The Big Gun (Dusty Fog's Civil War Book 3) (3 page)

Even as Grilpan hurried away,
footsteps sounded beyond the door. They were light, suggestive of
feminine high heels descending the stairs. Passing the soldier in
the doorway, a beautiful woman entered the room. She had a flimsy
robe thrown hurriedly over a diaphanous nightdress, which revealed
far more than it concealed, and high-heeled slippers graced her
feet. All in all, from her blonde hair to her toes, she was a very
shapely, voluptuous creature and her slinking gait added to her
allure. There was a golden wedding ring on the appropriate
finger
.

‘
Kade,
what’s happening?’ the woman began, then her eyes went to the body
as it lay oozing blood over the carpet. ‘Oh my God!
Wha—Who—?’

‘
Get
out of here, Monica!’ Lyle growled, displaying little
concern over the revulsion and shock which she was clearly
experiencing. ‘I’ll be up in a minute and tell you.’

‘
But
what’s going on?’ the blonde croaked, her face pallid as she turned
her gaze from the corpse.

‘
I’ll
tell you when I come up!’ the officer shouted, annoyed at the way
Block was eyeing the woman. ‘Suppose somebody was to see you down
here?’

‘
You
sent your man to keep the servants away,’ the woman pointed out.
‘And Harriet’s locked in her room. Why can’t you let
me—?’

‘
Because I said for you to go!’ Lyle replied. ‘This’s no
place for you and I’ll come up as soon as I get through
here.’

‘
Oh,
all right,’ the blonde sniffed petulantly, knowing better than to
try his patience too far. ‘I’ll go. Don’t be too long.’

With that the woman turned and
stalked from the room. She was conscious of Block watching her
every motion and, to annoy Lyle, increased the lascivious rolling
of her buttocks until beyond his range of vision. Ascending the
stairs, she looked back at the entrance to the
dining room.

If Monica Cable had been less interested in
what might be going on to her rear, she could have noticed that the
door of the room next to her own was open a short way. Before she
had turned her attention to the front, it was closed and she went
by without knowing that she had been observed.

Having closed the door
silently, preventing her stepmother from realizing that she too was
able to leave the room after having been locked in for the night,
Harriet Cable stood glaring at it for a moment. She realized that
Mama Lukie had been correct when suggesting that something was
going on between Monica and Major Lyle. That was now obvious from
the freedom with which the blonde moved around the house.
Previously, Harry
—as her friends mostly called her—had tended to discount
the old Negress’s hints on grounds of jealousy. Mama Lukie had been
devoted to Harry’s mother and had never become reconciled to Eli
Cable remarrying, especially to a woman like Monica.

Well, at last the truth was out.

While Harry had obtained a
spare key for her door from Mama Lukie, she knew the Negress would
never have given
one to Monica. Which meant that Mrs. Cable was not kept a
prisoner at night. Perhaps she was even a willing hostage and had
used Eli Cable’s love for her as a means of ensuring his compliance
with the Yankee major’s demands.

‘
It
could have been she who told Lyle about Big Minnie and Pulling
Sue,’ Harry mused, recalling that there had been a number of
puzzling aspects about the Union soldiers’ arrival at Cable Grange.
Her father had kept his work a secret, yet they had seemed to know
all about it; including a couple of very recent developments. ‘That
settles it. I’m going to tell Poppa what’s happening.’

Locking the door, so as to avoid arousing
suspicion if anybody checked up on her, Harry crossed to the
wardrobe. Slipping out of her nightgown, she opened the door and
stood naked before the full-length mirror. It reflected the image
of a small, buxom, yet firm-fleshed girl of eighteen. Not as
out-and-out beautiful as her stepmother, maybe, but quite pretty in
a friendly, open way that hinted at a normally merry nature. Her
brunette hair was curly and cropped short in defiance to the
fashion of the day.

