“You’ll take turns at the jobs, at least starting out. I don’t care who does what, though. You can settle that among yourselves.”
Dale commented, “I wouldn’t mind handling one of the teams. I used to drive a freight wagon before the war.”
“So did I,” Edgar offered. “I reckon I’ll take the other driver’s job starting out.”
None of the other men volunteered to ride on the wagons as guards. Luke and Remy looked at each other. Luke shrugged, and Remy said, “We’ll take the wagons, too, Colonel.”
Lancaster nodded. “Fine.” He looked to Potter, Stratton, Casey, and Richards. “You men will find your horses in the alley behind the warehouse. Bring them around front and mount up. You can fetch my mount as well.” He motioned to the uniformed soldiers who had been waiting in the warehouse, guarding the gold shipment. “Open the doors.”
The troopers swung the big double doors back while Luke and his friends climbed onto the wagons. Luke settled down on the seat of the first wagon beside Dale. “Sure you can handle this?”
“Oh, yeah. To tell you the truth, I’ve never been that comfortable in a saddle.”
“I was riding almost before I could walk, at least according to my pa,” Luke told him.
The mention of Emmett Jensen put a pensive look on Luke’s face. Luke had joined up first, back in ’61, but he had suspected his pa wouldn’t be able to stay out of the fight for long. Sure enough, Emmett had enlisted, too.
Proving that the world really was a small place, the two of them had run into each other at Chancellorsville, even though they were in different regiments. Hundreds of thousands of troops rampaging around those Virginia woods, and yet father and son had practically bumped heads.
That wasn’t the last time, either. Anytime their units were anywhere near each other, one of them would seek out the other so they could visit in the lull between battles. Neither of them got much news from home, but Emmett was confident his youngest son Kirby was keeping things going on the farm.
“Kirby may be just a boy,” Emmett had said during one visit, “but he’s got something special inside him. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a boy willing to work harder or more determined to do the right thing.”
“He’ll have the farm waiting for us when we come back,” Luke had said.
“Shoot, he may not even need our help!” Emmett had replied with a grin.
It had been a while since Luke had seen his pa. He hoped Emmett was all right. Both were soldiers, so who knew what might happen. It was a dangerous line of work.
When the wagons rolled out of the warehouse into the darkness, Colonel Lancaster and the other four outriders were waiting on horseback.
“I’ll lead the way,” Lancaster declared. “I want a rider on each side of the wagons. Keep an eye out behind you as well. We don’t want anybody sneaking up on us.”
“Did the colonel tell any of us exactly where we’re going?” Luke asked Dale as the party set out over the rough, cobblestoned streets.
“Not that I know of,” Dale replied.
“I might say something to him about that the first time we stop. He’s bound to have a map or something, but if anything happened to him, we wouldn’t know where we were supposed to take this—Luke stopped himself before he said the word gold—“cargo.”
“Yeah, that’s true,” Dale agreed. “All we know is that we’re headed for Georgia, but Georgia’s a pretty big place.”
It was pretty far away, too, Luke thought, and almost anything could happen between here and there. He felt the unaccustomed burden of responsibility weighing on his shoulders. He wasn’t used to taking care of anybody but himself or maybe two or three of his comrades. He’d never had anything like the fate of the Confederacy riding on his back before.
The city was dark except for the few fires started by exploding artillery shells. The Yankee bombardment continued. It went on almost around the clock. Luke didn’t see how the city could hold out much longer.
A shell screamed overhead and landed maybe half a mile behind them, blowing up with a huge explosion. Dale looked back over his shoulder at the pillar of flame rising into the black sky. “What do you think it’d be like if one of those things landed right on top of us?”
“We’ll never know,” Luke said.
“Because it won’t happen?”
“Because if it does, we’ll be blown to smithereens before we know what happened.”
“You really know how to make a fella feel encouraged, Luke—” Dale stopped short and hauled back on the reins. Colonel Lancaster had come to an abrupt halt in front of the wagon team. Garish, flickering light spilled over the cobblestones as a large number of men, many of them carrying torches, surged around a corner up ahead.
“That looks like trouble,” Dale muttered.
Luke was thinking the same thing. He knew mobs made of desperate civilians and deserters had taken to roaming the streets of Richmond. The army was trying to keep things under control, but it was getting more difficult with every passing day as the Yankee siege continued. Already there had been several riots.
And it looked like the two wagons were in the path of another one, as one of the men in the forefront of the mob yelled, “There are some wagons! There might be food in them!”
It was an easy conclusion to jump to. A starving man saw food everywhere.
The man waved his torch forward, and with a full-throated cry sounding like the howl of a wounded animal, the mob surged toward the wagons and riders.
CHAPTER 3
Luke saw Colonel Lancaster look around as if searching for a way out. In the narrow street it would be difficult and time-consuming to turn the wagons around, and there were no alleys nearby down which they could escape.
Fleeing wasn’t going to do any good. As close as the mob was, the starving men would be able to overtake the wagons without much trouble.
“Get ready to fight if you have to, Dale,” Luke said as he pulled the Griswold and Gunnison revolver from his waistband. He stood up and almost called Lancaster “Colonel,” catching himself just in time. He took a breath and shouted, “Mr. Lancaster, get out of the way!”
The army and the Confederate government wanted the bullion shipment kept secret, along with the fact that those with the wagons were soldiers. But the secret would be out if the mob swarmed over the wagons. Although the last thing he wanted was to hurt any of his fellow Southerners, Luke would do whatever was necessary to protect the gold. He hadn’t seen any firearms in the crowd, only torches and makeshift clubs. Figuring it was a small risk, he raised the revolver.
As Lancaster yanked his horse to the side, out of the line of fire, Luke thumbed back the hammer and squeezed the trigger. The Griswold and Gunnison was a .36 caliber weapon modeled after the Colt Navy and not noted for its accuracy. But the range was short, and he sent the pistol ball slamming into the cobblestones just a few feet in front of the mob’s leaders.
They stopped in a hurry.
The other members of the escort lifted rifles or pulled out pistols.
Luke knew hunger could make a man risk a great deal, up to and including his life. He cocked the revolver again and raised the barrel until he was aiming right between the eyes of the man who’d urged the mob into action. He didn’t know if the man was one of the leaders or just someone who’d been moved to shout, but he wanted to be certain the man was aware of the danger he was facing.
“You fellas stay right where you are!” Luke warned them. “We’ll shoot if we have to, make no mistake about that!”
“You can’t kill all of us!” somebody yelled.