"The weather is sure agin this heah war. A man's either frizzled clean outta his saddle by the heat--or else his hoss's belly's deep in the mud an' he gits him a gully-washer down the back of his neck! Me--I'm a West Texas boy, an' down theah we have lizard-fryin' days an' twisters that are regular hell winds, and northers that'll freeze you solid in one little puff-off. But then all us boys was raised on rattlesnakes, wildcats, an' cactus juice--we're kinda hardened to such. Only I ain't seen as how this half of the country is much better. Maybe we shouldn't have switched our range--"
Drew grinned at Kirby's stream of whispered comment and complaint as they wriggled their way forward through brush to look down on a Union blockhouse and stockade guarding a railroad trestle.
"Weather don't favor either side. The Yankees have it just as bad, don't they?"
The Texan made a snake's noiseless progress to come even with his companion's vantage point.
"Sure, but then they should ... they ought to pay up somehow for huntin' their hosses on somebody else's range. We'd be right peaceable was they to throw their hoofs outta heah. My, my, lookit them millin' round down theah. Jus' like a bunch of ants, ain't they? Had us one of Cap'n Morton's bull pups now, we could throw us a few shells as would make that nest boil right over into the gully!"
"We'll do something when the General gets here," Drew promised.
Kirby nodded. "Yes, an' this heah General Forrest, too. He sure can ramrod a top outfit. Jus' prances round the country so that the poor little blue bellies don't know when he's goin' to pop outta some bush, makin' war talk at 'em. You know, the kid's gonna be hoppin' to think he missed this heah show--"
"At least we know where he is and what he's doin'."
Kirby propped his chin on his forearm. "Jus' 'bout now he's sittin' down at the table back theah in Meridian with a sight of fancy grub lookin' back at him. How long you think he's gonna take to bein' corraled that way?"
"General Buford gave him strict orders personally--"
"Nice to have a general take an interest in you," Kirby commented. "You Kaintuck boys, you're scattered all through this heah army. Want to stay with Boyd 'cause he's ailin', so you jus' find you a general from your home state an' talk yourself into a transfer--"
"Notice you wanted me to talk you into one, too."
"Well, Missouri, Mississippi, an' Tennessee are a sight nearer Texas an' home than Virginia. Anyway, theah warn't much left of our old outfit, an' this heah Forrest is headin' up a sassy bunch. So I'm glad you did find you a general to sling some weight an' git us into his scouts jus' 'cause he knew your grandpappy. Kaintucks stick together...."
There was a second of silence through which they could both hear the faint sounds of life from the stockade.
"M' father was a Texan," Drew said suddenly.
"Now that's a right interestin' observation," Kirby remarked. "Heah I was all the time thinkin' you was one of these heah fast-ridin', fine-livin' gentlemen what was givin' some tone to the army. Not jus' 'nother range drifter from the big spaces. What part of Texas you from--Brazos?"
"Oh, I wasn't born there. You had a war down that way, remember?"
"You mean when Santa Anna came trottin' in with his tail high, thinkin' as how he could talk harsh to some of us Tejanos?"
"No, later than that--when some of us went down to talk harsh in Mexico."
"Sure. Only I don't recollect that theah powder-burnin' contest, m'self. M'pa went ... got him these heah fancy hoss ticklers theah." Kirby moved his hand toward the spurs he had taken off and tucked into his shirt for safekeeping to muffle the jingle while they were on scout. "Took 'em away from a Mex officer, personal. Me, I was too young to draw fightin' wages in that theah dust-up."
"My father wasn't too young, and he drew his wages permanent. My grandfather went down to Texas and brought my mother back to Kentucky just in time for me to appear. My grandfather didn't like Texans."
"An' maybe not your father, special?"
Drew smiled, this time mirthlessly. "Just so. You see, m' father came up from Texas to get his schoolin' in Kentucky. He was studyin' to be a doctor at Lexington. And he was pretty young and kind of wild. He had one meetin'--"
"You mean one of them pistol duels?"
"Yes. So my grandfather warned him off seein' his daughter. I never heard the rights of it, but it seems m' father didn't take kindly to bein' ordered around."
Kirby chuckled. "That theah feelin' is borned right into a Texas boy. He probably took the gal an' ran off with her--"
"You're guessing right. At least that's the story as I've put it together. Mostly nobody would tell me anything. I was the blacksheep from the day I was born--"
"But your ma, she'd give you the right of it."
"She died when I was born. That's another thing my grandfather had against me. I was Hunt Rennie's son, and I killed my mother; that's the way he saw it."