Although Harry had been
disinclined to accept Mama Lukie
’s conclusions regarding her mother, more
from a naturally charitable nature than for any feeling of
affection, she had gathered the means to escape if the need arose.
Taking clothing from the wardrobe, she made ready for her
departure.

Donning her underwear, Harry
followed it with a boy
’s dark gray shirt, yellowish-brown Nankeen
trousers, thick gray woolen socks and riding boots. A wolf skin
coat and a low-crowned, wide-brimmed black hat completed her
attire.

Opening her
dressing table’s drawer, she
dug under its contents and produced a present from her father on
her fifteenth birthday. Opening the box, she removed the four inch
barreled, ivory-handled Colt 1849 Pocket Pistol. Her room had not
been searched by the Yankees, probably because Monica did not know
of the revolver, so it was still available for her to
use.

Knowing that the weapon was
loaded and capped, she dropped it into the
jacket
’s
right pocket. Into the left, she stuffed the powder flask, cap box,
nipple-wrench, a small tin holding deer’s grease and a buckskin bag
containing a supply of round .31 caliber lead bullets.

Armed and equipped, if in a
somewhat scanty, Spartan fashion, the girl doused her
room
’s
light. Going to the window, she raised its sash and looked out.
There was no sign of activity on the part of the Yankees. So she
eased herself over the sill. A section of sturdy latticework ran
down the wall, thickly covered by a Virginia creeper. Always a
tomboy, Harry had frequently used it as a means of leaving the
house unseen.

On reaching the ground, she
looked back at the house. Nobody raised the alarm and she hurried
towards Mama Lukie
’s quarters.

About an hour later,
accompanied by the Negress
’s youngest son, Eric, Harry sat in a boat and
passed along the lake towards the Fourche la Fave River. A supply
of food lay between them and she hoped that they would be able to
obtain horses in Perryville. Then she would try to reach her father
and tell him of how he had been tricked into putting a powerful,
dangerous weapon into the hands of the Yankees.

‘
Come on,
you Yankee
bastards!’ Corporal Kiowa Cotton breathed, as he crouched between
two bushes and watched the pair of Union Army sentries talking.
‘Quit that jaw-flapping and do your son-of-a-bitching duty like
soldiers.’

Tall, lean, Indian-dark, with a
high cheek-boned,
hook-nosed face that was suggestive of mixed blood, Kiowa
Cotton looked—and was—a very dangerous man to have as an enemy. On
his head of close-cropped black hair, he had a yellow-topped kepi.
The silver star-in-a-circle badge—the circle bearing a laurel
wreath motif and the center of the star embossed with the letters
TLC—that usually graced the hat’s front had been removed as an aid
to remaining undetected. A tight-rolled red bandana trailed its
long ends over the front of his waist-length, cadet-gray tunic. His
yellow-striped riding breeches ended in the leggings of Kiowa
moccasins. Around his waist hung a Western-style gun belt. At the
left side, butt forward for a cross-draw, was holstered a Remington
1861 Army revolver. The sheath on the right side of the belt was
empty, for the bowie knife—its blade blackened by smoke to prevent
from glinting and maybe attracting unwanted attention—was in his
right hand and ready for use.

Instead of heeding
Kiowa
’s
silent exhortation, the sentries continued to talk. Waiting
somewhat impatiently for them to separate and go where they could
be dealt with, the sergeant looked round the large clearing. Once
again, he decided that it should never have been selected as a
campsite for such an important man; particularly when he was
travelling with so small an escort.

In times of peace, the clearing
would have been a pleasant place in which to spend a night. Being
on the banks of a small stream that eventually flowed into the
Ouachita River, one could easily catch fish for supper.
The surrounding
woods gave shelter from the wind and the Pine Bluff-Arkadelphia
trail was nearby.

Those very qualities,
particularly the latter, make the clearing anything but an ideal
resting place in times of war. The trees and bushes that lined
three of its sides, including a scattering along the banks of the
stream, gave cover in which enemies could
—in fact, at that moment
did—
find concealment.

