Under the Stars and Bars (3 page)

Being a long-serving soldier, although he had always been employed as an officer’s servant, Dusty’s striker, Dick Cody, disapproved of the small Texan’s flouting of the
Manual of Dress Regulations.
So, to please Cody, he had agreed to wear breeches and boots that conformed with what amounted to the striker’s bible. At that moment, Dusty felt thankful that he had done so.

Maybe the high heels of Texas range-boots held in the stirrup-irons with extra safety, or could be spiked into the ground when roping afoot, but they were pure hell to wear while walking any distance. The much lower heels on his cavalry-pattern boots would allow him to reach the sympathiser’s home without too much discomfort.

Yells from the Yankees brought Dusty to a halt. They had only gone about half a mile, according to the sounds, but already knew they had been tricked. Then he heard the crack of a revolver shot, followed by a scream of pain. That sound did not emerge from human lips. For a moment Dusty stood, cold and angry, wondering if one of the Volunteers, furious at the discovery, had put a bullet into the stallion. Then he decided it was not so. Instead the sound reminded him of the squeal a pig made when it felt the prick of a butcher’s knife.

Putting aside the question of why the Yankees would shoot at a pig, assuming one should be in the woods, Dusty walked on. He remained alert, giving his attention mainly to the area in which his enemies had disappeared. The precaution paid off when he saw two of the Volunteers riding in his direction. Darting into the concealment of a near-by clump of buffalo-berry bushes, Dusty crouched with the right side holster’s Colt cocked in his left hand. Going by their lack of response, the Yankees had failed to notice him walking along, or during his dive into hiding.

Carefully parting a couple of branches with his right hand, Dusty decided that it would have been surprising if the Yankees had seen him. They rode side by side at a walk, making only the slightest pretence of searching the surrounding woods for the Rebel officer who had eluded them. Instead they talked to each other and, as they drew nearer, Dusty found their conversation enlightening.

‘ “Spread out, go back and look for him,” the stupid son-of-a-bitch tells us,’ growled the taller of the pair, a surly-faced hard-case who slouched like a sack of potatoes on his jaded, sweat-lathered horse. ‘ “Find him,” he says. “The peckerwood
⁷
bastard can’t have gotten far.” ’

‘He can’t have, Fred,’ the other Volunteer pointed out, almost apologetically.

‘Can’t hell, Simmy!’ spat the big man. ‘He could’ve dropped off his hoss any time ‘tween that valley and where we first saw he wasn’t on its back.’

‘I thought we’d got him when the luff
⁸
threw that shot into the bushes,’ Simmy declared, grinning broadly at the memory. ‘Lord! His face when that damned great critter bust out. What was it, Fred, a grizzly bear?’

‘Just you pair keep coming the way you are,’ Dusty breathed, studying the incautious approach. ‘You do that, and I’ll be riding again afore night-fall.’

If the two Volunteers continued on their present course and without paying a greater attention to duty, they might easily supply him with horses, Bursting out of the bushes, he could throw down on them and either shoot, or make them dismount and surrender their horses. In ‘Fred’s’ case, it would probably have to be the former. There was a truculence about him that might be accompanied by a reckless imprudent nature. To achieve his intentions, Dusty wanted the men much closer before he made his appearance.

‘Naw!’ Fred answered. ‘It was a hawg of some kind!’

‘I never saw a hawg that size,’ Simmy protested. ‘Why it was as—’

The ringing notes of a bugle cut off the words. With a feeling of annoyance, Dusty recognised the sound of the ‘Recall’. Reining their horses to a stop at a distance which precluded the chance of him taking them by surprise, the soldiers looked towards the source of the martial music. Dusty remained hidden. To make an appearance now would only stir up gun-play. While he knew that he could shoot accurately enough to tumble both men from their saddles, the horses would bolt before he could stop them.

‘Come on,’ Fred growled. ‘Looks like he’s finally got good enough sense to call it off.’

‘I ain’t sorry about that,’ Simmy replied. ‘Now maybe we’ll get back to camp in time for supper.’

