The Big Gun (Dusty Fog's Civil War Book 3) (9 page)

‘
Likely,’ Dusty sighed. ‘They were the nearest outfit of
horse soldiers, even if they’ve only just taken on the name
“Mounted”.’

‘
And
it would have taken two days at the least to fetch Company C up the
Camden.’

‘
I’m
not gainsaying that.’

‘
Don’t
you think the Mounted Infantry can handle it?’ Staunce
challenged.

‘
There’s no reason why they can’t,’ Dusty admitted. ‘Most of
them hail from North Texas, but they’ve all done plenty of riding
and know how to fight on the back of a horse. It’s just—Well. I saw
what that damned big gun had done to the town and I was madder than
a boiled owl.’

‘
We
all were,’ Staunce said. ‘But we couldn’t all go. If we had, it
would have meant a full-scale confrontation with the Yankees. And
that’s one thing we can’t chance right now.’

‘
Are
you trying to convince me, or yourself?’ Dusty inquired.

‘
I
wish I knew,’ Staunce answered, then partially changed the subject
to something which had been puzzling him. ‘Why do you think they
stopped the bombardment soon after that lieutenant reached
them?’

‘
Could
be that’s what he’d been sent to tell them to do,’ Dusty guessed.
‘There aren’t many Yankee officers who’d condone, or allow, the
indiscriminate shelling of civilian property.’

‘
You
could be right—’ the Englishman began.

Any further comment Staunce may
have considered making was forgotten. The trail passed through
fairly thick woodland, with a heavy coating of bushes on either
side. There was little light filtering down from the stars and half
moon, but the two captains
’ eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom. They
could make out the shapes of their horses and see a short way
ahead.

Suddenly
Dusty
’s big
bay gelding snorted, threw up its head, pricked its ears and stared
towards the bushes on the right side of the trail.

There was a rustling commotion
amongst the undergrowth. Something fairly large lunged into view,
bounding in front of the riders. Controlling their startled mounts
with deft ease, the officers reached rapidly towards their weapons.
While Staunce
’s right hand was still trying to free the flap of his
close-topped official issue holster—and he had trained himself to
be far from slow at this—Dusty’s left fist had stabbed across,
drawn and cocked the off side white-handled Army Colt. Despite
having aligned the barrel on the swiftly moving shape and holding
back the trigger with his forefinger, Dusty did not complete the
draw by releasing the hammer.

Sailing back into the air, with
the kind of leap for which its species was famous, a large buck
whitetail deer passed across the trail in front of Dusty and
Staunce. It disappeared, to alight in the bushes on the
river
’s side
of the path and continued its flight. When it landed the second
time, there was a hollow, wooden thumping noise far different from
how its previous return to the ground had sounded.

‘
If
you’d have been faster, we could have had venison for dinner
tomorrow,’ the Englishman complained, closing the holster’s flap.
‘What’s wrong?’

Having returned the Colt to leather, with a
spinning twirl on his trigger-finger as a preliminary, Dusty was
swinging from his saddle.

‘
I’m
going to see what he landed on the second time,’ the small Texan
replied, dropping his reins.

‘
It
did sound a trifle odd,’ Staunce conceded, also dismounting. I’ll
come with you.’

Advancing cautiously into the undergrowth,
they spread out and moved in the direction which had been taken by
the fleeing buck. A startled, or chased, whitetail deer could cover
up to twenty feet in a single leap. So Dusty and Staunce were
approaching the bank of the river before the mysterious sound was
explained. A small boat had been turned upside down and was
concealed amongst the bushes. Dusty found it and, placing his left
hand on the keel, felt at the wood.

It
’s still wet, Doug,’ the small Texan
said, having called his companion over and announced his discovery.
‘Somebody’s come across the river.’

‘
It
could have been a family, or a man, who wanted to
get
away from the
Yankees,’ Staunce suggested.

‘
Why
sure,’ Dusty drawled, bending to grip the side of the boat and turn
it the right way up. ‘Only, if it had been, I don’t reckon
they’d’ve bothered to hide it like this.’

‘
There’s something under it,’ Staunce remarked, feeling into
his trouser pocket. He produced a box of Phosphorus
‘Strike-Anywhere’ matches and lit one.

In the sudden glow of light,
ignoring the anything but pleasant smell that always accompanied
the ignition of a phosphorus match, the captains looked at a small,
oblong, tarpaulin-wrapped bundle. Dusty drew the Russell-Barlow
folding knife which his Cousin, Red Blaze had given to him as a
replacement for one lost during the Battle of
Martin
’s
Mill, and used it to open the wrappings. Any lingering notions
either of them might have harbored about the boat having carried
refugees to safety were brought to an end in no uncertain
way.

Setting off another match, before the first
had burned itself out, Staunce joined Dusty in staring at the
printed words on the top sheet of the papers that had been exposed
by the removal of the tarpaulin.

‘
PEOPLE OF THE OUACHITA RIVER TAKE WARNING

General A. G. Culver was
abducted by members of the Rebel Army. Unless he is released, we
will be compelled to destroy your homes. This is no idle threat. We
have already bombarded the town of Arkadelphia and will continue
with our attacks until General
Culver is liberated.
’

Staunce had become so engrossed that he
allowed the match to burn down to his fingers. With a startled
curse, he shook it out and flung it aside.

‘
It
was
a deliberate bombardment!’ the Englishman
ejaculated.

‘
Yes,’
Dusty replied quietly. ‘I didn’t think Culver’s men thought so
highly of him.’’

‘
Or
me,’ Staunce admitted, then his anger got the better of him. ‘Damn
it all, Dusty. This is barbaric’

‘
There’s no nice way of fighting a war,’ Dusty pointed
out.

‘
I
know that. But there are certain things one doesn’t do.’

