Ride Proud-Rebel Page 13

  Then they were rounding up their blue-coated prisoners and Drew, the pole of the captured guidon braced in the crook of his elbow as he reloaded his revolver, realized that the shadows were thickening, that the day was almost gone.

  "Rennie!" Still holding the guidon, Drew obeyed the beckoning hand of one of the General's aides. He put Hannibal to a rocking gallop to come up with the officer.

  "Withdrawin'—behind the river. Pass the word to gather in!"

  Drew cantered back to wave in Kirby, Boyd, and the others who had made that charge with him. It was retreat again, but they did not know then that Franklin had cost them Hood's big gamble. Forty-five hundred men swept out of the gray forces—killed, wounded, missing, prisoners. Five irreplaceable generals were dead; six more, wounded or captured. The Army of the Tennessee was slashed, badly torn ... but it was not yet destroyed.

  That night the cavalry was on the march, driven by Forrest's tireless energy. They hit skirmishers at a garrisoned crossroads, using Morton's field batteries to cut them a free path. And through the bitter days of early December they continued to show their teeth to some purpose.

  Blockhouses along the railroads and along the Cumberland were taken, with Murfreesboro their goal. Life was a constant alert, a plugging away of weary men, worn-out horses, bogged-down wagons, relieved now and then from the morass of exhaustion by sharp spurts of fighting, the satisfaction of rounding up a Yankee patrol or blockhouse squad, the taking of some supply train and finding in its wagons enough to give them all mouthfuls of food.

  Murfreesboro was strongly garrisoned by the enemy, too strong to be stormed. But on the morning of the seventh a Yankee detachment came out of that fort and Forrest's men deployed to entice them farther afield. Buford's command was lying in wait—let the blue bellies get far enough from the town and they could cut in between, perhaps even overrun the remaining garrison and accomplish what Forrest himself had believed impossible, the taking of Murfreesboro.

  They made part of that ... fought their way into the town. Drew pounded along in a compact squad led by Wilkins. He saw the sergeant sway in the saddle, dropping reins, his face a clay-gray which Drew recognized of old. Snatching at the now trailing rein, Drew jerked the other's mount out of the main push.

  The sergeant's head turned slowly; his mouth looked almost square as he fought to say something. Then he slumped, tumbling from the saddle into the embrace of an ornamental bush as his horse clattered along the sidewalk. Drew knew he was already dead.

  Buford's men went into Murfreesboro right enough, well into its heart. But they could not hold the town. Only that thrust was deep and well timed; it saved the whole command. For, though they did not know it yet, on the pike the infantry had broken. For the first time Forrest had seen men under his orders run from the enemy in panic-stricken terror. Only the cavalry had saved them from a wholesale rout.

  Drew trudged over the stubble of a field, leading Hannibal and Wilkins' mount. There had been no way of bringing the sergeant's body out of town, and Drew had reported the death to Lieutenant Traggart, who officered the scouts. He felt numb as he headed for the spark of fire which marked their temporary camp, numb not only with cold and hunger, but with all the days of cold, hunger, fighting, and marching which lay behind. It seemed to him that this war had gone on forever, and he found it very hard to remember when he had slept soundly enough not to arouse to a quick call, when he had dared to ride across a field or down a road without watching every bit of cover, every point on the landscape which could mask an enemy position or serve the same purpose for the command behind him.

  As he came up to the fire he thought that even the flames looked cold—stunted somehow—not because there had not been enough wood to feed them, but because the fire itself was old and tired. Blinking at the flames, he stood still, unaware of the fact that he was swaying on feet planted a little apart. He could not move, not of his own volition.

  Someone coughed in the shadow fringe beyond the light of those tired flames. It was a short hard cough, the kind which hurt Drew's ears as much as its tearing must have hurt the throat which harbored it. He turned his head a fraction to see the bundle of blankets housing the cougher. Then the reins of mule and horse were twisted from his stiff fingers, and Kirby's drawl broke through the coughing.

  "You, Larange, take 'em back to the picket line, will you?"

  The Texan's hands closed about Drew's upper arms just below the arch of his shoulders, steered him on, and then pressed him down into the limited range of the fire's heat. From somewhere a tin plate materialized, and was in Drew's hold. He regarded its contents with eyes which had trouble focusing.

