Ride Proud, Rebel Part 22

Drew cantered back to wave in Kirby, Boyd, and the others who had made that charge with him. It was retreat again, but they did not know then that Franklin had cost them Hood's big gamble. Forty-five hundred men swept out of the gray forces--killed, wounded, missing, prisoners. Five irreplaceable generals were dead; six more, wounded or captured. The Army of the Tennessee was slashed, badly torn ... but it was not yet destroyed.

That night the cavalry was on the march, driven by Forrest's tireless energy. They hit skirmishers at a garrisoned crossroads, using Morton's field batteries to cut them a free path. And through the bitter days of early December they continued to show their teeth to some purpose.

Blockhouses along the railroads and along the c.u.mberland were taken, with Murfreesboro their goal. Life was a constant alert, a plugging away of weary men, worn-out horses, bogged-down wagons, relieved now and then from the mora.s.s of exhaustion by sharp spurts of fighting, the satisfaction of rounding up a Yankee patrol or blockhouse squad, the taking of some supply train and finding in its wagons enough to give them all mouthfuls of food.

Murfreesboro was strongly garrisoned by the enemy, too strong to be stormed. But on the morning of the seventh a Yankee detachment came out of that fort and Forrest's men deployed to entice them farther afield.

Buford's command was lying in wait--let the blue bellies get far enough from the town and they could cut in between, perhaps even overrun the remaining garrison and accomplish what Forrest himself had believed impossible, the taking of Murfreesboro.

They made part of that ... fought their way into the town. Drew pounded along in a compact squad led by Wilkins. He saw the sergeant sway in the saddle, dropping reins, his face a clay-gray which Drew recognized of old. s.n.a.t.c.hing at the now trailing rein, Drew jerked the other's mount out of the main push.

The sergeant's head turned slowly; his mouth looked almost square as he fought to say something. Then he slumped, tumbling from the saddle into the embrace of an ornamental bush as his horse clattered along the sidewalk. Drew knew he was already dead.

Buford's men went into Murfreesboro right enough, well into its heart.

But they could not hold the town. Only that thrust was deep and well timed; it saved the whole command. For, though they did not know it yet, on the pike the infantry had broken. For the first time Forrest had seen men under his orders run from the enemy in panic-stricken terror. Only the cavalry had saved them from a wholesale rout.

Drew trudged over the stubble of a field, leading Hannibal and Wilkins'

mount. There had been no way of bringing the sergeant's body out of town, and Drew had reported the death to Lieutenant Traggart, who officered the scouts. He felt numb as he headed for the spark of fire which marked their temporary camp, numb not only with cold and hunger, but with all the days of cold, hunger, fighting, and marching which lay behind. It seemed to him that this war had gone on forever, and he found it very hard to remember when he had slept soundly enough not to arouse to a quick call, when he had dared to ride across a field or down a road without watching every bit of cover, every point on the landscape which could mask an enemy position or serve the same purpose for the command behind him.

As he came up to the fire he thought that even the flames looked cold--stunted somehow--not because there had not been enough wood to feed them, but because the fire itself was old and tired. Blinking at the flames, he stood still, unaware of the fact that he was swaying on feet planted a little apart. He could not move, not of his own volition.

Someone coughed in the shadow fringe beyond the light of those tired flames. It was a short hard cough, the kind which hurt Drew's ears as much as its tearing must have hurt the throat which harbored it. He turned his head a fraction to see the bundle of blankets housing the cougher. Then the reins of mule and horse were twisted from his stiff fingers, and Kirby's drawl broke through the coughing.

"You, Larange, take 'em back to the picket line, will you?"

The Texan's hands closed about Drew's upper arms just below the arch of his shoulders, steered him on, and then pressed him down into the limited range of the fire's heat. From somewhere a tin plate materialized, and was in Drew's hold. He regarded its contents with eyes which had trouble focusing.

A thick liquid curled stickily back and forth across the surface of the plate as he strove to hold it level with trembling hands. Into the middle of that lake Kirby dropped white squares of Yankee crackers, and the pungent smell of mola.s.ses reached Drew's nostrils, making his mouth water.

s.n.a.t.c.hing at the crackers, he crammed his mouth with a dripping square coated with mola.s.ses. As he began to chew he knew that nothing before that moment had ever tasted so good, been so much an answer to all the disasters of the day. The world shrank; it was now the size of a battered tin plate smeared with mola.s.ses and the crumbs of stale crackers.

Drew downed the ma.s.s avidly. Kirby was beside him again, a steaming tin cup ready.

"This ain't nothin' but hotted water. But maybe it can make you think you're drinkin' somethin' more interestin'."

With the tin cup in his hands, Drew discovered he could pay better attention to his surroundings. He glanced around the small circle of men who messed together. There was Larange, coming back from the horse lines, Webb, the Tennesseean from the mountains, Croff and Weatherby, Cherokees of the Indian Nations, and Kirby, of course. But--Drew was searching beyond the Texan for the other who should be there.

