The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

always free and easy in the Scouts.
    The day was warm. He was glad he had managed to find a lightweight shirt back at the warehouse in town. If they didn’t win Lexington to keep, at least all of the raiders were going to ride out well-mounted, with boots on their feet and whole clothing on their backs. The Union quartermasters did just fine by Morgan’s boys, as always.
    Shawnee’s ears went forward alertly, but Drew did not need that signal of someone’s approaching. He backed into the shadow-shade of a tree and sat tense, with Colt in hand.
    A horse nickered. There was the whirr of wheels. Drew edged Shawnee out of cover and then quickly holstered his weapon, riding out to bring to a halt the carriage horse between the shafts of an English dogcart.
    He pulled off his dust-grayed hat. “Good mornin’, Aunt Marianna.”
    Such a polite greeting—the same words he would have used three years ago had they met in the hall of Red Springs on their way to breakfast. He wanted to laugh, or was it really laughter which lumped in his throat?
    Her momentary expression of outrage faded as she leaned forward to study his face, and she relaxed her first half-threatening grip on her whip. Though Aunt Marianna had never been a beauty, her present air of assurance and authority became her, just as the smart riding habit was better suited to her somewhat angular frame than the ruffles and bows of the drawing room.
    “Drew!” Her recognition of his identity had come more slowly than Boyd’s, and it sounded almost wary.
    “At your service, ma’am.” He found himself again using the graces of another way of life, far removed from his sweat-stained shirt and patched breeches. He shot a glance over his shoulder, making sure they were safely alone on that stretch of highway. After all, one horse among so many would be no great loss to his commander. “You’d better turn around. The boys’ll have Lady Jane out of the shaft before you get into Lexington if you keep on. And the Yankees are still pepperin’ the place with round shot.” He wondered why she was driving without a groom, but did not quite dare to ask.
    “Drew, is Boyd here with you?”
    “Boyd?”
    “Don’t be evasive with me, boy!” She rapped that out with an officer’s snap. “He left a note for Merry—two words misspelled and a big blot—all foolishness about joining Morgan. Said you had been to Red Springs, and he was going along. Why did you do it, Drew? Cousin Merry…after Sheldon, she can’t lose Boyd, too! To put such a wild idea into that child’s head!”
    Drew’s lips thinned into a half grimace. He was still cast in the role of culprit, it seemed. “I didn’t influence Boyd to do anything, Aunt Marianna. I told him I wouldn’t take him with me, and I meant it. If he ran away, it was his own doin’.”
    She was still measuring him with that intent look as if he were a slightly unsatisfactory colt being put through his paces in the training paddock.
    “Then you’ll help me get him back home?” That was more a statement than a question, delivered in a voice which was all Mattock, enough to awaken by the mere sound all the old resistance in him.
    He nodded at the Lexington road. “There are several thousand men ahead there, ma’am. Hunting Boyd out if he wants to hide from me—and he will—is impossible. He’s big enough to pass a recruiter; they ain’t too particular about age these days. And he’ll stay just as far from me as he can until he is sworn in. He already knows how I feel about his enlistin’.”
    Her gloved hands tightened on the reins. “If I could see John Morgan himself—”
    “ If you could get to Lexington and find him—”
    “But Boyd’s just a child. He hasn’t the slightest idea of war except the stories he hears…no idea of what could happen to him, or what this means to Merry. All this criminal nonsense about being a soldier—sabers and spurs, and dashing around behind a flag, the wrong flag, too—” She caught her breath in an unusual betrayal of emotion. And now she studied Drew with some deliberation, noting his thinness, itemizing his shabbiness.
    He smiled tiredly. “No, I ain’t Boyd’s idea of a returnin’ hero, am I?” he agreed with her unspoken comment. “Also, we Rebs don’t use sabers; they ain’t worth much in a real skirmish.”
    She flushed. “Drew, why did you go? Was it all because of Father? I know he made it hard for you.”
    “You know—” Drew regarded a