Chapter VII: Part 7

Kirby slapped his hand on the horn of his Mexican saddle. "Now that's what an hombre wants to hear. You change pasture on a good colt, makes him even fatter! Come blue bellies all ovah this heah territory, we jus' shift range. An' nobody gonna take Texas! Even the horny toads would spit straight in a Yankee's eye--"

"How 'bout it, Sarge?" They were at the cluster of rail-walled huts where the scouts had established a temporary headquarters. Webb hailed them from the door of one of those dwellings where he was rolling up the rubber cloth laid over corn husks to form the floor. "You Kaintuck bound?"

"No. Ridin' with you boys. Doc thinks Boyd can't try it."

"Good enough, Sarge. We're pullin' out soon as Injun draws us some travelin' rations. Jus' enough to get us theah. We can eat off the Yankees later."

Since 1861 the clothing of the Confederate Army at large had never matched the colorful sketches hopefully issued by the Quartermaster General's department. Perhaps in Richmond or some state capitol the gold-lace exponents did appear in tasteful and well-tailored gray with the proper insignia of rank. Forrest's men, equipped from the first by the unwilling enemy, wore blue, a blue tempered tactfully and ingeniously by butternut shirts, dyed breeches--when there was time to do any dyeing--and slouch hats. But as Drew rode out with his squad he might have been leading a Union rather than a Rebel patrol, which, of course, was part of the necessary cover for venturing into the jaws of a very alert lion.

Parts of West Tennessee were still Confederate-held and through those they rode openly. But the countryside could offer them nothing in the way of forage. Two armies had stripped it bare during the past few months. Sometimes foraging parties on opposite sides had been known to combine forces under a private truce, or had fought brisk, bitter skirmishes to decide which would collect the spoils. If there remained a hog or chicken still running loose, it certainly possessed the power of invisibility.

They slipped across the river in one of the boats kept by local contacts acting in the scouts' service. Drew questioned the boy who owned their transportation.

"Sure they's bummers-out. Yankees say they's ourn, but they ain't!" he returned indignantly. "They ain't ridin' for nobody but their own selves. Cut off a Yankee an' shoot him for the boots on his feet--do the same if they want a hoss. Git ketched an' they tell as how they's scouts, workin' secret-like. Scouts o' ourn--if we ketch 'em; Yankees--do the blue bellies take 'em. But they ain't nothin' but lowdown trash as nobody wants, for sure!" He dug his pole into the water as if he were impaling a guerrilla on it. "They's mean, plenty mean, suh. Don't go foolin' 'round them!"

"Any special place they hang out?" Drew wanted to know.

The boy shook his head. "Oh, they holes up now an' then somewheahs. But they's a lotta empty houses 'bout nowadays. An' the bummers kin hide out good without no one knowin' they be theah--till they git ready to jump. Cut off a supply wagon or raid a farm or somethin' like that."

"Ridin' the south side of the law." Kirby settled his gun belt in a more comfortable circle about his thin middle. "Bet they know all the tricks of hoppin' back an' forth 'cross the border ahead of the sheriff, too. Time somebody collected bounty on those wolves' scalps."

Ridding the country of such vermin was indeed a worthy occupation. And their private quest for an answer to Weatherby's fate might be a part of that. But their first duty was to the army: The gathering of information, and any discomfort they could deal the Yankees, must be their primary project.

Croff brought them into a camping site he had chosen for just such use. It lay at the head of a small rocky ravine down the center of which ran an ice-sealed thread of stream. It was not quite a cave, but provided shelter for them and their mounts. It was a clear night, and the ground was reasonably hard.

They ate hard salt beef and cold army bread made with corn meal, grease, and water the night before.

"Leave here in the early mornin'." The Cherokee outlined his suggestions. "There's a road leadin' to the turnpike that's three or four miles from here. Last I heard, a bridge had washed out on the pike. Anybody ridin' from Pulaski to Columbia has to turn out and take this other way--"

"Good cover on it?" Drew asked.

"The best."

"I jus' got me one question," Kirby interrupted. "Say we was to gobble us up a bunch of strayin' Yankees along this road, what're we gonna do with 'em after? Four of us don't make no army, an' we ain't gonna be able to detach no prisoner guard. 'Course theah are them what's said from the first that the only good Yankees are them laid peacefullike in their graves. But I don't take natural to shootin' men what are holdin' up the sky with both hands."

"Orders are to spread confusion," Drew observed. "I'd say if we hit quick and often, take a prisoner's boots, maybe, and his horse, and his gun--"

"Also," Webb added, "his rations an' his overcoat, be he wearin' one."

"Then turn him loose, after parolin' him--"

"The Yankees don't honor a parole no more," Kirby objected.

"What if they don't? A lot of men comin' in sayin' they've been paroled will stir up trouble. Remember, from what we've heard, a lot of the Yankees ain't any happier about fightin' on and on than we are. So we take prisoners, get their gear, keep what we can use, destroy the rest, and turn the men loose. If we can move around enough, maybe we can draw some of Wilson's men out of that big army he's supposed to be gatherin' to hit us south. It's the old game Morgan played."

Croff grunted. "It may be old, but I've seen it work. All right, we parole prisoners and light out cross-country after a strike."

"I've been thinkin'--" Kirby was checking the loading of his Colts--"if we start heah, we can sorta work our way in, coyote right up close to Franklin. They'll be expectin' us to light out for the home range, not go jinglin' in to wheah they've forted up. Might raise a sight of smoke that way. Git Wilson's boys on the prod, for sure."

