by Andre Norton
"Yes, suh." Before he could add another word the major was shepherding his men away.
"I'm sorry." The Confederate captain shook his head. "Pity he didn't have any more definite information for you." He glanced at Drew's set face. "But, Sergeant, the news wasn't all bad—"
"No, suh. Only Anse never would have parted with those while he was alive and could prevent it—never in this world!"
"Where was your friend when he was reported missin'?"
"We were on scout in Tennessee, and both of us were wounded. I was found by our men, but he wasn't. There was just a chance he might have been taken prisoner."
"Men'll be comin' back from their prisons now. What's his name and company, Sergeant? I'll ask around."
"Anson Kirby. He was with Gano's Texans under Morgan, and then he transferred with me into General Buford's Scouts. He's about nineteen or twenty, has reddish hair and a scar here—" With a forefinger Drew traced a line from the left corner of his mouth to his left temple. "He was shot in the left shoulder pretty bad when we were separated."
The captain nodded. "I'll keep a lookout. A lot of Texans pass through here on their way home."
"Thank you, suh. Should you have any news, I'd be obliged to hear it. My name's Drew Rennie, suh, and you can address a message care of the Barrett's, Oak Hill. That's in Fayette County, Kentucky."
But the chance of ever receiving any such news was, Drew thought, very improbable. That afternoon when he tried to find Boyd, he, too, was missing and none of the headquarters company knew where the boy had gone.
"Ain't pulled out though," Webb assured. "Said as how you two were plannin' to head north with the Kaintuck boys right after the old man says good-bye. Guess I'll trail 'long with you for a spell. You gotta cross Tennessee to git to Kaintuck."
"Goin' home, Will?"
"Guess so. Heard tell as how they burned out m' old man. Dunno, that theah's sure hard-scrabble ground; we never did make us a good crop on it. Maybe so, we'll try somewheah's else now. Sorta got me an itchin' foot. Maybe won't tie down anywheah for a spell."
"What about you, Injun?" Drew turned to Croff.
"Goin' back to the Nations. Guess they had it hard there too, General Watie and the Union 'Pins' raidin' back and forth. They'll need schools though, and someone to teach 'em—"
"You a teacher, Injun?" Webb was plainly startled.
"Startin' to be one, before the bands started playin' Dixie so loud," Croff said, smiling. "Maybe I've forgotten too much, though. I have to see if I can fit me in behind a desk again."
"Heah's th' kid—"
Drew looked up at Webb's hail. Boyd walked toward them, his saddlebags slung over one shoulder, under his arm the haversack for rations which normally hung from any forager's saddle horn. He dropped them by the fire and held two gleaming objects out to Drew.
"Anse's spurs! How did you get them?"
"Sold m' horse to the sutler at the Yankee camp. Then bought 'em. That trooper gave 'em to me for just what he paid: five dollars hard money. Said as how he could understand why you wanted to have them—"
"But your horse!"
Boyd grinned. "Looky here, Drew, more'n half of this heah Reb army is footin' it home. I guess I can cross two little states without it finishin' me off—leastwise I reckon anyone who has toughened it out with General Forrest can do that much."
Drew turned the spurs around in hands which were a little shaky. "We got Croaker, and we'll take turns ridin'. No, two states ain't too far for a couple of troopers, specially if they have them a good stout mule into the bargain!"
A hot copper sun turned late Kentucky May into August weeks ahead of season. Thunder muttered sullenly beyond the horizon. And a breeze picked up road dust and grit, plastering it to Croaker's sweating hide, their own unwashed skin.
"Better ... ride...." Licking dust from his lips, Drew watched the weaving figure on the other side of the mule with dull concern. They were steadying themselves by a tight grip on the stirrups, and Croaker was supporting and towing them, rather than their steering him.
Boyd's head lifted. "Ride yourself!" He got a ghost of his old defiance into that, though his voice was hardly more than a harsh croak of whisper. "I ain't givin' in now!"
