Lost Cause (16 page)

“Doesn’t matter, Nurse Mason can mime what
she needs done. It’s either that or you can leave them here for the
Yankees.”

“Alright, alright, just so long as they stay
out of the way,” the colonel said.

The column moved out and soon caught up with
Corporal Campbell. “Did the old man try to double back?” asked
Jack

“Haven’t seen hide nor hair. Did the colonel
take in the girls?”

“They’re in one of the ambulances with Nurse
Mason.”

“Damn shame a man buying girls like
that.”

“You don’t seem to have a problem with folks
buying black people.”

“That’s different. That’s commerce.”

“It’s still buying and selling people.”

“I’m not having this argument with you again,
Saylor.”

“Good. All I can say is a retreat in the
pouring rain is no place for three virgins, even if they are
savages.”

The rain began to slacken just before noon
and Jack saw the road of their retreat stretched out far ahead of
the infantry and the convoy of wagons and livestock. During the
night a few stragglers from Brownsville had joined the column with
two-wheel carts loaded with their household belongings. The items
included small chests with drawers, and turkeys and chickens and
ducks tied to the sides of the carts and ruddy faced children and
burros following along behind the men as they drove the heavy carts
through the clinging mire. Others, mostly women, walked alongside
the carts keeping as far from the deep ruts as possible. A few dogs
trotted through the mud keeping close to the carts as they moved
along. The ditches by the side of the road were high with muddy
water and beyond the trees lining the road the drenched fields of
wheat and cotton looked like silver blankets in the glow of the
ineffectual sun.

Jack walked ahead of the wagons and carts
looking for a place where they could travel across the open plain
if the water continued to rise in the road. The rain was not
falling as heavily and Jack thought it might clear up to the north.
Smaller roads branched off to the east and the northeast cutting
between two fields of autumn wheat. The farming roads were not
quite as water logged as the main thoroughfare and Jack thought it
would be better if the wagons and carts left the main road for the
less traveled smaller lanes. He hurried back to find Colonel Ford.
After consulting with the captain and the surgeon major, Ford
agreed it would be better than staying on the flooded main road. He
told the captain to take some men and escort the ambulances and
supply wagons and the civilian carts to the farm road veering off
to the north. “If it leads too far to the east send a messenger
back and we’ll adjust our plan,” Colonel Ford said.

Jack and Corporal Campbell were selected to
accompany the wagons and they fell in behind one of the ambulances
as the convoy turned off the main road.

“How are you feeling, Carl?” asked Jack when
they had settled into a comfortable pace.

“Fine. And you?”

“Fine. But I’m wet, and hungry.”

“They ought to stop soon so we can eat. How’s
your shoulder, Jack?”

“Fine.”

Jack looked up ahead where he could see
through the bare branches of the post oaks lining the road on both
sides. They followed the ambulance along the narrow road until they
saw a farmhouse in the distance. The captain put out the word that
they would be stopping for a meal and to rest the animals.

The convoy stopped in the farmyard and
drivers and surgeons and nurses and orderlies and civilians climbed
down to stretch their legs. The farm house was old and large with a
garden gone to seed in the back and stock pens along the east side
with broken rails scattered on the ground like sheaths of straw.
There was plenty of manure on the ground inside the corrals but no
sign of the animals that had produced it. A covered well stood in
the middle of the front yard and orderlies and some of the civilian
men went about drawing buckets of water for the horses and
mules.

After a quick check, the farmhouse was
pronounced deserted by one of Colonel Ford’s sergeants. The house
was on a slight rise overlooking the plain beyond the fence line.
Jack could see out over the country side and saw the road snaking
through the brown fields and the line of defoliated trees along the
main road a mile and a half away. The Indian girls had climbed out
of one of the ambulances and stood looking at the house, the well,
and the neutered gardens behind the house. One of the soldiers came
out of the house with a silver water pitcher in his hand. “Put it
back,” the captain said. “We’re not here to plunder these people.”
The soldier backtracked and retuned a moment later empty
handed.

