LITMIR.BIZ

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but Drew believed Croxton was right. Through the dark, guns were moving up. The wasps were closing in on the disturbers of their nest, and every one of them carried a healthy stinger. He thought of what he had seen today: too many empty cartridge boxes, Enfield rifles still carried by men who would not, in spite of orders, discard them for the Yankee guns with ammunition to spare. Empty guns, worn-out men, weary horses…and Yankee guns moving confidently up through the night.

      CHAPTER 3

      On the Run—

      “They’re comin’! Looks like the whole country’s sproutin’ Yankees outta the ground.”

      They were, a dull dark mass at first and then an arc of one ominous color advancing in a fast, purposeful drive, already overrunning the pickets with only a lone shot here and there in defiance. They rode up confidently, dismounted, and charged—to be thrown back once. But there were too many of them, and they moved with the precision of men who knew what was to be done and that they could do it. Confederates were trapped before they could reach their horses; there was a wild whirling scramble of a fight flowing backward toward the river.

      Men with empty guns turned those guns into clubs, fighting to hold the center. But the enemy had already cut them off from the Augusta road and the bridge, and the river was at their backs. Water boiled under a lead rain. Drew saw an opening between two Union troopers. Flattening himself as best he could on Shawnee’s back, he gave the roan the spur. What good could be accomplished by the message he carried now—to bring up half the horse holders as reinforcements—was a question.

      However, he was never to deliver that message, for the horse lines had been stampeded by the first wave of flying men. Here and there a holder or two still tried to control at least one wild horse of the four he was responsible for, but there were no reserves for the fighting line. And—Drew glanced back—no battle to lead them into if there were.

      Men and horses were struggling, dying in the river. The bridge…he gaped at the horror of that bridge…horses down, kicking and dying, barring an escape route to their riders. And the blue coats everywhere. Like a stallion about to attack, Shawnee screamed suddenly and reared, his front hoofs beating the air. A spurting red stream fountained from his neck; an artery had been hit.

      Drew set teeth in lip, and plugged that bubbling hole with his thumb. Shawnee was dying, but he was still on his feet, and he could be headed away from the carnage in that water. Drew, his face sick and white, turned the horse toward the railroad tracks.

      “Drew!”

      Croxton? No, but somehow Drew was not surprised to see Boyd trying to keep his feet, being dragged along by two plunging horses, their eyes white-rimmed with terror. The only wonder was that the scout had heard that call through the din of screaming and shouting, the wild neighs of the horses, and the continual crackle of small arms’ fire.

      “Mount! Mount and ride!” He mouthed the order, not daring to pull up Shawnee, already past Boyd and his horses. The roan’s hoofs spurned gravel from the track line now. And Boyd drew level with him and mounted one of the horses, continuing to lead the other. There was a cattle guard ahead to afford some protection from the storm churning along the river.

      “Where?” Boyd called.

      Drew, his thumb still planted in the hole which was becoming Shawnee’s death, nodded to the guard. They made it, and Drew kneed the roan closer to the extra horse Boyd led, slinging his saddlebags across to the other mount. Then he dismounted, releasing his hold on the roan’s wound. For the second time Shawnee cried, but this time it was no warrior’s protest against death; it was the nicker of a question. The answering shot from Drew’s Colt was lost in the battle din. He was upon the other horse before Shawnee had stopped breathing.

      “Come on!” Drew’s voice was strident as he spurred, herding Boyd before him. Two of them, then three, four, as they came out on the bank of a millpond. Across that stretch of water there was safety, or at least the illusion of safety.

      “Drew!” For the second time he was hailed. It was Sam Croxton, holding onto the saddle horn with both hands, a stream of red running from a patch of blood-soaked hair over one ear. He swayed, his eyes wide open as those of the frightened horses, but fastened now on Drew as if the other were the one stable thing in a mad world.

      “Can you stick on?” Drew leaned across to catch the reins the other had dropped.

      A small spark of understanding awoke in those wide eyes. “I’ll stick,” the words came thickly. “I ain’t gonna rot in that damned 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 threshing 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 fashion 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

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