the mule lip the water. But it was plain the animal was failing. Drew
shifted his saddle from that bony back to one of the horses they had
gathered in during the morning. But the Yankee gelding was little
improvement. In the mud, constantly cut by ice, too wet most of the
time, a horse's hoofs rotted on its feet. And the dead animals, many of
them put out of their misery by their riders, marked with patches of
black, brown, gray, the path of the army. A man had to harden himself to
that suffering, just as he had to harden himself to all the other
miseries of war.
War was boredom, and it was also quick, exciting action such as they had
had that morning. It was fighting gunboats along the river; it was the
heat and horror of that slope at Harrisburg, the cold and horror of
Franklin. It was riding with men such as Anson Kirby, being a part of a
fluid weapon forged and used well by a commander such as Bedford
Forrest. It was a way of life....
The scout's hand paused in his currying of Hannibal as that idea struck
him for the first time. Now he thought he could understand why Red
Springs and all it stood for was so removed and meaningless, was lost in
the dim past. To Drew Rennie now, the squad, his round of duties, the
army--these were home, not a brick house set in the midst of green
fields and smooth paddocks. The house was empty of what he had found
elsewhere--acceptance of Drew Rennie as a person in his own right,
friendship, an occupation which answered the restlessness which had
ridden him into rebellion. He stood staring at nothing as he thought
about all that.
Kirby startled him out of his self-absorption. "Butt your saddle, amigo!
We're hittin' the trail again."
As he swung up on the Yankee horse and took Hannibal's lead halter, Drew
asked a question:
"Ever seem to you, Anse, like the army's home? Like it's always been,
and you've always been a part of it?"
Kirby shot him a quick glance. "Guess we all kinda feel that sometimes.
Gits so you can hardly remember how it was 'fore you joined up. Me, I
sometimes wonder if I jus' dreamed Texas outta m' head. Only I keep
remindin' myself that someday I can go back an' see if it's jus' the way
I dreamed it. Kinda nice to think 'bout that."
They cut away from the main line of march, ranging out and ahead.
Stragglers from the army must be moved forward, directed. And they came
upon one of those, a tall man, limping on feet covered with strips of
filthy rag. But he still had his musket, and on its bayonet was stuck a
goodly portion of ham. He had been sitting on a tree trunk, but at the
approach of the scouts he moved to meet them.
"Howdy, fellas," he spoke in a hoarse voice, and wiped a running nose on
his sleeve. "What command you in?"
"Forrest's Cavalry ... Scouts--"
"Forrest's!" He took another eager step forward. "Now theah's a command!
Ain't bin for you boys, th' blue bellies woulda gulped us right up!
Nairy a one of us'd got out of Tennessee."
"You ain't rightly out yet, amigo," Kirby pointed out. "Kinda lost,
ain't you?"
The man shrugged and grinned wryly. "Feet ain't too good. But I'm makin'
it, fast as I can."
"Can you fork a mule?" Drew asked. "This one is for ridin'. We'll take
you to one of the wagons--"
"Now that's right kind of you boys, right kind." The man hobbled up to
Hannibal as if he feared they might withdraw their offer. "Say, you
hungry? Git us wheah we can light a spell, an' I'll divide my rations
with you." He waved the musket with its impaled ham.
"Maybe we'll do jus' that," Kirby promised.
Drew dismounted to give the straggler a leg up on Hannibal before they
headed on toward the Tennessee and the promise of a breathing space.
15
_Independent Scout_
"What did the doc say?" Kirby, his blue overcoat a splotch of color
against the general drabness of the winter scene, came up towing
Hannibal and his own mount.
"Doesn't think he should try it." Drew made a lengthy business of
pulling on the knitted gloves he had acquired only that morning as a
swap for a captured Yankee Colt.
The infantry, back under the solid security of Joe Johnston's
leadership, had marched on into North Carolina--to face Sherman's
destructive sweep there. In the west, the only effective Confederate
force still in the field east of the Mississippi was Forrest's Cavalry.
And they had been granted twenty days' furlough to return home if they
could get there, and gather clothing and fresh horses. The sun was far
down the western horizon of the Confederacy, but to the men who rode
with Forrest it had not yet set.
"Th' kid wants to go...."
That was the worst of it. When they listened to Boyd's eager talk, saw
him make the effort to get on his feet again, they were almost convinced
that the youngster could make the trip back through enemy-held territory
to Oak Hill. Kirby, though he had no ties in Kentucky, was willing to
chance the journey to help Boyd home. But those miles between, where
they must skulk and maybe even fight their way--living out, eating very
light--Boyd could not stand that. The surgeon's verdict was that such an
idea was utter folly.
"I'll try to get a letter through with one of the boys," Drew said.
"Major Forbes ought to be able to furnish Cousin Merry with safe conduct
on that side; we could have the General take care of it from this end.
Then she could take him home with her when he was able to travel."
"You write the letter fast. The Kaintucks are makin' tracks today--"
Drew swung into the saddle, and they headed back to camp.
"Now that we ain't headin' north, you thinkin' of joinin' Croff an'
Webb?"
Men on furlough had been given their orders to collect supplies from
home, but also to devil the Yankees when and where they could. They were
to fire into transports along the rivers and rout and capture any Union
patrols small enough to be attacked when and where they came across
them. The Cherokee scout and others who could not return home asked for
their own type of furlough, determined to hunt the district below
Franklin. Since such men could be of great nuisance value well within
the enemy lines, they were granted permission and were even now
preparing to move out.
Drew, who had held off from committing himself to the expedition until
he had the final verdict on Boyd, knew that Kirby was eager to go. And
Drew felt that old restlessness, which gripped him whenever he thought
of spending days in camp. He could do nothing for Boyd, but they might
be able to accomplish something in Tennessee.
"All right." He saw Kirby grin at his answer. The plan was one after the
Texan's heart, and Drew knew what it had meant to him to hold back from
it.
"You tell the kid?"
"Dr. Fairfax did." At least he had not had to deliver that blow, a small
relief which did not, however, lighten his sense of responsibility.
"How'd he take it?"
"Quiet--on the surface."
The Boyd who once would have fought stubbornly to get his own way, the
Boyd who would have pulled himself out of that big rocker and announced
fiercely that he was riding home whether the doctor said Yes or No--that
Boyd was gone. Perhaps this new acceptance of hard facts was a matter of
growing up. Drew clung to that. There was little he could do, except not
go home without him.
"The kid's gonna be all right?"
"Doc hopes so, if he takes it easy."
"Ever feel like this heah war's runnin' down?"
"I don't see how we can keep on much longer."
"Some of the boys are talkin' Texas. Git us down theah an' we can go
off--be a republic again. Wouldn't be the first time the Tejanos stood
up all by themselves. Supposin' this fightin' heah stops ... you ridin'
for Texas?"
"I might."
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.