"Franklin--?" Croff repeated.

"Little below, maybe. From what that boy said, those bushwhackers move around pretty free," Drew reminded him, certain the Cherokee was back to the desire to search for Weatherby.

"We'll see what kind of luck we have along this road, Injun-scouted. You take first watch, Injun?"

"Yeah." Drew heard rather than saw the Cherokee leave their camp, bound for a lookout point. The other three bedded down, anxious to snatch as much rest as possible.

Long before dawn they were on the move again, threading through the winter-seared woods. Croff brought them out unerringly behind a sagging rail fence well masked with the skeleton brush of the season. There was equally good cover on the other side of the road. Kirby climbed the fence, investigating a dark splotch on the surface of the lane.

"Fresh droppin's. Been a sight of trailin' 'long heah recent."

The rest was elementary. There was no need for orders. Croff and Webb holed up on one side of the lane well apart; Drew and Kirby did the same on the other. Waiting would be sheer boredom and in this weather the height of discomfort.

The gray of early morning sharpened the land about them. Boyd would have enjoyed this game of tweaking a wildcat's tail. Drew chewed his lower lip, tasting the salt of sweat, the grit of road dust. Just now was no time to think of Boyd; he must concentrate on the business before him.

He heard the sharp chittering of an aroused squirrel, repeated in two shrill bursts. But his own ear close to the ground told him they were to expect company. There was the regular thud of horses' hoofs, the sound of mounts ridden in company and at an even pace. The only remaining question was whether it was a Union patrol and small enough for the four of them to handle.

One, two ... two more ... five of them, topping a small rise. A cavalry patrol ... and the odds were not too impossible.

Drew sighted sergeant's stripes on the leader's jacket. It would depend upon how alert that noncom was. Wilson was drawing in new levies, so these men could be new to the district, even green in the army.

The Yankee sergeant was past Kirby's post now, and after him the first two of his squad. He paid no attention to the bushes.

Webb's carbine and Kirby's Colts cracked in what seemed like a single spat of sound. One of the troopers in the rear shouted, grabbing at a point high on his shoulder, the other one was thrown as his horse reared, its upraised forefeet striking another man from the saddle as he endeavored to turn his mount.

Drew fired, and saw the sergeant's carbine fall as he caught at the saddle horn, his arm hanging limp.

"Surrender!" As Drew shouted that order into the tangle below, he leaped to the right. A single shot clipped through the bushes where he had been, answered by a blast from Webb.

Then hands were up, men stared white-faced and sullen at the fence behind which might be a whole company of the enemy. Drew came into the open, the Spencer he had taken from Jas' covering the sergeant. For the expression on the noncom's face suggested that, wounded as he was, he would like nothing better than to carry on the struggle--with Drew as his principal target.

"Go ahead, get it over with!" He spat at Drew.

For a second Drew was bewildered, and then he suddenly guessed that the Union soldier expected to be shot out of hand.

His anger was hot. "We don't shoot prisoners!"

"No? The evidence is not in favor of that statement," the Yankee spoke dryly, his accent and choice of words that of an educated man.

"What brand you think we're wearin', fella?" Kirby had come out of concealment, his Colt steady on the captives.

"Guerrillas, I'd say," the sergeant returned hardily. Drew realized then that their mixture of clothing must have stamped them as the very outlaws they wanted to hunt down, as far as the Union troopers were concerned.

"Now that's wheah you're sure jumpin' your fences," Kirby's half grin vanished. "We're General Forrest's men, not guerrillas. Or ain't you never heard tell of Forrest's Cavalry? Seems like anyone wearin' blue an' forkin' a hoss ought to know who's been chasin' him to Hell an' gone over most of Tennessee. Lucky I ain't in a sod-pawin' mood, hombre, or I might jus' want to see how a blue-belly sarge looks without an ear on his thick skull, or maybe try a few Comanche tricks of hair trimmin'! Guerrillas--!"

The Union sergeant glanced from Kirby and Drew to his own men. One was sitting on the edge of the road, nursing his head between his hands. Another had his hand to his shoulder, and the sticky red of fresh blood showed between his fingers. The two others, very young, stood nervously, their hands high. If the Yankee noncom was thinking of trying something, his material was not promising. Drew broke the moment of silence with a warning.

"You're surrounded, subject to fire from both sides, Sergeant! I suggest surrender. You will be treated as prisoners of war and given parole. We _are_ from General Forrest's command. We're scouts. Believe me, if we had wished to, we could have shot every one of you out of the saddle before you knew we were here. Guerrillas would have done just that."

The logic of that argument reached the Union sergeant. He still eyed Drew straightly, but there was a ruefulness rather than hostile defiance in his voice as he asked:

"What do you plan to do with us?"

"Nothing." Drew was crisp. "Give us your parole, leave your arms, your horses, your rations--if you are carrying any. Then you are free to go."

"We've been ordered not to take parole," the sergeant objected.

"General Forrest hasn't given any orders not to grant it," Drew countered. "As far as I am concerned, you can take it, we'll accept your word."

"All right." The other dismounted awkwardly, and with one hand unbuckled his saber, dropping his belt and gun.

Kirby went among the men gathering up their weapons. Then he and Drew tended the slight wounds of their enemies.

"You'll both do until you can get to town," Drew told them. "And you've a road and plenty of daylight to help you foot it...."

