Through Darkest America-Extended Version (24 page)

"I don't like it," scowled Hacker, "it don't taste right to me."

Hacker was a big man, with a fat belly and thighs round as oaks. He'd spent all his life outdoors, but his face refused to take the sun. That, and the raw corn he consumed in great quantity, left his beefy features puffed and florid. He sat his horse between his two lieutenants and eyed Pardo against the faint smudge of dawn. All three soldiers were clad alike in pale blue uniforms and black Rebel caps. They kept their mounts a respectable distance from Pardo.
 
Klu, Jigger, and two more of the biggest men among the raiders were close behind their chief.

"The thing is," said Hacker, "I've fought them fellers before and they ain't no fools. Monroe and Conner is smart as whips, and I figure one or both of '
em
was out there last night. Why, hell …" He spat contemptuously into the dirt, "we was all
shootin
' at nothing in the dark and so was they. If
Monroe'd
wanted to take us he'd of been halfway up that rise 'fore he let off a round." He looked hard at Pardo. "There sure wasn't
nothin
' stopping him."

Pardo let the remark go by, but he met Hacker's gaze straight on. There wasn't much he could say, without starting a small war right there. It had been his men on outrider duty when the government troopers attacked. Instead of cutting a wide patrol so they could warn the camp in plenty of time, they'd hugged the base of the rise like birds on an egg. The government soldiers had sliced an extra mouth in four of them before they knew what was happening. They'd been the only casualties in camp except a Rebel trooper who couldn't keep his head down. If the Loyalists suffered any losses, they'd taken them with them. There wasn't a sign on the mesa that anything bigger than a snick had been there.

Pardo looked back over his shoulder at the first streaks of morning, then faced Hacker. "I reckon that's real interest- in' if you got time for it," he drawled lazily. "But it appears to me we got a sight more to do than sit here talking 'bout yesterday. I figure
today'll
be
excitin
' enough for everybody." He grinned at the riders around him and they laughed with him.

Hacker didn't smile. "I think yesterday's got a lot to do with today," he said stiffly.

"
Meanin
' what?"

Hacker shook his head irritably. "
Godamn
, Pardo, don't sit there and tell me you figure there wasn't nothing
wrong
with that business last night!" He leaned forward on his mount, his face growing redder than ever. "I don't think much of you and I sure don't trust you no further than I can throw you, but I don't figure you're an ignorant man, either."

Pardo shrugged wearily. "Hacker, I got no damn idea why we wasn't all killed up there or what Colonel
Monroe's
got up his ass. Maybe he figured we'd scare easy. Maybe he knows more about that column of yours than you figure he does. Might be he just wanted to spook us a little 'til he can catch us in the open." He grinned crookedly, and winked at the Rebel leader. "Reckon he done a fair '
nough
job of it, too."

Hacker gaped at him.

"Now just hold on," Pardo threw up his hand, pushing air before him. "Ain't no need for us to get all riled up at one another. We're both still
sittin
' in the same stew."

"And you're stirring it with a knife, Pardo," warned Hacker. "I ain't
goin
' to sit here and…"

Pardo jerked his horse abruptly, and galloped off down the rise. His men followed, leaving Hacker swallowing dust. Howie, a few mounts behind, heard the whole thing. He figured Pardo was likely right; one way or another, it sure was going to be an exciting day.

Hacker dispatched six of his riders out across the mesa. He was plenty anxious, now, to meet the strong Rebel forces. Monroe had shown he was close by and ready to fight. And he'd sure as hell hit the column again before the Rebels got there, if he could. And there wasn't anything stopping him.

A scout returned just before noon. He hadn't found the Rebels, but he'd seen signs of Monroe's troopers. He swore he'd read the tracks right and that there hadn't been more than fifty mounted men in the force that hit the camp. More than that, after they'd broken off the fight they'd headed northwest for a while, paralleling Pardo and the Rebels, then suddenly veered off to the southeast.