He leased his stirrup hold, staggering forward a step or two, and would have gone face-down on the turnpike if Drew had not made a big effort to reach him. But the other's weight bore him along, and they both sprawled on the road. Croaker came to a halt, his head hanging until he could have nuzzled Drew's shoulder.
They had made a brave start from Alabama, keeping up with the company they joined until they were close to the Kentucky-Tennessee border. Then a blistered heel had forced Drew into the rider's role for two days, and they had fallen behind. The rations they had drawn had been stretched as far as they would go. Even though there were people along the way willing to feed a hungry soldier, there were too many hungry soldiers. The farther north they traveled there was also a growing number of places where a blue coat might be welcome, but a gray one still signified "enemy."
Drew moved, and raised Boyd's head and shoulders to his knee. If he could summon enough energy to reach the canteen hanging from Croaker's saddle.... Somehow he did, recklessly spilling a cupful of its contents on Boyd's face, and turning road dust into flecks of mud which freckled the gaunt cheeks.
"Ain't goin' t' ride—" Boyd's eyes opened and he took up the argument again.
"Well," Drew lashed out, "I can't carry you! Or do you expect to be dragged?"
Boyd's face crumpled and he flung up his arms to hide his eyes.
"All right."
With the aid of a sloping bank and an effort which left them both weakly panting, Boyd was mounted and they started their slow crawl once more.
"Drew!"
He raised his head. Boyd had straightened in the saddle and was pointing ahead, though his outstretched hand was shaking. "We made it—there's home!"
Beyond was the green of trees, a whole line of trees curving along a gravel carriage drive. But somehow Drew could not match Boyd's joy. He was tired, so tired that he was aware of nothing really but the aching weariness of his body.
They turned into the drive, the gravel crunching into his holed boots while the tree shadows made a green twilight. Croaker came to a stop, and Drew's eyes raised from the gravel to the line of one step and then another. His gaze finally came to a broad veranda ... to someone who had been sitting there and who was now on her feet, staring wide-eyed back at the three of them. Then the gravel came up in a wave and he was swallowed up in it and darkness—
The sun, warm through the window, awoke a glint of reflection from the top of the chest of drawers where rested a round cord of bullion with two tassels and a pair of fancy spurs. The wink of light was reflected again from the mirror before which Drew stood.
"Jefferson's shirt has long enough sleeves, but all these billows!" Cousin Merry's tongue clicked against her teeth in exasperation. Her hand was in the middle of Drew's back, gathering up a good pleating of linen, but he still had extra folds of cloth to spare over his ribs. Four days of rest and plenty of food was not sufficient to restore any padding to his frame. "You certainly grew one way, but not the other!"
Boyd, established in the big chair by the window, laughed.
"I could take a few tucks," Drew offered.
"You could take a few tucks!" Her astonished face showed in the glass above his shoulder.
"Oh, I'm not too bad with a needle. Did you note those neat patches on my breeches—?"
"I noted nothing about those breeches; they went straight into the fire! Such rags...."
"Miss Merry, ma'am—" small Hetty showed an eager face around the corner of the door—"Majuh Forbes and Missus Forbes—they's downstairs."
Drew faced away from the mirror. "Why?" he demanded with almost hostile emphasis.
Meredith Barrett untied the strings of her sewing apron. "Hetty, tell Mam Gusta to set out some of the English biscuits and make tea
." Then she turned back to face Drew. "Why, Drew? Rather—why not? They're your kin, and I think that Marianna feels it deeply that you came here and not to Red Springs. Not to go home...."
"Home?" There was heat in that. "You, if anyone, know that Red Springs was never really my home. And Forbes is an officer in the Union Army. This is no time for a Reb to camp out in his house. My grandfather wanted the place to be just Aunt Marianna's, didn't he?" He paused by the chest of drawers, his hand going out to the spurs, the gold cord. Three years—in a way a small lifetime—all to be summed up now by a slightly tarnished cord from a general's hat, a pair of spurs a young Texan had jauntily worn.
But it was a lifetime. He was not a boy any more, to have to endure his elders making decisions for him. His future was his own, and he had earned the right to that. Drew did not know that his face had hardened, that he suddenly looked a stranger to the woman who was watching him with concern.
