Ride Proud, Rebel Part 34

He saw that General Forrest was smiling. "Sergeant, that theah story about your belt buckle has had a mightly lot of repeatin' up and down the ranks. You were a lucky young man!"

"Yes, suh!" Drew agreed. "While I was laid up, Privates Croff and Webb took turns on scout, suh. They located some of our men hidin'

out--stragglers from the retreat. They also rounded up a few of the bushwhackers' horses and mules."

Forrest nodded. "You returned to our lines with some fifteen men and ten mounts, as well as information. Your losses?"

Drew stared at the wall behind the General's head.

"One man missin', suh."

"You were unable to hear any news of him?"

"No, suh." The old weariness settled back on him. They had hunted--first Croff and Webb--and then he, too, as soon as he was able to sit a saddle. It was Weatherby's fate all over again; the ground might have opened and gulped Kirby down.

"How old are you, Sergeant?"

Drew could not see what his age had to do with Kirby's disappearance, but he answered truthfully: "Nineteen--I had a birthday a week ago, suh."

"And you volunteered when--?"

"In May of '62, suh. I was in Captain Castleman's company when they joined General Morgan--Company D, Second Kentucky. Then I transferred to the scouts under Captain Quirk."

"The big raids ... you were in Ohio, Rennie? Captured?"

"No, suh. I was one of the lucky ones who made it across the river before the Yankees caught up--"

"At Chickamauga?"

"Yes, suh."

"Cynthiana"--but now Forrest did not wait for Drew's affirmative answer--"and Harrisburg, Franklin.... It's a long line of battles, ain't it, boy? A long line. And you were nineteen last week. You know, Rennie, the Union Army gives medals to those they think have earned them."

"I've heard tell of that, suh."

The General's hand, brown, strong, went to the officer's hat weighing down a pile of papers on the table. With a quick twist, Forrest ripped off the ta.s.sled gold cord which distinguished it, smoothing out the loop of bullion between thumb and forefinger.

"We don't give medals, Sergeant. But I think a good soldier might just be granted a birthday present without any one gittin' too excited about how military that is." He held out the cord, and Drew took it a bit dazedly.

"Thank you, suh. I'm sure proud...."

A wave of Forrest's hand put a period to his thanks.

"A long line of battles," the General repeated, "too long a line--an end to it comin' soon. Did you ever think, boy, of what you were goin' to do after the war?"

"Well, there's the West, suh. Open country out there--"

Forrest's eyes were bright, alert. "Yes, and we might even hold the West. We'll see--we'll have to see. Your report accepted, Sergeant."

It was plainly a dismissal. As Drew saluted, the General laid his hat back on the tallest pile of papers. Busy at the table, he might have already forgotten Drew. But the Kentuckian, pausing outside the door to examine the hat cord once more, knew that he would never forget. No, there were no medals worn in the ragged, thin lines of the shrinking Confederate Army. But his birthday gift--Drew's fist closed about the cord jealously--that was something he would have, always.

Only, nowadays, how long was "always"?

"That's a right smart-lookin' mount, Sarge!" Drew looked at the pair of lounging messengers grinning at him from the front porch of headquarters. He loosened the reins and led the bony animal a step or two before mounting.

Shawnee, nimble-footed as a cat, a horse that had known almost as much about soldiering as his young rider. Then Hannibal, the mule from Cadiz, that had served valiantly through battle and retreat, to die in a Tennessee stream bed. And now this bone-rack of a gray mule with one lop ear, a mind of his own, and a gait which could set one's teeth on edge when you pushed him into any show of speed. The animal's long, melancholy face, his habit of braying mournfully in the moonlight--until Westerners compared him unfavorably with the coyotes of the Plains--had earned him the name Croaker; and he was part of the loot they had brought out of the bushwhackers' camp.

As unlovely as he appeared, Croaker had endurance, steady nerves, and a most un-mulelike willingness to obey orders. He was far from the ideal cavalry mount, but he took his rider there and back, safely. He was sure-footed, with a cat's ability to move at night, and in scout circles he had already made a favorable impression. But he certainly was an unhandsome creature.