To Drew's surprise, the sergeant suddenly laughed. "This ain't going to sit well with the captain. He swore all you Rebs were run out of here a couple of weeks ago."

"You can assure him he's wrong." Drew saw a chance to confuse the enemy. "We're very much around. You'll be seem' a lot of us from now on, a lot more."

They watched the squad in blue, now afoot, plod on down the road. When they were out of sight around a bend, Webb and Croff came out of hiding to inspect the spoil. Unfortunately the Yankees had not possessed rations, but their opponents acquired five horses, five Springfields, four sabers, and three Colts, as well as welcome rounds of ammunition--a fine haul.

Croff methodically smashed the stocks of the Springfields against a rock and pitched the ruined weapons back of the fence. They had seen during the retreat just how useless those rifles were for mounted men. The sabers were broken the same way, but the rest of the plunder was shared.

Webb appropriated one of the captured mounts. They stripped the others of their gear, taking what they wanted in the way of blankets and saddle equipment, and were putting the horses on leading ropes when a volley of shots ripping through the early morning froze them. Croff whirled to face the road down which the Yankees had vanished.

"Came from that direction--"

They mounted, taking not the open road but a cross route the Cherokee indicated. Coming out on the crest of a slope, they were above another of those hollows through which the road ran. And in that way lay still blue figures. Drew's carbine swung up as men broke from ambush and headed toward those forms. No Confederate force would have wantonly butchered unarmed and wounded men, nor would the Yankees. Which left the scum they both hated--the bushwhackers!

Just as the crack of the murder guns had earlier torn the quiet, so did the Confederate answer come now. Three of those advancing on their victims dropped. One more cried out, staggering toward the concealing bush. Then more broke from cover beyond, going into flight up the other rise.

"Croff! Webb! After them!" The Cherokee scout was already booting his horse into a run.

Drew and Kirby reached the road together. Slipping from Hannibal, Drew knelt by the Union sergeant, turning the man over as gently as he could. But there was no hope. The Yankee's eyes opened; he stared up with a cold and terrible hate.

"Shot us ... after all ... murder--" he mouthed.

"No!" Drew cried his protest. "Not us--"

But that head rolled on his arm, and Drew was forced to swallow the fact that the other had died believing that treachery. Kirby arose from the examination of the rest of the bodies.

"Got 'em all. Musta bin as easy as shootin' weanlin's. They didn't have a chance! We got three--" He made a circle about one of the dead guerrillas--"but that don't balance none."

Drew lowered the dead sergeant to the surface of the road.

"It sure doesn't!" he said bleakly. "We'll go after them--if we have to ride clear to the Ohio!"

16

_Missing in Action_

"I've counted twenty at least," Webb said over his shoulder. The scouts were belly-flat in cover, looking down into a scene of some activity. It almost resembled the cavalry camp they had left behind them to the south. There were the same shelters ingeniously constructed of brush and logs and a picket line for horses and mules. This hole must harbor a high percentage of deserters from both armies.

"Only four of us," Kirby remarked. "'Course I know we're the tall men of the army, but ain't this runnin' the odds a mite high?"

Croff chuckled. "He's got a point there, Sarge."

"Seein' as how what happened back there on the road could be pinned on us, we have to do something," Drew returned. This whole section of country would boil over when those bodies were discovered. "And we ain't the only ones. Any of our boys comin' through here on furlough are like to be jumped for it if the Yankees catch them."

"That's the truth if you ever spoke it, Sarge. I can see some hangin's comin' out of that ambush."

"Theah's still twenty hombres down theah, an' four of us. We can pick off a few from up heah, but they ain't gonna wait around to git sniped. So, how we gonna spread ourselves--?"

Kirby's was the unanswerable question. They had trailed the fugitives from the ambush back to this tangled wilderness with infinite caution, bypassing two sentries so well posted and concealed they had been forced to judge that the motley collection of guerrillas were as experienced at this trade as the scouts. There was no time to try to round up any other bands of homing Confederates or prowling scouts, even if they knew where they could be located. This was really a Yankee problem partly as well.

Because of that murderous ambush, the local Union commander should be out for blood. But how could they get into enemy hands the information about this rats' nest?

"We can't take 'em ourselves, and we've no time to round up any of the boys who might be passin' through."

"So we jus' leave heah an' forgit it?" Webb demanded.

"There's another way--risky, but it might work. Take the Yankees off our trail and put them to doing something for us...."

"Sic 'em in heah, eh?" Kirby was watching Drew with dancing eyes. "How?"

"Yeah, how? Ride up to their camp an' say, 'We know wheah at theah's some bushwhackers, come'n see'?" Webb asked scornfully. "After this mornin' they won't even listen to a truce flag, I'm thinkin'."

Croff nodded. "That's right."

"Supposin' those sentries we passed back there were knocked out and two of us took their places and the other two then laid a trail leadin' here?"

"Showin' themselves for bait, plainlike?" Kirby asked.

"If we have to. The alarm will have gone out. I'm bettin' there're patrols thick on that road."

"Any blue bellies travelin' theah now are gonna be bunched an' ready to shoot at anything movin'."

"So," Croff cut in over Webb's instant objection, "you get some Yankees a-hittin' it up after you, and you run for here. They're not all dumb enough to ride right into this kind of country."

"We'll have to work it so they'll keep comin'. When you see them headin' into the gorge after us, you move out of the sentry posts back across this ridge and start cuttin' this camp down to size--pick off those horses and put 'em afoot. That'll keep them here till the Yankees come."

