Rifles for Watie (29 page)

“Le's hide here an' see what comes along.”

The lieutenant planted a guard half a mile up the road in either direction and concealed his main force in the roadside brush. Jeff, the guard on the west approach, guided the dun behind a clump of alder where he had a clear view of the road. As he adjusted the one-shot pistol in his waist, his nose caught the resinous whiff of pine needles as the hot sun shone on them. Big yellow-bodied grasshoppers arose from the grass clumps and cruised in the warm sunshine, snapping noisily while in flight. For two hours nothing happened.

Suddenly Jeff heard shots down the road, then men shouting and horses running. Apparently Orff's patrol had jumped a small party of rebels. Jeff grasped the dun's bridle reins and listened nervously. Sounded as if the chase was going away from him. He had just decided to follow when he heard hoofbeats coming up the road.

A single horseman, clad in Confederate gray, hove in sight, galloping easily, as though bound for a far-off destination. He was an older fellow, good-looking, with low black sideburns showing beneath his gray campaign hat. Instantly Jeff drew his pistol and, putting spurs to the dun, burst from the woods and rode straight across the rebel's path.

“Halt!” he cried. “You're my prisoner.”

The rebel seemed to have a different opinion. His face white, he ducked behind his horse's neck, snatched a pistol from his belt, and threw a quick shot at Jeff. The bullet missed and the rebel horse reared, neighing shrilly. Cursing, the rebel dropped his pistol, got both hands on the reins, and turned his mount off the road into the trees.

Jeff followed closely, holding his unfired pistol shoulder high. Their orders were to take prisoners without shooting them, if possible. Both horses were galloping almost at full speed, but the dun, hunching himself low as he skimmed over the ground, quickly overhauled the rebel horse.

Abruptly, the rebel horse stumbled, spilling the rebel from his saddle. Riding past him, Jeff heard the heavy thump of his body as he fell in the sand.

Elated, Jeff sawed at the dun's reins. Finally he got the dun turned and retraced his steps. For five minutes he carefully combed the dark pine scrub and sumac, but there was no sign of the rebel. All he found was the rebel horse grazing quietly in the woods. She was a small black mare. On her back was a shallow Mexican saddle, a haversack lashed to its large, flat horn. Jeff switched the haversack to his own saddle and, leading the rebel mount, rode slowly back over his tracks, taking one final look. But the man had vanished.

“Corn!” Jeff growled, thoroughly chagrined.

He put the dun at a gallop, heading back to the river as Orff had ordered him to do if they became separated. He figured some of the rebels had probably escaped and would quickly bring back cavalry to intercept Orff's patrol. Better get home before it was too late.

When he struck the river, it was midafternoon. There was no sign of Orff, nor his patrol. The water had gone down and the stream looked easier to ford. Finally he saw the gigantic black walnut tree on the opposite bank. Gratefully he pulled rein.

“Bussey,” somebody called in a low voice. The patrol was waiting for him in the brush. Orff rode out of a clump of cottonwoods. From collar to cuff, the lieutenant's blue uniform was soiled with mud. He frowned anxiously as he saw the extra horse, its saddle empty.

“What happened?”

Vexed at having to report his failure, Jeff told him. “Did you do any good, lieutenant?”

Orff gestured behind him at the riverbank, disgust and passion in his tired face. “We got one, but I don't think he's gonna live to tell the general nothin'. Joe had to shoot him off his horse to stop him. These brush rebels don't know what halt means. They'd rather get shot than captured. Even when you throw down on 'em, they break an' run like turkeys.” He glanced nervously up and down the stream. “Le's get outa here. The ones that got away went after help. The woods is full of rebels right now lookin' fer us. We're a long ways from Gibson.”

They plunged into the dirty water. Orff's prisoner, bleeding from the back, lay on his stomach across the saddle of his own horse, limp as a sack of oats. He looked like an Indian. His black eyes were open and he was moaning with every step his horse took, his arms dangling, his black hair fluttering in the breeze.

Orff rode alongside him in the water, one hand on the back of the rebel's saddle. When the horses swam, he steered his mount with his knees, using his hands to hold the rebel's face out of the water, so he wouldn't drown.

As they waded out on the north shore, Jeff saw the Union troopers rise cautiously out of the green river cane, only their black hats and white faces showing. They gawked curiously at the wounded prisoner.

