The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

store between his teeth, watching the wind whip the surface of the river into good-sized waves about the laboring boats. “Anything usable below Florence…we want to know about it, and quick!”
    Wilkins led them out at a steady trot. “We’ll take a look around Newport. Rough going, but I think I remember a place.”
    However, the possibilities of Wilkins’ “place” did not seem too promising to Drew when they came out on a steep bluff some miles down the Tennessee.
    “This is a heller of a river,” Kirby expressed his opinion forcibly. “Always spittin’ back in an hombre’s face. We’ve had plenty of trouble with it before.”
    They were on a bank above a slough which was not more than two hundred feet wide. And beyond that was an island thickly overgrown with cane, oak, and hickory. The upper end of that was sandy, matted with driftwood, some of it partially afloat again.
    “Use that for a steppin’ stone?” Drew asked.
    “Best we’re goin’ to find. And if time’s runnin’ out, we’ll be glad to have it. Rennie, report in. We’ll do some more scoutin’, just to make sure there’ll be no surprises later.”
    For more than thirty-six hours Buford had been ferrying. Artillery, wagons, and a large portion of his division were safely across. When Drew returned to the uproar along the river he found that the second half of the retreating forces, commanded by Forrest, were in town. And it was to Forrest that Drew was ordered to deliver his report.
    He would never forget the first glimpse he’d had of Bedford Forrest—the officer sitting his big gray charger in the midst of a battle, whirling his standard to attract a broken rabble of men, knitting out of them, by sheer force of personality, a refreshed, striking force. Now Drew found himself facing quite a different person—a big, quiet, soft-spoken man who eyed the scout with gray-blue eyes.
    “You’re Rennie, one of that Morgan company who joined at Harrisburg.”
    “Yes, suh.”
    “Morgan’s men fought at Chickamauga…good men, good fighters. Said so then, never had any reason to change that. Now what’s this about an island downriver?”
    Drew explained tersely, for he had a good idea that General Forrest wanted no wasting of time. Then at request he drew a rough sketch of the island and its approaches. Forrest studied it.
    “Something to keep in mind. But I want to know that it’s clear. You boys picket it. If there’s any Union movement about, report it at once!”
    “Yes, suh.”
    If Yankee scouts had sighted the island, either they had not reported it or their superiors had not calculated what its value might be for hunted men—and to a leader who was used to improvising and carrying through more improbable projects than the one the island suggested.
    At Shoal Creek a rear guard was holding off the Union advance which had started from Athens, the two pronged pinchers General Buford had foreseen. And now the island came into use.
    Saddles and equipment were stripped from horses and piled into the boats brought down from Florence. Then the mounts were driven to the top of the bluff and over into the water some twenty feet below. Leaders of that leap were caught by their halters and towed behind the boats, the others swimming after.
    Men and mounts burrowed back into the concealment of those thick canebrakes and were hidden along the southern shore of the overgrown strip of water-enclosed land. The Union pursuers came up on the bluff, but they did not see the ferrying from the south bank of the island, ferrying which kept up night and day for some forty-eight hours.
    “Cold!” Kirby and Drew crouched together behind a screen of cane on the north side of the island, watching the bank above for any hostile move on the part of the enemy.
    “General Forrest says no fires.”
    “Yeah. You know, I jus’ don’t like this heah spread of water. This is the second time I’ve had to git across it with Old Man Death-an’-Disaster raisin’ dust from my rump with a double of his encouragin’ rope. Seems like the Tennessee ain’t partial to raidin’ parties.”
    “Makes a good barrier when we’re on the other side,” Drew pointed out reasonably.
    “So—”
    Drew’s Colt was already out, Kirby’s carbine at ready. But the man who had cat-footed it through the cane was General Forrest himself.
    “I thought”—the General eyed them both—“I would catch some of you young fools loafin’ back heah as if nothin’ was