"You know," Kirby said, "it's jus' crazy enough to work. Lordy--if it was summer, I'd say we all had our brains sun-cured, but I'm willin' to try it. Who does what?"

"Croff and Webb'll take out the sentries. We'll go hunt us up some Yankees." As Kirby said, it was a wild plan anchored here and there on chance alone. But the scouts were familiar with action as rash as this, which _had_ worked. And they still had a few hours of daylight left in which to try it.

They let a supply train go by on the road undisturbed. It was, Drew noted, well guarded and the guard paid special attention to the woods and fields flanking them. The word had certainly gone out to expect dire trouble along that section of countryside.

"Have to be kinda hopin' for the right-sized herd," Kirby observed. "Need a nice patrol. Too bad we ain't able to rope in, to order, jus' what we need."

He went to a post farther south along the pike, and Drew settled himself in his own patch of cover, with Hannibal close at hand. The passing of time was a fret, but one they were used to. Drew thought over the plan. Improvisation always had to play a large part in such a project, but he believed they had a chance of success.

A bird note, clear and carrying, broke the silence of the winter afternoon. Drew cradled the Spencer close to him. That was Kirby's signal that around the bend he had sighted what they wanted.

It was a patrol, led by a bearded officer with a captain's bars on his shoulders--quite an impressive turnout, consisting of some thirty men and two officers. Watching them ride toward him, Drew's mouth went dry, a shiver ascending his spine. To play fox to this pack of hounds was going to be more of a task than he had anticipated. But it had to be done.

He fired, carefully missing the captain by a small margin, as he saw the spark his bullet struck from a roadside stone. Then he pumped one shot after another over the heads of the startled men. As he mounted Hannibal he caught a glimpse of Kirby cutting across the slope. The Texan rode Indian fashion with most of his mount between him and the return fire from the road. Drew kicked Hannibal into a leap, taking him half way out of range and out of sight.

Then, with Kirby, he was pounding away. A branch was bullet-clipped over his head, and he heard the whistle of shots. Unless he was very lucky, this might be one piece of recklessness he would pay for dearly. But he also heard what he had hoped for--the shouts of the hunters, the thud of hoofs behind.

Now it was a game, much the same as the one they had played to lead the Union troops into the cavalry trap at Anthony's Hill. They showed themselves, to fire and fall back, riding a crisscross pattern which would confuse the Yankees as to whether they were pursuing two men or more. Drew watched for the landmarks to guide them back. Less than half a mile would bring them to the gorge. Then they must ride fast to put a bigger gap between them and the enemy so they could go to cover before they struck the valley of the guerrilla camp.

They must depend upon Croff and Webb having successfully taken over the sentry posts. But Drew faced those heights with some apprehension. Kirby, on one of his cross runs, pulled near.

"They're laggin'. Better give 'em somethin' to try an' bite on!" He brought his bay to a complete stop and aimed. When his carbine barked, a horse neighed and went down. Then Kirby flinched, his weapon fell from his hand, and he caught quickly at the horn of his saddle. From the foremost of the blue riders there was a wild yell of exultation.

Drew whirled Hannibal and brought him at a run to the Texan's side.

"How bad?"

"Jus' creased me." But Kirby's expression gave the lie to his words. "Git goin' ... don't be a dang-blasted fool!"

Drew scooped up the reins the other had let fall. Kirby must not be allowed to lag. To be captured now was to lose all hope of being taken as an ordinary prisoner of war. He booted Hannibal into the rocking gallop the big mule was capable of upon occasion, and pulled the bay along. Kirby was clinging to the horn, his language heated as he alternately ordered or tried to abuse Drew into leaving him.

The Texan's plight had applied any spur the pursuers might have needed. Confident they were now going to gather in at least two bushwhackers, the shouting behind took on a premature shrilling of triumph. There was a blast of shooting, and Drew marveled that neither man nor horse was hit again.

He was into the mouth of the gorge, still leading Kirby's horse, but a glance told him that the Texan would not be able to hold on much longer. He was gray-white under his tan, and his head bobbed from side to side with the rocking of the horse's running stride.

Their pursuers pulled pace a little, maybe fearing a trap. Drew gained a few precious seconds by the headlong pace he had set from the time Kirby had been wounded. But they dared not try to get up the steep sides of the cut now.

He dared not erupt into the bushwhacker campsite, or could he? If Croff and Webb were now making their way to the heights above, ready to fire into the camp as they had planned, wouldn't that keep the men there busy and cover his own break into the valley?

He heard firing again; this time the sound was ahead of him. Croff and Webb were starting action, which meant that the Yankees would be drawn on to see what was up. Kirby's horse was running beside Hannibal. The Texan's eyes were closed, his left shoulder and upper sleeve bloody.

Riding neck and neck, they burst out of the gorge as rifle bullets propelled from a barrel. The impetus of that charge carried them across an open strip. There were yells ... shots.... But Drew's attention was on keeping Kirby in the saddle.

Hannibal hit a brush wall and tore through it. Branches whipped back at them with force enough to throw riders.

Kirby was swept off, gone before Drew could catch him. Then Hannibal gave a wild bray of pain and terror. He reared and Drew lost grasp of the bay's reins. The riderless horse drove ahead while Drew tried to control the mule and turn him.

Tossing his head high, Hannibal brayed again. A man scuttled out of the brush, and Drew only half saw the figure snap a shot at him.

