Ride Proud, Rebel Part 4

A small spark of understanding awoke in those wide eyes. "I'll stick,"

the words came thickly. "I ain't gonna rot in that d.a.m.ned prison again--never!"

"Boyd ... on his other side! We'll try gettin' him across together."

"Yes, Drew." Boyd's voice sounded unsteady, but he did not hesitate to bring his own mount in on Croxton's right.

"You'd best let me take that theah jump first, soldier." The stranger sent his horse in ahead of Drew's. "It don't necessarily foller that because that's water a man can jus' natcherly git hisself across in one piece. I'll give it a try quicker'n you can spit and holler Howdy."

As if he were one with the raw-boned bay he bestrode, he jumped his mount into the waiting pond. Still thres.h.i.+ng about in the welter of flying water, he glanced back and raised a hand in a come-ahead signal.

"Bottom's a mite missin', but the drop ain't so much. Better make it 'fore them fast-shootin' hombres back theah come a-takin' you."

Though they did not move in the same reckless fas.h.i.+on as their guide, somehow they got across the pond and emerged dripping on the other side.

The determination which had made Croxton try the escape, seemed to fade as they rode on. He continued to hold to the horn, but he slumped further over in a bundle of misery. Their pond guide took Boyd's station to the right, surveying the half-conscious man critically.

"This hoorawin' around ain't gonna do that scalpin' job no good," he announced. "He can't ride far 'less he gits him a spell of rest an'

maybe has a medicine man look at that knock--"

Croxton roused. "I stick an' I ride!" He even got a measure of firmness into his tone. "I don't go to no Yankee prison...." He tried to reach for the reins, but Drew kept them firmly to hand.

There was a shot behind them, three or four more fugitives plunged down to the millpond, and the last one in line fired back at some yet unseen pursuer.

"Then we git!" But across Croxton's bowed shoulders the other shook his head warningly at Drew.

He was young and as whipcord thin and tough as most of those over-weary men from the badgered and now broken command, but he was not tense, riding rather with the easy adjustment to the quickened pace of a man more at home in the saddle than on foot. His weather-browned face was seamed with a scar which ran from left temple to the corner of his mouth, and his hair was a ragged, unkempt mop of brown-red which tossed free as he rode, since he was hatless.

With Croxton boxed between them, Drew and the stranger matched pace at what was a lope rather than a gallop as Boyd ranged ahead. Another flurry of shots sounded from behind, and they cut across a field, making for the doubtful cover of a hedge. There was no way, Drew decided after a quick survey, for them to get back into town and join the general retreat. The Yankees must be well between them and any of the force across the Licking.

When they had pushed through the hedge they were faced by a lane running in the general northwest direction. It provided better footing, and it led away from the chaos at Cynthiana. With Croxton on their hands it was the best they could hope for, and without more than an exchange of glances they turned into it, the wounded man's horse still between them.

The cover of the hedge wall provided some satisfaction and Drew dared to slow their pace. Under his tan Sam was greenish-white, his eyes half closed, and he rode with his hands clamped about the saddle horn as if his grip upon that meant the difference between life and death. But Drew knew he could not hope to keep on much longer.

There might be Confederate sympathizers in the next farmhouse who would be willing to take in the wounded scout. On the other hand, the inhabitants could just as well be Union people. It was obvious that Sam could not keep going, and it was just as obvious to Drew that they--or at least he--could not just ride on and leave him untended by the side of the road.

"Boyd!" So summoned, the youngster reined in to wait for them. "You ride on! You, too!" Drew addressed the stranger.

Boyd shook his head, though he glanced at the winding road ahead. "I ain't leavin' you!" His lip was sticking out in that stubborn pout.

At that moment Drew could have lashed out at him and enjoyed it, or at least found a satisfaction in pa.s.sing on some of his own exasperation and frustration.

"We got a far piece to travel," commented the stranger. "An' I guess I'll string along with you, 'less, of course, this heah is a closed game an' you ain't sellin' any chips 'cross the table. Me, I'm up from Texas way--Anson ... Anse Kirby, if you want a brand for the tally book. An'

most all a Yankee's good for anyway is to be shucked of his boots." He freed one foot momentarily from the stirrup and surveyed a piece of very new and s.h.i.+ny footware with open admiration. It was provided with a highly ornate silver spur, not military issue but Mexican work, Drew guessed.

"You from Gano's Company?" the scout asked.

Kirby nodded. "Nowadays, but it was Terry's Rangers 'fore I stopped me a saber with this heah tough old head of mine an' was removed for a while. That Yankee almost fixed me so m' own folks wouldn't know me from a fresh-skinned buffala--not that I got me any folks any more." He grinned and that expression was a baring of teeth like a wolf's uninhibited snarl. "You one of Quirk's rough-string scout boys, ain't you? We sure raised h.e.l.l an' put a chunk under it back theah. Them Yankees are gonna be as techy as teased rattlers. An' I don't see as how we can belly through the brush with this heah hombre. He's got him a middle full of guts to stick it this far. Long 'bout now he must have him a horse-size headache...."

Croxton swayed and only Drew's crowding their horses together kept the now unconscious scout from falling into the road dust. Kirby steadied the limp body from the other side.

"Keep pullin' him 'round this way, amigo, an' he'll be planted permanent, all neat an' pretty with a board up at his head."

"There's a house--back there." Boyd pointed to the right, where a narrow lane angled away from their road, a small house to be seen at its end.

Drew, Croxton's weight resting against his shoulder, studied the house.

The distant crackle of carbine fire rippled across the fields and came as a rumble of warning. It was plain that Croxton could not ride on, not at the pace they would have to maintain in order to outdistance pursuit; nor could he be left to s.h.i.+ft for himself. To visit the house might be putting them straight into some Yankee's pocket, but it was the only solution open now.

"Hey, those mules!" Boyd had already ventured several horse lengths down the lane. Now he jerked a forefinger at two animals, heads up, ears pointed suspiciously forward, that were approaching the fence at a rocking canter. "Those are Jim Dandy's! You remember Jim Dandy, Drew?"

"Jim Dandy--?" the other echoed. And then he did recall the little Englishman who had been a part of the Lexington horse country since long before the war. Jim Dandy had been one of the most skillful jockeys ever seen in the blue gra.s.s, until he took a bad spill back in '59 and thereafter set himself up as a consultant trainer-vet to the comfort of any stable with a hankering to win racing glory.

To a man like Jim Dandy politics or war might not be all-important. And the fact that he had known the households of both Oak Hill and Red Springs could count for a better reception now. At least they could try.

"No use you gettin' into anything," Drew told the Texan. "You and Boyd go on! I'll take Croxton in and see if they'll take care of him."

Kirby looked back down the road. "Don't see no hostile sign heah 'bouts," he drawled. "Guess we can spare us some time to bed him down proper on th' right range. Maybeso you'll find them in theah as leery of strangers as a rustler of the sheriff--"

The Texan's references might be obscure, but he helped Drew transfer Croxton from the precarious balance in the wounded man's own saddle to Drew's hold, and then rode at a walking pace beside the scout while Boyd trailed with the led horse.

There was a pounding of hoofs on the road behind. A half dozen riders went by the mouth of the land at a distance-eating gallop. In spite of the dust which layered them Drew saw they were not Union.

"Them boys keep that gait up," Kirby remarked, "an' they ain't gonna make it far 'fore their tongues hang out 'bout three feet an' forty inches. That ain't no way to waste good hoss flesh."

"Got a good hold on him?" he asked Drew a moment later. At the other's nod he rode forward into the yard at the end of the lane.

"Hullo, the house!" he called.

A man came out of the stable, walking with a kind of hop-skip step. His blond head was bare, silver fair in contrast to Boyd's corn yellow, and his features were thin and sharp. It was Jim Dandy, himself.

"What's all this now?" he asked in that high voice Drew had last heard discussing the virtues of rival horse liniments at Red Springs. And he did not look particularly welcoming.

"Mr. Dandy--" Drew walked his horse on, Croxton sagging in his hold, his weight a heavy pull on his bearer's tired arms--"do you remember me?

Drew Rennie, of Red Springs." He added that quickly for what small guarantee of respectability the identification might give. Certainly in his present guise he did not look Alexander Mattock's grandson.

Dandy rested his weight on his good leg and swung his shorter one a little ahead. And his hand went to the loose front of his white s.h.i.+rt.

"Now that's a right unfriendly move, suh. I take it right unfriendly to show hardware 'fore you know the paint on our faces--"

The smaller man's hand fell away from his concealed weapon, but Kirby did not reholster the Colt which had appeared through some feat of lightning movement in his grip.

"You're not going to take _my_ horses!" Even if there was no gun in Dandy's hand, his voice stated a fact they could not doubt he meant.

"n.o.body's takin' hosses," the Texan answered. "This heah soldier's got him a mighty sore head, an' he needs some fixin'. We ain't too popular round heah right now, an' he can't ride. So--"

Boyd pushed up. "Mr. Dandy, you know me--Boyd Barrett. And this _is_ Drew Rennie. We have Yankees after us. And you never said you were Union--"

Dandy shrugged. "No matter to me what you wear ... blue ... gray--you're all a bunch of horse thieves, like as not. You, Mr. Boyd, what you doing riding with these here Rebs? And what's the matter with that man? Got him a lick on the head, eh? Well--" he crossed with his lurching walk to stand by Drew, studying the now unconscious Croxton--"all right." His voice was angry, as if he were being pushed along a path he disliked.

"Get him into the stable. I ain't yet took sides in this here b.l.o.o.d.y war, and I ain't going to now. But the man's hurt. Unload him and don't tell me what he's been doing back there to get him that knock. I don't want to know."