They washed the food down with brackish water from their canteens. Josh Richards sighed. “I sure could use a real drink right about now.”
“No liquor,” Lancaster snapped. “We can’t afford to let our guard down, even for a minute.”
“Don’t worry, Colonel,” Richards drawled. “I was just wishin’. We don’t have any redeye, anyway.” He glanced over at Stratton and winked fast.
Luke barely noticed it, but it made him wonder. A little later, while they were saddling the horses, he pretended not to see Stratton until he bumped into the man.
When Stratton turned with a scowl and said, “Hey, be careful,” he was close enough that Luke caught a faint whiff of whiskey on his breath.
“Sorry, Stratton, that was my fault. I wasn’t watching what I was doing.”
Stratton shrugged. “Well, no harm done. So don’t worry about it.”
Luke was going to worry about it, though. He was going to worry that either Stratton or Richards—or one of the other two, he supposed—had managed to sneak a bottle or a flask into their gear.
Drinking itself didn’t bother Luke. From time to time he liked to have a beer or a shot of corn liquor. But he’d never had the thirst for the stuff some men did, and he agreed with Colonel Lancaster. They didn’t need anything to distract them from their mission. They had been given the job of taking the bullion to Georgia, and as soldiers, it was their duty to carry out those orders.
It was just one more reason to keep an eye on the four men, he told himself.
Before they left the camp, Luke went over to Lancaster. “I’ve been thinking about something, Colonel.”
“What’s that, Jensen?”
“You seem to be the only one of us who knows exactly where we’re going.”
Lancaster frowned. “What’s your point? I’m the only officer with this detail. The rest of you are just enlisted men. I’m the only one who needs to know.”
Luke ignored the man’s annoying arrogance. “Begging your pardon, sir, but if anything were to happen to you, we wouldn’t know where to deliver the gold. I was thinking that if you had a map or something—”
“So you’d know exactly where to avoid if you tried to abscond with these wagons?” Lancaster broke in.
Luke couldn’t stop himself from responding angrily. “Colonel, I never said such a thing. I never even thought it!”
“Well, I can’t take any chances. President Davis himself picked me for this mission, and I don’t intend to let him, or the Confederacy, down. So you just concern yourself with your own responsibilities, Corporal, and let me worry about everything else.”
There was nothing Luke could do except grit his teeth for a second. “Yes, sir, Colonel.” He turned and went back to the wagons.
Remy was helping Dale hitch up the team to the lead wagon. He inclined his head toward Lancaster and asked, “What was that about, mon ami?”
“Remember we talked about how the colonel is the only one who knows where we’re going?” Luke asked.
“Sure.”
“Well, I said something to him about it . . . and he wasn’t inclined to share the information . . . which he told me in no uncertain terms.”
Dale chuckled. “I never minded serving under the colonel in the field. Thought he did a pretty good job, in fact. But put him out here in command of a small group like this and he’s sort of a jackass, ain’t he?”
“So far,” Luke agreed.
“You think he can manage to get all the way to Georgia without getting himself killed?”
“It’s not him I’m worried about,” Luke said. “I’d just as soon get the rest of us there without us getting killed.”
CHAPTER 7
They traveled through the night without encountering any trouble, and after resting the next day Colonel Lancaster announced they would turn and head west for a night before starting south again. “We’ll be well clear of Richmond, so we shouldn’t run into any trouble.”
“We’ll be behind Yankee lines,” Potter said.
“Yes, but all their attention is focused on Richmond now. As long as we avoid their supply trains and relief columns, we should be fine. I’m relying on you men for that.”
Several more days passed without incident. They traveled by day, since they were off the main roads and needed light to see where they were going. Also, they were moving through country where none of them had been before, so they didn’t know the terrain. Sometimes they found their way blocked by a ravine or a ridge the wagons couldn’t handle, and were forced to backtrack until they found another route.
They were making progress southward, and that was encouraging to Luke. He didn’t know how long it would take them to reach Georgia—a couple weeks, more than likely, he thought—but at least they were heading in the right direction finally. He just hoped the Confederacy hadn’t collapsed by the time they got there.
In a way, that would be simpler, he mused as he rode ahead of the wagons, scouting with Remy. If the damned war was over, they could just surrender and be done with it. Admitting defeat to the Yankees would be a bitter pill to swallow, but at least they would all be alive.
Of course, in that case the Union would seize the gold. Off it would go to Washington. That bothered Luke, too, but the final fate of the gold was really none of his business.
He suspected Potter, Stratton, Richards, and Casey were all sneaking drinks now and then, but none of them got drunk so he didn’t say anything about it. Lancaster seemed oblivious to what was going on, but that was nothing unusual. The colonel was oblivious about a lot of things.
Several times they had to take to the woods and find hiding places when Yankees were in the vicinity. Once they watched from the concealment of trees while a lone supply wagon rolled slowly past, accompanied by a handful of tired-looking blue-clad troopers. In whispers, Stratton and Potter urged Lancaster to let them attack the wagon.
“There’s bound to be provisions in there we could use,” Potter said.
“And we can kill all them blue bellies before they know what’s goin’ on,” Stratton added.