Kirby rolled his head on his arm so that his hazel eyes were on Drew's thin, too controlled features.
"Sounds like your grandpappy had a burr under his tail an' bucked it out on you."
"You might see it that way. You know, Anse, I'd like to see Texas--"
"After we finish up this heah war, compadre, we can jus' mosey down theah an' look it over good. Happen you don't take to Texas, why, theah's New Mexico, the Arizona territory ... clean out to California, wheah they dip up that theah gold dust so free. Ain't nothin' sayin' a man has to stay on one range all his born days--"
"Looks like the war ain't doin' too well." Drew was watching the activity in the stockade.
"Well, we lost us Atlanta, sure enough. An' every time we close up ranks, theah's empty saddles showin'. But General Forrest, he's still toughenin' it out. Me, I'll trail along with him any day in the week."
"Hey!" Kirby was drawing a bead on a shaking bush. But the man edging through was Hew Wilkins, General Buford's Sergeant of Scouts. He crawled up beside them to peer at the blockhouse.
"They're pullin' out!" The men in blue coats were lining up about a small wagon train.
Wilkins used binoculars for a closer look. "Your report was right; those are Negro troops!"
"No wonder they're clearin' out--fast."
"Cheatin' us outta a fight," Kirby observed with mock seriousness.
"All the better. Kirby, you cut back and tell the General they're givin' us free passage. We can get the work done here, quick."
"Back to axes, eh, an' some nice dry firewood--an' see what we can do to mess up the railroads for the Yankees. Only, seems like we're messin' up a sight of railroads, all down in our own part of the country. I'd like to be doin' this up in one of them theah Yankee states like New York, say, or Indiana. Saw me some mighty fine railroads to cut up, that time General Morgan took us on a sashay through Indiana."
Kirby got to his feet and stretched. Drew unwound his own lanky length to join the other.
"Maybe the old man will be leadin' us up there, too--" Wilkins put away the binoculars. "Rennie, we'll move on down there and see if we can pick up any information."
Two months or a little more since Harrisburg. The brazen heat had given way to torrents in mid-August, and the rain had made quagmire traps of roads, forming rapids of every creek and river--bogging down horses, men, and guns. But it had not bogged down Bedford Forrest. And one section of his small force, under the command of General Buford leading the Kentuckians, had held the Union forces in check, while the other, under Forrest's personal leadership had swung past Smith and his blue coats in a lightning raid on Memphis.
Now in September the rain was still falling in the mountains, keeping the streams up to bank level. And Forrest was also on the move. After the Memphis raid there had been a second honing of his army into razor sharpness, a razor to be brought down with its cutting edge across those railroads which carried the lifeblood of supplies to the Union army around Atlanta.
Blockhouses fell to dogged attack or surrendered to bluff, the bluff of Forrest's name. The Kentucky General Buford was leading his division of the command up the railroad toward the Elk River Bridge and that was below the scouts now, being abandoned by the Union troopers.
Two factors had brought Drew into Buford's Scouts. If Dr. Cowan, Forrest's own chief surgeon, had not been the medical officer to whom Drew had by chance delivered those saddlebags of drugs, and if Abram Buford had not been a division commander, Drew might not have been able to push through his transfer. But Cowan had spoken to Forrest, and General Buford had known both the Barretts and the Mattocks all his life.
Boyd had recovered speedily from the leg wound, but his convalescence from heat exhaustion and the ensuing complications was still in progress, though he had reached the point that only General Buford's strict orders had kept him from this second raid into enemy territory. Now he was safe in a private home in Meridian, where he was being treated as a son of the house, and Drew had even managed to send a letter to Cousin Merry with that information. He only hoped that she had received it.
As for the change in commands, Drew was content. Perhaps the more so since the news had come less than two weeks earlier that John Morgan was dead. He had gone down fighting, shooting it out with Yankee troopers in a rain-wet garden in Tennessee on a Sunday morning. Men were dying, dead ... and maybe a cause was dying, too. Drew's thought flinched away from that line now, trying to keep to the job before them. There was the abandoned stockade to destroy, the trestle and bridge to knock to pieces, and if they had time, the tracks to tear up, heat, and twist out of shape.
Wilkins stood behind a pile of wood cut for engine fuel. "They are on the run, all right. Headin' toward Pulaski."
"Think they'll make a stand there?"
"One guess is as good as another. If they do, we'll smoke them out. Keep 'em busy and chase 'em clean out of their hats and back to camp."
