by Andre Norton
"You there," Drew hailed the driver. "I'll take one of those mules!"
As always, he hated these enforced trades and spoke in a peremptory way, wanting to get the matter finished.
"You, suh—" the solid citizen turned his horse to face the scout—"what gives you the right to take that mule?"
With a visible sigh of relief, the Negro relaxed on the driver's seat, willing to let the other carry on the argument.
"Nothing, except I have to have a mount I can depend upon." Drew did not know why he was explaining, or even why he wanted the mule so acutely right now. Except that he was tired, tired of the days in the saddle, of being on the run, of these small Kentucky towns into which they rode to loot and ride off again. The Yankees in Bardstown had been fair game, and their bluff there had been an adventure. But Calhoun left a sour taste in his mouth, and he didn't like the vague order which had brought him to Cadiz. So his dislike boiled over, to settle into a sullen determination to rid himself of one irritation—this undependable horse.
"Do I assume, suh, that you are part of General Morgan's command?" Sharp blue eyes studied Drew across the well-curried backs of the mules.
"Yes, suh."
The man gave a nod, which might have been for some thought of his own.
"We have heard some rumors of your coming, suh," the other continued. "You, Nelson," he spoke to the Negro, "take this team up to the livery stable and tell Mr. Emory I want Hannibal saddled! Then you bring him back here and give him to this gentleman!"
"Yes, suh. Hannibal—wi' saddle—for this young gentlem'n."
"Hannibal, suh," the man said to Drew, "is a mule, but a remarkable one, riding trained and strong. I think you will find him quite usable. Do I understand we are about to be favored by a visit from General Morgan?"
Drew dismounted. Now he made a business of squinting up at the sun as if to tell time. "Not for a while, suh." He remained cautious; though he guessed that his questioner's sympathies were at least not openly Union.
There was a stir in the gathering crowd. Hart was leaning from his saddle, talking earnestly to two men flanking him on either side.
"May I offer you some refreshment, gentlemen. I am James Pryor, at your service—"
Automatically Drew responded to the manners of Red Springs. "Drew Rennie, suh. Anson Kirby, Boyd Barrett...." He looked around for Hart, only to see the other disappearing into an alley with his two companions from the crowd.
"Suh, that's a right heartenin' offer," Kirby said, smiling. "Trail dust sure does make a man's throat dryer'n an alkali flat!"
"Mark Hale over here has just the answer for that difficulty, gentlemen. If you will accompany me—"
They left the glare of the sunlit street, following their host into a small shop where a quantity of strange smells fought for supremacy. Kirby stared about him puzzled, but his look changed to an expression of pure bafflement and outrage as Pryor gave his order to the smaller man who came from a back room.
"Mark, these gentlemen need some of that good lemonade you make—if you have some cold and ready."
Drew heard Kirby's muffled snort of protest and wanted so badly to laugh that the struggle to choke off that sound was a pain in his chest. Mr. Pryor smiled at them blandly.
"M' boys, nothing better on a really hot day than some of Mark's lemonade. Nothing like it in this part of Kentucky. Ah, that looks like a draft fit for the gods, Mark, it certainly does!"
Hale had bobbed out of his inner room again, shepherding before him a Negro boy who walked with exaggerated caution, balancing a tray on which stood four tall glasses, beaded with visible moisture. There was a sprig of green mint standing sentry in each.
"Drink up, gentlemen." Under Mr. Pryor's commanding eye they each took a glass and a first sip.
But it was good—cool as it went slipping down the throat bearing that blessed chill with it, tart on the tongue, and fresh. Drew had sipped, but now he gulped, and he noted over the rim of his own glass, that Kirby was following his example. Mr. Pryor consumed his portion at a more genteel rate of intake.
"This allays that trail dust of yours, Mr. Kirby?" He inquired with no more than usual solicitude, but there was a faint trace of amusement in his small smile.
Kirby met the challenge promptly. "Ably, suh, ably!" He raised his half-filled glass. "To your very good health, suh. I don't know when I've had me a more satisfyin' drink!"