He was aware of the sickening impact of a blow in his middle, of the fact that suddenly he could pull no air into his straining lungs. The reins were out of his hands, but somehow he continued to cling to the saddle as the mule leaped ahead. Then under Hannibal's hoofs the ground gave way, both of them tumbling into the icy stream. And for Drew there was instant blackness, shutting out the need for breath, the terrible agony which shook him.

"... dead. Get on after the others!"

The words made no sense. He was cold, wet, and there was a throbbing pain beating through him with every thrust of blood in his veins. But he could breathe again and if he lay very still, his nausea eased.

Then he heard it--not quite a bray, but a kind of moaning. The sound went on and on--shutting everything else out of his ears--to hurt not flesh, but spirit. He could stand it no longer.

With infinite labor, Drew turned his head. He felt the rasp of grit on the skin of his burned cheek, and that small pain became a part of the larger. He opened his eyes, setting his teeth against a wave of nausea, and tried to understand what had happened to him.

Water washed over his legs and boots, numbing him to the waist. But his arms, shoulders, and head were above its surface as he lay on his side, half braced against a rock. And he could see across the stream to the source of that mournful sound.

Hannibal was struggling to get to his feet. There was a wound in his flank, a red river rilling from it to stain the water. And one of his forelegs was caught between two rocks. Throwing his head high, the mule bit at the branches of a willow. Several times he got hold and pulled, as if he could win to his feet with the aid of the tooth-shredded wood. Shudders ran across his body, and the sound he uttered was almost a human moan of pain and despair.

Drew moved his arm, dully glad that he could. His fingers seemed stiff--as if his muscles were taking their own time to obey his will--but they closed on one of the Colts which had not been shaken free from his holster when he fell. He pulled the weapon free, biting his lip hard against the twinges that movement cost him.

Steadying the weapon on his hip, he took careful aim at Hannibal's head and fired. The recoil of the heavy revolver brought a small, whistling cry of pain out of him. But across the stream, the mule's head fell from the willows, and he was mercifully still.

The sky was gray. Drew heard a snap of shots, but they seemed very far away. And the leaden cold of the water crept farther up his body, turning the throb into a cramp. He tried not to cry out; for him there would be no mercy shot.

The rising tide of cold brought lethargy with it. He felt as if all his strength had drained into the water tugging at him. Again, the dark closed in, and he was lost in it.

Warm ... he was warm. And the painful spasms which had torn at him were eased. He still had a dull ache through his middle, but there was warm pressure over it, comforting and good. He sighed, fearful that a sudden movement might cause the sharp pains to return.

Then he was moved, his head was raised, and something hard pressed against his lower lip so that he opened his mouth in reflex. Hot liquid lapped over his tongue. He swallowed and the warmth which had been on the outside was now within him as well, traveling down his throat into his stomach.

More warmth, this time on his forehead. Drew forced his eyes open. Memory stirred, too dim to be more than a teasing uneasiness. Action was necessary, important action. He focused his eyes on a brown face bearing a scruff of beard on cheeks and chin.

"Webb...." It was very slow, that process of matching face to name. But once he had done it, memory brightened.

"What happened--?"

They had ridden into the guerrilla camp site, he and Kirby, with the Yankees on their heels. Painfully he could recall that. Then, later he had been lying half in, half out of a creek, sicker than he had ever been in his life. And Hannibal ... he had shot Hannibal!

Webb's hand came out of the half dark, holding the tin cup to his mouth again.

"Drink up!" the other ordered sharply.

Drew obeyed. But he was not so far under, now. Objects around him took on clarity. He was lying on the ground, not too far from a fire, and there were walls. Was he in a cabin?

There had been a cabin before, but he had not been the sick one then. The guerrillas!

"Bushwhackers?" He got that out more clearly. A shadow which had substance, moved behind Webb. Croff's strongly marked features were lined by the light.

"Dead ... or the Yankees have them."

Webb was making him drink again. With the other supporting his head and shoulders, Drew was able to survey his body. A blanket was wrapped tightly about his legs, and over his chest and middle a wet wad of material steamed. When Webb laid him flat again, the two men, working together, wrung out another square of torn blanket, and substituted its damp heat for the one which had been cooling against him.

"What's the ... matter--? Shot?"

Croff reached to bring into the firelight a belt strap. Dangling it, he held the buckle-end in Drew's line of vision. The plate was split, and embedded in it was an object as big as Drew's thumb and somewhat resembling it in shape.

"We took this off you," the Cherokee explained. "Stopped a bullet plumb center with that."

"Ain't seen nothin' like it 'fore," Webb added, patting the compress gently into place. "Like to ripe you wide open if it hadn't hit the buckle! You got you a bruise black as charcoal an' big as a plate right across your guts, but the skin's only a little broke wheah the plate cut you some. An' if you ain't hurt inside, you're 'bout the luckiest fella I ever thought to see in my lifetime!"

Drew moved a hand, touching the buckle with a forefinger. Then he filled his lungs deeply and felt the answering pinch of pain in the region of the bruise Webb described.

"It sure hurts! But it's better than a hole."

A hole! Kirby! Drew's hand went out to brace himself up, the compress slid down his body, and then Webb was forcing him down again.

"What you tryin' to do, boy? Pass out on us agin? You stay put an' let us work on you! This heah district's no place to linger, an' you can't fork a hoss 'til we git you fixed up some."

Drew caught at the hand which pinned his shoulder. "Will, where's Anse? You got him here too?" He rolled his head, trying to see more of the enclosure in which he lay, but all he faced was a wall of rough stone. Webb was wringing out another compress, preparing to change the dressing.

