CHAPTER 6
Horse Trade
“What’s this heah Calhoun like?” Kirby watched Drew loosen the saddle blanket, lifting it from the gelding as gently as he could.
“Not much—” Drew was beginning, then he sucked in his breath and stood staring at the nasty sight he had just uncovered. He slung the blanket to the ground as Boyd came up, leading the bay. It was the younger boy who spoke first.
“You ain’t goin’ to try to ride him now, Drew!” That protest came spontaneously. Drew thought that Shawnee’s end had put the last bit of steel over his feelings, but he had to agree with Boyd now: no one with any humanity could make the gelding carry so much as a blanket over that back, let alone saddle and rider.
“Here!” Roughly, his face flushed, Boyd jerked on the reins of his own mount, bringing the bay sidling toward Drew. “You can take Bruce.…”
He stooped, reaching for Drew’s saddlebags. “You have to ride scout. I’ll walk this one a while. Maybe he can carry me later. I ride light.”
Drew shook his head. “Not that light,” he commented dryly. “No, I guess this is where I do some tradin’—”
“House-smoke yonder…” Kirby pointed. They could see the thin trail of smoke rising steadily this windless morning. “Best make it fast—the cap’n is already thinkin’ about pointin’ up an’ headin’ out.”
Drew loosened his side arms in their holsters. He always hated this business, but it was part of a day’s work in the cavalry now. He just hoped that he wouldn’t have to do his impressing at gun point. He entrusted saddle and blanket to Boyd, but made the other wait outside the farmyard twenty minutes later as he shepherded the gelding into the enclosure where chickens squawked and ran witlessly and a dog hurled himself to the end of a chain, giving tongue like a hound on a hot scent.
Drew skirted that defender, moving toward the barn. But he was still well away from the half-open door when a woman hurried out, a basket in her hands, her face picturing surprise and apprehension. She stopped short to stare at Drew.
“Who are you—what do you want?” Her two questions ran together in a single breathless sentence. Drew looked beyond her. No one else issued from the barn or came in answer to the dog’s warning. He took off his hat.
“I need a horse, ma’am.” He said it bluntly, impatiently. After all, how could you make a demand like that more courteous or soft? The very fact that he had been driven to this made him angry.
For a moment she looked at him uncomprehendingly, and then her eyes shifted to the gelding. She came forward a step or two, and there was a blaze of anger in the gaze she directed once more to the man.
“That horse’s galled raw!” She accused.
“Don’t you think I know it?” he returned abruptly. “That’s why I have to have another mount.”
A quick step back and she was between him and the door of the barn, holding the basket as a shield between them. It was full of eggs.
“You won’t get one here!” she snapped.
“Ma’am”—Drew had his temper under control now—“I don’t want to take your horse if you have one. But I’m under orders to keep up with the company. And I’m goin’ to do what I have to.…”
He dropped the gelding’s reins, walked forward, hoping she wouldn’t make him push around her. But apparently she read the determination in his face and stood aside, her expression bleak now.
“There’s only King in there,” she said. “And I wish you the joy of him, you thief!”
King proved to be a stallion, stabled in a box stall. Drew hesitated. The stud might be mean, harder to handle even than the gelding. But it was either taking him or being put afoot. If he could back this one even as far as Calhoun tomorrow—or the next day—he might be able to make a better exchange in town. It would depend on just how hard the stallion was to control.
Making soothing noises, he worked fast to bit and bridle the big chestnut. His experience with the Red Springs stud led him aright now. He came out of the barn leading the horse while the dog, its first incessant clamor stilled, growled menacingly from the end of its chain. The woman had disappeared, maybe into the fields beyond in search of help. Drew departed at a swift trot to where he had left Boyd.
“That’s all horse!” Boyd eyed Drew’s trade excitedly.
“Too much so, maybe. We’ll see.” He saddled quickly, glad that so far the chestnut had proved amiable. But how the stud might behave in troop company he had yet to learn. He mounted and waited for any signs of resentment, remembering the woman’s warning. King snorted, pawed the dust a bit, but trotted on when Drew urged him.
Kirby whistled from where he rode with the rear guard as they rejoined the company. But Captain Campbell frowned. And King put on a display of fireworks which almost shook Drew out of the saddle, rearing and pawing the air.
“Makes like a horny one on the prod,” commented the Texan. “That’s stud’s a lotta hoss to handle, amigo.”
“Too much,” the captain echoed Drew’s earlier misgivings. “Keep him away from the rest until you’re sure he won’t start anything!”
But that order fitted in with Drew’s usual scouting duties. And when he did bed down for one of the fugitives’ limited halts he was careful to stake King away from the improvised picket lines.
Drew was eating a mixture of hardtack and cold bacon, the last of their captured provision from Bardstown, when Driscoll sauntered over to the small mess Kirby, Boyd, and Drew had established without any formal agreement.
“The boys are plannin’ ’em a high old time,” Driscoll announced.
Kirby’s left eyebrow slanted up in quizzical inquiry. Drew chewed energetically and swallowed. It was Boyd who asked, “What do you mean?”
“Calhoun—that’s what I mean, sonny.” Driscoll squatted on his heels. “They ’low as how they’re gonna do a little impressin’ in Calhoun.”
“The town’s not very big,” Drew observed. “A couple of stores, a church, maybe a smithy.…”
Driscoll snickered. “Oh, the boys ain’t particular ’long ’bout now. They won’t be too choosy. Only thought I’d tell you fellas, seem’ as how you been ridin’ scout and ain’t maybe heard the plans. If you want to load up, better git into town early. Some of them fast workers from B Company are gittin’ set.…”
“The cap’n know about this?” asked Kirby.
Driscoll shrugged. “He ain’t deaf. But the cap’n also knows as how you can’t be too big a gold-lace officer when you’re behind the enemy lines with men on the run. We’re gonna take Calhoun and take her good!” He grinned at the two veterans. “Jus’ like we took Mount Sterlin’.”
Kirby was sober. “There was a take theah which warn’t no good. Somebody cleaned out the bank, or else I wasn’t hearin’ too well afterward. I can see some impressin’—stuff an hombre can put in his belly as paddin’, an’ maybe what he can put on his back. That’s fair an’ square. The Yankees do it too. But takin’ a gold watch or money outta a man’s pants—now that’s somethin’ different again.”
Driscoll stood up. “Ain’t nobody said anything about gold watches or money