Southeast?
That didn't make any sense at all, thought Howie. Why would they head away from the column, back toward Roundtree? Even if they were part of a larger force, which they pretty well had to be, why drag along behind somewhere?

No one even slowed down for the noon meal. Every rider grabbed what he could in the saddle. Pardo and Hacker kept the column tight and sent men on scout duty to all points of the compass.

Low clouds had formed in the north just before midday and now a strong, high wind pushed them to the south. A wide band of darkness rushed down to meet them, shutting out the sun. Ordinary colors turned peculiar shades of brown and blue, and everything on the mesa seemed strangely sharp and distinct—as if something in the storm had finely etched the world below. White veins of lightning searched the ground far to the north and men counted the seconds it took the sound to reach the column.

"Ain't never been in a storm up here, have you?" grinned
Harlie
. He watched Howie sniff the air.

"I been in storms before," Howie told him.

"Not up here you ain't."

"What's different about here?" Howie wanted to know. "It's
goin
' to dump all over us and get everybody
wettern
' hell and I
seen
that once or twice."

Harlie
shook his head smugly. "What it's
goin
' to
do
, boy, is come down like rocks instead of water. So fast and hard you can't breathe without near drowning. It'll drive you to the ground, pound the flesh off your back, and after it's over you'll think you been beat with a
godamn
stick." He looked over at the other rider beside him. "Now, ain't that the truth, Bo?"

Bo nodded grimly at Howie. He was a short, stout man with sad eyes and wiry hair matting his head and face. "Likely to," he said solemnly. "'Course if it comes down hard enough, we won't be
findin
' them Rebels, an' we'll be
sittin
' out here without no help when
ol
' Monroe
gits
us."

"Bo…
Harlie
looked pained. "If we can't find them Rebels, Monroe sure as hell ain't
goin
' to find
us
, neither."

"Well, maybe," Bo said glumly.

Klu trotted by and glared at the three of them; reminding them that they were being paid to keep their eyes open, not to sit around jawing like whores out of work.

The wind picked up, stirring cold sand in the air. A few drops of rain splattered the ground and it was hard to see what lay more than a few hundred yards away. The column slowed, and Howie saw the ground ahead was getting rough and choppy. Shallow gullies cut the mesa like wrinkles in an old man's face. The land was the same as far as he could see; there was no place else to go unless the column turned back on itself, and he didn't figure either Pardo or Hacker were about to do that.

Hacker didn't like the gullies. It was a surprise he hadn't counted on and he looked accusingly at Pardo, as if he might have put them there. "That's
goin
' to be just real fine," he said acidly, squinting against the sand. "We get ourselves caught in one of them things with Monroe on top of us and there'll be nothing else for it." He ran a quick finger past his throat to make the point.

"I ain't as worried about Monroe as I am about that," Pardo said flatly, looking at the sky.

"What? The rain?"

"Rain and what comes with it in this country, if you don't know. The land up ahead is some higher. If the storm hits up there it'll fill them gullies like a
floodin
' river 'fore you know it. Monroe and them bastards can sit back and watch us
float
by."

Hacker bit his lip. "There's high ground ahead. We got scouts out. They'll see water coming."

"
Naw
, I don't much like it," Pardo shook his head.

"And I don't much like
sittin
' up here plain as day, either." He looked darkly at Pardo. "I guess I feel better worrying about water than I do
thinkin
' about Monroe hitting us 'fore we find the column. He sure ain't
goin
' to see us down there."

"Hacker . . .” Pardo frowned painfully and turned in his saddle to face the Rebel. "I'm telling you, it's too
godamn
risky. I ain't
goin
' to lose my head or them guns
inino
gullywasher
—an' that's just what'll happen. We come too far for that."

Hacker yelled something at him but his voice was lost to Howie on the wind. Pardo leaned over and said something to Jigger that sent him trotting to the rear of the column.

