Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1954 (8 page)

 
          
Beyond
that point they traveled, again by train and then by boat, to
Yazoo
City
. There they were told that the men
surrendered at
Vicksburg
had signed paroles and were being marched to Demo- polis in
Alabama
, where they would remain until properly
exchanged for Union prisoners in Confederate hands. Officers at headquarters
warned them to leave
quickly,
for the attention of
Grant’s huge victorious army was now turned toward the defenses of
Yazoo
City
. Grimes and Barry left for
Meridian
in a covered wagon driven by a Negro
teamster. When they arrived, three days later, news followed them that
Yazoo
City
had fallen on July 16 to an overwhelming
Federal attack. And
Jackson
,
Mississippi
’s
capital,
was
evacuated that same day by the Southerners.

 
          
August
was more than a week old before they reached Demopolis, where
Vicksburg
’s paroled garrison had been ordered to
gather in a great camp. Grimes and Barry were made welcome at the nearby
plantation of Major Whitfield. There they took time to open and examine the
great bundle of mail that they had brought from
Memphis
. They sorted the letters into piles, for
the various regiments of Missourians. Those that were for
Shelby
’s troops were put in a separate pile, and
Barry impatiently asked when he could start for
Arkansas
with them.

 
          
“Not
until we have more information,” answered Grimes. “There are too many troop
movements now, on both sides.”

 
          
But
he did not start for another two weeks and more. It took that long before
reports showed where the advancing Union hosts paused to consolidate their
gains, where the Confederates turned to face them. Most of
Mississippi
was in the invader’s hands. Bedford
Forrest’s gray-jacketed cavalry was turning back another attack at
Alabama
’s upper border.

 
          
The
first parolees trickled into Demopolis and began to rig airy, shady shelters.
They were tattered and gaunt, and looked lost without the guns they had
surrendered. Grimes and Barry visited them, cheering them with the mail they
distributed. From these men, Grimes learned that Bob Louden had been in
Vicksburg
on July 4, but had passed himself off as a
civilian townsman, escaped, and returned to
Missouri
.

 
          
One
bright morning in late August, Grimes had welcome news. “Barry, you can head
for
Arkansas
now. Come out to Major Whitfield’s stables;
he’ll let you have a horse.”

 
          
Their
generous host accompanied them to the stables, and proudly showed them a series
of fine-looking animals, clean-limbed and bright-eyed and manifestly of the
best saddle stock. But Grimes walked past these to another row of stalls, his
hands in his pockets and his bearded face intent. Finally he asked to see a
horse that was quartered almost at the end of the row.

 
          
In
the light of day, this creature proved to be a white-nosed roan, long-bodied,
ewe-necked, hammerheaded, and sleepy of eye. Barry grimaced, and Grimes voiced
his usual quiet chuckle.

 
          
“Not
showy, but he’ll travel,” predicted Grimes. “He looks sure-footed, too. How
long would one of those blooded beauties carry you?”

 
          
“Why,
sir,” Major Whitfield spluttered protestingly, “I assure you—”

 
          
“West
of here, Major, Barry will meet lots of Confederate soldiers on foot,”
elaborated Grimes, “and if he gets past those, he’ll be among Yankees. Any horse-lover
will take one look at your thoroughbred, point his gun, and take it away.”

 
          
“You’re
right, as usual,” admitted Barry.

 
          
“Egad,
so he is,” agreed the major. “Let me give you a saddle.”

 
          
“An
old one, please,” urged Grimes.

 
          
Barry
dressed for the journey in a coarse pepper- and-salt shirt, trousers dyed with
butternut, a broad wool hat, and stout cowhide boots. The letters for
Shelby
’s men he tied up in oiled silk and rolled
in a blanket, which he strapped to his saddle. The cook gave him a lunch of
corn bread, slices of fried smoked meat, and a double handful of peanuts
roasted in their shells, all produce of the Whitfield plantation.

 
          
In
the stable yard, Grimes offered some papers. “These may help you in tight
places, but be sure you give the right one to the right man,” he warned.

 
          
One
document was a cleverly forged parole, saying that Barry had surrendered at
Vicksburg
, had taken an oath not to fight again, and
was going home to
Texas
. Another was a bona fide pass, signed by Confederate General Johnston.
A third was also a forgery, a pass bearing the apparent signature of Union
General Halleck. Barry put these in separate pockets, fastened his saddle bags
and blanket roll in place, and mounted.

 
          
Grimes
walked at his side as he rode the ugly roan slowly out of the stable yard. “Don
Quixote had a worse mount to look at,” observed Grimes, “and he rode a good
distance.”

 
          
“Wish
me luck,” said Barry, reaching his hand down.

