While the sergeant talked, his horse, Blue, was carrying them across the camp and through the tangle of supply wagons and mule teams. Maggie clutched the satchel to her, using her free hand to grip the back of the sergeant’s saddle and concentrating on the wagons and the mules and Sergeant Coulter’s story about the soldier they all called Fish. Anything to keep her thoughts away from the sight of the boys marching away from her—again.
The dark wool cloth stretched taut across Sergeant Coulter’s shoulders was certainly fine. Apparently he hadn’t had any problems procuring a uniform. That made sense, now that she thought about it. He rode a fine horse, too. Fine cloth, a fine horse, and a fine-looking man—surely taking a moment to notice was a harmless distraction.
More distractions came in the form of a couple of ribald comments uttered as Maggie and Sergeant Coulter rode past. “Hey, Fish! Colt’s caught himself a female!”
The strangely outfitted Fish popped into view from the opposite side of a supply wagon. “Mind your tongue, O’Malley, and get those mules in harness.” With a flourish, Fish clicked his heels and bowed at Maggie. The movement made the tassel attached to the tip of the man’s red wool cap sway back and forth.
Maggie was musing on the challenges of outfitting thousands of men and the “production problems” Sergeant Coulter had mentioned when someone screamed a warning. There was a flash of white, a crash, and a sharp yelp. Blue tossed his head and danced sideways. Despite a frantic attempt to stay aboard, Maggie slid off. She almost managed to land on her feet. In the end, though, the satchel threw her off balance, and with a very unladylike grunt, she landed in a tangle of blue calico skirts and white petticoats.
“Are you all right? Ma’am! Are you hurt?”
In her haste to right things, Maggie hadn’t even seen Sergeant Coulter dismount, but here he was. He’d dropped to one knee beside her, his handsome face clouded with concern. For her. She must have had the wind knocked out of her, for she couldn’t summon a response. What an idgit, falling off the man’s horse. She smoothed her skirt and finally managed a not-very-convincing, “I—I’m fine.” She moved to get up. Sergeant Coulter reached out to help her, but she pretended not to notice and got up herself—with no grace at all and yet another grunt.
Thankfully, the sergeant looked away in time to save her further embarrassment from the fact that she was blushing. But it wasn’t good manners that made him look away. It was the rapid-fire, albeit unintelligible, words streaming from Fish’s mouth as he shoved his way past the circle of men standing around a broken crate—and something just beyond the crate that Maggie could not quite see.
Sergeant Coulter groaned, “Oh, no,” dropped the reins, and hurried away.
With a glance at Blue, who had calmed down and was standing as if tied to a hitching post, Maggie followed, horrified when she saw what everyone was looking at. The captain’s dog lay on its side next to a splintered crate. Blood oozed out of a wound just above one ear, staining the dog’s white coat pink. But the cut wasn’t the worst problem. The worst problem was that front paw.
“The miserable cur nearly bowled me over,” a soldier protested. “Lost my balance. Lucky I’m not the one with a broken foot.” When no one seemed to agree, he raised his voice, adding colorful epithets to his defense. The animal shouldn’t have been given free rein to roam about the camp, he said. Something like this was bound to happen.
As the burly and distinctly aromatic soldier defended himself, Maggie brushed past Sergeant Coulter and knelt beside the dog. Speaking in a low, calm voice, she tucked her fingers into her palm and held the loose fist out to him. When Hero bared his teeth, she didn’t waver. “Here, now,” she said, “you remember me, now don’t you? I’m Maggie, and I’m going to help you.”
A low growl sounded, and one of the men in the circle muttered, “It’ll take your hand off. Always did have a nasty temper. Anyone can see that the leg is broken. Best to put it out of its misery.”
Ignoring the comment, Maggie continued to speak words of comfort to the dog.
While Maggie talked, Hero had rolled onto his belly and begun to lick the paw that lay at such an odd angle. Even if it was fractured, the bone hadn’t broken the skin. Maggie slid her hand across the earth and extended her fingers. She didn’t touch the wounded leg, but at some point as she talked to soothe the dog, Hero nudged her fingers with his snout and swiped them with his tongue.