Watching the soldiers ride away, Dusty let out an exasperated grunt. No Texan from the range country cared for walking. However, seeing that it could not be helped, he waited until the sound of the Volunteers’ departure had faded into the distance and then resumed his journey.

Satisfied that his pursuers had given up the chase, Dusty kept alert for another possible—and probably greater—danger. According to the conversation he had overheard, the Volunteers’ lieutenant had fired at what he believed to be a hidden man and wounded a pig of some kind. That the wound had not been fatal was a factor to be taken into consideration. Dusty had no wish to meet up with the injured animal.

At best the pig would be only semi-domesticated; turned by its owner to forage in the woodland, then rounded up in much the same way that Texans raised their cattle. Like longhorns, some of the pigs were never recaptured and reverted to the wild. There were few more dangerous animals in Arkansas than a feral-hog, for it had no inherited fear of human beings. The feral-hog might be cautious and, like an old
ladino
longhorn, try to avoid contact with men; but it would never hesitate to attack if cornered or hurt.

Darkness came without Dusty running into any kind of trouble or danger. He guessed that the ford was not far ahead when he heard the sound of running water. Much to his annoyance, he noticed a small red glow rising among the trees.

‘Damn the luck!’ Dusty growled,
sotto voce
. ‘There’s somebody bedding down for the night by that blasted ford.’

Going by the size of the blaze, it would only be serving the needs of a small party. Nor could Dusty see other glows to tell him that more than one group of men were settling in ahead.

Which raised a couple of vitally important points.

How many men would he be dealing with and would they be friends of foes?

Going by the lack of effort taken to conceal the flames, he would be willing to bet on the maker of the fire being a Yankee; most likely one of a small band. Soldiers, maybe. Or even worse, guerillas, those human wolves who used ‘patriotism’ as an excuse to raid, loot, pillage or murder. Rumour had it that an especially ruthless bunch of Yankee irregulars had moved into this section of the Saline River country. Being captured by them was not a situation any Southerner wished to face. Of course, the fire might have been made by a single soldier riding dispatch.

Not that Dusty felt inclined to go and investigate right then. Common-sense dictated that he should put off the attempt until morning. Stalking an unknown area, with an unspecified number of men in it, was not a business he wished to try in the darkness of the night. Far better to make camp in what comfort he could manage until daybreak and then—when able to see where he was putting his feet—move in. Once he had examined the clearing in which the man—or men—rested, he could make an estimation of his best line of action.

With that in mind, Dusty gave thought to his own bed for the night. Up so close to a possible enemy, he could not light a fire. Nor dare he chance breaking branches to make a lean-to. That left him only one alternative, to use the ground for a mattress and the sky as blankets.

‘Way my luck’s going,’ Dusty told himself, ‘it’ll pour with rain all night.’ Then he grinned, thinking of his ever-pessimistic sergeant major, and continued, ‘Damned if I’m not catching the Billy Jack’s.’

Having delivered that sentiment, he found a small hollow in a clump of bushes. Packing his hat with leaves, he set it down to be used as a pillow. Taking off his gunbelt, he removed the left-side Colt. Preferring to be cold than left without serviceable weapons, he removed his tunic and rolled the gunbelt in it. Then, with the Colt in his right hand shielded as well as possible by his body, he lay on his right side and went to sleep.

* * *

Despite the loosely packed soil among the bushes offering anything but a soft, comfortable bed, Dusty contrived to sleep all through the night. With the dawn’s first pink glow creeping into the eastern sky, he woke and sat up. Grunting a little, he came swiftly but cautiously to his feet. The chilly sensation rapidly left him. For all his gloomy, Billy Jack-esque predictions the previous evening, the weather had remained both warm and fine. Having spent many nights bedded down in the open air, although invariably with the protection of blankets and a water-proof poncho, he felt little the worse for his experience.

As Dusty worked the slight stiffness from his limbs, he shook away the light sprinkling of dew that had settled on him. His eyes turned in the direction of the ford. Clearly whoever had camped there also believed in early rising. Already the fire was sending up a column of smoke that told of a recent refuelling. If Dusty intended to move in, reconnoitre and, given the chance, obtain a mount for himself, he must waste no time.