“They got one.”

“Looks like a Creek or a Choctaw.”

“He shore looks bucked out.”

“Dead as Santa Anna. Jest as well git a shovel an' cover him up.”

Orff still didn't like the situation. He unslung the carbine he had borrowed and returned it to its owner, reclaiming his own beloved gun. He tied it securely to his saddle and barked an order. “Mount!”

While they ran to get their horses, he walked over and looked anxiously at the prisoner, examining his wound. Then he shook his head. The man was obviously dying.

They took him with them, anyhow, traveling at a gallop. One trooper rode double behind him, holding him on. As usual, Noah was having trouble staying in the small army saddle. It was a McClellan, just rawhide fitted over a hardwood tree. It had no horn. His red face screwed in pain, he sat straight up, one hand on the reins and the other clutching the saddle's gullet, his long legs clinched tightly against the horse's sides.

When they stopped at a small creek, the prisoner looked more dead than alive. The panting horses thrust their muzzles gratefully into the water, their wet sides heaving. The prisoner was lifted off his horse and laid on the grass of the creek bank.

Orff lifted his head, his empty canteen in one hand. He had the other arm under the prisoner's neck. He looked around.

“Anybody got any likker?” Nobody answered.

“Lieutenant,” Jeff said, “this water looks cool over here. I'll get some in my canteen. Maybe we can get some down him.”

Leading the dun, Jeff headed for the shady spot.

It was there the rebel cavalry struck. Jeff was on one knee emptying the stale water out of his canteen when suddenly he heard the rebel yell—a long, low-pitched howl that swelled into a couple of high-pitched yelps and a long, shrill scream, all of it in one breath.

A long line of brown-clad figures, all mounted, bulged suddenly into the clearing, fanning out. They were a hundred yards away but coming like the wind, pistols, carbines, and shotguns in their hands. There must have been seventy-five or eighty of them.

A rebel ball clipped off a sunflower six inches from Jeff's nose, as though somebody had severed it with a whip. As he ran for his horse, he wondered with amazement where they had come from? Gunfire laced the clearing, echoing hollowly off the distant timber. Horses' hoofs drumming menacingly, the rebels came on and on.

“Stand an' fire on 'em!” Orff roared.

Obediently Jeff unslung his carbine and crouched in the brush by the lieutenant's side. Noah joined them, his carbine in his hands. Orff reached for the leather sheath tied to his saddle and yanked out a small, shiny, newish-looking gun.

Kneeling, the lieutenant pressed the gun's polished walnut stock caressingly to his cheek. Aiming deliberately, he began to pump bullet after bullet into the rebel advance. His muddy face grim with purpose, he fired with unhurried confidence.
Spang! Spang!
spoke the rifle, neatly and mortally.

Jeff was amazed. He saw Orff knock two rebels out of the saddle. While Jeff was reloading, the lieutenant emptied a third saddle and hit a fourth man in the arm. Each time he fired, he worked a lever behind the trigger, ejecting empty shells and pumping new ones into the breach.

After reloading laboriously, Jeff raised his carbine for a second shot, leveling down on a rebel who, charging at full gallop, was in the act of lifting his horse in a spectacular jump over the narrow creek. But before Jeff could get the man cleanly in his sights, Orff's rifle cracked at his elbow and the rebel, arms and legs flung wildly into the air, slid out of the saddle and hit the creek with a loud splash. Orff was firing so fast and with such deadly effect that the nearest rebels pulled up, their horses grunting and rearing, and retreated. Most of Orff's men were able to mount.

But the rebels wheeled, reformed, and charged again. The lieutenant bellowed, “Mount an' let's git out o' here!” Everybody able to travel hit the saddle, save Jeff and Noah.

They ran toward their horses. Jeff was in the saddle and had the dun turned around before Noah reached his horse. He shoved the bay's reins into Noah's hands. Noah dropped them on the ground and stooped to grope for them.

The bay began to lunge and back wildly through the brush. Noah, clutching the front and back of the saddle, got one foot in the stirrup. Hopping on the other foot, he pawed the air desperately as he tried to swing his long legs over the bay's back.