“Never saw a wounded animal do that,” someone said.
Maggie looked up at the men gathered ’round. “Anyone have whiskey?”
They looked at each other and then back at her. Shook their heads.
“A fine lot of Irishmen you are,” she scolded.
Hero’s ears came up. He let out a pathetic yelp. His tail thumped the ground. Maggie turned to see Captain Quinn headed their way. One look at his dog and he let loose a stream of invective. “Who’s responsible for this!” He glared at the men standing in the circle. They stared at the ground. The captain knelt beside the dog. When he passed his hand over the animal’s head, Hero whined and licked his hand. Taking a deep breath, he said quietly, “Well, old man… we had a good run.” He reached for his revolver.
Fish uttered a protest, and Maggie stayed the captain’s hand. “My Kerry-boy had a similar mishap when he was a pup. Aside from a bit of a limp when the weather’s changin’, he’s fine.” The captain hesitated. Maggie looked into the man’s dark eyes. “I’ll see to him. I’ll stitch the ear and bind the leg and tend him until he’s better.”
“He won’t let you.”
Maggie smiled, forcing herself to sound more confident than she really felt. “Of course he will.” She looked down at the dog. “We’ve an understandin’, don’t we, old man?”
The tail slapped the earth. Only once, but it was all the captain needed to see. Hope glimmered. He nodded. “All right, but it’ll have to be done quickly.”
Maggie opened her satchel and took out her sewing kit. “Won’t take but a moment.” She glanced at Fish. “We really do need a bit of whiskey. And someone strong enough to hold him down.”
“I can do that.” John Coulter knelt beside her.
“I’ll get the whiskey,” Fish said.
The captain allowed a little smile as he said, “I’ll pay you, Miss Malone. Have the sergeant bring you up the line before you leave us.”
The words came out before Maggie had time to weigh them. “I won’t take your money. Just let me walk with the supply wagons. I’ll see to your dog along the way. And take myself home the minute I’ve worn out my welcome.”
Fish took up her cause. “I will carry the dog in my wagon.” He smiled at Maggie. “As to mademoiselle… she is most welcome to march with the supply train.”
Maggie spoke before the captain could say no. “I’m good with animals,” she said. “Ask my brothers if you doubt it. I’ll feed Hero with my own hand, and he’ll be better in a week or so. By then you’ll have cleared the rebels out of the county—if there’s even any clearing to do.” Surely the Wildwood Guard was headed south by now to join the rebels the Irish Brigade had helped roust out of Boonville. “It’ll be safe by then, and I’ll go home.”
The captain resisted the idea of her staying with the regiment. “It’s just not possible.”
“Well, of course it is, if only you’ll change your mind.” She paused. “I can be useful, and you don’t need to worry a bit about me keeping up. I’ve two strong legs. I can march as well as any man.” Fish said something Maggie didn’t understand, although his tone of voice made her think it was something good. She pulled Da’s pistol out of her pocket. “I’ve faced bushwhackers alone, and I can’t think of a safer way to travel than in the wake of nearly a thousand of the bravest men in the land.”
“Bravo, mademoiselle.” Fish stifled a laugh by swiping his palm across his mouth. When Captain Quinn glared at him, he shrugged. “C’est vrai, n’est-ce pas?”
The captain sighed. Again, he addressed Fish. “You’ll accept resp
onsibility for her?”
Again, the tassel danced. Fish nodded. “I do not think that the lady wishes someone else to take such responsibility.” He winked at Maggie. “She seems quite capable, does she not?”
The captain looked down at his dog. For a very long moment. Finally, he said, “All right, Miss Malone. You win.” A steamboat whistle sounded in the distance. “That would be the McDowell telling me she’s ready to shove off.” There was another sharp screech. He frowned. “And that would mean there’s a problem.” He hesitated for a moment and turned to Maggie. “Do you really think you can mend Hero’s leg?”
“It’s up to the good Lord to do the mending, sir. My job will be to keep the dog from worrying the wound. That, sir, I can do.”
He almost smiled. “All right.” He hesitated, then said, “If you hear shots fired, I want you to take cover under the nearest wagon.”