Drawing a bandana handkerchief from his breeches left hip pocket, he carefully wiped all traces of dew from the Colt in his right hand. Fortunately Colonel Sam Colt’s workmen has produced a piece of machinery that stood up very well to mild wettings. Dusty knew that the percussion caps prevented moisture from seeping into the cylinder’s chambers through the holes in the cap-nipples. The larger openings at the other end of the cylinder were coated with grease, to hold the bullet firmly in position and to stop the flames from the uppermost charge reaching and setting off the other five’s loads.

With that basic precaution taken, Dusty thrust the Colt temporarily into his waist-band. Unrolling the tunic, he produced the gunbelt. No damp had reached the second revolver, he noticed with pleasure. Returning the gun from his waist-band to its holster, he laid the belt across his hat and put on his tunic. After buttoning the double-breasted front, he strapped on the belt and tied down the tips of the holsters. Emptying the leaves from his hat, he returned the crushed crown to its normal shape and placed it on his head. Dressed and armed, he eased himself through the bushes and started walking with great caution towards the rising column of smoke.

Making use of every bit of the skill and experience he had gained while hunting alert, elusive whitetail deer back home in the Rio Hondo country, Dusty passed through the woodland without a single unnecessary noise. Although many of Buller’s command were city-born, he had some country-dwellers. Most of Verncombe’s 6th ‘New Jersey’ Dragoons—despite their title—had seen service in Indian campaigns before the War. So it was possible that whoever was camping near the ford possessed keen ears and a knowledge of the danger presented by that kind of terrain. Dusty intended to take as few chances as he could manage.

Watching where he put his feet, so as to avoid stepping on and breaking dry twigs, he ‘also made certain that his clothes did not brush against the trunks of trees or bushes’ branches. In the latter he was helped by the figure-hugging nature of his uniform and decided to comment to his striker upon one advantage of the skirtless, non-
Regulations
, tunic; the fact that it had nothing to flap about as he made a stalk through wooded country.

Feeling the wind blowing into his face, coming from the direction in which he was headed, Dusty felt a further sense of relief. Maybe the man, or men, about the fire would be city-dwellers, but their horses would be on the alert. So he knew that having his scent blown away from them would lessen the chances of their detecting his presence and giving a warning.

At last he came into sight of the clearing. Inching forward with even greater care, he halted behind the thick trunk of a burly white ash tree. From the concealment of the five foot wide trunk, he studied the clearing by the ford—and found himself faced with a problem. Although there were two horses hobbled and grazing on the edge of the river’s bank, he could see only one man in the open space before him.

Was the man alone, riding a relay, or did he have a companion who had gone off into the bushes for some reason?

Calmly Dusty examined the mystery and drew his conclusions. The two horses were fine animals, a dun and a chestnut, both geldings. They had a powerful, yet not clumsy muscular development that hinted at
brio escondido
, hidden vigour, or stamina and guts well above average. Each had a set of hobbles attached to its forelegs above the pastern joints. U.S. cavalry hobbles, from the look of them, made of two buckle-on leather cuffs connected by a short swivel-link chain.

A pair of officer’s pattern McClellan saddles lay on their sides by the fire. Across the seat of one hung a fringed buckskin shirt on which rested a pair of ivory-handled, octagonal-barrelled Colt 1851 Navy revolvers. A tight-rolled multi-hued silk bandana, a black sash of the same material and a low-crowned, wide brimmed grey Stetson hat were draped on the saddle’s hornless pommel. Leaning against the seat of the second saddle was a Henry rifle in a fancy-decorated, fringed Indian medicine boot. Dusty could see only one bed-roll alongside the fire.

‘Not but the one cup there, too,’ the small Texan mused, staring longingly at the small coffee-pot which steamed and bubbled merrily near the flames. ‘That hombre’s sure acting obliging.’

Naked to the waist, showing a heavy-shouldered, lean-waisted, muscular back, the man in question would be one or two inches over the six foot mark. While he wore U.S. cavalry breeches, his lower legs were encased in knee-high Indian moccasins. The hilt of a long-bladed fighting knife showed above the top of the right moccasin and he kept up his breeches with a fancy-patterned Indian belt. Shoulder-long tawny hair added to Dusty’s suspicions that the man was a civilian scout rather than a serving member of the Union Army.

