Ride Proud, Rebel Part 18

The destruction of the blockhouse and the trestle could be left to the army behind; the scouts moved on again.

"The boys are havin' themselves a time." Kirby returned to his post with the advance. "Tyin' bowknots in rails gits easier all the time. When this heah campaign is over, we'll know more 'bout takin' railroads apart then the fellas who make 'em know 'bout puttin' 'em together."

"Trouble!" Drew reined in Hannibal and waved to Wilkins. "There's a picket up there...."

Kirby's gaze followed the other's pointing finger. "Kinda green at the business," he commented critically. "Sorta makin' a sittin' target of hisself. Like to tickle him up with a shot. We don't git much action outta this."

"I'd say we're plannin' to go in now."

A squad of Buford's advance filtered up through the trees, and an officer, his insignia of rank two-inch strips of yellowish ribbon sewed to the collar of a mud-brown coat, was conferring with Wilkins. Then the clear notes of the bugle charge rang out.

Forrest's men were as adept as Morgan's raiders in making a show of force seem twice the number of men actually in the field. They now whirled in and out of a wild pattern which should impress the Yankee picket with the fact that at least a full regiment was advancing.

Three miles from Pulaski the Yankees made a stand, slamming back with all they had, but Buford was pus.h.i.+ng just as hard and determinedly.

Gray-brown boiled out of cover and charged, yelling. That electric spark of reckless determination which had taken the Kentucky columns up the slope at Harrisburg flashed again from man to man. Drew tasted the old headiness which could sweep a man out of sanity, send him plunging ahead, aware only of the waiting enemy.

The Union lines broke under those shock waves; men ran for the town behind them. But there was no taking that town. By early afternoon they had them fenced in, held by a show of force. Only in the night, leaving their fires burning, the Confederates slipped away.

Rains. .h.i.t again; guns and wagons bogged. But they kept on into rough-and-rocky country. They had taken enough horses from the Union corrals at the blockhouses to mount the men who had tramped patiently along the ruts in just that hope. Better still, sugar and coffee from the rich Yankee supply depot at the Brown farm was now filling Rebel stomachs.

Drew sat on his heels by a palm-sized fire, watching with weary content the tin pail boiling there. The aroma rising from it was one he had almost forgotten existed in this world of constant riding and poor forage.

"Hope it kicks in the middle an' packs double." Kirby rested a tin cup on one knee, ready and waiting. "Me, I like mine strong enough to rest a horseshoe on ... gentlelike."

"Yankees are obligin', one way or another." Drew licked his fingers appreciatively. He had been exploring the sugar supply. "I've missed sweetenin'."

"Drink up, boys, and get ready to ride," Wilkins said, coming out of the dark. "We've marchin' orders."

Kirby reached for the pot and poured its contents, with careful measurement, into each waiting cup. "Wheah to now, Sarge? Seems like we've covered most of this heah range already."

"Huntsville. We have to locate a river crossin'."

Drew looked up. "Startin' back, Sarge?"

"Heard talk," Wilkins admitted. "Most of the blue bellies in these parts are turnin' lines to aim square at us. We can't take on all of Sherman's bully boys--"

"Got him riled, though, ain't we? All right." Kirby was energetically fanning the top of his steaming cup with his free hand. "Git this down to warm m' toes, Sarge, an' I'll stick them same toes in the stirrups an' jingle off. Come on, Drew, no man never joined up with the army to git hisself a comfortable life...."

Certainly that last statement of the Texan's was proven correct during the next six days. A feint toward the Yankee garrison at Huntsville occupied the enemy until the wagon train and artillery moved on to the Tennessee River. And along its northern banks, Buford's Scouts ranged.

Already high for the season the waters were still rising. And all the transportation they could collect were three ferry boats at Florence and a few skiffs, not enough to serve all the Confederate force pus.h.i.+ng for that escape route.

Athens, which Forrest had occupied on the upswing of the raid, was already back in Union hands, and the blue forces were closing in, in a countrywide sweep, backing the gray cavalry against the river.

By the third of October Buford had the boats in action, ferrying across men, equipment, and artillery in a steady stream of night-and-day oar labor. The stout General, mounted on a big mule, a large animal to carry a large man, gave the scouts new orders.

"Try downriver, boys. We're in a pinchers here, and they may be goin' to nip us--hard!" He rolled a big cheroot from a Yankee commissary store between his teeth, watching the wind whip the surface of the river into good-sized waves about the laboring boats. "Anything usable below Florence ... we want to know about it, and quick!"

Wilkins led them out at a steady trot. "We'll take a look around Newport. Rough going, but I think I remember a place."

However, the possibilities of Wilkins' "place" did not seem too promising to Drew when they came out on a steep bluff some miles down the Tennessee.

"This is a h.e.l.ler of a river," Kirby expressed his opinion forcibly.

"Always spittin' back in an hombre's face. We've had plenty of trouble with it before."

They were on a bank above a slough which was not more than two hundred feet wide. And beyond that was an island thickly overgrown with cane, oak, and hickory. The upper end of that was sandy, matted with driftwood, some of it partially afloat again.

"Use that for a steppin' stone?" Drew asked.

"Best we're goin' to find. And if time's runnin' out, we'll be glad to have it. Rennie, report in. We'll do some more scoutin', just to make sure there'll be no surprises later."

For more than thirty-six hours Buford had been ferrying. Artillery, wagons, and a large portion of his division were safely across. When Drew returned to the uproar along the river he found that the second half of the retreating forces, commanded by Forrest, were in town. And it was to Forrest that Drew was ordered to deliver his report.

He would never forget the first glimpse he'd had of Bedford Forrest--the officer sitting his big gray charger in the midst of a battle, whirling his standard to attract a broken rabble of men, knitting out of them, by sheer force of personality, a refreshed, striking force. Now Drew found himself facing quite a different person--a big, quiet, soft-spoken man who eyed the scout with gray-blue eyes.

"You're Rennie, one of that Morgan company who joined at Harrisburg."

"Yes, suh."

"Morgan's men fought at Chickamauga ... good men, good fighters. Said so then, never had any reason to change that. Now what's this about an island downriver?"

Drew explained tersely, for he had a good idea that General Forrest wanted no wasting of time. Then at request he drew a rough sketch of the island and its approaches. Forrest studied it.

"Something to keep in mind. But I want to know that it's clear. You boys picket it. If there's any Union movement about, report it at once!"

"Yes, suh."

If Yankee scouts had sighted the island, either they had not reported it or their superiors had not calculated what its value might be for hunted men--and to a leader who was used to improvising and carrying through more improbable projects than the one the island suggested.

At Shoal Creek a rear guard was holding off the Union advance which had started from Athens, the two p.r.o.nged pinchers General Buford had foreseen. And now the island came into use.

Saddles and equipment were stripped from horses and piled into the boats brought down from Florence. Then the mounts were driven to the top of the bluff and over into the water some twenty feet below. Leaders of that leap were caught by their halters and towed behind the boats, the others swimming after.

Men and mounts burrowed back into the concealment of those thick canebrakes and were hidden along the southern sh.o.r.e of the overgrown strip of water-enclosed land. The Union pursuers came up on the bluff, but they did not see the ferrying from the south bank of the island, ferrying which kept up night and day for some forty-eight hours.

"Cold!" Kirby and Drew crouched together behind a screen of cane on the north side of the island, watching the bank above for any hostile move on the part of the enemy.

"General Forrest says no fires."

"Yeah. You know, I jus' don't like this heah spread of water.

This is the second time I've had to git across it with Old Man Death-an'-Disaster raisin' dust from my rump with a double of his encouragin' rope. Seems like the Tennessee ain't partial to raidin'

parties."

"Makes a good barrier when we're on the other side," Drew pointed out reasonably.

"So--"

Drew's Colt was already out, Kirby's carbine at ready. But the man who had cat-footed it through the cane was General Forrest himself.