"Where's Anse?" Drew demanded more loudly, and there was a faint echo of his voice from overhead.

Croff flipped off the cooling compress as Webb applied the fresh one. But Drew was no longer lulled by that warmth.

"He ain't here," replied the Cherokee.

"Where then?" Drew was suddenly silent, no longer wanting an answer.

"Looky heah, Drew"--Webb hung over him, peering intently into his face--"we don't know wheah he is, an' that's Bible-swear truth! We saw you two come out into the valley, but we was busy pickin' off hosses so them devils couldn't make it away 'fore the Yankees caught up with 'em. Then the blue bellies slammed in fast an' hard. They jus' naturally went right over those bushwhackers. Maybe so, they captured two or three, but most of them was finished off right theah. We took cover, not wantin' to meet up with lead jus' because we might seem to be in bad company. When all the shootin' was over an' you didn't come 'long, me and Injun did some scoutin' 'round.

"We found you down by that crick, an' first--I'm tellin' it to you straight--we thought you was dead. Then Injun, he found your heart was still beatin', so we lugged you up heah an' looked you over. Later, Injun, he went back for a look-see, but he ain't found hide nor hair of Anse--"

"He was hit bad--in the shoulder--" Drew looked pleadingly from one to the other--"when we smashed into that brush he was pushed right out of the saddle, not far from that crick where you found me. Injun, he could still be out there now ... bleedin'--hurt...."

Croff shook his head. "I backtracked all along that way after we found you. There was some blood on the grass, but that could have come from one of the bushwhackers. There was no trace of Anse, anywhere."

"What if he was taken prisoner!" Neither one of them would meet his eyes now, and Drew set his teeth, clamping down on a wild rush of words he wanted to spill, knowing that both men would have been as quick and willing to search for the Texan as they had to bring Drew, himself, in. No one answered him.

But Croff stood up and said quietly: "This is a pretty well-hidden cave. The Yankees probably believe they've swept out this valley. You stay holed up here, and you're safe for a while. Then when you're ready to ride, Sarge, we'll head back south."

He stopped to pick up his carbine by its sling.

"Where're you going?"

"Take a look-see for Yankees. If they got Anse, there's a slim chance we can learn of it and take steps. Leastwise, nosing a little downwind ain't goin' to do a bit of harm." He moved out of the firelight with his usual noiseless tread and was gone.

17

_Poor Rebel Soldier...._

"Sergeant Rennie reporting suh, at the General's orders." Drew came to attention under the regard of those gray-blue eyes, not understanding why he had been summoned to Forrest's headquarters.

"Sergeant, what's all this about bushwhackers?"

Drew repeated the story of their adventure in Tennessee, paring it down to the bald facts.

"That nest was wiped out by the Yankee patrol, suh. Afterward Private Croff found a saddlebag with some papers in it, which was in the remains of their camp. It looks like they'd been picking off couriers from both sides. We sent those in with our first report."

The General nodded. "You stayed near-by for a while after the camp was taken?"

"Well, I was hurt, suh."

He saw that General Forrest was smiling. "Sergeant, that theah story about your belt buckle has had a mightly lot of repeatin' up and down the ranks. You were a lucky young man!"

"Yes, suh!" Drew agreed. "While I was laid up, Privates Croff and Webb took turns on scout, suh. They located some of our men hidin' out--stragglers from the retreat. They also rounded up a few of the bushwhackers' horses and mules."

Forrest nodded. "You returned to our lines with some fifteen men and ten mounts, as well as information. Your losses?"

Drew stared at the wall behind the General's head.

"One man missin', suh."

"You were unable to hear any news of him?"

"No, suh." The old weariness settled back on him. They had hunted--first Croff and Webb--and then he, too, as soon as he was able to sit a saddle. It was Weatherby's fate all over again; the ground might have opened and gulped Kirby down.

"How old are you, Sergeant?"

Drew could not see what his age had to do with Kirby's disappearance, but he answered truthfully: "Nineteen--I had a birthday a week ago, suh."

"And you volunteered when--?"

"In May of '62, suh. I was in Captain Castleman's company when they joined General Morgan--Company D, Second Kentucky. Then I transferred to the scouts under Captain Quirk."

"The big raids ... you were in Ohio, Rennie? Captured?"

"No, suh. I was one of the lucky ones who made it across the river before the Yankees caught up--"

"At Chickamauga?"

"Yes, suh."

"Cynthiana"--but now Forrest did not wait for Drew's affirmative answer--"and Harrisburg, Franklin.... It's a long line of battles, ain't it, boy? A long line. And you were nineteen last week. You know, Rennie, the Union Army gives medals to those they think have earned them."

"I've heard tell of that, suh."

The General's hand, brown, strong, went to the officer's hat weighing down a pile of papers on the table. With a quick twist, Forrest ripped off the tassled gold cord which distinguished it, smoothing out the loop of bullion between thumb and forefinger.

"We don't give medals, Sergeant. But I think a good soldier might just be granted a birthday present without any one gittin' too excited about how military that is." He held out the cord, and Drew took it a bit dazedly.

"Thank you, suh. I'm sure proud...."

A wave of Forrest's hand put a period to his thanks.

"A long line of battles," the General repeated, "too long a line--an end to it comin' soon. Did you ever think, boy, of what you were goin' to do after the war?"