The wind was moaning over their heads like a banshee and the black clouds were so low Howie could watch dark tendrils reach down to touch the earth. He jerked his mount around out of the wind, and moved over to help
Harlie
quiet the pack animals. He'd stayed clear of Kari all day, but now he squinted back along the column to find her. She's crazy as a damn owl, he told himself crossly, and doesn't care any more about me than a stone, but if the whole world is going to come to an end out here there isn't anybody else going to help her but me.

A shout ahead brought him around. A Rebel rider came curling through one of the gullies, waving his arms wildly,. Howie reached for his pistol, then relaxed. The whole column broke into a ragged cheer. Behind the scout Howie could see the first riders from the Rebel detachment. Hacker and his officers broke from the column and galloped down to meet them.

It was a strong force. Howie tried to count them as they trotted out of the gully into the wind. There must have been two-hundred riders in all, more men on horses than he'd ever seen at one time. The Rebels mingled with the raiders and shouted at one another. A soldier no older than Howie rode up to him and leaned out of the saddle to shake his hand. Howie grinned and the soldier said something he couldn't hear. He looked past the Rebel to the north, at the black clouds pushing solid sheets of rain before them. Dark torrents pounded the ground and tossed dry dust in the air. The whole horizon was a veil of black clouds, gray rain, brown dust. And—what else? Howie leaned into the wind and studied the broad band where the earth met the sky. There was—something. More than just dust running before that rain.

Suddenly, his stomach turned upside down and he was sure he was going to lose everything he'd ever swallowed. There were men in the dust. Riders! Coming right at them, and stretching from one end of the horizon to the other, as far as the eye could see.

Chapter Twenty-Six

T
he battle on the mesa was decided long before the first shot was fired. There was killing to do and men to be buried if you were on the winning side, but there was never any doubt about the outcome. Hacker knew it, and most of his men, and even Pardo's raiders, who had no experience with this kind of fighting. They were dead men. It was just a question of when and how it would feel when it happened.

Hacker rallied his troops above the storm. There was only one defensible position on the flatlands and he took it. Troops to the front and mounts to the rear—soldiers hunkered down in a broad circle with the gullies at their backs. Hacker's horses wouldn't help him here and he knew it. Not against the thunder bearing down from the north. Nobody could say how many they were, but it was clear the enemy dwarfed his own two hundred.

It was an awesome, terrible sight. Howie could see their faces, now, and even the bright feathers in their caps. War cries sang above the shriek of the wind. He sat frozen on his mount and stared, his mouth full of sand, until
Harlie
galloped by and dug his boot in the horse's rump and sent it flying.

A shot whined past. Then another. A rider went down ahead and he saw the frightened white eyes of the mount, hooves clawing air. The Rebel forces scrambled for cover and died getting there. Their officers tried vainly to form orderly fire lines they knew wouldn't stand against the first Loyalist charge.

Howie glanced back, searching wildly for Kari. But there was nothing back there anymore, only black clouds and destruction. Monroe had swallowed the rear of the column without slowing down.

He thought he saw Pardo, snaking his pack horses down a sharp ravine, Klu or Jigger beside him. The rain hit, burning his flesh and closing his eyes. His horse slid down the sides of the gully, pawing frantically for footing in the wet earth. He saw what was coming and clutched his rifle and jumped, praying the animal fell the other way. The ground came up to meet him. The rifle cracked hard across his brow, bringing blood.

He was up, then, and running. There were dead men in the water beneath him, men crying out on every side. He could see nothing, but he knew he had to keep running. The gullies were filling fast. He stumbled, fell. A hand clutched his shirt and jerked hard. Howie yelled and swung his rifle blindly against whatever it was. The man cuffed him sharply, drawing his face close to his own. Howie stared.. He knew the face. One of the raiders, The man shouted but Howie didn't hear. The raider pointed back behind him and Howie nodded and followed. There were four others, bunched together atop a muddy bank, sending fire back at the troopers. Without thinking, he took up his own position and began shooting in the same direction.