Pryor bowed. He was still smiling as he glanced at Drew.
"You have business in Cadiz, suh? Beyond that of swapping that firebreather of yours for another mount, I mean? Perhaps I can be of service in some other way...."
Drew cradled his glass in both hands. The condensing moisture made it slippery, but the chill was pleasant to feel.
"Do you have any news about the Cumberland River, suh?" he asked. Pryor might have usable information, and there was no reason to disguise that part of their objective. Short of turning about and fighting their way through about a quarter of the aroused Yankee army, the fugitives did have to cross the Cumberland and the Tennessee, and do both soon.
"The Cumberland, suh, is not apt to give you much trouble." Pryor sipped at his glass with a relish. "If, of course, you contemplate a try at the Tennessee—that will be a different matter. I trust your commander will be amply prepared for difficulties there. But General Morgan is not to be easily caught napping, or so his reputation stands. I wish you the best of luck."
"Is that your horse out there, young man?" the proprietor of the drugstore addressed Drew. "That big stallion?"
Drew put his glass on the counter and spun around. "What's he doin' now?"
"Nothing," Hale returned quickly. "Ransome!" Out of nowhere Hale's servant appeared. "Get the saddlebags from that horse."
Surprised at this highhanded demand for his property, Drew waited for enlightenment. When Ransome returned with the bags, Hale took them, moved quickly to a cabinet, and unlocked it. By handfulls he took small boxes from the shelves inside, added some paper packets, and then buckled the straps tightly over the new bulge.
"I understand," he said in his dry, precise voice, "there is a pressing need for quinine, morphine, and the like in the South?"
Drew could only nod as Hale held out the bags.
"Give this to your surgeon, young man, with my compliments. There is little enough we can do, but this is something."
Drew stammered his thanks, knowing that those boxes and packets crammed into his bags meant a fortune to a blockade runner, but far more to men in the improvised hospitals behind the gray lines. Hale waved away Drew's thanks, adding only a last warning: "Keep your bags dry if you contemplate a river crossing! I would like to make sure that those drugs do reach the right hands intact."
"Rennie!" Hart hailed him from the door. "There's a boy here with a mule; he says it's for you."
Pryor put down his glass. "It's Hannibal. I think you will find him acceptable, suh. An even-tempered animal for the most part, and the surest-footed one I have ever ridden."
"Then you do ride him?" Boyd spoke for the first time.
"Naturally he has been ridden—by me. I would not offer him otherwise, suh!" Pryor's flash of indignation was quick. "Hannibal's dam was Dido, a fine trotting mare. He's an excellent mount."
The mule stood in the street, ears slightly forward, eyeing King warily. He was a big animal, groomed until his gray coat shone under the sun, wearing a well rubbed and oiled saddle and trappings. As Drew approached he lowered his head, sniffing inquiringly at the scout.
"Your new master, Hannibal," Pryor addressed the animal with the gravity of one making a formal introduction. "You are about to be mustered into the cavalry."
Hannibal appeared to consider this and then shook his big head up and down in a vigorous nod. Boyd laughed and Kirby offered vocal encouragement.
"Mount up an' see if you have to go smoothin' out any humps."
"If you're goin' to ride that critter, git on!" Hart called. His tone expressed urgency as i
f he had learned something in town which should send them out of Cadiz in a hurry.
Drew's previous experience with mules had not been as a rider. He had heard plenty about their sure-footedness, their ability to keep going as pack animals and wagon teams when horses gave out, their intelligence, as well as that stubbornness which lay on the darker side of the scales. He advanced on Hannibal now a little distrustfully, settling into the saddle on the animal's back with the care of one expecting some unpleasant reaction. But Hannibal merely swung his head about as if to make sure by sight, as well as pressure of weight on his back, that his rider was safely aloft.
Relaxing, Drew saluted Pryor. "My thanks to you, suh."
"Think nothing of it, young man. Luck to you—all of you."
"That we can use, suh," Kirby returned. "Adios...."