 
          
“All
the luck in the world, youngster,” replied Grimes, shaking the hand warmly.
“Let’s try to meet in
Saint Louis
in a month or so.”

 
          
The
day was bright and hot as Barry set his mount’s unlovely nose for the west and
began his journey.

 
          
ON
September 17, Barry dismounted in the sweltering afternoon to let that same
unlovely nose dip into a small stream and drink.

 
          
He
had come a full three hundred miles in three weeks, his passes helping him
first through the Confederate army, then the Federal. Cautiously he had skirted
the fallen defenses of Yazoo City, and moved on to the banks of the
Mississippi, where one dull morning he had crossed in a skiff rowed by a silent
riverman, while the sturdy roan swam alongside.

           
On the
Arkansas
side, he had found that the lull in the
fighting was over. A Union army had advanced swiftly, and Sterling Price had
fallen back from
Little Rock
, lest he be trapped there the same way the Confederate forces had been
at
Vicksburg
. Now, where was Price and where was
Shelby
?

 
          
Farmers
and shanty-dwellers in the swampy country through which Barry plodded gave him
food and lodging, but could or would not answer his question about the position
of the troops. “Over yonder, I reckon,” was the best he could get, and a shrug
or gesture toward the tree-cloaked west. And here he was, in a country he had
never seen before, still hunting.

 
          
Waiting
for the roan to drink its fill, Barry felt lost and lonely. Once or twice he
might have turned back, but for the memory that his father was with
Shelby
’s hard-riding troopers. Now he swung into his
saddle, splashed across the stream, and rode into the woods along a leaf-walled
trail.

 
          
“Halt!”
suddenly snapped a voice, and from under a big water oak sprang a man in a
weathered blue uniform, poising a carbine.

 
          
Barry
pulled up. Two more men started into view on either side of him. One grabbed
the roan’s bridle, leveling a revolver with his free hand.

 
          
“Get
down and tell us who you are,” growled this man.

 
          
Barry
obeyed. The worn, faded Federal uniforms must mean that the Confederates were
still far away. From his shirt pocket he dug out the pass with Hal- leck’s
forged signature.

 
          
“This
will pass me through your lines,” he said.

 
          
The
man with the revolver seized the pass and studied it, frowning. “Here, Pack,”
he said to his companion opposite. “Take this—you know I’m not a big much on
reading.”

 
          
The
other man accepted the document and moved his bearded lips to spell the words
aloud.
“ ‘Pass
the bearer through all lines and
fortifications,’ ” he read slowly. “ ‘Signed, Henry W. Halleck, Major-General
Commanding—’ Hey, boys, this here’s a Yank.”

 
          
The
man up the trail closed in quickly. From the brush looked other fierce, hairy
faces.

 
          
“Search
him,” said one with a sergeant’s stripes on his arms, and rough hands did so.
Barry’s other papers were found and studied.

 
          
“Here’s
a pass from General Johnston,” said the man who had read the Halleck pass.
“Say, young fellow, which side are you on?”

 
          
Barry
hesitated.

 
          
“He
don’t
know,” filled in another. “Give him the benefit
of the doubt—call him a Yankee spy and hang him on this here oak.”

 
          
Several
deep voices grunted approval of the notion.

 
          
“What
command is this?” Barry managed to ask.

 
          
“Shut
up; we ask the questions,” said the sergeant. “Tell us who sent you here,
mighty quick.”

 
          
Barry
had a sudden inspiration. “Does anybody here know Sergeant Jeff Mills, of
Shelby
’s cavalry?” he asked. “I’m his son.”

 
          
“I
know Jeff Mills,” said the sergeant, “and that trick won’t do.
His boy’s ’way up home in
Missouri
.”

 
          
“Take
me to him and see,” pleaded Barry.

 
          
“While
you’re looking for a way to escape?” the sergeant demanded cunningly. “Look, I
asked you once to tell who sent you, and I don’t want to ask again.”

 
          
Barry
wet his lips. “I’m a mail runner,” he told them. “I’ve got mail for
Shelby
’s command. It’s there in my blanket.”

           
Instantly the blanket roll was
unstrapped and flung open. The man called Pack Bowdry snatched at the letters
inside.

 
          
“These
are for
Shelby
’s boys, all right,” he reported. “Bill
Thrailkill, Major Edwards, Captain Snider—and here’s one for me!”

 
          
The
sergeant, too, stooped above the letters. Then he looked over his shoulder at
Barry.

 
          
“Maybe
you’re telling the truth, after all,” he granted. “But that Yankee
pass
—”

 
          
“I
had to have it, to get through their lines,” said Barry. “You can see that the
mail is for
Shelby
’s men.”

 
          
“Seb
and
Bob,
take him and the mail to Colonel Shelby,”
commanded the sergeant. “Pack, you go and find Jeff Mills. He can say if this
is his boy or not.”

