The Discovered

by Tracy Winegar

  “Should we come in?” Sam asked with a kind prodding.

  “Come in?” she repeated. “Oh, yes. Yes, come in.”

  We followed her into the house, where the light of the fire on the hearth was the only light illuminating the dark interior of the room. The smell immediately assaulted me, like mildew and overripe fish. There was a frightening compilation of rotting food, piled up newspapers, unclean canning jars, piles of filthy rags, and worse crammed into the small space, stacked against the walls and upon the furniture. The table was scattered with dirty dishes, a bowl piled with dried and wrinkling peels shaved from fruit, a glass bottle filled with some sort of dark brown greasy substance (meat drippings perhaps?), and cornbread half eaten, now molding, still in its cast iron pan. The woman horded all sorts of strange things, a human magpie who found any small and useless item a treasure to claim and be used to pad her nest with, so there was nary a place to step without encountering a pile of something.

  My eyes found it difficult to focus on any one thing, until I noted soon after entering the room a picture of a gentlemen in uniform upon the mantle seemed to have its own peculiarly clean place. Strangely enough it was the only item in the room residing in an uncluttered space, which made it stand out from all else. Either a husband or a son, I couldn’t be sure, but it was obvious he was a Confederate from the colors he wore.

  “Sam…” I whispered urgently.

  He turned to me in a fog of confusion, not sure what to make of this woman’s living conditions or her odd behaviors. Distracted, he looked at me with his eyebrows drawn together, pondering the poor woman’s circumstances, no doubt. Once I got his attention I motioned as discreetly as I might with a bob of my head in the direction of the mantel so he should see the picture as well. What with all of the rubbish to distract him, he looked back at me with a shrug. He didn’t know what I was talking about. He hadn’t seen it.

  “What?” he hissed.

  I didn’t want to arouse the woman’s suspicions, so I looked from him and pointed with my eyes to the picture. He attempted to seem casual as he walked toward the mantel, tripping over a pile of newspapers as he went. He drew near enough to the picture to see what it was, and his drawn eyebrows changed expression quickly, raising in distress while his face fell as it registered with him. He understood now why I directed him there. We were in the home of a Confederate. This was no Northern sympathizer wanting to share information.

  This woman knew absolutely nothing of Mosby. She knew absolutely nothing of anything. She hadn’t summoned us. Whoever sent us to this place had ill intent on their minds, this was certain. It was a snare. A trap. We’d been drawn away from the fold.

  Boss was trying his best to converse with the woman, who was mumbling madly, with not a coherent thought in her brain. He didn’t have any idea what Sam and I saw. Without consideration of being rude or impertinent, I interrupted Boss.

  “Where is your man?” I interjected rather forcefully. I thought my voice had a fraught quality to it which betrayed my distress.

  “What?” she asked, her face confused.

  I strode over to the mantel and plucked the frame from its place, holding it up toward her. “Where is your man?” This time I displayed more control. I worked hard to sound more authoritative, instead of like a scared silly child.

  “Hartley?” she whispered. Her eyes grew far off as her thin and fragile hand with bulging veins floated slowly to her breast and rested softly there. I must have made some connection with her, something she at last understood.

  “Yes, Hartley,” I encouraged. “Where is he? Does he ride with the Rangers?” I was referring of course to the Mosby Rangers.

  “He…he is gone,” she murmured, as though she herself were surprised by that bit of news. Her eyes were wide and she looked from me to Sam and then to Boss with an expression like puzzlement. Or perhaps it was an entreaty. It is difficult to read a crazy person because there is no logic or reason to them.

  Now the three of us knew right then there would be trouble. Although it was not evident exactly what was soon to transpire, we knew some ill intent was planned for us. We had been hoodwinked. I lay the framed picture on the table, and we collectively backed up toward the door, eager to exit the place and be on our way. She seemed startled by our actions, moving after us to the threshold, as though she didn’t wish for us to leave and meant to keep us there but didn’t have the power to do so.

