Ride Proud, Rebel Part 20

"Mind you, boy," he added with some seriousness, "I want that back in good condition when you report in. Those don't grow handily on trees. I have only three left."

"Yes, suh," Drew accepted it with respect. "I'm to stay put until relieved, suh?"

"Yes. Better take someone to spell you. I don't want any misses."

Back at the scout fire Drew collected Boyd. This was an a.s.signment the boy could share. And shortly they had hollowed out for themselves a small circular s.p.a.ce in the thicket, with two carefully prepared windows, one on the river, the other for their signal flag.

It was almost evening, and Drew did not expect any night travel. Morning would be the best time. He divided the night into watches, however, and insisted they keep watch faithfully.

"Kinda cold," Boyd said, pulling his blanket about his shoulders.

"No fire here." Drew handed over his companion's share of rations, some cold corn bread and bacon carefully portioned out of their midday cooking.

"'Member how Mam Gusta used to make us those dough geese? Coffee-berry eyes.... I could do with some coffee berries now, but not to make eyes for geese!"

Dough geese with coffee-berry eyes! The big summer kitchen at Oak Hill and the small, energetic, and very dark skinned woman who ruled it with a cooking spoon of wood for her scepter and abject obedience from all who came into her sphere of influence and control. Dough geese with coffee-berry eyes; Drew hadn't thought of those for years and years.

"I could do with some of Mam Gusta's peach pie." He was betrayed by memory into that wistfulness.

"Peach pie all hot in a bowl with cream to top it," Boyd added reverently. "And turkey with the fixin's--or maybe young pork! Seems to me you think an awful lot about eatin' when you're in the army. I can remember the kitchen at home almost better than I can my own room...."

"Anse, he was talkin' last night about some Mexican eatin' he did down 'long the border. Made it sound mighty interestin'. Drew, after this war is over and we've licked the Yankees good and proper, why don't we go down that way and see Texas? I'd like to get me one of those wild horses like those Anse's father was catchin'."

"We still have a war on our hands here," Drew reminded him. But the thought of Texas could not easily be dug out of mind, not when a man had carried it with him for most of his life. Texas, where he had almost been born, Hunt Rennie's Texas. What was it like? A big wild land, an outlaws' land. Didn't they say a man had "gone to Texas" when the sheriff closed books on a fugitive? Yes, Drew had to admit he wanted to see Texas.

"Drew, you have any kinfolk in Texas?"

"Not that I know about." Not for the first time he wondered about that.

There had been no use asking any questions of his grandfather or of Uncle Murray. And Aunt Marianna had always dismissed his inquiries with the plea that she herself had only been a child at the time Hunt Rennie came to Red Springs and knew very little about him. Odd that Cousin Merry had been so reticent, too. But Drew had pieced out that something big and ugly must have happened to begin all the painful tangle which had led from his grandfather's cold hatred for Hunt Rennie, that hatred which had been transferred to Hunt Rennie's son when the original target was gone.

When Drew first joined the army and met Texans he had hoped that one of them might recognize his name and say:

"Rennie? You any kin to the Rennies of-" Of where? The Brazos, the Rio country, West Texas? He had no idea in which part of that sprawling republic-become-a-state the Rennies might have been born and bred. But how he had longed in those first lonely weeks of learning to be a soldier to find one of his own--not of the Mattock clan!

"Yes, I would like to see Texas!" Boyd pulled the blanket closer about his shoulders, curling up on his side of their bush-walled hole. "Wish these fool Yankees would know when they're licked and get back home so we could do somethin' like that." He closed his eyes with a child's determination to sleep, and by now a soldier's ability to do so when the opportunity offered.

Drew watched the river. The dusk was night now with the speed of the season. And the crisp of autumn hung over the water. This was the twenty-ninth of October; he counted out the dates. How long they could hold their trap they didn't know, but at least long enough to wrest from the enemy some of the supplies they needed far worse than Sherman's men did.

General Buford had let four transports past their masked batteries today because they had carried only soldiers. But sooner or later a loaded s.h.i.+p was going to come up. And when that did--Drew's hand a.s.sured him that the General's red handkerchief was still inside against his ribs where he had put it for safekeeping.

In the early morning Drew slipped down to the river's edge behind a screen of willow to dip the cold water over his head and shoulders--an effective way to clear the head and banish the last trace of sleep.

The sun was up and it must have been shortly before eight when they sighted her, a Union transport riding low in the water, towing two barges. A quick inspection through the binoculars he had borrowed from Wilkins told Drew that this was what the General wanted. He pa.s.sed the signal to Boyd.

"_Mazeppa_," he read the name aloud as the s.h.i.+p wallowed by their post.

She was pa.s.sing the lower battery now, and there was no sign of any gunboat escort. But when their quarry was well in the stretch between the two lower batteries, they opened fire on her, accurately enough to send every sh.e.l.l through the s.h.i.+p. The pilot headed her for the opposite sh.o.r.e, slammed the prow into the bank, and a stream of crew and men leaped over at a dead run to hunt shelter in the woods beyond.