Along the edge of the trail,
again offering a hiding place for a member of the Texas Light
Cavalry, were parked a Concord coach and two Rocker
ambulances.
ⁱⁱⁱ
At the center of
the clearing, the large campfire was gradually dying down since all
the soldiers not on guard duty had retired to their two-man pup
tents. The wagons’ teams and horses of the escort were picketed in
two lines parallel to the stream, watched over by a third sentry.
The pair being studied by Kiowa shared the remainder of the
boundary between them. One went from the wagons, north around the
perimeter until making contact with the man on the picket line.
Moving south, the other would approach the corporal’s hiding place.
If permitted, he could turn east and pass behind the brightly lit
marquee which alone showed any sign of life. Inside,
^‘
Cussing’ Culver, commanding general of the Union’s
Army of Arkansas, was entertaining the officers of his
company-strong escort and three civilians.

The latter group, particularly
General Culver, was the reason for Kiowa Cotton
’s presence and desire that the
sentries should continue with their patrols instead of standing in
conversation.

The Battle of
Martin
’s
Mill had been fought four days earlier. By winning it, the
Confederate States’ Army of Arkansas and North Texas had succeeded
in moving all their supplies and equipment south across the
Ouachita River. While the rest of the army was consolidating their
positions along the bank of the Ouachita, Company C of the Texas
Light Cavalry—under its newly-promoted commanding officer, Captain
Dustine Edward Marsden Fog—had been sent north of the river to
reconnoiter.

On their way back, with
information regarding the Yankees
’ troop dispositions, Kiowa Cotton—ranging
ahead as scout—had seen the camp being set up in the clearing.
Moving closer undetected had been an easy task for a man schooled
in the demanding arts of Indian fighting. Unseen and unsuspected,
the corporal had studied the clearing and its occupants. The escort
was a full company of the Long Island Lancers, a fancy volunteer
outfit led by Eastern dudes, and they were guarding old ‘Cussing’
Culver himself.

When Captain Dusty Fog had
heard Kiowa
’s news, he had acted with the kind of swift decision the
men of Company C had already come to expect of him. There were no
other Union troops in the vicinity, so he had decided that they
would try to capture the general. Carefully, but thoroughly, he had
made his plans based on Kiowa’s description of the terrain and the
clearing’s lay out. Several of Dusty’s men had been Texas Rangers
before enlisting in the Confederate States’ Army. Their duties had
chiefly been concerned with fighting Indians, so he had sufficient
soldiers capable of silent stalking to make his scheme possible.
Selecting the best of the ex-Rangers, he had assigned them to the
duty of silencing the sentries. The rest of Company C, less those
assigned to ride herd on their horses, were waiting in the woods
and ready to move in once the way was prepared.

When Kiowa had last come into
contact with the Long Island Lancers, during the Battle of
Martin
’s
Mill,
^iv
they had worn
normal U.S. Cavalry uniforms and been armed with nine foot long,
Norwegian fir lances. Handling their present duty, they had adopted
a more fancy attire—copied from the dress of the British Army’s
17th Lancers—supplied by the wealthy New York families who had
financed, equipped and recruited the regiment. Although lances were
piled outside the pup tents, each sentry carried a Spencer carbine
in his white gauntlet-covered hands.

The booming tones of General
Culver reached Kiowa
’s ears, describing in a profanity-filled manner how,
having driven the Rebels to the Ouachita, he was merely awaiting
reinforcements before pushing them from Arkansas and commencing the
conquest of Texas.

A faint, savage grin twisted at
the corporal
’s lips as he listened to the bombastic words. Far from
being driven, the Army of Arkansas and North Texas had made a
satisfactory and carefully executed withdrawal. What was more, if
Kiowa knew anything about General Ole Devil Hardin, the Yankees
were going to find any further ‘pushing’ to be a mighty difficult
and dangerous proposition.