"Well, there's the West, suh. Open country out there--"

Forrest's eyes were bright, alert. "Yes, and we might even hold the West. We'll see--we'll have to see. Your report accepted, Sergeant."

It was plainly a dismissal. As Drew saluted, the General laid his hat back on the tallest pile of papers. Busy at the table, he might have already forgotten Drew. But the Kentuckian, pausing outside the door to examine the hat cord once more, knew that he would never forget. No, there were no medals worn in the ragged, thin lines of the shrinking Confederate Army. But his birthday gift--Drew's fist closed about the cord jealously--that was something he would have, always.

Only, nowadays, how long was "always"?

"That's a right smart-lookin' mount, Sarge!" Drew looked at the pair of lounging messengers grinning at him from the front porch of headquarters. He loosened the reins and led the bony animal a step or two before mounting.

Shawnee, nimble-footed as a cat, a horse that had known almost as much about soldiering as his young rider. Then Hannibal, the mule from Cadiz, that had served valiantly through battle and retreat, to die in a Tennessee stream bed. And now this bone-rack of a gray mule with one lop ear, a mind of his own, and a gait which could set one's teeth on edge when you pushed him into any show of speed. The animal's long, melancholy face, his habit of braying mournfully in the moonlight--until Westerners compared him unfavorably with the coyotes of the Plains--had earned him the name Croaker; and he was part of the loot they had brought out of the bushwhackers' camp.

As unlovely as he appeared, Croaker had endurance, steady nerves, and a most un-mulelike willingness to obey orders. He was far from the ideal cavalry mount, but he took his rider there and back, safely. He was sure-footed, with a cat's ability to move at night, and in scout circles he had already made a favorable impression. But he certainly was an unhandsome creature.

"Smart actin's better than smart lookin'," Drew answered the disparagers now. "Do as well yourselves, soldiers, and you'll be satisfied."

Croaker started off at a trot, sniffling, his good ear twitching as if he had heard those unfriendly comments and was storing them up in his memory, to be acted upon in the future.

January and February were behind them now. Now it was March ... spring--only it was more like late fall. Or winter, with the night closing in. Drew let Croaker settle to the gait which suited him best. He would visit Boyd and then rejoin Buford's force.

The army, or what was left of it hereabouts, was, as usual, rumbling with rumor. The Union's General Wilson had assembled a massive hammer of a force, veterans who had clashed over and over with Forrest in the field, who had learned that master's tricks. Seventeen thousand mounted cavalrymen, ready to aim straight down through Alabama where the war had not yet touched. Another ten thousand without horses, who formed a backlog of reserves.

In the Carolinas, Johnston, with the last stubborn regiments of the Army of the Tennessee, was playing his old delaying game, trying to stop Sherman from ripping up along the coast. And in Virginia the news was all bad. The world was not spring, but drab winter, the dying winter of the Confederacy.

Wilson's target was Selma and the Confederate arsenal; every man in the army knew that. Somehow Bedford Forrest was going to have to interpose between all the weight of that Yankee hammer and Selma. And he had done the impossible so often, there was still a chance that he _could_ bring it off. The General had a free hand and his own particular brand of genius to back it.

Drew's fingers were on the front of his short cavalry jacket, pressing against the coil of gold cord in his shirt pocket. No, the old man wasn't licked yet; he'd give Wilson and every one of those twenty-seven thousand Yankees a good stiff fight when they came poking their long noses over the Alabama border!

"He gave you what?" Boyd sat up straighter. His face was thin and no longer weather-beaten, and he'd lost all of that childish arrogance which had so often irritated his elders. In its place was a certain quiet soberness in which the scout sometimes saw flashes of Sheldon.

Now Drew pulled the cord from his pocket, holding it out for Boyd's inspection. The younger boy ran it through his fingers wonderingly.

"General Forrest's!" From it he looked to the faded weatherworn hat Drew had left on a chair by the door. Boyd caught it up and pulled off the leather string banding its dented crown. Carefully he fitted on Forrest's gift and studied the result critically. Drew laughed.

"Like puttin' a new saddle on Croaker; it doesn't fit."

"Yes, it does," Boyd protested. "That's right where it belongs."

Drew, standing by the window, felt a pinch of concern. He found it difficult nowadays to deny Boyd anything, let alone such a harmless request.

"The first lieutenant comin' along will call me for sportin' a general's feathers on a sergeant's head," he protested. "Nothin' from Cousin Merry yet? Maybe Hansford didn't make it through with my letter. He hasn't come back yet.... But--"

"Think I'd lie to you about that?" Boyd's eyes held some of the old blaze as he turned the hat around in his hands. "And what I told you is the truth. The surgeon said it won't hurt me any to ride with the boys when you pull out. General Buford's ordered to Selma and Dr. Cowan's sister lives there. He has a letter from her sayin' I can rest up at her house if I need to. But I won't! I haven't coughed once today, that's the honest truth, Drew. And when you go, the Yankees are goin' to move in here. I don't want to go to a Yankee prison, like Anse--"

Drew's shoulders hunched in an involuntary tightening of muscles as he stared straight out of the window at nothing. Boyd had insisted from the first that the Texan must be a prisoner. Drew schooled himself into the old shell, the shell of trying not to let himself care.

"General Buford said I was to ride in one of the headquarters wagons. He needs an extra driver. That's doin' something useful, not just sittin' around listenin' to a lot of bad news!" The boy's tone was almost raw in protest.