Men were already down on the Confederate-held side of the river, trying to knock together a raft on which to reach their prize. When that broke apart Drew and Boyd saw one man seize upon a piece of the wreckage and kick his way vigorously into the current heading for the stern of the grounded steamer. He came back in the _Mazeppa's_ yawl with a line, and she was warped back into the hands of the waiting raiders.

There was a wave of gray pouring into the s.h.i.+p, returning with bales, boxes, bundles. Then Drew, who had s.n.a.t.c.hed peeps at the activity between searching the upper waters for trouble, saw the gunboats coming--three of them. Again Boyd signaled, but the naval craft made better speed than the laden transport and they were already in position to lob sh.e.l.ls among the men unloading the supply s.h.i.+ps, though the batteries on the sh.o.r.e finally drove them off.

In the end they fired the prize, but she was emptied of her rich cargo.

Shoes, blankets, clothing--you didn't care whether breeches and coats were gray or blue when they replaced rags--food.

Kirby came to their sentry post, his arms full, a beatific smile on his face.

"What'll you have, amigos--pickles, pears, Yankee crackers, long sweetenin'--" He spread out a variety of such stores as they had almost forgotten existed. "You know, seein' some of the prices on this heah sutlers' stuff, I'm thinkin' somebody's sure gittin' rich on this war.

It ain't n.o.body I know, though."

They kept their trap as it was through the rest of the day and the following night without any more luck. When the next fish swam into the net it approached from the other side and not past the scout post. The steamer _Anna_ progressed from Johnsonville, ran the gantlet of the batteries, and in spite of hard sh.e.l.ling, was not hit in any vital spot, escaping beyond. But when the transport _Venus_, towing two barges and convoyed by the gunboat _Undine_, tried to duplicate that feat they were caught by the accurate fire of the masked guns. Trying to turn and steam back the way they had come, they were pinned down. And while they were held there, another steamer entered the upper end of the trap and was disabled. Guns moved by sweat, force, will and hand-power, were wrestled around the banks to attend to the _Undine_. And after a brisk duel her officers and crew abandoned her.

"We got us a navy," Kirby announced when he brought their order to leave the picket post. "The Yankees sure are kind, presentin' us with a couple of s.h.i.+ps jus' outta the goodness of their hearts."

The _Undine_ and the _Venus_, manned by volunteers, did steam with the caution of novice sailors upriver when on the first of November troops and artillery started to Johnsonville.

"Hi!" One of the new Horse Marines waved to the small party of scouts, weaving in and out to gain their position at the head of the column.

"Want to leave them feed sacks for us to carry?"

Kirby put a protecting hand over his saddle burden of extra and choice rations.

"This heah grub ain't gonna be risked out on no water," he called back.

"Nor blown up by no gunboat neither."

Those fears were realized, if not until two days later, when the scouts were too far ahead to witness the defeat of Forrest's river flotilla.

The _Undine_, outfought by two Yankee gunboats, was beached and set afire. The same fate struck the _Venus_ a day afterward. But by that time the raiders had reached the bank of the river opposite Johnsonville and were making ready to destroy the supply depot there.

Drew, Kirby, and Wilkins, with Boyd to ride courier, had already explored the bank and tried to estimate the extent of the wealth lying in the open, across the river.

"Too bad we jus' can't sorta cut a few head outta that theah herd,"

Kirby said wistfully. "Heah we are so poor our shadows got holes in 'em, an' lookit all that jus' lyin' theah waitin' for somebody to lay a hot iron on its hide--"

"More likely to lay a hot iron on your hide!" countered Drew. But he could not deny that the river landing with its thickly cl.u.s.tered transports, gunboats and barges, the acres of sh.o.r.eline covered with every kind of army store, was a big temptation to try something reckless.

They had ill.u.s.trious company during their prowling that afternoon.

Forrest himself and Captain Morton, that very young and very talented artillery commander, were making a reconnaissance before placing the batteries in readiness. And during the night those guns were moved into position. At midafternoon the next day the reduction of Johnsonville began.

Smoke, then flame, tore holes in those piles of goods. Warehouses blazed. By nightfall for a mile upriver and down they faced a solid sheet of fire, and they smelled the tantalizing odor of burning bacon, coffee, sugar, and saw blue rivers of blazing liquid running free.

"I still say it's a mighty shame, all that goin' to waste," commented Kirby sadly.

"Well, anyway it ain't goin' into the bellies of Sherman's men," Drew replied.

The Confederate force was already starting withdrawal, battery by battery, as the wasteland of the fire lighted them on their way. And now the Yankee gunboats were burning with explosions of sh.e.l.ls, fired by their own crews lest they fall into Rebel hands. It was a wild scene, giving the command plenty of light by which to fall back into the country they still dominated. The reduction of the depot was a complete success.

Scouts stayed with the rear guard this time, so it was that Drew saw again those two who had so carefully picked the gun stands only twenty-four hours before. General Forrest and his battery commander came down once more to survey the desolation those guns had left as a smoking, stinking scar.

Drew heard the slow, reflective words the General spoke: