When they remounted, Sebore gave Little Joe a big clap on the back. “Say, you’re one danged smart hairpin, Joe! I backed the right man all right.”
A couple of hours later, back in town, Sebore announced that he was sending his whole outfit up to his north range. Said some cattle had been rustled off up there…
It was a little after midnight. And a cramp was twisting in Little Joe’s thigh as he waited, hunkered down motionless on the gulch side about twenty yards off from the cave. A night bird called somewhere and he wondered when the stage was coming through. It was almost an hour behind schedule. It was at midnight he had instructed the jailer to come out from town with Ab Murdock and a few other trusted gents if he himself hadn’t returned.
The wind soughed in the gulch. Yet sweat dribbled down the young deputy’s taut jaws. He had gambled everything on this. If he were wrong… Then he heard the rattle of the stage and the grind of an ungreased axle through the wind. The Concord coach hoved into view around a curve in the gulch, the mule-skinner cracking the blacksnake over his jaded double team. Unmindful of any danger, it came on, jounced roughly in a mudhole as it drew abreast of the overhanging mass of rock.
Half a minute passed and the stage was beyond it and swinging out of the gulch. A sombreroed head bobbed from the cave entrance. A curse bit on the night. “It’s a trick!” Sebore’s heavy voice cried from the confines of the cave. “We gotta get out and—”
“Hoist ’em! We got you surrounded!” Little Joe roared as he leaped out of the undergrowth. He knew there were two men, had figured that way. But they weren’t surrendering. There was a reason.
The first one flung sideward as he flung up an already drawn smokepole. Little Joe’s right weapon coughed. He missed and was stunned as a low bough ripped the hat from the other’s head. For it revealed the curly red hair of big Hank Ellard, marshal. And then the desperate Sebore barged into sight.
From the darkness of the cave, he had picked out Little Joe and he flung two snap shots. Little Joe came running along the canyon side, oblivious to the slug that whistled past his ear. He triggered and Sebore spun, drilled in the shoulder. Bellowing surrender, he went to his knees.
A stab of flame lanced toward Little Joe. He zigzagged and doubled, shooting at the second muzzle light once. Then the wind parted the tops of trees and let through the moon glow to spotlight him. Ellard darted from behind a tree and fired twice more. Steadying himself with deadly coolness, Little Joe drew bead with one outstretched gun and rode the trigger. Ellard went down, rolling yards, gun banged from his grip, his shooting arm broken and his scalp creased.
A slug furrowed Little Joe’s cheek and he swayed dizzily. Then he saw the treacherous Sebore firing from his knees. Joe ran right at him and fired from ten feet. The bullet smashed right through Sebore’s nose and blasted his brain. Little Joe grabbed a sapling to steady himself as Murdock galloped into the gulch, heading the bunch from town.
“It was right simple,” he admitted modestly back at the jail, “once I got the drift of things. Ellard, back in the cell, has confessed so you know about everything. He and Sebore were working together to get revenge on Solitaire. That was why I was put into office. Ellard’s being outta town when the shooting was done was no accident. They figured I’d never run it down.”
“But you didn’t have the deadwood to hang on Sebore till he showed his hand,” Murdock said. “I cain’t see how—”
“I remembered that more ’n ten years ago Sebore and King Riner had a fenceline fight and that Riner won in court. Sebore was out to get him for that as well as get Solitaire. So he simply slapped Riner’s brand on a horse he’d bought, then killed it up there in the badlands to point suspicion on him. Sebore did the killing, lit out, and was met by Ellard up there. Ellard held us off from the ledge so Sebore could swing south down to his own place. Then Ellard took out over the desert. That had me fooled for a while. I couldn’t figure how Sebore could hit out into the desert and get back to town early that same day and report at the jail. So—”
“But how did you know he had done it—”
Little Joe finished his drink and smiled slowly. “When somebody asked me at the Lucky Deuce if Solitaire said anything afore he died, I didn’t answer. But Blackie Sebore didn’t look worried none at all. He pumped the finishing shot into Solitaire with the gun against his body so he knew he couldn’t have said anything. That was my tip-off. So I stuck them two wires in the ground and showed ’em to him after pulling the windy about a witness to the murder coming in on the stage, Sebore showed his hand. ’S all.”
He rolled a quirly calmly. Outside the door a couple of men were saying how Little Joe would do a good job as new marshal all right.…
RIDE PROUD, REBEL! (Part 1), by Andre Norton
FROM GENERAL N. BEDFORD FORREST’S FAREWELL TO HIS COMMAND, MAY 9, 1865, GAINESVILLE, ALABAMA.
The cause for which you have so long and so manfully struggled, and for which you have braved dangers, endured privations and sufferings, and made so many sacrifices, is today hopeless.…
Civil war, such as you have passed through naturally engenders feelings of animosity, hatred and revenge. It is our duty to divest ourselves of all such feelings; and, as far as in our power to do so, to cultivate friendly feelings toward those with whom we have so long contended, and heretofore so widely, but honestly, differed.…
…In bidding you farewell, rest assured that you carry with you my best wishes for your future welfare and happiness. Without, in any way, referring to the merits of the cause in which we have been engaged, your courage and determination, as exhibited on many hard-fought fields, have elicited the respect and admiration of friend and foe. And I now cheerfully and gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness to the officers and men of my command, whose zeal, fidelity and unflinching bravery have been the great source of my success in arms.
I have never, on the field of battle, sent you where I was unwilling to go myself; nor would I now advise you to a course which I felt myself unwilling to pursue. You have been good soldiers; you can be good citizens. Obey the laws, preserve your honor, and the Government to which you have surrendered can afford to be, and will be, magnanimous.
N. B. Forrest, Lieutenant General
CHAPTER 1
Ride with Morgan
The stocky roan switched tail angrily against a persistent fly and lipped water, dripping big drops back to the surface of the brook. His rider moved swiftly, with an economy of action, to unsaddle, wipe the besweated back with a wisp of last year’s dried grass, and wash down each mud-spattered leg with stream water. Always care for the mount first—when a man’s life, as well as the safety of his mission, depended on four subordinate legs more than on his own two.
Though he had little claim to a thoroughbred’s points, the roan was as much a veteran of the forces as his groom, with all a veteran’s ability to accept and enjoy small favors of the immediate present without speculating too much concerning the future. He blew gustily in pleasure under the attention and began to sample a convenient stand of spring green.
His mount cared for, Drew Rennie swung up saddle, blanket, and the meager possessions which he had brought out of Virginia two weeks ago, to the platform in a crooked tree overhanging the brook. He settled beside them on the well-seasoned timbers of the old tree house to rummage through his saddlebags.
The platform had been there a long time—before Chickamauga and the Ohio Raid, before the first roll of drums in ’61. Drew pulled a creased shirt out of the bags and sat with it draped over one knee, remembering.…
Sheldon Barrett and he—they had built it together one hot week in summer—had named it Boone’s Fort. And it was the only thing at Red Springs Drew had really ever owned. His dark eyes were fixed now on something more than the branches about him, and his