“Yes, sir.”
He nodded at the pistol. “Once you’ve taken cover, you take that pistol out of your pocket and get ready to fire it. And then you stay put until Fish or Sergeant Coulter tells you it’s safe to come out.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And don’t hesitate to pull the trigger if Johnny Reb comes to call.”
“I won’t, sir.”
The captain grimaced. “You say that now, but you’ll find it’s not quite so easy to pull a trigger when you’re looking a man in the eye.”
Maggie allowed a little smile. “I don’t doubt that, sir, but if it’s all the same to you, I won’t let Johnny get that close before I defend myself.”
The captain barely managed to camouflage a short, barking laugh. “All right, then.” He gave Hero a quick pat on the head before nodding at Fish. “I’m leaving these two with you, Sergeant.”
Fish saluted.
The captain turned to Sergeant Coulter. “A word, Sergeant.” Together, the two men mounted up and rode away.
Chapter 9
When Captain Quinn’s horse stepped out, Blue took the bit and tried to make it a race. Newly aware of the fact that his arm was nowhere near healed, Colt struggled to keep control of a big horse with a mind of its own. He won the battle, but barely. Blue snorted and half reared before settling into an easy lope alongside the captain’s buckskin.
When the men dismounted at the edge of the levee and Blue danced away, the captain chuckled. “Somebody’s been in camp too long.” He nodded at Colt’s sling. “How long do you have to wear that thing?”
“The surgeon recommended another week.” With a grimace, Colt eased his arm out of the sling and flexed it. “He might have been overly cautious, though.” He pulled off the sling and tucked it in his saddlebag.
The steamboat pilot hurried up the levee. “You have to see this,” he huffed, trying to catch his breath as he pointed toward the McDowell. He called out to a rail-thin mulatto boy who was standing at the river’s edge, skipping rocks. “You there! Noah! Mind the horses and I’ll have Cook give you some corn bread.”
The boy looked the pilot’s way from beneath the brim of a beat-up straw hat. “And molasses?”
“Don’t push it!” With a shrug, the boy shoved his hands in his pockets and began to amble away. Swearing, the pilot agreed to molasses. The boy grinned and trotted up the levee to where Colt and the captain waited.
The captain handed over his horse’s reins without a word, but Colt sounded a warning when he saw that the boy was barefoot. “Blue has a mind of his own today. Be careful he doesn’t step on you.”
When the boy took the reins and put his hand on Blue’s muzzle, Blue lowered his head. The boy muttered something, and the captain’s horse nosed his way into the moment. Whatever his story, Noah seemed to have a way with horses. Colt hurried on board and across the freight deck to where the pilot and Captain Quinn stood, staring down at what, according to the label stenciled on the side, had been a crate of “hardware.”
“Mose over there”—the pilot pointed to a muscular Negro standing with the deckhands by the boiler—“stumbled and knocked it off the top of this pile. When it broke open—well. You can see.”
Captain Quinn picked up one of the dozen or so rifles that had spilled onto the deck. He ran his gloved hand over the polished stock, inspected the barrel, then glanced over at Colt. “Don’t think it’s ever been fired.” He scanned the stacks of crates. “Where’s it all headed?”
“Littleton,” the pilot said, then corrected himself. “Well, not Littleton exactly. There’s a planter between Littleton and Lexington—has a private landing. Name of Walker Blair.” The pilot motioned to three-man-high stacks of crates, all of them bearing labels for the kinds of goods needed on every plantation in Little Dixie. “These are all for Wildwood Grove.”
The captain swore softly. “And from there, south to General Price.”
Colt frowned. “What kind of man tries to smuggle arms for the rebellion on board a steamboat equipped with a Union Army howitzer?”
“A desperate one,” Quinn said. Then he tilted his head. “Or… maybe a really smart one. After all, who would suspect it?”