‘
Likely. What shall we do about this, Doug?’

‘
Burn
it and the boat,’ Staunce declared, tapping the bundle of paper.
‘We don’t want any civilians to see
what’s
printed here.’

‘
That’s for sure,’ Dusty drawled. ‘But there’s the feller
who fetched them from across the river for us to think about. We’ll
need to nail his hide to the wall, if it can be done.’

‘
It
can
be, I’d say,’ Staunce answered. ‘He’ll have to come back
for his bundle. So all we have to do is wait in hiding and grab
him.’

‘
Tonight?’

‘
Don’t
you think he’ll come back?’

‘
Not
tonight,’ Dusty guessed. ‘If he’d wanted them for tonight, he’d’ve
taken them with him.’

‘
Possibly,’ Staunce admitted. ‘Do you think he came from
Camden?’

‘
Maybe. Or he could’ve come up from Vaden, except we
should’ve met him on the trail.’

‘
Unless he hid when he saw or heard us coming.’

‘
It’s
possible,’ Dusty drawled. ‘You’re the senior of us, Doug, but—was
it me—I’d say take the papers with us to Stilton Crossing. The
feller might’ve come from there. It’d be a damned sight more handy
for one of the workers than a jasper out of Camden, or
Vaden.’

‘
That’s what I was going to suggest, not being one for
pulling rank,’ the Englishman smiled. ‘We might be able to arrange
for the guard at the crossing to have somebody keep watch over the
boat.’

Returning to the horses, after Dusty had
rewrapped the parcel, they mounted and continued with their
interrupted journey. As they rode, they talked about their find;
but without reaching any definite conclusions.

About another mile fell behind them before
they saw the lights of the construction camp. There was little
activity among the small cluster of buildings of the hamlet, or
around the tents in which the workers and guards were housed. A
Texas Light Cavalry sentry challenged them, from a place of
concealment amongst a clump of bushes. On identifying themselves,
he allowed them to pass through.

‘
Who’s
the guard’s officer?’ Dusty inquired.

‘
Mr.
Clements,’ replied the sentry, pointing. ‘You’ll find him in the
wall-tent down by the houses.’

‘
I
thought all you Texas Light Cavalry officers were called “Hardin”,
“Blaze”, or “Fog”,’ Staunce remarked, as he and Dusty turned their
horses in the direction indicated by the soldier.

‘
It’s
all lies, started by folks who aren’t called “Hardin”, “Blaze”, or
“Fog”,’ the small Texan explained. ‘We’ve got a Major
Smith.’

‘
Smith
?’
the Englishman repeated. ‘I don’t believe it.’

‘
It’s
true,’ Dusty insisted, straight-faced. ‘He married my Aunt Cecilia
Blaze and we couldn’t get him to take
her
name.’

‘
That
figures,’ Staunce sighed, then gave an exasperated cluck. ‘Damn it,
I’m starting to talk like you foreigners now.’

‘
Why
thank you, ’most to death.’ Dusty drawled. ‘It’s good of you to say
so.’

‘
At
least Lieutenant Clements isn’t a Hardin, Fog or Blaze,’ Staunce
said, in tones of relief. ‘That’s something.’

By that time, they had reached the
wall-tent. Its door flaps were open and the interior was
illuminated by a lamp. As the two captains rode up, a tall,
wide-shouldered first lieutenant in his middle-twenties
emerged.

‘
Howdy, Cousin Dusty,’ the lieutenant greeted.

‘
I
might have known!’ Staunce groaned.

‘
Howdy, Cousin Shad,’ Dusty acknowledged, ignoring his
companion’s comment. ‘Do you know Captain Staunce?’

‘
I’ve
heard tell of you, captain,’ Shadrack Clements declared. ‘Coffee’s
hot, happen you feel like stopping a spell and taking a
cup.’

‘
That’s one of the reasons we dropped by, Shad,’ Dusty
informed his cousin, swinging from his saddle and looking at the
wedge tents which housed the guard and workers. ‘Kind of quiet
tonight.’

‘
That’s the way I like it,’ Clements replied. ‘I hope your
meeting went the same way.’

‘
There’s some might’ve called it that,’ Dusty said quietly
and his cousin shot a glance his way. ‘I’ll tell you about it
inside, Shad.’

Having dismounted, the two
captains left their horses ground hitched and followed Clements
into the officer of the guard
’s quarters. Although the structure had a
triangular top like the two-men pup tents and four-men wedge tents,
its twenty-four inches high perpendicular walls—from which its name
derived, gave it a greater height and size. In spite of the short
time that the camp had been erected, the officer’s wall tent
offered a fair standard of comfort. It had a small stove at the
rear, on which a pot of coffee was bubbling. A collapsible table,
two chairs, a small chest-of-drawers, a bed and a washstand
completed the furnishings.

‘
Some
of the good ladies back to Camden asked if they could fix it up a
mite,’ Clements explained, seeing Staunce was studying the
interior. ‘Rest your feet a spell, while I fetch on the
coffee.’

Taking the chairs, Dusty and the Englishman
waited for their host to produce and fill cups with coffee. When
that was done, Dusty told his cousin what had happened in
Arkadelphia. Clements growled out a curse as he heard of the
shelling, then cast another glance at the tarpaulin-covered package
which Staunce had brought in and placed on the table,

‘
How’re you getting on with the civilian workers, Shad?’
Dusty inquired, at the completion of his story.

‘
Most
of them’re all right,’ Clements replied. ‘Fact being, apart from
the one called Fletcher, they’re all decent enough fellers for
goober-grabbers.’
^xiv

‘
You
know them pretty well then?’ Dusty went on.

‘
Not
socially, or anything like that, but I figured it’d be best to at
least get to know their names and something about them.’