Lancaster shook his head stubbornly. “We can’t risk the shots drawing attention. We’ll stay here until they’re gone.”
Stratton and Potter didn’t argue, but Luke saw them looking at the colonel with a mixture of scorn and hatred. He didn’t have a very high opinion of Lancaster himself, but those two looked like they wanted to murder him.
The bad feelings he had about the mission grew stronger as they continued heading south. More than a week had passed since they left Richmond when they paused to rest the horses one afternoon and suddenly heard something they hadn’t heard in quite a while.
Female voices.
Casey’s head came up like a bloodhound catching a scent. “Hear that, fellas? There’s womenfolks somewhere close by!”
Luke heard it, all right. Several women, by the sound of it, and they were laughing. The voices were coming from the other side of a thick stand of trees.
“We’d better check that out, Colonel,” Stratton said to Lancaster.
“Yeah, there’s no tellin’ but what they might be spyin’ on us,” Richards said.
It didn’t sound to Luke like the women were spying on them. He thought it would be better to move on as quickly as possible.
But Lancaster nodded. “All right. Three of you go find out who they are and what they’re doing here. Jensen, Casey, and Potter, you go.”
Luke would have rather gone with a couple of his friends, but he nodded and got his rifle from the wagon. He and Casey and Potter slipped into the woods, moving quickly but quietly.
The stand of trees wasn’t very thick. A couple minutes later, the three men came to a creek. A covered wagon was parked on the other side of the stream. A woman perched on the seat with a shotgun across her knees.
“Holy Moses,” Casey breathed.
He was looking at six women standing knee-deep in the creek, stripped down to their underthings. They were
taking advantage of the creek and the warm afternoon to bathe. The flimsy garments were soaked and clung to their bodies.
“You know what kind of women those are?” Potter asked in a whisper.
Luke knew. It was pretty obvious. They ranged in age from late teens to early thirties, he judged, although soiled doves led such hard lives they often looked older than they really were. Such women always followed the armies. Union, Confederate, it didn’t matter. Luke figured such women could have been found with the Greeks outside the walls of Troy. “Must be Yankees around here. Otherwise those women wouldn’t be here.”
“I don’t care about that,” Casey said. “I just want to go say howdy to them.”
Potter grunted. “I want to do a hell of a lot more than say howdy.”
Luke understood. He was as human as the next man, and the sight of all that wet, bare, female flesh made him react just like Potter and Casey. But they had other things to worry about. “We’d better leave them alone. We’d just be asking for trouble if we start bothering with them.”
“You’re not in charge here, Jensen,” Potter snapped.
“No, but the colonel wouldn’t want—”
“The hell with the colonel! Come on, Ted.”
Before Luke could stop him, Potter straightened, stepped out of the trees, and called, “Howdy there, ladies.”
The women in the creek shrieked and giggled in surprise, but the older woman on the wagon seat instantly swung up her shotgun and pointed it across the stream. “Howdy yourself, you damn Rebel. You come a step closer and I’ll blast you to hell!”
Potter held up his hands. “Whoa, there, ma’am. I don’t mean any harm. I just came along and saw all these beautiful young fillies, and I had to say hello.” As Casey stepped out of the trees, Potter went on. “My friend here feels the same way.”
“That’s right,” Casey said with a broad grin on his face.
Still under cover, Luke saw what was about to happen. “Casey, no!” He started forward, but was too late.
Casey’s hand came up with a gun in it. The revolver roared, and across the creek, the woman on the wagon rocked backward as the bullet drove into her. One barrel of the shotgun boomed as her finger jerked on the trigger, but the weapon was angled upward and the load of buckshot went harmlessly into the air.
The woman swayed forward, dropped the shotgun, and pitched off the wagon seat, landing on the creek bank in a limp sprawl. Luke could tell by looking that she was dead.
The screams that came from the whores in the creek weren’t playful any longer. The girls were terrified.
Potter drew his gun and said in a loud voice, “Shut up! Nobody’s gonna hurt you!” He glared at Casey. “Why the hell did you shoot the old woman?”
“I don’t like people pointin’ guns at me,” Casey said. “Anyway, you heard her call me a Rebel. She was a Yankee madam, nothin’ to be worried about.”
Even though Luke had seen far, far more than his share of violence over the past four years, the callous way Casey had murdered the woman sickened him. He was about to draw his own gun and coldcock the varmint from behind when footsteps rushed through the trees toward them. He looked over his shoulder and saw Remy and the other men coming to see what the commotion was about.
“Hold your fire!” Lancaster called, even though no one was shooting. “Damn it, what’s going on here?”
As they emerged from the trees, the man all gaped at the women in the creek, who were now huddled together in frightened silence. Even Lancaster stared at them.
Casey holstered his revolver and said coolly, “That old biddy over yonder by the wagon tried to blast us with a shotgun, Colonel. I stopped her.”
“I heard those shots,” Lancaster said, “and so did any Yankees within a mile of here! Come on. We have to get moving while we still have the chance.”
“No offense, Colonel,” Casey said, “but I’m not goin’ anywhere until I’ve had a chance to get to know one of those gals a mite better. That one with the yaller hair, I’m thinkin’.”
