The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

grinning at him from the front porch of headquarters. He loosened the reins and led the bony animal a step or two before mounting.
    Shawnee, nimble-footed as a cat, a horse that had known almost as much about soldiering as his young rider. Then Hannibal, the mule from Cadiz, that had served valiantly through battle and retreat, to die in a Tennessee stream bed. And now this bone-rack of a gray mule with one lop ear, a mind of his own, and a gait which could set one’s teeth on edge when you pushed him into any show of speed. The animal’s long, melancholy face, his habit of braying mournfully in the moonlight—until Westerners compared him unfavorably with the coyotes of the Plains—had earned him the name Croaker; and he was part of the loot they had brought out of the bushwhackers’ camp.
    As unlovely as he appeared, Croaker had endurance, steady nerves, and a most un-mulelike willingness to obey orders. He was far from the ideal cavalry mount, but he took his rider there and back, safely. He was sure-footed, with a cat’s ability to move at night, and in scout circles he had already made a favorable impression. But he certainly was an unhandsome creature.
    “Smart actin’s better than smart lookin’,” Drew answered the disparagers now. “Do as well yourselves, soldiers, and you’ll be satisfied.”
    Croaker started off at a trot, sniffling, his good ear twitching as if he had heard those unfriendly comments and was storing them up in his memory, to be acted upon in the future.
    January and February were behind them now. Now it was March…spring—only it was more like late fall. Or winter, with the night closing in. Drew let Croaker settle to the gait which suited him best. He would visit Boyd and then rejoin Buford’s force.
    The army, or what was left of it hereabouts, was, as usual, rumbling with rumor. The Union’s General Wilson had assembled a massive hammer of a force, veterans who had clashed over and over with Forrest in the field, who had learned that master’s tricks. Seventeen thousand mounted cavalrymen, ready to aim straight down through Alabama where the war had not yet touched. Another ten thousand without horses, who formed a backlog of reserves.
    In the Carolinas, Johnston, with the last stubborn regiments of the Army of the Tennessee, was playing his old delaying game, trying to stop Sherman from ripping up along the coast. And in Virginia the news was all bad. The world was not spring, but drab winter, the dying winter of the Confederacy.
    Wilson’s target was Selma and the Confederate arsenal; every man in the army knew that. Somehow Bedford Forrest was going to have to interpose between all the weight of that Yankee hammer and Selma. And he had done the impossible so often, there was still a chance that he could bring it off. The General had a free hand and his own particular brand of genius to back it.
    Drew’s fingers were on the front of his short cavalry jacket, pressing against the coil of gold cord in his shirt pocket. No, the old man wasn’t licked yet; he’d give Wilson and every one of those twenty-seven thousand Yankees a good stiff fight when they came poking their long noses over the Alabama border!
    “He gave you what?” Boyd sat up straighter. His face was thin and no longer weather-beaten, and he’d lost all of that childish arrogance which had so often irritated his elders. In its place was a certain quiet soberness in which the scout sometimes saw flashes of Sheldon.
    Now Drew pulled the cord from his pocket, holding it out for Boyd’s inspection. The younger boy ran it through his fingers wonderingly.
    “General Forrest’s!” From it he looked to the faded weatherworn hat Drew had left on a chair by the door. Boyd caught it up and pulled off the leather string banding its dented crown. Carefully he fitted on Forrest’s gift and studied the result critically. Drew laughed.
    “Like puttin’ a new saddle on Croaker; it doesn’t fit.”
    “Yes, it does,” Boyd protested. “That’s right where it belongs.”
    Drew, standing by the window, felt a pinch of concern. He found it difficult nowadays to deny Boyd anything, let alone such a harmless request.
    “The first lieutenant comin’ along will call me for sportin’ a general’s feathers on a sergeant’s head,” he protested. “Nothin’ from Cousin Merry yet? Maybe Hansford didn’t make it through with my letter. He hasn’t come back yet.… But—”
    “Think I’d lie to you about