Absently he sipped the hot water, almost afraid to ask a question. Then, just because of his inner fears, he forced out the words: "Where's Boyd?"

When Kirby did not answer, Drew's head lifted. He put down his cup and caught the Texan's arm.

"He made it out of town; I know that. But where _is_ he?"

"Ovah theah." Kirby nodded at the blanket-wrapped figure in the shadows.

"Seems like he ain't feelin' too well...."

Drew wasted no time in getting to his feet. On his hands and knees, he scrambled across the s.p.a.ce separating him from the roll of blankets. His questing hand smoothed across a ragged bullet tear in the top one, recognizing it to be Kirby's by that mark. The pale oval of Boyd's face turned toward him.

"What's the matter, boy?"

Drew could hear the other's harsh, fast breathing just as he had when they had found the injured boy at Harrisburg. Drew's fingers touched a burning-hot cheek.

"Got ... me ... sniffles." Boyd's mumble ended in another bout of those sharp coughs. "'Member--sniffles? Hot soup an' bricks in bed, an' onion cloth for the throat...." He repeated all the Oak Hill remedies for a severe cold.

Bricks to warm the bed, hot soup of Mam Gusta's expert concocting, a thick onion poultice to ease the pain in throat and chest and draw out inflammation: every one of those were as far beyond reach now as Oak Hill itself! For a moment Drew was gripped with a panic born of utter frustration.

"Sh.e.l.ly? You there, Sh.e.l.ly?" Boyd's hoa.r.s.e voice came from the dark.

"I'm sure thirsty, Sh.e.l.ly!"

Drew turned his head. Kirby had been behind him, but now the Texan was back to the fire, ladling more hot water out of the pot. When he returned, Weatherby was with him. Drew slipped his arm under that restlessly turning head to support the boy while the Texan held the tin cup to Boyd's lips. They got a few mouthfuls into him before he turned his head away with a ghost of some of his old petulance.

"I'm hungry, Sh.e.l.ly. Tell Mam Gusta...."

Weatherby squatted down on the other side of Boyd's limp body and put his hand to the boy's forehead.

"Fever."

"Yes." Drew knew that much.

"There's a farmhouse two miles that way." Weatherby nodded to the south.

"Maybe n.o.body there, but it will be cover--"

"You can find it?" Drew demanded.

The Cherokee scout answered quickly. "Yes. You tell the lieutenant, and we'll go there."

Kirby's hand rested on Drew's shoulder for a moment. "I'll track down Traggart. You and Weatherby here get the kid into that cover as quick as you can. This ain't no weather for an hombre with a cough to be out sackin' in the bush."

Kirby was back again before they had rigged a blanket stretcher between two horses.

"The lieutenant says to stay with th' kid till mornin'. He'll send the doc along as soon as he can find him. Trouble is, we may have to ride on tomorrow...."

But Drew put that worry out of his mind. No use thinking about tomorrow; the present moment was the most important. With Weatherby as their guide, they started off at a walk, heading into the night across ice-rimmed fields while the rising wind brought frost to bite in the air they pulled into their lungs.

There was no light showing in the black bulk of the house to which Weatherby steered them. It was small, hardly better than a cabin, but the door swung open as Kirby knocked on it; and they could smell the cold, stale odor of a deserted and none-too-clean dwelling. But it was shelter, and exploring in the dark, Kirby announced that there was firewood piled beside the hearth.

By the light of the blaze Weatherby brought alive they found an old bedstead backed against the wall, a tangle of filthy quilts cascading from it. One look at them a.s.sured Drew that Boyd would be far better left in his blankets on the floor itself.

The Cherokee scout prowled the room, looking into the rickety wall cupboards, venturing through another door into a second smaller room, really a lean-to, and then going up the ladder into a loft.

"They left in a hurry, whoever lived here," he reported. "They left this--" He held out a dried, shrunken piece of shriveled salt beef.

"We can boil it," Kirby suggested. "Make a kinda broth; it might help the kid. Any sign of a pot--?"

There was a pot, encrusted with corn-meal remains. Weatherby took it outside and returned, having scrubbed its interior as clean as possible, and filling it with a cup or so of water. "There's a well out there."

Boyd was asleep, or at least Drew hoped it was sleep. The boy's face was flushed, his breathing fast and uneven. But he hadn't coughed for some time, and Drew began to hope. If he could have a quiet day or two here, he might be all right. Or else the surgeon could send him along on one of the wagons for the sick and wounded--the wagons already on the move south. If the doctor would certify that Boyd was ill....

Weatherby was busily shredding the wood-hard beef into the pot of water.

His busy fingers stopped; his dark eyes were now on the outer door. Drew stiffened. Kirby's fingers closed about the b.u.t.t of a Colt.