"Please, Drew, you mustn't allow yourself to be so bitter—"
"Bitter? About Red Springs, you mean? Lord, I never wanted the place. I hate every brick of it, and I think I always have. But I don't hate Forbes or Aunt Marianna if that's what you're afraid of. It's just that I have no place there any more."
Her mouth tightened. "But you have! You owe it to Marianna to listen to her now. This is important, Drew, more important than you can guess. No, Boyd—" her gesture checked her son as he arose from the chair—"this is none of your affair. Come with me, Drew!"
He picked up a borrowed coat, also much too wide for him, pulled it on over the bunchiness of his shirt, and followed her, swallowing what he knew to be a useless protest.
The parlor was as bright with sun as the upper room had been. As Drew entered a pace or two behind Cousin Merry, the officer in blue strode away from the hearth to meet them. But Aunt Marianna forestalled her husband's greeting, rising suddenly from a chair, her crinoline rustling across the carpet. She held out her hands, and then hesitated, studying Drew's face, looking a little daunted, as if she had expected something she did not find. The assurance she had displayed at their last meeting on the Lexington road was missing.
"Drew?"
He bowed, conscious that he must present an odd figure in the ill-fitting clothing of Meredith Barrett's long dead husband.
Major Forbes held out his hand. "Welcome home, my boy."
My boy. Consciously or unconsciously the major's tone strove to thrust Drew into the past, or so he believed. The major might almost be considering Drew an unruly schoolboy now safely out of some scrape, welcome indeed if he would settle down quietly into the conventional mold of Oak Hill or Red Springs. But he was no schoolboy, and at that moment the parlor of Oak Hill, for all its luxury and warmth, was a box sealing him in stifling confinement which he could no longer endure. Drew held tight control over that resurgence of his old impatience, knowing that his first instinct had been right: the old life fitted him now no better than his coat. But he answered civilly:
"Thank you, suh."
His proper courtesy apparently reassured his aunt. She came to him, her hands on his shoulders as she stood on tip-toe to kiss his cheek. "Drew, come home with us, dear—please!"
He shook his head. "I don't belong at Red Springs, ma'am. I never did."
"Nonsense!" Major Forbes put the force of a field officer's authority into that denial. "I do not and never did agree with many of Alexander Mattock's decisions. I do so even less when they pertain to your situation, my boy. You have every right to consider Red Springs your home. You must come to us, resume your interrupted education, take your proper place in the family and the community—"
Drew shook his head again. The major paused. He had been studying Drew, and now there was a faint shadow of uneasiness in his own expression. He might be slowly realizing that he was not fronting a repentant schoolboy rescued from a piece of regrettable youthful folly. A veteran was being forced against his will to recognize the stamp of his own experience on another, if much younger, man.
"What are your plans?" he asked in another tone of voice entirely.
"Drew—" Major Forbes waved aside that tentative interruption from Cousin Merry.
"I don't know. But I can't stay here." That much he was sure of, Oak Hill, Red Springs, all of this was no longer necessary to him any more than the outgrown toys of childhood could hold the interest of a man. Once, hurt and seeking for freedom, he had thought of the army as home. Now he knew he had yet to find what he wanted or needed. But there was no reason why he could not go looking, even if he could not give a name to the object of such a search. "I might go west. It's all new out there, a good place to start on my own."
There was a catch of breath from Aunt Marianna. The look she gave Cousin Merry held something of accusation. "You told him!"
"Told me what, ma'am?"
"That your father is alive...." She saw his surprise.
"Is that true, suh?" Drew appealed to the major.
Forbes scowled, tugging at the belt supporting his saber. "Yes. We found some letters among your grandfather's papers after his death. Your father wasn't killed; he was in a Mexican prison during the war. When he escaped and returned to Texas, your grandfather had already been there and taken your mother away. Hunt Rennie was too ill to follow immediately. Before he had recovered enough to travel, he was informed his wife was dead, and he was allowed to believe that you died with her—at birth."