Luke saw how things were shaping up. Stratton and Richards had drifted toward Casey and Potter. Remy, Dale, and Edgar had moved up alongside Luke. Lancaster was in the middle.
The colonel realized it wasn’t a very good place to be and stepped back quickly. “I’ve given you men an order. By God, I expect you to carry it out!”
They were standing on the knife-edge of bad trouble, Luke sensed. He had felt such impending violence in the air many times, and seldom did it end well.
However, something intervened. From the corner of his eye, he saw one of the soiled doves break away from the others. The blonde Casey had mentioned, in fact. She scrambled out of the creek onto the bank and snatched up the shotgun the older woman had dropped.
With their attention focused on each other, none of the other men saw it happening until it was too late. Potter finally noticed the blonde and twisted toward her, his hand clawing for the gun at his waist.
Luke’s revolver came out with blinding speed. He leveled the barrel at Potter and drew back the hammer. The sinister metallic sound made Potter freeze.
“Don’t do it,” Luke warned.
Across the creek, the blonde screamed, “Get out of here, damn you! One barrel of this scattergun’s still loaded! I’ll cut you all down! I ought to do it anyway, for killin’ Maddy!”
Potter’s gun was in his hand, already cocked, but it was still pointed at the ground. He looked at Luke through eyes slitted narrow with hate. “You’re takin’ the side of a bunch of damned whores over your friends?”
“I don’t recall you and me being friends, Potter,” Luke said. “We just have the same job to do, that’s all.”
“And that job’s in danger the longer we stay here,” Lancaster said. “We have to go. Now.”
For a second Luke thought Potter was going to lift his gun and pull the trigger, anyway. If he did, the creek bank would erupt in gunfire. They might all die, especially if the blonde cut loose at the men with that shotgun. She very well might do just that, considering the other whores had scrambled out of the creek and taken shelter behind their wagon.
Potter laughed and shook his head. “I’ll never figure you out, Jensen.” He lowered the hammer of his revolver and stuck the gun back in his waistband. “But I reckon you and the colonel are right. There might be a Yankee patrol gallopin’ toward us right now, so we better light a shuck.”
“But, Wiley—” Casey began.
“I said we’re goin’.”
Casey cast a regretful glance at the blonde. Clearly, he might have dared that shotgun to get at her. But too much else was against him at the moment. He nodded. “Yeah, come on, fellas.” He pointed a finger across the creek at the blonde and added, “I’ll see you again one of these days, darlin’.”
“You better hope I don’t see you first,” she said as her mouth twisted in a snarl.
Luke didn’t put his gun away until the men had gone back to the wagons. He saw Potter glancing at him several times as they got ready to move. It was hard to read the man’s expression, but Luke knew he had made an enemy.
The outriders mounted up, and the drivers and guards climbed onto the wagons. With no Yankees in sight, they moved out smartly, still heading south.
Remy brought his horse alongside the wagon where Luke and Dale were riding. “The next time those girls see Yankee soldiers, they’re gonna tell them about us.”
“I expect you’re right,” Luke said.
“And that blond belle, she be a smart one, Luke. She heard Casey and Potter call the colonel by his rank, and she heard him givin’ us orders. She’ll figure out that, civilian clothes or not, we’re soldiers. Confederate soldiers.”
Luke nodded. He knew Remy was right.
And because of what had happened at that creek, he knew their mission had just gotten harder.
CHAPTER 8
The rest of that day, everyone in the group kept looking behind them fairly often, checking their back tr
ail. The same thought was in their minds: one time, they’d look back and see Yankee cavalry chasing them.
It didn’t happen, though. By the time they camped that night, they hadn’t encountered anyone else.
The next day passed without incident as well, and Luke began to hope if the whores had told somebody about what had happened, the Yankees were too busy to worry about some strange-acting Confederate soldiers dressed in civilian clothing.
They were somewhere in eastern Tennessee, Luke figured, maybe in the Smoky Mountains, and the terrain grew more rugged. The wagons followed narrow, twisting trails running between steep, heavily wooded slopes. Luke watched those mountainsides intently, knowing the dark valleys were perfect for an ambush.
The travelers avoided settlements, but every now and then they passed isolated cabins with small garden patches nearby. The people living there barely subsisted on what little food they could grow, along with any small game they could trap. Obviously, it wasn’t much. The people who came out of those rickety cabins to watch them pass were gaunt and hollow-eyed. They looked like it had been months since their bellies were even half full.
The children were the worst, Luke thought. His heart went out to them as they stared up at the wagons and riders with dull, defeated eyes. He wanted to give them something to eat, but he and his companions were already on short rations. His own belly spent a lot of time growling in hunger. The soldiers couldn’t do any hunting because of the attention the shots might attract.
They were approaching one such cabin when an old man with a long white beard limped onto the trail to stop them.
Lancaster called, “Get out of the way, old-timer,” but the man didn’t budge. Dale hauled back on the reins to bring the lead team to a halt before they ran over the old man. Lancaster cast an irritated look over his shoulder, and Luke knew it was because Dale had stopped the wagon without waiting for the colonel’s order.
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