The Cowboy MEGAPACK ®. Owen Wister

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      “Yes, sir!” The boy started for the door, but he was too late.

      The man who erupted from that portal was short and stout, his face a dramatic scarlet above the dark blue of his unbuttoned coat. He stopped short a step or two into the open and stood staring at the three on horseback, that scarlet growing more dusky by the second.

      “Who…are…you?” His demand was expelled in heavy puffs of breath.

      “Flag from General Morgan,” Drew repeated. Then to make it quite plain, he added kindly, “General John Hunt Morgan, Confederate Cavalry, Army of the Tennessee, detached duty.”

      “But, but Morgan was defeated…at Cynthiana. He was broken—”

      Slowly Drew shook his head. “The General has been reported defeated before, suh. No, he’s right here outside Bardstown. And I wouldn’t rightly say he was broken either, not with a couple of regiments behind him—”

      “Couple of regiments!” The man was buttoning his coat, his red jowls sagging a little, almost as if Drew had used the carbine across his unprotected head. “Couple of regiments…Morgan…” he repeated dazedly. “Well,” sullenly he spoke to Drew, “what does he want?”

      “You’re a captain,” Drew spoke crisply. “You’ll return with us to discuss surrender terms with an officer of equal rank!”

      “Surrender!” For a moment some of the sag went out of the other.

      “Two regiments—an’ you have maybe eighty or ninety men.” Kirby gazed with critical disparagement at such Union forces as were visible.

      “One hundred and twenty-five,” the officer repeated mechanically and then glared at the Texan.

      “One hundred and twenty-five then.” Kirby was willing to be generous. “All ready to hold this heah town. I don’t see no artillery neither.” He rose in his stirrups to view the immediate scene. “Goin’ to fight from house to house maybe—?”

      “General Morgan,” Drew remarked to the company at large, “is not a patient man. But it’s your decision, suh. If you want to make a fight of it.” He shrugged.

      “No! Well, I’ll talk…listen to your terms anyway. Get my horse!” he roared at the nearest soldier.

      They escorted the captain with due solemnity out of Bardstown to meet Campbell, a well-armed guard in evidence strung out on the pike. The Union officer picked up enough assurance to demand to see the General himself, but Campbell’s show of surprised hauteur at the request was an expert’s weapon in rebuttal; and the other not only subsided but agreed without undue protest to Campbell’s statement of terms.

      The Union detachment in town were to stack their arms in the square, leaving in addition their rations. They were to withdraw, unarmed, to a field outside and there await the patroling officer who would visit them in due course. Having agreed, the Union captain departed.

      Campbell was already signaling the rest of the company out of cover.

      “This is where we move fast. You all know what to do.”

      But much had to be left to chance. Drew and Kirby surrendered their borrowed carbines to the rightful owners and prepared to join the first wave of that quick dash.

      “Yahhhh-aww-wha—” There were no words in that, just the war cry which might have torn from an Indian warrior’s throat, but which came instead from between Kirby’s lips: the famous Yell with all its yip of victory as only an uninhibited Texan could deliver it. Then they were rushing, yelping in an answering chorus, four and five abreast, down the street under the shade of the trees, answered by screams and cries as the walks emptied before them.

      Blue ranks broke up ahead, leaving rifles stacked, provisions in knapsacks. And the ragged crew struck at the spoil like a wave, lapping up arms, cartridge boxes, knapsacks. For only moments there was a milling pandemonium in the heart of Bardstown. Then once again that Yell was raised, echoed, and the pound of hoofs made an artillery barrage of sound. Armed, provisioned, and very much the masters of the scene, Morgan’s men were heading out of town on the other side, leaving bewilderment behind.

      They pushed the pace, knowing that the telegraph wires or the couriers would be spreading the news. Perhaps the reputation of their commander might slow the inevitable pursuit, but it would not deter it entirely. They must put as much distance between themselves and the out-foxed Union garrison as they could. And Campbell continued to point them westward instead of south, since any enemy force would be marching in the other direction to cut them off.

      Even if men could stand that dogged pace, driven by determination and fear of capture, horses could not. And through the next two days the inference was very clear: fall behind at your own risk; there will be no waiting for laggards to catch up. Nor any mounts furnished; you must provide your own.

      Drew discovered the black gelding an increasing problem, but at least the horse provided transportation, and he tried to save the animal as best he could. Though when it was impossible to unsaddle, when one had to ride—and did—some twenty hours out of twenty-four, there was not much the most experienced horseman could do to relieve his mount.

      Drew pulled up beside Kirby as he returned from a flank scout. The Texan had dropped to the rear of the small troop, holding his horse to not much more than a walk. Now and then he glanced to the receding length of the road as if in search of someone.

      “Where’s Boyd?” Drew had ridden along the full length of the company and nowhere had he seen that blond head.

      “Jus’ what I’m wonderin’.” Kirby came to a complete halt. “I came back a little while ago, and nobody’s seen him.”

      Drew pulled in beside the other. His horse’s head hung low as the gelding blew in gusty snorts. He tried to remember when he had seen Boyd last and when he did, that memory was not too encouraging.

      “With Hilders…and Cambridge…” he said softly.

      “Yeah.” Kirby’s thought seemed to match his. “Hilder’s mare is jus’ about beat, an’ Boyd rides light; that bay he got is holdin’ up like a corn-fed stud.”

      “They were talkin’ to him when I went out on point.” Drew followed his own line of thought. “And he won’t listen to me—”

      “It don’t foller that because you advise a hombre for his own good, he’s goin’ to take kindly to your interest in him,” the Texan observed. “You tell him Hilders an’ Cambridge are wearin’ skunk stripes, an’ he’s apt to claim ’em both as compadres. Suppose he don’t come in when we bed down; he coulda jus’ cut his picket rope an’ drifted, as far as we can prove.”

      “Not if his bay turns up with one of them on top,” Drew replied.

      “Them two are of the curly wolf breed.” Kirby shifted his newly acquired Enfield. “No tellin’ as how they would join up with us again did they make such a switch; might figure as how they could make it better time driftin’ on their own.”

      The Texan had put his own fear into words. Drew pointed the gelding back down the road and booted the animal into a trot. A moment later he heard more drumming hoofs behind him; Kirby was following.

      “This СКАЧАТЬ