The pilot held up both hands like a criminal signaling surrender. “I’m not in league with any gun smugglers. The minute I saw this, I blew that whistle to get you down here.” He went on to curse the “low-life Johnny Reb” who had the “unmitigated gall” to try to sneak “arms for the blank-blank enemy” on board his packet. The man’s profane vocabulary was astonishing, his delivery so vociferous that it had caught the attention of his deckhands, several of whom were standing by the boiler smiling with admiration—until the pilot left off cursing the enemy and turned his invective on them. He waved the tall one over and began peppering him with questions.
Half an hour later, Captain Quinn was none the wiser as to who might have helped the smugglers. He asked the pilot to guard the shipment for a few minutes, then motioned for Colt to follow him back onshore. As the two men walked toward their horses, the captain charged Colt with overseeing the opening of every crate on the steamboat’s freight deck. “We’re going to need a couple of wagons to haul those Henrys. Expect to find ammunition, too. And there’s simply no way I’m going to leave perfectly good weapons sitting here in Boonville.” He smiled. “Besides, there’s a certain sense of justice in the idea of using guns intended for Johnny Reb against him.” He gazed off up the street and into town. “I’ll see what I can do about requisitioning a couple of farm wagons, then send a squadron to load it all and catch up with us. You’ll be in charge.”
“There’s two good wagons out behind Saxton’s Livery.” The boy who’d been holding the horses was just out of sight—sitting on a rock behind a tall stand of grass.
“Eavesdropping could get you in a passel of trouble,” the captain scolded. “How do I know you aren’t a spy for the enemy?”
“Wasn’t eavesdropping,” the boy said, scowling. “I was taking a breather while I waited for my corn bread.” He squinted up at the captain. “Saxton’s got two wagons out behind his livery. But he’s only got one decent pair of mules for sale. Big ears with a notch cut in ’em. Don’t take the other pair. They look better, but they’re mean as dirt and they don’t pull for nothing.”
“And I suppose you know where I could requisition a better pair?”
“I might.” The boy shoved his hands in his pockets.
“Well?”
He shrugged. Took the battered hat off his head and pretended to inspect the edge of the brim. “Sure is a fine day. Day like this, a feller can’t help but think on the delights of penny candy.”
Barely managing to hide a smile, Colt fished a coin out of his pocket. When the boy reached for it, Colt closed his palm. “The other team?”
“Brewster’s Farm Implements,” the boy said. “Two streets over from Saxton’s. Took ’em as partial payment for a plow.”
Captain Quinn spoke up. “And how do I know they aren’t just as worthless as the ones you told me to avoid at Saxton’s? You getting a finder’s fee for steering me t
heir way?”
“Finer-fee?” the boy asked. “I’m just a little boy. I don’t know nothin’ ’bout no ‘finer-fee.’ ”
“I’m inclined to think otherwise,” Captain Quinn said. “And so I ask again, how do I know I can trust your advice about mules?”
The boy shrugged his bony shoulders. “Guess you don’t. But I used to visit ’em on a farm east of here.” The boy pointed east. “There’s a good fishin’ hole on the place. I go there sometimes, and I’ve seen those mules pull. That farmer nearly cried when he had to turn ’em over to Brewster.” He put the hat back on and tugged on the brim. “That’s what I know. Take it or leave it.”
“You seem to know a lot about people’s affairs in Boonville,” Captain Quinn said.
“Pays to keep apprised of things.” He looked up at Cole. “Can I have that penny now?” He glowered at the steamboat. “Don’t look like I’m gettin’ corn bread and molasses, after all.”
Colt opened his hand. The boy snatched the coin and took off up the street like he’d been shot from a cannon.
“I’ll arrange for the wagons,” Captain Quinn said, and nodded back toward the McDowell. “Think your arm can handle prying all those crates open?”
“I’ll manage.”
“Work quickly, but be thorough. And stay alert. Someone had to know they weren’t hauling coffee and crackers aboard that steamboat.” He looked toward the McDowell. “Now that I think of it, I wonder if that Negro really did lose his balance. Maybe knocking that crate down wasn’t really an accident.”
“He’d never admit such a thing,” Colt said.
“And who could blame him?” The captain stared at the steamboat for a moment. Whatever he was thinking, he didn’t see his way to sharing it. After a moment, he mounted up and rode off to arrange for the wagons.
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