The Cowboy MEGAPACK ®. Owen Wister

up to you, Rennie. Hart’s willin’ to ride with you.”

      “I’ll go.” He thought the bank plan was a wild one, but they did have to have a safe route to the river.

      “You’ll move out as soon as possible. We’ll be on our way as soon as we have these horses shod.”

      Drew doubted that. What he had seen in the streets suggested that it was not going to be easy to pry most of the company out of Calhoun in a hurry, but that was Campbell’s problem. “I’ll need couriers,” he said aloud. It was an advance scout’s privilege to have riders to send back with information.

      Campbell hesitated as if he would protest and then agreed. “You have men picked?”

      “Kirby and Barrett. Kirby’s had scout experience; Barrett knows part of this country and rides light.”

      “All right, Kirby and Barrett. You ready to ride, Hart?”

      The other trooper nodded, picked up a set of extra horseshoes, and went out of the smithy. Campbell had one last word for Drew.

      “We’ll angle south from here to hit the Cumberland River some ten miles north of Cadiz, Hart knows where. This time of year it ought to be easy crossin’. But the Tennessee—” he shook his head—“that is goin’ to be the hard one. Learn all you can about conditions and where it’s best to hit that.…”

      Drew found Hart already mounted, Kirby and Boyd waiting.

      “Hart says we’re ridin’ out,” the Texan said. “Goin’ to cover the high lines?”

      “Scout, yes. South of here. River crossin’s comin’ up.”

      “No time for shadin’ in this man’s war,” Kirby observed.

      “Shadin’?” Boyd repeated as a question.

      “Sittin’ nice an’ easy under a tree while some other poor hombre prowls around the herd,” Kirby translated. “It’s a kinda restin’ I ain’t had much of lately. Nor like to.…”

      They put Calhoun behind them, and Hart led them cross-country. But at each new turn of the back country roads Drew added another line or two on the map he sketched in on paper which Boyd surprisingly produced from his bulging sack of loot.

      The younger boy looked self-conscious as he handed it over. “Thought as how I might want to write a letter.”

      Drew studied him. “You do that!” He made it an order. There had been no chance to leave Boyd in Calhoun. But there was still Cadiz as a possibility. He did not believe this vague story about Union gold in the bank. And the company might never enter the town in force at all. So that Boyd, left behind, would not attract the unfavorable attention of the authorities.

      It began to rain again, and the roads were mire traps. As they struggled on into evening Kirby found a barn which appeared to be out by itself with no house in attendance. The door was wedged open with a drift of undisturbed soil and Boyd, exploring into a ragged straggle of brush in search of a well, reported a house cellar hole. The place must be abandoned and so safe.

      “We’ll be in Cadiz tomorrow,” Hart said.

      “An’ how do we ride in?” Kirby wanted to know. “Another bearer-of-the-flag stunt?”

      “Is Cadiz a Union town?” Drew asked Hart.

      The other laughed. “Not much, it ain’t. This is tobacco country; you seen that for yourself today. An’ there’s guerrillas to give the Yankees trouble. They hole up in the Brelsford Caves, six or seven miles outta town. We can ride right in, and there ain’t nobody gonna care.”

      “Nice to know these things ahead’a time,” Kirby remarked. “So we ride in—lookin’ for what?”

      Hart glanced at Drew but remained silent. The scout shrugged. “Information about the rivers and any stray garrison news. You have kin here, Hart?”

      “Some.” But the other did not elaborate on that.

      Drew was thinking about those guerrillas; their presence did not match Hart’s story about the Yankee gold in the bank. Such irregulars would have been after that long ago. He didn’t know why Hart had pitched Campbell such a tale, but he was dubious about the whole setup now. Better make this a quick trip in—and out—of town.