The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

Drew, reproach yourself for my son’s headstrong conduct. I know Boyd’s stubbornness. There is this strain in all the Barretts.
    You may not have heard the news from Red Springs, though I know your aunt has endeavored to find a means of communicating it to you. Your grandfather suffered another and fatal seizure on the third of August and passed away in a matter of hours.
    I do not believe that it will come as any surprise to you, my dear boy, that he continued in his attitude toward you to the last, making no provision for you in his will. However, both Major Forbes and Marianna believe this to be unfair, and they intend to see that matters are not left so.
    If and when this cruel war is over—and the news we receive each day can not help but make us believe that the end is not far off—do, I beg of you, Drew, come home to us. Sheldon spoke once of some plan of yours to go west, to start a new life in new surroundings. But, Drew, do not let any bitterness born out of the past continue to poison the future for you.
    Perhaps what I say may be of value since I have always held your welfare dear to me, and you have a place in my heart. Melanie Mattock Rennie was my dearest friend for all of her life, your father, my cousin. And you were Sheldon’s playmate and comrade for his short time on this earth.
    Come home to us, I ask you to do this, my dear boy. We shall welcome you.
    I pray for you and for Boyd, that you may both be brought safely through all the dangers which surround a soldier, that you may come home to us on a happier day. Your concern for and care of Boyd is something which makes me most grateful and happy. He had lost a brother, one of his own blood, but I content myself with the belief that he has with him now another who will provide him with what guidance and protection he can give.
    Remember—we want you both here with us once more, and let it be soon.
    With affection and love,
    Drew could not have told whether her “Meredith Barrett” at the bottom of the page was as firmly penned as ever. To him it was now wavering from one misty letter to the next. Slowly he made a business of folding the sheet into a neat square of paper which he could fit into the safe pocket under his belt. A crack was forming in the shell he had started to grow on the night he first rode out of Red Springs, and he now feared losing its protection. He wanted to be the Drew Rennie who had no ties anywhere, least of all in Kentucky. Yet not for the world would he have lost that letter, though he did not want to read it again.
    “Rennie! Double-quick it; the General’s askin’ for you!”
    Boyd started up eagerly from his perch on another saddle. He was, Drew decided, like a hound puppy, so determined to be taken hunting that he watched each and every one of them all the time. He had been allowed to ride on this return visit to West Tennessee with the condition that he would act as one of Drew’s scout couriers, a position which kept him under his elder’s control and attached to General Buford’s Headquarters Company.
    Kirby reached out a brown hand to catch Boyd by the sleeve and anchor him.
    “Now, kid, jus’ because the big chief sends for him, it ain’t no sign he’s goin’ to take the warpath immediately, if not sooner. Ease off, an’ keep your moccasins greased!”
    Drew laughed. Nobody who rode with Forrest could complain of a lack of action. He had heard that some general in the East had said he would give a dollar or some such to see a dead cavalryman. Well, there had been sight of those at Harrisburg and some at the blockhouses. Forrest stated that Morgan’s men could fight; he did not have to say that of his own.
    Now they were heading into another sort of war altogether. Drew hadn’t figured out just how Bedford Forrest intended to fight river gunboats with horse soldiers, but the scout didn’t doubt that his general had a plan, one which would work, barring any extra bad luck.
    They were setting a trap along the Tennessee right now, lying in the enemies’ own back pasture to do it. South, downriver, was Johnsonville, where Sherman had his largest cache of supplies, from which he was feeding, clothing, equipping the army now slashing through the center of the South. They had been able to cripple his rail system partially on that raid two weeks earlier; now they were aiming to cut the river ribbon of the Yankee network.
    Buford’s division occupied Fort Heiman, well above the crucial section.