"Smart actin's better than smart lookin'," Drew answered the disparagers now. "Do as well yourselves, soldiers, and you'll be satisfied."

Croaker started off at a trot, sniffling, his good ear twitching as if he had heard those unfriendly comments and was storing them up in his memory, to be acted upon in the future.

January and February were behind them now. Now it was March ...

spring--only it was more like late fall. Or winter, with the night closing in. Drew let Croaker settle to the gait which suited him best.

He would visit Boyd and then rejoin Buford's force.

The army, or what was left of it hereabouts, was, as usual, rumbling with rumor. The Union's General Wilson had a.s.sembled a ma.s.sive hammer of a force, veterans who had clashed over and over with Forrest in the field, who had learned that master's tricks. Seventeen thousand mounted cavalrymen, ready to aim straight down through Alabama where the war had not yet touched. Another ten thousand without horses, who formed a backlog of reserves.

In the Carolinas, Johnston, with the last stubborn regiments of the Army of the Tennessee, was playing his old delaying game, trying to stop Sherman from ripping up along the coast. And in Virginia the news was all bad. The world was not spring, but drab winter, the dying winter of the Confederacy.

Wilson's target was Selma and the Confederate a.r.s.enal; every man in the army knew that. Somehow Bedford Forrest was going to have to interpose between all the weight of that Yankee hammer and Selma. And he had done the impossible so often, there was still a chance that he _could_ bring it off. The General had a free hand and his own particular brand of genius to back it.

Drew's fingers were on the front of his short cavalry jacket, pressing against the coil of gold cord in his shirt pocket. No, the old man wasn't licked yet; he'd give Wilson and every one of those twenty-seven thousand Yankees a good stiff fight when they came poking their long noses over the Alabama border!

"He gave you what?" Boyd sat up straighter. His face was thin and no longer weather-beaten, and he'd lost all of that childish arrogance which had so often irritated his elders. In its place was a certain quiet soberness in which the scout sometimes saw flashes of Sheldon.

Now Drew pulled the cord from his pocket, holding it out for Boyd's inspection. The younger boy ran it through his fingers wonderingly.

"General Forrest's!" From it he looked to the faded weatherworn hat Drew had left on a chair by the door. Boyd caught it up and pulled off the leather string banding its dented crown. Carefully he fitted on Forrest's gift and studied the result critically. Drew laughed.

"Like puttin' a new saddle on Croaker; it doesn't fit."

"Yes, it does," Boyd protested. "That's right where it belongs."

Drew, standing by the window, felt a pinch of concern. He found it difficult nowadays to deny Boyd anything, let alone such a harmless request.

"The first lieutenant comin' along will call me for sportin' a general's feathers on a sergeant's head," he protested. "Nothin' from Cousin Merry yet? Maybe Hansford didn't make it through with my letter. He hasn't come back yet.... But--"

"Think I'd lie to you about that?" Boyd's eyes held some of the old blaze as he turned the hat around in his hands. "And what I told you is the truth. The surgeon said it won't hurt me any to ride with the boys when you pull out. General Buford's ordered to Selma and Dr. Cowan's sister lives there. He has a letter from her sayin' I can rest up at her house if I need to. But I won't! I haven't coughed once today, that's the honest truth, Drew. And when you go, the Yankees are goin' to move in here. I don't want to go to a Yankee prison, like Anse--"

Drew's shoulders hunched in an involuntary tightening of muscles as he stared straight out of the window at nothing. Boyd had insisted from the first that the Texan must be a prisoner. Drew schooled himself into the old sh.e.l.l, the sh.e.l.l of trying not to let himself care.

"General Buford said I was to ride in one of the headquarters wagons. He needs an extra driver. That's doin' something useful, not just sittin'

around listenin' to a lot of bad news!" The boy's tone was almost raw in protest.

And some of Boyd's argument made sense. After the command moved out he might be picked up by a roving Yankee patrol, while Selma was still so far behind the Confederate lines that it was safe, especially with Forrest moving between it and Wilson.

"Mind you, take things easy! Start coughin' again, and you'll have to stay behind!" Drew warned.