"But why?" Alexander Mattock had disliked, even hated his grandson. So why should he have lied to keep Drew with him at Red Springs?
"Because of Murray," Cousin Merry said slowly, sadly. "It was a cruel thing to do, so cruel. Alexander Mattock was a hard man. He couldn't bear opposition; it made him go close to the edge of sanity, I truly believe. I know we are not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but I can't forgive him for what he did to those two. Melanie and Hunt were so young, young and in love. And your Uncle Murray deliberately pushed that quarrel on Hunt. Jefferson was there; he tried to stop it. The duel was not Hunt's fault——"
"Uncle Murray and my father fought a duel?" Drew demanded.
"Yes. Murray was badly wounded, and for a time his life was despaired of. Your grandfather swore out a warrant against Hunt for attempted murder! So he and Melanie ran away. They were so pitifully young! Melanie was just sixteen and Hunt two years older, though he seemed a man, having lived such a hard life on the frontier. They went back to Texas, and she was very happy there—I had some letters from her. Yes, she was happy until the War with Mexico began. Then Hunt was reported killed, his father, too. And she was left all alone with distant kin of theirs. So your grandfather went down to fetch her home. I'll always believe he really wanted to punish her for going against his will. She died—" her voice broke—"she died, because she had no will to live, and then he was sorry. But just a little, not enough to blame himself any. Oh, no—it was still all Hunt's wickedness, he said, every bit of it! He was a hard man...." Cousin Merry faced Aunt Marianna with her chin up as if daring the other to object what she'd just said.
Drew returned to the news he still found difficult to believe. "So my father's alive, Major. Well, that gives me some place to go—Texas...."
"Hunt Rennie's not in Texas." Cousin Merry spoke with such certainty that all three of them gave her their full attention.
"I married Jefferson Barrett six months after Melanie eloped. We went to Europe then for almost two years of traveling. Part of our mail must have been lost. Hunt surely wrote to me! He liked Jefferson in spite of the differences in their ages. If I had only had the chance to tell him the truth about you, Drew. But I never knew he was alive either. You remember Granger Wood, Justin?"
Major Forbes nodded. "He went out to California in '50."
"Yes, and when the war broke out he rode back across the Arizona and New Mexico territories with General Johnston to enlist in the Confederate forces. A month ago he came back here and he called to tell me he saw Hunt in Arizona in '61. He had a horse-and-cattle ranch there,
also some mining holdings."
"Drew"—Aunt Marianna caught his arm—"you won't be so foolish as to go out into that horrible wilderness hunting a man who doesn't even know you're alive—who's a perfect stranger to you? You must be sensible. We know that Father's will was very unjust, and we are not going to abide by its terms—half of Red Springs will be yours."
Gently Drew released himself from her hold. "Maybe Hunt Rennie doesn't know I exist; maybe we won't even like each other if and when we do meet—I don't know. But Red Springs ain't my kind of world any more. And I won't take anything my grandfather grudged givin' me. I may be young, only in another way, I'm old, too. Too old to come under a schoolin' rein again." He glanced across her shoulder, noticing that his speech had registered with the major.
"You're not goin' to start out this very afternoon, are you?" Forbes asked.
Drew relaxed and laughed a little self-consciously, knowing that his uncle had ceded him the victory in this first skirmish.
"No, suh. You know, I brought two things home from the army—and one of them was a pair of Texas spurs. A mighty good man wore those. You'd have to ride proud and tall in the saddle to match him. I told him once I was goin' to see Texas, and he said there was nothing to make a man stay on the range where he had been born. Since I've always wanted to know what kind of a man Hunt Rennie was—is—now maybe I'm goin' to do just that."
REBEL SPURS
REBEL SPURS: TABLE OF CONTENTS
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1
Even the coming of an autumn dusk could not subdue the color of this land. Shadows here were not gray or black; they were violet and purple. The crumbling adobe walls were laced by strings of crimson peppers, vivid in the torch and lantern light. It had been this way for days, red and yellow, violet—colors he had hardly been aware existed back in the cool green, silver, gray-brown of Kentucky.