The destruction of the blockhouse and the trestle could be left to the army behind; the scouts moved on again.
"The boys are havin' themselves a time." Kirby returned to his post with the advance. "Tyin' bowknots in rails gits easier all the time. When this heah campaign is over, we'll know more 'bout takin' railroads apart then the fellas who make 'em know 'bout puttin' 'em together."
"Trouble!" Drew reined in Hannibal and waved to Wilkins. "There's a picket up there...."
Kirby's gaze followed the other's pointing finger. "Kinda green at the business," he commented critically. "Sorta makin' a sittin' target of hisself. Like to tickle him up with a shot. We don't git much action outta this."
"I'd say we're plannin' to go in now."
A squad of Buford's advance filtered up through the trees, and an officer, his insignia of rank two-inch strips of yellowish ribbon sewed to the collar of a mud-brown coat, was conferring with Wilkins. Then the clear notes of the bugle charge rang out.
Forrest's men were as adept as Morgan's raiders in making a show of force seem twice the number of men actually in the field. They now whirled in and out of a wild pattern which should impress the Yankee picket with the fact that at least a full regiment was advancing.
Three miles from Pulaski the Yankees made a stand, slamming back with all they had, but Buford was pushing just as hard and determinedly. Gray-brown boiled out of cover and charged, yelling. That electric spark of reckless determination which had taken the Kentucky columns up the slope at Harrisburg flashed again from man to man. Drew tasted the old headiness which could sweep a man out of sanity, send him plunging ahead, aware only of the waiting enemy.
The Union lines broke under those shock waves; men ran for the town behind them. But there was no taking that town. By early afternoon they had them fenced in, held by a show of force. Only in the night, leaving their fires burning, the Confederates slipped away.
Rains hit again; guns and wagons bogged. But they kept on into rough-and-rocky country. They had taken enough horses from the Union corrals at the blockhouses to mount the men who had tramped patiently along the ruts in just that hope. Better still, sugar and coffee from the rich Yankee supply depot at the Brown farm was now filling Rebel stomachs.
Drew sat on his heels by a palm-sized fire, watching with weary content the tin pail boiling there. The aroma rising from it was one he had almost forgotten existed in this world of constant riding and poor forage.
"Hope it kicks in the middle an' packs double." Kirby rested a tin cup on one knee, ready and waiting. "Me, I like mine strong enough to rest a horseshoe on ... gentlelike."
"Yankees are obligin', one way or another." Drew licked his fingers appreciatively. He had been exploring the sugar supply. "I've missed sweetenin'."
"Drink up, boys, and get ready to ride," Wilkins said, coming out of the dark. "We've marchin' orders."
Kirby reached for the pot and poured its contents, with careful measurement, into each waiting cup. "Wheah to now, Sarge? Seems like we've covered most of this heah range already."
"Huntsville. We have to locate a river crossin'."
Drew looked up. "Startin' back, Sarge?"
"Heard talk," Wilkins admitted. "Most of the blue bellies in these parts are turnin' lines to aim square at us. We can't take on all of Sherman's bully boys--"
"Got him riled, though, ain't we? All right." Kirby was energetically fanning the top of his steaming cup with his free hand. "Git this down to warm m' toes, Sarge, an' I'll stick them same toes in the stirrups an' jingle off. Come on, Drew, no man never joined up with the army to git hisself a comfortable life...."
Certainly that last statement of the Texan's was proven correct during the next six days. A feint toward the Yankee garrison at Huntsville occupied the enemy until the wagon train and artillery moved on to the Tennessee River. And along its northern banks, Buford's Scouts ranged. Already high for the season the waters were still rising. And all the transportation they could collect were three ferry boats at Florence and a few skiffs, not enough to serve all the Confederate force pushing for that escape route.
Athens, which Forrest had occupied on the upswing of the raid, was already back in Union hands, and the blue forces were closing in, in a countrywide sweep, backing the gray cavalry against the river.
By the third of October Buford had the boats in action, ferrying across men, equipment, and artillery in a steady stream of night-and-day oar labor. The stout General, mounted on a big mule, a large animal to carry a large man, gave the scouts new orders.
"Try downriver, boys. We're in a pinchers here, and they may be goin' to nip us--hard!" He rolled a big cheroot from a Yankee commissary store between his teeth, watching the wind whip the surface of the river into good-sized waves about the laboring boats. "Anything usable below Florence ... we want to know about it, and quick!"
Wilkins led them out at a steady trot. "We'll take a look around Newport. Rough going, but I think I remember a place."