  A thick liquid curled stickily back and forth across the surface of the plate as he strove to hold it level with trembling hands. Into the middle of that lake Kirby dropped white squares of Yankee crackers, and the pungent smell of molasses reached Drew's nostrils, making his mouth water.

  Snatching at the crackers, he crammed his mouth with a dripping square coated with molasses. As he began to chew he knew that nothing before that moment had ever tasted so good, been so much an answer to all the disasters of the day. The world shrank; it was now the size of a battered tin plate smeared with molasses and the crumbs of stale crackers.

  Drew downed the mass avidly. Kirby was beside him again, a steaming tin cup ready.

  "This ain't nothin' but hotted water. But maybe it can make you think you're drinkin' somethin' more interestin'."

  With the tin cup in his hands, Drew discovered he could pay better attention to his surroundings. He glanced around the small circle of men who messed together. There was Larange, coming back from the horse lines, Webb, the Tennesseean from the mountains, Croff and Weatherby, Cherokees of the Indian Nations, and Kirby, of course. But—Drew was searching beyond the Texan for the other who should be there.

  Absently he sipped the hot water, almost afraid to ask a question. Then, just because of his inner fears, he forced out the words: "Where's Boyd?"

  When Kirby did not answer, Drew's head lifted. He put down his cup and caught the Texan's arm.

  "He made it out of town; I know that. But where is he?"

  "Ovah theah." Kirby nodded at the blanket-wrapped figure in the shadows. "Seems like he ain't feelin' too well...."

  Drew wasted no time in getting to his feet. On his hands and knees, he scrambled across the space separating him from the roll of blankets. His questing hand smoothed across a ragged bullet tear in the top one, recognizing it to be Kirby's by that mark. The pale oval of Boyd's face turned toward him.

  "What's the matter, boy?"

  Drew could hear the other's harsh, fast breathing just as he had when they had found the injured boy at Harrisburg. Drew's fingers touched a burning-hot cheek.

  "Got ... me ... sniffles." Boyd's mumble ended in another bout of those sharp coughs. "'Member—sniffles? Hot soup an' bricks in bed, an' onion cloth for the throat...." He repeated all the Oak Hill remedies for a severe cold.

  Bricks to warm the bed, hot soup of Mam Gusta's expert concocting, a thick onion poultice to ease the pain in throat and chest and draw out inflammation: every one of those were as far beyond reach now as Oak Hill itself! For a moment Drew was gripped with a panic born of utter frustration.

  "Shelly? You there, Shelly?" Boyd's hoarse voice came from the dark. "I'm sure thirsty, Shelly!"

  Drew turned his head. Kirby had been behind him, but now the Texan was back to the fire, ladling more hot water out of the pot. When he returned, Weatherby was with him. Drew slipped his arm under that restlessly turning head to support the boy while the Texan held the tin cup to Boyd's lips. They got a few mouthfuls into him before he turned his head away with a ghost of some of his old petulance.

  "I'm hungry, Shelly. Tell Mam Gusta...."

  Weatherby squatted down on the other side of Boyd's limp body and put his hand to the boy's forehead.

  "Fever."

  "Yes." Drew knew that much.

  "There's a farmho
use two miles that way." Weatherby nodded to the south. "Maybe nobody there, but it will be cover—"

  "You can find it?" Drew demanded.

  The Cherokee scout answered quickly. "Yes. You tell the lieutenant, and we'll go there."

  Kirby's hand rested on Drew's shoulder for a moment. "I'll track down Traggart. You and Weatherby here get the kid into that cover as quick as you can. This ain't no weather for an hombre with a cough to be out sackin' in the bush."

  Kirby was back again before they had rigged a blanket stretcher between two horses.

  "The lieutenant says to stay with th' kid till mornin'. He'll send the doc along as soon as he can find him. Trouble is, we may have to ride on tomorrow...."

  But Drew put that worry out of his mind. No use thinking about tomorrow; the present moment was the most important. With Weatherby as their guide, they started off at a walk, heading into the night across ice-rimmed fields while the rising wind brought frost to bite in the air they pulled into their lungs.

  There was no light showing in the black bulk of the house to which Weatherby steered them. It was small, hardly better than a cabin, but the door swung open as Kirby knocked on it; and they could smell the cold, stale odor of a deserted and none-too-clean dwelling. But it was shelter, and exploring in the dark, Kirby announced that there was firewood piled beside the hearth.