The small Texan knew that several such specialists had been brought from their duties with the Western garrisons and allocated to various Union commands in the hope of combating the South’s very effective cavalry raiders. The man was the first of them Dusty had seen in Arkansas.

What the man’s features might be like, Dusty could not tell. Standing with his back to the young captain, the scout was shaving with the aid of a small steel mirror fixed to the trunk of a tree. Fortunately his position would prevent him seeing Dusty reflected on the shining surface.

Even as Dusty prepared to step out from behind the white ash, he heard the dun gelding let out an explosive, warning snort. Freezing in his tracks, right hand filled with the butt of its Colt, he glanced at the animals and saw the chestnut toss its finely shaped head in alarm.

At first Dusty thought that the horses had located him in some way. Then he realised that their attention was focused on the other side of the clearing. Turning his gaze that way, he saw something big, black-looking and vaguely menacing looming through the bushes. Then the long-haired scout drew Dusty’s eyes his way.

Throwing a quick look at his horses, the man snapped his head around to face the cause of their agitation. Dusty formed an impression of tanned, good-looking features with a neatly trimmed moustache making an almost white slash above a half-shaven chin.

Clearly a man long used to taking rapid decisions, the scout flung one quick glance towards the bushes then made as if to spin around and leap to his armament. At which point, his luck ran out. In turning, his right foot struck the top of one of the tree’s roots. Slipping from the moss-encrusted surface, it threw him off balance. Discarding his razor as he went down, he fell into deadly danger.

Snuffling, grunting and grinding its tusks against each other with a spine-chilling, blood-curdling sound, an enormous pig lurched into the clearing. What had appeared to be black skin proved to have the deep reddish tint that hinted of Duroc breeding. However, the hog showed none of the Duroc’s normally docile nature nor much of its broad-backed, thick bodied build. Tall, standing much higher at the shoulders than the hips, body fined down until it looked all sinew and hard muscles, it had a long nose and a big, powerful-jawed mouth from which showed tusks almost six inches in length. A raw-looking, bloody furrow on its rump explained its bad temper. Maybe its grandparents had been pure, or part, Duroc, but that hog was closer to a wild boar in its appearance than it was to a domesticated pig.

At the sight of the bristling, squealing horror charging towards their master, the two horses let out startled squeals. They backed away as fast as their hobbles would allow them, not yet in a panic, but close to it. Dusty wanted one, or both, of the geldings—although, to give him credit, he would have intervened even if he had not. So he sprang from the bushes, ready to save the scout from a terrible mauling if he could.

Coming to a halt on spread-apart, slightly bent legs, he inclined his torso to the rear. Doing so rested his weight on the pelvic region and utilised the body’s bone structure as added support. At the same time, he swung the Colt forward and up. His left hand rose to cup under the bottom of its mate. Holding the revolver at arms length and shoulder-high, he set the low-blade, white brass tip of the foresight in the centre of the V-shaped notch cut as a rearsight in the hammer’s lip.

There was only one hope of stopping the hog in time and doing it called for a very careful aim. Aligning the sights, Dusty squeezed the trigger. The gas from thirty grains of black powder detonating spun a 219-grain conical bullet through the rifling grooves of the seven-and-a-half inch long ‘Civilian’ pattern barrel.
⁹
Propelled through the air, the lead made a sharp crack as it ploughed through the hard bones of the hog’s skull. Hitting right where Dusty had intended it should, a couple of inches above the eyes and in the exact centre of the head, the .44 bullet tore into the beast’s brain pan. Killed instantly, the hog’s fore legs buckled under it and the great body turned a forward somersault from its momentum.

Twisting himself over in a violent, desperate roll, the scout barely avoided being struck by the hog’s fast-moving carcass. It crashed to the ground on its back and, with a final, frantic thrashing of its legs, went limp. Raising himself on to his hands, the scout looked at the dead hog. Then he turned his face towards his rescuer. Surprise flickered across the scout’s bronzed features as he realised that he owed his life to a Confederate States’ Army captain.