However, the possibilities of Wilkins' "place" did not seem too promising to Drew when they came out on a steep bluff some miles down the Tennessee.
"This is a heller of a river," Kirby expressed his opinion forcibly. "Always spittin' back in an hombre's face. We've had plenty of trouble with it before."
They were on a bank above a slough which was not more than two hundred feet wide. And beyond that was an island thickly overgrown with cane, oak, and hickory. The upper end of that was sandy, matted with driftwood, some of it partially afloat again.
"Use that for a steppin' stone?" Drew asked.
"Best we're goin' to find. And if time's runnin' out, we'll be glad to have it. Rennie, report in. We'll do some more scoutin', just to make sure there'll be no surprises later."
For more than thirty-six hours Buford had been ferrying. Artillery, wagons, and a large portion of his division were safely across. When Drew returned to the uproar along the river he found that the second half of the retreating forces, commanded by Forrest, were in town. And it was to Forrest that Drew was ordered to deliver his report.
He would never forget the first glimpse he'd had of Bedford Forrest--the officer sitting his big gray charger in the midst of a battle, whirling his standard to attract a broken rabble of men, knitting out of them, by sheer force of personality, a refreshed, striking force. Now Drew found himself facing quite a different person--a big, quiet, soft-spoken man who eyed the scout with gray-blue eyes.
"You're Rennie, one of that Morgan company who joined at Harrisburg."
"Yes, suh."
"Morgan's men fought at Chickamauga ... good men, good fighters. Said so then, never had any reason to change that. Now what's this about an island downriver?"
Drew explained tersely, for he had a good idea that General Forrest wanted no wasting of time. Then at request he drew a rough sketch of the island and its approaches. Forrest studied it.
"Something to keep in mind. But I want to know that it's clear. You boys picket it. If there's any Union movement about, report it at once!"
"Yes, suh."
If Yankee scouts had sighted the island, either they had not reported it or their superiors had not calculated what its value might be for hunted men--and to a leader who was used to improvising and carrying through more improbable projects than the one the island suggested.
At Shoal Creek a rear guard was holding off the Union advance which had started from Athens, the two pronged pinchers General Buford had foreseen. And now the island came into use.
Saddles and equipment were stripped from horses and piled into the boats brought down from Florence. Then the mounts were driven to the top of the bluff and over into the water some twenty feet below. Leaders of that leap were caught by their halters and towed behind the boats, the others swimming after.
Men and mounts burrowed back into the concealment of those thick canebrakes and were hidden along the southern shore of the overgrown strip of water-enclosed land. The Union pursuers came up on the bluff, but they did not see the ferrying from the south bank of the island, ferrying which kept up night and day for some forty-eight hours.
"Cold!" Kirby and Drew crouched together behind a screen of cane on the north side of the island, watching the bank above for any hostile move on the part of the enemy.
"General Forrest says no fires."
"Yeah. You know, I jus' don't like this heah spread of water. This is the second time I've had to git across it with Old Man Death-an'-Disaster raisin' dust from my rump with a double of his encouragin' rope. Seems like the Tennessee ain't partial to raidin' parties."
"Makes a good barrier when we're on the other side," Drew pointed out reasonably.
"So--"
Drew's Colt was already out, Kirby's carbine at ready. But the man who had cat-footed it through the cane was General Forrest himself.
"I thought"--the General eyed them both--"I would catch some of you young fools loafin' back heah as if nothin' was goin' on. If you don't want to roost heah all winter, you'd better come along. Last boats are leavin' now."
As they scrambled after their commander Drew realized that the General had made it his personal business to make sure none of the north side pickets were left behind in the last-minute withdrawal.
They piled into one of the waiting boats, catching up poles. Forrest took another. Then he balanced where he stood, glaring toward the bow of the boat. A lieutenant was there, his hands empty.
"You ... Mistuh--" Forrest's voice took on the ring Drew had heard at Harrisburg. "Wheah's your oar, Mistuh?"
The man was startled. "As an officer, suh--"
Still gripping his pole with one hand, the General swung out a long arm, catching the lieutenant hard on one cheek with enough force to send him over the gunwale into the river. The lieutenant splashed, flailing out his arms, until he caught at the pole Drew extended to him. As they hauled him aboard again, the General snorted.
"Now you, Mistuh officer, take that oar theah and git to work! If I have to knock you over again, you can just stay in. We shall all pull out of this together!"
The lieutenant bent to the oar hastily as they moved out into the full current of the river.