“Waw, you danged ole . . . Look at the gray devils swarm! What a fool Orff was to stop here. . . . I'm comin', youngster. . . . Waw, dang it! Dang the cavalry an' every hoss in it!”

Now the thicket blazed with fire. Jeff drew his pistol, praying that Noah would mount before they both got killed or captured. Noah had saved his life at Prairie Grove, and he wouldn't leave him now.

“Turn him loose, Noah, and jump up behind me! It's our only chance.” At that instant, the rebels burst upon them.

“Surrender! Surrender!” they cried. The dun began to rear. Angrily Jeff jerked him down. He had no idea of surrendering. Surrender meant a long, weary walk to Texas, a terrible ordeal for a cavalryman, and mighty little to eat all along the way.

Just as Jeff reached down to give Noah a hand up, the bay leaped forward with the reins flying loose. Noah lay crossways on his stomach in the saddle, one hand clutching the horse's mane. Jeff thought he had been shot, but suddenly Noah wiggled one leg over the back of the saddle and sat up. He was still wearing his black campaign hat.

They galloped off side by side.

Noah was doing some wonderful riding, although not in the generally accepted fashion. Neither of his feet was in the stirrups. Everytime the bay made a jump, Noah came down on him in a different place—behind the saddle, in front of the saddle, onto the horse's neck, back on the horse's rump. He was riding the bay from his ears to his tail. But somehow he was riding him.

Suddenly Jeff paled. A fallen cottonwood log of gigantic proportions loomed on the ground ahead of them. Both horses leaped it as one, their bodies describing a graceful parabola. As Jeff squeezed the dun's body with both legs and looked back, with horror he saw Noah disappear entirely from sight.

Jeff gasped. Now Noah was gone for sure. His horse seemed to be racing without a rider, the reins flopping loosely in the breeze. Then Jeff saw something that made him yell with joy.

A hand was still enmeshed tightly in the bay's black mane. Another hand gripped the back projection of the saddle. Then a long leg appeared over the horse's undulating buttocks, groping blindly for a hold. Noah's black head followed. He had lost his hat, and his long hair was blowing in the breeze.

“Hang on, Noah! Stay with him!” Jeff yelled.

Slowly Noah wiggled his long body back on top of his horse. Lying mostly on his stomach now, he grasped the bay around the neck with both arms, hanging on like grim death.

The clamor behind them grew fainter and fainter. With a parting volley, the rebels gave up the chase. Noah and Jeff rejoined their scattered squadron.

Back at Fort Gibson that night, an old woman rode into the fort. She had a sack of whortleberries to sell and had seen part of the skirmish. She came around where the cavalry was encamped, seeking to learn how the chase had terminated.

“They came mighty near capturing Lieutenant Foss, didn't they?” she said.

Orff, who had lost his dying prisoner to the pursuing rebels, was in a bad mood and turned away without answering. But another of his patrol spoke up.

“You must be mistaken, mam. Foss wasn't in the fight at all.”

“Oh yes he was,” she replied. “I saw him. The rebels saw him, too. I heard them talking about it as they rode back. Their leader said that he had never seen such clever riding in all his life. He said Foss just played along in front of them, riding all over his horse, one leg dragging the ground. He said Foss was teasing them with his horsemanship, trying to trick them into an ambush, but they were too smart to fall into that kind of a trap.”

Roars of laughter interrupted her.

Noah was rubbing down his horse. He looked around at them and spat sideways, slowly and deliberately. “G'wan, you fly-slicers! Have your fun. There's no danger any o' you bein' mistook for your betters.”

The sun was setting red and clear when Orff and Jeff were ushered into the general's tent. A candle still sputtered in the end of the upturned bayonet.

Blunt heard Orff's account of their failure. It took Jeff only one minute to tell about losing his man.

The general was disgusted. He said, “Humph! I send out forty men to capture a couple of prisoners. You're gone all day. You suffer casualties. And all you bring back is one rebel pony.” He looked at them sourly.

“Sir, there was a haversack lashed to the saddle of the rebel I chased. I brought it along,” said Jeff.

He thrust it toward the general. It was sealed, but Blunt broke the seal and drew out a letter. As he read it, excitement and pleasure came into his swarthy face.

“The man you chased was Cooper's courier. Now I think I can guess what Cooper's plans are.”

Jeff shook his brown head. “Sir, I should have brought him in.”