“How’s about getting a bite to eat, sir?”
Campbell asked the captain.

“Sure, go ahead and eat something. Don’t take
long, though.” Jack was still looking down the farm road toward the
horizon.

“Do you think this road is leading to
Laredo?” he asked.

“I’m sending some Calvary ahead to find out,”
the captain said.

“All right then, let’s eat,” Campbell said
rushing off to help the mess orderlies with the supplies.

Jack and the captain went into the farmhouse
together. It was a spacious structure and dark, and obviously long
abandoned.

“Wonder who cleaned them out, us or the
yanks?” the captain mused. “We should go, there’s nothing for us
here. We’ll have the mess cooks whip us up something and then we’ll
head on out.”

They ate biscuits and salt pork and canned
peaches and then started off down the narrow farm road. Jack looked
back at the farmhouse with a twinge of regret. It was a fine,
sturdy house and the outbuildings and barns looked in good shape,
although there wasn’t so much as a chicken in sight anywhere in the
back lots. Whoever had owned the farm had simply picked up and left
taking their livestock, canned goods, and any fresh vegetables from
the garden with them. Either that, or the Army had raided the place
and taken everything not nailed down. Jack did not want to think
about the possibility that it may have been his own Army that had
perpetrated such a heinous act.

Chapter 27

They had only traveled a hundred feet when
the surgeon major caught up with the captain’s horse. “Those Indian
girls won’t get back in the ambulance,” he said pointing to the
rear of the convoy.

“What do you mean they won’t get in?”

“They just won’t. They’re just standing there
in the middle of the road like stones. What do you want me to do?”
The captain looked at Jack and said,

“You brought them here, you take care of it.”
Then he spurred his horse and rode away toward the front of the
column.

Jack worked his way back until he found the
girls walking down the road. He made a motion with his hands that
they should follow him but they only stared back at him with blank
unreadable eyes and the oldest shook her head.

“Come on, we have to hurry and catch up,”
Jack said. “The ambulance, Nurse Mason, she’s waiting on you.”
Nothing but vacant stares and shaking heads. “Well, what are you
going to do then?” The older sister pointed to the northwest and
said something in her language. “Oh, I see,” Jack said. “You want
to go home, right?” He made a sweeping motion with his arm and
framed a crude representation of a tent with his hands. The girl
nodded and again pointed to the northwest.

“Alright, I can understand that. But wait for
a minute. I’m going to the mess wagon and get you some food.” He
cupped his hand and motioned to his mouth. The girls stared at him
in stony silence.

Exasperated, Jack hurried back to the mess
wagon and begged and pleaded with the mess sergeant to give him a
little bacon and corn meal. The sergeant eventually relented and
jack wrapped the provisions in piece of cotton cloth and rushed
back to the girls. They had walked two hundred yards back toward
the main road and Jack had to sprint to catch up to them.

“Here, take these,” he said breathing hard.
They looked at him with suspicion .and he opened the bundle so they
could see the contents inside. They didn’t understand him, but they
took the food and started down the road looking back a couple of
times as though they were afraid Jack might take back the food. He
stood there for a while and watched them go down the road, their
skirts dragging in the mud and their shawls wrapped tightly around
their shoulders.

Jack eventually returned to the front of the
convoy and informed the captain that the problem was taken care
of.

“Good,” the captain said. “I don’t want you
to be picking up any more strays, Corporal Saylor.”

“That will not be a problem, sir.”

The convoy was negotiating the muddy road as
fast as they could without risking injury to the animals. The sun
was trying to push through the lingering clouds but it was often
more cloudy than light and by mid morning it was threatening rain
again.

Campbell caught up with Jack and asked about
the Indian girls.

“They were homesick,” Jack said.

“You mean they just took off walking?”

“Yep.”

“Wonder where their people are?”

“Kickapoos usually range northwest of the
Brazos. There’s no telling where that old man bought them at.”

“He didn’t buy those girls, he stole them
somewhere.”

