Ride Proud, Rebel Part 29

But there was no hanging back on the part of the Yankees that morning.

Slowly, maybe blindly, but with determination, they were picking their way ahead, reaching the creek bank. If they could cut through Forrest's present lines, thrust straight ahead, they could smash the demoralized straggle of Hood's main command, and the Army of the Tennessee would cease to exist.

The blue coats were shadows in the fog, the first advance wading the creek now, their rifles held high. And as that line closed up and solidified into a wall of men, a burst of flame met them face-on. It was brutal, almost one-sided. The Yankees were on their feet, pacing into a country they could not clearly distinguish. While their opponents had "picked trees" and were firing from shelter with accuracy to tear huge gaps in that line.

Men stopped, fired, then broke, running back to the creek for the safety which might lie beyond that wash of icy water. And as they went, ranks of the defenders rose and raced after them, hooting and calling as if on some holiday hunt. Now the cavalry moved in in their turn, cutting savagely at the Union flanks, herding the dismounted Yankees back through the lines of their horse holders as the Morgan men had been driven at Cynthiana. Wild with fright, horses lunged, reared, tore free from men, and raced in and out, many to be caught by the gray coats. It was a rout and they pushed the Union troops back, snapping up prisoners, horses, equipment--whipping out like a thrown net to sweep back laden with spoil.

These attackers were the rear guard of a badly beaten army, but they did not act that way. They rode, fought, and out-maneuvered their enemies as if they were the fresh advance of a superior invading force. And the swift, hard blows they aimed bought not only time for those they defended, but also the respect, the irritated concern of the men they turned time and time again to fight against.

Having pushed Wilson's troopers well back, the Confederates withdrew once more to the creek, waiting for what might be a second a.s.sault. They ate, if they were lucky enough to have rations, and rested their horses.

Corn was long gone, so mounts were fed on withered leaves pulled from field shocks, from any possible forage a man could find.

Drew led the gaunt rack of bones that was Hannibal to the creek, letting the mule lip the water. But it was plain the animal was failing. Drew s.h.i.+fted 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, friends.h.i.+p, 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. "b.u.t.t 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 hoa.r.s.e 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 s.p.a.ce.

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 leaders.h.i.+p, 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?"