‘Thanks, frie—’ the scout had begun to say, but the words trailed off and, after staring for a few seconds, he continued, ‘Well I’ll be damned!’

‘Maybe you’ll have time to repent from your sinful ways, hombre,’ Dusty answered, having deftly cocked his Colt on its recoil and turned it to line with disconcerting inflexibility in the man’s direction. ‘Happen you stay put for a spell, that is.’

Drawing one leg up under him ready to make a dive towards his weapons, the scout remained at the foot of the tree. His eyes flickered to the hole in the hog’s skull, then swung to estimate the distance from which the big Texan had cut loose. That had either been a real lucky, or mighty well-aimed shot. Noticing the other’s quietly competent appearance, the scout went for the latter choice.

‘Was you wanting me dead,’ the scout remarked, raking Dusty from head to foot with his eyes, ‘you’d’ve let the hawg get me.’

‘Don’t you going setting too much store by that, hombre,’ the small Texan warned. ‘If I’d let it happen, the noise’d likely’ve spooked off your horses and I need them.’

‘And I thought it was me you liked,’ said the scout, right hand moving slowly towards his leg.

‘While you’re down there, take out the knife and toss it this way,’ Dusty ordered. ‘With the tips of your fingers, so there’ll be no temptation to let you get “damned” permanent.’

Grinning resignedly, the scout obeyed. Drawing the knife between the extreme tips of his thumb and forefinger, he spun it across the clearing and made certain that it never looked like reaching his rescuer. That Texan captain might be young, but he packed a whole heap too much savvy to play games against. Going by the manner in which he handled the Colt, he rated high in skill at using it. No man could take chances with that level of talent to his own advantage. Trying to jump him, without the help of a suitable distraction, would be rapidly fatal. So the scout intended to comply with the other’s orders—unless a real good chance of altering their status happened to come up.

‘Ole “Californy” Bill allus telled me washing and shaving regular’s plumb dangerous,’ commented the scout. ‘Damned if he didn’t have him a mishap and tell the truth for once.’

‘It happens to most of us, one time or another,’ Dusty replied. ‘You can get up’s long’s you do it slow and easy.’

‘Thanks,’ answered the scout and came to his feet in a lithe, effortless manner that told Dusty he was neither slow nor clumsy in his movements. ‘Why’d the hawg jump me?’

‘Going by that nick on its butt-end, I’d say it was riled ‘cause a Yankee luff threw a bullet at it yesterday.’

‘Why’d he do a fool thing like that?’

‘Heard it moving in some bushes, figured it was me and come up smoking. I’d say he was lucky that ole hawg went away instead of coming at him.’

‘You see it happen?’ asked the scout.

‘Heard a couple of Volunteers talking about it while they was supposed to be hunting for me.’

‘Buller’s bunch, huh? That figures. There’s not one of them from the Bully his-self down to the lowest drummerboy’s’s got sense enough to pound sand into a rat-hole. What you got in mind to do with me?’

‘Now I’d say that depends on you,’ Dusty answered. I won’t chance leaving you hawg-tied here, or having you free to come after me.’

‘Maybe you should’ve let the hawg get me,’ commented the scout.

‘There’s some’s’d say you’re right,’ Dusty admitted. ‘Trouble being I didn’t and it’s too late now. After I’ve got your guns, you can come over and get dressed.’

‘Can I finish my shave first?’

‘Go to it. Only don’t try shaving
me
while you’re at it.’

Keeping a watch while the scout went ahead with his interrupted ablutions, Dusty lowered his Colt and crossed to the fire. Asking for and receiving permission he poured out a cup of coffee. At no time did he relax his vigilance, as the scout observed through the mirror. Dusty presented his captive with no opportunity to jump him, or to make a dash for cover. Finishing the coffee, he collected the Navy Colts and thrust them into his waist-band. Then he returned his revolver to its holster and, selecting a moment when the scout had the razor to his tight-stretched throat, slid the Henry rifle from its boot. Working the lever, Dusty emptied the repeater’s chamber. While replacing the Henry in the medicine boot, Dusty produced his Colt again.