  “Where are you going?” she wanted to know. “Won’t you stay? Don’t…don’t leave me.”

  “We have others we are to meet up with,” I lied. “A whole passel of them, just up the road a-ways, and we mustn’t be late or they will come looking for us. We don’t want any trouble.”

  “Thank you for your time,” Sam offered, taking his hat off to her. I felt sorry for her when we left, so forlorn and pitiful, but not so sorry that I was willing to be strung up over it.

  We hastened to the horses and tore out of there like the devil himself was at our heels. Once we got a safe distance from the house we paused in the road, our horses prancing nervously after the push we gave them.

  “What did you make of it?” Sam asked.

  “Was she working for Mosby?” Boss wanted to know.

  “I don’t know if she was capable,” Sam answered.

  “I don’t feel good about it,” I said. “There is some villainy at work here.”

  “That picture…” Boss began.

  “A Confederate. Likely some kin of hers. I don’t think she had any idea what was going on. Someone has set us up,” Sam replied. “Someone sent us there in hopes she would keep us until they could come along and gather us up.”

  “If that’s so, they are not far off then.”

  “We’d do best to get as far away from here, as fast as we might,” I agreed.

  “Stay off the road,” Sam cautioned.

  We guided the horses off of the road, staying in a close knot as we traveled north. When dark came on we made camp, not daring to start a fire. If we hadn’t feared for the horses we would have pushed on, for there was no sleep for us during the night. The enemy was about, we had no doubt. We sat miserably huddled together, our blankets the only warmth on the cool night, as we ate cold jerky.

  “It must be Mosby,” Sam ventured. “This is the sort of hoax he’d plan.”

  “He’s growing worse by the day,” Boss said.

  “Darby says he hung seven of our men. Strung them up right on the edge of Custer’s camp, as bold as you please. He has no fear,” I informed them.

  “No fear and no mercy,” Sam added.

  We were not far from the road, and a short time later we heard horses on the path. Boss crept quietly through the woods to try to learn who it was. We lost sight of him for a time. Sam was looking at me in alarm while we waited together apprehensively.

  “If anything should happen…” he whispered.

  “Nothing will happen,” I insisted, although I wondered where his train of thought was leading him.

  Boss came silently back. He held up his fingers to indicate their numbers. “Seven,” he breathed.

  “Pack up,” Sam directed. “Be ready to move.”

  “They are tracking us,” Boss said. “I heard a bit of what they was saying. They know we must have left the road. They are going back to try to discover where.”

  “We haven’t got a chance,” I squeaked. “Not against seven.”

  “Pack up,” Sam said again, more insistently this time. “I don’t aim on making it easy for them, staying here like sitting ducks.”

  We rolled up our blankets and provisions, piling them in the saddlebags. Sam took a branch from the ground and went behind, sweeping the ground where we trod, trying to cover our tracks. Then we walked the horses, as quietly as was possible, through the woods.

  Chapter 17

  THEY WERE CLOSE ON OUR HEELS and we knew it. Just before dawn, we came to a place where the forest thinned out and the road curved due to a change in landscape
. The ground dropped away to form a deep valley on the left and right, leaving only a narrow path on which to traverse across. Sam and Boss and I stopped where we still had cover left and stewed over what we should do.

  “If we get out in the open there’s no telling what will happen. They for certain will overcome us,” Boss said. We could easily read the fear on each other’s faces. None of us even bothered hiding it. Doom was upon our doorstep. We would be lucky if we ate another meal.

  Sam looked at me nervously, and then looked away, unable to meet my eyes. Finally he addressed Boss as though I wasn’t even there, as though it were just the two of them.

  “Boss, you and me are the adults here,” he said. “I would sure hate to see this boy suffer on account of our stupidity, letting ourselves be baited as we have. The best thing to do is let the boy go and you and me give ourselves up. At least one of us will get away.”

  “What?” I cried. “You aren’t giving yourselves up. Not on my account!”