“I disagree. He wasn’t outfitted to go up
against a camp full of Kickapoo braves. No, I say some sorry
son-of-a-bitch took them and then sold them to the old man. Some
people will do anything for money.”

“Well, I just hope they make it back home,”
Campbell said. “That older one was kind of a looker wasn’t
she?”

“Damn, Carl, is that all you ever think
about?”

“No. I think about food sometimes. And
whiskey. And sleep.”

“Is that musket fire over there?” Jack asked
abruptly. Campbell cocked his head and listened for a moment.

“I think it is.”

“Probably Ford’s Calvary.”

“You hope it’s Ford. Could be Yankees
shooting at Ford.”

An hour later they rode up to a creek that
had now turned into a raging river. The river was high and the
small bridge designed for a creek was now under two feet of brown
flowing water. The captain sent two men up the bank in both
directions looking for a place for the convoy to cross. A forward
scout had found a railway bridge that morning but there was no
guarantee that it was structurally sound enough to risk crossing
the wagons. One of the scouts returned from the south and said he’d
checked the bridge and it appeared to be in good shape. It took
thirty minutes to turn the wagons and ambulances and another hour
to push across a series of fallow barley fields to the railroad
bridge. It was a short iron bridge built with practicality in mind
and it did indeed appear to be structurally sound.

“Wonder why the yanks haven’t blow this up?”
Campbell said.

“I don’t know,” Jack said. “Maybe we ought to
hurry across before they show up with a cart full of nitro.”
Campbell wasn’t so optimistic.

“If we had any sense we wouldn’t be here at
all,” he muttered.

The sky had clouded over again and it began
to sprinkle rain. The bridge looked solid to the naked eye, but the
captain sent a couple of men to walk the center of the rail bed
looking for dynamite fuses or tripwires. The men waved all clear
and the captain yelled, “One at a time now, the ambulances first,
then the supply wagons and then the civilians. Move quickly but
carefully. When the last wagon is across, the Calvary can cross,
then the infantry.”

“Great,” Jack said. “It’s always us infantry
grunts that get the short end of the stick.”

The convoy crossed without incident with the
wagon wheels straddling the rails all the way to the other side.
Jack brought up the rear and he looked through the gaps in the ties
at the river thirty feet below running fast and muddy and frothy
and breathed a sigh of relief that everyone had made it across
safely.

Once on the other side, Jack looked back and
saw a blue line moving through the mist a half a mile down the rail
bed on the other side of the creek. “Do you see that?” he asked
Campbell who was walking beside him looking at his muddy boots.

“See what?”

“That blue back there. That’s a squad of
Yankee Calvary isn’t it?”

“Yes, I’m afraid it is,” Campbell said
suddenly alert. “Let me go tell the captain.”

The captain took a look then a second look
through his field glasses and said, “Damn!”

The wedge of blue advanced slowly through the
fog moving as one in a single file column.

“What are going to do, Captain?” Campbell
asked. The captain looked back over his shoulder at one of the
supply wagons.

“There are six cases of dynamite in that
wagon,” he said. “Saylor you take a few men and pack this end of
the bridge with as many sticks of that stuff as you can before they
get here. Campbell you go up there and tell that lieutenant in
charge of the Calvary that I said to get his men back here, pronto.
On the way back, tell them ambulance drivers to keep moving north
as fast as they can.”

“Anything else, sir?” asked Jack.

“Just do it quickly, Corporal.”

Chapter 28

Jack finished wiring the last stick of
dynamite to a bridge support and scrambled up the bank to the rail
bed. The captain and fifty infantry soldiers including Campbell
stood in the middle of the road and watched the Union Calvary
advance. They were close enough for Jack to see the faces of the
first two rows of soldiers. They were well dressed in Cobalt
blouses and sky blue trousers with yellow stripes on the side.
Their hats were flapped in the front and topped with plumed white
feathers. Their carbines were sheathed in boots tied to high
saddles and each man was equipped with a .40 revolver. Their horses
trotted in cadence throwing up clods of mud and leaves as they high
stepped down the center of the rail bed.