow Drew thought he was seeing either more or less than blue-coatedmen riding under a sullen December sky.

  Yes, a long tally of battles, and all those small fights in betweenwhich sometimes a man could remember better than the big ones, remembertoo often and too well.

  "The wagons pulled out of the Letterworth place this mornin'," Drewsaid. "They were gone when I stopped by at noon--"

  "Goin' south? Any news of the kid?"

  "They took him along." There was a faint ray of comfort in the thoughtthat Boyd had been judged well enough to be moved with the rest of thesick and wounded up from the temporary hospitals and shelters in theneighborhood. The seriously ill certainly could not be moved. But hewished he could have seen the boy; there was no telling when and wherethey would meet again.

  "Well," Kirby pointed out, "if the doc took him, it means they thoughthe was able to make it. He's young an' tough. Bet he'll be back in linesoon."

  "They'll travel slow," Croff added. "Drivin' hogs and cattle and allthose wagons, they ain't goin' to push."

  Forrest, along with his prisoners, wagons, sick and wounded, thebarefoot, and dismounted men, was driving four-footed supplies south onhis way to the Tennessee River, and he was not likely to risk orrelinquish any of the spoil. Buford's Kentuckians lay in wait along theCumberland, hoping perhaps to echo, if only faintly, their earliersuccesses against the gunboats and supply transports. And at Nashville abattle was shaping....

  Drew had ridden in to report when the first of the new retreat orderscame. General Buford, who had invited Drew up to the fire, sat listeningas the scout held his stiff hands to the blaze and listed the sum totalof the day's comings and goings as far as Yankee patrols were concerned.

  "No sign of that missin' scout?" the General asked when Drew's accountwas finished. "Pour yourself a cup of that, boy! It ain't coffee. Infact, I don't inquire too deeply into what Lish does bring me to drinknowadays. But it's kind of comfortin' to have something warm under yourbelt in this weather. Blame-coldest, wettest winter I ever did see! Nosign of Weatherby?" he repeated as Drew sipped from the tin cup hissuperior had pushed into his hands, not only grateful for the warmthspreading through his insides, but also for the heat of the container hecupped between his palms.

  "No, suh, no sign at all."

  "Hmm. That's strange." The General edged his solid bulk forward on hisstool, which creaked as his weight shifted. He poured himself a cup ofthe same brew he had urged upon the scout. "Those were guerrillas rightenough. Scum from both sides, just out like buzzards to pick up whatthey could. Only they were too far into our lines ... and bolder thanmost. Doesn't fit somehow."

  "Might be cover for Union scouts after all, suh?"

  Buford shrugged. "Not very likely. If Weatherby does report in, send himto me! Oh, by the way, Rennie, you're promoted to sergeant to takeWilkins' place." The General sat gazing into the cup he held, but it wasplain his thoughts were far from the current substitute for coffee.

  "Thank you, suh."

  Buford glanced up. "Thank--? Oh, the sergeant business. LieutenantTraggart put you in for the first openin' some time ago. You had yourtrainin' with Morgan, and you learned well. John Morgan ... hard tothink of him dead now. And Pat Cleburne ... and all the rest. We have toclose ranks and do double duty for all of them." Again he was speakinghis thoughts, Drew was sure. "Well, Sergeant Rennie, we will, we will!"

  The courier who stumbled into the room, lurched against the rude woodentable, almost rebounding from it to fall. He was nearly out on his feet,feet where broken boots were mired within inches of their tops. Drew putdown his cup and jumped up to steady the man.

  "General Forrest's compliments, suh. Will you bring up the division tojoin General Chalmers? The battle's on at Nashville, and it may benecessary to form a rear guard for a retreat--" He got the message outmechanically in a croak.

  So they went to start the first move in a vast job of salvage. Buford'smen marched fast to come between a broken
army and the full force ofenemy pursuit. For Franklin, having bled the Army of the Tennessee ofits strength, was only the beginning of chaos. Nashville crushed theremains, and the remnants fled, a crippled despairing flight of thedefeated. The big gamble was totally lost.

  It was Forrest who commanded that hastily formed rear guard. Its stiffspine was his cavalry, with the addition of two brigades ofinfantry--Alabama and Georgia troops. Snapping at them was Unioncavalry in full force. Not snapping at their heels, for it was fang tofang; the Confederates only gave ground fighting. Day darkened on thefield and they were in hand-to-hand assault. A man marked musket orcarbine flash to sight on the enemy.

  And as time became a nightmare of almost continuous battle, the rainlashed at the struggling men with a whip of icy water. Fighters crouchedbehind rail fences while the Union cavalry charged across black fields,hoofs drumming on the ground, and the sputtering fire of carbines makingan uneven kind of lightning along the improvised wood barricades. Blacktree trunks gleamed greasily in the wet; and here and there, out ofdefiance, the war whoop of the Yell cut eerily through the melee.

  After evacuating Columbia, they closed ranks and stiffened again,knowing that they must be the wall between the disorganized rabble ofthe army and the thrust of the Yankee forces coming confidently tofinish them off. Cavalry, volunteers from the infantry, fragments ofcommands all, but still with enough cohesion behind a commander theytrusted to fall back in fighting order ... and fighting--even tocountercharge when the need and the occasion offered.

  Drew, Kirby, Croff, and Webb circled around a wagon, bringing the driverto a halt, his mule team standing with drooping heads, blowing andpuffing so that their ribs showed as bony bars through their wet hides.

  "Git!" The driver raised his whip as a weapon of offense until he sawwhere Croff's carbine was aimed. A little pale, he sank back on theseat. A bush of whiskers hid most of his dirty face, and there wassomething about him which reminded Drew of the guerrilla Simmy.

  "Watta yuh want?" he whined.

  "Orders," Drew told him shortly. "Pull over there and dump your load!"

  "Whose orders?" The driver bristled, still fingering his whip.

  "General Forrest's. Now get to it!" Drew put snap in that. "All right,boys," he called to the patiently waiting line of infantrymen, "here'sanother one ready to carry you as soon as you empty it."

  The ragged half company fanned forward, bearing down upon the wagon asif it were a Yankee stronghold. They swarmed over and in it, pitchingthe contents out on the ground in spite of the futile protests of thedriver.

  "Lordy! Lordy!" One of the willing unloaders paused, his arms about abox. He was staring into its interior, bemused. "Lookit what's heah! Iain't seen such a lovely, lovely sight since I had me a chance on theriver at that blue-belly supply ship!"

  He placed the box with exaggerated care on the ground and dived into it,coming up with a can in each hand. "Boys, we has us a treasure; we sureenough has!" He was immediately the core of a group eager to share inhis find. The driver half raised his whip. Kirby brought his horsecloser to the wagon, caught at the lash, pulling the stock out of theother's hands with a quick jerk.

  "Reckon the boys must have lighted on your own private cache, eh, fella?Don't hump your tail none 'bout it. They ain't in no mood to listen toany palaver on the subject. Better ride it out peaceablelike."

  "Much obliged, Sarge." The original finder of the treasure trove brokefrom the circle and handed Drew some crackers. "The boys want you shouldhave a taste, too."

  Drew laughed and began sharing the windfall with the scouts.

  "Better break it up, soldiers. The General wants us on the move."

  They were already busy throwing the last articles out of the wagon,settling in. Barefoot, cold, hungry, until the last few minutes, theywere Forrest's indomitable rear guard, riding between brisk spats withthe enemy.

  Kirby tested the edge of a cracker between his teeth as they trotted onin search for another wagon to turn over to the infantry.

  "This heah army is bound to git mounted, one way or the other," hecommented. "Hope we have some more luck like that in the next wagon,too."