Drew pulled rein for the tenth time, his exasperation growing. “I might do just that.” Shawnee had been worth fifty of this temperamental blooded hunter.
“You take Tejano heah. He’s a rough-coated ol’ snorter—nothin’ to make an hombre’s eyes bug out—but he takes you way over yonder, an’ then he brings you back…nothin’ more you can ask.”
Drew agreed. “Lost my horse back at the river,” he said briefly. “This was a pickup—”
“Tough luck!” Kirby was sincerely sympathetic. “Funny about you Kaintuck boys…mostly you want a high-steppin’ pacer with a chief’s feathers sproutin’ outta his head. They has to have oats an’ corn an’ be treated like they was glass. I’d’ruther have me a range hoss. You can ride one of ’em from Hell to breakfast—an’ maybe a mile or two beyond—an’ he never knows the difference. Work him hard all day, an’ maybe the next mornin’ when you’re set to fork leather again, he shows you a bellyfull of bedsprings an’ you’re unloaded for fair. A hoss like that has him wind an’ power to burn—”
“You raised horses before the war?”
Kirby swallowed what must have been the last soggy crumb of hardtack. “Well, we had a mind to try that. M’pa, he started him a spread down Pecos way. He had him a good stud-quarter hoss—one of Steel Dust’s git. Won two or three races, that stud did. Called him Kiowa. Pa made a deal with a Mex mustanger; he got some prime stuff he caught in the Panhandle. One mare, I ’member—she was a natcherel pacer. Yeah, you might say as how we was gittin’ a start at a first-rate string. Me an’ m’ brothers, we was breakin’ some right pretty colts…”
His voice trailed into silence. Drew reined in the black again and asked another question:
“What happened…the war?”
“What happened? Well, you might say as how Comanches happened. Me, I was trailin’ ’long with this Mex mustanger to learn some of his tricks. When I came back, theah jus’ warn’t nothin’—nothin’ a man wants to remember after. Someday I’m gonna hunt me Comanches. Gonna learn me some tricks in this heah war I can use in that business!” There was no change in his expression. If anything, his drawl was a little softer and lazier, but the deadly promise in it reached Drew as clearly as if the other had burst out with the Rebel Yell.
“This is it!” Captain Campbell rode back along their line. It was a larger company; they had gathered in more fugitives this morning and had no stragglers. All they lacked was adequate arms to present a rather formidable source of trouble behind the Union lines. “We’re goin’ into the McKeever place. You men—remember, you’re prisoners!”
Very reluctantly those in that unhappy role unbuckled gun belts, passing their side arms over to their “captors.” There was a graveled drive branching out of the pike to their right with a grove of trees arching over it, so they rode into a restful green twilight out of the punishing sun.
Fields rippled lushly beyond that border of trees. There was a cleanness, a contentment, a satisfaction about this place which was no part of them or any men who passed so, armed, restless, tearing apart just such peace as enfolded them here. They rode out of urgency when the gravel of that well-raked drive shifted under the hoofs of their mounts.
“I’m sayin’ one thing loud an’ clear,” Kirby announced to those in his immediate vicinity as they neared a big brick house. “I may be playin’ prisoner to you boys, but I ain’t settlin’ for no prisoner’s rations. We all eat full plates in heah, let that be understood from the start.”
Campbell laughed. “Noted, Kirby. We’ll see that you desperate Rebs get all that’s comin’ to you.”
“Now that, Cap’n, is jus’ what I’m afraid of. We git all that’s comin’—that sounds a right smart better!”
“Company ahead, Cap’n!” The trooper who had suggested this action, indicated a man walking down the drive to meet their cavalcade.
“That’s Mr. McKeever.” Drew identified their host for Campbell.
But the captain was already moving ahead to meet the older man. He touched fingers to kepi—a neat blue kepi—in a smart salute.
“Chivers, Captain, Eleventh Ohio, sir. We’d like to make our noon halt here if you’ll grant permission.”
Thomas McKeever beamed. “No reason not, suh. Take your men over in the orchard, Captain. We can add a little something to your rations. Glad, always glad to entertain our boys.” His attention wandered to the score of “prisoners” in the center of the troop.
“Prisoners, Captain?”
“Some of Morgan’s horse thieves.” Campbell glanced back at the shabby exhibit. “You’ve heard the news, of course, sir? We smashed ’em proper over at Cynthiana—”
“You did? Now that’s good hearin’, Captain. It deserves a regular celebration; it surely does. Morgan smashed! Was he taken too? Next time I trust they’ll put him in something stronger than that jail you Ohio boys had him in last time; he’s a slippery one.”
“Haven’t heard about that, sir. But his men are pretty well scattered. These aren’t going to trouble any one for a while.”
McKeever nodded. “I’ve a stout barn you’re welcome to use for a temporary lockup, Captain. Though I must say they don’t display much spirit, do they? Look pretty well beat.”
Drew rubbed his hand across his face, hoping the grime there—a mixture of road dust, sweat, and powder blacking—was an effective disguise. No use recalling the old days for Mr. McKeever. Allowing his shoulders to slump dispiritedly as he was herded by his file guard, he rode sullenly on to the orchard.
They stripped their saddles and allowed the horses freedom for the first time in hours, an act which was against prudence but which McKeever would expect of Union troops. Drew lay full length under the curving limbs of an apple tree, his head pillowed on saddlebags.
“Now I wonder”—Kirby dropped down, to sit with his back against the tree trunk—“why they always say a fella is dog-tired. A dog, he ain’t got him much to do ’cept chase around on his own business. Soldier-tired—now that’s another matter. How ’bout it, kid? You ready to ride right outta heah an’ chase General Grant clean back to Lake Erie?”
Boyd had stretched out only a hand’s length from Drew. There were dark smudges under his closed eyes, hardly to be told from the smears of dirt on his round cheeks, but there. He rolled his head on a hammock of grass and scowled at Kirby.
“General Grant can—” he added a remark which surprised Drew into opening his eyes. Kirby shook his head reprovingly.
“Now that ain’t no way for a growin’ boy to talk. An’ it sits on your tongue as easy as a fly on a mule’s ear, too. What kinda company you bin keepin’, kid? Rennie, this heah colt ain’t got no reason to cram grammar into a remark that way.”
Drew stretched, folded his arms under his head, and answered, in a voice he tried to make as blighting as possible: “Thinks it makes him sound like a man, probably. He’s findin’ out the army ain’t quite what he expected.”
“You shut up—!” Boyd might have added something to that, but Drew had moved. He leaned over the youngster, his hand hard and heavy on Boyd’s shoulder. And it was plain that, much as he wanted to, the other did not quite dare to move or shake off that grip.
“I’ve had about enough,” Drew said quietly. “The next town we hit you’re goin’ to stay there, until someone comes from back home to collect you. Nobody knows you’re with us, and you can go back to Oak Hill without any trouble from Union troops.”
Boyd’s eyes blazed.