Hart's impatience was so patent that Drew had only hasty thanks for Hale before the trooper had them on their way out of town. When they were at a trot Kirby joined their guide.
"How come you workin' on your critter's rump with a double of rope? Git sight of some blue belly hangin' out to dry-gulch us?"
"We ain't too welcome hereabouts." Hart did look worried, and Drew was alert.
"Yankees?" he asked.
Hart shook his head. "Just some of the boys; they don't want no attention pulled this way, not right now."
The bank money—and the guerrillas. Yes, holding up the Cadiz bank if and when any gold reached there, would appeal to the local irregulars, who might be so irregular as to be on the cold side of the law, even in wartime with the enemy their victim. Drew fitted one piece to another and thought he could guess the full pattern.
Kirby looked from one to the other. Boyd was completely at a loss. A moment later the Texan spoke again.
"Me, I'm never one to argue with local talent, specially if they wear their Colts low and loose. Doin' that is apt to make a man wolf meat. Wheah to now—this heah river?"
Drew nodded. The Cumberland must be scouted. And, after that, the more formidable barrier of the Tennessee. He had not needed Pryor's warning about the latter. Ever since they had left Bardstown and knew they were headed for that barrier, Drew had been carrying worry at the back of his mind.
But Pryor was also right about the Cumberland. Hart agreed to ride back to the company with the information to direct them to the best crossing. While Drew, Kirby, and Boyd went on to the last barrier between them and eventual escape southwest.
Here the Tennessee was a flood, a narrow lake more than a river. As they traveled its eastern bank Boyd halted now and again to study the waste of water dubiously.
"It's wide," he said in a subdued voice. Kirby spat accurately at a leaf drifting just below.
"Need us some fish fixin's heah," he agreed. "You swim?" he asked the other two.
There had been ponds at home where both of them in childhood had paddled about with most of the young male populations of Red Springs and Oak Hill. But whether they could trust that somewhat limited skill to get them over this flood was another matter.
"Some." Boyd appeared to have discovered caution.
"Me, I'm not sayin' yet," Kirby commented. "Splashin' 'round some in a little-bitty wadin' pool, an' gittin' out in this, don't balance none. Ain't every hoss takes kindly to water, neither. I'd say we'd better see what's the chances of knockin' together a raft or somethin'. 'Less we can find us a boat."
But boats were not to be found, unless they were willing to risk discovery by trying to cross near a well-settled district. And when Captain Campbell joined them that afternoon he insisted on the need of speed over a longer reconnaissance.
"The Yankees are closing in," he told the trio by the river. "If we try to cross at a town, they'll have a point to center on. Rafts, yes, we can try to build rafts—have to ferry over the men who can't swim, and our gear. This is the time we must push—fast."
The remote section of bank which Drew had chosen became a scene of activity as the company came in—a tight bunch—not long after Campbell. The stragglers came later, pushing beat-out horses, one or two riding double. They had no tools other than bowie knives, and their attempts at raft-building were not only awkward but in the most cases futile. When they did have a mat which would stick together after a fashion, they were determined to put it to the test at once.
None of them had much practice in getting horses over such a wide body of water, and there were a great many freely voiced suggestions concerning the best methods.
Kirby stood watching the first attempt, his face blank of expression, a sign Drew had come to recognize as the Texan's withdrawal from a situation or action of which he did not approve. There were five men squeezed together on the flimsy-looking raft and they had strung out their mounts in a line, the head of one horse linked by leading rope to the tail of the one before him.
"You don't think it's goin' to work?" Drew asked Kirby.
The Texan shrugged. "Maybe, only hosses don't think like men. An' a lotta hosses don't take kindly to gittin' wheah theah ain't no footin'. Me, I want to see a little more, 'fore I roll out—"
Kirby's misgivings were amply justified. For that first voyage was doomed to a tragic and speedy end. The second horse in line, losing footing as the river bed fell away beneath him, reared in fright, caught his forefeet over the rope linking him to his fellow, and so jerked his head underwater by his own frenzied struggles. Before the men on the wildly dipping raft were able to cut the now fright-maddened animals loose, three in that string had drowned themselves by their uncontrolled plunges, and the others were being dragged under.