And some of Boyd's argument made sense. After the command moved out he might be picked up by a roving Yankee patrol, while Selma was still so far behind the Confederate lines that it was safe, especially with Forrest moving between it and Wilson.

"Mind you, take things easy! Start coughin' again, and you'll have to stay behind!" Drew warned.

"Drew, are things really so bad for us?"

The scout came away from the window. "Maybe the General can hold off Wilson ... this time. But it can't last. Look at things straight, Boyd. We're short on horses; more'n half the men are dismounted. And more of them desert every day. Men are afraid they'll be sent into the Carolinas to fight Sherman, and they don't want to be so far from home. The women write or get messages through about how hard things are at home. A man can march with an empty belly for himself and somehow stick it out, but when he hears about his children starvin' he's apt to forget all the rest. We're whittled 'way down, and there's no way under Heaven of gettin' what we need."

"I heard some of the boys talkin' about drawin' back to Texas."

"Sure, we've all heard that big wishin', but that's all it is, just wishin'. The Yankees wouldn't let up even if they crowded us clear back until we're knee-deep in the Rio Grande. It's close to the end now--"

"No, it ain't!" Boyd flared, more than a shade of the old stubbornness back in his voice. "It ain't goin' to be the end as long as one of us can ride and hold a carbine! They can have horses and new boots, their supplies, and all their men. We ain't scared of any Yankee who ever rode down the pike! If you yell at 'em now, they'd beat it back the way they came."

Drew smiled tiredly. "Guess we're on our way now to do some of that yellin'." The end was almost in sight; every trooper in or out of the saddle knew it. Only some, like Boyd, would not admit it. "Remember what I say, Boyd. Take it slow and ride easy!"

Boyd picked up Drew's hat again, holding it in the sunlight coming through the window. The cord was a band of raw gold, gleaming brighter, perhaps, because of the shabbiness of the hat it now graced.

"You don't ride easy with the General," he said softly. "You ride tall and you ride proud!"

Drew took the hat from him. Out of the direct sunbeam, the band still seemed to hold a bit of fire.

"Maybe you do," he agreed soberly.

Now Boyd was smiling in turn. "You carry the General's hatband right up so those blue bellies can get the shine in their eyes! We'll lam 'em straight back to the Tennessee again--see if we don't!"

But almost three weeks later the Yankees were not back at the Tennessee; they were dressing their lines before the horseshoe bend of the defending breastworks of Selma. Everything which could have gone wrong with Forrest's plans had done just that. A captured courier had given his enemies the whole framework of his strategy. Then the cavalry had tried to hold the blue flood at Bogler's Creek by a tearing frantic battle, whirling Union sabers against Confederate revolvers in the hands of veterans. It had been a battle from which Forrest himself broke free through a lane opened by the action of his own weapons and the concentrated fury of his escort.

Out of the city had steamed the last train while a stream of civilian refugees had struggled away on foot, the river patrolled by pickets of cavalry ordered to extricate every able-bodied man from the throng and press him into the struggle. Forrest's orders were plain: Every male able to fight goes into the works, or into the river!

Now Drew and Boyd were with the Kentuckians, forming with Forrest's escort a small reserve force behind the center of that horseshoe of ramparts. Veterans on either flank, and the militia, trusted by none, in the middle. Thin lines stretched to the limit, so that each dismounted trooper in that pitiful fortification was six or even ten feet from his nearest fellow. And gathering under the afternoon sun a mass of blue, a vast, endless ocean....

The enemy was dismounted, too, coming in on a charge as fearless and reckless as any the Confederates had delivered in the past. With the sharpness of one of their own sabers, they slashed out a trotting arc of men, cutting at Armstrong's veterans in the earthworks to be curled back under a withering fire, losing a general, senior officers, and men. But the rebuff did not shake them.

A second Union attack was aimed at the center, and the militia broke. Bugles shrilled in the small reserve, who then pushed up to meet that long tongue of blue licking out confidently toward the city. This time there was no stopping the Yankee advance. The reserve neither broke nor followed the shambling panic-striken flight of the militia, but were pushed back by sheer weight of numbers to the unfinished second line of the city's defenses.

Blue--a full tidal wave of it in front and wedges of blue overlapping the gray flanks and appearing here and there even to the rear--

Having thrown away his rifle, Drew was now firing with both Colts, never sure any of his bullets found their targets. He stood shoulder to shoulder with Boyd in a dip of half-finished earthwork when the bugle called again, and down the ragged line of gray snapped an order unheard before--

"Get out! Save yourselves!"

Boyd fired, then threw his emptied Colt into the face of a tall man whose blue coat bore a sergeant's stripes. His own emptied guns placed in their holsters, Drew caught up the carbine the Yankee had dropped. He gave Boyd a shove.

"Run!"

They dodged in and out of a swirling mass of fighting men, somehow reaching the line of horse holders. Drew found Croaker standing stolidly with dragging reins, got into the saddle, and reached down a hand to aid Boyd up behind him. In the early dusk he saw General Forrest--his own height and the proportions of his charger King Phillip distinguishable even in that melee--gathering about him a nucleus of resistance as they battled toward the city. And Drew headed Croaker in the General's direction.

Boyd pawed at his shoulder as they burst into a street at the bone-shaking gallop which was the mule's fastest gait. A blue-coated trooper sat with his back against the paling of a trim white fence, one lax hand still holding the reins of a horse. Drew pulled Croaker up so Boyd could slip down. As he pulled loose the reins the Yankee slid inertly to the ground.