  Boss was older than both of us and knew a thing or two I suppose. He was reluctantly nodding his agreement. “There seems to be no way out of it. Maybe they will only take us prisoner if we surrender and make it easy for them. There are worse fates,” he said.

  “The two of you must be full on crazy if you think I will let you do such a thing!” I turned to Sam, who avoided my gaze. “You don’t know me at all if you think I’ll go along with this.”

  “Frank, you don’t have a say in it. You’re too young to know what’s good for you,” Sam replied, still not meeting my eyes. “Besides, we need someone who can report back…let them know what’s happened.”

  “It won’t be me!” I insisted.

  “You’ll do what you’re told,” Sam said. He was mad. I could tell. That’s how he was when he was under pressure and saw no way out. I remembered him behaving similarly when we found the old woman in her cellar back in Fredericksburg.

  “There’s gotta be some way,” I fumed. My brain was working furiously to come up with a solution. In desperation I latched on to an idea and hastily mulled it over.

  “You got your pistol?” I asked.

  “Certainly I have my pistol,” Sam answered.

  “Listen, maybe there is yet a way,” I told them urgently. “You two head back toward Mosby’s men, find a good spot to hold up where you’ve got plenty of cover, guns loaded, ready to fire, and wait for them to come to you.”

  “We’re outnumbered, Frank, more than two to one!” Sam grumbled.

  “Maybe so, but they don’t know it,” I reasoned.

  “Even if they don’t know how many of us there are, if we engage, there’s too many of them, they’ll beat us for sure,” Boss pointed out.

  “They don’t expect us to come at them, do they? They expect us to run. We have surprise on our side. I will wait up here, just out of their shooting range, and when they get to where you are, I will give my horse a good smack, send it across the road. It’s still mostly dark. They won’t see who or what it is. They open fire, and you’ve got a few moments before they can reload.

  “That is when you let them have it. We have three rifles and Sam’s pistol. Take aim on the man in front, take him down, and then just keep shooting.”

  “I don’t know…” Sam said. “If it doesn’t work, there’ll be hell to pay. It doesn’t work and we’re all dead men, strung from the nearest tree, you included. If you got away, it would be at least one of us.”

  “It will work,” I pleaded. “They won’t know what’s hit them. They’ll scatter! I know it, they will scatter!” The two of them looked at me skeptically, but I could see Boss was coming around.

  “Come on, Boss. It’s better than just giving up. You don’t want to go without a fight, do you?”

  “I’m willing to try it,” Boss finally said. I saw I’d swayed him and pressed on, talking in an excited and quick manner, trying to gain momentum.

  “You remember the story of the battle of Jericho? You make as much noise as you can and you shoot off the guns, take a few of them out, and they’ll run. They aren’t expecting us to stand against them. They won’t know what’s hit them. I’m telling you it will scare the dickens out of them and they’ll run.” I was sure what I was saying was true, even adamant, but Sam looked doubtful.

  “I don’t want to risk it,” Sam said. I knew what he was trying to say without coming right out and saying it in front of Boss Tanner. I don’t want to risk you getting captured.

  “Well, I won’t go along with hiding like a coward and letting you two give yourselves up,” I maintained.

  “He has a plan, unless you can come up with something better,” Boss said. “But we need to decide quickly or it will be too late and we won’t have time to prepare.”

  Sam sighed heavily. “You stay put,” he told me, pointing his finger at my face with his jaw clenched and his eyes hard. “You stay put and out of the way once it all starts. You hear? And no matter what should happen, you don’t come out for anything!”

  I nodded my head in reply, just to get him to agree to what I’d proposed. Boss was watching the two of us interact in confusion, as if he were trying to figure us out.

  “We haven’t got time for this bull,” he complained.

  Sam shrugged his shoulders, trying to come off as if he didn’t care so much. “Let’s go,” he said to Boss. “We’ll double back, situate ourselves fifty yards or so from here. I’ll give a whistle when it’s time, and that’s your cue to let the horse go.”