Boyd dived from the upper bank before Drew could stop him. It was madness to go anywhere near the struggling horses. But somehow Boyd's blond head broke water at the side of the last gasping animal. He took a grip on the water-logged mane, his body bobbing up and down with the jerks of the horse's forequarters, until he had sawed through the lead cord and was able to start the mount back toward the shore, swimming beside him.
Drew was waiting with Kirby to give Boyd a hand up the bank.
"You could have been pulled under!"
Boyd was grinning. "But I wasn't. And the horse's all right, too." He patted the wet haunch of the shivering animal. "That was bad—they pulled each other down."
It was a disheartening beginning. But as the hours slipped by they had better success. One horse, two, three could be towed on separate ropes behind the raft. And in the morning there was a cockleshell of a boat oared in by one of the men who had found it downriver.
They had ferried and crossed well into the dusk of the evening. And at the first dawn they were at it again. Drew tried to remember how many times he had made that trip, swimming or rowing, always with some mount as his special charge. More than half the company had sworn they could not swim, and so the burden of the transfer fell upon their fellows.
"Rennie—" That was Campbell climbing up from the raft after another weary passage across. "There's trouble on the other side. You've been using that mule of yours to get some of the horses over, haven't you?"
Drew was so tired that words were too much trouble to shape. He nodded dully. Pryor had been right about Hannibal. The big mule had not only taken his own passage across the Tennessee as a matter-of-course proceeding, but had shouldered and urged along three horses as he went. And twice since then Drew had taken him back and forth to bring in skittish mounts causing trouble.
"That horse of mine's running wild; he broke out of the water twice." The captain caught at Drew's bare arm so hard his nails cut. "Think you could get him over with the mule's help?"
Drew wavered a little as he walked slowly to where he had picketed Hannibal after their last trip. He was tired, and although he had eaten earlier that morning, he was hungry again. It was warm and the sun was climbing, but the air felt chill against his naked body and he shivered. The one thing they were all getting out of this river business, Drew decided, were much-needed baths.
Kirby, his body white save for tanned fa
ce and throat, sun-darkened hands and wrists, crouched on the raft as Drew brought Hannibal down to that unwieldy craft.
"Tryin' for the cap'n's hoss?"
"What's wrong with it?" Drew helped the Texan push off.
"Reaches no bottom, an' then it plain warps its backbone tryin' to paw down the sky. Maybe that mule can git some sense into the loco critter. But I'm not buyin' no chips on his doin' it."
Drew located Campbell's horse, a rangy, good-looking gray which reminded him a little of the colt he had seen at Red Springs, snorting and trotting back and forth along the path they had worn on the banks during their efforts of the past twenty-four hours. One of the rear guard held its lead rope and kept as far from the skittish animal as he could.
"He's plumb mean," the guardian informed Drew. "When he jumps, get out from under—quick!"
Yet when Drew, mounted on Hannibal now, brought the horse down to the water's edge, the horse appeared to go willingly enough. The scout tossed the lead rope to Kirby, waiting until the raft pushed off with its load of men and fringe of horses, then took to the river beside Campbell's horse. When they reached the deeper section he saw the gray go into action.
Rearing, the horse appeared about to try to climb onto the raft. And the man holding its lead rope dropped it quickly. Drew, swimming, one hand on Hannibal's powerful shoulder, tried to guide the mule toward the horse that was still splashing up and down in a rocking-horse movement. But the mule veered suddenly, and Drew saw those threatening hoofs loom over his own head. He pushed away frantically, but too late to miss a numbing blow as one hoof grazed his shoulder.
Somehow, with his other hand outflung, he caught Hannibal's rope tail and held on with all the strength he had left, while the water washed in and out of a long raw gouge in the skin and muscles of his upper arm.
8
Happy Birthday, Soldier!