  By the light of the blaze Weatherby brought alive they found an old bedstead backed against the wall, a tangle of filthy quilts cascading from it. One look at them assured Drew that Boyd would be far better left in his blankets on the floor itself.

  The Cherokee scout prowled the room, looking into the rickety wall cupboards, venturing through another door into a second smaller room, really a lean-to, and then going up the ladder into a loft.

  "They left in a hurry, whoever lived here," he reported. "They left this—" He held out a dried, shrunken piece of shriveled salt beef.

  "We can boil it," Kirby suggested. "Make a kinda broth; it might help the kid. Any sign of a pot—?"

  There was a pot, encrusted with corn-meal remains. Weatherby took it outside and returned, having scrubbed its interior as clean as possible, and filling it with a cup or so of water. "There's a well out there."

  Boyd was asleep, or at least Drew hoped it was sleep. The boy's face was flushed, his breathing fast and uneven. But he hadn't coughed for some time, and Drew began to hope. If he could have a quiet day or two here, he might be all right. Or else the surgeon could send him along on one of the wagons for the sick and wounded—the wagons already on the move south. If the doctor would certify that Boyd was ill....

  Weatherby was busily shredding the wood-hard beef into the pot of water. His busy fingers stopped; his dark eyes were now on the outer door. Drew stiffened. Kirby's fingers closed about the butt of a Colt.

  "What—" Drew asked in the faintest of whispers.

  The Cherokee dropped the remainder of the uncut beef into the pot. Knife in hand, he moved with a panther's fluid grace to the begrimed window half-covered with a dusty rag.

  * * *

  12

  Guerrillas

  Boyd stirred. "Shelly?" His call sounded loud in the now silent room. Drew set his hand across the boy's mouth, dividing his attention between Boyd and Weatherby. They had no way of putting out the fire, whose light might be providing a beacon through the dark. The Indian moved back a little from the window.

  "Riders ... coming down the lane." His whisper was a thread.

  Now Drew could hear, too, the ring of hoofs on the iron-hard surface of the ground. A horse nickered—one of those which had brought Boyd's stretcher, or perhaps one of the newcomers.

  Kirby whipped about the door and was now lost in the shadows of the next room. Weatherby looked to Drew, then to the loft ladder against the far wall. In answer to that unspoken question, Drew nodded.

  As the Cherokee swung up into the hiding place, Drew eased one of his Colts out of the holster, pushing it under the folds of the blankets around Boyd. Then he swung the pot, with its burden of beef and water, out over the fire—to hang on its chain to boil.

  "Shelly?" Boyd asked again. His eyes were open, too bright, and he stared about him, plainly puzzled. Then he looked up at his nurse, and his forehead wrinkled with effort. "Drew?"

  But Drew was listening to those oncoming hoofs. The strangers would see two horses. If they came in, they would find two men—it was as simple as that. And if they wore the wrong color uniforms, Weatherby above, and Kirby in the lean-to, would be ready and waiting for trouble. Drew laid fresh wood on the fire. Since he could not hide, he felt he'd better get as much light as possible in case of future trouble. The last they had heard the Yankees were concentrating at Murfreesboro and Nashville. But scouts would be out, dogging the flanks of the Confederate forces, just as he had done the opposite during the past few days.

  There was silence now in the lane, a suspicious quiet. Drew deduced that the riders had dismounted and might be closing in about the cabin. A prickle of chill climbed his spine. He touched the lump under the blanket which was his own insurance.

  The door burst open, sent banging inward by a booted foot. And at the same time a small pane in an opposite window shattered, the barrel of a rifle thrust in four inches, covering him. Drew remained where he was, his left arm thrown protectingly across Boyd.

  "Now ain't this somethin'?" The man who had booted in the door was grinning down at the two on the hearth. He wore a blue coat right enough, but it was slick with old grease across the chest, stained on one shoulder, and his breeches were linsey-woolsey, his boots old and scuffed. And his bush of unkempt hair was covered with a battered hat topping a woolen scarf wound about ears and neck.