  The two of them trudged off and left me alone with all of the horses. Boss carried his rifle and mine in each of his hands. Sam carried his rifle and revolver. Eventually the shadows engulfed them, and I couldn’t see or hear them any longer. It was deathly quiet as I stood waiting, my knees quaking, and my heart thumping. I was afraid. It terrified me to think we might fail and just what that would mean for all of us.

  The light of morning began to creep up, a soft glow which hadn’t become a full sunrise yet, when I heard Sam’s whistle. Every muscle taut, waiting for the sound, I reacted instantly, giving my horse a brutal slap on his backside and letting loose a loud holler at the same time. The horse bolted forward, running headlong through the trees and out onto the road. It vanished almost instantly into the woods on the other side.

  At the same time I heard Mosby’s men fire. The fools had no idea what they were even firing upon, but they were so startled their instinct was to shoot, regardless of what it was they were shooting at. Once they all discharged their weapons there was a brief moment of quiet, and then the real noise began. Sam and Boss opened fire upon them at close range, and they let out a whoop that could be heard from here to the Mason-Dixon Line. I joined in with them. Between the bullets flying and the noise, the lot of them became disoriented, finding it difficult to stay mounted with their horses rearing back in alarm. After two fell to the ground, the rest turned tail and hastily galloped off to where it was they’d come from.

  When Boss and Sam returned to me a moment later, they were breathless and triumphant. Sam’s eyes met mine, and he tried to conceal a smile. This did not escape my attention. I had been right. He knew it, and I knew it. I couldn’t help but feel a smug satisfaction over it. But it was Boss Tanner who voiced it.

  “You done good, kid.”

  “Yes,” Sam agreed. That was all he said.

  “Now let’s get the blazes out of here!” Boss said.

  Between the three of us there were only two horses left now, what with mine being long gone, and we still had a good four hours or more back to camp. I rode on the back of Sam’s horse for the remainder of the journey. Not a bad way to travel, in my estimation. I did my best not to seem pleased about it, which was a hard thing to accomplish, even more so with Boss there. I could not rest my cheek against his shoulder, or pull myself too closely for fear it might seem odd. I let my arms hang loose at my side for the most part, unless we came to rough terrain, then I was lucky enough to have to put my arms around Sam’s middle. I loo
ked forward with anticipation to every bump in the road.

  Chapter 18

  THINGS WERE QUIET FOR A SPELL. Camp life fell into a sweet monotony as we whiled away our time. Mosby was always a threat, but we were far more careful after our frightening experience at the mad woman’s cottage. Mosby and his men did all they could to harass and pester, it was true, but we managed to give it back every now and again, which brought some satisfaction. In truth, it probably made our lives a little less dull, although I’m sure any one of us would have done what we could to bring him in to justice and put an end to the whole cat and mouse game.

  Then, on the night of November sixth, we were told tomorrow we would be moving out early. They issued hardtack and pork to each of us, eight days’ worth. Our haversacks were overflowing with food. It was obvious something was coming down the pike. Upton was assigned command of the whole brigade. In his stead, Major Mather would be in charge of the 121st.

  “Won’t see fighting for several days or more I should think,” he told us.

  The following morning we were up before the dawn, taking down tents and packing gear. The mood was cheerful, the excitement apparent as the men assembled and followed commands to head out on a march.

  Sam leaned in toward me and said, “The thought of a scrape certainly makes a man jovial, don’t it?” as he observed those around us and their enthusiasm for our march.

  “It’s either bored to tears or facing the terror of death. No in-betweens,” I replied.

  We headed out before the sun came up, marching along the Orange and Alexandria rail lines. The Rebs were never far off, usually just across the river. I figured wherever we were headed, it wouldn’t be too far a stretch to meet them. The men all seemed in good spirits, joking and speculating on our movements, discussing politics, and things they read in the paper. I was of a mood to listen to it all and not talk. Not knowing what was to come always put me on edge in a way that stopped my mouth up. My father always said I was the brooding type, like an old hen stuck fast to her nest.