The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

those wolves’ scalps.”
    Ridding the country of such vermin was indeed a worthy occupation. And their private quest for an answer to Weatherby’s fate might be a part of that. But their first duty was to the army: The gathering of information, and any discomfort they could deal the Yankees, must be their primary project.
    Croff brought them into a camping site he had chosen for just such use. It lay at the head of a small rocky ravine down the center of which ran an ice-sealed thread of stream. It was not quite a cave, but provided shelter for them and their mounts. It was a clear night, and the ground was reasonably hard.
    They ate hard salt beef and cold army bread made with corn meal, grease, and water the night before.
    “Leave here in the early mornin’.” The Cherokee outlined his suggestions. “There’s a road leadin’ to the turnpike that’s three or four miles from here. Last I heard, a bridge had washed out on the pike. Anybody ridin’ from Pulaski to Columbia has to turn out and take this other way—”
    “Good cover on it?” Drew asked.
    “The best.”
    “I jus’ got me one question,” Kirby interrupted. “Say we was to gobble us up a bunch of strayin’ Yankees along this road, what’re we gonna do with ’em after? Four of us don’t make no army, an’ we ain’t gonna be able to detach no prisoner guard. ’Course theah are them what’s said from the first that the only good Yankees are them laid peacefullike in their graves. But I don’t take natural to shootin’ men what are holdin’ up the sky with both hands.”
    “Orders are to spread confusion,” Drew observed. “I’d say if we hit quick and often, take a prisoner’s boots, maybe, and his horse, and his gun—”
    “Also,” Webb added, “his rations an’ his overcoat, be he wearin’ one.”
    “Then turn him loose, after parolin’ him—”
    “The Yankees don’t honor a parole no more,” Kirby objected.
    “What if they don’t? A lot of men comin’ in sayin’ they’ve been paroled will stir up trouble. Remember, from what we’ve heard, a lot of the Yankees ain’t any happier about fightin’ on and on than we are. So we take prisoners, get their gear, keep what we can use, destroy the rest, and turn the men loose. If we can move around enough, maybe we can draw some of Wilson’s men out of that big army he’s supposed to be gatherin’ to hit us south. It’s the old game Morgan played.”
    Croff grunted. “It may be old, but I’ve seen it work. All right, we parole prisoners and light out cross-country after a strike.”
    “I’ve been thinkin’—” Kirby was checking the loading of his Colts—“if we start heah, we can sorta work our way in, coyote right up close to Franklin. They’ll be expectin’ us to light out for the home range, not go jinglin’ in to wheah they’ve forted up. Might raise a sight of smoke that way. Git Wilson’s boys on the prod, for sure.”
    “Franklin—?” Croff repeated.
    “Little below, maybe. From what that boy said, those bushwhackers move around pretty free,” Drew reminded him, certain the Cherokee was back to the desire to search for Weatherby.
    “We’ll see what kind of luck we have along this road, Injun-scouted. You take first watch, Injun?”
    “Yeah.” Drew heard rather than saw the Cherokee leave their camp, bound for a lookout point. The other three bedded down, anxious to snatch as much rest as possible.
    Long before dawn they were on the move again, threading through the winter-seared woods. Croff brought them out unerringly behind a sagging rail fence well masked with the skeleton brush of the season. There was equally good cover on the other side of the road. Kirby climbed the fence, investigating a dark splotch on the surface of the lane.
    “Fresh droppin’s. Been a sight of trailin’ ’long heah recent.”
    The rest was elementary. There was no need for orders. Croff and Webb holed up on one side of the lane well apart; Drew and Kirby did the same on the other. Waiting would be sheer boredom and in this weather the height of discomfort.
    The gray of early morning sharpened the land about them. Boyd would have enjoyed this game of tweaking a wildcat’s tail. Drew chewed his lower lip, tasting the salt of sweat, the grit of road dust. Just now was no time to think of Boyd; he must concentrate on the business before him.
    He heard the sharp chittering of an aroused squirrel, repeated in two shrill bursts. But his own ear close to