"You'll have to tie me to a horse to do it!" Boyd flared up.
"No thanks for your help." Drew frowned at Kirby, then turned to Boyd again. "No, I can't take you back now. But I'll see that you do go back!"
Boyd laughed, high, with a reckless note. "I'm comin' along."
"As I was sayin'," Kirby returned to his half suggestion of moments before, "we can see 'bout helpin' ourselves. Them Yankees are mighty particular 'bout their rigs; they carry 'nough to outfit a squad right on one trooper."
Drew had already caught on. "Stage an ambush?"
"Well, now, let's see." Kirby looked down at his own gear, then critically inspected Drew and Boyd in turn. "We could do with carbines. Them blue bellies had them some right pretty-lookin' hardware—leastways them back by the river did. An' I don't see no ration bags on them theah hosses you two are ridin'. Yes, we could do with grub, an' rifle-guns ... maybe some blue coats.... Say as how we was wearin' them we could ride up to some farm all polite an' nice an' maybe git asked in to rest a spell an' fill up on real fancy eats. I 'member back on the Ohio raid we came into this heah farm ... wasn't nobody round the place at all. We sashayed into the kitchen an' theah, jus' sittin' easylike an' waitin' right on the table, was two or three pies! Ain't had me a taste since as good as them theah pies. But maybe with a blue coat on us we could do as well heah 'bouts."
There was merit in the Texan's suggestion. Drew, from past experience, knew that. His only hesitation was Boyd. The youngster was right. Short of subduing him physically and taking him back tied to his saddle through the spreading Union web, Drew had no chance of returning Boyd to Oak Hill. But to lead him into the chancy sort of deal Kirby had outlined was entirely too dangerous.
"You mean—we hold up some Yankees and just take their uniforms an' carbines an' things?" It was already too late. Boyd had seized upon what must have seemed to him an idea right out of the dashing kind of war he had been imagining all these past weeks.
"It has been done, kid," the Texan affirmed. "'Course we got to find us two or three poor little maverick blue bellies lost outta the herd like. Then we cut 'em away from the trail an' reason with 'em."
"That ought to be easy." Boyd's enthusiasm was at the boiling point. "The Yankees are all cowards—"
Kirby straightened in his saddle, the lazy good humor gone from his face.
"Kid, don't git so lippy 'bout what you ain't rightly learned yet. Yankees can fight—they can fight good. You saw 'em do that today. And don't you ever forgit it!"
Boyd was disconcerted, but he clung doggedly to his belief. "One of Morgan's men can take on five Yankees."
Drew laughed dryly. "You saw that happen just this mornin', Boyd. And what happened? We ran. They fight just as hard and as long, and most of them just as tough as we do. And don't ever think that the man facin' you across a gun is any less than you are; maybe he's a little better. Keep that in mind!"
"Yes, you read the aces an' queens in your hand 'fore you spreads your money out recklesslike," Kirby agreed. "So, if we find the right setup, we move, but—"
Drew swung up one hand in the horseman's signal of warning. "Something—or someone—is on the move ... ahead there!" he warned.
4
The Eleventh Ohio Cavalry
They had worked their way around the edge of the cornfield, and now they could look out on a hard-surfaced road which must be the pike. Riding along that in good order were a company of men—thirty, Drew counted. And four of those had extra horses on leading reins. He also saw ten carbines ... and the owners of those were alert.
"Stand where you are!" The slight man leading that skeleton troop posted ahead. His shell jacket had the three yellow bars of a captain on its standing collar, and Drew saluted. This was the first group of fugitives he had seen who were more than frightened men running their horses and themselves into exhaustion.
"Rennie, Private, Quirk's Scouts," Drew reported himself.
Kirby's salute was delivered with less snap but as promptly. "Kirby, Private, Gano's."
"Captain William Campbell," the officer identified himself crisply. "Any more of you?" He looked to Boyd and then at the cornfield beyond.
"Barrett's a volunteer," Drew explained. This was no time to clarify Boyd's exact status. "There're just the three of us."
"You headin' somewheah special, Cap'n?" the Texan asked. "Or jus' travelin' for your continued health?"
Campbell laughed. "You might call it that, Kirby. But if we stick together, I think all of us may stay healthy."
Kirby turned his horse into the pike. "Sounds like a good argument to me, suh. You have any idea wheah at we are, or wheah we could be headin'?"
"Northwest is the best I can say. If we strike far enough to the west, we may be able to flank the troops spread out to keep us away from the river. Best plan for now, anyway. And the more men we can pick up, the better."
"Scattered some, ain't we?" Kirby assented. "You give the orders, Cap'n, suh. We ain't licked complete yet."
There was a low growl arising from the company on the pike as the Texan's comment reached them. They might have run and gone on running most of that long day, but they were no longer running; they were moving in reasonable order and to some purpose, with a direction in view and a form of organization, no matter how patched together they were. Campbell spoke directly to Drew: "You know anything about this section of the country?"
"Some, but it's been almost three years since I was here. I know nothin' about any Union garrison—"
"Those we'll have to worry about as they come. But you ride advance for us now. Send in any stragglers you come across. The night is almost here, and that's in our favor."
So Drew and Kirby, with Boyd trailing, ranged ahead of the small troop. And pick up more stragglers they did—some twenty men in the last hour before twilight closed down.
"I'm hungry," Boyd said, approaching Drew. "There're farms around. Why can't we get something to eat?"
"Here." Drew fumbled in the saddlebags he had transferred from Shawnee to this new mount back by the river. He handed over a piece of hardtack, flinty-surfaced and about as appetizing as a stone. "That's the best you'll get for a while."
Boyd stared at it in dismay. "You can't eat a thing like this! It's a piece of rock." Indignantly he hurled it away.
"You get down and pick that up! Now!"
Boyd, flushed and hot-eyed, gazed at Drew for a long moment. The flush faded and he moved uneasily in his saddle, but not out of the range of Drew's attention. At length, unhappily, he dismounted and went to pick the gray-white chunk out of a weed tangle. Holding it gingerly, he came back to his horse.
"If you don't want it—give!" Drew held out his hand.
Boyd, realizing the other meant just what he said, fingered the hardtack and finally dropped it into that waiting palm.
"You eat hard and you sleep on the soft side of a board—if you're lucky enough to find a board. You ride till your seat is blistered and until you can sleep in the saddle. You drink mud green with scum if that's all you can find to drink, and you think it's mighty fine drinkin', too. This ain't—" Drew's thoughts flitted back to his meeting with Aunt Marianna on the Lexington road—"all saber wavin' and chargin' the enemy and playin' hero to the home folks; this is sweatin' and dirt on you and your clothes, goin' mighty hungry, and cold and wet—when it's the season for goin' cold and wet. It's takin' a lot of the bad, with not much good. And if you don't cut off home now, you'll ride our way, keepin' your mouth shut and doin' as you're told!"
Boyd swallowed visibly. "All right." But there was a firmness in that short answer which surprised Drew. The other sounded as if he meant it, as if he were swearing the oath of allegiance to the regiment. But could he take it? A few days on the run, and Boyd would probably quit. Maybe if they got into some town and the Yankees didn't smoke them out right away, Drew could send a telegram and Boyd would be collected. Drew tried to console himself with that thought all the time another part of him was certain that Boyd intended to prove he could stick through all the rigors Drew had just outlined for him.