  The chill on Drew's spine was a band of ice. This was no Union trooper. The scout could identify a far worse threat now—bushwhacker ... guerrilla, one of the jackals who hung on the fringe of both armies, looting, killing, and changing sides when it suited their purposes. Such a man was a murderer who would kill another for a pair of boots, a whole shirt, or the mere whim of the moment.

  "Come in, Simmy, we's got us a pair o' Rebs," the man bawled over his shoulder, and then turned to Drew. "Don't you go gittin' no ideas, sonny. Jas' thar, he's got a bead right on yuh, an' Jas' he's mighty good with that rifle gun. Now, you jus' pull out that Colt o' yourn an' toss it here. Make it fast, too, boy. I'm a mighty unpatient man—"

  Drew pulled free the Colt still in its holster, tossing it across the floor so that it spun against the fellow's boot. The big hairy hand scooped it up easily and tucked the weapon barrel down in his belt.

  A second man, smaller, with a thin face which had an odd lopsided look, squeezed through the door and sidled along the wall of the room, his rifle pointed straight at Drew's head. He spat a blotch of tobacco juice on the hearth, spattering the edge of the top blanket which covered Boyd.

  "What's th' matter wi' him?" he demanded.

  "He's sick," Drew returned. "You Union?"

  The big man grinned. "Shore, sonny, shore. We is Union ... scouts ... Union scouts." He repeated that as if pleased by the sound. "An' you is Rebs, which makes you our prisoners. So he's sick, eh? What's the matter?"

  "I don't know." Drew's fingers were only inches away from the Colt under the blanket. But he could dare no such move with that rifle covering him from the window.

  "Jas', any sign out thar?" the big man called.

  "Petey ain't seen any, jus' two horses." The words came from behind the still ready rifle.

  "Wai, tell him to look round some more. An' you kin come in, Jas'. These here Rebs ain't gonna be no trouble—is you, sonny?"

  Drew shook his head. Luck appeared to be on his side. Once Jas' was in here, they could hope to turn tables on the three of them, with Weatherby and Kirby taking them by surprise.

  Jas' appeared in the doorway a moment or so later. He was younger than his two companions, younger and more tidy. His coat was also blue, and he wore a forage cap pulled down over hair v
ery fair in the firelight. There was a fluff of young beard on his chin, and he carried himself with the stance of a drilled man. Deserter, thought Drew.

  The newcomer surveyed Drew and Boyd expressionlessly, his eyes oddly shallow, and tramped past them to hold his hands to the blaze on the hearth, keeping his rifle between his knees. Then he reached up with his weapon, hooked the barrel in the chain supporting the pot, and pulled that to him, sniffing at the now bubbling contents.

  "You, Reb"—the big man towered over Drew—"git this friend o' yourn an' drag him over thar. Us wants to git warm."

  "Drew?" Boyd looked up questioningly, his feverish gaze passing on to the guerrilla. "Where's Shelly?"

  The big man's grin faded. His big boot came out, caught Drew's leg in a vicious prod.

  "Who's this here Shelly? Whar at is he?"

  "Shelly was his brother," Drew said, nodding at Boyd. "He's dead."

  "Dead, eh? How come sonny boy here's askin' for him then?" He leaned over them, and his fingers grabbed and twisted at the front of Drew's threadbare shell jacket. "I ask yuh, Reb, whar at is this heah Shelly?" He seemed only to flick his wrist, but the strength behind that move whirled Drew away from Boyd, brought him part way to his feet, and slammed him against the wall—where the big man held him pinned with small expenditure of effort.

  "Shelly's dead." Somehow Drew kept his voice even. Kirby ... Weatherby ... They were there. "Boyd's out of his head with fever."

  Jas' let the pot swing back over the fire, moving toward Boyd to lean over and stare at the boy's flushed face.

  "Might be so," Jas' remarked. "Two horses, two men. Neither one much to bother about."

  "Better be so!" The big man held Drew tight to the wall and cuffed him with his other hand. Dazedly, his head ringing, Drew slipped to the floor as the other released him. "Now"—that boot prodded Drew again—"git your friend over thar, Reb."

  Drew stumbled back and went on his knees beside Boyd. His fingers groped under the edge of the blanket, closing on the Colt. Jas' was inspecting the pot again, and Simmy had moved forward to share the warmth of the hearth. With the revolver still in his hand, though concealed by the blanket, Drew pulled Boyd away from the fire as best he could, aware the big man was watching closely.