“He’s got you on a stand-off, I’d say,” Kirby remarked. “My, ain’t he the tough one though, horns sticking up an’ haired all over! Gentlemen—” he had glanced over their shoulder and was watching whatever was there—“company comin’. Mind your manners!”
Drew looked around. His hand clamped tighter on Boyd, keeping him pinned on his back. If he only had time…but there was no way of disguising the younger boy. And Thomas McKeever, strolling with Captain Campbell, had already sighted them, stopped short, and now was moving swiftly in their direction.
“Boyd Barrett!”
Drew had to release his hold and Boyd sat up, brushing bits of grass from his shirt sleeves even as he returned Mr. McKeever’s stare with composure.
“Yes, suh?” Boyd was on his feet now, making his manners with the speed of one harboring a guilty conscience.
“What are you doing with this gang of cutthroats and banditti?” Mr. McKeever had an excellent voice to deliver such an inquiry; it could rattle the unaware into confusion, and sometimes even into quick confession, as he undoubtedly knew.
“I’m with General Morgan, Mr. McKeever.” Boyd did not appear too ruffled.
“I refuse to believe that even that unprincipled ruffian is robbing cradles to fill up his ranks, depleted as they may be—”
Boyd reddened. “General Morgan ain’t no…no unprincipled ruffian!”
“Yeah,” Kirby drawled. As the other two, he had risen to his feet on the approach of the older man. “Them’s pretty harsh words, suh. Cutthroat now—I ain’t never slit me a throat in all my born days. What about you, Rennie? You done any fancy work with a bowie lately?”
Mr. McKeever favored the Texan with a passing frown; then his attention settled on Drew. “Rennie,” he repeated, and then said the name again with the emphasis of one making a court identification. “Drew Rennie!”
“Yes, suh.” As Boyd had done, Drew answered to the indictment of being where he was and who he was.
“I am most unhappy to see Alexander Mattock’s grandson and Meredith Barrett’s son in such company. Surely”—he turned to Captain Campbell—“these boys are not your regular prisoners—”
Campbell shook his head gravely. “Unfortunately, sir, they are indeed troopers with Morgan. And, as such, they are subject to the rules of war governing prisoners—”
“That does not prevent my seeing what I can do for both of you,” their host said quickly. “At least, Boyd, you are young enough to be released by the authorities. Be sure I shall do all I can to bring that about.”
As Boyd opened his mouth to protest, Drew spoke quickly:
“Thank you, suh. I know Cousin Merry will appreciate that.”
With a last assurance of his intention to help them, Mr. McKeever left. Boyd grinned.
“He did help me,” he observed. “He knows now I’m with Morgan, and nobody can say that’s not so!”
Kirby laughed. “Reckon that’s true, kid. You locked yourself right into the corral along with the rest of us bad men. Look’s like you’ve been outfought this time, Rennie.”
Drew threw himself back under the tree. So Boyd had won this round—they were still in Kentucky and not too far from Oak Hill.
CHAPTER 5
Bardstown Surrenders
“Now that’s what I call true hospitality, gentlemen, true hospitality.” Kirby caressed his middle section gently with both hands, smiling dreamily into the lacing of apple boughs over his head. “I ain’t had me a feed like that since we took that sutler’s wagon back outside Mount Sterlin’. ’Mos’ forgot theah was such vittles lyin’ ’bout to be sampled. An’ you got us most of the cream, too, ’cause you’re poor little misguided boys a-runnin’ ’way to be with us desperate characters. Git me a bowie knife, an’ I’ll show you how to cut throats—all free, too.”
Drew laughed, but Boyd did not appear amused. They had been favored with a short but pungent lecture from Mr. McKeever, served along with food, which to Drew made it worth the return of listening decorously to a listing of their sins.
“I ain’t goin’ home,” Boyd repeated stubbornly.
“Well,” Kirby pointed out, “if he rides up to the Yankee prison camp, he ain’t gonna find you neither. So what’s the difference? I think we oughta be movin’ on, seein’ as how we ain’t really on speakin’ terms with the law heah ’bouts.”
It would appear that Captain Campbell agreed with that. The order came to saddle up and move out. But they went with provision sacks slung from their saddles, a portion of McKeever’s bounty stowed away against tomorrow. And once they were past the house, the word came down the line for Drew to quit his prisoner’s role and join their commander.
Campbell held a fragment of map as he let his mount’s pace fall to a slow walk. “There are about a hundred Union infantry stationed at Bardstown, according to Mr. McKeever. Know anything about the town?”
“I was there once. My cousin went to St. Joseph’s for a term.”
“Remember enough to find your way around?”
“I don’t know, suh. But if there’s a Union garrison—?” He ended the sentence with an implied question.
“What are we going to do there?” The captain grinned. “We’re going to collect some arms, I hope. Supposing you were a Yankee commander, Rennie, and a bold, bad raider like General Morgan was to ride clean up to your door with a regiment or two tailing him and say: ‘Your guns, suh, or your life!’ What would you do, especially if your troops were mostly militia and green men who hadn’t ever been in a real fight?”
Drew understood. “Probably, suh, I’d tell General Morgan that he could have his guns, providin’ he kept his side of the bargain.”
“As far as the Yankees in Bardstown may know, General Morgan could be headed their way right now with a regiment. I don’t think they’ve had time yet to learn just how badly we were scattered back there by the Licking River. You willing to take the flag in when we get there, Rennie? Pick a couple of outriders to go with you!”
It was risky, but no more risky than bluffs he had seen work before. And they did need the weapons. Cutting westward now only kept them well inside Union territory. Somehow they would have to skulk or fight their way down through the southern part of Kentucky and then probably all the way across Tennessee—a tall order, but one which was just possible of accomplishment.
“I’ll do it, suh.” Riding into Bardstown was no worse than riding over the rest of this countryside where any moment they might be swept up by the enemy.
It was lucky they had brought rations with them from McKeever’s, for they took no more chances of trying for such supplies again. Once more they altered their advance, riding the pikes at night, hiding out by day.
Hills then, and among them Bardstown. Drew borrowed a carbine, stringing a dubiously white strip of shirt tail from its barrel, and flanked by Kirby and Driscoll, a trooper Campbell had appointed, rode slowly up the broad street opening from the pike. Great trees arched overhead, almost as they had across the drive of the McKeever place, and the houses were fine, equal to the best about Lexington.
A carriage pulled to the side, its two feminine occupants leaning forward a little under the tilt of dainty parasols, eyes wide. While their coachman stared open-mouthed at the three dirty, tattered cavalrymen riding with an assumption of ease, though armed, down the middle of the avenue.
“You, suh.” It was the coachman who hailed Drew. “You soldier men?”
Drew reined in the black, who this time obeyed without protest.