 
          
Back
through the brush the two men guided him, and three times they were challenged
and made to identify themselves by countersign. They emerged upon a stretch of
clear ground, were challenged yet again at the edge of a pine thicket beyond,
and then they were among hundreds of camping troopers.

 
          
Barry
gazed at small cooking fires, sketchy “she-bang” shelters of poles and leaves,
lines of picketed horses. Seb Plattenburg noticed his curiosity.

 
          
“No,
sonny,” he chuckled, “you won’t see no tents here, not even for the officers.
No wagons, either—• the only wheels are on the guns. We travel light and we
live hard. That’s how we ride around and around the Yankees. Men serving with
Joe Shelby have long marches and short rations.”

 
          
“But
almost everybody seems to be wearing Yankee uniforms,” ventured Barry.

 
          
“Yep.
Our blue clothes fooled you, didn’t they? What we wear
is what we capture. Yonder’s the colonel’s fire.”

 
          
Approaching
Shelby
’s campsite, they dismounted and stood at
attention.

 
          
Shelby
rose from where he sat with his back to a
big cottonwood. Barry looked with interest at the cavalry chief whose fame as
raider and fighter had resounded clear to
Pike
County
.
Shelby
wore gray, almost alone of his command. One
coat sleeve was turned back from a bandaged right hand and forearm. His figure
was compact, with short bowed legs, and his face looked almost disappointingly
mild, with its wide blue eyes and snub nose. The chestnut-brown beard and
moustache were curly, but behind them showed a strong jaw.

 
          
He
heard Seb Plattenburg’s report. Then he looked gratefully at the sheaf of mail.

 
          
“Letters
from home,” he echoed. “We haven’t heard from home since we raided to
Cape Girardeau
. Major Edwards!”

 
          
An
officer came forward.
“Sir?”

 
          
“Notify
the various regimental headquarters that there’ll be a mail distribution. Now,
you—you say your name’s Barry Mills?”

 
          
“Colonel,
that’s just what his name is!”

 
          
A
swift, lean-built figure, also in captured blue, had joined the group. Beneath
a low-pulled hat showed a thicketlike beard and two burning eyes. “Boy,” the
newcomer said to Barry, “I just heard about what happened. Did these
brush-prowlers rough you up? If they did—”

 
          
Through
the mass of beard, Barry recognized familiar features. “Is that—” he began to
stammer. “Yes, son, I’m your dad!”

 
          
Shelby
smiled. “That’s identification enough. Sergeant
Mills, I turn this courier over to you. Later, when the mail’s distributed, the
two of you will take supper with me.”

 
          
Barry
and his father saluted, and walked away together, both talking at once.

 
          
They
sat on a log and exchanged news of themselves. Jeff Mills glowered above his
whiskers as he heard of Buckalew Mills’ appropriation of his farm.

 
          
“I’ve
come to the conclusion that the biggest thieves in this war are the men who changed
sides,” he said. “Probably Buck thinks you and I are gone for good, and nobody
will keep him from swallowing the place whole.”

 
          
“Maybe
we are gone for good,” said Barry. “The way things are running against the
South—”

 
          
“I
hate to say you’re right, but you are.” Jeff Mills sounded grim. “Barry,
it’s
worse for me than it is for you. You’re young, and you
always wanted to leave home and take up steamboating. But me, I thought of how
I could grow old in peace on that little chunk of
Pike
County
land. I wonder if I’ll ever see it again.”

 
          
“We’ll
see it again,” insisted Barry stubbornly. “And we’ll see Cousin Buck’s
coattails as he runs away from what we’ll do to him.”

           
“Maybe, maybe.
Well, if we live, we can think about starting over some place else. No farm for
me, no steamboats for you, if the Yankees win and get mean about old
Confederates.”

 
          
The
sun went down, and campfires grew bright in the gloom. Men sat around them,
cooking, talking,
singing
a song or two. As Barry and
his father ate corn dodgers and boiled hog jowl with Colonel Shelby, the scene
looked more like a big picnic than a position held by fighting cavalry.

 
          
“Sergeant
Mills,” said
Shelby
at last, “you and I have known each other almost since the first of the
war. Matter of fact, you’d be a captain by now, or a major, if you weren’t such
a good sergeant I couldn’t spare you.”

 
          
“Thank
you, Colonel,” said Jeff Mills. “I’m satisfied to be a sergeant.”

 
          
“And a friend, too.
As a friend, I can tell you something
that must go no further for the moment.”
Shelby
put aside his tin plate, rose and began to
pace back and forth. “I began to think of it when they brought your son to me,
with that mail from
Missouri
.”

 
          
Shelby
looked at Barry calculatingly.